Topic: NBA Thread: Brought To You By The Tampa Bay Raptors Of Toronto

[Adrock]

Anthony Day-to-Davis is out for the next two to three weeks with a calf strain when he’ll be reevaluated. The Lakers will undoubtedly be extra cautious given this is the same injury Kevin Durant suffered before he came back during the 2019 Finals and his Achilles exploded. It should be noted Davis doesn’t have the same leg/foot injury history as Durant.

This injury could not have come at a worse time as this is a particularly fun stretch of games, notably the Nets, Heat, Jazz, Blazers, Warriors, and Suns. I’m fine with them losing because LOL-regular-season, but man, as a basketball fan, those would presumably be better games with the Lakers at full strength. Hopefully, this lights a fire under their feet and they stop fucking around in the first half.

[broodwars]

Anthony Day-to-Davis is out for the next two to three weeks with a calf strain when he’ll be reevaluated. The Lakers will undoubtedly be extra cautious given this is the same injury Kevin Durant suffered before he came back during the 2019 Finals and his Achilles exploded. It should be noted Davis doesn’t have the same leg/foot injury history as Durant.

This injury could not have come at a worse time as this is a particularly fun stretch of games, notably the Nets, Heat, Jazz, Blazers, Warriors, and Suns. I’m fine with them losing because LOL-regular-season, but man, as a basketball fan, those would presumably be better games with the Lakers at full strength. Hopefully, this lights a fire under their feet and they stop fucking around in the first half.

If it makes you feel any better, the Jazz will probably still be without Mike Conley at that point, who has been sidelined for the last 10 days or so with a similar Hamstring injury to the one that had him out most of last season. We've been very fortunate to have done as well as we have without our starting Point Guard, who had been having a Career Year.

[Adrock]

If it makes you feel any better, the Jazz will probably still be without Mike Conley at that point, who has been sidelined for the last 10 days or so with a similar Hamstring injury to the one that had him out most of last season. We've been very fortunate to have done as well as we have without our starting Point Guard, who had been having a Career Year.

It doesn't. That makes the Jazz worse. Ideally, I want all teams to be healthy because we get better basketball. There are only so many regular season games that have a playoff-like atmosphere. The Lakers were poised to have four or five in the next two weeks.

The important thing is Davis gets healthy for the playoffs and obviously to prevent a further, more catastrophic injury. It's still hard not lament how much less exciting Lakers vs. Nets/Jazz were going to be.

[broodwars]

You know it's been a strange game when Jordan Clarkson scores 40 points, Donovan Mitchell 24 points, & Joe Ingles 20 points...and the game STILL came down to the wire. -_-

I'll gladly take the win, especially since the Jazz got shot out of the gym for most of the 1st quarter, but considering Jordan Clarkson had more 3 pointers than the ENTIRE 76ers team...you'd think we'd have won by more than 9 points.

Incidentally, if the Jazz can keep this up through the rest of the season, Jordan Clarkson has to be the shoe-in for 6th Man of the Year. Considering the uncertainty surrounding him when we traded the Corpse of Dante Exum for him, saying he's been a wild success is an understatement.

[Adrock]

I missed most of the Lakers' game because I thought it started at 10:00 PM EST.

I did watch most of Nets vs. Suns. Once the Suns got rolling to a 20+ point lead, I left it on as background noise. Then, the fourth quarter happened. The Nets got their first lead with less than 30 seconds left in regulation with a James Harden three-pointer. How do you let that happen? It should be noted neither Kevin Durant nor Kyrie Irving were active tonight.

On a semi-related note, Harden at point guard is much more tolerable to watch than foul-hunting Harden.

Irving was walking around with a walking stick. That's peak Kyrie Irving right there.

[broodwars]

Following the Jazz's ongoing 1st Place record, it's been decided that Jazz Coach Quin Snyder will coach the Western Conference All Stars.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/30918272/sources-utah-jazz-coach-quin-snyder-lead-western-conference-all-star-game

Doc Rivers is expected to coach the Eastern Conference All Stars, but there has been no official announcement yet.

Honestly, as much prestige as it brings to the team, I hope no one on the Jazz makes the All Star squad. With how rough our schedule's been and how successful we've been, I just want them to rest till the NBA assigns us our next arbitrarily killer schedule. We shouldn't be having an All Star Game at all with all the games that have been postponed (including one of ours against Washington).

EDIT: Jazz took care of business tonight, putting away a Clippers team missing 3 of its Starters (due to injuries) in the 4th quarter. It's good to see the Jazz winning games that they SHOULD win. Last year, this would have been a game they'd have lost, as they often DID when the other team was missing players. We still have another round with the Clippers in a few days, though.

[Adrock]

I tuned in at the end of the third quarter. The Jazz were only up by four. I was like “WTF is happening?!” I watched half of the fourth quarter and the Jazz were up by like 17 then turned that off.

I wish I watched the end of Warriors vs. Heat. That went to overtime. The Warriors out scored the Heat by 10 in the fourth quarter to force overtime then ran away with it.

[BlackNMild2k1]

The Warriors game was such a bad game though.

No Draymond at the last second due to ankle issues.
Curry couldn't really hit a shot till late in the 2nd. I think he was something like 2 for 20 in the first half.
and w/o Dray directing traffic and playing 2 man game w/ Curry, it was streetball out there.
That game should've been a blow out, as the Heat were just not good, but lucky for the Warriors, the heat went cold early in the 4th. I think the heat got stuck at 99 for a while... Dubs were down 11 w/ I think 6 minutes left, next thing you know, it was tied at something like 102 w/ around a minute left.

but it was such a sloppy game w/o Dray. reminded me of early season.
It also didn't help that Dubs basically didn't even try for rebounds for half the game. No one ever crashes the boards consistently. We miss out on so many second chance opportunities to be fully staffed on stopping a potential fast break.

a wins a win, but this wasn't a good win. it was a lucky one.

[Adrock]

The Warriors game was such a bad game though.

I didn’t say I wanted to watch the game; I said I wanted to watch the end. The game went to overtime. That at least piques my interest.

[Adrock]

Dennis Schröder got pulled from the lineup an hour before tipoff due to health and safety protocols. It would have been an uphill battle even if he was active. The Lakers rolled out Quinn Cook for a bit there. YIKES. The Nets were on fire from the arc. I just shut this off in the third quarter. Whomp.

Next loss is Saturday against the Heat.

[broodwars]

Well, you can't say the Jazz didn't put up a good fight against a fully armed & rested Clippers team. We lost, but at least we have Conley back now and apparently still in fine form. All things considered, losing one game out of a back-to-back road match like this isn't the worst result to come out of this. I am curious, though, if the actual game looked as suspiciously ref-ed as the play-by-play looked. It looked like every time the Jazz started making a comeback, they were immediately slapped with fouls leading to free throws for LA.

[Adrock]

It could be worse. Taka Watanabe of the Raptors was declared dead last night, killed in action. Rest in peace, sweet prince.

[Adrock]

Yeah, I’m not watching any more Lakers games until Anthony Davis comes back. These frauds gave up a 17 point lead and lost to the Wizards. LOL. I’m not staying up for this ****.

[broodwars]

Yeah, I’m not watching any more Lakers games until Anthony Davis comes back. These frauds gave up a 17 point lead and lost to the Wizards. LOL. I’m not staying up for this ****.

UMM...I wouldn't count the Lakers out just yet...they're down by 2 with 15 seconds to go and control of the ball as of this writing...

[Adrock]

Great if they pull this off, but this is still embarrassing.

[broodwars]

Great if they pull this off, but this is still embarrassing.

Looking at the Play By Play, Lebron should be doing Free Throw drills for the next 2 days. If he (and Gasol) hit ANY of their last 3 free throws (especially that last one the refs gift-wrapped him), the Lakers would have won in regulation.

Side note: this got recommended to me by Google, and I found it pretty hilarious. Some dude was playing the latest NBA 2K, and his 76ers went up against the Jazz in the NBA Finals. He took a 1 point lead in Game 7 with 2.5 seconds to go...only for Jordan Clarkson to hit a full-court 3 to win the series & the Finals. 

Even funnier, he apparently traded Ben Simmons to the Jazz in exchange for Donovan Mitchell during the regular season.

https://twitter.com/LVD____/status/1363921983142961153?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1363921983142961153%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fuproxx.com%2Fdimemag%2Fnba-2k-jordan-clarkson-game-winner-70-foot-shot-video%2F

[Adrock]

🤷‍♀️

[BlackNMild2k1]

I haven't watched a game since friday, and missed the terrible loss by the Warriors.

I saw they had a good win last night, Curry had a good game at least, going by stats.
and we on a the back end of a back2back tonight that I'm gonna try to tune into.

But playing catch-up, what i just noticed, and I'm sure someone has mentioned it recently, but the Dubs are 2 above .500 and in 8th seed in the West. (pretty happy with this, all things considered)

and in the East..... :/
being at .500 gets you the fifth seed.

Silver really should start seeding based on record and not this East/West BS. Gotta make every win count, and not just the ones against the teams in your division.  I feel like last seasons abbreviated bubble schedule would've been the perfect time to experiment with that format, but this season is good too.

Anyone here support a Top 16 seeding over a Top 8 per Division?

[Adrock]

Silver really should start seeding based on record and not this East/West BS. Gotta make every win count, and not just the ones against the teams in your division.  I feel like last seasons abbreviated bubble schedule would've been the perfect time to experiment with that format, but this season is good too.

Anyone here support a Top 16 seeding over a Top 8 per Division?

I do. However, it's probably never going to happen. Adam Silver doesn't make that call. It would be up to a vote by NBA governors. I believe a rule change requires an over 2/3 majority so a minimum of 21 teams. 1 to 16 seeding overwhelmingly favors the Western Conference so literally no way at least five Eastern Conference teams vote to:

• Make it perennially harder for them to clinch a playoff spot (thus voluntarily give up extra revenue)
• Make it more difficult to earn home court advantage
• Increase traveling during the playoffs

That last one is a sticking point for Western Conference teams as well. Imagine doing four cross-country playoff series.

Additionally, travel should affect regular season scheduling as well if you want to make top 16 playoff seeding as fair as possible. This season notwithstanding, teams play intra-conference opponents three or four times a season based on a rolling schedule and inter-conference opponents twice a year. From a fan's perspective, it's a great idea. Considering how many moving parts there are, the odds are certainly stacked against it ever getting implemented.

[Adrock]

I'm on a Lakers cleanse right now so I didn't watch the game, but I checked the box score. Woof. They were getting smoked which is going to happen to any team missing two starters against the best team in the league by record. The Lakers are just tired, and you can see it particularly in how poorly they're shooting. Some of the shooting struggles is the law of averages. There was no way they were going to shoot as well as they did in the beginning of the season for the rest of the season. On that last point, I'd keep an eye on three point shooting for the Jazz. Can they continue that through the second half of the season and the playoffs? Maybe. I would bet against that level of efficiency. Not just the Jazz; I would bet against any team shooting at such a high clip. In fact, I did. There was no way Alex Caruso was going to lead the league in three point percentage for the whole year.

Anyway, back to the topic of fatigue, if I learned anything from Coach Nick at BBALLBREAKDOWN on The YouTube, the key to a shooting well is good mechanics, transferring energy from your legs and continuing through your body with proper form. Or look at Klay Thompson. If you're not transferring energy correctly, your arms are doing more work and you're only exhausting yourself further. When your legs are dead, you tend to compensate by using your arms more. In the last couple weeks, LeBron James is missing some shots badly. Clanking that go-ahead free throw on Monday perfectly exemplifies this. He says he isn't tired, but the eye test tells a different story. Free throws were already the weak link in his game. Then, consider that you don't jump on free throws. Without the lift in his legs, he isn't transferring energy correctly and his already questionable free shooting is made even worse. As fit as James is, the exhaustion from trying to carry this team without Anthony Davis (and more recently, Dennis Schröder) is catching up to him at 36.

Fatigue is hurting the rest of the Lakers for that matter. Marc Gasol signed up for 15 to 20 minutes a game. He played almost 30 the other night. Judging by the box score, Frank Vogel did a lot better with keeping the minutes down tonight which is good because that's how players get injured. I kind of wish James just didn't play tonight. Even if Schröder and Davis were active, this game was likely an L. You can't just reinsert them back into the lineup and expect the team to dominate. That doesn't erase all the extra minutes everyone else was playing.

[broodwars]

The Jazz did well tonight despite Donovan having another off-night. One thing I really like about this year's squad is that we may not have a "superstar", but there's seriously about 5-7 guys on the team who can just go off for around 20 points on any given night. I've heard some particularly enthusiastic Jazz fans refer to it as the "Jazz Hydra". Not sure I'm willing to go quite that far yet, but it's comforting to know that we can still succeed with 1-2 players having a rough game.

The Lakers were obviously short-handed so tonight's outcome was pretty expected, but I'll take a win where I can get one.

[BlackNMild2k1]

I just watched a clip of the Jazz dismantling the Hornets late in the game, with a 3rd Qtr push to comeback, that let into a 4th Qtr blowout. It was from earlier in the week (playing catch up).
https://streamable.com/5hc9dz


but this so was this....


Who and what would the Dubs even consider trading for Porzingis that the Mavs would accept?
and then again... what is certainly off the table? Dubs have an interesting young mix, and the pieces  I wouldn't mind seeing being replaced, ain't what the Mav's would take for Porzingis. So who do you think the Mavs reached out looking to trade for?

I assume the Mavs are looking for Wiggins, but what I think are not on the trade table in this situation are:
Steph, Klay, Dray, Wiggins, and Wiseman

But would the Dubs consider parting w/ Wiggins in return for Zingis? and what other sweeteners do we gotta give up? and I like Oubre, he needs some more fine tuning, but I like him. So I don't know what's left. LOL

edit: and I think it was the v Knicks (or v Hornets) game, where our bench/2nd unit scored all of 1 point for the entire 1st half of a quarter, erasing a small lead (luckily the other side couldn't score all that much either), before Curry (and Dray) came back in and all of sudden made the game look like it should've always been a blow out.

If Curry ain't getting an MVP nod this year....
I'm sure there are other contenders out there, but Curry (and Dray) out here dragging this Warriors squad hopefully into a Playoff Spot against their will and all odds.

We gotta give this boost to Dray (DPOY nod) for whipping this team into coordinated team play on both ends of the floor.

[BlackNMild2k1]

and in an attempt to not extend that previous post any further.... I'll just double post

this is for Brood... can I just offer an early congratulations?



(no jinx intended... no wood to knock on )

edit: and I meant to comment on this clip earlier in the week...
https://streamable.com/7dtyka

how the Pacers just gonna hand the win to the Wiz like this!?
no even one of them cut to an unguarded wide open basket for an easy 2 to tie the game and take it to OT on their home court? Just had to lose the game going for the win from 3 even though that was also unguarded too?

how do you not get rightfully chewed out for this? this is with 3 seconds left in the game... down by 2


edit:
and have ya'll seen this monster? 7'9" and likely dunking without jumping.....
whip dude into shape and what you supposed to do against this guy?
https://twitter.com/BleacherReport/status/1365392404275077121?s=20

[BlackNMild2k1]

Apparently the Raptors were about to play tonight w/o a coaching staff due to health & safety protocols.
Now they don't have enough players to field a team.... Bulls v Raps has been postponed.


Warriors v Laker tonight gonna be good though.
No AD, and we got a full squad.

We got the toughest schedule coming up (Lakers x2, Blazers, Suns, Clippers, Jazz), so if we can take out the Lakers today, we'll be on a good start to hopefully getting 2-3 wins on this stretch.

[Adrock]

Oh good, some new basketball discussion. Let's do this.

Who and what would the Dubs even consider trading for Porzingis that the Mavs would accept?

Steph or Klay, end of list. The Warriors would never do that, and the Mavericks probably don't want Wiggins and definitely don't want Green. Wiggins and Wiseman should be a non-starter from the Warriors perspective (don't give up two young starters). Maybe the Mavs take Green if packaged with Wiseman, but do the Warriors give up Wiseman for a perennially injured Porzingis? I'm not doing that trade.

this is Brood... can I just offer an early congratulations?

(no jinx intended... no wood to knock on )

No, stop that. Your jinxing is not welcome here. If the best record in the league meant anything, I would have celebrated a Suns championship in 1993. I still think about that to this day (with great vengeance and furious anger). That said, if not the Lakers or Sixers this year, I have the Jazz as my dark horse if only because of Shaq's sour grapes. It's as if he woke up one day and decided to come at Gobert AND Mitchell. Why? These old heads and their back-in-my-day BS. willyoushutupman.gif

The Jazz are playing the best kind of basketball (i.e. a lot of ball movement, not settling/looking for the best shot possible etc. etc). My concern is how three point happy they are. When they're falling, great. Few teams have an answer for that. When they're not (at historically great levels), well, see the loss vs. the Heat.

edit: and I meant to comment on this clip earlier in the week...
https://streamable.com/7dtyka

how the Pacers just gonna hand the win to the Wiz like this!?
no even one of them cut to an unguarded wide open basket for an easy 2 to tie the game and take it to OT on their home court? Just had to lose the game going for the win from 3 even though that was also unguarded too?

I was going to comment on this as well, but I figured no one cared. Yikes. What even happened here? This is where the modern NBA's love affair with the three pointer shows its warts. Three Nuggets players on the weak side and not a single one of them thought about driving to the basket. 2.9 seconds was plenty of time to get a dunk there.

and have ya'll seen this monster? 7'9" and likely dunking without jumping.....
whip dude into shape and what you supposed to do against this guy?

Wait until his knees give out? 🤷‍♀️ You can tell he was significantly out of shape with the chest jiggling under his shirt (I don't mean that as an insult). He slouches badly so his back is probably not in great condition. If he doesn't have Shaq's footwork, he's probably really easy to take out of plays.

Warriors v Laker tonight gonna be good though.

Is it though?

If the Warriors don't blow out the Lakers tonight, pack it up.