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Lou Will hangs a fifty burger on the W’s. Jimmy Butler ups his MVP case. CP3 and Dame battle in Houston. And the Knicks and Bulls give us some free bad basketball. It’s the Hoops Roundup for Thursday, January 11th. Let’s get it…
…right after watching Caron Butler milly rock to Duck Tales. Tuff Juice the GOD
Scores from Wednesday, Jan 10th
Dallas 115 – Charlotte 111
Miami 114 – Indiana 106
Utah 107 – Washington 104
Detroit 114 – Brooklyn 80
Chicago 122 – New York 119 2OT
Portland 112 – Houston 121
New Orleans 102 – Memphis 105
Orlando 103 – Milwaukee 110
Oklahoma City 88 – Minnesota 114
Atlanta 110 – Denver 97
LA Clippers 125 – Golden State 106
Dallas 115 – Charlotte 111
Dallas (15-28) 12th in West
Charlotte (15-24) 11th in East
Kemba Walker (41p on 16-28 shooting) was a monster.
Unfortunately the Hornets are still an inexplicable mess. And Harrison Barnes (25p/11r) was big time down the stretch.
Miami 114 – Indiana 106
Miami (24-17) 4th in East
Indiana (21-20) 8th in East
Don’t look no– You know what… I know you probably still won’t look. But while you continue to not look, the Miami Heat have very quietly climbed their way up the East standings into fourth place. Last night Dragic (20p/9a) and Whiteside (16p/15r) led them to their sixth straight win and 13th in their last 17.
Last night was also their second win in two nights on the road against a quality East opponent after that thriller in Toronto on Tuesday.
Seven of eight guys scored in double figures. Wayne Ellington (15p/4r) continues to post numbers while hoisting threes (40% on 10.1 attempts per game over his last 10 games) off the bench. Bam Adebayo followed a monster 16p/15r/3a/5b game in Toronto with a quality 15p/5a game off the bench last night.
At last years halfway mark they were 10-31 before they turned it all around. This year they’re 24-17. They haven’t even gotten peak Neon Dion yet–who’s still out with an ankle injury–and Pat Riley’s decomposing cadaver is still lurking in the shadows with the trade deadline looming.
Great tweet. A+ tweet. Lance is still immortally meme-able
Utah 107 – Washington 104
Utah (17-24) 10th in West
Washington (23-18) 5th in East
Donovan Mitchell. Very very good.
This kid just continues to kill it. 16 points, 5 rebound, 4 assists. Quality defense on Porter and Beal all night. And 1 outrageous game-saving recovery on Beal at the end that only a very small handful of NBA defenders could pull off.
John Wall (35p/6r/11a/3s) was awesome even in the loss, straight up abusing a very good defender in Ricky Rubio possession after possession.
But Washington lost again to a team with a worse record than them – the 14th time in 29 games this season. Maybe that means nothing. Lulls in consistency and effort happen from teams with their minds on May – just look at Cleveland. And if there’s any team with a look-ahead mindset, it’s Washington. But the East is deeper than it’s been in recent years. And if Washington isn’t careful they could be looking at a first round series with the Cleveland team they love to talk so much about.
All time petty reaction from Rodney Hood. Absolutely hilarious move.
Detroit 114 – Brooklyn 80
Detroit (22-18) 7th in East
Brooklyn (15-26) 12th in East
Big time night from Andre Drummond (22p/20r/5a/2b/2s), who feasted on an understandably worn down Brooklyn team coming off five games in nine nights decided by three or less points.
Chicago 122 – New York 119 2OT
Chicago (15-27) 13th in East
New York (19-22) 10th in East
WILD game in New York last night that was about as fun a game between two bad teams as you can have and can pretty accurately be encapsulated by the fact that Jarrett Jack had a 16p/10r/10a triple double highlighted by maybe the play of the year.
Lauri Markannen out-dueled Kristaps Porzingis din the same way you’d say Kyle Korver out-dueled Bradley Beal but whatever I’m not mad or biased.
But for real Markkanen was great last night. The matchup was pretty much a perfect encapsulation of how important shot selection is. Lauri took good shots and Chicago set him up beautifully. Kristaps, in what’s becoming an increasingly frustrating norm over the last few weeks, took a ton of bad shots and sloppy midrange iso possessions.
Four months ago I never imagined saying this… but getting Hardaway back will help spread the floor and kickstart the fastbreak and will hopefully get the Knicks moving on offense again. Outside of that beautiful play to free KP to send it to double OT, things are starting to feel stagnant.
And while I am and forever will be Super Cool Beas Hive forever… I’m a little bit worried that he’s starting to get overextended. The Beas sweet spot is 20-25 minutes, most of which come without KP, getting 10-14 shots as the second-unit creator. Once those minutes and possessions start bleeding into the starting unit it throws that group off. Reduce Beas’s minutes, and for the love of god Jeff, play Frank and Doug more than 18 and 20 minutes so we can get some movement and spacing back.
As a Knicks fan this was a tough one to swallow. But with every loss over this stretch it’s important to Luka on the bright side.
*suspends self from puns for 24 hours*
Portland 112 – Houston 121
Portland (22-19) 5th in West
Houston (29-11) 2nd in West
Chris Paul (37p/7r/11a/3s) and Dame Lillard (29p/5r/8a/2s) had a BATTLE in Houston last night.
Chris got the W. And Dame took EXTREME exception to Chris tossing in a layup with the game in hand at the end and responded by trying to sneak in a last second steal on his stat sheet. Game recognize game.
New Orleans 102 – Memphis 105
New Orleans (20-20) 8th in West
Memphis (13-27) 13th in West
Tyreke Evans (28p/6r/3a) and Marc Gasol (21p/10r/7a/2s) outdeuled Boogie (29p/8r/3a) and the Anthony Davis-less Pels, who fall back right where they belong at .500
40 games into the season and New Orleans has only once been more than two games above or below .500. They’re perfectly consistent in their inconsistency and I look forward to pushing Golden State to 7 in round one by winning every other game.
Orlando 103 – Milwaukee 110
Orlando (12-30) 14th in East
Milwaukee (22-18) 6th in East
Speaking of inconsistency, the Bucks are almost equally so after trading W/L for the sixth straight game.
The Bucks got double figures from all five starters, led by 26p/7r from Giannis and 14p/9r/7a from Brogdon.
We also get out first Giannis vs. Golden State game Friday night (8:00 ESPN), which might sneaky be the most must-watch game we’ve had this season.
Remember when the Magic started 8-4 and looked like a legitimate back-end playoff team? Yeah. They’re 4-26 since then and 1-15 in the last month.
Get those Trae Young highlights up Orlando!
Oklahoma City 88 – Minnesota 114
Oklahoma City (22-20) 7th in West
Minnesota (27-16) 4th in West
JIMMY. MOTHER. FUCKING. BUTLER.
I’m going to beat the Jimmy Butler MVP drum until every last one of you puts him on your goddamn ballot. You don’t have a ballot? Make a Pinterest page. Make a Jimmy Butler fan account. Make a dream board and hang it in your room for only you to see.
That’s three straight games… three straight wins… where Jimmy has been the best player on a floor shared with Boogie and AD, Lebron and JR, and now Russ and PG. He’s gone for 21p/7r/8a over New Orleans in a 116-98 romp, 21p/8r/9a over Cleveland in three quarters in a 127-99 blowout, and now 26p/7r/8a/2b/4s in a dominant win over OKC. He’s playing the distributor role like a lead guard, then going down and marking anyone from LeBron to Russ on the other end.
And then he’ll deliver the goods post game.
Jimmy is a top 5 MVP candidate and climbing. And although I still can’t really get a feel for Minnesota as a whole, they’re right there 1.5 games behind San Antonio and 3.5 behind Houston.
OKC, meanwhile looks like they’ve come cratering back down after that 11-3 stretch in December. That’s three straight L’s — five of the last seven — and the balance of shots has started to swing back from the “Russ then PG then Melo” hierarchy to a more even and ironically less efficient split.
The Thunder are at their best when it’s Russ’s show with PG as second banana and Melo as a bonafide role player. They’re at their worst when Melo is shooting more – which explains why Melo averages 14.3 shots per game in Wins and 17.0 shots per game in Losses.
Last night Melo took 19 shots – he hit 5 for just 15 points. George took 14 and scored just 13 points.
Russ went 15-23 and hung a 38p/10r/5a/4s line. But when the shot distribution is off and when the rest of your team shoots just 30% (17-56) from the field, it’s just not gonna be enough.
Atlanta 110 – Denver 97
Atlanta (11-30) 15th in East
Denver (21-20) 6th in West
Dennis Schroder (19p/10a) won’t make the All Star game. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t impressed with what he’s done this year. 19.7p/6.6a/3.0r on the season and quietly becoming a pretty decent starting PG for a young and bad but competitive Hawks team.
LA Clippers 125 – Golden State 106
LA Clippers (19-21) 9th in West
Golden State (33-9) 1st in West
Kevin Durant scored his 20,000th career point. Great accomplishment. Right up there with some of the all time greats and also Kobe. Truly remarkable.
He had 40 points on 14-18 shooting on the night, including 6-7 threes. Just another example of how ridiculously efficient a scorer he is – maybe the best in NBA history…
…if NBA history didn’t include Louis Tyrone Two Girlfriends At The Same Time Williams #NBAVote.
God damn man. I know the West backcourt is loaded. And I’m not entirely serious about the title of this blog. But Lou Will just led the Clippers to their first win over Golden State in FOUR YEARS by hanging a fifty burger on them. And if that wasn’t enough, this was how he got 50…
That alone might be enough for an All Star bid. That and the 31.8p/5.3a on 48% shooting he’s averaging over his last ten games.
I never saw Chris Paul do this. And I certainly never saw his State Farm Father of the Year ass have two girlfriends at the same time. #NBAVote
Schedule for Thursday, Jan 11th
3:00 Boston – Philadelphia (in London) NBATV
8:00 Cleveland – Toronto TNT
10:00 LA Clippers – Sacramento
10:30 San Antonio – LA Lakers TNT
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