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The Cavs claim Kevin Love faked sick, Jason Kidd is out, Kawhi and the Spurs have tension, Dame is upset in Portland, and all the drama of yesterday before we get to Boogie’s historic night. It’s the Hoops Roundup for Tuesday, January 22nd. Let’s get it…
Scores from Monday, January 22nd:
Sacramento 107 – Charlotte 102
Utah 90 – Atlanta 104
Chicago 128 – New Orleans 132 2OT
Miami 90 – Houston 99
Philadelphia 101 – Memphis 105
Phoenix 105 – Milwaukee 109
Washington 75 – Dallas 98
Portland 101 – Denver 104
Minnesota 126 – LA Clippers 118
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What a goddamn day.
Yesterday was as much NBA drama as… well, as last Monday, actually… but as much as you can pack into a day. In a ten hour span we got three monster stories that could consume an entire week of headlines alone – all broken by Woj the Gawd. I went to bed at 1:15 thinking I would write about Woj’s beatdown on the rest of the media this morning… which it still very much was… but then woke up to a report from Chris Haynes (a.k.a. Not Woj) that was the Carl Everett two outs, two strikes single to break up Mike Mussina’s perfect game.
Anyway… between the gravity of those stories and the amount of actual on-court things (BOOGIE) that happened last night, I’m gonna take those four stories to another blog.
But because this is the Roundup and it includes everything… a quick recap:
- At noon, Woj, Lowe, and Mike Wright reported on friction between the perceived to be emotionless Kawhi Leonard and the perceived to be drama-less Spurs over the handling of Kawhi’s still very suspicious, this-would-be-a-LOT-bigger-deal-if-it-wasn’t-the-Spurs right quadriceps injury.
- At 4pm Jason Kidd was fired by the Bucks following losses in 4 of their last 5 games – the last of which Giannis had sat. With Kidd then revealing that Giannis had offered to do anything he possibly could to save Kidd’s job.
This funny tweet also came to life.
- At 10pm, Woj closed his perfect day out with a goddamn Nuke of a Wojbomb about the Cavs emotional team meeting. A team meeting in which they turned on Kevin Love with the quickness, accusing him of faking sick to leave their 148-124 annihilation at the hands of OKC.
We’ll get more into this in the other blog… but yeah, what a story. And what a move this would have been.
- At 1:21am, five minutes after I passed out, Chris Haynes came in and ruined Woj’s perfecto with what might sneaky be the most important news break of all: Dame meeting with Blazers owner Paul Allen to discuss the direction of the franchise and to possibly, maybe start the process of requesting a trade???
Again, I’m taking all that to another blog. But what a goddamn day. Two straight weeks now where we’ve started off Monday with a BANG. And the wildest part is… we’ve still got three weeks of Trade Deadline talk to go. What a league, man. What a goddamn league.
To the games…
Sacramento 107 – Charlotte 102
Sacramento (13-33) 15th in West
Charlotte (19-26) 11th in East
Lost amidst the chaos of yesterday were the Kemba Walker trade rumors that had started to pick up steam this weekend. He’s a logical name to throw out there. One year left on his contract after this. Very cheap ($12 mil a year). Explosive offensive player that could swing the fortunes of a playoff team. And for a middling Charlotte team that looked destined for the lottery just a few weeks ago without a signature young player, it would make sense to start looking towards a rebuild.
But now the Hornets have won 6 of 9 in the new year. And now Steve Clifford is back from his health scare. And other than a somewhat hot (while still extremely unpredictable) Sixers team, the group between Charlotte and a playoff spot isn’t exactly a murderers row.
Kemba came out and hung 26p/6r/9a night on Sacramento. He wants to stay there. And last night Jordan gave him a semi showing of confidence in saying he’d only trade Kemba for an All Star (which is not happening).
It was an intriguing rumor, but Kemba is staying put.
Since I haven’t really given my thoughts in here on this yet…
The Knicks are not trading Frankie DemiDog Ntilikina for Kemba Walker. It’s not happening.
I like Kemba. I think Kemba is really good. But we are not trading the youngest player in the league, who has a nice shot and great vision and a ton of offensive upside, who is already a defensive force and the best defensive PG the Knicks have had in over two decades, for a 27-year-old borderline All Star who stinks defensively and barely, barely makes the Knicks a playoff team.
It’s already a bad long term decision for obvious reasons. But it’s also almost as bad a short term decision because of how it sacrifices draft position.
I absolutely positively guarantee you the Knicks are not trading for Kemba Walker. And if they do that’s fine because I won’t be around for you to rub that in my face.
Utah 90 – Atlanta 104
Utah (19-28) 10th in West
Atlanta (14-32) 14th in East
Dennis Schroder went for 20 points in 25 minutes, but the Hawk PG performance and wild stat of the night goes to Malcolm Delaney, who had a (+25) plus/minus in 24 minutes off the bench last night with 7p/8a.
Chicago 128 – New Orleans 132 2OT
Chicago (18-29) 12th in East
New Orleans (25-21) 6th in West
I’ll get to Boogie in a second because… I mean… HOLY SHIT BOOGIE. But I noticed something last night when everyone was making jokes and memes last night about “looking at Boogie’s Box score”. Yes, looking at 44p/24r/10a/4s with 5 threes is definitely absurd.
But just look at that box score as a whole. As much as I’ve talked about it I don’t think it’s totally sunk in with everyone how absurd this team is. They’re starting two point guards and two centers. Rajon Rondo is somehow on this team. NBA Journeyman 6’4″ E’Twaun Moore (incredible rhythmic nickname btw) is their starting SF and has become a deadeye three point shooter who is 6th in the NBA at 43.6%. And oh yeah, the two most talented offensive big men of the last decade are on the same time and combined for an 88p/33r/15a night last night. It really does have to be the most absurd starting five I can ever remember.
Anyways…
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOGGGGGGIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
44 points. 24 boards. 10 assists. 4 steals. 5 threes. 13-24 from he field. One of the most ridiculous lines you will ever see. Literally… because it’s the first 40+/20+/10+ game in FIFTY years. All with 4 steals and 5 threes to boot. Insanity.
SHEEEEEEESH
Not even an elephant grab from Robin Lopez could stop him.
Boogie is Boogie. People are always gonna have a problem with him and that’s just never, ever gonna change. But nights like last night are why every team in the West… every team… is scared of New Orleans. Not only did they just got a 45/16 and a 44/24/10 from two different players in the same week. They got a 44/24/10 and a 34/9/5 in the same game game. That’s terrifying.
Shoutout to the multiple people who pointed out that this was the first 30/20/10 game in the NBA since David Lee hung 37p/20r/10a on the W’s in 2010.
The Kicks starting lineup that game?
Toney Douglas – just the absolute worst
Tracy McGrady – one of the 24 games he played for the Knicks that season
Bill Walker – remember when he threw all of basketball twitter off when he started going by Henry Walker when he played for Miami in 2014? Wild. By the way he’s played for 15 teams in 10 professional seasons and is currently playing for Galatasaray in Turkey.
Danilo Gallinari – the short lived Italian prince of New York basketball
David Lee – who averaged 20p/11r that season and posted some absolutely preposterous stat lines in those two years with D’Antonio.
With Chris Duhon, who posted 22 assists against the Warriors the year before, and Al Harrington, who is currently a tycoon of the Marijuana Industry, getting 30+ minutes off the bench in coach Mike D’Antoni’s up tempo system.
The Melo years were so chaotic and high profile that it’s easy to forget how absurd the pre-Melo days were. What a squad.
Miami 90 – Houston 99
Miami (27-20) 4th in East
Houston (33-12) 2nd in West
Harden and Paul combined for 44p/8r/11a/5s and, in the spirit of RAW25 last night, traded death blows to Miami like a tag team match.
Philadelphia 101 – Memphis 105
Philadelphia (22-21) 8th in East
Memphis (17-29) 11th in West
On slow nights from Embiid (15p/14r) and Simmons (6p/7a), Philly got a nice effort from Dario Saric (22p/10r).
Saric has quietly put in a nice season after a quiet start and a pretty drastic role change with the additions of Simmons and Embiid. He averaged 17.3p/7.9r/3.9a on (48/39/91) splits in December, and is still up at 14.6p/6.6r/2.7a on (42/38/96) splits in January.
But Memphis’s bench shot 52% and outscored Philly’s bench 45-20. And Memphis won the turnover battle 24-12 to overcome an 11-point fourth quarter deficit and stop Philly’s three game streak.
Phoenix 105 – Milwaukee 109
Phoenix (17-30) 13th in West
Milwaukee (24-22) 7th in East
No Giannis and… well… no Jason Kidd for Milwaukee, who got 67 combined on 73% shooting from Middleton (35p/6r/3a/2s) and Brogdon (32p/4r/2a/3s) and an additional (19p/7a/4s) from Bledsoe for their first win under interim coach Joe Prunty.
Washington 75 – Dallas 98
Washington (26-21) 5th in East
Dallas (16-31) 14th in West
Washington has quietly lost 5 of their last 8 at a time where they really could have made a move in the East. Indy has been relatively stagnant behind them. Miami has cooled off from their win streak, losing 3 of their last 5. And Cleveland is in fucking shambles right now. For a team that talks the talk they do about being elite, these dudes seem to crumble at all of the most inopportune times and miss every golden opportunity available.
Wall (11p/5a on 4-15 shooting) and Beal (18p/3a on 4-14 shooting) were awful in the loss last night. But nobody took a bigger L than Salah Mejri getting ejected, bye bye’d, and subsequently flambéed by his own coach on the way out.
Thankfully Harrison Barnes (20p/10r) and Dennis Smith Jr (17p/6a/2s) carried Dallas on Salah’s slow 2 point night. Two points.
Portland 101 – Denver 104
Portland (25-22) 7th in West
Denver (24-23) 8th in West
Tough, tough night for Portland – who not only lost a valuable game and fell down 2-1 in the season series with a direct playoff spot competitor, but will also now face a nice week of league scrutiny after reports leaked of Dame meeting with Paul Allen about the future of the team.
I talked about the Dame-Allen stuff above and I’ll get more into it in a separate blog. But yeah, tough night.
Dame (25p/8a on 10-18 shooting) and Nurkic (19p/12r on 7-13 shooting) performed last night, but got just 57 points on 35% shooting from the rest of the Blazers.
And simply could not stop Jamal Murray (38p/5r/6a with 4 threes on 14-19 shooting), who hit the game-tying three with two minutes left and this tough go-ahead and-1 layup with 30 seconds left.
Minnesota 126 – LA Clippers 118
Minnesota (31-18) 3rd in West
LA Clippers (23-23) 9th in West
Blake (32p/12r/12a) was an absolute monster, posting a triple double and bullying the Wolves frontline with the help of Montreal Harrell (23p/6r) off the bench.
But Andrew Wiggins (40p/6r on 16-28 shooting) stepped up in Jimmy Butler’s absence for his best game of the season. And with the help of Teague (30p/6a) and Bjelica (18p/9r/4a) Minnesota pulled out their second straight impressive win without Jimmy.
They’ve jumped San Antonio for third in the West, and with Kawhi out for god knows how long, they’ve got a real chance to hold onto that spot.
Schedule for Tuesday, January 23rd:
7:00 Sacramento @ Atlanta
8:00 Cleveland @ San Antonio TNT
8:00 Brooklyn @ Oklahoma City
10:30 Boston @ LA Lakers TNT
10:30 New York @ Golden State
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