Good thing the Clippers arena has all those toilets ...
... because this team needs to be flushed.
... because this team needs to be flushed.
Good morning. Let's basketball.
Scores
Hawks 98, Pistons 99 – This was only a 3-possession game for 13 seconds. For the other, 47 minutes and 47 seconds, the game was within two possessions either way. Cade Cunningham was kind of quiet ... until he wasn't. Pistons up two with less than 30 seconds to go, Atlanta trying to force a turnover and Cade just simply threads through everyone for a reverse layup.
Cavaliers 135, Pacers 119 – My current take on Cleveland (subject to change daily) is that the amount of injuries the Cavaliers have dealt with has been underrated, and thus Donovan Mitchell's incredible work to keep Cleveland afloat has been underrated.
Evan Mobley has indeed been a disappointment on offense based on expectations coming into the season, and it might be time to break up the Mobley-Jarrett Allen frontcourt. (JA did not play in this one.)
Bucks 126, Wizards 129 – Horrificable loss for Milwaukee. They led by 16 in the third and let Washington crawl back into the game with bad Bucks defense. Milwaukee gave up 71 points in the second half. To the Wizards. Bilal Coulibaly capped it with a steal and an and-1 dunk over Giannis Antetokounmpo. This is not going on the MVP reel.
(Dangerous play by Giannis there. He would be screaming if someone fouled him in that position.)
We might be one loss from a crisis situation in MKE. The Bucks are 9-13.
Hornets 103, Nets 116 – To celebrate the Nets' fourth win in 20 games, here are two real nice dunks from Brooklyn. First, it's Noah Clowney on Ryan Kalkbrenner.
Let's now give the floor to Danny Wolf, a rare Nets rookie who is getting playing time these days.
Everyone should be trying to embarrass Miles Bridges at every opportunity. If you see him in drop or help position and you can yam on him? Yam on him.
Clippers 123, Heat 140 – Los Angeles led 46-44 with 6:36 left in the second quarter. They went into halftime trailing 76-56. The Heat went on a 30-2 run over just under six minutes of game time with a ridiculous volume of Miami Kabooms and L.A. clanks. In a beautiful turn of events, Norman Powell started the run with a three and finished off the run with two deep threes. Revenge game time.
Ty Lue was so mad he pulled all five starters 90 seconds into the third quarter. Look at this. Furious!
The starters all ended up back in the game ... except for James Harden, who sat the rest of the third and the entire fourth. Monitoring.
The Clippers have the fourth worst defense in the NBA. They were No. 3 in the league in defense last season. Powell for John Collins was the major roster change. Can someone give Jeff Van Gundy a beer and ask him what the hell happened?
Bulls 120, Magic 125 – Back-to-back 37-point games for Desmond Bane, who has really picked up the offensive slack without Paolo Banchero. I guess he just needed a little adjustment time, and the Magic just needed a little adjustment time with him.
Don't look now, but Orlando is No. 9 in offense and one game out of the No. 2 seed in the East. As Zach Lowe likes to note, the Magic haven't finished outside the bottom 10 in offense since the Dwight Howard era.
Mavericks 131, Nuggets 121 – Another weird loss for Denver, whose defense is falling apart with Aaron Gordon and Christian Braun. Cooper Flagg, Anthony Davis and rookie Ryan Nembhard (!) just did what they wanted. Dallas had an eFG of 64%. Nikola Jokic had a monster line (29-20-13) but Jamal Murray wasn't very effective and sat the fourth quarter after an ankle injury.
Rockets 125, Jazz 133 – Houston slaughtered Utah on Sunday, and the Jazz took that personal. Keyonte George in particular had an incredible bounceback after his disaster game the other night: 28 points on 64% eFG and lots of free throws, 8 assists, still too many turnovers (six). I think right now Lauri Markkanen and Key constitute a B+ duo in the league. Coming back against such a good game in this fashion is a real good sign for the team's development.
Suns 125, Lakers 108 – L.A. came up against a team that wanted to embarrass them, and they let it happen. The Lakers have been awesome this season but aren't exactly the most intense or focused squad. And so Dillon Brooks and others exploited that. Here's The Villain capping a 31-11 Phoenix run after Devin Booker left the game with an injury and mocking LeBron in LeBron's face.
Anyway, the concern about the Lakers is their defense. Giving up a Buck 25 to the Suns when Book plays 10 minutes and Dillon Brooks and Collin Gillespie shred you, that's not a great sign.
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Lately in GMIB
Here's what paid subscribers have received over the past week:
- Meet the tier busters: four teams that are way outside of expectations
- Putting a bow on the NBA Cup group stage
- Long recap of Wednesday's Cup action (which doesn't make sense to read now, I realize)
Currently on the free tier with one newsletter per week and want to upgrade to paid subscription with five newsletters per week? We have a button for that.
Links
Interesting piece by Jake Fischer on what it's like to be traded as experienced by Khris Middleton.
Paul Flannery on the state of the Celtics.
Michael Pina's first quarter awards. He's among the smart analysts I've heard call Jokic an obvious MVP leader at this point, and it's hard to argue that Jokic is the MVP leader. Obvious? Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is indeed a step below Jokic on offensive impact (despite scoring more on very high efficiency – not Jokic high, but really high – on a higher usage with a much lower turnover rate). But Shai has been at an All-Defense level individually this season for the best defense in the league and his team is 20-1 with the second best player registered exactly two games played so far. Jokic is otherworldly. If Shai is behind in total impact, the gap ain't that big, which to me makes this not so obvious.
John Schuhmann's thorough power rankings. You'll never guess who's No. 1!
Tom Haberstroh on the unconventionality of the Pistons' excellence.
Logan Murdock on why the full-court press is on the rise.
Caitlin Cooper on two game-winners involving Pascal Siakam in recent weeks: one he hit and one hit in his face.
Katie Heindl on the Pacers and, uh, grief.
Schedule
Easy Tuesday. All times Eastern.
Wizards at Sixers, 7
Blazers at Raptors, 7:30
Knicks at Celtics, 8, Peacock for all/NBC for some
Timberwolves at Pelicans, 8
Grizzlies at Spurs, 8
Thunder at Warriors, 11, Peacock for all/NBC for some
Alright, thanks for stopping by. Be excellent to each other.
