At this point in the season, while teams still have the ability to trade players and improve their roster, we are getting a good look at who is going to be a contender in the post-season.
On Monday night, the Charolette Hornets played the Miami Heat and this was the first game that LaMelo Ball was in the starting line-up, and subsequently he was also just named Rookie Of The Month, so congratulations to him. Now although he didn’t have a great game, he is easing into his roll, and he helped the Hornets beat a Heat team who is getting comfortable with Jimmy Butler back on the floor.
The Cavaliers and the Timberwolves both went into their match-up missing their big men. The Cavs missing Andre Drummond and the T-Wolves missing Karl Anthony Towns. This game went down to the wire, with Collin Sexton dropping 26 points to get the W for his team, 100-98.
The New York Knicks having been exceeding expectations in every-way possible this season. Without any real star outside of Julius Randle, the fact that they are playing well is definitely surprising. But when they faced the Chicago Bulls on Monday they were not able to come away with the win as Lauri Markkanen for the Bulls dropped 30 points, with 6 three’s on 50% shooting from behind the arc.
It was an interesting game for Portland as they went to Milwaukee to face the Bucks. What made it interesting was not only that there were 6 Bucks players in double digit scoring to help them win the game, but also that Damian Lillard couldn’t even scratch 20 points having 17 at the end of the night. Now if you know Dame, he usually is scoring over 30 points a game, so it was not surprising when he came back only 24 hours later to drop 32 on the Washington Wizards to take the W after losing too Milwaukee the night before.
Two young teams headed off against each other on Monday. The Sacramento Kings against the New Orleans Pelicans. And with the Pelicans the key word is potential because right now they are 7-12 on the season — they were not able to stop the Kings and more specifically De’Aaron Fox from dropping 38 points on 58% shooting to take the W.
The Rockets have depth… like serious depth. They played the Oklahoma City Thunder who have started the season hot, and 7 of the Rocket players prepared to score in the double digit and capture to win, proving that not only do they have talent, but chemistry as well.
The start of this season has been devastating for the Dallas Mavericks, because although they have a solid team on paper and a potential MVP candidate in Luka Donćic, they have not been able to hold on to a lead, losing virtually every game where the score is close going into the 4th quarter. They played the second of back-to-back games against the Phoenix Suns, their first game being on Saturday. And while the Mavs were up by 2 with 10 second left to the game, Devin Booker off a pass from Chris Paul, hit the game winner to put the Suns up by 1 and to win the game.
The Los Angeles Lakers were down in Atlanta to play the Hawks and it was a close game through 3 quarters with no team taking a strong lead. But after an interaction with fan on the side-line LeBron James proceeded to close out the game 107-99, helping the Lakers win their final game in a 14 game road trip.
The Memphis Grizzlies had an INSANE night on Monday. 9 out of the 10 players who played that night against the San Antonio Spurs scored more than 10 points leading to a 133-102 blow-out by Memphis, which speaks volumes to the coaching and the lethal scoring ability that every player bring to the floor.
Memphis played again on Tuesday night against the Indiana Pacers and while the scoring was still there, they could not pull themselves back in the game after falling behind by 20 points losing to Indiana 134-116.
Fred VanVleet for the Toronto Raptors had a career high-scoring night against the Orlando Magic on Tuesday, as he proceeded to drop 54 points on 73% shooting helping Toronto win the second game in a row against the Magic 123-108.
The Utah Jazz, after having their winning streak snapped by the Denver Nuggets on Sunday, hopped right back on the horse Tuesday to take the easy W over a terrible Detroit team.
The Golden State Warriors lost to the Boston Celtics 111-107. Although Stephen Curry had 38 points and 6 three pointers his teammates were not able to have their usual scoring which lead to the loss by a solid Boston team.
And lastly but definitely not least, the possible finals match-up in the Brooklyn Nets facing the Los Angels Clippers and boy was this game entertaining. Kawhi Leonard had 33 points and Paul George had 26 points, but it could not stop Brooklyns big three from combining for 90 points and taking the W by 4 points,124-120.
This has been the Mid Week Report of Briefly In Depth
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