This week has been an interesting one over in the NBA, where on Wednesday there seemed to be a flip in narrative. The teams that were doing well seemed to hit a dry spell and the teams that were being dragged through the dirt found success.
We’ll get into the big stories but let’s first talk about the Indiana Pacers facing off against the Charolette Hornets. Domantas Sabonis who is second in the league in double-doubles and is actually averaging one this season showed up with 22 points 11 rebound and a surprising 10 assists to help his Pacers overcome the Hornets who had 6 players scoring in double digits. Gordon Hayward couldn’t seem to get it going, leading to his teams demise.
The Cleveland Cavaliers have had a major boost in momentum ever since they beat the Nets twice in a row, and it is showing up in confidence in their offence as they played the Detroit Pistons, who have one of the worst records in the league this season, and won 107-122 with Collin Sexton having 29 points and Andre Drummond with 23 points and 16 rebounds.
Sacramento has been decent this season with players like De’Aron Fox having a solid start. They headed off the Orlando Magic Wednesday night in a 121-107 W for the Kings. While the Magic do have a marginally better record than the Kings, Aaron Gordon a starter for Orlando shot 11% from the field or 1-9 and it perfectly represents how the team as a collective played that night. As for Sacramento they are definitely putting some players on the trading block before the deadline in a few weeks, so stay tuned for updates on that.
The Brooklyn Nets took on the Atlanta Hawks in a nail biter that went to OT. The Nets were able to pull ahead and win by 4 points after the big three of James Harden, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant combined for 89 points, so if that’s not something that should make every team nervous I don’t know what will.
The Denver Nuggets are a team to watch this season. They had incredible play starting in the Orlando Bubble and it carried on into this season. It seems that they have the most depth out of any team in the league with multiple bench players constantly have double digit scoring, and incredible head coach in Mike
Malone. They played the Champs of the Eastern Conference, the Miami Heat who are still missing their super star Jimmy Butler, and they absolutely demolished Miami 109-82.
The Heat stayed in the L column as the faced the Clippers on Thursday night as well, and even with the Clips missing Paul George, Kawhi Leonard and Patrick Beverly they still beat the Heat 109-105.
Two of the East finest in the Milwaukee Bucks and the Toronto Raptors faced each other in a game that went down to the wire, with the Raptors showing off their depth and the Bucks showing off there All-Stars, with Giannis Antetokounmpo all but 1 assist shy of a triple-double.
The Boston Celtics played the San Antonio Spurs in a fairly even match-up and is seems as if the Celtics are still adjusting to having Jason Tatum back in the line-up, with there being a lot less ball movement and Boston only have 15 assists collectively as a team and this hurt them down the stretch and cost them the game.
New Orleans has finally got a win!! But it was against the Washington Wizards who have the worst record in the NBA at 3-11. Russel Westbrook missed this game due recovering from an injury. But the big story is Bradley Beal because despite being on the worst team, he is FIRST in scoring for the whole league with an astounding 35.4 points a game. WOW.
The Dallas Mavericks faced off against a Utah Jazz who were missing their super star Donovan Mitchel and they lost 116-104. Although Luka Donćic dropped 30 points he was lacking his usual numbers in the assists and the rebounding column, and it was most definitely needed if they were to win this game, but I don’t expect Luka to stay in this “slump”.
The Golden State Warriors played back-back games, first against Minnesota and then against Phoenix and they went 50% winning the first game and losing the second. Surprisingly, against the Timberwolves, even though the Warriors won, Stephen Curry had surprising 16 points on 36% shooting from 3, and Thursday saw him bounce back with 24 points on 50% from three point land, but it was not enough to win the game.
And finally for the big story of the week the Los Angeles Lakers. Anthony Davis is in a funk. He is an 80+% free throw and shooter and he missed half of his free-throw on Wednesday night. This doesn’t always mean a player is in a funk, but if you can’t hit an open shot then what are the chances you will hit one when it’s contested. Now the Lakers went into Philadelphia who has the best record in the East, and the Lakers haven’t lost a single road game, but after a lousy performance through the first 3 quarters, the Lakers had a 13-2 run to finish the game, but still losing 107-106 to the 76er’s on a buzzer beater from Tobias Harris.
Then they played back-back against the Detroit Pistons the following night and Anthony Davis sat out and the Lakers got closed out in the 4th quarter losing by 15 points 107-92 and thus picking up their first two losses on the road this season and getting knocked down to the third best record in the West.
This has been the Saturday Edition of Briefly In Depth
Check back in Monday for the Weekend Edition
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