I hope you had a wonderful weekend, as we had an exciting one over in the NBA.
So, let’s kick it off with the Friday night game between Charlotte and Chicago, and boy was it a weekend for both teams. The Bulls beat the Hornets by 13 points spoiling Gordon Hayward’s 34 point game. This didn’t discourage Hayward because Sunday night he dropped 39 on the Orlando Magic including the buzzer-beater to win the game. The Chicago Bulls however couldn’t keep themselves in the W column as they played the Lakers in Chicago on Saturday and let’s just say Los Angels is 9-0 on the road, so the Lakers won that game easily.
The Houston Rockets are finally getting into a rhythm after the monster trade that rocked their franchise. They won back to back games, first on Friday against the Detroit Pistons by 1 point, 103-102, and again on Saturday night against the Dallas Mavericks, when DeMarcus Cousins dropped 28 points and had 17 rebounds, looking just like his old-self.
The Indiana Pacers faced off against the Orlando Magic Friday night in an easy win for Indiana, but the real challenge was the Sunday night game against the Toronto Raptors who have been Final contenders in recent years. Indiana suffered a loss to a Toronto team that was missing its All-Star Kyle Lowry.
As for the Raptors, the loss of Lowry didn’t seem to hold them back this weekend because not only did the close out Indiana on Sunday, Friday saw them up against the Eastern Conference Champs in the Miami Heat and the Raptors took the game 101-81, which may be coincidental because on that day in 2006, against the Raptors, Kobe Bryant scored 81 points by himself.
The Brooklyn Nets played 2 games this weekend, back to back. On Friday night, they had a re-match against the Cleveland Cavaliers who had upstaged the Big 3 debut just days earlier. And with the absence of Kevin Durant due to his recently recovered achilles tear, the Cavs were able to beat the Nets again 125-113. Brooklyn did secure their first win just one day later against the Miami Heat and with the return of Kevin Durant, the Big 3 showed out and captured the much needed W.
The Boston Celtics have been missing their star Jason Tatum and it showed with their Friday night loss to the Philadelphia 76er’s. This in spite Jaylon Brown putting up 42 points. But they bounced right back with a win Sunday night against the Cavaliers when Collin Sexton, after having two amazing games against Brooklyn, only scored 13 point and the Celtics outscored the Cavs by 38.
The Atlanta Hawks seem to be struggling to be a play-off contender because although they make easy work of teams like the Minnesota Timberwolves who they played on Friday, they could not stop themselves from getting blown out by a Bucks team that is leading the East, giving up 139 points and only scoring 115.
Speaking of the Timberwolves, they played the New Orleans Pelicans on Saturday, shorthanded without Karl Anthony-Towns, and still managed to win 120-110 because although the Pelicans have many players with a lot of potential they seem to be lacking in experience and that is hurting them against the veteran teams.
Before the Mavericks played the Rockets on Saturday and lost, they faced the San Antonio Spurs making it an all Texas weekend. Luka Donćic had 36 points, 9 rebounds and 11 assists for a near triple double, but it wasn’t needed thanks to the fact that all of the starters for Dallas had solid scoring nights showing that they are finding their rhythm after Kristaps Porzingas returned to the line-up.
San Antonio went on to beat the Washington Wizards who are fresh out of a “lockdown” for 5 games and it will take time for the Wizards to settle in with Westbrook only having 9 points while shooting just 3-11 from the field. Knowing Russel though, he will be back up to his 30 point triple-doubles within the next few weeks.
It was a sad weekend for the New York Knicks because although they are ranking in the top 5 teams defensively, they couldn’t manage to scrap a win, first with a loss to the Sacremento Kings on Friday and then on Sunday they were handed another loss by the Portland Trailblazer who were missing CJ McCollum.
The Warriors faced off against the Utah Jazz and the depth of the Jazz bench really showed with their win against Golden State, with multiple Jazz players having double digits in the scoring column.
The Los Angels Clippers had a perfect weekend against the Oklahoma City Thunder. They played two games against each other, one on Friday and one on Sunday and the Clips won both games easily with Kawhi having back to back 30 point games.
The Denver Nuggets and the Phoenix Suns also played back to back games against each other, and if you think that Phoenix did not want to lose on Friday night taking the game into overtime, then what happened on Saturday was nothing less then determination, as they pushed the game into double overtime and Chris Paul was 1 rebound short of a triple-double having 21 points and 13 assists but it still was not enough because the Suns lost both games.
This has been the Weekend Edition of Briefly in-Depth
Check back on Wednesday for our Mid-Week Edition
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