Last Night In The NBA: Blowouts On Top Of Blowouts
Happy Friday everybody and welcome to another edition of Last Night In The NBA where we bring you up to speed with everything that went down from the night before in the Association. Unfortunately, we only had 3 games last night so you’ll eventually have to get to work this morning. I apologize for that, please do not hold it against me as I do not make the schedule. Where Wednesday night was all about close contests, last night was blowout city for basically everyone that won. Do you love a shit ton of points and no defense? Well then keep reading because here’s what happened
Toronto Raptors (4-1) 134 vs New Orleans Pelicans (0-5) 119
You never want to see a team go winless in the preseason, but that’s exactly what the Pelicans did. Getting blown out like this at home? Even worse. And sure, Anthony Davis was his normal insane self with 36/15 on 13-18 shooting
and the other starters showed up as well with Mirotic dropping 15/5, Holiday 14/6/8/4, and then even Randle got into the action with 20/11/4 off the bench. So what the hell happened? Well, defense is important kids and we didn’t see much of it in the second or fourth quarter. In fact, TOR never had a quarter in which they scored under 31 points. That’s a problem. And if I were a Pelicans fan I wouldn’t love the fact that this all happened with all my normal guys playing. I know it’s preseason but still, they have to defend better than that.
For TOR, it was a typical Raptors dominant performance and they rested pretty much all their main guys. Seven total players in double figures, 53/43% splits with just 12 TOs, and Pascal Siakam led the way with a dominant 21/11/6/4 pm 6-14 shooting. For what seems like a reocurring theme with this team it was the second unit that did the most damage, with their bench combining for 69 (nice) of their 134.
Sadly though for some reason the Raptors didn’t want to make any highlights of their dominant performance, so you’ll just have to trust me.
Utah Jazz (5-0) 132 vs Sacramento Kings (2-3) 93
God dammit Baby Kings, I want to believe in you! But, getting down 32-7 in the first like 14 seconds of this game was a bit problematic, and obviously they never recovered. The Jazz are a different beast man, I don’t care if these games are fake. They are really fucking good
Here’s what’s nuts, they only had 6 players in double figures and three of them were starters. They played literally everyone but Isaac Haas on their roster, and everyone who hit the floor almost never missed. I’m serious, they had 60/46% spliuts with 14 3PM. They won the first quarter 39-10, and never had a quarter under 30 points. All those points and Rubio and Joe Ingles combined for just 8 points, that’s pretty wild.
I know you have to be careful buying into preseason hype, but try and tell me the Jazz don’t look dominant. You can’t.
For SAC, yeah not great. When a team is making everything and you go 34/16% that’s how this score happens. But hey, at least Marvin Bagley III had a nice outing against a legit Jazz front line, so there’s that!
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If I had to guess, I’d say De’Aaron Fox won’t have too many 1-10 performances but maybe that’s just my heart talking. Also what I love about the Kings is their Twitter is very self aware. One of the best team follows for sure
Maccabi Haifa 76 vs Los Angeles Clippers (5-0) 124
Look at the undefeated Clippers! Who saw that coming? Nobody that’s who. Pretty fortunate they were playing a JCC team and they didn’t have to worry about going 8-33 from three or that only one starter reached double digits. They still shot 51% for the night and the bench did the rest with four guys in double figures and seven players with at least 8 points.
If there’s one thing that comes from the Clippers preseason, my hope is that it’s real actual minutes for Boban. Another 18/12 on 9-11 in 17 minutes, the guy has been an absolute FORCE this preseason. Fuck Gortat, give the minutes to Boban.
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And that’s it! You’re now all caught up on everything that happened last night in the NBA. We’re back with a full 11 games tonight, but don’t feel like you have to be a loser and stay in tonight to watch them all. Just check back here in the morning and I’ll bring you up to speed on what you missed.