Last Night In The NBA: Tyler Herro Becomes The Hero, Surprising Upsets, Anthony Davis Dragged His Nuts All Over The Timberwolves And More
Good morning everybody happy Monday and welcome back to another edition of Last Night In The NBA where we bring you up to speed on everything that went down from the night before in the Association. As usual there's a strong chance you aren't exactly thrilled to be back in the cubes and luckily the NBA blessed you with 8 games last night. It was another night of close finishes, high powered offenses, some dominant individual performances and if you spent the day watching football and missed most of the action that's OK just keep reading because here's what happened.
Denver Nuggets (14-7) 102 vs Brooklyn Nets (13-10) 105
It was the Nuggets turn to head to the other side of the country for a nice measuring stick road trip against some of the better teams in the East, and ever since they kicked the shit out of the Knicks to get things started, it hasn't been great. A tough loss to the Celtics and now this, a lose in the final moments to a Nets team without Kyrie Irving. To make matters worse they have PHI tomorrow who ya know, hasn't lost at home this season. Their little two game slide has seen them drop all the way to 5th in the West so that tells you how stacked things are in that conference, and I don't know what you want from them if only two starters are going to show up
outside of the 45 points between these two, no other Nuggets starter had more than 9 points, in fact even with their depth only three players finished in double figures. While Murray had a chance to send this to OT and missed, the bigger problem was a key area of DEN got exposed. If you have any sort of athletic big man or center, maybe run P&R with them at Jokic because that man has no idea what he's doing on that end in that set. They actually had the lead with 30 seconds to go but couldn't keep BKN out of the paint and the rest is history.
For BKN, let's just state the facts. They are well over .500 since Kyrie went down. They are beating some of the best teams in the league, and Spencer Dinwiddie has topped 20 points in 10 of his last 12 games
he's making clutch baskets to win them games, sort of like he did last season, and the Nets are 8-2 over their last 10, have won 3 in a row and are closing in on IND for that 6 seed. You tell me if this is all a coincidence, because it's not like they are just loading up on bad teams. Like I said you also have to give credit to Jarrett Allen who has figured this defense out and has been a big time problem for the Nuggets this season. He's just a bad matchup for Jokic in every sense
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Very quietly the Nets have dug themselves out of their early season hole, so it'll be interesting to see how things go once Kyrie comes back because that will undoubtably change their style back to something that was clearly not working.
Atlanta Hawks (6-17) 122 vs Charlotte Hornets (9-16) 107
Hey another one of those games where Trae Young goes nuts and does most of the scoring only this time the Hawks actually won! I suppose playing CHA helped, but it was still fun to watch as a Hawks fan
This was actually a close game half way through, with the Hawks actually down two at the break so for them to unleash an offensive explosion like that in the second half to the tune of 71 points was impressive. Trae did his thing but he also got help from guys like Jabari Parker
and a bench that had four players in double figures including old ass Vince Carter who turned back the clock and was actually giving people the business
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Hard to lose when you shoot 48/40% with 18 3PM and only turn it over 13 times, and honestly it was a little refreshing to see this ATL team actually play some defense. It helps distract you from the fact that their two lottery picks still kinda stink so far this season.
For CHA, a rough night for their starting backcourt that combined to go 7-30, so it was really up to the two other young guys in PJ Washington and Miles Bridges to carry the offensive load
it was your typical Hornets performance of poor team shooting, a good amount of FTs, and bad defense down the stretch. Now just 5-8 at home, we're starting to see the Hornets turn into the team most of us expected, despite their good start. They are now 3-7 over their last 10 and find themselves 3.5 games out of the 8th spot. We can move on.
Chicago Bulls (8-16) 105 vs Miami Heat (17-6) 110 F/OT
This right here might have been one of the best games of the night if you can believe it. It had everything, blown leads, clutch late game scoring, young guys taking over, if you're a Heat fan this morning you are loving life. Why? Because on a night where Jimmy Butler went 3-14 you pulled this out because your young guys put in work. Whether it was Bam and his impressive 21/13/6
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or a solid 18 points on 6-11 from Kendrick Nunn
the young guys set the tone for MIA in this game. And when it came time for someone to be a hero, enter Tyler Herro
27 huge points off the bench, huge threes late in regulation and again in OT, I wouldn't call it a coming out party because he's been doing shit like this all year. We already know this is a supremely confident player and he's been one of the best steals of this entire draft. He's making a real impact on a good team and without him MIA is no longer undefeated at home.
For CHI, a rough night shooting wise for Zach LaVine who finished 5-19, but they did get some good moments from Baby Dirk who desperately needs to get his shit together after what has been a season where he hasn't really taken a leap
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Now 4-8 on the road this result isn't all that surprising, but it was entertaining and for someone who doesn't root for either of these teams that's all I really care about.
Toronto Raptors (15-7) 104 vs Philadelphia 76ers (17-7) 110
The Sixers December schedule gets pretty damn tough over these next 10 games, so to start it off with a quality win against TOR was important. Sure Fred VanVleet, one of their best players, ended up only playing 12 minutes before getting hurt but hey, the Sixers played great against a team that already beat them this season so they deserve credit. Tobias Harris carried most of the load with Horford and Embiid being relatively quiet
he finished with a much needed 26 points on good splits. Ben Simmons was also solid coming off his dominant performance against the Cavs, and while he didn't attempt a three like his coach is asking him to do, he did do pretty much everything else
But those are the usual suspects. You expect as a Sixers fan for those guys to play well, what you don't expect is for Thybulle to come in and have 20 points off the bench including 5 3PM. The defense was great as it usually is, but that offensive production was a nice surprise
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It's pretty simple. When the Sixers make their outside shots (14 3PM) and defend like they are capable of, they can survive quiet nights from Joel Embiid. Even with TOR making a late fourth quarter push they were able to hold on and are now a very impressive 12-0 at home.
For TOR, losing FVV hurts of course, but we did not see the defensive effort from this team that you come to expect. It's also weird for them to turn it over 17 times and generally shoot like shit but that happens on the road. As good as TOR is they are human on the road sitting at just 6-5, and outside of Lowry and OG everyone for the most part struggled
This was a game where they needed Siakam to be at his best, and he didn't exactly live up to it with his 7-18 shooting. As of now there is a 1 game separating these two from the 4/5 seeds, and something tells me H2H matchups are going to be important.
Los Angeles Clippers (17-7) 135 vs Washington Wizards (7-15) 119
I love Wizards games because their scores are so outrageous for games that never go into overtime. Just 120+ points a night in regulation like clockwork. So you would imagine playing one of the best teams in the NBA that things would be more of the same and guess what….they were.
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Tell me if you've heard this before. Kawhi and George went nut and combined for 61 points, then Harrell and Lou Williams came into the game off the bench and combined for 38. The Clippers won comfortably, and scored 35 points in 3 of the 4 quarters. That's basically the formula for every one of their games and they are showing no signs of stopping. Granted the Wizards have the worst defense maybe ever, but this was actually a 1 point game at the break! Sadly for WSH though, there is just too much firepower with this Clippers team.
For WSH, you know about Beal, but you need to be paying attention to what Davis Bertans is doing off the bench right now. This dude is playing at an insane level and honestly someone needs to save him and get him out of WSH immediately and onto a contender
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The Latvian Laser can flat out sling it.
In the end it was the same old problems for WSH, bad defense, turnovers, nothing we aren't used to seeing in what ultimately results in a tough loss despite scoring tons of points.
Sacramento Kings (9-13) 110 vs Dallas Mavericks (16-7) 106
If you look at the past week or so of Mavs basketball, they are beating some of the best teams there are. A date with the Kings who are just 4-9 on the road should have been easy right? Wrong. This game is a great example of why the NBA rules, because on any given night even the good teams can get beat and I'd say SAC building a 24 point lead at one point certainly was a surprise. Buddy Hield finally snapped out of his shooting slump
and Bjelica came out of nowhere with a cool 30 piece
and that was pretty much all they needed. Now they did everything they could to blow this huge lead by scoring only 18 points in the fourth quarter, but with the win the Kings now find themselves just 1 game out of the 7 seed. Pretty good for a team that started 0-5.
For DAL, of course there was some Luka domination
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and just like there is any time Luka plays there was another historic accomplishment
At this point you could tell me ANY stat regarding Luka and I'm going to blindly believe it. Doesn't matter what historic player is involved, we've reached that point with Luka.
He also got some help with THJ
who was nails from deep with 9 3PM, but their lack of offense early combined with piss poor defense was too much to overcome. Good news is DAL is still in the 3 spot just 0.5 games behind the Clippers so thankfully this bad loss didn't totally screw them.
Oklahoma City Thunder (10-12) 108 vs Portland Trail Blazers (9-15) 96
Chris Paul may have gotten payback for being a snitch, but he also got the last laugh with the win and a nice 20 point outing
I still can't tell what the Thunder are, if they are good or if they are just good at beating bad teams. It was a story of point guards for the Thunder with Paul playing well, and then both SGA and Schroder putting up 21 a piece
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It was your vintage OKC win, with low turnovers, good defense, good rebounding, and they turned things up a notch one the game got to the fourth quarter, especially defensively. Just 3-7 away from home this year, if OKC can figure that shit out is there any reason to think if they stay healthy that they can't get into the top 8? Otherwise it's NBA purgatory and nobody wants that.
For POR, yeah not a great outing for Melo against his good friend CP3, he finished just 4-18, and outside of Dame and CJ there wasn't much offensively which surprises absolutely no one.
With Rodney Hood blowing his achilles the other night the Blazers bench is really struggling, and this team being 4-6 at home is hard to comprehend. They technically aren't dead yet after their little mini run with Melo, but they need to win games like this at home if they want to not have a lost season.
Minnesota Timberwolves (10-12) 125 vs Los Angeles Lakers (21-3) 142
I give MIN a lot of credit, don't let the final score fool you, they actually were in this game for a good stretch of it. They had good balance in terms of scoring with 8 players in double figures, and KAT/Wiggins weren't all that inefficient
but just like it so often does, the Wolves defense let them down. Well it was the whole not playing any that let them down but you get the point. Eventually they ran out of gas and the Lakers just kept coming, MIN had no answer whatsoever for AD and LeBron and when you do that I'm not sure how you think a loss is avoidable.
For LAL, the record speaks for itself, the complete and utter dominance of LeBron and AD speaks for itself, this team is on another level right now
I mean what are you supposed to do when those two combine for 82 points and as a team LAL shoots 58/45% with 14 3PM? You aren't beating that I don't care who you are. They didn't have a quarter under 32 points, are 10-2 at home and are showing no signs whatsoever of slowing down. Until a team figures out how to stop LeBron/AD, they are just going to steamroll anything in their path. For them to be able to turn on the defense over the last 12 minutes is what made things get away from MIN, and that's not a fluke either.
And that's it! You're now all caught up with everything that happened last night in the NBA. We're back today with 9 more games so you know the drill. Have yourself a great Monday!