Advertisement

Last Night In The NBA: Some Teams Avoided Disaster, Others Weren't So Lucky

embiid

Happy Saturday everybody and welcome to another edition of Last Night In The NBA where we catch you up on everything that happened from the night before in the Association. I know, I know, nobody was watching the NBA last night because of all the hooplah happening in the tournament. Why would you? That’s the exact reason I’m here so you can go about your life watching other things and can come back and rely on this blog to bring you up to speed. We had just 6 games last night but almost all of them were thrilling, so before you start blacking out let’s talk about what happened.

Sixers (38-30) 120 vs Nets (21-48) 116

I certainly do not think the Sixers expected to play such a close game at home against BKN, maybe they weren’t as focused or something because once the game started BKN came out and punched them right in the mouth. Seeing as it was Embiid’s 24th birthday you know he would do his best to put on a show, and he didn’t disappoint

Just a casual 24/19/4 and he didn’t even shoot the ball that well. Between his solid defense and game saving block in the final moments, Embiid was fantastic. We could also say the same thing for his basketball alien teammate Ben Simmons, who has been on a pretty legit tear recently. In this one it was a solid 21/8/12 on 10-17 shooting

and looking at his recent stretch of games, who on earth could complain about 13/9.0/9.6 on 49% shooting over his last 5 games?

The win now brings PHI to 21-11 at home as they still try and do their best to secure homecourt. Despite it being at 2, they do have the second longest winning streak in the East art the moment and sit just 1 game behind CLE for that 4 spot. They’ve got a comfortable 2 game lead over MIL/MIA, so really in my opinion this team at worst is a 6 seed and could very well find itself in the top 4 if CLE still stinks up the joint and WSH remains inconsistent.

If you’re a PHI fan, would you rather play IND or one of the WSH/CLE in the first round?

For BKN, like I said they had their chances. Things were close after they obviously blew their early lead, but they actually played well. 116 points is no joke and neither is the 44/50% splits with 15 3PM, 27 FTA and just 12 TOs. More often than not you win a game like that. But once again the Nets shit their pants in a late game situation, and I’m not sure what Dinwiddie was thinking on his final possession where he held it forever and then drove right at Embiid, but if you think you’re getting any sort of call on Embiid on his birthday at home in that situation you my friend are a moron. This is not the first time the Nets have lost a game like this where Dinwiddie drives late and gets no call, you’d think they would run a different play.

I know CLE fans out there are watching, the BKN pick is now in the 5 spot in the lottery odds standings.

Celtics (47-22) 92 vs Magic (21-49) 83

Full blog on this will be out later, just know this was horrendous basketball played by both sides and the Celtics once again blew a 20 point lead. Gross.

Raptors (52-17) 122 vs Mavericks (22-47) 115 F/OT

These motherfucking Raptors just won’t die man. It’s incredible. Just when it looked like they were FINALLY going to lose to a team under .500, here we are with egg on our face. They are now 31-2 against teams under .500. Let me put that into perspective for you. HOU is 23-4, GS is 23-5, BOS 26-5, POR 23-5. The things TOR does to these shitty teams should be illegal. You knew watching this game that even when the Raptors were down like 8 points in the fourth they were going to win. Once they forced OT, it was a wrap, we all knew what was coming.

Advertisement

DeRozan led the way obviously and it was another poor shooting night for Wright which didn’t seem to matter all that much. JV was solid with 21/12 on 7-9 shooting, the bench had three guys in double figures, and TOR is now a league best 29-5 at home. They’ve won 11 in a row and now have the same winning percentage on the season as GS.

There is no more “we don’t expect anything from TOR” or “nobody is talking about TOR”. At this point, if they don’t make the Finals it is a disappointing season. If they don’t even make an ECF well shit, that would be a disaster.

For DAL, would have been nice to see them end the streak, they got a good night from Dennis Smith Jr

as well as 27 from Harrison Barnes and 18 huge points from JJ Barea off the bench out of nowhere. To be honest one of their best plays came from a dude I hadn’t even heard of, but this was some dunk

Advertisement

DAL does have some tanking work to do, currently sitting in the 6 spot, so maybe this loss wasn’t the worst thing to happen to them. Good effort though.

Thunder (42-49) 121 vs Clippers (37-31) 113

Here’s a game that had some pretty important playoff seeding implications. This was now the 5th win in a row for OKC which is important as they try their best to hang with POR who has won 11 in a row. They sit just 1.5 games back of that 3 spot. OKC has really turned things around during the home stretch of this season, playing their best basketball at the right time. A 8-2 record over their last 10, they got contributions from everyone last night

Westbrook another 16/10/11 triple dub, and really every other starter not named Melo had a solid night. OKC is one of the more intriguing teams in the West for me, because there are times like this where I watch them play and feel like they can beat anybody, but then other times you watch them  not play any defense and you wonder how they are even a playoff team. Their playoff run is going to be must watch stuff.

For LAC, at this point in the season in the West you really can’t go on any sort of losing skid. Well, the Clippers have now lost 2 in a row and find themselves on the outside looking in. They are now 1.5 games from the 8 spot, and with UTA winning everything and SA suddenly righting the ship, things aren’t looking to hot.

But don’t focus on that, focus on the highlights instead

Advertisement

I will say I found it very confusing to remember which team was which given the uniforms the Clippers were wearing. They were basically wearing an OKC away jersey and I found it to be very annoying.

Kings (23-47) 98 vs Warriors (52-17) 93

I don’t really care that the Warriors sat basically their entire team. You can’t still lose to the Kings at home. SAc had just 1 starter in double figures, and just 3 on their entire team. One of those happened to be Buddy Hield who was great

Pretty stupid of them to win this game though when you really think about it. They’ve now won 2 in a row and have dropped all the way to 7th in the lottery odds standings.

For GS, omg wasn’t Steph Curry SO FUNNY the way he trolled Buddy Hield? Like OMG he is hilaaaaaarious

In terms of the guys that actually played, both Quinn Cook and Nick Young were solid, combining for 41 points and making 8 3PM

We also learned that Kevin Durant is getting in on some of that end of season rest, he’s being shut down for 2 weeks and to that I say I am not surprised. It’s only a matter of days before we hear about some injury that Draymond has been dealing with even though he just put up 14/10/7/4/2 last night. It’s coming.

Heat (37-33) 92 vs Lakers (31-38) 91

I’m so sad the Lakers lost by a point, how unfortunate for them. Maybe next time don’t let Goran Dragic basically do whatever he wants

Advertisement

How about that defense by Lonzo with the game on the line? I hear Lakers fans on Twitter all the time suck his dick about how great of a defender he is, well what happened? It’s not like he got screened or anything, he got crossed up with the game on the line. Brutal.

MIA also had nice efforts from guys like Olynyk who had 17/5 and James Johnson who had 12/7/5/3/1. This win helped MIA keep their dream alive of snagging at least the 7 seed, and with MIL sneaky struggling at the moment that wouldn’t shock me one bit. Pretty crazy season for MIA given their expectations and injuries, so to see them as a 7 seed would be pretty cool.

For LAL, Julius Randle continues to play at a crazy high level, another 25/12 for him last night, some might say HE should have been the one to take the final shot. Instead it was Isaiah who missed and here’s the explanation

Advertisement

Despite the loss the Lakers are playing decent basketball, and remember this is all without Brandon Ingram. I’ll say this, if the Lakers don’t resign Randle because Magic still thinks he’s getting Lebron and PG13, then he should be fired. Randle is going to really help whatever team he plays on next, and he’s so young there is still a lot more development to go. He’s made himself a LOT of money these last few months.

And that’s it! You’re now all caught up with everything that happened last night in the NBA. We have 11 games tonight including IND/WSH, HOU/NO, CLE/CHI, and MIN/SA, but go spend your day getting fucked up and watching the tournament and I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.