Last Night In The NBA: If You Didn't Get Ejected Were You Even Trying?
Happy Monday everybody and welcome to another edition of Last Night In The NBA where we catch you up on everything that went down from the night before in the Association. Sadly, even though I know you’re hurting after a long weekend of watching college basketball, drinking, and most likely losing money, we only have 4 games to talk about this morning. I know you’re looking for anything to distract you from actually doing anything at work today, so let’s just dive right in. If you missed the fun yesterday, here’s what happened.
Thunder (43-29) 132 vs Raptors (52-18) 125
It finally happened! The Raptors not only lost a game, but they lost one at home! Granted they got boned at the end but that’s something we’ll talk about later. A huge road win for OKC, this was their 6th in a row and thats important because POR ahead of them has won 12 in a row and UTA behind them has won 9 in a row. If OKC wants to stay in that 4 spot or even potentially catch POR for the 3, they basically are not allowed to lose ever again it seems. As you can imagine, in a win like this it usually means the stars for OKC showed out, and that’s exactly what happened
A really impressive offensive performance from OKC finishing with 55/47% splits, 10 3PM, and 34 FTA. Their 132 points in regulation were the highest of their season and the second time this year where they finished over 120 against TOR. The Thunder offense has been on fire during this streak, with four of the 6 games reaching over 115 points. This is the Thunder team that I hope we get in the playoffs, because when they are locked in like this offensively they are showing they can beat almost anyone.
I know people love to diminish this accomplishment, but I still find it very cool that Westbrook has another streak of 5 straight triple doubles and has become the only other person besides the Big O with three career streaks of 5 straight triple doubles. It was also the 33rd game Westbrook has led his team in points, rebounds, and assists, which is tied with a guy named Wilt Chamberlain for the most games like that in NBA history. Those are BIG TIME names.
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For TOR, they definitely have a case for being upset with how that game ended. We can all admit that DeRozan got fouled on the last drive. As usual Lowry and DeRozan led the way with 46 combined points
but I’m sorry Kyle Lowry has to be smarter. When you have 5 fouls already you can’t slide your butt out onto someone on a screen like that. This was such an easy call to make and definitely impacted the outcome
With Lowry fouled out, we then had DeRozan lose his shit and get ejected, then Dwayne Casey got ejected, all that was left to do was laugh about the whole situation because the refs had definitely lost control. I will say it’s not often the Raptors lose a game at home in which they also have 56/50% splits with 15 3PM, but they did turn it over 19 times and giving up 132 points usually doesn’t end well. This loss broke their winning streak, but fortunately they did not lose any ground as the #1 seed.
So there’s the silver lining I guess, even when TOR loses it doesn’t even hurt their standings. What assholes.
Celtics (47-23) 89 vs Pelicans (40-30) 108
Full blog on this is coming, but I’m pretty sure Anthony Davis outscored the entire Celtics team. Or at least it sure as shit felt that way
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Rockets (56-14) 129 vs Timberwolves (40-31) 120
Listen this was a blowout early, so I commend the Timberwolves for actually somewhat clawing back and making this a competitive game. A 38-23 first quarter at home is definitely not how you wanted to start, and a lot of that was because they had no answer for Harden or CP3
But these are things we already know. Harden and Paul are good at basketball, no duh. The real excitement came from none other than my man Gerald Green
Not only did he have 12 points off the bench, he was ready to FUCK DIENG UP. This wasn’t one of those fake NBA hold me back fights either. The dude was ready to roll. This is why I love Gerald Green. He can come in and knock down threes in an instant, but he’s also crazy enough where he’ll fight anyone, anywhere, anytime. Need guys like that.
For MIN, like I said they made a valiant effort to claw their way back, but ultimately it was not meant to be. Here’s where things get a little ugly for MIN fans, so if you are one of those read with caution. Now having lost 2 in a row MIN finds themselves in the 8 spot, with just a 1.5 game lead over the 9 spot Nuggets. They are the only top 8 team to be under .500 over their last 10 games, and we need to start talking about the very real fact that this team may miss the playoff completely. Remember just a few weeks ago when they were in the 4 spot and loving life? Well now their fighting for their playoff lives.
There’s good news though. Their schedule of LAC/NYK/PHI/MEM/ATL/DAL is a pretty easy way to end the month, and from a players perspective, Derrick Rose is doing stuff!
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Trail Blazers (44-26) 122 vs Clippers (37-32) 109
I’m telling you, do not sleep on the Blazers. This 13 game win streak is no joke, see for yourself
The Blazers are playing their best basketball at the right time, helping them create just a little space between them and OKC for the 3 seed. As you can expect, this game came down to not only Dame/CJ being fucking awesome
but also solid contributions from their main role players
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Every time the Clippers tried to make a run in the second half POR was right there to punch back, and their doing it with efficient offense: 50/48% splits 14 3PM, 20 FTA, 13 TOs and some of their best defense of the season.
During this streak, just the Warriors have broken 110 and 7 of the 13 wins have teams scoring 100 or less. That’s why I believe in this POR team, because their defense has taken a legit step all while Dame has taken a giant leap. A potential POR/GS second round series would be fun considering POR is 2-1 against them this year. I hope we see it.
For LAC, it’s a bad time to lose 3 in a row. Now 2 full games out of the 8th spot in the West, this may be the beginning of the end for their playoff dreams. Don’t focus on that though if you’re a Clipper fan, that’s depressing. Instead just enjoy Lou Williams scoring the basketball, which he did plenty of in this game
And that’s it! You’re now all caught up on everything that happened last night in the NBA. We’re back with 8 more games tonight including MIL/CLE, LAL/IND, and GS/SA. As always if you get busy and can’t watch them all just make sure to check back here tomorrow morning and I’ll fill you in.