Last Night In The NBA: Poor Spurs
Happy Tuesday 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. We all know it’s playoff time which rules, but one downside of the first round is the NBA stretches it out for what seems like 6 months. As a result, we had just 2 games last night. It’s almost as if the NBA doesn’t care that us normal folk are looking for ways to kill time at work. Pretty selfish. Anyway, both games were worth watching, and if you got busy and missed them, here’s what happened
Miami Heat 113 Philadelphia 76ers 103 (Series tied 1-1)
Well well well, look who has a series on their hands. This game has been blogged what, three times already? I’ll keep it short and right to the good stuff. First, let’s talk about MIA
Obviously a big part of the story was the play of Wade, but his supporting cast also played a big role. Guys like James Johnson and Josh Richardson had huge bounce back efforts. After combining to go 6-16 in Game 1, they were much better this time around, finishing with 32 points on 12-19 shooting. That’s a huge difference. Then off the bench guys like Olynyk and Ellington were solid, and defensively this looked much more like the team MIA was all season. Now this doesn’t mean they should be favored to win the series, but it does tell us that it won’t quite be the blowout that we all thought after Game 1
For PHI, look regression is tough. The Basketball Gods blessed them with an unreal Game 1, and they had to then pay the bill last night. That shit happens. They still had some pretty impressive performances from guys like Saric, who is playing out of his mind,
and Ilyasova and Belinelli continue to shoot the ball at a ridiculous clip.
If you thought Ben Simmons’ playoff debut was a fluke, you feel pretty stupid today. MIA has yet to find a way to stop him, and he finished with a great 24/9/8 on 10-17 shooting in this one. The big deal with PHI is what happens in Game 3. I don’t see how you can sit Embiid out, it’s time to unleash him and get the momentum back in this series. If MIA is having this much trouble with PHI without Embiid, I can’t imagine he makes them worse.
San Antonio Spurs 101 vs Golden State Warriors 116 (GS leads 2-0)
Man just when you thought that MAYBE the Spurs were going to go into Oracle and steal one, the Warriors reminded us how stupid you are for even entertaining the thought. Outside of Draymond who went 2-9, pick a Warrior and I bet they dominated. See for yourself
Klay with 31/5 on 12-20 including 5 3PM, Durant with 32/6/6 on 10-19, Iggy with 14/7/5 on 5-7 and 4(!!!) 3PM, David West off the bench with 10/4/2 on 3-3 shooting, JaVale with 10/7 on 5-7 shooting, the list goes on and on. It is virtually impossible to beat GS when they finish with 52/48% splits and 15 3PM, all while playing some pretty effective defense. Here’s what they all had to say about it
Love them or hate them, the cocky Warriors are back.
For SA, I feel for them because they were so close. LaMarcus Aldridge was an absolute monster, putting this team on his back on the way to 34/12/3 on 11-21
But sadly, the rest of the Spurs team forgot how to shoot. They finished with just 41/14% splits which really is unfortunate because they turned it over just 9 times and were in this game until late in the third quarter. I don’t see how they win 4 of the next 5 games, and it may be time to just get this over with. To fuel the fire, I’m sure nobody is going to overreact to Pop’s postgame comments. Nope no way.
We get it, you’re mad at Kawhi.
They say a series doesn’t really start until a team loses at home, but I’m sorry, not only has this series started, it’s also over.
And that’s it! You’re now caught up on everything that happened last night in the NBA. We’re back tonight with three more games, including MIL/BOS, WSH/TOR, and NO/POR. Another good night of basketball is in out future, but as always if you happen to miss anything just check back here tomorrow and I’ll fill you in.