Last Night In The NBA: Do We Have Our First "Blow It Up" Team Of The Season?

I know I know, football is on. However, there was also some NBA basketball last night, 7 games in total, and you’re going to need something to read during halftime so here we are. If you were out on a Saturday night and missed the action, here’s what happened.

Hornets (6-9) 102 vs Clippers (5-10) 87

This now makes 8 losses in a row for the Clippers, safe to say they are in a complete free fall. We’re getting very close to either a coaching change or someone is getting moved. Is it possible to be in Blow It Up territory in November? Maybe not, but it’s more possible given the conference that the Clippers play in. For example, both Lou Williams and DeAndre Jordan are in the last year of their deals, and can help teams. It’s clear injuries have hurt the Clippers, but this isn’t working.

For CHA, Kemba Walker continued to play out of his mind lately, he had 26 on 8-17 with 6 made threes, and Dwight was right behind him with 16/16 on 7-10

I know Dwight is a doofus who is basically a cancer everywhere he goes and is a player I wouldn’t want anywhere near my team, but he’s showing that even at 31, he still has something left in the tank. I mean talk about consistency

Imagine having 39/42% splits and winning comfortably against a Western Conference team. CHA fans probably enjoyed that.

For LAC, like I said, it may be time to start thinking about breaking this team up and planning for the future. Lou Williams was really the only player who showed up, he had 25 in 29 minutes off the bench

Celtics (15-2) 110 vs Hawks (3-13) 99

This has everything you need to know

Jazz (7-10) 125 vs Magic (8-8) 85

Remember when the Magic were one of the most explosive offensive teams in the NBA? Those were fun times. They’ve now lost four in a row and are having a hard time scoring. Aaron Gordon was solid with 18/9 on 50% shooting

but outside of that, it was struggle city. Fournier went 4-11, Vucevic 3-11, Payton 3-7, Speights 4-10, pretty surprising results considering they were playing at home.

For UTA, the fact that they held a team to 85 points isn’t that much of a surprise, they are a good defensive team. What is surprising is they scored 125 points and won by 40. They can thank Derrick Favors and his 25/11 on 10-12 and Rodney Hood (who has been on FIRE lately) for his 31/5 off the bench

Donovan Mitchell was also pretty good, more of a quiet but solid performance . It’s interesting that UTA kept him in the starting lineup, even with Rubio back

Warriors (12-4) 124 vs Sixers (8-7) 116

This game, holy shit. Nothing was more Philly then all of Sixers Twitter ejaculating on eachother for how this game started, only to see them get outscored 47-15 in the third quarter and lose this game by 8 points. It’s almost like they forgot GS is an entirely different team once they start trying. PHI and their fans have a lot to be excited for, but boy was it fun seeing them get stuffed back into a locker.

For PHI, despite the loss, they still got some performances from Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid that have to make you giddy for the future. Those two were very much a problem for GS in the first 24 minutes, there’s no denying that

Also don’t forget about Robert Covington’s 20 points including 5 made threes, or Redicks 20 on 8-16. Four of the five starters for PHI had at leat 20 points. That’s impressive no matter who you play let alone it being the defending champs.

Rockets (13-4) 105 vs Grizzlies (7-8) 83

It would appear that CP3 is starting to get his legs under him

9-1 on the road is no joke, that’s some Celtics type shit, and the Rockets are proving to be every bit the regular season team most expected. They have the 2nd highest point differential in not only the West, but the entire NBA, trailing just GS. James Harden is having a legit MVP type season, following up what many thought was an MVP caliber season last year. As a team they made 18 threes, and this was with Eric Gordon going 3-10, which won’t happen often. I’m sure HOU fans only care how this team does in the playoffs, given the reputation of their two best players, but they are legit, there’s no other way to say it.

For MEM, it’s hard to win without Mike Conley, it’s even harder to win when you have 36/25% splits. JaMychel Green was a bright spot though, in his second game back since missing essentially the entire year (he played 4 minutes on opening night), he had 15/6 on 6-8 shooting. Many may not know about Green, but he’s a very underrated 27 year old small ball PF.

Mavericks (3-14) vs Bucks (8-7) 79

I want to take the Bucks seriously, I really really do, but then shit like this happens. You cannot lose by 30+ points to the worst team in the NBA, and have your entire roster available. You simply can’t.

Instead, DAL tied their franchise record for threes, and put in one of the most surprising wins of the season

For MIL, sure Giannis did Giannis things

and Middleton was great shooting 9-12

but I think Kidd said it best

Trail Blazers (9-7) 102 vs Kings (4-12) 90

At least POR was able to get some revenge. Dame/CJ were great, accounting for nearly half of the 102 (they had 47),

and as a team POR shot much better this time around with 54/47% splits which was important because they did turn it over 18 times.

I also really enjoy following the Blazers on Twitter, their account is probably the best in the NBA, but man this made me laugh

Calm down there guy.

For SAC, WCS still didn’t start, but did produce 18/9, and Fox was pretty good in his 28 minutes

And that’s it! You’re now all caught up on everything that happened last night in the NBA. There are 6 more games on today, but feel free to just spend it watching football and check back here tomorrow morning. I’ll have you covered.