Kelly O and Herro both at 30% from three on heavy volume. Not having Butler allows defenders to get up on the Miami shooters
2020-2021 NBA Game Thread
- Thread starter Kliq
- Start date
The Heat sure do look like a team that misses the bubble. Aside from the shooting backgrounds they had a different energy about them......although much of this can be attributed to the shooting confidence and success.
Thrilling finish in Philly. Lakers go on a 13-0 run to go up 1 with 11 seconds to go. Tobias Harris counters with the game winner over Caruso.
Battle of the Teens part deux: Wiseman and Edwards put up matching 25 spots.
Wiseman: 24 min, 25 pts (9-14 fg, 3-3 from three), 6 reb, 2 blk.
Edwards: 32 min, 25 pts (9-19 fg, 5-8 from three), 4 reb, 3 stl.
They’re both gonna be okay.
Wiseman: 24 min, 25 pts (9-14 fg, 3-3 from three), 6 reb, 2 blk.
Edwards: 32 min, 25 pts (9-19 fg, 5-8 from three), 4 reb, 3 stl.
They’re both gonna be okay.
I'm sure that's part of it, but they just lost at home to the Clippers who were without both George and Leonard. Everybody it seems has been playing without key guys.
Utah appears to be very good; they worked Dallas tonight and Mitchell was out with a concussion. Best record in the NBA and top five in both offensive and defensive rating. Conley has played like Memphis Mike Conley this season after some struggles last season. Gobert is the best defensive player in the NBA on a night-in-night-out basis and an efficient offensive player despite obvious limitations. Jordan Clarkson has given them a huge punch of the bench and appears to have found the consistency he has lacked throughout his career, and has thrived in a disciplined system. Bogdanovic had 32 tonight but actually hasn't played that well this season, so they can expect more from him. I don't think they have the elite offensive talent to beat one of the LA teams in a playoff series, but they are good.
And if Conley and Clarkson are actually good this year, they're not soooo far off in offensive talent...
Some observations from surfing last night's box scores: (1) Not often I expect you'll see Bradley Beal go 0-8 from 3. (2) Haliburton with a sweet 11 assists (so do we care if he was 1-7 from three?) against only 2 turnovers (3) Has the Raptors' drafting luck run out? Malachi Flynn logs another DNP-CD. (4) New Orleans beats Milwaukee with an 8-deep playoff-style rotation (only 3 guys off the bench played)
Another nice win for the Spurs, despite a minimal contribution for LMA. Murray is becoming a force.
https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=401267456
https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=401267456
Dame with 2 3s in the final 11 seconds, including a buzzer beater off a jump ball, to beat the bulls by 123-122
90.8% was when they were up 3 with 18 seconds left. It was at least 99.5% when they were up 5 with 11 seconds left. That was a legit Dame miracle (with a bit of help from the refs on a quick jumpball whistle).
Man, the battle for All-NBA first team frontcourt is gonna be brutal this year. LeBron and the Joker feel like locks at this point, which leaves one available slot for Embiid, KD, Giannis, Kawhi, George, and AD. I'd boot out AD straightaway (whose #2 league rank was imho one of the more laughable ESPN hijinx of the offseason) but after that it gets fairly impossible. With the imperative to separate out centers from forwards gone, I think right now it's probably...
Team 1: LeBron-Jokic-Embiid
Team 2: KD-Kawhi-George
Team 3: Giannis-AD-Tatum
?
Seems crazy to have two-time defending MVP Giannis on Team 3, but I can't really justify putting him above any of the top 6, to date anyway.
Backcourt seems like Steph & Dame #1-2 right now, but I could be a little biased. Jaylen, Harden, Beal, Conley, Luka, Trae, LaVine, Mitchell in the conversation.
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No Embiid tonight. Load management. His fragility precludes him from MVP recognition but Doc is coaching for titles, not awards. Regular season more than ever is just a prelude to the playoffs. Top seed doesn’t matter in empty arenas.
76ers win without Embiid by out scoring Pacers 35-15 in fourth quarter for a 119-110 road win. Thybulle, Simmons, Howard with strong defense. Got 54 points from bench tonight.
Remember all those posts mocking the Sixers early on in the season? That was cute. This team is legit.
Their bench is a weapon for the first time in 20 years. Thybulle is like Don Chaney’s great grandson, smothering people with his long arms and quick arms. He’s gotta be leading the league in steals per minute by now.
He’s basically been as advertised. Offense is remedial but he gets his hands on so many balls. A big asset on defense. Needs to be shooting 1000 balls / day in the summer to see if he can make that corner 3 that Bruce Bowen eventually learned.
Until we see Embiid do it in postseason, burden of proof is on them...and not in January, February, and March.
That’s fair. I have a suspicion that if Philly is going to do anything in the playoffs, it has to play defense because I still don’t trust the offense outside of Embiid and Harris.
Shot 55% from 2, 53% from 3 and lost. Lol. Fuck that team a million times.
Philly has a run like this every year, and until they get out of the second round there will be doubters. This isn't the Chris Paul era clippers where a great team just couldn't get over the hump, Philly's 2nd and 3rd best players have serious problems that emerge in the playoffs. Simmons is useless in a half court offense in a playoff series because he's the worst shooting wing in history, and Harris is exposed against teams that actually try to stop him (19.3 ppg on 48% shooting in the regular season, 15.6 ppg on 41% shooting in the playoffs). It's not entirely Embiid's fault that he seems to get worn out late in playoff games, he's the only reliable scorer they have.
Maybe this is the year that changes, but until it does I'm betting against it.
Did many around here mock the Sixers once they fired Brett Brown, hired Daryl Morey, moved Horford, and added Green/Curry? I thought it was pretty universal that it was a sound off-season for the 76ers
They are definitely better constructed and stopped the front office buffoonery of Collar Guy & Brand
Yes, they were being mocked after the season started, or at least there was a lot of skepticism. I’m fine taking a “wait and see” approach on them but they look improved to me. We’ll also see if Morey can make any further improvements before the playoffs.
It certainly is a big year for Embiid. He has elevated his game this year and needs to deliver in the postseason. And it’ll be tougher this year since the conference is deeper now.
I started the Sixers’ season thread on Jan. 1 and the comments were mostly positive except for the usual distress over Ben Simmons’ lack of outside shooting. Benhogan and bankshot1 conceded the franchise’s offseason acquisitions of Doc Rivers and Daryl Morey fixed a glaring management weakness, which has been proven out by the trade of Horford and the additions of two veteran shooters, Seth Curry and Danny Green, to the starting lineup. BigSoxFan has also been complimentary.
I am not sure the conference is stronger this year. Each of top contenders has something to fix, whether internally or through trade. Milwaukee is struggling a bit and Toronto seems to have lost its mojo. Philly depends too much on Embiid staying healthy. Fears of him going down with a serious knee or back injury are always there.
If the regular season is 60 games, we are around one-third of the way through. Brooklyn is probably the team to beat. I don’t think it matters much how the 76ers are viewed on a Boston message board. Truth be told, SOSH once again is fair to a hated rival, just as it is with the Yankees.
I'm waiting for the playoffs to decide what I think of this PHI team, they are really good, but there are definitely signs there that a focused post-season matchup can exploit...
1. Simmons and spacing.
2. Embiid passing vs. doubles.
We'll see how they handle both issues, but like MIL issues last year, you won't be able to tell until you get to the playoffs if they are killers because teams don't make those kind on night to night adjustments in the NBA regular season.
1. Simmons and spacing.
2. Embiid passing vs. doubles.
We'll see how they handle both issues, but like MIL issues last year, you won't be able to tell until you get to the playoffs if they are killers because teams don't make those kind on night to night adjustments in the NBA regular season.
Agreed. I don't want to discount what they've done, Embiid looks like an MVP candidate and the roster definitely looks better than last season. But they have played one of the weakest schedules in the NBA thus far. Their most meaningful win of the season was against the Lakers. Most of their wins have come against bad teams (Washington, Detroit, Charlotte, Minnesota, Orlando) and the playoff contenders they've beaten were all shorthanded. Boston was without Tatum, Miami was without Butler and Bam in both games, Indiana obviously weakened by not having LaVert healthy.
It will be interesting to see where they stand in mid-February, after they play Charlotte Wednesday, they have a start a stretch playing Portland (2nd half of a back to back) and Brooklyn at home, then a west coast swing @Sacramento, Portland, Phoenix, and Utah.
I think the jury is out on all the top contenders, even the Lakers, who must worry about AD’s sore knee. Philly is working on the premise that it needs to keep getting better. Their second unit is starting to jell. But they are probably one shooter short. They might give up something to bring back Redick. Salary would be an issue, too.
That plus the fact that their splashy offseason addition Dennis Schröder looks more like the fairly sh*tty basketball player he was in his first six NBA seasons than the one-year mirage we saw last season. It’s been masked a bit by the fact that KCP and Caruso have been great (along with that LeBron guy), but he could easily be their Achilles heel come playoff time.
I’d take Clips over Lakeshow right now at even money, though I know I said that last season and ate my words.
Schroder got to the hoop whenever he wanted against Philly. Might have to zone him next time!
Boy, I hope you're right. I think the Lakers are more or less bored with the regular season and have at least one extra gear for when it matters. Barring injury to LeBron or AD I think they are clear, clear favorites.
It's been a bleak year, but it's time for some RUSSELL WESTBROOK OPTIMISM.
Westbrook annihilated Brooklyn last night as they had no answer for his length-of-the-court rampages to the basket and Brooklyn really had no interest in getting back to stop him. Maybe Westbrook just summoned some hidden superpowers he had reserved for playing Durant, BUT he is starting to round into form. His big problem right now is his terrible shooting percentage, just 40 percent. He has somehow managed to hit 36 percent of his threes (SSS alert!) this season, which would be a big improvement over the 25 percent he shot last year.
Westbrook looked completely lost last season in Houston, but then rebounded and somehow played his way onto the All-NBA third team. I'm not counting him out yet though! I still believe!
Westbrook annihilated Brooklyn last night as they had no answer for his length-of-the-court rampages to the basket and Brooklyn really had no interest in getting back to stop him. Maybe Westbrook just summoned some hidden superpowers he had reserved for playing Durant, BUT he is starting to round into form. His big problem right now is his terrible shooting percentage, just 40 percent. He has somehow managed to hit 36 percent of his threes (SSS alert!) this season, which would be a big improvement over the 25 percent he shot last year.
Westbrook looked completely lost last season in Houston, but then rebounded and somehow played his way onto the All-NBA third team. I'm not counting him out yet though! I still believe!
The league is a hell of a lot more fun when Russ goes into berserker-mode. I was shocked by that outcome last night. It seemed like Brooklyn was in control, could get a bucket whenever it wanted and that Washington inevitably would fall short. But Russ and Beal (and the supporting cast, including a feisty Mo Wagner) never stopped competing.
Yeah, when I say I still believe, I'm basically saying that I still believe in the idea that Westbrook can still entertain me as a maniac that can roll over lazy defenses, as opposed to being a past his prime bricklayer.