He had a great game, but Whiteside had a game (statistics-wise) that no player has done this season. Then Dame demonstrated why he was the best player on the floor tonight. Every night, '3''s from the logo. 40 '3's in last five games....only NBA player to ever do that. Only one turnover tonight.
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Both teams were sluggish the first six minutes.
"One problem with people who have no vices is that they're pretty sure to have some annoying virtues."
Looks like Skal will beat Nurkic back. End of February for Nurkic. Mid to late March for Zach. Whiteside probably won't get traded. Trent is playing great the last couple weeks....getting better every game. Ariza has been a godsend. Like Wed against Houston when Lillard took his foot off the pedal in the 2nd Half (25/5/5 in 1st and 12/5/7 in the 2nd), the help is arriving. We ran out of bigs tonight and Mario's insertion almost cost them the game. Gabriel did some good things in his debut tonight...didn't succumb to the pressure like Hezonja keeps doing. Little is getting comfortable.
If Dame needs to average 40 until Nurkic gets back at the end of the month, he can do it. The playoffs offer plenty of rest. Tonight's game was a preview of the 1st Rd, except Portland will get Labissiere, Nurkic and Collins, all bigs, to combat the Lakers' greatest strength.
"One problem with people who have no vices is that they're pretty sure to have some annoying virtues."
In hindsight, it’s clear too many people were sleeping on OKC after the summer of trades. But CP3, Adams and progressive SGA we probably underestimated them with Schroeder leading the second unit. Might have just been overcook rather than underrated?
Someone said it best about Dame today, this isn't a hot streak it's a inferno. Over his last 5 - 48.4/8.2/9.8. Ridiculous. If he ever gets the right players around him and he gets hot in the postseason he'll get a ring.
Kingspoint (02-01-2020)
Denver played 9 players last night, and all 9 finished in double figures. That does not include Jamal Murray, who sat out the contest.
he was great, but to be honest if was not defending and Whiteside that beat the Lakers last night. I know a few of the guys were having a little trouble focusing after the tribute, but it is a little worrisome on a night that they knew they needed to win, they did not find a way. The defense has really regressed since AD's injury...maybe a little before.
Lakers put up 81 points in the 1st Half @ Sacramento....that would have been cool if they put up "81" in a half last night.
My Sixers miss JJ Redick.
* Attended the 1990 and 2010 Reds Division clinchers *
Go 76ers, Go Steelers and Go Bucks
All right, it's trade deadline week.
Likely selling teams, with what other teams might want from them:
Chicago - Kris Dunn, Thaddeus Young, Cristiano Felicio, Denzel Valentine
Washington - Davis Bertans, Isaiah Thomas, Ish Smith, Ian Mahinmi
Detroit - Andre Drummond, Derrick Rose, Reggie Jackson, Tony Snell, Markieff Morris, Christian Wood
Charlotte - Cody Zeller, Bismack Biyombo, Malik Monk
New York - Marcus Morris, Bobby Portis, Elfrid Payton, Kevin Knox
Cleveland - Kevin Love, Tristan Thompson,
Atlanta - Jabari Parker, Alex Len, Jeff Teague, Evan Turner
Sacramento _ Nemanja Bjelica, Bogdan Bogdanovich, Dewayne Dedmon, Yogi Ferrell
Minnesota - Robert Covington, Shabazz Napier, Noah Vonleh
Golden State - D'Angelo Russell, Glenn Robinson, Alec Burks
There's also a pile of bubble teams, but the only one that seems like a potential seller is Phoenix (Dario Saric, Aaron Baynes, Frank Kaminsky). I think Orlando should go into seller mode with D.J. Augustin and Evan Fournier (who's not going to pick up his player option this summer because he will get paid on the open market). New Orleans ought to consider moving J.J. Redick, Derrick Favors, E'Tuan Moore and Jahlil Okafor if the offers are right. If Portland could get assets for Hassan Whiteside, it should probably do that (somewhat depends on Nurkic and Collins returning and being any good). The Moneyball play for the Spurs would be to move DeMar DeRozan, who will be making himself a free agent this summer. Joe Harris is also a UFA this summer, so Brooklyn might want to move him. Memphis surely would have sold Jae Crowder, but probably not with the team sitting in a playoff spot (though it almost surely moves Andre Iguodala).
I'm not a system player. I am a system.
Daryl Morey is always cooking up something. I don't know about letting Clint Capela go. Should be interesting.
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/...ost-east-teams
The Celtics are an interesting team to watch at the deadline. They're actually an example of how not having bad contracts can get you in trouble. If they had blown $15m on some stiff, they could attach that dead weight to a draft pick and get a real player. Yet everybody who makes $5M and up on that team is making serious contribution (and there's only seven of them). Doesn't make any sense to move Marcus Smart, who you really can't replace if he's gone.
Theoretically they could look to flip Gordon Hayward for an impact big, but good luck finding that guy. They'll probably have to comb the release bin for a traditional big.
Yet they can and probably will add depth. A shooting big like Davis Bertans or Nemanja Bjelica could be a good fit. Romeo Langford is the biggest salary they have to offer in return ($3.46M). They're going to be hunting for playable depth at a good price.
Last edited by M2; 02-03-2020 at 04:51 PM.
I'm not a system player. I am a system.
https://www.theringer.com/nba/2020/2...trade-deadline
Even with the trade deadline just three days away, the best story—and show—in the league is whatever Lillard does next. On Friday, he took center stage during the Lakers’ first game at home since the tragic death of Kobe Bryant and scored in a way that brought needed joy to a sporting memorial. It has gone this way for weeks. The unsuspecting Warriors were just trying to get reps for Jordan Poole when Lillard blasted them for 61 points, the most of any player in any game this season. Then he dropped 47 on the Mavericks and a cool 50 on the Pacers, before scaling back with a 36-point triple-double against the Rockets. This is no longer a scoring explosion. It’s a blankety-blank inferno. All scorched earth and singed eyebrows, which, under the circumstances, is exactly what the Trail Blazers have so desperately needed. Portland reworked its roster coming into this season only to see it unbalanced by injury—not only to Jusuf Nurkic, who has been out since March, but Zach Collins, and Rodney Hood, and Skal Labissière. At this point, the back half of the rotation is filled entirely with players slotted one or two rungs higher than intended. Flaky starters are now essential personnel. Third-stringers became backups. Two-way prospects fill spot minutes. Lillard has effectively taken the 37-footer that dispatched the Thunder last season—a “bad shot” in the words of Paul George—and mass-produced it for export to every NBA city he visits. Pulling up beyond 30 feet is not only viable for Lillard but legitimately dangerous. It is a terror upon the guards who are asked to check Lillard, and upon the bigs who are expected to step up to meet him at the point of the screen. The whole premise is a recipe for reaction and overreaction. If Lillard can bait his opponents into chasing ghosts out near half court, he invalidates the logic behind pretty much every defensive system out there. Some opponents have gone as far as to defend Lillard as they have James Harden: by running a second defender his way, unprompted, in the hope that he might pass the ball off. It’s there that the comparison ends. After passing out of a double team, Harden will sometimes linger out near midcourt, pulling at least one defender entirely out of the play. The most dangerous scorer on the floor, in that instance, can exert influence from miles beyond the 3-point arc. Lillard is too much like Curry to operate in that way. Checking Lillard requires two distinct skill sets: the savvy to handle one of the highest-volume pick-and-roll players in the league; and the comprehension to track a first-class shooter away from the ball, around screen after screen. The Jazz, the Lakers, and the Rockets—that makes three of the best teams in the conference, all beaten by Lillard and the undermanned Blazers in the past week. The Nuggets, Portland’s opponent on Tuesday, are potentially next in line. Even as Lillard hits his own impressive new highs, something about all of this feels familiar. It’s around this time every year that Portland’s season seems to take a turn; in the past two seasons, the Blazers started slowly only to win roughly 70 percent of their games after the turn of the calendar year. This iteration of the team is more limited, more injured, and starting its run a bit later—so late, in fact, that Portland isn’t yet in the playoff picture. Picking up Trevor Ariza was essentially a deadline move made early, and with it the Blazers have managed to close the gap on the eighth seed. Still they remain behind both the curve of the conference and the pace of their past two seasons. More profound, however, is what those Blazer teams have in common. It’s easy to compare Lillard to Curry, by style or substance, without grappling with what that comparison actually means. This is one of the greatest shooters the game has ever seen, harnessing his power as he never has before.
"One problem with people who have no vices is that they're pretty sure to have some annoying virtues."
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