2016-2017 NBA Game Thread

Light-Tower-Power

ask me about My Pillow
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Jun 14, 2013
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Wizards lost to the Jazz last night. They and Toronto are now 3 back of first so it looks like barring an epic collapse, the C's wil do no worse than the 2 seed.
 

Kliq

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One of the small but fun things about the second half has been the post-Boogie Kings are actually pretty fun to watch. They are not good by any means, but they play hard and with energy for Joerger. For all the (deserved) shit their management has taken, they actually have somewhat of a promising young core. They have three raw, but talented big men in WCS (agile, good defender) Labissiere (nice mid-range jumper, shot-blocking potential) and Georgios Papagiannis (aka Papa G, a bear that is like a young Valanciunas and is only 19). They have Hield on the outside, who I think is going to be a pretty good NBA play if never a franchise player. They really need a PG but fortunately their is a PG heavy draft coming up.

 

Cesar Crespo

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Dec 22, 2002
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Elfrid Payton's last 18 games: 30.9 minutes, 13.2 points, 7.9 rebounds, 8.6 assists, 1.2 steals on .505/.300/.770 shooting. 5 triple doubles, and another 3 games where he went 15/9/9, 12/10/8 and 12/15/9. He's an interesting player. Kinda reminds me of a taller Rondo except Elfrid has improved his FT shooting this year a good deal. Could just be sample size but being 70% from the line as opposed to 60% is a huge deal.

Jokic's last 27 games: 30.3 minutes, 18.6 points, 11.5 rebounds, 6.3 assists on .568/.328/.849 shooting with 6 triple doubles.

Jokic is already at 11/5/3 tonight with 3 minutes to go in the 1st. Jokic is 4th in triple doubles with all 6 coming since Feb 3. Elfrid Payton is 5th in the league with 5, all coming since March 3rd. Westbrook has 40, Harden 20 and James 10.
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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One of the small but fun things about the second half has been the post-Boogie Kings are actually pretty fun to watch.
Seems like one of those trades that helped both teams as Pelicans have been playing pretty well since March 10. Here's some stats during those 11 games:

Points Per Game / Offensive Rating / Defensive Rating /Net Rating / DREB% / eFG% / Assists / Turnovers
8-game stretch between 2/23-3/10: 96.8 (30th) / 96.1 (30th) / 102.1 (6th) / -6.0 (26th) / 73.6% (28th) / 46.4% (30th) / 20.1 (27th) / 16.0 (24th)
11-game stretch between 3/10-4/1: 113.0 (3rd) / 111.8 (4th) / 102.9 (6th) / 8.9 (2nd) / 79.2% (8th) / 54.6% (5th) / 25.2 (7th) / 10.7 (2nd)
 

Cesar Crespo

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Cavs blow a 13 point lead with 9 minutes left. Up 102-101 vs the Pacers with 2:00 left. This would be a HUGE loss for the Cavs and great news for the C's.
 

Cesar Crespo

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and now Pacers are up 104-102. It's a huge game for the Pacers too. Keeps them on pace with the Bulls and with Miami currently losing, in the 8th seed.

Tristan Thompson just missed 2 huge FTs with 26 seconds left and the game tied.
 
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Cesar Crespo

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JR Smith hits a 3 with 2 seconds left in OT to give the Cavs a 114-113 lead.

And then Tristan Thompson fouls Paul George with 1 second left on the clock and George misses the first, hits the 2nd. Could be going into 2OT.
 

moly99

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I was hoping that would be a Pyrrhic victory for the Cavs, but unfortunately they have a day off after this game and then face the Magic at home the next day.
 

Sam Ray Not

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Warriors wax the Wiz 139-115 for their 11th straight (incl. consecutive wins over MEM, @HOU, @SA, HOU, WAS).

Steph destroys Wall: 42 points (on 22 fga), 8 assists, 1 turnover in 36 minutes.

Most three-pointers in a season, all-time:

1. Curry 402 (2015-16)
2. Curry 302 (2016-17)
3. Curry 286 (2014-15)
4. Thompson 276 (2015-16)
5. Curry 272 (2012-13)
 
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DJnVa

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Westbrook has clinched averaging a triple double.

He's played in 76 games and has 791 assists and 809 boards. At most he'll play in 79 games.
 

Cesar Crespo

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Westbrook has clinched averaging a triple double.

He's played in 76 games and has 791 assists and 809 boards. At most he'll play in 79 games.
How do you figure? He's at 76 games and the Thunder have played 76 games. He could play 82.
 

Soxfan in Fla

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Westbrook has clinched averaging a triple double.

He's played in 76 games and has 791 assists and 809 boards. At most he'll play in 79 games.
I saw a scroll yesterday that he needed 11 more boards and 29 more assists to clinch, which adds up to those season totals.
 

BigSoxFan

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Please Nets, don't make me think of a top 5 draft pick list. The ping pong balls have just been too unkind for too long.
They finish with Bulls, Celtics, Bulls. I'd be surprised if they win more than 1 of those.
 

Sprowl

mikey lowell of the sandbox
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Tronna collapses in the second half against Indiana, suffers 34-point swing, loses balance and dignity.
 

Cellar-Door

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Tronna collapses in the second half against Indiana, suffers 34-point swing, loses balance and dignity.
I loved the bit where they kept their starters in down 15 with shot clock off to launch early clock 3s to try and stat pad, then lost their shit when Lance made a layup instead of dribbling out the clock. Toronto seems like such a mentally soft team come April of every season.
 

budcrew08

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There are certain records that might never be broken, Joe DiMaggio's 56-game streak, Cal Ripken's games played streak. I never thought I would live to see anyone even touch The Big O's record for a triple-double over a whole season. Is Russell Westbrook's 2016-17 one of the greatest individual regular seasons ever?
 

Kliq

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Westbrook has to be one of the best conditioned athletes of our time. He never seems to get tired and he is expounds so much energy on the basketball court and he does it every night with a ridiculous usage rate. His lung capacity must be incredible.
 

Apisith

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What's more ridiculous is that it's a 30PPG triple double season. He's going to be scoring champ and average a triple double. It's a ludicrous season.
 

sezwho

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There are certain records that might never be broken, Joe DiMaggio's 56-game streak, Cal Ripken's games played streak. I never thought I would live to see anyone even touch The Big O's record for a triple-double over a whole season. Is Russell Westbrook's 2016-17 one of the greatest individual regular seasons ever?
Certainly is. Hard to compare eras exactly, but I'm not sure Oscar Robertson's season would be ahead of Westbrook's. Interesting footnote that Big O was able to win a ring 10 years later (with a little help from then Lew Alcindor of course). Wonder how long Westbrook can sustain this almost inconceivable pace.
 

Devizier

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There are certain records that might never be broken, Joe DiMaggio's 56-game streak, Cal Ripken's games played streak. I never thought I would live to see anyone even touch The Big O's record for a triple-double over a whole season. Is Russell Westbrook's 2016-17 one of the greatest individual regular seasons ever?
Certainly up there with a few seasons from James' first run in Cleveland and the pre-Pippen era Jordan.
 

sezwho

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Certainly up there with a few seasons from James' first run in Cleveland and the pre-Pippen era Jordan.
Rebounds are great, but this reminded me that the triple double stats don't completely capture the value James and Jordan could bring by controlling both ends of the court. So, from a counting stats place Westbrook's season is up there, but it gets lower when I look at a more general 'best individual season ever' perspective.
 

Cesar Crespo

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It's not even the best individual season this year. From a pure box score perspective, it's one of the greatest.
 

coremiller

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Westbrook is great, but the triple-double thing is so overrated. The fascination with base-10 milestones is totally arbitrary. There's a good case that Westbrook should be the MVP, but it's not because he averages 10.4 A/G rather than 9.9.
 

AMS25

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The triple doubles are nice, but Westbrook's real contribution is that he truly was the most valuable player on a mediocre team. He has willed them into the playoffs. The Thunder might not make it past the first round (especially if they play Houston), but they'd be a lottery team without him. Interestingly, Westbrook has only played more than 40 minutes five times this season. In contrast, LaBron has 20 games with 40+ minutes, and Harden has 15. So, the Thunder have really done a good job of managing his minutes.
 

shawnrbu

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Westbrook posted a 45-10-9-5 line. Tied a career high with 8 three pointers.

Curry outscored the Suns 23-18 in the 1st Quarter. 5 three pointers for Curry in the quarter.
 

Sam Ray Not

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Curry finishes with 42 pts (on 26 fga), 5 reb, 11 ast, 2 stl, 2 blk.

7th time in NBA history anyone has reached those numbers in the five categories, and all the other times were in ≥ 44 minutes. Steph did it in 35. And the Warriors needed all of it, on a road B2B, with Green, Iguodala and Durant all on the shelf and Klay clanging badly.

No double-digit rebounds, alas — cos Steph doesn't sell out on defense and call off his big men to collect uncontested defensive boards.

Yes, cheap Westbrook shot. I've come around to embracing Russ as the deserving 2017 MVP — what he's done all season is totally insane — but I still don't accept that he's a "better" baller than Steph by standards that relate to winning ballgames. Even with Westbrook at career high in scoring efficiency, and Steph at a "local minimum" by his own standards, Steph still has 68 points of true shooting % on Russ (.623 to .555). Yeah, yeah, usage ... but Steph has shown he's one of the few players ever who defies or even upends the standard usage/efficiency curve. Last year he put up .669 true shooting on a career-high 32.6 USG. We can only conjecture what he'd do at Westy's insane 41.7 USG (which should really be renamed "Westbrook Rate"), but I'd guess he could put up 38 ppg on > .600 ts and drop 450 threes pretty handily.

But of course, Steph doesn't do that, cos he's all about winning ballgames. The Warriors are +16.7 points per 100 better than their opponents with Steph on the floor (by far the best number on the the Ws; only Draymond at +12.8 is close). OKC is +4.2 with Russ on the floor. And of course the Warriors are, er, lightyears better than the Thunder, 20 games up and 4-0 head-to-head, all thorough beatdowns, with Steph typically getting the better of Russ individually.

In 26 head-to-head games, career:
Steph 24.5 pts on .616 true shooting / 4.5 rebounds / 6.8 assists / 3.3 turnovers
Russ 23.6 pts on .504 true shooting / 5.9 rebounds / 8.2 assists / 4.9 turnovers

Anyway, I hope this li'l late season surge by Steph and the Warriors at least gets him to #5-6 in the MVP voting (after the big four plus maybe IT) . 65-14 with a +11.7 point differential used to be considered a historically insane season, till Steph and the Ws made it seem routine.
 
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Soxy

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Hawks just went on a tear to turn a close game into a 14 point lead at Cleveland with 4 minutes left. Cavs announcers are eviscerating their team.