It was a gritty, gutsy Laker win. They fought hard, they fought valiantly, these sons of Jeanie Buss.
2023-24 NBA Game Thread
- Thread starter Deathofthebambino
- Start date
This is what ESPN wants in its announcers.. they pick a player or players for each game and then relentlessly praise him for the entire game. It's a bunch of Chris Collinsworth's ...they're not interested in the games.. they're interested in stars.
"I would simply trade for all the good players and have them on my team as the 4-6 guys"
-Brad Stevens, probably
Harden was apparently stopped from boarding team flight to MIL with team preferring to have him work out at practice facility: https://sports.yahoo.com/james-harden-reportedly-stopped-from-boarding-76ers-plane-will-stay-home-for-road-trip-180219170.html
That was a fun game. Two blocks on the same play back to back was pretty. Going to be watching a lot of Spurs games this year.
he also had a ridiculous putback they waived off, probably incorrectly, that looked like a dad playing with his kids
Wemby is doing this all without an NBA body or NBA "man strength" yet. Rememeber the physical difference from Rookie Giannis to today? I can't even image what full grown up Wemby will look like if he remains healthy.
Feel like KG with more range is on the table, if health permits. His on/off #’s will be insane.
KG with more range, more agility, better ballhandler, and almost half a foot taller and longer! Crazy to think that an auto-1st ballot HOFer can be a "poor mans" anyone but here we are.
Why isn’t he just a taller Durant?
edit: this is a real question, I haven’t seen him play too much but I didn’t think KG when I saw him.
Clippers are the aging millennial all stars but they need to get Harden to really take it to the next level.
DeAaron Fox has taken over this 4Q against Curry & Co. carrying his team on his back to get this to a 2-possession game. Nineteen 4Q points and counting!
Chet is really good, and people hate on him because he's skinny and can't guard Giannis 1-on-1, or something.
As long as he's healthy, he's going to be a very impactful player in the modern NBA.
Basketball tonight was fun and intense. Can't wait for the in-season tourney.
I'd guess Wemby will be more of a defensive savant (KG) than a shooting savant (KD). Heaven help us if he's both
Yeah, so far the shooting seems to be normal "good shooting for a big man", and not "omg Durant".
Am I crazy for thinking people need to pump the brakes on him slightly? He's really, really good, but there's a long way from that to San Antonio having a good team.
Totally agree that was probably incorrect and very fun to watch -- I think it was the home broadcast where they were saying something like, "to be fair to the refs, they're making a call on something they've never seen before with Victor."
Yes you are crazy. We haven't seen anything like this kid since LeBron, Jordan and Larry/Magic. He's come out of the gates as a skinny 19-year old rookie playing at an All-Star level while making jaw dropping play after jaw dropping player. No brakes for me!
He's incredible physically (and mentally) and he's in the perfect situation to develop. It's going to be something to watch as long as he stays healthy. He has pieces of five great players (KD, KG, Porzingis, Dirk, healthy Sampson) all rolled into one.
His defensive impact is crazy. He skipped completely the stage where guys test him to see if the shot blocking is real and is already in the phase where it doesn't look like he is doing much and then you notice no one wants to take a shot anywhere close to him and the way that warps an entire offense.
Unfortunately for him, those 19-year-old chicken legs will be standing under the rim & will have to withstand athletic NBA wings attacking the hoop on a nightly basis.
It's a coin toss that he stays healthy by Jan 1
file under: "3rd quarter scores that raise an eyebrow" -- not just that the Wizards are up 21 on the Grizzlies, but that are up that amount with J Poole going 4-14 so far and a +23. Interesting to see if that lasts; if not Memphis will have a 0-3 start and some of those pre-season predictions by guys like Hollinger that they'd be on top of the West will be even shakier than they were when I read them.
Through three games, Jalen Duran is averaging 18/15/4. He is 19 years old, and is already a physical monster.
Players playing at a high level longer and youngsters being ready to play right away has the NBA at the most talent I have ever seen.
The talent level in the nba is insane, even all the bad teams have multiple intriguing players.
Aaron Nesmith just dropped 26/8 on 10-16 shooting in a win against the Cavs, that trade worked out well for the Pacers.
View: https://twitter.com/Pacers/status/1718442329470570640
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He’s one of my non-Celtics binkies. Books haven’t caught up to him yet either, which has been delightful.
This sent me on a quest for the worst team nickname in the history of US pro basketball, which is a pretty challenging competition. The Sheboygan Red Skins, Minnesota Muskies, Texas Chaparrals, and Memphis Tams are all strong contenders, with the Anaheim Amigos looking on wistfully. Not much "go" in the Amigos today, I'm afraid... but at least they're not named after a plant , and one primarily found a long way from the franchise location.
Anyway, the much-maligned Eric Gordon, rather than being a traffic cone himself, appeared to turn the Jazz into traffic cones at various points, coming away with 21 points for the Suns second only to Durant. Like some others we could name, just because he looks a bit paunchy doesn't mean he can't still kill ya.
Back to back for them and a hardfought game in ATL last night, and NO with a few days off, Thibs is too stubborn to admit that and play more guys like McBride and Fournier even though it was obvious coming in.
A bunch of teams had back-to-backs yesterday with similar results: Memphis (-7), Chicago (-16), Cleveland (-12), Toronto (-7), Miami (-16), Utah (-22 ) & the NYK (-9) all ran out of gas. The Heat & Cavs tried sitting a lot of their rotations.
The Detroit Pistons are the only team to survive by winning both nights.
The in-season tournament has teams off from Dec 1 to Dec 11-12. I had no idea the break was that long. At most, 2 teams will play 3 games in the break period. But the majority of the NBA will be off, right?
Does anybody know if that means more back-to-backs this season?
EDIT
To answer my own question...Maybe a little The Celtics have 14 back-to-backs this season, one more than last season. I hope Joe uses a lot of the bench for those 2nd nights.
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Teams have 80 fixed games in their schedule, and so every team will play 2 games during the in-season tournament week. For the 22 teams that do not qualify for the knockout stage of the tournament, they will just get 2 regular season games scheduled (I believe on the 6th and 8th). So there is no break during that week.
The 4 teams that lose in the quarterfinal knockout stage will similarly get another game scheduled that week, presumably amongst themselves.
The 4 semifinalists will all get a trip to Vegas and play their 82nd game on the schedule in Sin City on the 7th. The 2 finalists will end up playing an extra game on the 9th. And then all teams are off the 10th to allow sufficient travel time from Vegas.
I believe everybody who doesn't advance gets two more games on the sixth and the eighth. The two teams to make the finals will play an 83rd game.
The team played well without Ja the last couple of years but they don't have Tyus Jones or Stephen Adams anymore.
No Ja Morant, Tyus Jones, Steven Adams, Brandon Clarke, Kyle Anderson, Dillon Brooks, or De’Anthony Melton from their peak 56-26 team of two years ago. Seven of their top nine players. That’s … a lot for poor Marcus Smart to try to make up for.
I think many (Hollinger, e.g.) were imagining them treading water without Ja, but given the depth of talent in the West and league-wide I think it could get late early for them. Wouldn’t shock me to see them start 6-19 or something and never fully recover.
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Ok thanks. I wasn't really paying attention to all the scheduling changes in regards to the tournament. I guess we should give the NBA schedulers a round of applause for putting this all together.
I'm actually looking forward to all these tournament games.