SR – NBA Primetime Preview: Boston Celtics Vs. Golden State Warriors

SR – NBA Primetime Preview: Boston Celtics Vs. Golden State Warriors

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by | Nov 16, 2019 | Featured, NBA

So much can change in a year.

You ask anyone this time last year about who would be the two teams destined to meet up in a potential NBA Finals seven-game duel, and most would have said these two teams, without question.

The Warriors were coming fresh off of a second-straight title, KD looked as if him staying in Warrior Blue and Gold for the rest of his career was to be an impending reality, Steph Curry getting into the hall of fame just ten years into his career was just a mere formality, Klay Thompson was the most impactful two-way player in the league, yadda yadda yadda.

Well, after the Golden years subsided, this summer saw the demolition of one of the most dynastic factions in sports. KD’s tearing of an Achilles in Game 4 of the finals and departure from the self-described toxic environment that was Oakland, Klay Thompson tearing his ACL in Game 6 of the 2019 Finals and being forced to sit out all of this season, Steph Curry’s sustaining of a broken left hand only a couple of games in the new season, and the destruction of a decent bench in free agency left the Warriors with arguably the most untalented starting five in the NBA.

And on the Eastern side of things, the Celtics were just a quarter – forget just a home Game 7 – away from advancing to their 22nd NBA Finals. Kyrie was on the favorites list to win MVP, Jayson Tatum was only 20, Jaylen Brown was getting more minutes and confidence, and there wasn’t any other powerhouse in the East that, on paper, couldn’t breathe the same air of the 17-and-soon-to-be-18-time champs.

But to quote that book called “Of Mice And Men” that you probably read as a grade-school summer reading assignment, “The best-laid plans often go awry”.

Reality is often disappointing, too. That team that was supposed to have a cakewalk to the finals? They ended up only winning 5 playoff games in a second-round bounce, courtesy of the MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks. Irving couldn’t deal with the headlines and headlights that the prognosticators of the parquet floor brought on a nightly occurrence and retreated to Brooklyn to team up with Kevin Durant.

Supposed comeback player of the year Gordon Hayward had his worst season as a pro, Jayson Tatum underwent the dreaded sophomore slump, and the dysfunction of these C’s just ate up any hopes and dreams of them getting a taste of a deep playoff run.

Tonight, however, these two new-look squads get their first look at each other at 10:30 p.m. ET on ESPN, right after the Grizzlies and Jazz game ends.

The Celtics have opened their 2019-20 campaign on an absolute blaze, as Kemba Walker has been a perfect fit and more for a team that needed a new vocal presence, as some speckle of recency bias would suggest. They sit at 9-1, winning nine straight games after their season-opening road loss to rival Philadelphia.

The start of their five-game road trip begins in sunny San Francisco, making this the first time Celtics green touches the floor of the newly-erected Chase Center.

Some facts about this matchup: The Warriors are 1-5 at home while the Celtics are 4-1 on the road. The Celtics are 2-0 vs the West while the Warriors are 0-1 vs Eastern teams, and the Celtics have won their last 9 games while the Warriors have lost 5 straight.

The Warriors have looked like doormats both home and away, and with a roster that’s seen nine changes to their starting five, Steve Kerr and the rest of the Warriors brass are looking at this season as a buffer of sorts for all of the Dubs’ best players (Curry, Thompson, Draymond Green) for them to be completely healthy as they try and take back the west next season.

While the Warriors walk into this one trying to win their third game of the year sitting at 2-10, the Celtics are trying to prove the point that they are championship ready now and with a big chance to earn a 10th straight win, the Celtics are foaming at the mouths at the opportunity to supplant themselves as the team with the best record as the NBA’s best team.

Nov 16, 2019 No Comments
SR – NBA Primetime Preview: Utah Jazz vs. Memphis Grizzlies

SR – NBA Primetime Preview: Utah Jazz vs. Memphis Grizzlies

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by | Nov 15, 2019 | Featured, NBA

We have 16 teams going into action tonight with the Utah Jazz meeting the Grizzlies in Memphis for the first time early into the season.

Both teams are coming off wins on Tuesday and Thursday in some very close games. The Jazz pulled out a win against Kyrie Irving and the Brooklyn Nets while the Grizzlies just barely pulled out a win in a memorable win against the Charlotte Hornets. Tonight’s match-up should be an interesting one, for Jazz guard Mike Conley will be making his return to the FedEx Forum for the first time since his departure with the Grizzlies.

Conley will be up against some very familiar faces on this Memphis squad, as well as some new faces, specifically in rookie guard Ja Morant. Morant has been a catalyst for the Grizzlies, averaging 18.3 points and 5.8 assists. They’ve started off their season so far at 4-7, but with his game-winning shot against the Hornets, they hope to take that momentum into tonight. The team hopes to prove that they’ll be doing just fine without Conley, despite some early struggles this season.

For the Jazz however, they’ve been looking fairly good to kick things off this season tied for second with a record of 8-3. The Jazz core has been up to par with what we as fans expected, with Donovan Mitchell is at the helm of this Utah squad, with names like Bagdanovic, Gobert, Ingles, and Conley to back him up. Mitchell has been doing it all for the Jazz to say the least, leading his team in points, assists, and steals.

The guard match-up going into this one will be fun to watch, with Mike Conley making his return to Memphis in addition to Mitchell and Morant squaring off in a battle of young talent. It should also be interesting to see how Jaren Jackson Jr. and Jonas Valanciunas of Memphis take on the French Center in Rudy Gobert. Jackson and Valanciunas have to contain the paint scoring and hope that their guards can contest some shots from the perimeter. It may seem like a tall order to try and defend such a well-rounded offense in the Utah Jazz, but Ja Morant and the Memphis Grizzlies are more than up to the task.

Nov 15, 2019 No Comments
SR – NBA Primetime Preview: Brooklyn Nets Vs. Denver Nuggets

SR – NBA Primetime Preview: Brooklyn Nets Vs. Denver Nuggets

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by | Nov 15, 2019 | Featured, NBA

The second game of the night on TNT features the Denver Nuggets taking on the Brooklyn Nets on home ground, as both teams look to get back on track in this eleven-game season.

Kyrie Irving and Jamal Murray had pretty memorable duel the last time the two squared off inside the Pepsi Center, but it was ultimately Murray’s night as he dropped a cool 48 on Irving’s head during Kyrie’s last visit to Denver as a Boston Celtic, leading to Irving chucking the ball into the nosebleeds in Denver. That game was just another crumb of rubble onto the dysfunctional pile that was the Celtics’ 2018 campaign.

Now, Irving returns to the Mile-High city with an entirely new arsenal of new teammates, and a new jersey to don as this marks the first time Kyrie heads to the Southwest as a Brooklyn Net. The Nets had one of the most successful offseasons in recent memory, acquiring Kyrie Irving, DeAndre Jordan and Kevin Durant in the matter of a day, adding them to a prospective, young and promising roster.

They’d know that Durant was to be out for the season after tending to a torn Achilles suffered in the NBA Finals back in June. What they didn’t know was how difficult it would be to overcome the growing pains of a obtaining new chemistry with new pieces while trying to win without him for a full year. The Nets sit at 4-6 and are slipping defensively, having the fourth-worst defensive rating in the NBA.

They’re currently riding a two-game losing streak with losses coming by way of the Jazz and Suns during their four-team road trip. Though the year is young, the Nets find themselves in a puddle now under .500 by two games, and in a startlingly competitive Eastern Conference, Brooklyn might want to hit the gas pedal as expeditious as possible if they still want to be considered as a piece in the playoff puzzle come April.

As for the Nuggets, a rare home loss to the undermanned, John Collins-less Atlanta Hawks was bad enough, but Jamal Murray letting Trae Young, who, might I add, is having an All-Star second season, score 42 on his head spells trouble for the Nuggets as Kyrie looks to avenge his loss to Denver last year. That defensive performance is unbecoming for the NBA’s ninth-most defensively efficient team, and they’ll be tasked with dealing with the Nets’ offense that makes opposing defenders switch at a quantifiable rate.

Still, it should be fun to see how the Nets’ frontcourt, more specifically DeAndre Jordan, matches up with arguably the most-skilled Center in the Western Conference in Nikola Jokic, and also how the perimeter defense of Brooklyn fares against the perimeter scoring ability of Jamal Murray, Torrey Craig, Gary Harris and the rest of Mike Malone’s lineup of guards ready to take the floor.

Nov 15, 2019 No Comments
BREAKING: Portland Trail Blazers To Sign Free Agent Carmelo Anthony

BREAKING: Portland Trail Blazers To Sign Free Agent Carmelo Anthony

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by | Nov 15, 2019 | Featured, NBA

The year-long wait for one of the league’s all-time great scorers finally came to a sudden end Thursday night, as the Portland Trail Blazers pulled the trigger on signing Carmelo Anthony, who hasn’t laced up and played on an NBA floor since November 8th, 2018.

Anthony joins a team looking for a frontcourt floor spacer on the wing, and who better to sign than the 2013 NBA scoring champion and a 10x All Star. He’ll play alongside the talented backcourt of CJ McCollum and Damian Lillard, and will presumably start for a team that needs just a hint of another offensive spark, now sitting at 4-8 with connsecutive losses to the Warriors, Clippers, Nets and Raptors.

Anthony fits right into a rotation marred with injuries to their frontcourt depth (Zach Collins and Al-Farouq Aminu, just to name a few guys who are missing) and with an open roster spot available for him, this may be his last chance to get his NBA career back on track.

The deal, according to Adrian Wojnarowski, is non-guaranteed.

The Chicago Bulls were the last team to acquire Anthony after he was traded from the Houston Rockets in January, but it was clear the Bulls had no future plans to keep him around. They ended up waiving him on February 1st.

Just a year ago, the 35-year-old’s numbers with the Rockets spoke for themselves. He shot 40.5 percent from the field and 32.8 percent from beyond the arc.

Nov 15, 2019 No Comments
SR – NBA Primetime Preview: Dallas Mavericks Vs New York Knicks

SR – NBA Primetime Preview: Dallas Mavericks Vs New York Knicks

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by | Nov 15, 2019 | Featured, NBA

Aren’t Homecomings just the sweetest?

Tonight’s premiere NBA theatrics find themselves inside the “World’s Most Famous Arena”, or the Madison Square Garden, for short. Who the inhabitants of this historic venue are live in abhorrent infamy, back then and now, and aren’t quite the prime, step-right-up attraction of the town.

Yes, your treat as an NBA fan tonight is a Thursday-night matinee to see the New York Knicks play a basketball game. But tonight just isn’t any regular game, though.

It’s Kristaps Porzingis’ first real game inside the Garden since his ACL tear in early 2018. And, it’s kinda his first 48 minutes back on the Garden hardwood, but not in Knicks blue and orange.

And of course, who loves to profile nightly NBA drama more than Turner Sports, right? This evening’s contest between the Dallas Mavericks (6-4) and the New York Knicks (2-9) will be nationally broadcasted on TNT as a vehicle to really sell the story of the prodigal son of New York returning to the very franchise he spurned for greener grasses.

And during the team introductions, where it’s actually unclear if they’ll grace Porzingis with a “thanks for all you’ve done for us” scoreboard video, that story will be sold, no debate necessary.

The storyline coming into this four-quarter contest is probably going to be way better than what’s going to be taking place on the court. The Knicks are a mess, from top to bottom if we’re not beating around the bush. Their head coach is literally in waiting for his pink slip any day now, as Dave Fizdale has shown an inadequacy to spread minutes among his best players. Fans want both James Dolan and Steve Mills gone (and probably arrested for destroying heir franchise), but what else is new.

If there are any positives, RJ Barrett has had a solid rookie season, averaging 16 points a game and shooting at 35 percent from deep. Not bad, but obviously not enough to trudge the Knicks through their offensive woes that have dropped them to the bottom of the NBA.

And the worst of all, Knicks organizational members and Knicks infrastructure will be subjected to witnessing a rusty Porzingis shake off all that oxidation against a Knicks starting five that will have all the difficulty in the world in keeping him from looking like the Unicorn again.

And while on that topic, KP’s early-season troubles haven’t been that worrisome (18.3 ppg. off 40.1 percent shooting and 37.5 percent three-point shooting) considering that Luka Doncic has, more often than not, looked like one of the league’s most unstoppable forces. I mean, he’s already drawn expectations of being the Slovenian Larry Bird with how unbelievable he’s been in scoring, assisting, and playmaking.

Not only is he the youngest player in league history to record more than 12 Triple-Doubles, passing the likes of Magic Johnson and LeBron James (his idol), he’s making an increasingly undeniable case to be the best scorer on the planet.

In his second year. at 20 years old. Yeah.

In comparing how he stacks up against other MVP award nominees, the Slovenian Sniper is currently in the top 12 in the big three traditional statistical categories. He is averaging 28.3 points per game (5th in the league), 10.3 rebounds per game (12th in the league) and 9.1 assists per game (2nd in the league).

He is also averaging a steal a game and is shooting at an improved rate at just about everywhere on the court. Though the statistical proof says he isn’t as proficient from deep (31.8 percent) the rest of his current shooting percentages are at 48.5 percent from the field, 84.4% free throw and an impressive 62% from everywhere inside the arch.

To contextualize all of those stats, Giannis Antetokounmpo, the league’s Most Valuable Player, is 4th on the NBA’s scoring leaders, 2nd in rebounding and 14th in assists through ten games. Luka is averaging more points per game than Kawhi Leonard, the most recent Finals MVP, and is 13 spots higher on the scoring list than LeBron James, sixteen places higher than the King on the rebounding chart and only trails James by a spot in assists.

Story short, Luka is probably going to go off tonight for another memorable away Garden performance, and the Knicks will be hard-pressed to find the answer to stop him.

When Porzingis’ name is announced, boos and cheers will ring and reverberate throughout the Garden’s woodwork and Knicks faithful have to go through seeing the guy they cheered and boasted for dismantle them on live television, but who knows, with these games this year, any upset or statistical anomaly can happen at the drop of the hat.

But probably not in this one.

Nov 15, 2019 No Comments
SR – NBA Primetime Preview: Golden State Warriors Vs. Los Angeles Lakers

SR – NBA Primetime Preview: Golden State Warriors Vs. Los Angeles Lakers

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by | Nov 14, 2019 | Featured, NBA

In the tune of 2016 Drake…LeBron’s out here “Looking for Revengeee.”

That was cringy, I know.

What won’t be cringe-inducing, is the satisfaction a certain LeBron James will potentially have in opening up a can of you-know-what on the talent-maligned Golden State Warriors – y’know, that franchise that’s caused so much distress on the King and his finals record over the past five years – as the Lakers host the four-time champs at home during ESPN’s second game of their weekly Wednesday doubleheader.

When we taking a closer look at this battle of Californian coasts one fact stands true: the Los Angeles Lakers are a very good basketball team. That’s it. That’s the sentence.

Here’s another statement that’s as equal as a calculator doing basic addition: the Golden State Warriors are not a good basketball team, and not in the slightest.

Any preview that you’d read would feature the disproportionate lack of parity between a roster built to win any seven-game series and the other, a disheveled roster devoid of any talent (other than D’Angelo Russell who is the unopposed, most-meaningful player on the roster at this point and is leading his team in points and field goal efficiency) that has experienced over eight changes to their starting lineup only ten games into the season.

Well, that’s exactly what this preview is doing. Don’t expect any surprises tonight from one of the only teams in the entire NBA that has yet to earn its third win. The Lakers won’t have Anthony Davis as he recuperates from  back and neck soreness from the Lakers back-to-back trip from playing the Toronto Raptors and Phoenix Suns, but that won’t slow down LeBron from putting on a regulatory display of strength, skill and all-around domination in this matchup.

Not all has been dreary for these new-look Warriors. Eric Paschall is a diamond in the rough and a sight for the already sore eyes inside of the newly-constructed Chase Center. He’s been putting up some praise-worthy numbers for the Warriors, averaging 15.6 ppg. and 4 assists per game in an averaged 30 minutes of play.

These short-handed Warriors recently got back another familiar face in their starting lineup, as Draymond Green returned from a hand issue. Green is still the boastful, vocally-evident defensive juggernaut we’ve all known him to be, but with a PnR heavy guard like D’Angelo Russell, Green has been relegated to being a screener and spot-up shooter, not in complete charge of running the offense when KD, Steph and Klay were alongside him in battle.

He’s still not the best shooter – only making a measly 4-17 shots to go through the nylon – but his role will need to evolve if the Warriors want to at least look the part of having the competitive pace and space offense Head Coach Steve Kerr is so used to running.

LeBron and Kyle Kuzma look to take a majority of the team’s half-court looks, as the offense will primarily run through the both of them. Getting Rajon Rondo back from injury earlier this week does more good than bad for the Lakers, as he’ll allow James to not be so adamant at being the primary facilitator and just a mismatch down low. Expect your Avery Bradley defense, Danny Green kick-out threes, and occasional Alex Caruso tough finish in the lane, which is becoming as spectacular (and somewhat meme-worthy) as seeing Bigfoot in person.

As the rivalry goes, this could be a good game. Whenever LeBron and Draymond go at it, it’s always fireworks. You might get some more tonight.

Tip-off for game two of Wednesday’s doubleheader is at 10:30 p.m. EST/9:30 p.m. CST. on ESPN.

Nov 14, 2019 No Comments