Raptors start slow and end strong against a good 76er squad. VanVleet continues to impress after returning from injury, being the only Raptor sinking 3s consistently. Siakam and Powell played well. Anunoby continued to struggle and only played 20 minutes.
Overall, good play and some trouble closing. Tonight they struggled with 3s but finally began compensating by dominating in the paint. The team is 23-2 against under 500s but needs more consistency and better play against good teams, even if they tend to be close games.
The Knicks have struggled but 2 teams are worse. Hey, the Clippers were once bad too.
The third-heaviest player in the NBA played his first game as a professional, as Zion Williamson notched 17 points in just over 3 min. in the 4th, losing to the Spurs. 22 points - not shabs for a rookie debut.
Wow - 6’6’’, 285 lbs., sometimes as athletic as a Westbrook, but already has knee problems: not sure how that recipe is sustainable.
The starters have been announced for the 2020 NBA All-Star Game. As leading vote-getters in their respective conferences, LeBron James and Giannis Antetokounmpo will choose sides for the February 16 contest in Chicago.
WESTERN CONFERENCE POOL
F LeBron James, Los Angeles Lakers (16th selection)
C Anthony Davis, Los Angeles Lakers (7th)
F James Harden, Houston Rockets (8th)
G Luka Doncic, Dallas Mavericks (1st)
G Kawhi Leonard, Los Angeles Lakers (4th)
EASTERN CONFERENCE POOL
F Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks (4th)
C Joel Embiid, Philadelphia 76ers (3rd)
F Kemba Walker, Boston Celtics (4th)
G Pascal Siakam, Toronto Raptors (1st)
G Trae Young, Atlanta Hawks (1st)
The reserves will be announced next Thursday on TNT.
Another wild scoring melee, this time between POR and the Mavs. Mavs shot 75% in the first quarter and the Blazers shot in the high 60s. In other words, horrible defensive effort by both teams. Ariza did pretty well for his first game with a new team, but Swanigan is pretty much unchanged, as I had feared. The guy couldn’t hit water if he fell out of a canoe. I really don’t understand the Blazers’ strategies. Why is Stotts allowing so much iso play in a league that has no problem defending it? Why are they seemingly unable to adapt their defense to other teams? Seems like their coaching staff is stuck in the 80s.
I’m surprised Pascal made it. He started off strong but missed a lot of time and hasn’t been exceptional since his return. He isn’t even the third best guard on his own team (if you treat him as a guard, which he isn’t, but they’ve sent him as a guard.) Kyle Lowry and Fred VanVleet are.
The West does seem to have brought a better starting lineup pool than the East, but of course this is really a matchup between Team LeBron and Team Giannis. They’ll choose their own lineups.
Luka is clearly a deserving candidate, and a strong choice for MVP in the first half of the season.
Of course, the Spurs rallied from some immense deficit to tie it up with minutes left. Raptors won, in a squeaker. Still, first victory when Spurs at home since 2007 - surprising.
Still, for the first quarter they looked like they could beat anybody. 538 has lowered their chance of a repeat to 2-10% depending on system. I’m more generous and give them 20%, only some of which is wishful thinking.
VanVleet looked good as always. They did a good job of limiting 3s in the first half. In fairness, it looked like they let some people play once their lead was big. Maybe not the best move in retrospect but I think I’m done questioning Nick Nurse. So many injuries but generally making it close and usually pulling through.
20% is insanely wishful. Look at it this way; are the Raptors better than the Bucks? The Lakers? No, so those teams need a bigger percentage, right?
Okay, are the Raptors demonstrably superior to the Heat? Celtics? Clippers? Rockets? Not really. They might be AS GOOD as them, but you can’t say they’re definitely better. If they are not definitely better than 6-7 other teams they can’t be 20% to win it all; if you predict that they will face a roughly equal opponent in every playoff round it’s 6.25%. If you think the first playoff opponent will be inferior it’s higher than 6.25% but still no more than 12.5%.
538 has them at 2% to repeat as of now. I think that’s too low, but 5% might be ambitious. I mean, they’re still a way better bet than most teams.
I haven’t kept up with how NBA All-stars are selected, but how is Kemba a Forward? He’s not even a very good shooting guard (he’s an elite, marginal All-Star point guard).
And, in my opinion (look at Saturday’s game if you need convincing), I’d rather have Al Horford than Embiid, but that’s just how All-Star games work.
The Raptors weren’t demonstratably better than most of the teams they beat last year. No, they don’t play as consistently well as the Bucks. They looked pretty good beating the Lakers when they had all those injuries and Siakam was on point. The Raptors have a tougher schedule than many.
There are eight to ten great teams in the league now, but not all of them are incumbents and have a 10-12% chance. 20% is wildly optimistic, sure. But 2%? You thought I was being wildly optimistic when I said the Raptors would be 56-26, and 538 called something like 47-48 wins. Still looks right to me.
Curious if this happened in other games moving forward from yesteday - very moving, at the beginning of the Raps / Spurs game, when each team let the “24”-second shot clock run out, in each teams’ first possession, in honour of Kobe.
Incredibly surreal - watching the players just standing around, waiting out the clock, the At+T Centre quiet as a library, my throat getting lumpy (again). Even after the first two rejected possessions, there was a significant pause (a very long minute or so) and I wondered for a sec if whether or not these guys were going to actually be able to continue on. And then slowly, the first few trips, for each team, were wierdly hesitant-looking, like they were not at all into this. Then Siakam became a machine as the game’s flow and rhythm gradually picked up.
Same thing with the Blazers and Pacers. Oddly enough, the Blazers played what was probably their best game of the season, handing the road-weary Pacers a loss with excellent ball movement and a determined defense. Lillard set yet another franchise record of three 40+ games in a row, and Whiteside had yet another double-double and 6 blocked shots.
Again, I don’t happen to agree with 2%. I’d guess 5-10%. Upon further study I do not think 5% is ambitious.
I do not precisely comprehend the 538 rankings in their specifics because I absolutely don’t understand how they have the Sixers ranked that high. No other measurement methodology has Philly anywhere near that. The Simple Rating System, which has a fairly good track record of predicting playoff fortunes, figures they’re only fourth best in the East, miles behind Milwaukee and substantially inferior to the Raps and the Celtics, and I suspect the great majority of basketball observers would subjectively agree with that.
My concern with the Sixers is that they are not especially good at scoring points, which, I hasten to point out, is rather a central skill in winning basketball games. I am personally of the opinion that the favourite to win the Finals should be good at both scoring and preventing scoring.
In fairness, I did say 20% was wishful — sometimes your reach should exceed your grasp.
If the Raptors make the final, they probably have even odds of winning it. If the Bucks don’t make the final for whatever reason, their chances are better. I’d say the chance the Raptors make the final might not be so far from 20%.
To add more grist to the mill, you could say the Raptors have an amazing away record, maybe second best. It’s an important statistic since in the playoffs roughly half your games aren’t at home.
Sure. A bit vainglorious. But RickJay, what would you say are the Raptors chance of making it to the final? The Bucks?
If say that’s about right considering you can throw a blanket over 5 teams (the obvious 5). I’d reckon Miami, Philly, and Toronto all have guys to throw at Giannis so those teams would be a tough matchup for the Bucks.
Philly s problem is that I don’t think they can beat the other 3. Miami and Toronto both have a great chance to be finalists.
In the finals, I’d take any eastern team of the 5 good ones (6 if Oladipo returns and is good). I don’t think the Lakers are good and I’m concerned about the Clippers. I don’t believe in any other western team.
I’m horrible at math, so it’ll be difficult trying to keep score towards the end of this Friday’s game between the Blazers and Lakers, the latter playing their first game post-Kobe. Thankfully it’s for only that game they’ll try the funky scoring system.
The All-Star reserves have been announced. As stated before, they’ll be part of the pool for captains LeBron James and Giannis Antetokounmpo to choose from.
EASTERN CONFERENCE
F Jimmy Butler, Miami Heat (5th selection)
F Bam Adebayo, Miami Heat (1st)
G Ben Simmons, Philadelphia 76ers (2nd)
F Khris Middleton, Milwaukee Bucks (2nd)
G Kyle Lowry, Toronto Raptors (6th)
C Domantas Sabonis, Indiana Pacers (1st)
F Jayson Tatum, Boston Celtics (1st)
WESTERN CONFERENCE
C Nikola Jokic, Denver Nuggets (2nd)
G Damian Lillard, Portland Trail Blazers (5th)
C Rudy Gobert, Utah Jazz (1st)
F Brandon Ingram, New Orleans Pelicans (1st)
G Chris Paul, Oklahoma City Thunder (10th)
G Donovan Mitchell, Utah Jazz (1st)
G Russell Westbrook, Houston Rockets (9th)