Last Night In The NBA: Blowout City
Welcome back to another edition of Last Night In The NBA where we catch you up on everything you may have missed from the night before in the Association. With Halloween being last night, maybe you were out trick or treating or at a party and didn’t get to catch the games. Sadly, if you’re like me and look to this blog to kill some time at the cubes, I have bad news. There were only 4 games last night. I know, you’re mad, but don’t take it out on me, talk to the schedule makers. Anyway, here’s what happened.
Pacers (4-3) 101 Kings (1-6) 83
You’re going to see a common theme with these games, and that’s almost all of them were blowouts and it started with this game right here. Not ideal for SAC to not break 20 points in 3 of the 4 quarters in my humble opinion. It’s not even as if the Pacers came out and shot the ball all that well either, no starter had more than 17 points.
Most impressive for them though, was Sabonis. How about 12/16/5 on 5-6 shooting? Again, it’s looking more and more like maybe the Pacers were on to something with this PG13 deal
On the season Sabonis is up to 12.9/11.0 with a PER of 23.57. If you’re going to say you wouldn’t take that on your favorite team, you my friend are a liar.
The Pacers also got this sweet block from Ike Anigbogu which isn’t just a fun name to say, but also reminded me of the legend Ike Diogu, who also happened to play for the Pacers for a cup of coffee if I’m not mistaken.
For SAC, De’Aaron Fox had a nice 18/4/5 on 9-18
But that was pretty much it. Only one other player of the 12 that saw the floor reached double figures. The Kings actually won the second half, but sadly both of them count. Moving forward my advice would be to try and play all four quarters, and don’t do what you did last night where you only had 30 points in 24 minutes.
Thunder (4-3) 110 Bucks (4-3) 91
Another game that really wasn’t all that close at any point. Thanks to a 16-0 run in the first, OKC basically coasted
Russell Westbrook still nearly had a Jason kidd triple dub special with 12/10/9, Melo had 17/8, and PG13 had 20 himself
The second unit for OKC was great, finishing the night 11-20. Grant did the majority of that scoring with 17 points on 5-9. This was a pretty common OKC win, good defense, balanced scoring, and double digit 3PM.
For MIL, hey, at least they have Giannis who continued his great season with 28 on 9-14
But Christ how about giving him some help. No other Bucks player reached double figures, in fact, no starter made more than 3 FGs other than Giannis. Combined they all went 9-31. That’s actually not great.
Suns (3-4) 122 Nets (3-5) 114
Can you believe THIS was the matchup that gave us our only close game? This was one of those games where technically there was a winner, but we were all losers for having to watch it. The Suns, despite 18 TOs came out firing, with three of their starters reaching 20 points, and their starting backcourt going for 56 on 20-38 shooting
Booker had 32 of those that looked mighty nice
and Mike James, no not that Mike James a NEW Mike James, had an impressive 24 on 9-16
I kinda like Mike James. I’ve watched way too many Suns games already, and this kid can make shots. Good for him for finally sticking with an NBA team. The Suns still can’t really play defense, but when you have an offensive performance like that, and you get to play BKN, it won’t hurt you.
For BKN, D’Angelo Russell continued his breakout year with 33/6/4 on 11-21 shooting in 29 minutes
His little battle with Booker was actually pretty entertaining basketball. Aside from Mozgov, all the other Nets starters played pretty well, and surprisingly as a team they only turned the ball over 7 times. I talked about this during the preseason and it got lost a little bit when BKN won a few games, but this defense still STINKS. This was the 5th time in 8 games that they have given up at least 120 points. Gross.
Lakers (3-4) 113 Pistons (5-3) 93
Well what the hell DET. Wanna talk all confident about your 5-2 record, come off wins against GS and LAC, you just had to let the LA night life get the best of you. I don’t think any team that has spent 3 days in LA has ever won that last game.
The good news for DET was Avery learned how to not get blocked by the rim on a breakaway!
I joke because I miss him. A slow second quarter, where the Pistons allowed 33 points (most of any quarter) ultimately did them in, and their starters were not what I would call efficient shooting the basketball. In Fact, the Lakers won every quarter.
For LAL, this in my opinion was one of Lonzo’s strongest games, even more so than his big stat line in PHX game. He finished with 13/6/3 but shot 6-13
That stepback three was pretty nice as much as I hate this team. The Lakers also were pretty balanced, with 7 total players in double figures.
And that’s it! You’re now all caught up on everything that went down last night during Halloween. Now tonight there are 12 (!!!) games on, so if that seems a little overwhelming for you to watch them all, just make sure to check back here tomorrow morning and I’ll bring you up to speed.