Last Night In The NBA: Some Teams Are Starting To Click At The Right Time

Happy Sunday everyone and welcome to another edition of Last Night In The NBA where we catch you up on everything that happened from the night before in the Association. That’s right, it’s another Basketball Boys day with Reags not letting even the smallest of college basketball news get by you and I’m here to help you recover from that bullshit time change by giving you some basketball videos to watch. Many people are saying we are heroes, but I assure you we’re just doing it for the love of the game. We only had 5 games last night and I won’t lie t you, most of the matchups were dogshit. It would have been a perfect night to skip all together and chances are you did, so here’s what happened

Hornets (29-38) 122 vs Suns (19-49) 115

What’s that saying, even a blind squirrel finds a nut or some shit like that? Well allow me to tell you about a basketball game that was basically played between two blind squirrels. CHA had lost 5 in a row heading in, and PHX had lost 4 in a row and 15 of their last 16 games. Someone had to win, and the Hornets founds just a few more acorns at the end of the day.

Look you can hate him as a player, and as a person, but let’s be real for a second. Dwight Howard is having a really good season, certainly better than I thought he was capable of at this stage of his career. He was a monster last night, finishing with 30/14 and 5 blocks

and then there was also Nic Batum who poured in 29/12/7 on 11-18 shooting

This looked a lot like what CHA fans hoped they were going to be getting all  year, so that kinda stinks, but on a night where Kemba went 4-14, these performances ended up being pretty important. Don’t get too carried away CHA fans though, you’re still 6.5 games back of the 8 seed.

For PHX, you know the rules. Really only watch them to see the magic of Devin Booker. Well unfortunately he didn’t play with a left tricep strain so things were already off to a great start. What’s crazy is PHX still didn’t play all that bad! They finished with 50/56% splits, made 18 3PM and turned it over just 14 times. They even had a ridiculous 43 point fourth quarter to make things relatively interesting. How did they manage this without their best player? Well, Troy Daniels stepped in and led all Suns with 17 points

Dragan Bender had a solid 16 points on 50% shooting reminding you that he too was a high lottery talent

and then they even got 16 points from an individual named Davon Reed

The Phoenix Suns, feel the heat!!

At the end of the day, this is a tanking performance that is making Marc Cuban blush. They’re sitting pretty in the 2 spot in the lottery odds, and if I were to look around at the other dumpster fires that live in that area, if I am a high lottery talent I am begging to go to PHX. They’re actually building something.

Heat (36-31) 129 vs Wizards (38-29) 102

This was one of the few games that was actually worth watching because both of these teams are fighting for playoff positioning in the East. For MIA, they’ve now won 2 in a row and are still in a dogfight with MIL, but now are within 0.5 games of PHIU for the 6 seed and just 2 games behind WSH for the 5. This was a big win for MIA because it now brought the season series to 2-2 against MIA, which as we know is very very important if these teams are going to be close. Remember that year where MIA basically snagged the 3 seed because of bullshit tiebreakers? Well that’s still on the table.

In this game, they were balanced as hell. I’m talking 8 guys total in double figures, and as a team they shot 59%, made 10 3PM, and turned it over just 10 times. This offense was clicking about as well as it has all season. You had James Johnson leading the way with 20/5 on 8-9 shooting

Josh Richardson didn’t miss a damn shot going 6-6 in his 21 minutes, and then when things got to the bench, they really balled out. I’m talking about Wayne Ellington continuing his strong season with 17 off the bench, lighting it up from deep

Rodney McGruder came out of nowhere with an impressive 13

and let’s not forget a couple of Celtics legends. Kelly Olynyk, one of the few to actually have success away from Brad Stevens finished with 13/11 on 4-5 shooting, and Jordan Mickey actually did things!

For WSH, they no longer have homecourt as of this morning, and if last night was any indication, having to win on the road is somewhat of an issue. If we can be honest for a second the starters as a whole stunk up the joint, and if not for 23 points off the bench from Jodie Meeks, this looks even worse, and they lost by 27 points

Washington really has to be careful here, any sort of losing streak could have some big time impact on their playoff future. Looking at their schedule they go MIN/BOS/IND/SA/DEN/NYK/SA sooooo it’s not as if things are about to get any easier.

Mavericks (21-45) 114 vs Grizzlies (18-48) 80

How pissed is Marc Cuban right now that MEM can tank no problem and his team all the sudden has to try because of something he said on a podcast. That’s tough. This game was essentially over after the first 12 minutes when DAL went up 31-13, I mean there’s just nothing you can do when you’re playing against a team as poor as MEM. As much as you may not want to win, they want it more. Also DAL issue is their guys are still trying. Harrison Barnes had a nice 25/7 on 7-13 shooting, JJ Barea had 20, and coming off the bench there was Dougie McBuckets, who as you can expect by his name, got buckets to the tune of 20 points off the bench

The Mavs have now won 2 in a row, something they have now done just 5 times all year. Progress! They sit in the 7th spot in the lottery odds, which kind of stinks, but at least the NBA can’t fine them for not trying so there’s that.

For MEM, just like we said the other day, who cares. It is impressive that they’ve lost 17 games in a row though, that’s no joke.

Thunder (39-29) 104 vs Spurs (37-29) 94

Really the only other game that really meant something last night, OKC wakes up this morning in the 5 seed just 0.5 games back of NO and 2 games back of POR. They’ve started to turn things around and are 7-3 over their last 10 and are back to having the 3rd best point differential in the West. This team is infuriating because on some nights they look like they can run with the best in the league, and then other nights not so much. Fortunately for them, they showed up in this one

Westbrook had another triple double which people seem to hate on him for, and for the first time in what feels like forever, we finally saw this team play a lick of defense. This win now gives OKC a 2-1 advantage in the H2H series with SA, and they can close it out and officially win it later this month. Considering how tight the race is basically from 3-10 in the West it’s hard to say right now where OKC will end up. If they keep playing like they did last night it wouldn’t shock me if they got to 3, but if they go back to playing no defense and guys struggle, they could be out fo the playoffs all together. I can’t stress how crazy that is.

For SA, I blogged last week about how weird it was going to be to see the Spurs not win at least 50 games for the first time in 21 years. Well, last night secured that they will not have a winning road record this season, which is the first time in 21 years thats happened. With no Kawhi their role players are actually playing like role players which is very unSpurs like.

You look at their starters last night, and just LMA finished in double figures and he had 11 points on 5-16 shooting. Even after the bench did their best to inject life into this game, the Spurs just look bad. That’s the only way I can put it. They scored just 19 points in the first quarter, and really never recovered.

Clippers (36-29) 113 vs Magic (20-47) 105

There go the Clippers, just staying the course, winning games, and keeping their playoff hopes alive. Of the teams around them in the 7-10 range, only UTA has been playing better over the last 10 games, and it appears that LAC is finding their groove at the perfect time.

You had Tobias Harris doing his thing with 21/9

then Lou Williams off the bench with 25

and Milos The Passing God with 15/7

it was a complete team effort. Granted they were playing the Magic so shit like this is expected, but LAC is now 20-14 at home and is looking like they are going to have the privilege of losing to someone in 4 or 5 games. That’s a nice story considering they’ve had some of the worst injury luck this season of any team, and also traded away their franchise player. You don’t often see teams still succeed under those circumstances.

For ORL, hey at least Jonathan Simmons and Shelvin Mack did things

And that’s it! You’re now caught up on everything that happened last night in the NBA. We’re back with 9 more games on this Selection Sunday, including TOR/NYK, GS/MIN, UTA/NO (huge), IND/BOS, and CLE/LAL. As always don’t feel the need to catch all 9, just come back tomorrow and I’ll tell you all about it.