Last Night In The NBA: You Get An Upset! And You Get An Upset!

Happy Monday everybody 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. Now chances are you hate life right now and want to do anything but work, so I have good news for you. We had 9 total games last night, almost all of them were exciting and most of those were upsets. The perfect combination to just spend a huge chunk of time watching basketball videos than doing whatever your dickhead boss wants you to do. If you missed it yesterday for whatever reason, here’s what happened

Cavaliers (44-29) 121 vs Nets (23-51) 114

This was the first game of the night and I wouldn’t blame you if you thought that CLE would just come into BKN and steamroll the Nets. The Cavs have been playing well and the Nets you know, are the Nets. But that wasn’t the case! The Nets actually kept this competitive, even leading at certain points, before Lebron decided enough was enough.

I suppose he’s playing decent basketball right now. The real difference with this Cavs team though is obviously the play of Kevin Love, who has stepped back into the lineup and looks as if he hasn’t missed a beat. He was great again last night, and is a huge reason why I still think despite playing defense at a 5th grade level, this Cavs team is going to be a very tough out in the playoffs

But you know these two dudes are good so this shouldn’t surprise you. The surprising part of this game came from the performances of the “new” guys, who combined for 51 points.

You know what this means once the new guys play well, the Cavs killed their trades and they’re back baby!!

For BKN, all I can say is good job,m good effort, but you sitting Spencer Dinwiddie in crunch time stinks to the high heavens. How dare you accept Lebron’s dirty money and tank this game. How dare you.

Celtics (50-23) 104 vs Kings (24-50) 93

Full blog will be out later, just let this be a warning to you to carve out a decent chunk of time at work. Book a meeting room, head to the bathroom stall, close your office door, whatever you have to do be prepared. I cannot be responsible for the Celtics erection coming in your future (pun not intended but intended).

Spurs (43-31) 103 vs Bucks (39-34) 106

With MIA losing two in a row, this win was big for MIL as it now slides them into the 7 spot, and they’re now just 1.0 gams behind WSH for 6th. Both teams around them are dropping games, so for the Bucks to come out and end the Spurs winning streak at home is not a bad way to spend your Sunday. You can do things like this when your best players show out

The bench for MIL really didn’t give them much, and Giannis/Middleton/Bledsoe all had at least 15 FGA, which accounted for over half the team’s attempts. They got off to a great start with that 27-15 first quarter, but then the defensive issues that have plagued this team reared their ugly head. After that first quarter they didn’t hold the Spurs to under 28 points at any point. In my opinion they were lucky to hold on to win this game after they shit their pants in the fourth quarter, but it still counts. MIL is a dangerous 7/8 seed so fo my own personal interest I’d prefer they go up to 6.

For SA, sure getting your losing streak snapped stinks, but they are still very much alive in the race for a seed as high as the 4 spot. OKC is just 0.5 games ahead of them. I wouldn’t count SA out either, especially if LaMarcus Aldridge is going to keep playing like this

His March has been ridiculous, averaging 27.5/9.3 on 53% shooting, and when you look closer at his last 5 games those numbers bump to 35.6/9.4 on 60% shooting. Safe to say he’s putting this team on his goddamn back.

The bad news is the Spurs are now 14-23 on the road this season. It feels extremely weird to type that a Spurs team os nearly 10 games under .500 on the road but those are the facts. This team desperately needs home court advantage in a series, especially if it’s going to include not having Kawhi.

Heat (39-25) 107 vs Pacers (43-31) 113 F/OT

Now this is the Sunday night excitement I was talking about! On one side you have the Pacers, who are doing everything they can to keep up with PHI who just keeps on winning in order to get back into the top 4 seeds, and on the other you have a MIA team that is battling for positioning at the bottom of the playoff standings. Both teams needed the win and they played like it. Fortunately for IND fans, they had just a little bit more when it counted

Sure they may have made things harder on themselves with a shitty 4th quarter which ultimately forced an overtime, but then Darren Collison woke up and carried the team over the finish line in the extra period. I should also mention that while their bench didn’t have any double digit scorers, they were legit, finishing with 31 points on 14-23 shooting.

For MIA. maybe it’s time to just accept your fate as the 8th seed and start mentally preparing for MIL. At least it’s still fun to watch Bam have ridiculous dunks

Clippers (39-34) 117 vs Raptors (54-20) 106

This win by the Clippers isn’t surprising because they are a bad team, it’s surprising because the Raptors almost NEVER lose at home. Tommy Smokes had a better chance at getting in that buffet without shoes on than most teams have at pulling out a win in that building, but the Clippers pulled it. Mostly because the Raptors had no answer for Lou Williams

he single handedly closed this game out in that fourth quarter where he had 18 of his 26, that was a level of being in the zone you and I can only dream of. The Clippers are now just 2 games out of the 8th spot in the West, and if they keep getting performances like this from Lou, add in the solid play of Tobias Harris (20 pts) and a little Passing God Magic

you can’t count them out just yet.

For TOR, I’m sure Raptors fans are doing that whole “there’s no way we’re panicking” thing. Despite their last 6 wins coming from all stinky teams (you can look it up), and their lead in the 1 spot down to 3.5 games over BOS with 2 H2Hs to play and their next 5 games against really good teams, they won’t tell you how they really feel. When Lowry and DeRozan combine for 7-22 and ending the night with the same amount of TOs as FGM, I’m not sure what they expected to happen, and even with their bench coming in and once again dominating

it wasn’t enough. If I had to bet I would say TOR still holds on to that number 1 seed, but definitely not by the huge margin they had just a few weeks ago. Now is not the best time to see your two best players struggle either. The Raptors are not riding under the radar anymore, so let’s see how they respond against good competition.

Knicks (27-47) 101 vs Wizards (40-33) 97

Knicks, what the hell are you doing? Don’t you know how this works? Don’t you know how any of this works? Smh you morons

Maybe this was just a Trey Burke revenge game and if that was the case then I get it, but still what a stupid win.

For WSH, I don’t want to alarm Wizards fans, but this is now 3 losses in a row and they’re 4-6 over their last 10. I think for my own rooting interests, seeing WSH drop to 7th and then get a fully healthy John Wall in the first round would be a bit problematic. This team has WAY too much talent to messing with the 6-8 seeds. I need them to figure their shit out and do it rather quickly. WSH is now 2.5 games behind IND for the 5 seed, so maybe this is where they finish. I suppose a WSH/CLE first round series would be fun though.

In this game, you can’t win if you can’t score and their 42/31% splits didn’t help. Bradley Beal going 5-17 didn’t help either, same with Otto Porter Jr going 5-13.

Trail Blazers (45-28) 108 vs Thunder (44-31) 105

Huuuuuuge win for POR in this one. Huge. How about this, not only are the Thunder the team trailing POR in a race for the 3 seed, but POR has now swept the Thunder on the season. That’s a mental edge if I’ve ever seen one. Not sure what you expect to happen when you allow CJ/Dame to absolutely cook you, and cook they did combining for 58 points on 40-43 shooting

Throw in a nice 16/12 from Nurkic and 16/6/4 from Mo Harkless on 7-11 shooting, this was a pretty legit road win, helping push POR to a 20-15 road record. They now have a 2.0 game lead over OKC for that 3rd seed, something it doesn’t appear they’ll be giving up anytime soon.

For OKC, sweet last play Melo. Russell did his best and was pretty good

PG13 and Melo though, woof. George going a nice 4-15 sure doesn’t help things, and then you combine that with a 3-13 from Melo including this final play

things look disastrous for him right now. I mean if he isn’t making shots you basically can’t play him over Grant. You bet your ass POR is thanking the high heavens that Melo didn’t end up there. I hate to say it because he’s had a HOF career, but the dude is washed.

Hawks (21-53) 99 vs Rockets (60-14) 118

Oh word the Rockets showed up and had to enterain the idea of playing against the Hawks. Harden was great, they made a shit ton of threes (20), didn’t turn the ball over (11) and finished with 110+ points. Wash, rinse, repeat

Oh, and they did it all without CP3 too.

For ATL, honestly who cares. You don’t care, I don’t care, even their city doesn’t care.

at least Taurean Prince and Isaiah Taylor showed they cared by scoring over half their points

Jazz (42-32) 110 vs Warriors (54-19) 91

Now this shouldn’t come as a shock because one the Jazz are good, and two the Warriors are playing without their entire team. At the same time, you still never expect to see them lose as home, but the Jazz went right into Oracle and stepped on their throats

Led by Mitchell they finished with 7 players in double figures while shooting 48/42% and this game really turned in the second/third quarters where the Jazz offense was unstoppable.

I honestly need to watch this play again because it’s so damn impressive

It was also impressive to see Dante Exum start to look like his old self, he finished with 13/5 in 17 minutes

and let’s not forget about the play of Jae Crowder, who has found new life in UTA

Also, is anyone else surprised by what an improved passer Joe Ingles is? Feels like he has 8 assists every time he plays now

And finally, Gobert did Gobert things

For GS, don’t be sad Warriors fans. You’re team still has 3 All Stars and will have 1 MVP for the first round even with Curry out. Nobody is going to cry for you unfortunately. Especially not after they got Quinn Cook who has turned himself into a HOF guard apparently

I’m so happy for them.

And that’s it! You’re now all caught up on everything that happened last night in the NBA. We’re back at it tonight with just 5 games including BOS/PHX, DEN/PHI, and LAL/DET. Not exactly the best slate so if you don’t feel like watching that’s OK just check back here in the morning and I’ll fill you in.