NBA 24/7 365

***The Orlando Magic have proven once again that they are not to be slept on.  The Clippers, after getting off to a 16-5 start, took their collective foot off the gas, allowing the Magic to hang around.  The Magic went on to outscore the Clippers 29-18 in the fourth quarter, leading to a 104-101 victory.  Arron Afflalo, a Los Angeles native, dropped 8 of his 30 in that very fourth quarter, and none other than JJ Redick knocked down the go-ahead triple with 42 seconds to go.  Afflalo and Redick combined for 51 points on 7-11 from distance.  Meanwhile, Ish Smith, Josh McRoberts, and Andrew Nicholson got their J-Will/C-Webb/Vlade on…

Orlando’s victory snapped a 10-game losing streak.  Redick’s season scoring average has nearly eclipsed 15 points, which must make him one of the leaders amongst all bench players (where would I go to look this up?).

***David West had himself a weekend.  On Saturday, West recorded his first career triple-double (14/12/10) as the Paul George-less Pacers knocked off the Bobcats 96-88.  On Sunday, he went five for his first five in Brooklyn and finished the game with 27 points on 11-19.  The Pacers went on to lose, however, as the Nets outscored them 28-11 in the fourth quarter.  Deron Williams led the way with 22, inspiring a faint but audible “M-V-P” chant from the Barclays Center crowd.  One can only hope they were being sarcastic.  Gerald Green scored 15 on 5-13 in his first game against the Nets.

***The was a Michael Beasley sighting in Chicago.  As the Suns beat the Bulls by 16, Super Cool came off the bench to drop 20 points in 21 minutes.  He did so by making 10 of 14 attempts from the floor, which is highly unusual, as Beasley has attempted more shots (343) than he has scored points (329) this season.  Sadly, this is just the eighth time he’s shot 50% as a member of the Suns.  Only once has he done it twice in a row, so don’t expect this to be the start of a new trend.

***Amir Johnson and Ed Davis played more like Shaquille O’Neal and Hakeem Olajuwon on Sunday, recording combined totals of 42 points, 26 rebounds, and 6 assists.  Each of them finished with 20/10 lines, which is pretty weird considering that they’d only had seven such games between them in seven collective seasons (including this one) with the Toronto Raptors.  Despite the eye-popping numbers posted by Johnson and Davis, the Bucks bounced back from a terrible first quarter (outscored 34-18) and beat the Raptors 107-96.  John Henson helped the Bucks do so by holding his own against Davis.  Henson, a collegiate teammate of Davis at North Carolina, had 19 points and 6 boards.  Meanwhile, Larry Sanders — who spent the first three quarters of his afternoon getting dominated by Amir Johnson — took control of his individual match up in the fourth, outscoring Johnson 6-4 and making his presence felt on the defensive end with seven rebounds and a blocked shot.  Sanders also smashed home the alley-oop dagger which was so swaggerishly lofted up to him by Brandon Jennings…

***San Antonio’s bench scored 55 points in a 106-88 rout of the Timberwolves, who have now lost three in a row and five of their last seven.  To say that Minnesota suffered from some lackluster guard play would be an understatement; Alexey Shved and Ricky Rubio failed to make any of their 13 shot attempts while JJ Barea went 4-11 and Luke Ridnour got owned by Tony Parker.  Meanwhile, the Spurs got 15 points on 6-9 from Gary Neal.  Neal could really help the Spurs by sustaining such production over the next couple games, as Manu Ginobili will miss a week or two with a pulled hamstring.

***A couple of unusual finishes that nearly turned epic took place in Detroit and Portland.  On Saturday, the Pistons trailed the Jazz by 13 with just 3:26 to play.  They went on to lose by just three, 90-87.  Utah had built their advantage with a sudden 19-6 run, but as quickly as they’d surged ahead, Detroit came roaring back.  The catalyst in the unlikely turnaround was Will Bynum, who scored four straight layups over the course of a minute and 22 seconds. Following his individual 8-1 run, Bynum made a crucial play at the defensive end by diving to the floor twice in 10 seconds in order to secure a steal that led to a Brandon Knight layup…

Bynum’s incredible hustle would ultimately earn the Pistons a shot to tie with 4.1 seconds to go.  Their inbounds play failed to yield a clean look, though, and the Jazz hung on (I felt that Brandon Knight was fouled by DeMarre Carroll, but the officials did not).

***A similar situation unfolded in Portland on Sunday.  Down 10 to the Thunder with 3:30 to go, the Blazers closed to within one by virtue of a dramatic 9-0 run.  Portland, who turned OKC over twice on consecutive crunch-time possessions, actually had an opportunity to take the lead on a layup, but Nicolas Batum flipped up some left-handed bullshit that failed to even draw iron.  As you can see, he inexplicably failed to pass the ball to Wes Matthews, who was wide open for an even easier layup.  F@ck you, Batum.

***How bad are the Sacramento Kings?

That bad.  Props to Mario Chalmers on his career-high 34 points and franchise-record-tying 10 three-pointers, but he’d have encountered tougher defense in an over-40 pickup game.  In mean seriously, take another look at his second score of the game.  That’s just… I mean… wow.  It’s one thing to get blown out and stop trying; it’s another thing to never start trying in the first place.  What a joke the Kings are.

***Isaiah Thomas, the league’s clear frontrunner for garbage time MVP, matched Chalmers with 34 points of his own.  The Kings lose by an average of 11 points when Thomas scores 20 or more (not that it’s his fault… he just has a tendency to light it up when he’s inserted into games with forgone conclusions).

Wizards 93, Hawks 83 [Saturday]
***JOHN WALL BACK!  In something of a surprise return (a surprise to me, at least — I had no idea he was about to come back), Wall helped his Wizards achieve their first win streak (two games) of the season with a 21-minute, 14-point contribution (5-11, 4 AST/3 TO) off the bench.  It was a feel-good game for the Wizards in more ways than one, as Wall was not only present, but a factor.  During the three-minute stretch of the fourth quarter where the game was essentially won (the Wiz stretched their lead from 6 to 13), Johnny sliced, diced, and sauteed the Hawks’ defense, thrice driving to the basket for layup finishes.  Clearly, his blazing speed remains very much intact.  Let’s take a look at how he used it to score the last of his three consecutive layups…

Note the distance between Wall and his defender, Jeff Teague, when Wall decides to explode towards the basket.  Also note that Wall didn’t make any type of deceptive move… he simply decided to go, and went.  Teague, having been burned twice in a row, was wisely electing to give himself more than one step’s worth of cushion.

At this point, Wall’s explosive first step has taken place.  Being that Teague allowed so much cushion, he maintained an angle on Wall despite his inability to react as quickly as Wall had made his move.  Normally, Teague shuffles to his left and easily shuts off the offensive player’s preferred lane to the basket, which results in either a charge or a change of direction.  Wall is so fast, however, that Teague is unable to react quickly enough despite giving up two step’s worth of cushion…

Upon completion of his second step — which was just as ridiculously fast as the first one — Wall has turned the corner.  Teague is now out of position and is left with no choice but to commit a foul.  He fails to do so, and Wall proceeds to blow by three help defenders with the greatest of ease, resulting in his third consecutive score.

Now, could this play have been defended more effectively?  Sure it could’ve.  As fast as John Wall is, there are guys who can keep up with him having allowed two steps of leeway (Avery Bradley, for example).  Also, Kyle Korver had plenty of time to step in to take a charge, but defense is obviously not his forte.  Additionally, a better shot blocker than Al Horford might have caused Wall to miss at the rim (Larry Sanders or Serge Ibaka, perhaps).

As incredibly fast as he is, a simple burst to the basket from two steps beyond the three-point line will oft not be so effective as it was against Atlanta.  This is why it is so important that Wall becomes a better shooter.  He needs to be able to exploit the space that defenders are forced to give him.  If Wall could even turn himself into a respectable jump shooter it’d make him twice the player that he is today.  If he were to become a great shooter… it’d be game over.  You see how easily he roasted Jeff Teague, an impressive athlete who wasn’t even the slightest bit worried about a pull-up shot.  Imagine the threat Wall would pose to any defense if they knew there was a 40% chance that he’d make an open three-pointer.  Unfortunately, there is no real indication that Wall will ever become a shooter of that magnitude.  His percentages from 16-23 feet and three-point range both dropped off between his first and second seasons.  He attempted four jumpers against the Hawks, all from 16-23 feet, and missed them all.

Ish (short for Ishmael) Smith, a six-foot point guard out of Wake Forest, doesn’t get to play very much.  In three NBA seasons Ish has appeared in just 89 games for a total of 892 minutes.  Basically, it’s taken him three seasons to play a single season’s worth of third-string point guard for the Rockets, Grizzlies, Warriors, and Magic.  While I’m sure he’s happy to be a player in the world’s premier basketball league, I’m also sure Ish would prefer to see the floor a little more frequently.  For the most part, basketball players like to play basketball (I’m talking to you, Jerome James).

Lately, Smith has been getting sparing but regular burn for the Magic.  He’s been forced into the rotation due to an elbow injury to regular backup point guard Etwaun Moore, who got hurt seven games ago.  In a loss to the Raptors on December 28th, Ish recorded a season-high 13 points — one more than the 12 he’d scored over the season’s first 29 games.  While he didn’t quite reach 13 against the Clippers on Saturday, he did contribute 7 of Orlando’s 39 bench points in a 104-101 Magic victory.  He also had the and-one dunk of his life.  Then airballed the free throw.

What incredible transition defense by the LA Clippers!  Smith is about a step from the baseline — behind all five Clippers — when he takes his first dribble, yet he beats every single one of them to the basket.  Ninety-four feet of floor Ish Smith had to navigate and not a single Clipper stepped between him and the rim.  Forget the airballed free throw, lets all make of the Clippers’ defense.  Absolutely pathetic.

For the record, this is probably Ish Smith’s first NBA dunk.  I’d never seen him dunk before, and a Youtube query of “Ish Smith dunk” yields nothing but college highlights and various clips of his saucy passes leading to dunks by other people.

Clearly, Russell Westbrook likes to be on the cutting edge of fashion both on and off the court.  Just yesterday he arrived at LA’s Staples Center wearing what appears to be a leather t-shirt, then took the floor in a pair of Thunder-themed Air Jordan III player exclusives that sent Twitter into a frenzy (personally, I think it’s an ugly colorway).  In another recent on-court fashion development, Russell became the first player to sport the heinous Jordan XX8s.  His most memorable off-court outfits have included polo shirts with fishing lures as well as red skinny pants, and his hipster specs have become an unfortunate sensation.  Aside from maybe Tyson Chandler, who literally wears capes, Westbrook really has no NBA peers when it comes to dressing ridiculously.  Considering the things that some of these players wear, that’s saying something.

Being that Westbrook is so dedicated to being a trendsetter, I thought maybe I could tip him off on a few innovative fashions that are yet to take the world by storm.  Yesterday, I happened upon this review of an event called The London Men’s Collection, which, according to the article, is “a week-long preview of cutting edge collections for the Fall/Winter 2013-2014 season.”

You hear that, Russ?  A preview of cutting edge collections for the Fall/Winter 2013/14 season!  Adopt some of these looks immediately and you could really be ahead of the curve!

All of the following photos are from the article linked above.  If you dare, you can click the thumbnails to make the weirdness grow larger.

Never seen anything quite like this, have you Russell?  Personally, I’m a big fan of the one with the exaggerated knit hood and oven mitts.  It makes you look like Queen Amidala from Star Wars and would be nice and toasty during a road trip to Minnesota.  Also, with the NBA’s possible return to Seattle, the old man’s umbrella could become an accessory that’s as functional as it is fashionable.  As for the shoulderless one-piece with the rain boots, that might be something more ideal to be broken out in a place like LA or Miami, where the weather is good, the national media is present, and it’s of the utmost importance to make dramatic fashion statements.  Oh, and if you really want to push the limits, just wear that “please kill me” shirt to a press conference.  That’d be sure to draw attention, both from the public and Commissioner Stern.

What?

Make it happen, Russy.  Become legendary.

Sometime near the end of Friday night’s match up between the Blazers and the Warriors, NBA blogger Kevin Pelton tweeted the following:

“The Warriors are in for like a decade and a half of lamenting that Damian Lillard is from Oakland.”

A decade and a half may be a slight stretch, as Lillard will be 37 then, but Pelton’s point stands — again and again, Lillard continues to rise to the occasion.  Unfortunately for the Warriors, every one of their home games against the Portland Trail Blazers from now through the foreseeable future is going to be an occasion for one Damian Lillard.

Yesterday, young Dame haunted his hometown team in his first ever NBA return to Oakland, where physical one-on-one match ups against his big brother began to mold him into the fearless offensive force that he is today.  As a middle-schooler, Lillard used to obsess over becoming the cream of Oakland’s then-current crop.  When his seventh-grade self first sought out an online list of prospects, he didn’t discover his own name at the top.  This troubled the young man deeply, and so began his conquest to lay claim to his basketball territory.  Now, having become just one of three ’80s or ’90s babies to make the NBA out of Oakland — the others being Derrick Brown and Drew Gooden — I’d say Mr. Lillard probably doesn’t worry too much about his standing amongst hometown prospects anymore.

Indeed, young Dame has much bigger fish to fry in 2o13.  Maybe that’s why he was completely undaunted in his return to The Bay.  Playing in front of his family and friends, Lillard recorded a career-high 37 points on an efficient 15-25 from the floor and 7-12 from three.  The Blazers lost the game by six, 103-97, but that had less to do with Dame and more to do with his supporting cast shooting 29.8% from the floor on 60 attempts.

As has become typical of Lillard, he only got better as the game wore on.  The Blazers trailed by 20 with less than half the third quarter remaining, but Dame, refusing to go quietly, set off on a scoring rampage during which he made nine shots in a row.  His final bucket, a three-pointer with 22 seconds left, brought the Blazers to within three.  The Warriors weren’t about to choke the game away at the free-throw stripe, though.  Not with Steph Curry at their disposal.

The Warriors are damn fortunate that their roster features such a sure shot from the line.  Lillard was so incredibly hot he was actually making the heat checks that typically bring consecutive field goal streaks to their end.  Surely he had one last three-pointer in him.

Forget the fact that the Blazers lost.  They’ve beaten a variety of good team over their past few games and were battling through the second night of a back-to-back that began with the Miami Heat.  Not even the ’96 Bulls won ‘em all.

What’s really of note here is Lillard’s poise.  Once again, he rose to the occasion rather than shrinking in the moment.  This is a cold-blooded kid, and while I realize that he’s a little older (22) than most of the kids these days, he’s already playing at a level where he only needs but a little refinement to become an All-Star caliber player.  There are only six guards in the West — Harden, Parker, Curry, Bryant, Westbrook, and Paul — who have been playing on a higher level offensively than Lillard.  If Dame can simply improve his three-point shooting about 4%, cut his turnovers down a smidgeon, and better his understanding of team defense, then he’s right there.  While I realize that he’s two years older than Kyrie Irving, I’m not about to claim that a 22-year-old is beyond such simple improvement.

In the era of the ones, is Damian Lillard going to become a top-five point guard?  To be honest, I wouldn’t put my money on it.  The field — Chris Paul, Tony Parker, Russell Westbrook, Kyrie Irving, Derrick Rose, Rajon Rondo, Deron Williams — is just so incredibly strong… it seems hard to imagine anyone breaking through.  However, whether Lillard ever becomes a peer to those players or not, I think he may already be closer than some care to admit.  And now, having come to understand what drives him, we know full well he’s gunning not only for a spot, but the number one spot.  It’s simply how he operates, and it’s that mindset that’s gotten him to where he is today.  Perpetually, there will be one man who refuses to doubt Damian Lillard. That man is Damian Lillard, and this lack of doubt alone has proven to make him a threat.

There is a popular argument to be made that Portland is a flash in the pan, and that Lillard and his Blazers have benefited from their schedule, which has been the eighth-easiest amongst all teams.  If I’m not mistaken, Terry Stotts’ starters play more minutes than any unit in the league (Lillard himself is actually seventh overall in individual minutes).  The Blazers’ bench is indeed horrible, but it’s hard not to be impressed by what the team has accomplished lately — a victory in New York, another in Memphis, and a comeback win over the Heat.  Will the pressure of such lackluster depth eventually take its toll on the Blazers as their schedule corrects itself?  Will Lillard run into the dreaded rookie wall?  Truthfully, only time will tell… but I will say this: despite what the relevant factoids suggest, my eyeballs are telling me I’d be a goddamned fool to doubt Damian Lillard, and by association, the Portland Trail Blazers.

As I said, when it comes to becoming a top-five point guard, I don’t think I’d put my money on Damian Lillard.  Never have I been a gambling man, and I’m not about to take that sort of risk.  However, being the firm believer in the power of mental fortitude that I am, I’m not about to put my money against the man who once became so dedicated to becoming the best middle-school basketball player in his city that he wound up a star in the National freaking Basketball Association.  Clearly, this kid was cut from a different cloth.

When it comes to Damian Lillard, I think I’ll simply keep my money in my pocket, sit back, and enjoy the show.  I suggest that you do the same.