Even though it's a bench vs half starters, it kind of is an important game. The Spurs would be a half game back of the one seed.
Spurs lead the west due to head to head matchups tonight. They'll lose that lead almost immediately and then not get it back before the playoffs.
Suns went the Wilt Chamberlain route last night in order for Booker to get 70. I stopped watching with 5 minutes left and he had 51 points. After that, they consistently fouled the C's to stop the clock and Booker took every shot.
So is the league going to do the right thing and give Westbrook/Harden co-MVP's or are they going to let one of them get robbed? Harden's on the better performing team, but Westbrook is about to average a triple-double for the season. I don't see how you can choose one over the other. Hopefully everyone agrees.
I don't think he'll get it. It's going to be close, but we're inside 10 remaining on the regular season, and he hasn't been getting them as often as earlier this year. I hope he gets it though.
Saw one of the best alley oops I've ever seen tonight. I don't even remember who threw the alley (i think it was Patty Mills from the arc), but Manu Ginobili was already halfway through the paint and could have passed the ball to the perimeter. Instead, he does a classic Manu thing and throws a reverse spin off the backboard after he's a yard past the bucket for an amazing layup, feet never hit the ground. That was better than every between-the-legs pass I've ever seen him make. Fucking dude is a basketball sorcerer.
Speaking of getting it wrong, I really hope the NBA does something about the amount of video reviews and the expected outcome before next year. I don't have stats, but video reviews have to be way up this year... And they are the dumbest crap ever. The refs/HQ mission when they go do these reviews is always to get multiple fouls that cancel each other out. I don't think I have not seen a video review this year that was 50/50 (involving a foul/contact), where each team did not receive at least 1 foul from the play.
I guess the Spurs haven't gotten a lot of these reviews and I don't care to consistently watch other games around the league, although I do catch some of the bigger ones. I don't see the trend as it pertains to my team. What I do know is that these refs for years have obsessed over keeping the foul count between teams close even though logic would dictate that a finesse team wouldn't commit as many fouls as a team that is known for being aggressive in the paint and bullying their way to the rim. I can't remember the last bullshit highlight dunk Blake Griffin made where you couldn't see him blatantly smacking a defender in the face or neck with his off arm. And if you watch the scores and the cluster to of foul calls, it's pretty obvious that the fouls that are called look pretty strategic. Gotta make that game look dramatic so it names high ratings, gets a bunch of Twitter his and makes Vegas happy. As much as I love to watch one team play, the league itself is just as dirty and fixed as any other league, including NCAA.
I have seen way too many times this year... Celtic games it's almost once a game. Yesterday against Milwaukee there were 3 alone. One was a review for a personal foul and a technical foul on Marcus Smart, which ended up becoming a technical foul on Smart and a foul on the Bucks player (think it was Middleton). Comical, and if you saw the highlight you knew where the refs wanted it to go and what a normal person would have called. Another was a foul on Giannis which turned into a flagrant 1 on Smart and a personal foul on Giannis... They didn't even look at the whole play, which would have shown Giannis should have gotten a flagrant 1 as well.... They looked at the last 2 seconds of the play and that was it. Can't remember the other one. I felt bad for the refs watching it. The whole system is totally broken and doesn't improve the game.
Milwaukee? That should tell you something. The times I do remember the Spurs going through lengthy reviews are when they play these rural periphery teams. Instead of hating those breaks, wonder why they are happening in meaningless games instead of when your team is trying to make headway against conference rivals. This league has orchestrated so many drama situations but you only see these games stoppages when it's a non-national game that only die hard fans watch. It's their experiment.
I can't believe Okc blew that big lead and lost at the last second. I was really hoping for the 5 seed, but that looks unlikely now. Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk
Harden is ok. Rockets lost both ends of a road back to back, at Portland and at Golden State. going to be 1)GS 2)SA 3)HOU In the East, the top two will be Boston and Cleveland, but they're fighting it out for #1. Chicago/Miami/Indiana battling for two spots, the 7 and 8 seeds.
