Blazers win by 10. Howard was 15/19 from the line, 33 points, 14 rebounds, 5 assists. Damian Lillard joins Isiah Thomas & Oscar Robertson as only players with 20 pts, 10 ast in NBA debut
Lakers always lose in Portland. Doesn't seem to matter whether they're on a B2B, rested, Portland's good, Portland sucks, etc. I'll need to double check but I think the Lakers have only won 2-3 games there in the last decade and one of them was Kobe nailing multiple buzzer beating 3s. You are right about the Mike Brown chants though, which started after the first loss. Unfortunately though the only coach who makes sense for a mid-season rescue is Phil Jackson, and who knows if he's up for it. Not sure who else is out there. Dan Tony? He'd love to coach these guys, Kobe and Nash like him. The offense would be insane to watch, the defense would blow, but at this point I'd sign up for that if they can't figure out this Princeton stuff. JVG? A bit too risky unless Dwight agrees to an extension. Can't take the chance of trading the 2nd best Center in the league for a 1 year rental of the best center in the league.
I never thought he would effectively pass the ball haha. Didn't like him as a player in college and don't think he will find a spot for himself in the league unless he changes himself as a player
Eric Maynor just drained a half court shot to tie the game at the end of the Third Quarter, and the TNT announcer screamed like he was having a painful orgasm
It's basketball season, I got 82 games to hype up or hype down all these players haha. And saw highlights for the Thunder @ Spurs game. Can't believe I missed it, looked like a fun one.
Thunder are going to have some issues this season. Harden was the guy that made plays for Westbrook and Durant without them dominating the basketball. Whose going to be the equalizer in that aspect? Surely not Kevin Martin or Maynor. Don't sleep on Jeremy Lamb becoming that player that Harden was once though.
Thunder are going to have similar problems as last year, they are going to settle for jumpers because when they are on they are unstoppable. It comes down to Ibaka though. He has to develop a post game (if I remember correctly he doesn't have one) and he needs to rotate better and help better on defense (this idea comes from most basketball writers on the internet so I'm running with it :up. If Ibaka can develop a post game, it helps them tremendously. It sucks that those 3 guys got broken up and not another chance to win a title.
Hollinger wrote an article a couple of days ago basically stating that Harden's numbers will go through the roof. I kind of laughed at it at first but if these first 2 games are any indication, Harden is playing like the league MVP let alone a top 10-15 player lol.
Obviously the efficiency he scored with last night isn't going to last all season, but man can he score. I always thought playing with Durant/Westbrook helped his scoring look good since people never wanted to leave them/fpocused on him. I knew he was good, I didn't think he be THIS good THIS quickly. Obviously 80 games left, but this is just spectacular
He is like Ginobili and would be good on any team. He was one of my favorite players until the no show in the Finals. Ehh, he is still probably in my top 5.
Thats what I thought too--how hard can it be to put numbers with defenses focusing on Durant/Westbrook? But everyone's going to key on him now. What if at the end of the season his statline looks something like 28-5-7, does that put him in the MVP conversation?
It has too but this MVP is Lebron's to lose barring injury. Yeah, we will see how he does with teams centering their plan around him.
Good I agree with, Great surprises me. He's one of my favorite still. Him, Chris Paul, Duncan, Durant, and Kyrie are my favorites to watch now. So I guess my favorite non Knicks
