One man’s trash is another man’s treasure was the theme of the evening on Thursday. The Pistons waived Josh Smith earlier this season and the Rockets reaped all the rewards in one of the craziest games of the year. They outscored the Clippers 40-15 in the fourth quarter to earn a 119-107 victory and force a Game 7 on Sunday. Smith scored 14 points in the fourth with all four of his treys coming in that frame, finishing with 19 points, six rebounds, two assists, one steal and one block. He was playing point-forward and was outstanding on defense, especially in the paint. He’s likely earned more minutes for Sunday’s Game 7.
Smith going off might not even be the craziest part because the Rockets benched James Harden down the stretch. Harden finished with 23 points, two rebounds, three assists, two steals and two 3-pointers on 5-of-20 from the field. He was sick today and maybe that was a factor. Although, coach Kevin McHale said he wanted to stick with his guys because they were getting stops and getting good shots on offense. That lineup that went down the stretch was J-Smoove, Dwight Howard, Corey Brewer, Jason Terry and Trevor Ariza. How much better was that lineup? Here’s a look at all of the lineups from Houston on Thursday:
Yeah, a 123.6 net rating is pretty good in nine minutes. Corey Brewer was absolutely fantastic and put up a plus-32 for plus/minus in just 25 minutes, finishing with 19 points, 10 rebounds, two assists, one block and two 3-pointers. He and the Clippers both had 15 points in the fourth quarter. Yes, Brewer and Smith fueled the Rockets for a win. Can’t predict ball, you guys.
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Dwight Howard was also big time. NBA Twitter hates Dwight like few others, but he put up 20 points, 21 boards, one assist, one steal and two blocks in 40 minutes The Rockets went away from going to Howard on play design and they let him just do what he does best: Hit the glass and put it back. He had seven offensive boards and you can’t understate how great he was on defense. Jason Terry was also very good with seven points, seven boards, five assists and one 3-pointer in 33 minutes. JET also locked down Chris Paul late, which feels weird to type.
So what does a 15-point fourth quarter meltdown shot chart look like for the Clippers? Like this:
That’s 4-of-22 from the field. Many of those were contested and a lot of those paint shots weren’t even close. Also, this is a really wild win probability chart from NumberFire:
Yikes. Almost straight vertical line mode. It looked like the Clippers had this one in the bag with Blake Griffin putting up a crazy no-look layup (check it out here), but after that it looked like he had wasn’t looking at all. We’ve praised Blake for his effort for the entire playoffs, but for some reason he just seemed out of it. He wasn’t hitting the glass, was lost on PNR D, wasn’t paying attention on defense off the ball and was forcing shots. Griffin still finished with a nice line of 28 points, eight boards, two assists, two steals and one block.
Obviously when a team chokes this badly, it’s not on one player. Chris Paul wasn’t at the top of the list and probably not in the Mount Rushmore of the choke job, but of course many people will blame him because he still hasn’t made it to a conference finals. We get it. Anyway, CP3 had a huge line with 31 points, seven boards, 11 assists, and one 3-pointer. JET D’d him up, too. Luckily for him, Game 7 isn’t until Sunday, so maybe that’ll help his hamstring. Although, CP3 said he’s 100 percent.
DeAndre Jordan was not the same player down the stretch and Dwight outplayed him. Jamal Crawford also really had a bad fourth quarter, which is usually his time to shine. He finished with nine points, two boards, one assist and one 3-pointer on 4-of-13 from the field. Game 7 on Sunday should be interesting.
Changing gears, the Bulls do not like LeBron James. Maybe he remembers their fans cheering when he suffered an injury. Maybe he’s just a bad matchup for them or maybe he’s just lucky. Well, it’s probably none of those because the Bulls always look like their chasing their tails against him in the playoffs. LeBron didn’t even have his best game on Thursday, making 7-of-23 from the field for 15 points with 11 assists, nine rebounds, two blocks and four turnovers.
Kyrie Irving suffered a left knee injury and did not return, which opened the door for Matthew Dellavedova. There’s more on Irving below, but Delly delivered. Usually, he’s just a catch-and-shoot guy on the perimeter with 50 percent of all of his shots coming off a catch-and-shoot during the regular season, and he was great in that regard on Thursday, too. Dellavedova even had some post ups and drives in this win. He was the Cavs’ high scorer with 19 points to go with his two rebounds, one assist and three 3-pointers.
As for Kyrie Irving, it sounds like he’s going to be fine. Coach David Blatt didn’t seem concerned, LeBron James told Kyrie he and his teammates had the game covered without him, and Kyrie even said he would have played had the game been close. Amazingly, Dellavedova’s game tonight was better than any of Kyrie’s games in the postseason (Game 5 vs. Chicago is probably his best).
If you’re into lineup combos, the most interesting player from this series has to be Tristan Thompson. In fact, the Cavs’ net rating was 23.6 better with Thompson on the court than it was without him in this series. The lineup of Thompson, Delly, LeBron, J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert absolutely demolished the Bulls on Thursday. Here are the lineups from Thursday:
Yeah, a net rating of 80.2 in 13 minutes is pretty good. Thompson was just what the Cavs needed to give them a boost on the boards and his low-post defense was much better as well. He finished with 13 points, 17 boards and two blocks in the win. Looking ahead, it’s tough to tell how the Cavs will use him against the Wizards or Hawks. Regardless, I’d say he gets more minutes than Timofey Mozgov with how well he’s reading plays and crashing the boards at the right time. We’ll address the matchups once we find out who the Cavs are playing. I’ll be here for Daily Dose on Sunday morning.
As for the Bulls, they looked awful. It was some of the most stagnant offense of the playoffs and it looked a lot like OKC’s offense except they don’t have Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. It was a lot of Jimmy Butler isolation and the Bulls may have had just four good shots until garbage time. While Butler is a much better scorer, he’s still not there yet as the focal point on offense because he still isn’t quite there as a passer. He finished with 20 points, five rebounds, one assist, one steal and two 3-pointers. He’ll be a second-round target next season. Derrick Rose wasn’t quite where he needed to be with 14 points, two rebounds, six assists and two turnovers. For fantasy next year, let someone else draft him.
The Bulls are going to have a similar roster, but almost all signs point to coach Tom Thibodeau running the show for another team. He has always been about defense, so a new coach might help all the Bulls put up more fantasy value. Nikola Mirotic’s upside is too high to ignore and one would think he’d grow even more next season.
In non-game news, the NBA Draft Combine is underway, so teams can finally see some actual rewards from their tanking this season. If you’re like me, you aren’t too tuned in to the NCAA game until March besides maybe watching some day games on Saturday. With only seven teams left, we can shift some of our focus away from the NBA just a tad. You can check out all of the measurements right here. Also, remember that every team has 18 interviews for players. Here are some interesting notes from the combine on Thursday:
After Rudy Gobert broke out this season, you’d think NBA teams would love wing spans more than Jay Bilas and California condor enthusiasts combined. If that’s the case, Robert Upshaw of Washington likely helped his stock. He came in at an event-high 7’5.5” wing span. However, there are some off-the-court concerns with Upshaw, so he might have a tough time getting into the first round.
Among the projected lottery guys, Willie Cauley-Stein seems to be the highest at 7’3”. You’ve probably heard of him because he changed his name to Willie Trill Cauley-Stein. Personally, I thought he should have gone double-hyphen: Willie-Trill Cauley-Stein. Anyway, he has a very good paint presence and he did improve his free throw shooting from 48.2 percent in 2013-14 to 61.7 percent last season. Still, he is not someone you’ll want to target in most leagues.
Maybe one of my favorite movies of all time, White Men Can’t Jump, is kind of a misnomer. Apparently, Sydney Dean was wrong because Pat Connaughton logged the highest max vert at 44 inches. He won’t be on the fantasy radar except if he’s playing against King and Duck or something.
On a personal note, I was adding some of the college players into our Rotoworld system and noticed how young these guys are. Basically all of them probably never saw Michael Jordan play with the Bulls during a live game. Plus, Mario 64 is older than a lot of those guys, too. Sorry I just made many of you guys feel old like me. We’ll have plenty of stuff on the rookies at Las Vegas Summer League, so check back for that stuff.
Also be sure to check out Ed Isaacson’s Draft stuff. Here’s his centers comparisons. Let’s end this edition with J.R. Smith tweeting out how this column started (he actually tweeted this, by the way):
