It was the kind of night where everybody was watching the two worst teams in the NBA play — and doing so intently. That game didn’t disappoint, but there were a few others worth watching. All of it was better than worrying about the economic impacts of building a Death Star, so here is what you need to know from the NBA Tuesday.
1) The streak is dead — Philadephia finally gets a win. This wasn’t out of nowhere — Philadelphia had been playing hard and coming close for weeks. They should have a few wins now. But in the hapless Lakers the Sixers found a team that couldn’t crank up their defensive pressure or offense in the fourth, and the energy was enough to get the win. Enjoy it. Celebrate Robert Covington’s 23 points (including five threes), and he also covered Kobe (and we’d say forced him into a bad shooting night, but Kobe does that himself). Celebrate Jerami Grant’s blocks. For a night don’t think about how Jahlil Okafor and Nerlens Noel don’t fit together along the front line and just bask in the glow of victory. Then know you have to face the Knicks at MSG Wednesday.
2) Byron Scott says Lakers need to live with Kobe Bryant’s isolation shots, rest of locker room not sold. The Lakers are a mess. That was true long before they handed the Sixers their first win of the season Tuesday night, but this game highlighted the problems. Los Angeles is a team that should be about developing its young stars and instead rests D’Angelo Russell late in games and gives Kobe Bryant carte blanche to jack up as many shots as he wants. And jack them up he did on Tuesday — 7-of-26 shooting for 20 points, and he was 4-of-17 from three (after starting 3-of-3 from deep).
The Lakers’ Xs and Os are an issue — they run a dinosaur era offense that teams can defend, and it leads to a lot of isolation basketball. Byron Scott is good with that, as he told ESPN’s Baxter Holmes.As you would expect, the other Lakers in the locker room defended Kobe’s right to shoot as much as he wants, but even they are now questioning the offense and how he is getting those shots. Via Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News.
“We have to make the game easier on (Kobe) instead of trying to iso,” said Jordan Clarkson, who had 19 points on 9-of-19 shooting. “We can get screens for him. We put more emphasis on that instead of having all eyes on him the whole game, that’s taxing.”
But what will it take for that to happen?
“You can’t blame (Kobe). He takes a lot of shots. But it’s everybody,” Nick Young said. “From the coaches to the players, we have to get on one page and on the same page. I can’t tell you why that’s not happening right now. All I know is the circus came to town today and we did what we normally do.”
When Nick Young is saying your offense needs to have less isolation basketball and more teamwork, you know you have problems.
3) Wizards break out of their slump and beat Cavaliers. I didn not see this one coming. The Washington Wizards had dropped four straight to potential playoff teams in the East, they had looked terrible of late, then against the Cavaliers they jump out to a 10-0 lead to open the game and never looked back (well, it got close a couple of times but they never trailed). John Wall — who had admitted he needed to play better, and he was right — was attacking again and finished with 35 points on 24 shots, plus had 10 assists. Randy Wittman rolled out a “tiny ball” lineup (to use Mike Prada’s line) with Jared Dudley at center and Otto Porter at the four, and in limited stretches it worked. Everything went the Wizards’ way for a night; now we’ll see if they can build on it (one game alone does not a turnaround make).
4) Dirk Nowitzki gets spun. Dallas picked up a quality road win in overtime Tuesday in front of Commissioner Adam Silver, getting 30 points from Deron Williams and beating the Blazers in overtime. But the play of the night was C.J. McCollum putting Dirk Nowitzki in the blender and hitting spin.
5) Marc Gasol has record night. Anthony Davis couldn’t stop him. Tuesday nobody could stop him. Memphis’ Gasol dropped a career-high 38 points, plus grabbed 13 boards, had six assists and four blocks in the Grizzlies 113-104 victory over the Pelicans. Gasol’s 16 made free throws tied the Memphis franchise record for free throws made in a game. Gasol just had it going on.