Eastern Conference
- Milwaukee Bucks offense: That was some offensive performance by the Bucks last night. If the Bucks play this well and in particular shoot threes this well, 60% last night, they are unbeatable. The Bucks seemed to get any shot they wanted. The ironic part of this is the Knicks are a pretty good defensive team. On the negative side the Bucks did allow 122 points. Within those 122 the Knicks only made seven threes. The Knicks scored 60 points in the paint so the Bucks still have trouble keeping teams out of the paint.
- Speaking of the Knicks, what happened last night? Their defense was atrocious and the Bucks had wide open threes all night. The one thing you can usually count on is the Knicks ability to defend. The other thing you can count on is their ability to stay in games, playing hard from start to finish, it just wasn’t there last night.
- One more thing on the Knicks. I think Tom Thibodeau is a real good coach. His teams are know for their defense and playing hard from the start to the finish of a game. That wasn’t the Knicks last night. As I mentioned before their defense was terrible and offensively there was no ball movement. In the fourth quarter it looked like whoever got the ball in the fore-court dribbled until they could get a shot off. Pair that with Quentin Grimes complaining about not getting any shots and something isn’t right there. They didn’t play like a Thibs team last night. If the Knicks struggle against Boston something might be up.
More Eastern Conference
- The Boston Celtics road record is now 6-5. Teams that have won titles have had worse road records. Couple that with their ability to lose close games on the road is alarming. Four of those losses were close games. Championship caliber teams usually close out those games on the road. With Kristaps Porzingis getting healthy and the Celtics with all their starters back we”ll get a better idea if this is a real problem.
- I don’t quite understand what the Wizards are doing. A new team president usually strips the roster down and completely starts over. They do this by trading assets for expiring contracts and draft picks. The Wizards kept some assets and their value is dropping. I’m talking about Jordan Poole and Kyle Kuzma. BTW if Wes Unseld Jr. is renting I hope his lease doesn’t go past April.
Western Conference
- Have at it conspiracy theorists after LeBron’s timeout. The ref’s blew the call and the shame of it is if the Lakers win the In-Season tournament people will talk about that call. This will take some of the shine off how much fun and how successful the tournament has been.
- Staying with LeBron, I don’t know what to make of the discussion he had with Ime Udoka Saturday but it took a lot of shall we say courage for Udoka to stand up to LeBron. Rarely does anyone stand up to LeBron James.
