13 Rules: Random NBA Thoughts

• How about Luka and the Dallas Mavericks. After everyone, including me, ordained the Minnesota Timberwolves as the Western Conference champions Dallas goes and wins two games in Minnesota. Things will be extremely difficult for the Wolves to come back but if we look back at their last series Denver won three straight after losing two at home. Denver ultimately lost that series.
• I don’t understand how Jaylen Brown did not make ALL NBA. If you watched Celtics games this year you saw how special he was. Brown was much better this year than last year. As a defender he had a legit claim to be on the All Defense Team. If you remember he made ALL NBA last year. It’s odd that a team with the most wins in the league only has one player as ALL NBA. This while two teams that lost in the first round of the playoffs has two. By the way, besides those two there were a few other ones that Brown outplayed this year, I’m talking about players like Tyrese Haliburton.
• Rick Carlisle is a good coach with a good chance to be a Hall of Fame coach however he hasn’t had a good playoff series against Boston. In the first game he failed to call timeout at the end of the game. That resulted in a turnover and Jaylen Brown’s game tying shot. In the second game Pascal Siakam was hot in the third quarter when he took him out. He was keeping the Pacers in the game. Siakam may have been tired but he was needed and should have stayed in. The one good thing about this is the minutes police would be happy with Carlisle.
• Indiana has improved defensively. This is due to the players they are primarily using. Guys like Aaron Nesmith, T.J. McConnell, Myles Turner and Andrew Nembhard are good defenders and they have been getting the minutes.

More Random Thoughts

• I know the minutes police are watching Tom Thibodeau. First of all I believe he’s one of the best game coaches in the league and that includes preparation and attention to detail. The amount of time the Knicks played in games was comparable to other teams. I also know injuries have hit NBA playoff teams hard. No team has been hit harder than the Knicks in the playoffs. While worrying about the minutes players play in games do we think about practices. When talking about this I ask you what coach in the NBA is known for his long and difficult practices.
• Staying on the minutes police idea let’s look at the Denver Nuggets. In their last game Aaron Gordon played forty-two minutes, Nikola Jokic forty-six minutes, Jamal Murray forty-two minutes and Caldwell Pope thirty-nine minutes. Denver ran out of gas in game seven against Minnesota. The Nuggets were forced to over use their players and this has to do with their weak bench. Don’t forget they lost Bruce Brown and Jeff Green this year to free agency.
• JB Bickerstaff was fired this week. When you look at how his team has improved during his tenure, he shouldn’t have been fired. Though a lot hasn’t been said one of the big reasons he was fired was Donovan Mitchell. It’s out there that he wasn’t happy with Bickerstaff. Mitchell has a decision to make on whether to stay with Cleveland and sign another contract. The player especially someone of Mitchell’s caliber is more important than the coach. So management decides the coach goes and hopes that convinces Mitchell to stay.