Topic: 2019 NBA Pre-Season - page 267. (Read 902823 times)

Yeah, and now another win for them against the Indiana Pacers. Solid team. That's what they are right now. If it's not Sexton then it will be Clarkson, if it's not Kessler then it will be Collins. They have wide options of defensive and offensive players this season and I think they will keep this streak until it goes to 10. The only trouble that they might face is after the game against the Warriors, which will be a back-to-back game where they might get exhausted and lose the game. But like I said, they have a wide range of players that are stepping up their game and their stars could rest if they want one while trusting their bench to fill the hole for them.
This is the Jazz that we saw at the start of last season, very aggressive, the defensive rate is high, Kessler with 5 super blocks, and he might not be contributing offensively but his presence is always felt by the team.
Markkanen is so damn strong today, with 32 points and 10 rebounds in just 28 minutes of playtime. The Pacers were not given a chance to get close to them during the whole game. They have short runs but the Jazz always answers with short runs too.

Lakers won! Finally. I thought they were going to sink for a couple more games but finally, Anthony Davis stepped up his game big time. 27 points and 15 rebounds. This should be his normal stats every game.

If they won't let Reaves go then that trade is not gonna happen. Well, it's evident that the Lakers are struggling but it's not too late for them, I mean they can still figure out how to start winning again. Like tonight, they are up against one of the hottest team in the NBA now, if they can beat this OKC team, then people will start talking positively about them and would probably forget that trade rumors.

Dlo showed he can still contribute to the team, like their previous game when he was the top score, although it was a losing effort but we saw what he can do. It's not the players, it's the coaching staff that needs to be fixed, get back to normal and everything will be fine.

The Lakers players and coaching staff should look for the cause of their failures in team chemistry instead of trying to get rid of role players. Sure, guys like DLo, Reaves, Rui are sometimes very inconsistent, but I still believe these guys can be very useful to the team when they find their right rhythm of play.
By the way, the last rumor I saw is that the Lakers are interested in Dejounte Murray, but they don't want to include Reaves in that deal.

As if things couldn’t get worse for the Wizards. Now their player Ryan Rollins is being accused of stealing candles and soap from a Target store (7 times). This is a guy that makes over a million dollars a year. I’m not sure if this is a case of old habits being hard to break, or if 1.7 million dollars really isn’t enough to get by in today’s economy for some people…

Dame is really fitting with the Bucks very well. One thing that is missing from their system right now is a killer Dame-Giannis pick and roll, not that they do not do it, but they are not doing it all the time and quite often. Look at Nuggets, they are literally just spamming Murray-Jokic pick and roll, they do that maybe a million times a game, they know it works, doesn't mean that either of those have to score, it means that if they do that pick and roll, there will be some help defense, and when that happens, Jokic can pass out to whoever is open. Dame and Giannis pick and roll can't be defended that easily, and if any help comes from anyone else, both of them could pass out to the open person, if no help comes, they can both score.

Nah, DLo is inconsistent, though he is the 3rd or 4th guy in the team in terms of scoring, but his inconsistency made him look like just a mediocre player. There could be a lot of pressure in LA, just like what they say, LA Lakers has a different kind of spot light, plus you've got LeBron and AD on the same team.
Though the Utah Jazz have been a good team since a couple of years ago, but I don't think they are in perfect form yet. They made it to the top in the last season, but I'm not sure what happened to them as they just gradually fell out of the playoff picture lol.

The Lakers just had exactly the same standing today and last year throughout their 40 games of the regular season. This could be a bad omen, especially now that the team is talking a lot about trade and it involves significant names like DLo, Reaves, Rui, Vando, and Cam Reddish. These guys might be a good fit for any team and the Lakers are going to build another chemistry if they pull up another trade.

Great game between the Pelicans and the Mavericks. Dallas took a good lead in the first quarter, but the Pelicans try to comeback in the 2nd. Now we are in the 3th and they made a 9-0 run talking a 8 point lead.

Luka is not playing but it was Kyrie that is carrying the team right now with already 30+ points under his name.

I think this game is going to the wire and it's very hard to predict who's going to win as the Mavs doesn't want to lose in their homecourt.

Yeah it's definitely looking like it will work out, I think what a lot of people were concerned about was all the picks they gave up for gobert.  If it didn't work it would set them back a long time because of the lack of flexibility they have moving forward.  Ant has been something else.  I think he is the one that made the biggest step up and make the wolves a top tier team. 

Wolves are doing something that has to change for a long time, and I think they are doing something that nobody really expected, that's the good part. Back when they got Gobert, people had some worries because they believed that during the era of small ball, and everyone shooting threes, they got another big man when they had KAT already, nobody assumed KAT would be able to play the PF role, that dude is the modern Center in person, he was doing well too not like he was playing badly, but they still got Gobert for some reason.

Everyone thought this "experiment" would fail, but so far they are looking good. Of course there are other players who are contributing very well too, but those two big playing together without an issue is very crucial.

Winning five in a row is no easy feat and what's more impressive is that they defeated three top teams. They are definitely on a momentum but I doubt they can break into the top 6. I think qualifying for the Play-in is the best they could do in the regular season. Who knows if they could pull off what the Heat did last season.

Jazz seems to finally find their pace, and with this five wins in a row they calim a space in the playoff with a few games more, but still good to wake up early than later in the regular season, they are in the construction process of a team, so you need this streaks of win to achieve higher levels of confidence in the whole team.

Utah Jazz is in a great run right now. They are outperforming a lot of the teams that are considered very strong. Just look at the last few matches for the Utah Jazz. They have beaten teams like Bucks, 76ers, nuggets and some of them were pretty easy for the Utah team to be honest. So I think you guys are talking right and making a lot of sense. And when they play home it is definitely a big advantage for them.

In the Lakers match Jazz was just a better team and I don't think it would have made a big difference if they actually had played Lebron. I know he is a great player and the team also depends on him a lot, but Jazz was better in that match. And we can't always talk about the hypothetical.

I think you've made a good pick but you should have seen the Jazz 2 years ago when they were on 1st place during season but somehow they managed to not have a deep run in play-offs but that Utah Jazz team from 2021-2022 was really impressive. I can also say I do enjoy watching Jazz especially when they play home because it's well known internationally that is super hard to win on Utah Jazz court.

True , I think even if LeBron played , Utah would have still won that game as they are simply a better team.

I loved them last season at the start of the games. I think they recorded a long winning streak too and that was when I became a big fan of Markkanen (although I saw greatness in him during the Eurobasket) because of their entertaining way of playing with JC. Then, they discovered the talent of Kessler which made it more entertaining.
This season they add more flavor to their roster by acquiring John Collins and then Sexton is playing well helping out on the offensive end. This team is strong but young. Markannen and Kessler need a lot of experience before they can become a team that will be difficult to beat. But, they are showing real strength after the roster became healthy again. This is good, suddenly the NBA became unpredictable again with their entry. 5 winning streak, they must continue until 10 and find a good spot in the ranking before the All-Star.

Looks like Draymond Green will be playing later.
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/39311200/draymond-green-golden-state-warriors-return-easy
I do like GP2 to be back as early as possible but I don't think that will happen due to his hamstring injury. I like that guy more and his defensive capability but injuries do hurt his career.
It's not like I don't like Draymond, he is a good defender but the offense was not like before when he was paired with Steph. Something must've gone wrong with their chemistry. Anyway, I am hoping they can win later or they will buried deep in the 13th rank or below.

I can now say that my favorite team in the NBA is the Utah Jazz. I like it very much as a team. They continue their six-game home series with three out of three. Most recently, they managed to defeat the Los Angeles Lakers 132-125 in their home field. As I mentioned before, if the basketball player who would contribute to LeBron and Anthony Davis in terms of scoring in the Los Angeles Lakers would be D'Angelo Russel. Russell proved this in the Utah match, but he could not prevent the defeat. LeBron did not play in this game due to his injury, but even if he played, the result would not change. Because Utah is a team in perfect form. I think it deserves higher rankings. His next opponent is the Indiana Pacers and he will most likely leave the field defeated in Indiana.

There are still plenty of games, but most likely these teams will only end up in the top 4, which means they'll not face in the first round, and if they are good enough to advance in the 2nd round, then maybe that's the time we will see them match each other. For me, it's a 50/50 considering the Minnesota will earn the home court advantage, because if not, I would give the Clippers the edge, maybe 55/45.

It is more likely that they will gonna cross against each other in the NBA playoffs this year since they were playing great basketball this season and it would be a great shame to not be able to reach the NBA playoffs despite having one of the greatest rosters in the NBA today for the L.A Clippers. Right now, since the Timberwolves are the number one in the West, they should exert all effort to find a hole in their offense and defense because it will be harder for them in the future when they are pressured with the limited number of games to play with them and they suddenly find that they will gonna be against them in the next round of the NBA playoffs while they still don't know how to beat them.

The problem with the CLippers here is they were not able to contained Edwards who scored 33 points from 10-16 shooting. It seems like it's too easy for him to look for a shot while the starters of the Clippers are struggling. If these two will meet in the playoffs, it should be a fun competition, a chess match kind of game as although on paper,  Minnesota is the underdog, but as long as they play good defense, they could upset a favorite team to play against them.

Yeah right, not just with the offense but also on the defensive side, the twin towers are tough defenders and with low percentage
shots that being taken by Clippers they manage to win the game.

Like what you said, they are the current number 1 as they are playing decently keep winning more games with the kind of setup that they've got now.

The season still far and there are many things that can happened as trade deadlines is not done yet, we might see changes from rankings
before the playoff.

Yes, big game by the two, Towns taking advantage when Westbrook is guarding him. He even had a alley-oop pass to Gobert for a slam. A good comeback by the Clippers but it was not enough, even Wb blew that easy two and the announcer says it was karma, Lol.

It's the other way around, the Clippers tested the Wolves at home, they take a good lead in the first quarter and then in the final, but Clippers also a good team with Powell shooting 3 that close the score but then again, the Wolves can be denied with Gobert playing defense in the middle with that great block shot against Kawhi.