Topic: 2019 NBA Pre-Season - page 278. (Read 914777 times)

The Celtics have everyone who can get red-hot any game. Although Tatum is their leader, he does not carry the big responsibility to score big every game. These players (Porzingis, White, and Holiday) can explode anytime, so this team is now more dangerous since they've made improvements to their defense. Seeing a healthy Porzingis makes me happy, as finally, he was able to find a team that sees his real value. I'm hoping he won't be traded and that he'll win a championship for the first time together with the old stars of this team.

It was a tough game for them and they could not handle the Celtics this time cause Jaylen Brown was once again red-hot on the court and led the Boston Celtics in score which led them to victory last night. Nothing new for the Celtics since they are number one overall in the league, The Knicks are an easy opponent for them because they simply know how to counter their rotations and their defense is not effective against the Celtics this time. And they will be against the 76ers next time, let's see if they can win it easily as well because if that's the case, then they chance to get to the NBA finals this year is quite high.

Players find it "disrespectful" if the winning team still wants to score even though they are up by, for example, 20 points in the last few minutes or seconds. If you are up by a lot of points, why score a point if it won't move a needle and you will still win? That is what the player on the losing team thinks. On the other hand, the winner might not want to run the clock out because it will cause a turnover for them, and it will be written in the statistics. Both sides do have their point. 

But for me, I am not really a fan of it either. If the winning teams want to score, then play defense or let them shoot; it doesn't matter; they still lose, so why care about 2 points? And you are right; it is also their fault that they are down by a lot of points, so them getting angry about something like that is really weird because if they played great defense, then they wouldn't reach that point. 

But who knows? Maybe some of the players are betting total under or don't want the points spread to get large. 

They are not thinking about the money anymore because when they sign a contract with a multi-million-dollar deal, they already know that they have made a lot of money that they can use throughout the period of the contract. A defensive game will only happen in the All-Star game if the organizers ensure it. After all, these players owe the fans a lot, and they should ensure that the fans are entertained in an All-Star game that only happens once a year.

People used to use the term "All-Star" to determine the best player of the team, but why is it that during the All-Star game, they don't show up? I mean, if in the past, like in the 90s to the early 2000s, the event was very entertaining to watch, for sure, we will see the same again in this era.

I don't think there would be any effect from such an idea, even if the NBA management decided to do it. I mean, a lot of NBA players have multi-million dollar contracts, and a prize of $500k would hardly motivate them to do anything worthwhile during the all-star game.
Honestly, I think the problem is not just money.

Ever since these two have been injured, their struggle started, and it is continuing now. This will have a huge impact on their ranking, and they are at risk of missing the playoffs this season. Yes, Brunson is very consistent, but we know he is not really a star caliber player like LeBron (the prime LeBron), KD, or Leonard. He is just an ordinary star player and can't carry this team to the championship, even in the playoffs.


He would be very significant on a playoff team as he is a clutch player, a veteran who still plays like his seasons with the Utah Jazz.

I am one of those who was rooting for the Knicks to pull the upset at home. But I did not place a bet as Boston is once again on a hot streak and is looking stronger after that shameful loss against the Lakers who played without Lebron and AD.

Bojan is always a good addition to any team so the Knicks are lucky to have him. But Bojan did not get lucky today as he only shot 1 of his 4 in the threes. It was all Brunson once again and it is hard to win against a top team when relying on a single player. The Knicks are struggling without Randle and Anunoby.

Players are too sensitive with just 2 points. If you don't want to be blown out then play defense.
This "unwritten rule" of the players should have a punishment in the books. It's simple, they are too sensitive about being score 2 or 3 more points, and yet it's all their fault for not playing better. I am against that rule of them. GSW simply doesn't want another turnover and Bridges blocked it so I guess he is still playing ball despite the time running out. But what he did after was unacceptable, and then Grant Williams joined the scuffle like he was an old Hornet player. That was just surprising, I bet he just wanted a fight.
The NBA needs a rule to counter the unwritten rule so it won't happen again. Play the game until the buzzer sounds. If not, then let the other team score as much as they like.

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Oh! Here's another idea that I bumped into the sports news about changing the All-Star.
https://sports.yahoo.com/letters-sports-motivate-nba-stars-123031248.html
Could possibly be effective. Hilarious though, he called the players "unenthusiastic millionaires". 

It's surprsing! Looks like Bojan Bogdanović was a great addition to the Knicks. Had already played 3 games and had been averaging 16PPG. His last game was very impressive, putting a show with 6-6 shooting beyond the arc (didn't missed). With a shooter like him, the Knicks can space the floor and they'll not heavily rely on Brunson's attacking ability. Hopefully he'll earn more minutes and could give consistent contribution to the team.

Today, they'll be hosting the red hot Celtics who are currently on a 7 win streak. In their last 3 games, it was all Boston, so pretty much they were dominated based on the trend. can they make a big change today with a big win?

Agreed.  They shoukd go after a young coach now to grow with the team.  Pop should hang up the creates.  Wemby is far more polished than I imagined him to be at this point.  In 3-4 years he is going to be a situation.  They need to get a banger down low like a jalen Duran type to play opposite wemby.  They need to nail the draft around 2 more times and they shoukd be set up for a decade plus so long as they can resign their guys.

It should be fine even if Pops retires in one or two seasons as long as he gives Wemby the fundamentals he needed to grow as a player and maybe as a man. I'll give it 2 to 3 more years before we could truly see the results. Let's just hope that his head doesn't get that big once he starts dominating and different teams offering him max contracts.

Wembanyama is a wonderful player there is no doubt about that and Spurs are sort of learning how they could just utilize him more and more and make him play like a star. However, look at the results that they have right now, we can easily say that we are not going to get them to be a great team just yet. They have time, he is still a very young player, and he has at least 15 more seasons in the NBA if he doesn't get seriously hurt, so it should be possible for him to be able to get a good team during that period, and even a championship.

I highly doubt Pop will be around though, dude is 75 years old already, maaaybe 5-6 more years, but not like dude will be still coaching when he reaches 90, so Wemby will be  coached by someone else eventually.

Also have that same sentiment with the Suns,  not sure but I'm in the impression that they will push for the win after losing against the Mavs,  but like what you noticed,  they've been outrebounded by the young Rockets,  they have their chance in that last few seconds possession but Rockets manage to make a good stop and escaped from that rally,  taking the win in front of their own crowd.

Nurkic's absence has an impact since he's the legit center who can compete  inside and can give them decent help, nothing that they can do now but to move on and try to break this losing streak.

To add to that stat line: c/o NBA
- he's the youngest player in NBA history to make the 5x5 stats
- he also did that in just 31 minutes, the fewest minutes for a player to reach that stat.

I mean we know it already I guess that he will at some point make that 5x5 stats just by looking at how he is playing. The dude did it indeed. Never mind about the loss against the Lakers because the team will just remain at the bottom spot after this season. What matters the most for the team is the future of Wembanyama. I will not be surprised if next season, they will get an all-star that is a free agent next off-season. From what I'm seeing, they need a solid PG that can help Wemby. I mean like doing some Pick and Rolls here, and there. I just hope that injuries will not spoil his whole NBA career but it's good that throughout the season, he didn't suffer any injuries YET.

Saw this game, and didn't watch it TBH.
I just saw on YouTube the scuffle in the final seconds of the game. Looks like the so-called "UNWRITTEN RULE" has been broken again. I can't think of any reason why Bridges and Grant Williams would fight against that shot when there is still time. I mean I know that it's a win for the Warriors already, but there's still time. Any opinion on that unwritten rule they created?

The Rockets are very hungry to win because they were struggling before the All-Star break. So when they are back with fresh legs, they played a tired Suns team that is undermanned at the same time, and they were able to take care of business. I thought that the Suns were going to win easily since they started strong, but slowly the home team came back and beat the Suns in the 2nd and 3rd quarters. The Suns, although they came back, still fell short, losing by only 4 points.


I don't see them being outrebounded because if we check the statistics, the Suns had 58, while the Rockets had 54.

Nurkic and Beal are both out, two significant players for the Suns. Good thing they didn't have a blowout loss.

Me too; I bet on the Suns with a -3.5 handicap. Because they lost their last game against the Mavs, I think they will try to win this game on the road. The Suns are 6 games away against the 12th-seeded Rockets. So with that, I think the Suns will get this win easily, but that's not what happened. The Suns are getting outrebounded by the Rockets most of the time. I don't know if it's because of the young legs the Rockets have or if the Suns are too tired because it's their back-to-back game and they have no rest. The Suns get the lead in the first quarter, but the Rockets flip the script in the second half. The Suns get it closed in the fourth but fall short in the last seconds.

Nurkic's absence was a major factor in this loss, as the Suns don't have someone to get rebounds and exchange bodies with the Rockets' front court.

Another high-level performance from the rookie Victor Wembanyama.

https://www.espn.com.sg/nba/story/_/id/39588370/spurs-victor-wembanyama-posts-5x5-night-loss-lakers

When you see the name Michael Jordan in an article you will be amazed at how a player can perform at the same level as him.
Damn! This young guy is really something.
And we are talking about it 10 days ago, right @LogitechMouse?
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.63661654
The dude really did it.

They may have lost against the Lakers but he is showing something we have not seen for a long time. Another big man who can play both ends of the floor. Better than Jokic, Embiid, and Giannis. The hype is real, there's no question that he will someday be one of the stars of the league and probably be a champion if he can keep himself healthy and the Spurs will surround him with great players too. I bet any veteran point guard would love to play with him, this is a rare opportunity to be a part of records being broken over and over by that young guy Wemby.

In other news, the Charlotte Hornets four winning streak is now broken by the Golden State Warriors after they lost in a 97-84 final score.
The shooting capability of the Warriors was not there and they are lucky Brandon  Miller didn't go hot because he had been showing great stats in their last four games. The Warriors didn't even have a player who scored above 20 points, it was a bad night for them and so were the Hornets.

That cannot be denied; he really has some attitude problems that could give a team trouble. Although he still has the skills, his attitude is too hard to handle. We've seen him play in the past, and sometimes he has a hard time controlling his emotions. So, he could be a target for their opponents to get a technical foul from him and disrupt his game. The last time I saw him was with the Nuggets' uniform; he was a good backup for Jokic but would only play a limited time. He's done with the NBA but not with his passion for basketball, as, just like Howard, he can still play in other leagues like in China.

And we all know that Cousins is hot tempered as well, so this might contribute for some teams not to sign him because they don't want to carry a player that will get a lot of technical fouls that could disrupt certain games and it could spell a win or a lose for them.

So it's most likely not the injuries as he completely healed already, but the attitude as well. He was given a chance if a chance by Denver if I'm not mistaken, but he was let go as well. He did play good with the Warriors though, and I think that was the time that he could have resurrect his career. But after that he got injured again.

I thought he was going to keep playing until I saw the news on Bleacher Report. But now he wanted to finish his NBA career. He was a really good player during his prime, I always respected him.
He hadn't been playing in the NBA for a while, he was continuing to play in Taiwan. He will probably continue his basketball career, he is still good enough to play and I think he is not too old. It is very difficult to play in a fast-paced league like the NBA. He can play in Taiwan or Europe for a few more years if he wants