0 comments by Matt Zemek on 4/5/2016
For the Los Angeles Lakers, no one problem overshadows the franchise… because there are too many problems to count. As we conduct an April Autopsy of the Purple and Gold’s NBA season, the D’Angelo Russell-Nick Young mess is not the Lakers’ foremost problem. The culture which created it — rooted in ownership, but evident in […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek
The Philadelphia 76ers are not the Houston Astros of the NBA. The Astros endured a lot of pain in 2014, but their development of young baseball players swiftly bore fruit in a 2015 playoff season. When organizations transparently attempt to scrap everything and start from the bottom, there’s an expectation players will develop — not […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 4/4/2016
We didn’t track back-to-backs in the Western Conference in Feburary, because the schedule was both truncated and split in that month by the extended All-Star break. We will present the post-All-Star break portion of February and all of March in this latest report: * Reference Guide: B2B = back-to-back 45 = a “4 in 5” […]
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We have tracked back-to-backs each month of the NBA season. Here are the facts and figures for the Eastern Conference in the post-All-Star break portion of February and the whole month of March: * Reference Guide: B2B = back-to-back 45 = a “4 in 5” game sequence, referring to four games in five nights W […]
Detroit Pistons’ Reggie Jackson (1), battles Chicago Bulls’ E’Twaun Moore (55), for a loose ball during the first half of an NBA basketball game Saturday, April 2, 2016, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Paul Beaty)
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 4/3/2016
While the Detroit Pistons are at a point in their evolution where they’re just getting started, the Chicago Bulls have traveled many miles and years along the path of an NBA contender. The Pistons are young pups, just beginning to taste what it’s like to compete for a postseason berth. They haven’t even confronted an […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 4/2/2016
The Dallas Mavericks’ season and Jose Barea’s life have flowed into the same river this week. The Mavericks — in huge trouble after their loss to Sacramento on Sunday — had not inspired confidence that they could take care of inferior opponents. However, they were able to push through their injuries and roster limitations to […]
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The Boston Celtics didn’t merely snap the NBA’s longest home-court winning streak Friday night in Oakland. They offered a vision of what the NBA could become over the next several years. Earlier this week, we wrote about how this regular season’s late-stage games are generally providing questions more than answers. Boston’s win in Oracle Arena […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 4/1/2016
Portland’s one major professional sports team has blazed quite a trail this season. On November 8, when this 82-game journey was just getting started, the Blazers surrendered a 24-0 run to the Detroit Pistons at home in the fourth quarter. After an offseason in which LaMarcus Aldridge and Nicolas Batum left, it was easy — […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 3/31/2016
The Washington Wizards don’t need to hear it… or maybe they do: No one feels sorry for anyone else in professional sports. Injuries, one-point losses, bad calls, they’re part of the game. The NBA season offers teams 82 chances to make their case. If several games spin sideways, the bulk of the schedule offers teams […]
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The Miami Heat — which appeared to be in danger of missing the playoffs in late January — have coped with a season of struggle and limitation better than most had a right to expect. Justise Winslow started the season brightly but ran into a winter of adjustment and difficulty. Hassan Whiteside is a dynamic […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 3/30/2016
The 2015-2016 Houston Rockets will be a puzzle to basketball students five, 10, 20, 50, and 100 years from now. The team that’s not even worth figuring out is a team whose season has transcended the need for editorial commentary at this point. Merely laying out some of the twists and turns in the path […]
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The Los Angeles Lakers have created the perfect mess. One of the two most storied franchises in professional basketball — once a model for the rest of the NBA and pro sports at large — is now so utterly incompetent that a historically awful season has not become the most humiliating and depressing problem on […]
Oklahoma City Thunder’s Kevin Durant soars in to dunk against the Toronto Raptors during second half NBA basketball action in Toronto on Monday, March 28, 2016. (Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press via AP)
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 3/29/2016
Late-season NBA games should not be painted with the same brush. You could certainly comb through NBA history and find late-season games (Game 70 or later out of 82) which broke ties to determine a top-two seed in the playoffs, altering the balance of power in one half of the NBA postseason. You could just […]
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It’s not news to a single soul in the NBA: Derrick Rose hasn’t been what he once was, and he’ll never return to that glorious stage of his career. Repeated injuries have taken away the explosiveness which made Rose a singular force in professional basketball. The ability to throw his body into contact with such […]
Mar 27, 2016; Sacramento, CA, USA; Sacramento Kings center Willie Cauley-Stein (00) dunks the ball against the Dallas Mavericks in the fourth quarter at Sleep Train Arena. The Kings won 133-111. Mandatory Credit: John Hefti-USA TODAY. ORG XMIT: USATSI-233482 ORIG FILE ID: 20160327_mta_hb4_036.JPG
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 3/28/2016
The Dallas Mavericks had been losing a lot lately, but who could blame them? The Mavericks faced a tough trip to Portland last Wednesday. They flew to Oakland to play the Golden State Warriors on Friday. They put up a decent fight, but the Warriors are the Warriors, and they still haven’t lost a game […]
