NBA Tuesday: Heat bury Bucks, Lakers crush Pelicans

Then everything fell apart.

“I was thinking a lot of things at that time,” Taylor said.

Los Angeles shot 55 percent from the floor, including a reasonable 11-for-20 from deep, and the Lakers absolutely destroyed the young Pelicans on the boards by a 22-rebound margin. They also played great defensively, holding New Orleans to just 40 percent shooting and giving up only 31 rebounds.

The Mike D’Antoni system continues to have success, as the Lakers registered 33 assists and put up 20 three-point attempts. Kobe Bryant still has no exact timetable for his return, but it will be interesting to watch the offense adjust when he returns.

If you watched Kansas’ thrilling, back-and-forth win over Duke Tuesday night, you might have felt that something was missing from Kansas’ interior D. Although they got the W, Jabari Parker and other Duke players put up quite a few points.

And you’d be right to notice that: although the No. 5 Jayhawks are going to be very, very good this year, they’re missing the strong interior presence of Jeff Withey, the 7-footer who averaged 3.9 blocks last year but moved on to the NBA this year.

(GIF via For The Win)

Who would you expect if I told you that one of these teams has excelled on offense and the other has excelled on defense? You’d certainly think Golden State is the superior offensive team with its stable of shooters, right? And that Detroit’s offensive spacing issues would stagnate the scoring and that it would thrive off defense? Well, that’s not what has happened early.

Reading material: Detroit Bad Boys: Game preview, Golden State of Mind: Game preview