Good morning. Let’s basketball.
Stanley Johnson trashtalking LeBron is both wonderful and unwise
Good morning. We have that and more in Thursday’s NBA newsletter.
WHAT SERIES IS STANLEY JOHNSON WATCHING? The Pistons are putting up a good fight against the defending East champs, but LeBron James and company are just too good. LeBron had 27 on 12-18 shooting in Cleveland’s Game 2 win. There was a moderate amount of in-game chirping, and afterward Pistons rookie Stanley Johnson announced that he believes himself to be in LeBron’s head. Johnson was a minus-20 in 21 minutes of action. I appreciate the gumption, but you’re not going to win this one, Stanley.
SPEAKING OF LEBRON AND CHIRPING ... His reaction to being left wide open for a jumper is straight-up hilarious. I surmise Stan Van Gundy had a different reaction.
YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW CHARLOTTE’S POSTSEASON IS GOING? This clip of the Hornets missing eight shots from within 10 feet on a single possession does the trick. Add in that Charlotte is giving up a historic volume of points despite having a great regular season defense and the fact that Nicolas Batum has an ankle sprain that looks pretty bad and this is adding up to one heckuva Crying Jordan Face of a series for the Hornets. Miami’s up 2-0 and Heat Tron Guy is loving it. Here’s Tom Haberstroh on the improbable scoring explosion from Miami.
THE CLIPPERS LURK: Steph Curry’s ankle injury doesn’t seem serious, but it’s not nothing or he’d be playing. Right? With that in mind, what the Clippers’ defense is doing to Portland is eye-popping. In beating the Blazers by 20 and 21, L.A. had limited Portland to 37 percent shooting from the field and 27 percent shooting from three. Dame Lillard is shooting 13-for-39 from the floor. The dude usually guarding him, Chris F’n Paul, is a shade under 50 percent. Point God for real.
DUNK(S) OF THE NIGHT: We have LeBron going hard in the paint and we have Blake Griffin yamming on Mo Harkless.
SCORES GALORE ...
CHA 103, MIA 115
DET 90, CLE 107
POR 81, LAC 102
ON THE AIR TONIGHT ...
Thunder at Mavericks, 7 p.m. ET, TNT, Series tied 1-1
Raptors at Pacers, 7:30 p.m., NBA TV, Series tied 1-1
Warriors at Rockets, 9:30 p.m., TNT, Must we really bother?
BIG: Tom Thibodeau agrees to become the Timberwolves’ coach and president of basketball operations. Scott Layden is coming along as the GM. Thibs will make something approaching eight digits. He’s come a long way ...
SPEAKING OF COACHES ... Paul Flannery and I discussed the coaching carousel, Coach Critic Twitter and more in this week’s F&Z. I feel like our dual rant on Twitter coaches has some synergy with Steve Clifford’s post-game exegesis on watching tape.
REST IN PEACE: Pearl Washington, Syracuse legend, 1964-2016. A fitting tribute from Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician. Another one from Woj.
YEP: Kevin Seraphin admits he is not perfect, for he loves social networks. I hear you, brother. The quote is in an excellent trend piece from Andrew Keh on the sanctity of the locker room during halftime being broken by our collective phone obsession.
VR IN SPORTS: David Stern led a panel of virtual reality experts discussing how the entertainment tech will affect sports. Via REDEF.
FLAWLESS NEW BASKETBALL DANCE CRAZE, GET ON THIS KAMINSKY.
WINTER IS COMING: The most beautiful interactive Game of Thrones preview money can’t buy.
Happy Thursday. See you next time.
* * *
Staring down LeBron: Jusuf Nurkic is huge and unafraid of James
Be sure to subscribe to SB Nation’s YouTube channel for highlight videos, features, analysis and more
See More:
