Two things we already knew were reinforced during the Sixers’ nice 118-113 win over the Wizards. The first is that Ben Simmons has at least one huge weakness in his game: he’s a bad free-throw shooter. He’s at 55 percent for the season.
Watching Ben Simmons shoot 24 free throws in a quarter isn’t fun
We have that and more in Thursday’s NBA newsletter.
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The Wizards noticed this, which led to our second reinforced lesson of the evening: watching a bad free-throw shooter take 24 free throws in the fourth quarter is so unbelievably boring.
Simmons’ 24 attempts in the fourth (he made 12) broke the record for most in a quarter. The Wizards did use those misses and a Joel Embiid foul-out to claw back into a game Philly had in hand, but the Sixers survived in the end.
This is just your regular reminder that changing rules around intentional fouling would be easy. Current intentional fouling rules are not justice for bad shooters; they are a loophole by which teams can exploit an intended disadvantage as a benefit when they are otherwise unconfident in their ability to win heads up. Most of all, pro basketball is entertainment, and watching clanked free throw after clanked free throw is boring. End it. Fix the dang rule already.
Scores Galore ...
PHX 107, DET 131
OKC 108, ORL 121
WAS 113, PHI 118
MIA 86, NYK 115
CHA 113, TOR 126
IND 97, HOU 118
MIN 120, NOP 102
BKN 109, DAL 104
MEM 95, SAS 104
GSW 127, LAL 123 (OT)
... And So Much More.
A day after LeBron James earned his first NBA ejection, Anthony Davis did the same. The Brow’s second tech look pretty darned soft (unless he said a magic word we can’t make out), as the real theatrics come after he’s been booted. (He’ll get a fine for those.) My general position is that officials should try not to kick players out of games. It seems like some officials are better at that than others.
This is Embiid in a nutshell. So exciting.
Kyrie Irving’s most actual deep quote of the season to date: “Man, comparison’s a thief of joy.”
Shout out to the Lakers for competing with the Warriors. Brandon Ingram is coming along. What an exciting future they have, thanks to Mitch Kupchak and crew.
How Victor Oladipo used reaction to the Paul George trade as motivation. Good season for the kid.
Zach Lowe on how the Jazz reacted to the Gordon Hayward decision and how they plan to build a winner without him.
A very neat Tim Hardaway Jr. buzzer beater alley-oop. Hey, Hardaway Jr.: he’s not bad!
Interesting piece by Zito Madu on a lawsuit against the Warriors over alleged snooping through their app and the downside of the NBA’s incredible embrace of technology.
The Grizzlies will not be tanking out (on purpose, at least) this year. This Chris Herrington piece on all the moving pieces involved in the David Fizdale firing is predictably excellent.
Russell Westbrook either got swerved by Elfrid Payton hard, or tripped over Steven Adams. You decide.
The Starters with a delightful top 10 ejections ever. I’d forgotten about the Vince Carter-Morris Peterson situation. Oh, boy.
I, for one, am uncomfortable with the Jazz mascot carrying around a kid during a basketball game. What if Robin Lopez is lurking?
Get you an Enes Kanter on your squad.
Hear us out: what if James signed with the Sixers this summer? We’ll leave you with that nightmare/fever dream.
Be excellent to each other.
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