The Outlet #2: The King is Dead, Long Live the Kings
What a great day for basketball. We both had a lot of trouble with League Pass (enough so that we might make a post about it, because it was absolutely unbelievable and worthy of the public record), but once everything got situated, yesterday was an absolute treat. Overall, there isn't much to say: If you're a poor soul like me that forgot just how good the spacing, motion, and tenacity of a modern NBA game is, well, prepare to remember. We ordered coffee - so to speak - and they gave us expressos. We were up all night.
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TOR 104 @ CLE 96; WHEREIN PHENOMS GO BAD AND REACHES GO WILD (Aaron)
I think most of us here are well acquainted with my love for Kyrie Irving. I think he's going to be a terrific pro, and this game didn't really dissuade me from thinking so. It was his first game. Sure, he made some poor decisions, didn't control the game like he should've, and far too often settled for a tough and guarded jump shot when a pass to the open man would do. Still, he had a lot of "how did that miss" shots and ended with a 6-3-7-1 in 26 minutes in his first NBA game -- and his first game playing with the Cavs' starting unit. The Cavs' first bucket of the game was a smooth pass to Andy for an easy lay-in, and that's more in line with what we've seen from him: It's clear that Kyrie passes well with the starters, especially to Andy; four of Andy's buckets came on assists from Kyrie. And even with his terrible 2-12 shooting night, I keep beating the "His form is very good, really" drum. His form is very, very good. This is no Ramon Sessions we're looking at, here -- there's a consistent kink in his shot he needs to deal with, but Kyrie has the right followthrough and he's got enough solid moves to get his shot anywhere on the court. We watched him at Duke: he was Ray Allen type good in college -- his shot will return to him soon.
The main takeaway from this game, though, is that the Raptors (while still a very, very bad team) are sneakily going to challenge for relevancy in games quite a lot more than we expected in the compressed season. The score is a bit inflated due to Calderon's quasi-Nash type performance, but Dwane Casey's coaching is clearly making an impact. He has the Raptors rotating, and has Bargs playing fewer minutes as a pure C than he ever did before under Triano. You add Casey's defense to the Raptors difficult-to-stop offensive attack and you have a team that's probably going to overperform its pieces. Especially with Ed Davis showing the kind of grit he showed last night. It was reported the other day that Dwane Casey had a 1,300 lb boulder dropped into the Raptors' locker room, as a daily reminder to "pound the rock." I'm sure Pop and the Spurs feel a bit miffed at the quote-stealing, but the audacity of putting a 1,300 lb boulder in one's dressing room has to make up for it, right? And one last takeaway: Tristan Thompson can damn well play in the NBA. 14-5 in a 17 minute debut? With solid post defense and very few rookie mistakes? Incredible. Byron needs to find a way to play him more. And Antawn Jamison (he of 6-20 shooting where the next-most shots were 12) less. Twenty shots to Jamison is just atrocious at this point, and if the Cavs can trade him for a conditional 2nd round pick, I don't think any fan worth their salt would complain, if only because it'd mean Byron Scott wouldn't be able to bury Tristan on the bench just for more chucking. Simply awful, Antawn.
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MIL 95 @ CHA 96; THE BALLAD OF GERALD HENDERSON (Aaron)
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