01-20-21 NBA Blog Train Wednesday
Nets at Cavs +10.5 OVER 226.5
Tonight was the night.
Tonight was the night of Kyrie’s return to play with KD and Harden on the new-look Nets for the first time.
If you kept tabs on this game at all then you’ll know that the Cavs were leading throughout, up by as many as 14 points with one minute left in the third quarter before a Harden 3 and KD dunk cut the lead to 9 going into the 4th.
The Cavs were up in the 4th, too, a pair of improbable Taurean Prince 3’s even found the bottom of the net.
It felt like the Nets were going to make a late run and that’s exactly what they did.
The game was tied 113-113 when Kyrie dribbled toward Colin Sexton and proceeded to clock him in the face with his left arm. An offensive foul was called on Kyrie. Steve Nash challenged the call and it was overturned. What explanation did the ref give as to why the call was overturned? Well, that’s the thing. There was no explanation given.
KD attempted a long fadeaway jumper at the end of regulation. Alas, she did not fall and we headed to OT.
Let’s fast forward to the end of OT when the Cavs were down 3 with 5.2 seconds left. That’s when Collin Sexton happened.
Double OT was more of the same, a LOT more of the same. Sexton scored 20 points in a row for the Cavs who obliterated the Nets by 12 points. Young Bull went bananas, and we could not have been more delighted.
Kevin Love was all of us — losing our frickin’ minds.
Cavs 147, Nets 135. 2OT
Sexton finished with a career-high 42 points to spoil new-look Nets debut.
Jarrett Allen and Taurean Prince Revenge Game!
As expected, the Nets defense is a colossal problem.
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Mavericks -2.5 at Pacers OVER 221.5
The Mavs owed us — really owed us after losing to the Bulls and Raptors when we backed them the last two games. We felt like they were due for a bounce back, but we had to stay away because they were playing the Pesky Pacers. If there is one thing that we have learned from this here blog, it’s not to bet on any Pacers games.
But the Mavs pulled through, so even when we stay away, the Pacers still burn us. It doesn’t get much peskier than that.
Mavs 124, Pacers 112.
Mavs notables:
KP scored a game-high 27 points on 12-of-15 shooting, including 13 rebounds and 4 assists.
Luka only scored 13 points but of course had a triple double with 12 assists and 12 rebounds.
Trey Burke flashed a little bit of Bubble Trey Burke, 22 points and 4-of-8 from 3.
The Pacers lost despite making 19 three-pointers. How? Points in the paint: Mavs 68, Pacers 48.
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Celtics at 76ers -4.5 Over 220.5
Still no Tatum tonight, but Brad Stevens apparently said Tatum has a 50-50 chance of playing on Friday night in what would be his first game back after testing positive for Covid-19.
Embiid continues to be a wrecking ball living at the line: 42 points on 19 shots — he made 17 out of 21 free throws. It was JoJo’s second 40-point game of the season.
76ers 117, Celtics 109.
The Sixers outscored the Celtics 31 to 17 in the 4th quarter.
Even though the C’s have lost both games since his return, it is still so great to see Kemba back out there.
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Pistons at Hawks -4.5 Over 221
The Hawks believe it or not had hit the Under in nine straight games. NINE. And the Pistons are… well, they are the Pistons, the land of weird with Jerami Grant and washed up Blake Griffin.
We took Under 221 and it was an absolute rollercoaster. It seems like we’ve been having the Rollercoaster Locks a lot lately, but this was more so than most.
The beginning of this game featured a lot more points than we would have liked to see, but the second quarter was soo bad offensively that we were already chalking this up as a Pure Lock.
1st quarter: 60 combined points, on pace for 240 total points.
2nd quarter: 37 combined points.
The Pistons led 52-45 at the half, now on pace for 194 total points.
After halftime, the Pistons and Hawks lit State Farm Arena ablaze. The Under was all of a sudden looking awful. We went from chalking this up as a Pure Lock to looking like a Pseudo Lock real quick.
3rd quarter: 73 combined points, now on pace for 226 total points.
And then the Hawks scored just four points over the first five minutes of the fourth quarter. We were right back to looking golden. But as we have said many times before, Overtime is a concern when you take the Under. Except the Pistons were up by 17 points with 7 minutes left, surely Overtime wouldn’t be an issue, right? Wrong! The Pistons offense completely sputtered out, and the Hawks clawed their way back. It started to become increasingly clear in the last two minutes that this game was destined for OT. Those fucking guys at Buffalo Wild Wings had clearly already pressed the button.
This was the block and no-call that took this game to Overtime and killed our chances of Under 221.
It was a Solomon Hill 3 in OT that officially drove the stake to the heart. Of all the guys to bust our Under, of course it would be Solomon Hill in OT.
Hawks 123, Pistons 115. OT
Hawks notables: Ice Trae 38 points and 10 assists, John Collins 31 points and 11 rebounds and Capela 27 points and 26 rebounds.
Pistons notable: Jerami Grant 32 points, 5 assists (!!) and 6 rebounds.
Pistons Injured Bench Gang Injury Update:
The Killian Hayes experiment has gotten off to a hazy start.
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Heat +4 at Raptors Under 222
No Jimmy Butler and no Tyler Herro — no problem for the Heat!
Kendrick Nunn led the way with 28 points and Bam did a little bit of everything: 14 points, 13 rebounds and 7 assists.
Heat 111, Raptors 102.
The Raptors bench had a very forgettable game. Boucher and Norm Powell both had -17 net ratings.
In the latest Heat episode of WHO HE?! We have #31 Max Strus, a second year player from Depaul. Strus played in two games last year for the Bulls and tonight was his fifth game for the continuously shorthanded Heat.
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Magic at Timberwolves +4 Under 219.5
Gotta be honest here (like always) — sometimes when you are watching a lot of games, some things slip through the cracks. Especially on a night with nine games on the menu. It’s rare for the things that slip through to be anything of significant magnitude, such as a buzzer beater. Tonight, however, was one of those rare occasions.
We missed out on getting to see this Cole Anthony buzzer beater happen live. It’s a bummer, but it happens. Especially when you are in on a lot of good action.
Magic 97, T-Wolves 96.
The T-Wolves were winning every single time we checked into this game, and by as many as 20 points, so we had kind of mentally already checked this one off the list.
The Magic scored 10 points in the 2nd quarter. TEN! As in 10 total points in 2nd quarter to the T-Wolves 30 and yet the Magic still won the game.
Props to the Magic for fighting through hell. And for the T-Wolves, we can only hope that they can use this loss as motivation. The sun will come up tomorrow, and it will be a new day.
There was an Ant-Man power dunk! In the 3.2 range. Edwards struggled yet again, shooting 3-of-14 from the field in 23 minutes.
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Suns -5.5 at Rockets Under 219
Babs was over for the basketballin’ tonight and he was appalled by some of the doo-doo lineups that the Rockets put out. We also came up with “Babs List,” so get the fuck ready for that upcoming new segment.
Suns 109, Rockets 103.
The Rockets went on a late run to make this final score look a more close than the game actually was.
Book looked kinda better tonight (24 points but 6 turnovers) and Ayton filled out the stat sheet: 36 points, 17 rebounds, 5 blocks and 2 assists.
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Spurs at Warriors -1.5 Under 228
The moment that we locked in the Warriors -1 was the moment after we saw that the Warriors were wearing their Oakland city edition jerseys. We knew. We knew that the Warriors were going to carry the momentum from the big come-from-behind win against the Lakers Monday night and keep the ball rollin’.
That’s precisely what proceeded to unfold before us with Steph wowing us to a great delight all along the way. Needless to say: Warriors -1 was a Pure Lock.
2015-2016 Steph Curry Vibes are some of the very best vibes.
Warriors 121, Spurs 99.
James Wiseman had a very solid game with 20 points, a lot of easy buckets above the rim. The Wiseman is huge!
Three-pointers: Warriors 15-of-38 for 39.5 percent. Spurs 4-of-33 for 12.1 percent.
We also got a Oubre put-back power dunk!
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Kings at Clippers -11 Under 231
The Clippers walloped the Kings last Friday night by 38 points, so naturally a Revenge Game for the Kings sounded enticing. No Hassan Whiteside actually gave us some pause. And when you realize that no Hassan Whiteside is causing you to pause — you stay away. But there was the Over staring us in the face. A Kings Over with their porous defense.. The score last Friday night was 138-100, so “even in a blowout they went way Over!”
We pulled the trigger on Over 230.5 and it got off to a slow start before they began to heat up. The overall pace quickened to our liking. The Clippers pulled away before the half with a 61-56 lead, on pace for 234 points. On pace to hit.
Except the Clippers smoked the Kings the rest of the way. The Kings scored 40 total points in the second half! It was just like last Friday night all over again, but not quite as dreadful.
The Over turned into a Mirage Pseudo Lock, but at least we didn’t bet on the Kangz.
Kawhi power dunk! Not much on the pull back or actual force, but nice on the attack of the rim and difficulty on friend of the blog Richaun Holmes. Also a great reaction! 3.3 power dunk rating.
Clippers 115, Kings 96.
The Paul George Revenge Tour has had a stay in LA. Here’s the thing that we haven’t yet said about the Paul George Revenge Tour but everybody knows: We don’t buy this until PG shows he can do it in the playoffs. You simply can’t trust him in the postseason until he proves otherwise. But this recent run is commendable.
Since crumbling to the Warriors, the Clippers have won 5 in a row (Bulls, Pelicans, Kings, Pacers, Kings.). Next up: the Thunder twice before a 6-game east coast road trip.
The Kings have lost four in a row and six of their last seven games. Next up: the Knicks!
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Just three games set for the lite Thursday night slate, but the blog train will not be leaving the station.
Twelve games right now on Friday night’s menu when we hope to be back up and running next.
We love this game!
