10-19-21 Opening Night: Ring Night in Milwaukee and the Russell Westbrook Experience in LA
We. Are. BACK!!!
Welcome to the NBA Blog Train!
(Babs had to call it early tonight, so we fired up the ole blog train.)
Nets at Bucks -2 Under 234
The Champs dominated on ring night.
For the Nets, shoutout Patty Mills who shot an insane 7-of-7 from 3. Yes, 7-of-7 from 3! He scored 21 points total.
But it was all Giannis all the time: 32 points, 14 rebounds, 7 assists, 2 block and 1 steal.
Bucks 127, Nets 104.
This Over didn’t make it. The Nets only scored 45 points in the second half.
Jrue Holiday left in the second quarter and did not return due to a right heel contusion. It didn’t matter as Pat Connaughton knocked down four 3s and Jordan Nwora hit three as well. Nwora looked quite good in 26 minutes off the bench. He played more than 20 minutes four times total last season.
We were surprised to see some WHO HE!? characters in the very first game of the season.
We were even more surprised to see that the WHO HE!? characters played for the defending champions.
Rookie Justin Robinson from Virginia Tech.
Rookie Georgios Kalaitzakis, the very last pick in the draft back in July.
Welcome aboard!
(We were already familiar with Sandro Mamukelashvili after his dunk on Joe Harris in the preseason.)
KD did pull through on his Over 31.5 points.
He scored 32.
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Warriors +3.5 at Lakers Over 226.5
Welcome to the Russell Westbrook Experience.
While LeBron and AD both played fantastic — 34 points for LeBron and 33 points for AD — Westbrick was trending on Twitter on Opening Night: 8 points on 4-of-13 shooting (0-of-4 from 3), 5 rebounds and 4 assists with 4 turnovers and a startling +/- of -23. Yikes.
We were told that the preseason didn’t matter, but tonight looked like more of the same with Russ in purple and gold.
For the Warriors, Steph played like trash (his words, not ours), but he still managed a triple-double of 21 points, 10 assists and 10 rebounds. Steph commanded the game despite his shots not falling. He was only 2-of-8 from 3, but it was his first triple-double since January 2016.
Jordan Poole has us feeling ecstatic about picking him to be the Most Improved Player. It was a Poole Party! Poole scored 20 points while leading all of the Warriors bench-unit lineups when Steph rested.
That’s precisely what the Warriors have needed. A real bench. Strength in Numbers.
Tonight, Iggy looked soo much better back in a Warriors jersey than he ever did for the Heat. He scored 12 points and even made two 3s.
Nemanja Bjelica was +20 in 26 minutes. He also had a super hard flagrant foul on LeBron which must have been pent up retaliation from when LeBron power dunked him out of the galaxy back in November 2019.
Damion Lee and Juan T both have so much experience from the last two seasons when they often times had to start games out of necessity for the wounded Warriors. Now they get to rev up against second units.
Warriors 121, Lakers 114.
Golden State won the fourth quarter 38—29. (At least we hit the Over!)
It’s only one game, but Lakers fans are already hitting the Westbrook panic button, wondering if he should be in the closing lineup.
This won’t be the last game like this, Russ always has his good and bad games. The real issue is that for him to have his good games, he needs high-volume. He needs the ball.
We would rather the ball be in LeBron’s hands.
LeBron did drop his patented Opening Night Akron Hammer like always.
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11 games tomorrow night for Opening Night Round II.
We love this game!
