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9kink · 5 years ago

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Nets vs. Lakers – Game Recap – March 10, 2020 – ESPN

https://www.espn.com/nba/recap?gameId=401161610

Get a recap of the Brooklyn Nets vs. Los Angeles Lakers basketball game.

LOS ANGELES — In his second game as Brooklyn’s interim coach, Jacque Vaughn watched his Nets fight and scrap for 47 1/2 minutes to carve out a two-point lead over the powerhouse Lakers..

Then Vaughn had to watch from the sideline while Anthony Davis launched a last-second 3-pointer that would have undone it all.

“It’s like the joy and pain of basketball,” Vaughn said. “I had the perfect sight line. I see it leave, just watching the flight of it. Looked to see if his feet were behind the line, so I said, `This is a 3-ball. We’re either losing this thing, or we’re going to win this thing.”

Davis missed. The Nets’ coaching change remains a hit.

Spencer Dinwiddie scored 23 points and hit the tiebreaking jumper with 28.3 seconds to play, and Brooklyn beat the Lakers 104-102 Tuesday night for its second straight win since Vaughn surprisingly replaced Kenny Atkinson last week.

Caris LeVert added 22 points as Brooklyn opened its four-game California road trip by beating the Western Conference’s top team.

Davis hit four 3-pointers, but that wide-open 3 at the buzzer would have won it for the Lakers, whose four-game winning streak ended. After back-to-back victories over NBA-leading Milwaukee and the powerhouse Clippers last weekend, the Lakers lost at home for the first time since Feb. 6.

LeBron James had 29 points, 12 rebounds and nine assists for the Lakers, and he flawlessly set up Davis’ final shot by driving the lane and kicking out to his fellow All-Star.

“A great look, a great opportunity to win the game,” James said. “We just missed it. That’s what the game is about.”

Brooklyn had a 97-88 lead with six minutes to play, but the Lakers ratcheted up their defense and cut it to 100-99 on James’ driving layup with 1:47 left.

Davis scored 20 of his 26 points in the second half, and he hit a tying 3-pointer with 42.6 seconds left on a setup from James.

Dinwiddie, a Los Angeles native and lifelong Lakers fans who starred at Taft High School in the San Fernando Valley, calmly drilled his mid-range jumper for the Nets’ first field goal in three minutes.

“It feels good because it’s a high-quality opponent on the road for a team that is doing its best right now to continue to find itself,” Dinwiddie said. “Obviously, we’ve gone through injuries and the coaching change as well. There’s been a ton of up and down. And they’re one of the top, what, three teams in the league, right? The championship contenders, Lakers, Clippers and Bucks. So it’s big for a team that learning and going to try to be a champion to add this win.”

James drove the lane for a layup that somehow rimmed out with 9 seconds to play, but the Lakers got the ball back after the scramble. James again drove and dished to Davis — but the All-Star couldn’t connect to secure the Lakers’ 50th win of the season and a triple-double for James.

“A lot of shots are going to be open with (James’) ability to get in the paint and draw a defense,” Davis said. “It’s our responsibility to finish plays.”

After their wildly successful weekend, the Lakers understandably seemed a bit less passionate in their return, particularly on defense. They led 58-56 at halftime despite committing nine turnovers and playing less-than-impressive defense.

Nets: Chris Chiozza scored 11 points while hitting three 3-pointers and added five assists. … Garrett Temple missed his fourth straight game with a sprained left ankle.

Lakers: C Dwight Howard sat out with an illness. … G Dion Waiters remained inactive for the third straight game since signing with Los Angeles. … Fans near courtside included Oscar-winning screenwriter and director Taika Waititi and NFL stars Todd Gurley, DeAndre Hopkins and Odell Beckham Jr.

THE FRENCH DISPATCH

Brooklyn took a seven-point lead into the fourth quarter after Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot scored 11 quick points late in the third.

“Man, it’s one of the biggest wins of the year,” said Luwawu-Cabarrot, who finished with 13. “One of the sweetest, too, and it felt great. We played well. The whole team was involved.”

WITH A THUD

Four of the Lakers’ last seven losses have been to sub-.500 opponent, although they are 16-7 in that span. After such an emotionally charged weekend, the Lakers lost for only the second time in 13 games overall.

“Obviously you don’t want to follow up with a dud like this one, but they deserved to win,” said Danny Green, who scored just six points.

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#WOW #Anthony Davis launched a last-second 3-pointer #Brooklyn&039;s interim coach #ESPN #Jacque Vau

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junker-town · 7 years ago

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Anthony Davis is leading a big man training revolution

Thanks to improved biomechanics, today’s big men aren’t just changing their games, they’re also changing their bodies.

It’s Halloween night in 2015, and the NBA is about to tilt on its axis.

Stephen Curry catches the ball mid-stride at the Smoothie King Center and 6’11” Anthony Davis, pedaling backward, cranes his upper body to the side like the top half of a twisting LEGO toy. The two meet 28 feet from the rim.

Davis looks active, agile, even predatory. He intrudes into Curry’s bubble and pokes the ball away, chiding the 6’3” guard with the invocation that basketball remains the domain of giants.

Curry recovers the ball at 30 feet and Davis, believing his own 7’6” wingspan is a security blanket, doesn’t follow him. He’s already on his toes, ready for take-off if the greatest shooter in the world launches a cruise missile steps from the half-court logo. In a split-second, Curry does just that. Davis pounces, but the ball arcs over his extended arms and drops into the net.

It is the NBA’s big bang. Curry proved that geometry can trump size, and they’ve been waging a war ever since.

Specialization is causing most athletes in other sports to get bigger or faster, but the NBA can’t decide whether it prefers speed or size, so it’s asking big men to do both. The game’s evolution is pushing the most athletic bodies to their logical extremes.

“When you’re big, a lot of times it’s hard to control where each joint is in space,” says Eric Leidersdorf, Director of Biomechanics at Peak Performance Project, or P3. “These guys have such long levers — their femurs, their thighs, their shins. It’s harder for them to control what’s going on at the end of that lever, which is where your knee is, where your ankle is. Those forces are so much bigger simply by being longer.”

“The big man position isn’t dying. It’s just, you know, transforming.”—Earl Ramsey

And few big men can keep up. Kristaps Porzingis could only be large, fast, and accurate from three-point range for so long before he tore his ACL last season. Derrick Favors has been plagued by knee ailments his entire career. Joel Embiid still induces anxiety when he falls to the floor. Davis himself missed 68 games through his first four seasons. So it raises the question: Did we call them unicorns because they were never meant to exist?

Davis, for one, is fighting back. He overhauled his diet and workout regimen two years ago and has only missed 10 games since. And the league has not given up on the allure of size, either: Five of the top seven picks in this year’s NBA draft were bigs.

The new crop is more agile than their predecessors. They are tech-savvy body-surveillors, trained with the knowledge of what the league now requires of them, and they are ready to battle against extinction.

“The big man position isn’t dying,” says Earl Ramsey, who trains Kings rookie Marvin Bagley III. “It’s just, you know, transforming.”

Pick-and-roll defense in today’s NBA requires making an inevitable trade-off. Playing conservatively means protecting against 3-pointers, but risking isolation baskets and layups on rolls. Playing aggressively means trapping those plays hard, but helping off shooters.

Mitchell Robinson, the Knicks’ second-round pick, has other things in mind.

It’s July 10, 2018, nearing the end of the first quarter of a Las Vegas Summer League game, and the spindly, 7’1” prospect traps a Lakers pick and roll and almost intercepts the exit pass. He darts into the paint, nearly swiping Jeff Ayres on the block. When Ayres passes to the corner, Robinson gallops at the speed of the moving ball and swats DeMarcus Holland’s 3-point attempt.

Later, he lunges out from two feet and blocks Josh Hart’s step-back 3-point attempt.

Robinson’s pogo-stick hops and hand-flailing motions are solving the bargain defenses have made since the turn of the decade. The game is dictated by space, and Robinson shrinks the court. His skeletal frame and second-step explosiveness both delight and terrify Knicks fans, recalling Porzingis.

Robinson finishes the summer averaging four blocks a game, a Las Vegas record. While Trae Young, the draft’s third pick and potential heir apparent to Curry, struggles, Robinson looks like the future.

But he must learn from Davis’s past.

Getty Images for American Express

By the 2015-2016 season, Davis had accumulated impressive hardware for a 23-year-old: Rookie of The Year; two All Star appearances; and All-NBA and All-Defense bids. He was an MVP candidate-in-waiting, but injuries threatened to stymie his potential.

Indeed, Davis’ season ended in late March 2016 when he went under the knife to get a knee scope.

Making matters worse, doubts surrounded the Pelicans’ training staff, some of whom were reassigned from the Saints because the two franchises are chaired by the same ownership group. The Pelicans led the league in games and salary lost to injury or illness that season. An April 2016 ESPN story highlighted their old-school approach to injury prevention, led by now-former head athletic trainer Duane Brooks, who had been promoted to the Pelicans’ job after working with the Saints for 12 years. (He left the Pelicans this offseason and now works for the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens.)

Over time, the Pelicans made changes to revamp their training staff and methods. The team invested in new technology, including Catapult, a cryotherapy chamber, and a vibration massage machine. They hired assistant physical therapist Todd Campbell at the start of the 2015-16 season and later promoted Jason Sumerlin, who spent five years with the Spurs — vanguards of injury prevention — to head strength coach.

Dr. Misty Suri, who also worked with the Saints, was brought in as the team’s head physician and director of medical services following the 2015-16 disaster. (The Saints ultimately fired him when one of their player’s injury was misdiagnosed, but he stayed with the Pelicans.)

“The guys they had before Jason, they were more football,” says Marcell Scott, Davis’ personal trainer. “You can’t train everybody the same. They’re two different sports. You’ve got players that are 5’2” [sic] and you’ve got players that are 7’2” in the NBA. That’s what their problem was before. But the guy they have in place now, he really focuses on their body movement, so he knows how to deal with it better. They got better.”

Davis has always been strong, but that strength didn’t always translate to the dynamic, awkward positions players find themselves in mid-game.

Following his knee surgery, Davis’s braintrust convened to solve a $100 million Rubix Cube: how to stabilize his lengthy joints so he could withstand blows from opponents who outweighed him by 20 pounds, without compromising his God-like agility.

Years of pushing weights to catch up to an eight-inch growth spurt in high school left Davis with a litany of biomechanical imbalances. He had the torque, the hypermobility, and length, but the smaller muscles that supported his bigger, more developed muscles were weak. So was his core.

“I thought maybe we can improve his mechanics, his ability to absorb shock, his efficiency with running,” Dr. Suri says.

The dumbbells hit the shelf, replaced by yoga mats and exercise bands. The treadmill gave way to low-impact cardio: boxing, cycling, beach volleyball, and exercises in the pool.

One particular exercise involves Davis dipping to the bottom of a single-leg squat. Sumerlin put a 225-pound bar on his back and has Davis raise up just an inch and hold for 20 seconds.

“We started focusing on balance and trying to maintain a strong base,” Scott says. “That was a problem. When he got hit in the air, he’d always get off balance and fall to the ground and get injured.”

Davis has always been strong, but that strength didn’t always translate to the dynamic, awkward positions players find themselves in mid-game.

“We’re doing end-range strengthening,” Sumerlin says. “We’re trying to get him as low as possible, like when he’s playing defense or he’s on the block and he’s taking a stride and doing a counter move.”

Hip stability and strength are the holy grail for big men. They’re key to explosive lateral movement and determining how efficiently the knees track while running, according to P3’s Leidersdorf. The squat position extends Davis’s hips to the end of their range of motion, a process they repeated for other joints.

“He’s off the chart, he’s so hyper mobile,” Sumerlin says. “Now we’re trying to strengthen in there. You’re not going to see injuries in the shoulders, the toes, the hips, the ankles, stuff like that — knock on wood.”

Getty Images

It’s Feb. 10, 2018, and the Pelicans are in double-overtime against the Brooklyn Nets, after losing in Philadelphia 24 hours earlier. Davis is lined up at center court, readying himself to play his 46th minute of the night. The Pelicans have dropped five of their last six games after DeMarcus Cousins tore his Achilles, and are in danger of falling out of the playoff race.

Davis wins the tip-off and unlocks an extra gear. He scores six points, grabs four rebounds, and picks Spencer Dinwiddie’s pocket in the final OT to lead New Orleans to victory. He finishes with 44 points, 17 rebounds, six steals, and three blocks on the night.

In the two games before the All Star break, Davis drops 38 and 42 points, respectively, in back-to-back Pelicans wins. This burst couldn’t have arrived a moment sooner.

When Cousins got hurt, the medical staff had a “come to Jesus moment,” as Sumerlin puts it, with Davis and Jrue Holiday, who spent the season dipping in and out of the league’s top-10 in minutes played.

The Pelicans leaned heavily on the WHOOP Strap — a fitness wearable that resembles an Apple Watch. It measures imbalances between the sympathetic nervous system — think fight-or-flight response — and the parasympathetic, which relaxes the body.

Davis’s sleep, workouts, and practice minutes — practically any activity he performed throughout the day — were monitored and sent to the medical staff, who determined how much time he needed to spend in a parasympathetic state. That could mean any number of things: more time in the hot tub, more cryotherapy and yoga, less weight training, fewer minutes.

“We progressed them to play the minutes they did at the end of the season and all the way through the playoffs,” Sumerlin says. “We knew that it was coming. We just had to prep for it as best we could.”

In that moment, the Pelicans needed Davis to be in nearly all the time to save their season. It was a risky proposition in a league that is increasingly concerned with minutes management, but the Pelicans believed the new and improved Davis could handle it, especially if they ramped up his recovery.

Davis finished the season playing 36.4 minutes per game — eighth-highest in the NBA — but it’s a trade-off he and the Pelicans’ medical staff accept.

That meant no more cheat meals or slipping out after losses because he was too angry to seethe in the cold tub. If WHOOP data said Davis wasn’t getting enough sleep, it meant sneaking in a nap. Down the stretch, both Davis and Holiday were held out of multiple team practices.

The privacy concerns triggered by devices like the WHOOP are as inevitable as their spread. LeBron James, who led the league in minutes last season while playing all 82 games, uses one. So do some members of the Clippers. Holiday started using one with his trainer Mike Guevara, who is now also a consultant for the Pelicans. Eventually, Holiday bought straps for the team.

Participation is voluntary. Some players on the Pelicans have chosen not to use it, and the Pelicans’ coaches and front office executives don’t have access to the data. They don’t know who only got two hours of sleep, and who was drinking all weekend.

The medical staff’s job isn’t to lecture players on their lifestyle. It’s to measure strain and adjust workload and make suggestions accordingly.

“If I know he only got three hours of sleep, I’m going to change my workout program,” Sumerlin says. “If he had a good quality of sleep, he can probably have a heavier day in the weight room.”

Davis held up, leading the Pelicans to 48 wins and a surprise sweep of the higher-seeded Blazers in the first round of the NBA Playoffs. They ultimately fell to the Warriors in five games in the second round.

He finished the season playing 36.4 minutes per game — eighth-highest in the NBA — but it’s a trade-off Davis and the Pelicans’ medical staff accept. He also played a career-high 75 games, as he did the season before, and his goal is to play all 82 this season.

With that in mind, seven weeks after the season’s end, Davis is in a gym in New Orleans, where Scott is devising a drill that compresses a two-hour workout into 25 minutes: two circuits of 25 single-leg squats on both sides; 100 crunches; shoulder press; push-ups; and so forth — one exercise for each muscle group.

“If you train slow, you’re gonna play slow,” Scott says. “If you train fast, you’re gonna play fast. It helps you get through fatigue faster. We always train for the fourth quarter.”

Afterward, Davis’s knees are weak. He bumbles out of the arena, desperate for fresh air, drenched in sweat and on the verge of puking, undertaking the exacting task of excising the old to make room for the new.

Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

Tucked away in a gymnasium at Sierra Canyon High School in the Chatsworth neighborhood of Los Angeles, Marvin Bagley III is glistening. He catches the ball at the wing, faces up against his trainer, Earl Ramsey, and makes a bee-line drive to the rim for a dunk. Later, the 2018 No. 2 overall pick dribbles between his legs, crossing over on Ramsey’s cue and pulling up for step-back jumpers.

Gone are the days of dialing up Hakeem Olajuwon and learning to Dream Shake. The 6’11” Sacramento Kings rookie has spent the summer guarding the switch on pick-and-rolls, doing dribbling exercises, and borrowing face-up moves from Paul George. He’s practiced Kevin Durant’s two-dribble pull-ups and watched old tape of Danny Granger and Rudy Gay.

He’s also been an early adopter in the biomechanics revolution for bigs: Bagley first had his biomechanical profile scrutinized when he was 17 years old — before he even went to college.

“Guys like Marvin are exciting for us because they’ve taken their development on at a young age,” Leidersdorf says. “There are a lot of factors that contribute to an athlete sustaining an injury, but they’ve given themselves some good tools early on that should help them have a productive career, which counts for a lot. I think we’ve seen that slowly shift in basketball over the last handful years.”

Ramsey says Bagley is “wiry strong” and shouldn’t bulk up. He emphasizes building core strength through a steady diet of resistance band training, yoga, and plyometrics. Analysts who saw Bagley as a defensive liability built for a bygone league balked when the Kings selected him at No. 2, but Ramsey considers Bagley position-less and believes he has the tools to stay in front of quicker guards.

“Switching on Marvin will probably be a bad idea for most people,” Ramsey says. “He can sit down. He can really play D.”

Bagley will have to prove it. The league has run roughshod over big men who were too slow to adjust to the modern game, and Bagley’s on-court skills are not natural fits for the modern NBA. But unlike his predecessors, Bagley has a head-start, equipped early with the blueprint and technology to catch up.

“In general we would suggest that young big men, especially entering the NBA today, are a little more physically prepared than their counterparts have been a few years back,” Leidersdorf says.

It’s late July, and inside another high school gym — this one in Chalmette, just west of New Orleans — Mitchell Robinson spends the morning in the weight room.

The Knicks’ 20-year-old rookie trudges ahead with the delicate experiment of being big, fast, and healthy at the same time. He works out his shoulders so he can absorb contact while driving, but he doesn’t want to impede his lift.

Afterward, Marcell Scott, the trainer transforming Davis, leads him to the pool.

“It was God’s gift that I was actually able to work with [Davis] and figure out how his body rotates and moves laterally, because I train Mitchell the same way now,” Scott says.

Robinson steps into the pool and runs backward and forward, then sideways. He is mimicking basketball movements, performing defensive slides and squats.

The water at his hips, he’s pushing back against resistance, inching toward a future that belongs to him.

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winterolympicssports2018-blog · 7 years ago

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Team LeBron 148-145 Team Stephen: All-Star game

Click here for More Olympics Updates https://www.winterolympian.com/team-lebron-148-145-team-stephen-all-star-game/

Team LeBron 148-145 Team Stephen: All-Star game

LeBron James and Kevin Durant swarmed all over Stephen Curry in the final seconds, preventing the NBA‘s best shooter from finding even a patch of open air to launch a tying 3-pointer.

Defense? In an All-Star Game?

That was just one of the many exciting surprises created by a big change to the league’s mid-season showcase. After James and Curry got to draft their own teams, this exhibition really seemed to matter to basketball’s best.

LeBron James throws down two of his 29 points at the All-Star game on Sunday night en route to his MVP award

And LeBron picked a winner.

James scored 29 points and hit the go-ahead layup with 34.5 seconds to play, winning his third All-Star Game MVP award while his team rallied to win an uncommonly entertaining edition of the event, beating Team Stephen 148-145 Sunday night.

For the first time in 67 All-Star games, the league abandoned the traditional East-West format used since 1951, instead allowing the two captains to pick their sides. That twist turned a sometimes staid event into the world’s richest pickup game, and the intrigue was reflected on the Staples Center court, where a real basketball game broke out.

‘I think the format was great,’ said James, who added 10 rebounds and eight assists in front of LA fans salivating at the still-remote possibility of the Lakers landing the superstar as a free agent this summer.

Kevin Durant and James’ defence prevents Curry from shooting a game-tying three-point attempt in the dying seconds

James celebrates by running across the court at the final buzzer after leading his team to victory in the 2018 All-Star game

‘The great thing about our commissioner (Adam Silver), he’s absolutely OK with trying something new, to change the format, and it definitely worked out for everybody,’ James added.

‘It worked out not only for the players, not only for the league, but for our fans, for everybody. It was a great weekend, and we capped it off the right way.’

Both teams played real defense for long stretches and contested many shots, with LeBron’s group even picking up full-court late in the first half.

And after an entertaining dunk contest won by Donovan Mitchell and a record-setting effort by Devin Booker in the 3-Point Shootout, the All-Star weekend ended with a recent novelty for the main event: a thrilling finish.

Anthony Davis (right) wins tip-off against Joel Embiid to begin the 2018 All-Star game on Sunday night

Cleveland Cavaliers star James won the MVP award for the third time with 29 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists

Toronto Raptors star DeMar Derozan was Team Stephen’s joint-top scorer with 21 points but gave away a costly turnover

‘The game was so good,’ said a grinning Durant, who scored 19 points in his ninth All-Star Game. ‘It was so competitive. It was the best one I’ve been a part of.’

Team LeBron rallied from an 11-point deficit with six minutes to play, finishing the game on a 25-11 run. James tied it at 144-144 on a step-back 3-pointer with 1:31 to play.

LA native DeMar DeRozan hit one free throw to put Team Steph back ahead, but LeBron claimed the lead with his layup after some sharp passing by his team-mates.

DeRozan then made a turnover on an attempted pass to Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Russell Westbrook broke out for a layup with 10.7 seconds left.

Golden State Warriors’ Curry is defended by Kyrie Irving (right) of the Boston Celtics as the rival point guards battled it out

Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo scores two points with a scooped lay-up for Team Stephen on Sunday

Team Steph had one last chance, but even the usually unguardable Curry couldn’t elude James and Durant, who forced him to give up the ball to DeRozan, who couldn’t score over Durant’s arm in his face.

‘That was great defense by myself,’ said a grinning Durant, who scored 19 points in his ninth All-Star Game. ‘I’m patting myself on the back.’

Curry finished with 11 points on 4-for-14 shooting.

‘Two tall giants out there not letting me shoot,’ Curry said with a laugh when describing the last play. ‘Tried to make a play, and it just didn’t work out.’

Former boxer Floyd Mayweather was among the celebrities in attendance at the glitzy showpiece event at the Staples Center

Rapper P Diddy watches on as Team LeBron overcame Team Stephen with a 148-145 victory in a hard-fought All-Star game

Staples Center regular and Los Angeles Lakers fan Jack Nicholson was present courtside at the All-Star game on Sunday

The All-Stars’ shooting percentages and final scores were way down from recent seasons, reflecting the effort on the floor. The relaxed All-Star vibe was still at Staples, however: Curry chowed down on a box of popcorn on the bench during the third quarter, and the stars made time and room for plenty of good-looking dunks and alley-oops.

‘They put on a show, but they gave the crowd something to root for rather than just wilding with dunks and lobs,’ said Paul George, who scored 16 points for Team LeBron.

Each member of the winning team made a cool $100,000, a distinct raise from previous seasons in another attempt to make things more interesting.

‘It was better,’ said Team Steph’s Klay Thompson, who scored all 15 of his points on 3-pointers in his fourth All-Star Game. ‘At the end, it was 100 per cent. Throughout the game, it was probably 70, but guys were competitive and they really wanted to win that game.’

The new revised format was a resounding success and made for a more competitive game as James defends Embiid

Minnesota Timberwolves’ Karl-Anthony Towns was outstanding in his first All-Star game with 17 points and 10 rebounds

TIP-INS

TEAM STEPHEN: DeRozan and Damian Lillard led with 21 points apiece. Jimmy Butler didn’t play after being selected for the fourth time.

First-time All-Star Karl-Anthony Towns was outstanding. The Minnesota forward with 17 points and 10 rebounds.

TEAM LEBRON: Kyrie Irving had 13 points, nine assists and seven rebounds. Detroit’s Andre Drummond added 14 points on 7-of-7 shooting.

Three first-time All-Stars suited up. Washington’s Bradley Beal scored 14 points, Miami’s Goran Dragic had two and Indiana’s Victor Oladipo got seven.

Team LeBron’s Durant handles the ball despite the close attentions of Team Stephen’s Al Horford and DeRozan

Curry and LeBron addressed the crowd on their determination to continue to speak out on racial tension before the game

SPEAKING OUT

The All-Star weekend began with strong statements by James, Curry and other superstars about their determination to keep speaking out on issues of social injustice and racial tension despite criticism .

It was a topic of discussion throughout the weekend with Commissioner Adam Silver praising current and former players for speaking on issues important to them. But it was all in the background when the players went to work on court.

California native Arnold Schwarzenegger watches on during the first half of the 2018 All-Star game at the Staples Center

Jamie Foxx gave a spectacular performance on the court before tip-off – the pop star had walked out on an interview on Friday

Rapper and media personality Cardi B sported an eye-catching red outfit as she watched the All-Star action courtside

LA LOVE

The All-Star Game featured no Lakers or Clippers, who share Staples Center during the regular season. But several All-Stars have Los Angeles roots, including area natives Paul George, Westbrook, DeRozan, James Harden and Thompson. George and James are coveted as offseason signings by Lakers fans, but there was no reprise of the ‘We want Paul!’ chants for the Palmdale native after Saturday’s All-Star practice.

THE ABSENT

LeBron lost four of his original selections to injuries, including Cleveland team-mate Kevin Love, Kristaps Porzingis and John Wall. Anthony Davis represented his fellow New Orleans All-Star, DeMarcus Cousins, by wearing Cousins’ No 0 jersey to start the game.

HOLLYWOOD HOME GAME

The All-Star weekend was held in Hollywood for a record sixth time. A partial list of celebrities attending the game: Jack Nicholson, Beyonce, Rihanna, Snoop Dogg, Chadwick Boseman, Chance the Rapper, Jimmy Kimmel, Michael B. Jordan, Chris Rock, Ludacris, Common, Spike Lee, Cardi B, Andy Garcia, Dave Chappelle, DJ Khaled, Tracy Morgan, Sean Combs, Odell Beckham Jr and pregame host Kevin Hart, who lobbed roast-style jokes at the All-Stars with mostly blah results.

Jamie Redknapp (left) and Thierry Henry posed on the court for a photo as they took in the 2018 All-Star game

Fergie sung the national anthem before the start of the showpiece game in front of the state flag of California in Los Angeles

After a much-criticised pregame national anthem from Fergie, N.E.R.D and Migos performed an energizing half-time show.

UP NEXT

The 68th NBA All-Star Game will be in Charlotte on February 17, 2019. North Carolina was scheduled to host the 2017 All-Star Game, but lost it in July 2016 because of the state legislature’s Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act, which is considered by many to be discriminatory.

Hornets owner Michael Jordan got a standing ovation when he appeared at center court alongside Lakers owner Jeanie Buss and Clippers owner Steve Ballmer to reveal the logo for next year’s game.

Charlotte Hornets owner and NBA legend Michael Jordan announced his team will be hosting the 2019 game on February 17

Snoop Dogg (right) enjoys a drink alongside Chance The Rapper as the pair took in the All-Star game from courtside seats

Washington Wizards point guard John Wall was forced to withdraw from the game beforehand due to injury and watched on

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biofunmy · 6 years ago

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The Best N.B.A. Season of the Decade? Too Hard to Choose.

The New York Times is reflecting on the past decade in the N.B.A., which has evolved perhaps more than any other major sports league.

The last decade in the N.B.A. had something for everyone. New superstars emerged — Stephen Curry, Kawhi Leonard — and veterans like Ray Allen and Kobe Bryant reminded us all why they were so great. There were heartbreaks (the Spurs) and comebacks (the Cavaliers) and moments fans and players will never forget (“The Block”).

Our writers and editors explained which seasons from the past 10 years were their favorites.

2011-12: A Lockout, Then Linsanity

Victor Mather

Senior staff editor and reporter

For incident and excitement, 2011-12. The season started grimly, with a lockout, eventually costing 16 games of the regular season. But the revised 66-game schedule felt fresh and fast, and every game had a little more import. Chris Paul seemed to be headed for the Lakers, only to have the deal vetoed by then-Commissioner David Stern, and he wound up going to the Clippers instead. In February, Jeremy Lin turned into Oscar Robertson for the magical run of Linsanity. In the playoffs, the eighth-seeded 76ers beat the top-seeded Bulls after Chicago’s Derrick Rose injured a knee, and the LeBron James-Dwyane Wade-Chris Bosh Heat won their first title.

2012-13: Ray Allen Happened

Kevin Draper

Sports business reporter

The N.B.A. is at its best when there is a clear top dog but also a number of fun, interesting and credible challengers, and that was never more apparent than in 2012-13.

The Heat had just won a championship with James and were demolishing everything in their path. But the Spurs almost took them down in the finals — and would have, if not for an incredible shot by Allen.

There were so many other fun teams. A plodding, defensive style was still viable, so the Roy Hibbert-led Pacers were designed specifically to stop James, and Tony Allen led the Grit n’ Grind Grizzlies to the Western Conference finals. The post-James Harden Thunder looked unstoppable, until Russell Westbrook needed knee surgery.

It was also a preview of the rest of the decade. The fun-running Warriors upset the Nuggets in the playoffs, and Harden’s Rockets and Carmelo Anthony’s Knicks found success in bombing 3-pointers for fun.

2013-14 and 2018-19: Kawhi Leonard Proved His Value

Harvey Araton

Hall of Fame sportswriter

A draw: 2013-14 and 2018-19 with Leonard winding up as the most valuable player of both finals. How Leonard and the San Antonio Spurs recovered from the excruciating 2012-13 seven-game finals defeat at the hands of James and the Heat — by crushing Miami in a rematch — was a historically epic bounce-back. And the one-season rental conditions under which Leonard and the 2018-19 Toronto Raptors brought the Larry O’Brien trophy across a United States border for the first time, Golden State’s injuries notwithstanding, were nothing short of remarkable.

2014-15: LeBron Returned, and the Warriors Warmed Up

Benjamin Hoffman

Senior staff editor

No season in the decade started as wide open as 2014-15. The Spurs were a force to be reckoned with, but the rest of the league was in question. How would James’s return work in Cleveland? Could the Clippers or Warriors take the leap from fun team to contender? Just how good were the Grizzlies or the Bulls?

The story for much of the year was the shocking improvement of the Atlanta Hawks, who jumped from 38 wins to 60 under Coach Mike Budenholzer and sent four players to the All-Star Game. But Golden State’s reinvention under Coach Steve Kerr proved to have more staying power.

Those Warriors teams are thought of as an unforgiving juggernaut, but that feeling didn’t develop until the second season under Kerr. In 2015, it was still a bunch of people wondering if the whole thing would work. It did.

2015-16: Golden State Got Hot … Then Flamed Out

Marc Stein

Hall of Fame sports reporter

Nothing tops the 2015-16 season from start to finish. I had a front-row seat for a good chunk of Golden State’s insane 24-0 launch to the regular season — all, remember, without the ailing Kerr — and I remain convinced that no team will ever match it. The Cavaliers’ comeback from 3-1 down in the finals, against a Warriors team that had won a record 73 games, was equally historic given the five decades that the city of Cleveland had waited for a major championship. Throw in the 60 points that Kobe Bryant scored in his final N.B.A. game and there is no debate in this category.

Shauntel Lowe

N.B.A. editor

It would have been more difficult for a ’90s kid like me to accept the death of the Bulls’ wins record had it not been so much fun to see the Warriors take it down. Their dominance in the 2015-16 regular season was boring to some, and I get it. Each night you wondered whether they’d win by 30 points or 40, or if Curry would even need to play the second half. But I love that kind of excellence; it’s why it’s so much fun to watch the Lakers combo of James and Anthony Davis now.

Scott Cacciola

Sports reporter

The 2015-16 season had everything: intrigue, entertainment, surprises. Who can forget how the Warriors turned the regular season into performance art? They won their first 24 games by dismantling their opponents and went on to finish 73-9, a record-setting run that most figured would extend into the playoffs.

Golden State even had a 3-1 lead against the Cavaliers in the N.B.A. finals. But Draymond Green got suspended for Game 5, James engineered his usual heroics and Kyrie Irving drained a 3-pointer for the ages in Game 7 to clinch the Cavaliers’ first championship.

“The game always gives back to people that are true to the game,” James said afterward. “I’ve watched it. I know the history of the game, and I was just calm. I was calm.”

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jodyedgarus · 7 years ago

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The Good, The Bad And The WTF Of NBA Free Agency

There have been a handful of seismic shifts since NBA free agency began earlier this month — LeBron James heading west to join the Lakers, DeMarcus Cousins signing with Golden State and Spurs superstar Kawhi Leonard being shipped to Canada for DeMar DeRozan — but the dust is finally beginning to settle some, allowing us to make sense of what has happened.

Two things have become relatively clear: 1) This was a lean, challenging year for players who might have otherwise taken long-term deals, as around half of the pacts this summer have been for a single season; 2) With Cousins in tow, the Warriors may be in a league of their own again when it comes to contending for the title.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t give a brief rundown of the teams that have wowed, disappointed or befuddled us this offseason. Here’s our look at the good, the bad and the confusing from the past month.

Winners

Indiana Pacers

The Pacers were arguably the league’s biggest surprise last season, going from what many analysts figured would be a lottery team after the Paul George trade with Oklahoma City to one win away from knocking out LeBron and the Cavaliers in the first round. An enormous part of that, of course, was Victor Oladipo having a better statistical campaign than George en route to becoming an All-Star and winning the Most Improved Player award.

The other element flew under the radar but was just as integral: Indiana’s offense, gladly taking what the defense gave it, went against the grain and launched far more midrange jump shots than any other club, essentially making the Pacers the antithesis of the Rockets. With a group of decent jump-shooters, the strategy worked. But as a team that doesn’t shoot a ton of threes or get to the line much (Indiana had the NBA’s fifth-lowest 3-point attempt rate and the fifth-worst free-throw rate), the Pacers could have entered the 2018-19 season somewhat vulnerable to opponents who can score in bunches more quickly and efficiently.

But inking perpetual-motion sharpshooter Doug McDermott should make Indiana less predictable and more of a threat from outside. And Tyreke Evans — who has quietly shot nearly 39 percent from the arc over the past three years after shooting about 28 percent in his first six seasons — was a solid, under-the-radar pickup who should be a huge upgrade over Lance Stephenson.

Kyle O’Quinn, who came over for the room exception at one year and $4.5 million, will fit right in with the Pacers’ offensive philosophy; he hit better than 44 percent of his long 2s last season. He can get himself in trouble as a playmaker, but he’ll be a more-than-adequate backup to Myles Turner or Domantas Sabonis.

Almost no analyst will pick the Pacers to land a top-three seed in the East. But should the Celtics, Raptors or Sixers struggle out of the gate, it wouldn’t be that surprising if Indiana did just that. The Pacers finished just outside the top 10 last season in both offensive and defensive efficiency — a hint that they weren’t far from contention. If things break right for them this year, they could reach that level with their improved roster.

Memphis Grizzlies

Just when we thought we had left the Grit-n-Grind era behind us, it found its way back into our hearts and, soon enough, onto the court at FedEx Forum.

The Grizzlies battled through a miserable year that included the firing of coach David Fizdale after he and center Marc Gasol failed to see eye-to-eye, and that was after losing point guard Mike Conley to a heel injury that eventually led to season-ending surgery. From the outside, a total teardown might have seemed like the best course of action. But for a small-market franchise — which has big-money deals on the books and is already dealing with attendance problems — that avenue might have been too dire, leading the club to reload instead.

Memphis did so by trying to get back to what made it special a few years ago: It loaded up on solid players who aren’t the most glitzy but tend to get the job done on both ends of the floor.

While they started that process at the draft with forward Jaren Jackson Jr. — a player whom FiveThirtyEight’s projection models like a great deal — the Grizzlies also landed advanced-stats darling Kyle Anderson, who ranked second among small forwards in Defensive Real Plus-Minus this past season. With his ball-handling ability and size, Anderson is a lower-scoring, better-defending version of the Grizzlies’ Chandler Parsons, who has been sapped by injuries in recent years. Memphis also picked up wing Garrett Temple, a reliable defender and 39-percent 3-point shooter this past year, from Sacramento via trade.

It’s not often that a 22-win team jumps into the playoff conversation without adding a bona fide star. But merely getting healthy again after adding this many capable two-way players could let the Grizzlies improve by leaps and bounds.

Losers

Portland Trail Blazers

Similar to how the Raptors needed a shakeup after multiple seasons fizzled out in a similar manner, the Blazers seemingly needed one in 2017-18, too. Even after realizing they couldn’t go about things the exact same way and altering a handful of schematic details, those fixes weren’t nearly enough, and the club got swept in the first round by Anthony Davis and the Pelicans.

But the beatdown didn’t bring about big changes for the West’s No. 3 seed. Instead, the Blazers brought back restricted free agent center Jusuf Nurkic (who’s highly productive when he’s not getting whacked in the face) while losing solid bench contributors in guard Shabazz Napier and reserve big Ed Davis.1

If there’s a sour taste in the mouths of Blazers fans, though, it should stem from the notion that Portland could have — and possibly would have — completed a sign-and-trade for Cousins had it not been that he and Nurkic have representatives who work for the same agency, potentially creating a conflict. Such a deal would have provided the sort of shakeup that a capped-out team like Portland needs. Instead, we may see this team — one of the few that enjoyed good health last year — finish near the bottom of the playoff pool in the West.

Houston Rockets

Any way you slice it, it’s tough to make sense of the Rockets’ offseason. This team was one decent half away from knocking off the vaunted Warriors and reaching the NBA Finals when its players short-circuited and couldn’t make a 3-pointer to save their lives.

The Rockets were close enough that you could almost understand bringing back the same team to try again. But instead, Houston lost starting forward Trevor Ariza right out of the gate (granted, for big money at $15 million this season with a young Phoenix team).Then Luc Mbah a Moute followed suit, rejoining the Clippers about a week later for just one year and $4.3 million. Both were enormous contributors to the Rockets’ vast defensive improvement, and they played key roles in the team’s switch-everything scheme, a must-have against a club like Golden State, which screens away from the ball so well.

Houston’s interest in Carmelo Anthony wasn’t terribly surprising, after it pursued him the year before. Yet while there’s a chance Anthony plays far better with the Rockets than he did in a down year with Oklahoma City, it’s hard to see him being much better than either of the two aforementioned wing players, given how Anthony is frequently exploited on defense.

James Ennis may help in replacing the lost production on D, and getting guard De’Anthony Melton in the second round of the draft was seemingly a steal. Still, with the gap between the Rockets and Warriors as small as it was in the postseason, you get the feeling that these moves might have widened the chasm.

Somewhere in between

Chicago Bulls

Even if you don’t think Zach LaVine is worth the four years and $78 million that the Bulls ponied up to keep him from becoming a Sacramento King, the logic is clear: LaVine, at one point, was the centerpiece of what Chicago got in the Jimmy Butler deal last summer.

What’s tougher to understand is the logic behind pairing LaVine with free agent Jabari Parker.

Yes, this ACL-hobbled duo has clear scoring chops, and both are just 23. But neither can really defend on the wing just yet, potentially making life far more challenging for impressive youngster Wendell Carter Jr. than it should be this early on.

“Well, I don’t know — I just stick to my strengths,” Parker said when asked about defense during a Chicago radio interview. “Look at everybody in the league. They don’t pay players to play defense. … I’m not gonna say I won’t, but to say that’s a weakness is like saying that’s everybody’s weakness. I’ve scored 30s and 20s off of guys who say they try to play defense.”

The Parker deal, for two years and $40 million, isn’t awful. The second year of the contract is a team option, giving the Bulls an out if he doesn’t return to form. But the biggest challenge, and one that gives analysts around the league pause, is his defense. Statistically, Parker has surrendered2 more blow-by opportunities on D than any other NBA player over the past three seasons, according to data from Second Spectrum. Some of that, of course, stems from the head-scratching scheme the Bucks used for so long. But other times, it was a function of Parker playing out of position at small forward, where he’s not quick enough to stay in front.

It’s safe to assume that someone — be it Parker, the guy he’s guarding or both — is going to score a lot next season. We look forward to seeing who gets the upper hand.

Los Angeles Lakers

No one is knocking the LeBron signing itself. (How could you?) But add me to the list of people who have struggled to understand the free-agent signings around him.

Regardless of whether you plan to have James control the ball a ton or you prefer that he operates more from the post, he would benefit most by having a stable of capable jump-shooters to give him the time and space he needs to create scoring chances.

For the better part of eight years, James’s rosters have generally featured several shooting specialists who afford him ample room to drive and kick. A number of players — James Jones, Mike Miller, Shane Battier, Ray Allen, Mario Chalmers, Matthew Dellavedova, JR Smith, Kyle Korver, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love, just to name a few — have logged seasons in which they shot 40 percent or better3 from deep when playing alongside James. By contrast, no one on this Lakers roster — outside of James — has ever logged even one season of 40 percent or better.4

This might be an arbitrary threshold. Aside from the fact that many players on this club are in the early stages of their career, Brandon Ingram shot 39.0 percent from there last year, and Josh Hart was at 39.6 percent. And it seems a given that the team’s best young players stand to take massive steps forward by playing with a great setup man who demands so much of the opponent’s attention.

The bigger question, in light of comments he made during the NBA Finals, is whether this team will possess the sort of collective basketball IQ that James feels he needs around him. We know Rajon Rondo, however combustible he might be, is set in that regard. But the additions of Stephenson and JaVale McGee were tougher to square from that standpoint.

At their best, with the right surroundings, Stephenson and McGee can lead the NBA in triple-doubles and wreak havoc in pick-and-roll scenarios, respectively. At their worst, they create blooper reels. We have no idea which versions will emerge. But rest assured: LeBron and the youthful Lakers will be anything but boring as we tune in to find out.

from News About Sports https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-good-the-bad-and-the-wtf-of-nba-free-agency/

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