Atlanta and Houston Join Milwaukee and Oklahoma City in the NBA Cup Semifinals
Milwaukee and Orlando advanced to the NBA Cup semifinals on Tuesday night, and after Wednesday night's action Atlanta and Houston joined them. The Hawks silenced the Knicks 108-100 in Madison Square Garden, and then the Rockets tamed the visiting Warriors 91-90.
De'Andre Hunter scored a game-high 24 points off of the bench for the Hawks. Trae Young had 22 points despite shooting just 8-22 from the field, and he dished for a game-high 11 assists. The Hawks shot just 43-104 (.413) from the field, but they held the Knicks to 40-93 (.430) field goal shooting while winning the rebounding battle 58-49, outscoring the Knicks in the paint 66-54, and outscoring the Knicks in points off of turnovers 18-13. All five New York starters scored in double figures--led by Josh Hart's 21 points--but the Knicks' bench contributed just 14 points. Karl-Anthony Towns scored 19 points, grabbed a game-high 19 rebounds, and passed for five assists, and Mikal Bridges added 19 points, but Jalen Brunson had just 14 points on 5-15 field goal shooting, though he did pass for eight assists.
The Knicks started the season 4-5 as they battled injuries while trying to acclimate offseason acquisitions Towns and Bridges into their system, but they have posted an 11-5 record since then. Barring further injuries, there is every reason to believe that the Knicks are poised to make a deep playoff run.
The Hawks are more of a mystery. They have played well recently, but it is not clear if what they are doing is sustainable over the course of an 82 game season and through the playoffs; after all, last season the L.A. Lakers won the NBA Cup only to barely qualify for the NBA playoffs before meekly bowing out to Denver in five games in the first round. Last season, the Hawks missed the playoffs with a 36-46 record while ranking 28th in the NBA in points allowed and 28th in defensive field goal percentage; this season, the 14-12 Hawks rank 28th in points allowed and 20th in defensive field goal percentage. After starting the season 7-11, they have won seven of their last eight games, a run that began with a surprising 135-124 win versus the Cavaliers in Cleveland. I attended that game, and watched the Cavaliers take a 27-8 lead in the first seven minutes before the Hawks stormed back to tie the score at 35 by the end of the first quarter; my takeaway is that the Hawks have a lot of talent, but their shot selection is questionable and they only play defense sporadically.
In short, the Hawks are a streaky team not just from game to game, but from quarter to quarter, and they demonstrated that again on Wednesday night: they trailed the Knicks 26-14 in the first quarter, and then outscored the Knicks 34-18 in the third quarter.
I tend to not believe in low-ranked defensive teams that rely heavily on an undersized, inefficient guard, so forgive me if I do not yet jump on the Hawks' bandwagon; I acknowledge that their roster is more talented than I thought before the start of the season, but I am skeptical that they can sustain the level of play that they have maintained over the past couple of weeks.
Switching our attention to the other NBA Cup bracket, the Houston-Golden State game was dramatic because of the close finish, but it also exemplified much of what is wrong with the modern NBA; if you enjoy watching elite athletes jacking up--and missing--three pointers, then you were in basketball heaven while looking at the teams combine to shoot 18-65 (.277) from three point range. The teams launched nearly 40% of their field goal attempts from beyond the arc, undeterred by their misses; that is a normal NBA game now, and while it is true that the league's three point shooting percentage is a respectable .360 that does not change the reality that this style of play results in long stretches during which neither team scores very much. I previously explained the inherent flaws involved in this high variance playing style. It seems like no team is willing to buck the trend of volume three point shooting, but one gets the sense that the first team with a quality big man that decides to play "old school" ball will wax these teams that live and die with the long ball; the evidence supporting that assertion is that even after the so-called three point revolution took hold the NBA championship has still consistently been won by teams that are proficient defensively and that are able to attack the paint offensively when their three point shots are not falling.
Alperen Sengun scored a game-high 26 points for the Rockets, and he attempted just one three pointer while spearheading Houston's 58-40 points in the paint advantage. He also had a game-high 11 rebounds plus five assists. Jabari Smith Jr. added 15 points. Jonathan Kuminga led the Warriors with 20 points, while Stephen Curry had a quiet game by his lofty standards (19 points on 8-17 field goal shooting, team-high five assists). Golden State Coach Steve Kerr was incensed by a loose ball fall with 3.5 seconds remaining that gave Jalen Green the opportunity to drain what proved to be the game-winning free throws. Kerr is correct that the referees should have granted Houston a timeout instead of calling a foul, but it is difficult to muster much sympathy for a team that missed 26 three pointers and that squandered a seven point lead in the final 3:38 while missing three treys and committing two shot clock violations; one of those missed three pointers was fired up by Curry with 11.1 seconds remaining and the Warriors clinging to a 90-89 lead. Is that a high percentage play? I realize that Curry has made many such shots, but that is not the point. The high percentage play in that situation is to run the clock down as far as possible before shooting, thus giving the other team very little time to score. A three pointer is not necessary or desirable, let alone a three pointer with so much time remaining. After Curry missed, the resulting loose ball scramble took several seconds before the fateful foul was called, which means that if Curry had drained more time off of the clock then time may have run out before either team gained possession.
Viewed from a wide lens, the "exciting" finish consisted of poor clock management, bad shot selection, and then a questionable foul call. NBA action is...not as fantastic as it used to be.
Labels: Alperen Sengun, Atlanta Hawks, De' Andre Hunter, Golden State Warriors, Houston Rockets, Jalen Brunson, Karl Anthony-Towns, New York Knicks, Stephen Curry, Trae Young
posted by David Friedman @ 1:45 AM
Milwaukee and Oklahoma City Advance to the NBA Cup Semifinals
The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Orlando Magic 114-109 in the first of four NBA Cup quarterfinal games. Giannis Antetokounmpo scored a game-high 37 points on 15-24 field goal shooting, and he had a game-high four blocked shots. Damian Lillard added 28 points--including 15 in the fourth quarter--and a game-high nine assists. Antetokounmpo (game-high six turnovers) and Lillard (four turnovers) had 10 of the Bucks' 16 turnovers. Bobby Portis contributed 22 points and a team-high 10 rebounds off of the bench, while former All-Star Khris Middleton--who is on a minutes restriction as he recovers from offseason surgeries on both of his ankles--had eight assists, four rebounds, and three steals in 20 scoreless minutes.
The Magic battled throughout the game--enjoying an 11 point lead early in the second quarter, and leading 107-106 with just 40.6 seconds remaining in the game--despite being without the services of Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner, their two best players who are both sidelined with oblique injuries. Jalen Suggs scored a career-high 32 points and had a game-high four steals, Anthony Black (17 points) and Moritz Wagner (13 points on 6-6 field goal shooting) played well off of the bench, and Goga Bitadze made his presence felt with 12 points, a game-high 14 rebounds, and four assists.
On paper, this game should have been a blowout, as the Bucks feature two members of the NBA's 75th Anniversary Team--Antetokounmpo and Lillard--while the Magic sans Banchero do not have a single current or former All-Star, but the Magic play hard, they play unselfishly, and they play tough defense. The Bucks committed seven turnovers in the first quarter, tying their season-high for first quarter turnovers, and enabling the Magic to sprint to a 10 point first quarter lead before settling for a 33-25 advantage at the end of the first quarter.
The Bucks eventually outlasted the outmatched Magic, but the Bucks' shaky perimeter defense makes it difficult to picture them enjoying a deep playoff run; their guards struggle to stay in front of the opposing team's guards, which forces their big men to help and thus leave the basket unattended. They could really use a tough, defensive-minded guard like Boston's Jrue Holiday--but they traded Holiday away for Damian Lillard, who is invisible defensively.
The Bucks will be a solid playoff team as long as they have a healthy Antetokounmpo doing everything, but until they recapture the defensive identity that they used to have they will not be a title contender. The scrappy young Magic are a team on the rise--not ready to win a title this season, but building good habits and gaining valuable experience.
In the second game of TNT's doubleheader (and the second NBA Cup quarterfinal game), the Oklahoma City Thunder defeated the Dallas Mavericks, 118-104. The Mavericks outrebounded the Thunder by nearly 5 rpg en route to a 4-2 series win in the 2024 playoffs, but in this game the Thunder outrebounded the Mavericks 52-44 as offseason acquisition Isaiah Hartenstein ripped down a game-high 13 rebounds. The silky smooth Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored a game-high 39 points on 15-23 field goal shooting while also compiling eight rebounds, five assists, and three steals. All five Thunder starters scored in double figures, and the Thunder bench added 29 points. Klay Thompson and Naji Marshall led the Mavericks with 19 points each, but Dallas' top two players both had off nights: Luka Doncic finished with 16 points on 5-15 field goal shooting (though he did have 11 rebounds and five assists), and Kyrie Irving had 17 points on 7-14 field goal shooting. Dereck Lively II tied Hartenstein for game-high rebounding honors, but he scored just four points as the Thunder shut down Dallas' lob game at the rim without giving up anything on the perimeter. The Thunder beat the reigning Western Conference champions despite being without the services of the injured Chet Holmgren. After the game, Gilgeous-Alexander said that it was a point of emphasis to "be the aggressor" versus a team that pushed them around in previous matchups.
During the halftime show of the Oklahoma City-Dallas game, Kenny Smith observed that the Thunder make a conscious effort to "touch the paint" even on possessions that end in three point attempts, and he said that the way that the Thunder attack the paint separates them from teams that just jack up three pointers without putting pressure on the defense.
On Wednesday night, the New York Knicks will host the Atlanta Hawks and the Houston Rockets will host the Golden State Warriors in the last two NBA Cup quarterfinal games, with the winners facing Milwaukee and Oklahoma City respectively as the NBA Cup concludes in Las Vegas with semifinal games on Saturday and the championship game next Tuesday.
The NBA's media partners are contractually obligated to hype up the NBA Cup, but the NBA's TV ratings are down this season and it is not difficult to figure out why: the product just is not as good as it used to be for a variety of reasons, including load management, tanking, and most teams playing the same analytics-driven, cookie-cutter offense focused on jacking up as many corner three pointers as possible. I am a basketball lifer, and I don't find this brand of basketball as captivating or entertaining as basketball used to be, so I can only imagine how casual fans must feel. The NBA Cup will not solve the NBA's problems, and in some ways I would argue that it makes things worse. Last year when the NBA Cup debuted, I pointed out two flaws in the format:
There are at least two drawbacks with the current NBA Cup format: (1)
the use of point differential as the first tiebreaker in Group Play
resulted in farcical situations during which teams ran up the score, and
(2) there will be quirky scheduling this week for the teams that did
not qualify for knockout round play. Regarding the first drawback, I am
all for players and teams playing hard from opening tip to final buzzer,
but intentionally running up the score in the waning moments of a
blowout looks silly and renders those individual and team statistics
meaningless: how many more points would the great teams and players of
the past have scored if teams ran up the score instead of putting in the
reserves? Regarding the second drawback, if a fan wants to see a
particular visiting player or team how is he supposed to plan in advance
for a week in which the schedule is dotted with "TBD"?
The NBA does not care about these issues because the league is desperate to come up with any gimmick to induce the players to (1) stop sitting out games and (2) play hard when they are not sitting out games. Personal pride and competitive spirit are rare commodities now, so the NBA is paying $100,000 to each player on a quarterfinal winning team, with escalating prizes for the teams that advance further in the tournament. Antetokounmpo is one of the few players who still plays hard, but it was not a good look (or sound) when--in response to a question about that $100,000 payment--he laughed and said, "The rich get richer." Many Americans are struggling to put food on the table, with the average annual personal income being just $63,214, so bragging about making more in less than three hours than most people make in a year is not funny or endearing. Not to get overly political, but it sure seems like many athletes and entertainers are Democrats who complain about how much money wealthy people make and how little they pay in taxes, but I have yet to hear of an athlete or an entertainer offering to live on $63,214 per year (or even a "mere" $630,000 per year), so perhaps they should complain less about the economic system or the taxation system that benefits them so much; if they aren't giving up their own money that they receive from guaranteed contracts that don't even require them to show up to work every day then they are in no position to speak about how people who actually have to show up to work to get paid should spend their money or be taxed.
It is unfortunate that the NBA has to stoop to providing extra cash to NBA players who are already earning generational wealth in the hope that players will play hard. It has been reported that the NBA will change the 2025 All-Star Game format to a tournament featuring three eight-player All-Star teams plus the winning team from the Rising Stars Challenge playing round robin games with a 40 point target score. Presumably, the NBA will throw still more cash at the NBA All-Stars and beg the players to at least pretend to give effort. The NBA All-Star Game descended to a new low last February as the teams combined to lauch 168 three point shots while attempting just five free throws as the
Eastern Conference All-Stars routed the Western Conference All-Stars,
211-186.
Throwing more cash at players who act entitled and spoiled will not make things better. Radical measures are needed: if All-Stars refuse to play hard, then cancel the All-Star Game and render null and void any contract bonuses related to being selected as an All-Star; if players think that the season is too long to play all 82 games, then slash the schedule to 60 games, and reduce player salaries proportionately to make up for the lost TV revenue. We all know that Commissioner Adam Silver--who prides himself on getting along with the players--would never do such things, which is why we all also know that the NBA that we love is going to continue to decline until the owners suffer financial losses as a result of selling a second-rate product.
Labels: Dallas Mavericks, Damian Lillard, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jalen Suggs, Luka Doncic, Milwaukee Bucks, NBA Cup, Oklahama City Thunder, Orlando Magic, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
posted by David Friedman @ 1:11 AM
