Heat Bludgeon Bulls and Mavericks Topple Kings to Stay Alive in the NBA Play-In Tournament
Perhaps the NBA's media partners feel obligated to rave about how great the NBA Play-In Tournament is, but I said it in 2021 during the first NBA Play-In Tournament and I will say it again now: Nine Versus Ten Does Not Add Up to Fantastic Basketball. In the pre-Adam Silver NBA, after the regular season ended we were spared from watching sub-.500 teams battle to claim the eighth seed; a team could only earn a playoff spot by playing as hard as possible during the season to finish in the top eight, without the safety net of having a second chance to "play in" to the playoffs.
The problem with having the ninth and tenth best teams face off in high profile games is that teams with losing records did not stack up losses by accident; they are flawed squads, and when you shine a national spotlight on those squads their flaws are glaringly obvious. Instead of creating gimmicks like the NBA Cup and the Play-In Tournament to try to discourage tanking and convince teams to play hard throughout the season, the NBA should have adopted the relegation system while also not allowing the worst teams to get the top draft picks; if the worst teams each season were dropped to a lower, less prestigious, and less lucrative league instead of being rewarded with the opportunity to draft the best young players, teams would not only stop losing on purpose but they would do their best to at least win enough to avoid relegation.
In the first game of Wednesday's ESPN doubleheader of uninspired basketball, the 37-45 Miami Heat tamed the 39-43 Chicago Bulls, 109-90. I erred by picking the Bulls--who went 15-5 in their last 20 games--to not only win this game but to win on Friday night to earn the eighth seed. The Bulls clearly preferred getting an early start on their summer vacation versus fighting to get into the playoffs; the Bulls never led, trailed by as many as 17 points in the first quarter, and allowed the anemic Heat offense to shoot 41-83 (.494) from the field as boos echoed throughout the United Center. Tyler Herro scored a game-high 38 points on 13-19 field goal shooting, while Josh Giddey paced the Bulls with 25 points on 9-21 field goal shooting. The Heat led 71-47 at halftime, and they led by at least 13 points the rest of the way. I thought that the Bulls would prove to be the better team, but the reality is that neither of these teams is very good, so in a one game winner take all showdown anything can happen--anything other than competitive and entertaining basketball.
The second game of the doubleheader was no better, with the home team again looking lethargic and offering little defensive resistance as the 39-43 Dallas Mavericks--who went 7-13 in their last 20 games--blasted the 40-42 Sacramento Kings, 120-106. It is fair to say that firing Coach Mike Brown and then trading De'Aaron Fox did not make the Kings better; the Kings went 6-9 down the stretch before rolling over and playing dead at home in the NBA Play-In Tournament. Even without the services of injured All-Star Kyrie Irving, the Mavericks made light work of the Kings, leading 71-48 at halftime (nearly matching the halftime margin of the Miami-Chicago fiasco) and maintaining at least a 16 point cushion throughout the second half until Terence Davis hit a meaningless three pointer with 19.9 seconds remaining to close out the scoring.
Anthony Davis led the Mavericks in scoring and rebounding (27 points, nine rebounds), Klay Thompson had a flashback shooting performance (23 points on 8-11 field goal shooting), Brandon Williams contributed 17 points and five assists in 18 minutes off of the bench, and P.J. Washington scored 17 points while tying Davis for team-high honors with nine rebounds. For the deposed Kings, DeMar DeRozan scored a game-high 33 points, Zach LaVine added 20 points on 8-19 field goal shooting along with nine assists and a game-high tying five turnovers, and Domantas Sabonis had 11 points, a game-high 13 rebounds, five assists, and five turnovers.
Since the NBA began the Play-In Tournament in 2021, no 10th seeded team has claimed the eighth seed in either conference; that will change on Friday night if Miami beats Atlanta or if Dallas beats Memphis.
Labels: Anthony Davis, Chicago Bulls, Dallas Mavericks, DeMar DeRozan, Josh Giddey, Klay Thompson, Miami Heat, Sacramento Kings, Tyler Herro
posted by David Friedman @ 1:53 AM
2 Comments:
The play-in tournament didn't seem like a good idea for it's 2nd year, but now in its 5th year, I kinda like it, regardless of how competitive the games are. I don't know how there could be a completely separate league from the NBA for relegation. And the teams that would be there would only remain there as well, with little to no chance of moving up or being relevant.
We've seen a bunch of mediocre teams advance far in the playoffs in recent seasons. The teams we saw play last night only have a few less losses than most of those teams. The Heat played hard last night and if Butler played hard when he was there and didn't whine his way out of Miami, Miami could've potentially did something in the playoffs. The Kings have a lot of talent, but something is missing. Losing Brown and Fox didn't help, but losing Brown while keeping Fox did help. The Kings greatly improved until they traded Fox away for some reason. Lavine is a good player but not an AS and that wasn't a great trade for the Kings. Dallas played hard and are a big, tough team, but still hard to see them doing much even if they earn the 8 seed.
Anonymous:
The Play-In Tournament is a gimmick, generating more TV and ticket revenue for games that do not count in the record book as regular season or playoff games.
I know that the NBA will not consider relegation for a variety of reasons, but relegation makes more sense than adding the NBA Cup and the Play-In Tournament while retaining a Draft system that encourages teams to lose on purpose.
The Kings are a dysfunctional franchise. I suspect that it will be a while before they match even the small amount of success that they had while Brown was there.
It will be interesting to see the Mavericks at full strength, but that will not happen until at least January of 2026 (the earliest that Kyrie Irving could return to action).
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