Big Sports Weekend Thoughts

 We are officially in one of the golden periods for sports where the NBA and NHL playoffs are in full swing just as the baseball season gets started. I am almost stressed with all of the stuff I can watch! Oddly enough, since it totally overlapped with the family Easter Dinner, Leafs Senators game 1 was not one of the games that I saw this weekend and so I can't reasonably talk much about it here. I will say though, lets go! It's only game 1 and we've seen this movie before, but definitely doesn't hurt to give some confidence to the fanbase early, I am cautiously optimistic as an absolute casual who can name probably 10 players. Anyway, I did see some of the NBA game 1s and I saw some Jays so why not just do a big mixed bag post and talk about all of it. 

If You Don't Love Me at My Worstbrook, You Don't Deserve Me at My Bestbrook  

What a game 1 between the Nuggets and Clippers on Saturday. I was able to lock in to the last 5 minutes of the 4th quarter and overtime of this one as I waited for people to come over to my place for another Easter celebration. I came away thinking that no matter what, Russell Westbrook is going to impact a basketball game that he's playing in. He might impact it in a positive way that leads to wins, he might impact it in a negative way that leads to losses, but no matter what you're going to notice Russell Westbrook played. The Nuggets and Clippers game 1 was no different. After Michael Porter Jr was benched down the stretch for lack of effort, the Nuggets went with Russ to close out the Clippers in a close game. Seeing this, it looked like the Clippers strategy on defense was to just totally ignore Westbrook and sell out completely to get the ball out of Jokic and Murray's hands. Honestly, probably not the worst idea in the world and something Westbrook has seen in the playoffs before too. Down by 1 with 24 seconds to go Jokic gets the ball at the top of the floor, Westbrook's man Khris Dunn leaves Russ to go double Jokic at the 3 point line. Jokic being the smart passer he is recognizes Westbrook is wide open in the corner, swings the pass to him, and you could hear the stadium holding their breath collectively until the ball swished through the hoop for the 3. The next play for the Clippers, Harden gets a tough floater to go to tie the game up. The Nuggets now have a chance to hit a game winner, but the Clippers are playing the same defense they had all quarter. Murray got the ball and was immediately swarmed, he got the ball to Jokic who faced the same fate, finally Jokic gave the ball up to the open Westbrook who dribbled around and lost the handle, game goes to overtime. In OT the rest of the Nuggets came alive and they barely managed to scrape by for the huge game 1 win. 

That was just the big plays from Westbrook that I recalled, but he was huge in so many ways in that 4th quarter. Because the Clippers were spending literally no energy guarding him, he was able to sneak in for so many key offensive rebounds and tip outs. His defense was electric forcing tips and hyping his teammates up as well and of course hitting the big shot that ultimately set up overtime. While today this lead to a win, I see this as a lost the battle but could still win the war situation for the Clippers. The last thing you want as a Nuggets fan is for Westbrook's confidence to inflate. If the Nuggets have a run in them, Westbrook is guaranteed to have another awesome game like this (Bestbrook). Westbrook is also guaranteed to have an absolute stinker where he makes too many mistakes for the Nuggets to overcome (Worstbrook). What a player man, is there anyone like this in any other sport? If I didn't think this series would go 7 before, I definitely do now.

Dame isn't Saving the Bucks

After that Nuggets and Clippers game, I switched to having the games on in the background of my family get together I was hosting, so I was admittedly just watching the scores for the most part for the rest of the night. I will say though, the Bucks getting stomped by the Pacers is not a fluke. Giannis was amazing in this game, as he is every time he steps foot on the court. He had 36 points, 12 rebounds on 23 shots and was straight up unstoppable. The problem was he had not 1 but 2 members of his starting 5 end the game with 0 points. In fact, Giannis had 36, the rest of his starting 5 combined for 14 points. That's right, 4 guys in a starting lineup of a team with championship aspirations combined for 14 points. You can't stop clowning them there, Kyle Kuzma, the guy they traded an absolute franchise legend in Khris Middleton for, finished the game with 0 points, 0 rebounds, 0 assists, 0 steals and 0 blocks, a rare Tony Snell 0/0/0/0/0 cardio game. I said right away after the Kuzma trade that I don't think it was going to work out, I just didn't expect to be vindicated so quickly. On the other side, Tyrese Haliburton did not have his best game going 0/7 from deep and finishing with only 10 points, and it didn't even matter. The Pacers 10th man would be starting for Milwaukee and that really showed in a game like this. 

Dame is an awesome player and we've seen him hit awesome shots in big moments. He is almost definitely going to give you more than Ryan Rollins' 5 points at the starting PG position and I am not here to say that he's not going to make the Bucks better. I am here to say that he will not make the Bucks good enough though. For everything Dame brings on offense, he's taking away something on defense. He's going to have to be hidden on an Aaron Nesmith or Andrew Nembhard and both of those guys are capable of running around and hitting shots in an offense lead by an elite playmaker in Haliburton. The Pacers have too much firepower for this older Bucks team, especially if they throw another defensive liability in the mix. Raptors fans, dust off the old Giannis trade ideas I suspect there will be some turmoil in Milwaukee in a couple of months. 

Rockets Warriors, About What I Expected

Imagine playing the entire regular season better than almost any team in the league, finishing with the second best record in the deadly Western Conference only to matchup with multi-time champions in Steph and Draymond who added another lunatic in Jimmy Butler in the first round. This game went basically exactly how the experts were describing the series would go. The Rockets played great, physical basketball for the entire game. Everyone who stepped foot on the court played hard nosed defense and made life difficult for the Warriors. By the time the 4th quarter rolled around, the game was tightly contested and up for grabs. I watched as Amen Thompson, Fred VanVleet and Alperen Sengun all made big shots to try and go blow for blow with the Warriors but I knew it was all over after this play: The Rockets trapped Steph at the top of the floor, just across half court. Steph tried to throw a pass to Draymond Green but with arms flying everywhere the ball bounced off a few players and landed out of bounds. Replay showed it probably should've been Rockets ball, but they had no challenge and it was pretty close so they ruled Warriors ball with 6 seconds on the shot clock. The ball gets inbounded to Steph probably 6 feet behind the 3 point line, he launches a 3 with a hand in his face from that exact spot and absolutely nails it. That embodies this entire series to me. The Rockets need to scratch and claw for everything, the Warriors have a guy that can hit contested 35 foot 3s like it's nothing. 

One thing that can really help the Rockets in this series is Jalen Green having a good game or two. The Rockets already have an uphill battle trying to go blow for blow with the giants in Golden State, they need their best scorer to score well to have a chance. I've said all week that when Jalen Green is on, he's one of the best 3 level scorers in the NBA, he just isn't on consistently. This was a game where Jalen Green was off scoring only 7 points on 3/15 shooting in a night where they needed him. Just like Jalen Green is awesome when he's on, he's a total liability when he's off because he offers nothing except for his ability to score the basketball. Maybe Rockets fans can come away from this one encouraged, they kept it tight even though Jalen Green had a bad game. I would be nervous though, he's my X factor for this series and this is not a good start to say the least. 

Tough Jays Series

Ok I talked about the game 1s that I wanted to talk about. A lot of them were blowouts and not worth watching. I don't think I'll be tuning in for any of Cavs Heat, Celtics Magic or Thunder Grizzlies, those game 1s all went exactly as you'd expect. The Lakers getting stomped by the Timberwolves I think is more of a throwaway game 1, we've seen throughout LeBron and even Luka's entire careers that they like to take game 1 as a feel it out game for the series and I think that's what we saw on Saturday. The Knicks came back in the 4th quarter to beat the Pistons, but I've taken a hard stance on hating the Pistons this year so I am saving all my roasts for when the fat lady sings for that series. ANYWAY, Blue Jays! I wanted to talk about the middle game of the series, the type of loss that you look back on at the end of the year if you are fighting for playoff positioning and you shake your head. Jose Berrios had a pretty solid start allowing just 3 earned runs in 6 innings of work before turning it over to the bullpen. The Jays managed to scratch out 3 runs themselves through stringing hits together without the long ball, kind of like they've done all season. The Jays bullpen came in and was awesome, Brenden Little, Nick Sandlin and Chad Green all pitched an inning of scoreless baseball to send the game to extra innings. With the Jays at home, extra innings should really favor them considering the inning starts with a runner on second base. Yariel Rodriguez, a guy who I like to say just looks like a relief pitcher, pitched an efficient 10th inning and didn't allow the runner from second to score. The Jays couldn't capitalize to walk off the Mariners in the bottom of the 10th. Then Rodriguez came out for a second inning and managed to keep the runner from scoring again! At this point, you get 2 shots to walk off a team with a runner in scoring position and nobody out, you simply have to capitalize. The Jays don't score again in the 11th and now Rodriguez is not available to pitch the 12th. The Jays turn to Jacob Barnes who gets absolutely lit up for 5 runs, the game is effectively over. 

The Jays DFA'd Jacob Barnes after the game, and don't get me wrong he was not good in this one, but you gotta feel for the guy. His teammates should've ended the game before he even got a chance to come in, then he could've been fresh to be used in lower leverage situations like the very next game when Easton Lucas got chased out of the game early and the Jays were down big. The bullpen and starters were great in this one but the bats really didn't show up when it mattered. In this game alone, the Jays were 3/19 with runners in scoring position, a .158 batting average. Justice for my boy Jacob Barnes, if the bats showed up even just a little bit he'd still have an MLB job today. 

And that's that! It's so easy writing these during this period! I love watching playoff basketball, especially after the last 2 months of the regular season where you saw teams and players actively not giving a darn, it's electric to witness the effort level now. I guess I mentioned them so Go Jays!