Every day in the NBA there is a lot to unpack, so every weekday morning throughout the season we will give you the three things you need to know from the last 24 hours in the NBA.
1) Milwaukee is young, long, athletic, and for a night that made the Cavaliers look a step slow in loss. The Milwaukee Bucks had lost three in a row coming into Tuesday night because their already not-that-good defense had been abysmal. That didn’t really change Tuesday against Cleveland, the Cavs had an offensive rating of 118.9 for the game. That is a win most nights.
Not this time, not against a Milwaukee team who was just faster and more athletic than the Cavaliers all night.
Led by Giannis Antetokounmpo and his 27 points with 14 rebounds, the Bucks ran past the Celtics starting in the middle of the second quarter — on the night, Milwaukee had 24 fast break points to Cleveland’s three. The Bucks led by as many as 20 and seemed in control, until a 19-0 by the Cavaliers bench (with Jae Crowder as the lone starter) made it a game again. That meant LeBron James was back in and he had nine points in the final minutes of the game, he was an absolute force again on his way to 39 points on the night.
It was a back-and-forth ending, but a Tony Snell three (thanks to Eric Bledsoe pushing the pace) had the Bucks up two — more transition points the Bucks got in part due to Dwyane Wade not getting back fast enough to really contest. However, after a couple missed threes, it looked like the Cavaliers would have one more chance when LeBron stole the ball from Antetokounmpo — but the athleticism, speed, and long arms of the Greek Freak once again changed the game and sealed the win.
I did love that on their last chance, LeBron went playground inbounding the ball off the turned Antetokounmpo’s back so he could get it himself. It just wasn’t enough.
It’s one game in December, the Cavaliers have only lost two games in their last 20, and haven’t gotten Isaiah Thomas back yet (he’s got a G-League stint coming up first). Plus, there is no way I’d pick the Bucks over the Cavaliers in a seven-game series… but still, this was the kind of game that feels like it foreshadows things to come. The Cavaliers are older and slower than their rising challengers in the East, how many more years can they hold them off? And what does LeBron think about his future after games like this?
2) Kings beat Sixers, a reminder that when Joel Embiid sits the Sixers aren’t near the same team. When Joel Embiid is on the court this season, the Sixers have played like the equivalent of a 57 win team, but when he has sat they have played like a 23-win team. He means that much to them. So when Embiid sat out Tuesday night due to back tightness (the nearly 50 minutes he played against the Thunder had something to do with that), a game against the Kings went from what should have been an easy win to a real battle.
Philly still led by 16 in the third quarter and 10 at the start of the fourth, but couldn’t hold off the Kings, who got 10 points out of Buddy Hield in the fourth (and 24 for the night). Again it was turnovers that did in the Sixers when they blew the lead — Philly turned the ball over on 20.3 percent of their possessions in this game, one in five trips down the court. The Sixers lead the league in turnover percentage, and it’s not close. Simmons and Embiid’s replacement as a starter, Amir Johnson, were the big culprits. Mix the turnovers with inconsistent defense and a team that makes poor shot decisions down the stretch, and you get a loss. This time it was 101-95 to the Kings. The Sixers have now lost 7-of-8.
Also, with Embiid not patrolling the paint, the Sixers had no answer for Zach Randolph, and the old-school big man went off for 27.
3) The Wizards got an easy win because New Orleans had no answers for John Wall and Bradley Beal. When Washington is focused and brings its “A” game, they have one of the top backcourts in the NBA in Wall and Beal. That focus has been wildly inconsistent this season — if Washington wants to know why it’s not considered a threat to the top of the East it starts there — but those two brought it on Tuesday night.
And the Pelicans had no answers. Wall and Beal combined for 44 points and 14 assists, and that overwhelmed New Orleans (despite 63 points combined from Anthony Davis and DeMarcus Cousins). Check out the Washington backcourt’s highlights from the 116-106 win.
This is exactly what a robust minor league system is for.
Cleveland is targeting bringing Isaiah Thomas back just after the first of the year, but to make sure he gets in plenty of practices and reps, Thomas is going to spend a little time in the G-League on a rehab stint, reports Dave McMenamin of ESPN.
Injured Cleveland Cavaliers guard Isaiah Thomas is getting closer to his return, with five-on-five practices and a likely G League stint in his immediate future….
in the coming days, the Cavs are planning to give Thomas his first chance to get in a full court five-on-five practice since joining the team following a trade with the Boston Celtics in August. The Cavs are hoping to find a way for Thomas to scrimmage with their G League affiliate, the Canton Charge, multiple team sources told ESPN. It is unclear if Thomas will travel to Canton or a collection of Charge players will come to the Cavs’ practice facility in Independence, Ohio, for the run.
If you want a date to target for Thomas’ return, they play his old team the Boston Celtics — who he would like some revenge upon — on Jan. 3. Just something to watch.
However, he’s got work to do before then in terms of convincing team doctors and the front office he is fully ready to go.
The average fan doesn’t realize how little most NBA teams get to practice during the season. Guys work out and get up shots, there are shootarounds and film sessions before each game, but with 82 games and travel a full-on practice is a luxury most teams get a couple of times a month at most. It depends on the schedule, and some coaches with veteran teams — the Clippers’ Doc Rivers, for example — cancel most of those in favor of more rest.
That makes it hard for a player returning from injury to get some real game-like run in, which is where the G-League should come in. We see players getting minor league rehab stints all the time in Major League Baseball, this is basically the same thing.
Magic Johnson and Isiah Thomas were once best friends. They were one of the most recognizable duos on opposing teams that actually liked each other, in an era where it wasn’t popular to make such a sentiment known.
Then, it all went downhill.
Johnson and Thomas’ relationship deteriorated starting in the late 1980s, when the Detroit Pistons and Los Angeles Lakers played each other in two consecutive NBA Finals. In Game 3 of the ’88 Finals the two got into a tussle, and after the Pistons beat LA in ’89, their relationship seemed over.
Johnson famously helped keep Thomas off the 1992 Dream Team, which has always sat wrong with both Thomas and NBA fans. Johnson admitted that he helped keep Thomas off the Dream Team in part because he says Thomas spread a rumor that he was bisexual or gay. So, the two have been frosty for a minute.
The two reunited in a special that aired after games ended on NBATV on Tuesday, and the two seemed to make nice and genuinely come to a moment of peace with each other.
Via Twitter:
That’s one of the more interesting moments of NBA programming — and that’s saying something — that we’ve seen outside the court in a while.
We have been hearing for years about how the Milwaukee Bucks are the team of length. On Tuesday night, that length was directly and demonstrably responsible for sealing a win over the Cleveland Cavaliers.
During a back-and-forth game in which the Cavaliers needed to come back with a strong 33-point fourth quarter, the whole thing really came down to the final minute.
First, Milwaukee’s Tony Snell hit a 3-pointer with just 58 seconds ago, putting the Bucks up by two points.
The Cavaliers missed two 3-pointers on their next possession, and nearly stole the ball away from Milwaukee as time wound down in a wacky series of events. LeBron James appeared to have stolen the ball from Giannis Antetokounmpo, but the Bucks forward ripped it away at the last second to score.
Via Twitter:
Cleveland then had one more shot to get off a bucket to tie, and LeBron pulled an old playground move. With Antetokounmpo facing away from the superstar at the sideline, James inbounded the ball to himself by bouncing it off of Antetokounmpo’s back.
Via Twitter:
Nevertheless, Milwaukee took home the win in the best game of the night, 119-116.
Brooklyn next big man Jahil Okafor has played just one game with his new team, but on his way out of Philadelphia he did have some interesting comments about the coaching staff and situation when he left the Sixers.
Speaking to the New York Post, Okafor said that he was happy to be with the Brooklyn Nets and with a coaching staff that was working with him. Okafor mentioned that while he was in Philadelphia, it often seemed like he was working out alone and not involved with the team.
Here is the quote from Okafor, which we here at NBC Sports ran earlier in the day on Tuesday.
Via the New York Post:
“That’s why I’m happy I’m here with the actual NBA coaching staff that’s taking care of me every day. When I was in Philly I was figuring it out on my own. I had my own trainer [Rick Lewis] that I’ve been working with since eighth grade working me out. But it’s a different level when you’re actually working with an NBA staff.”
Of course, many outlets took this quote and ran stories on it on Tuesday, which apparently was not to the satisfaction of Okafor.
Thanks to a screenshot from Jared Weiss, we got to see Okafor’s reaction via Instagram story.
Are folks taking that quote out of context? Did the New York Post take that quote out of context? I’m not so sure.
It seems to me that many seem to be reading the quote wrong, if we are to believe Okafor, especially in terms of inflection. How it could be read it is how Okafor seems to be saying he meant it: he’s happy to be working with an actual NBA staff rather than just his personal trainer.
How Okafor seems to think many have interpreted it — including the New York Post — was that he was saying Philadelphia had a low-grade, neglectful staff, and Brooklyn’s is an attentive, high-quality staff.
Inflection is hard to interpret through text sometimes — anyone who has sent an office e-mail can attest to that — but I’m not sure there’s any other context to give here. It’s really more about whether you believe Okafor that his intended meaning was different than how the New York Post seemed to portray it.
Indeed, the quotes themselves could be interpreted both ways and neither would be surprising given the stagnant relationship between Okafor and the Sixers.
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