Day: August 25, 2020

GAME ONE / TRAILBLAZERS 100 @ LAKERS 93 Mike EllisI want to start by talking about Skip Bayless. Throughout this whole restart and playoffs, Skip has come for Damian Lillard. He’s been on Dame’s jock like his name is Russell Westbrook or Pat Bev, and, well, we’ve seen how Dame’s responded. So, before game one, Skip does what Skip does and tweeted out “Lakers in four,” or some...

GAME ONE / MAVERICKS 110 @ CLIPPERS 118 Jericho Vilar This game, nay, this series is going to showcase two of this year’s playoffs’ most important trends: hero ball and referee influencing. Concerning the Dallas side of things, the latter directly led to the activation of the former. The hero ball narrative came in the form of Maverick wonderboy Luka Doncic’s record setting postseason...

GAME ONE / HEAT 113 @ PACERS 101 Mike Ellis On a day when the namesake of the very TJ Warren-like stat sheet had a very TJ Warren-like 22 on 50% shooting, he was out Teej’d by two Miami lads noticeably not named TJ. That would be the South Beach duo of Jimmy Butler and Goran Dragic (who had 14 of his 24 points in the final quarter of the game). The man they call Buckets lived up to it with 28...

GAME ONE / THUNDER 108 @ ROCKETS 123 Mike Ellis From the very get go, James Harden was playing with his food, man. In his first few touches, he goaded OKC to dumbly foul him beyond the perimeter, drove to the tin with ease, but then dared the old ball club: “fuck you, stop me,” and dribbled out the arc and with time melting down, coolly blasted a step-back three, just because he could....

GAME ONE / JAZZ 125 @ NUGGETS 135 This is an image from an earlier game, but the "what the fuck else I gotta do?" energy was so strong here. Mike EllisThe NBA’s seed has been spread, and now it’s playoff basketball! An exhaustive process where bottom feeders get up to seven games to pester championship contenders. I kid, mostly, and this series should be anything but. These teams have...