Last Night In The NBA: A Day We've All Been Waiting For

Happy Tuesday everybody and welcome to another edition of Last Night In The NBA where we catch you on up on everything that happened from the night before in the Association. We had just 5 games last night, but the good news is all 5 were entertaining, even the one major blowout. If you were having basketball withdrawals from the tournament, last night did you well. If you missed it, what else were you doing? Here’s what happened

Knicks (27-48) 128 vs Hornets (34-41) 137 F/OT

Heading into this game I did NOT think this would be one worth watching. More of a chore than entertainment if you’ve happened to see either of these two teams play recently. But that’s the magic of NBA lottery basketball in March. Sometimes things can go crazy and the next thing you know it turns into one of the more entertaining games of the night. Kemba vs Trey Burke was some must watch stuff if you’re a fan of offensive guards

As far as I’m concerned, as long as the calendar still reads March, Kemba Walker might be the best basketball player on the planet. This has been the case whether we’re talking about college for pro. The guy is made for this month and it showed last night.

And yeah, Dwight was good again as well, but who cares about him really

The Hornets shot 55% on the night and had a great night from their bench, which combined for 52 points on 18-34 shooting with four guys in double figures. Very impressive!

For NYK, when you really think about it, who cares they may not have a high lottery pick when you have a talent like Trey Burke. Talk about a find. A career night for Burke, he finished with 42 and was matching Kemba every step of the way

between that and the dominance of Beasley who had 27

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not a bad night for Knicks fans considering they probably wanted the loss more than CHA wanted the win. You have to respect the Knicks for fighting their way back into this game after getting down by 13 in the first half and making this a fairly entertaining close game all the way until Kemba’s eruption.

For those who care the Knicks are 9th in lottery odds standings.

Lakers (32-41) 106 vs Pistons (34-40) 112

The Pistons are so weird man. The hell are they doing trying? Little late to do something crazy like win 2 games in a row like they currently have. Blake and Drummond need to fake an injury or something because this is doing more harm than good

Pistons fans were probably relieved to see how good Reggie Jackson looked as he makes his way back from injury and finished with 20/5/3 on 9-22 shooting

It really is too bad DET is such a pathetic road team, because their 23-14 home record isn’t so terrible. It’s the 11-26 away from home that killed them this year.

For LAL, once again the story was about the development of their young talent, and their young talent played pretty well. First was Lonzo, who finally had a good shooting night to go with his 15/8/11

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Kuzma beasted for a nice 20/11

same with Randle and his 23/11 which included this big boy dunk on Blake

The problem for the Lakers was their bench gave them jack shit. No player scored over 7 points and they shot just 7-16.

If PHI fans are curious, the Lakers pick stands to be 10th at the moment.

Celtics (51-23) 102 vs Suns (19-56) 94

Full blog is coming. I will say that it was very nice of the Celtics to stay on brand during this win. Wouldn’t have felt right without a blown 20 point lead.

Nuggets (40-34) 104 vs Sixers (43-40)  123

By far the biggest story of the night and really the only one that matters. Markelle Fultz after a 68 game absence made his return to the court last night. Before we dive into him, obviously the Sixers are fucking rolling, winning 7 in a row and they are 8-2 over their last 10. They sit just 1.0 behind CLE for the 3 spot, and the final 7 or so games will be wild for them in terms of where they end up seeding wise. They were able to blow this game open not just because of  Fultz, but because of their two best players continuing to play great basketball

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Add in how well Saric and Covington are playing right now as well

and there’s no surprise that the Sixers are where they are. They’ve been beating up on lottery teams since Feb 12th, with just 3 of their wins coming against playoff teams. I say who cares about that and just enjoy the brand of basketball they are playing because it’s fun as hell to watch.

Now, with Fultz this could have gone a bunch of different ways. I would give his night a very solid B+. Finishing with 10/4/8 on 5-13 shooting and being a +16 is about as good as ANY of us could have hoped for. I don’t care what team you root for, if you don’t want to see this kid succeed than you are a COLOSSAL asshole. Watching him play a few things stood out. First his little hesi iso pullup looks good and that’s the move that made teams salivate so much during his time at Washington. He also reminded us all how fucking big he is at the position. Jamal Murray is not small by any means, and Fultz made him look like a middle schooler. It was great to see Fultz play with confidence even after some early misses/blocks and I thought the love and support the cold hearted Philly fans showed him was awesome. I hope whatever hurdle he had to get over is gone for good and he turns into a really good player. He has a LONG way to go considering he basically didn’t have a rookie year, but that’s more par for the course with this team. I think he’ll be fine.

For DEN, if it wasn’t already, it’s a wrap for their playoff chances in my opinion. This game was close until the little 34-15 third quarter, and from then on they couldn’t recover. Will Barton did his best with 25 to lead all DEN scorers

but with no Gary Harris and Jokic going 4-14, there just wasn’t enough firepower to punch back with what PHI was throwing at them. They’re now 1.5 games out of the final 8th spot and their schedule doesn’t get any easier. Too bad really, DEN would have been fun in a playoff series.

Grizzlies (20-54) 101 vs Timberwolves (42-33) 93

The hell? This was a real score in a real game that really happened. It is not a typo, just a really poor effort from MIN. How they were not able to stop Gasol who has 20/10/6 or Wayne Selden who had 23 off the bench is beyond me

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This win didn’t hurt their lottery odds as they still are in the 2 spot, so the damage here was really all on the Timberwolves.

For MIN, what are you doing man. You’re in a tight playoff race you CANNOT be losing to the Grizzlies at home where you are 27-10. Now they find themselves in the 8th spot, losers of 2 in a row and a 4-6 record over their last 10. Not exactly what I would call playing your best basketball. Sure Jeff Teague showed out with 25/2/7

and Taj Gibson had 18

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but Wiggins and Kat combining for 12-30 is a problem kids. Of course Thibs only played 8 guys because he’s a fucking moron. Let’s burn everyone out right before the playoffs by having everyone important play 40+ minutes. You think maybe it was fatigue that forced the Timberwolves to only score 11 points in the fourth quarter? Honestly what the hell is he doing other than ruining his team from within. Figure it out Thibs. This game didn’t get out of hand until that fourth quarter, maybe work in some subs before then and you won’t flame out. Crazy concept I know.

And that’s it! You’re now all caught up on everything that happened last night in the NBA. We’re back at it again tonight with 8 games and the matchups are great. We have SA/WSH, DEN/TOR, POR/NO, IND/GS, and MIL/LAC. Should be a great night of basketball and as always if you can’t watch just make sure to check back here tomorrow and I’ll fill you in.