Curry’s injury, Love’s return shake up the NBA landscape ... Wall, Irving and Fultz could impact playoffs in East ... Naming the Garbagio All-Stars ... Double triple-double
Critics asked what was the point of this NBA season? After all, the star-studded Golden State Warriors were simply going to coast to a third title in four seasons, right?
The Houston Rockets didn’t buy it and decided to add
Chris Paul, a couple of elite defenders and more shooters to perennial MVP candidate
James Harden and underrated supporting cast members Clint Capela and Trevor Ariza, instead of simply saying it couldn’t be done.
Already right there with the Warriors in the standings all season, the decision to stay in the fight last summer is looking like a prescient one in the wake of Stephen Curry’s latest injury, one that will keep him out until the second round of the playoffs, according to head coach Steve Kerr (Curry disagrees, but he won’t be back anytime soon and once he’s back, he’ll have to get back into form quickly in the ultra-competitive West).
Losing Kevin Durant late in the year in 2017 and having to wait for his return was bad, this is far, far worse for the Warriors. While Finals MVP Durant is great and though Draymond Green helps make everything work in the Bay, everything really revolves around Curry, the two-time MVP. There is nothing more lethal than a Curry-Durant pick-and-roll, nothing scarier than Curry pulling up from anywhere on the floor with a game on the line.
Without his Steve Nash meets Ray Allen brilliance, Golden State is eminently beatable and exploitable. The team has gone 13-8 without him this season, compared to 41-10 when he plays. The offence dips by about 13 points minus Curry too and according to ESPN, the Warriors score 120.4 points per 100 possessions with Curry on the floor, the best offensive efficiency with any one player over the past 20 seasons (Curry last year at 118.1 ranks second).
It’s unfortunate that Curry hurt his left knee and will miss weeks of action, but it certainly made the league more interesting as a whole as a result. Houston’s window just cracked wide open.
Meanwhile, Kevin Love’s return to the Cleveland lineup has livened up the other conference quite a bit.
With Love at centre, the Cavs can now surround LeBron James — who happens to be playing as well as ever — with a multitude of shooters. Love is the team’s second-best player and top rebounder, and the Cleveland offence has been spectacular since he got back. They still can’t defend, but if they score 120 a night, it might not matter. Toronto might still be the better and deeper team, but Love makes the Cavs far tougher to contain.
While the Curry and Love injury situations are most impactful, some league-wide developments at the point also could factor into what happens in the playoffs.
John Wall is getting closer to a return in Washington and the club desperately needs him as it is in a dogfight with Milwaukee and Miami in the 6-8 race. The Wizards led both clubs by only a game entering play on Tuesday.
Kyrie Irving won’t be back for a few more weeks, which should significantly hamper Boston’s ability to chase down Toronto for the East’s top spot. And how healthy will Irving be for a potential first round battle with a similarly-hampered Wall, or Miami’s suffocating defence, or Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Bucks? Surging Philadelphia got a boost on Monday when 2017 No. 1 pick Markelle Fultz made a surprising return to action. Fultz will back up
Ben Simmons and gives the Sixers a scorer and creator in the second unit. If he can get up to speed quickly, difficult for any rookie, the East’s scariest team just got even more frightening for potential opponents (like the Raptors in Round 2).
Finally, ESPN reported that the Spurs held a players-only meeting where they implored superstar Kawhi
Leonard to rejoin them. Think the Warriors would enjoy a Curry-less meeting with San Antonio in Round 1 if Leonard is back? Me neither.
GARBAGIO ALL-STARS
There comes a point around mid-February every season where many teams know they are out of the mix, while contenders coast a bit down the stretch.
That’s about the time several players come out of nowhere and turn it on in these altered, less than peak conditions. We’re naming these unexpected producers the Garbagio (garbage time) All-Stars.
Here are a few notable members:
Taurean Prince, Atlanta: Prince is a solid player, but he has really taken off recently, going from 12.2 points a game before the all-star break, to 19.4 in the 15 games since with markedly better shooting and rises in his other stats.
Buddy Hield, Sacramento: Hield’s numbers have popped as the sad-sack Kings try to find out what they truly have in the former NCAA star.
T.J. Warren, Phoenix: With the Suns going nowhere, Warren is playing a ton and hoisting up 18.6 shots a game in recent contests and averaging 21 points per game before getting hurt.
Terry Rozier, Boston: The Celtics are still competing for first in the East so Rozier doesn’t totally fit the Garbagio parameters, but he has gone from 10.1 to 16.2 points per game post-all-star and from a 39% shooter to 43% from the field and from beyond the arc.
Enes Kanter, New York: The Knicks were finished the minute Kristaps Porzingis went down, but Kanter has hauled in 11.9 rebounds per game (sixth in the league) since the break.
JaMychal Green, Memphis: This has been an awful year for the Grizzlies, but Green could be setting himself up for a nice payday down the line by averaging a double-double down the stretch.
AROUND THE RIM
In case you missed it, both Kyle Lowry and Brooklyn’s
D’Angelo Russell recorded triple-doubles playing against each other last week. Two in the same game has only happened eight times in the past 20 seasons, including twice this year. Russell’s triple-double was the first for the Nets franchise in 633 games, the second-longest drought by and franchise … Kemba Walker is about to become Charlotte’s alltime scoring leader. Hands up if you were surprised to hear ex-Raptor Dell Curry (Steph’s dad) currently holds the mark. Weren’t Glen Rice and Larry Johnson mainstays there? Speaking of Walker, he recently became just the third player to ever hit at least 10 three-pointers and free throws in the same game. In just 28 minutes to boot … Anthony Davis now leads the league in blocks while also averaging over 28 points a game, something that hasn’t been done since
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s heyday … Isaiah Thomas has left the Lakers to get his hip evaluated. Has any player’s career done a 180 like Thomas from last year to this one?