Scoring soaring in bubble
Fewer diversions enable players to find comfort zone
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — The last time there was a slate of five or more NBA games on the same day, with every team scoring at least 110 points, was more than 32 years ago.
That is, until the opening of the league’s so-called bubble amid the coronavirus pandemic — where it has happened twice.
Scoring numbers are soaring inside the NBA’S bubble, where the restarted season is happening at Walt Disney World. Entering Sunday’s games, 17 of the 22 teams inside the bubble were exceeding what had been their scoring averages before the season was suspended March 11 because of COVID-19.
Games on average have seen nine points more than what had been the norm this season. The number of 3-pointers in each game — which had been on a record clip when the season was suspended — is up as well. And Indiana forward T.J. Warren, not even a top-50 scorer when the pandemic hit, is leading the bubble in points per game so far, averaging 34.4 and nearly doubling what was his season average.
“T.J. Warren is on a different planet right now,” Pacers guard Victor Oladipo said.
He’s not alone. The bubble is working for just about everyone.
There was a six-game NBA schedule on Feb. 21, 1988, and
all the teams playing that night scored at least 110 points. That hadn’t happened, on a day of five or more games, again in the NBA until July 31 — the second day of bubble games. It happened again Saturday.
Dallas coach Rick Carlisle says there might be multiple reasons why the numbers are up, but foremost on the list is the NBA has created an environment where players are comfortable.
“We came from a situation at home where players could only do individual workouts, you know, with a coach with a mask on and rubber gloves,” Carlisle said. “When you walked in the practice facility, you had to clean your shoes. You had to fill out a form, you had to take your temperature, you had do a lot of things and that was before serial testing began. So a lot has gone into this.”
Maybe this should have been
expected, even after teams went 4½ months without playing a real game during the suspension. Hostile fans aren’t screaming at and distracting shooters in the bubble. No one is weary from a long flight the night before. And the conditions inside the three game arenas at Disney — from the lighting to the temperature — are relatively close to identical.
“Even though we are playing on different courts, they all kind of feel like the same arena,” Milwaukee center Brook Lopez said. “It’s not like we’re going from Milwaukee to Philly, Miami, back to Milwaukee or anything like that.”
Five teams — New Orleans, Toronto, Washington, Oklahoma City and the Los Angeles Lakers — entered Sunday with a lower average in the bubble than they had before coming to Disney.