Tag: Jared Greenberg

All 30 NBA teams will play tonight with staggered start times, and the league should do it again

This is a fun idea.

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I love when the NBA shows that it is willing to try something new.

The NBA did not schedule any games for tomorrow, which is Election Day, so as to encourage fans and players to vote. Instead, there are fifteen games tonight. All 30 teams are scheduled to play with staggered start times of 15 minutes between 7:00 p.m. ET and 10:30 p.m. ET.

This will be a great night to watch NBA CrunchTime, the NBA’s version of NFL RedZone, if you haven’t yet. Here’s what host Jared Greenberg told For The Win:

“I don’t know if all these games are going to cooperate and come down to the finish,” Greenberg said. “But what we have the potential for on that Monday night is just to show you what we do best, which is making sure you see the biggest moments of the night as they happen.”

You can watch NBA CrunchTime for free on the NBA’s global app. Here is the full schedule.

If we have even just a couple of exciting finishes in any of the fifteen games, it should be an incredibly fun night of basketball. Assuming all goes well, the league should definitely try this again at some point.

The Tip-Off

Some NBA goodness from around the USA TODAY Sports network.

Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

My colleague, sneaker expert Mike Sykes, explained why Kyrie’s relationship with Nike might actually be permanently over:

“Maybe if Irving changes course here and becomes less of a lightning rod things could change between the two sides. But as things currently stand, this really feels like the end of an era.

Irving had one of Nike’s best-selling shoes and it’s always had some of the brand’s most creative basketball designs. It’s sad to see things potentially end this way.

But when you do the things Irving has done, there are consequences. And this is Irving having to deal with that.”

It’s one of the many consequences Irving, who is also suspended by the Nets, is facing.

One To Watch

Winslow Townson-USA TODAY Sports

(All odds via Tipico.)

Celtics (-175, -3.5) vs. Grizzlies (+140), O/U 231.5, 9:00 PM ET

If you want to talk about good roster construction, look no further than Boston and Memphis. Two of the game’s brightest stars, Jayson Tatum and Ja Morant, will go head-to-head in this clash of title contenders.

Shootaround

(Photo by Dustin Satloff/Getty Images)

—HoopsHype’s trade rumor rankings: Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant and more

— KD’s desire for the Nets to ‘keep quiet’ about Kyrie are emblematic of players’ silence on antisemitism

— Fred VanVleet’s daughter had the most adorable answer about his excellent game

— Justin Quinn wonders if the Celtics began a ‘tall ball’ revolution

Turner Sports announced Tuesday that …

Turner Sports announced Tuesday that Kevin Harlan and Ian Eagle will serve as TNT’s play-by-play voices during the planned resumption of the NBA regular season at Walt Disney World, working alongside analysts Reggie Miller and Stan Van Gundy, respectively. The broadcast teams will call games on-site. Stephanie Ready, Jared Greenberg and Chris Haynes are set to serve as sideline reporters.

Will chemistry continue to aid Boston’s title hopes in the restart?

Chemistry was the engine of the Celtics success this season so far; will it be there again when they restart the season? One analyst thinks so.

Chemistry has been a crucial component of the Boston Celtics turnaround in 2019-20, and the arrival of former UConn standout Kemba Walker has been no small factor in that change of culture.

While there are questions about whether the Celtics will be able to tap back into that lightning in a bottle after a near-four month layoff due to the coronavirus, at least one prominent analyst thinks it may be possible.

TNT analyst Jared Greenberg recently appeared on the “Scoop B Radio” podcast, and that particular engine of the Celtics came up in conversation.

“I think that there is a genuine love for one another,” offered Greenberg as he ventured a guess as to what was different about this version of the team.

“I think that there’s more trust in that locker room than there has been in recent years. It seems like they’re having more fun; and it’s like they’re almost more free flowing,” he added.

“The one thing that I have got from the Celtics this year is that Kemba is so aware of what is going on with his teammates on the court … In the past, and this is not to take shots at anybody — but in the past, it was kind of like a caste system … certain guys had to get certain shots at certain times.”

Without mentioning those certain guys, what is true about the 2019-20 version of Boston is how Walker’s leadership-by-example has created a much more horizontal and less partisan style of play that should replicable once play restarts given little else basketball-wise has changed.

Of course, even Greenberg recognizes there’s been at least a little bit of a hierarchy in the Celtics’ offense, at least since the latter half of the season.

“Now, if it’s Jayson Tatum that is going off, then Jayson Tatum has got to get the ball,” said the TNT analyst.

He quickly qualified his statement, though; “[But if] Kemba Walker’s going off, then Kemba’s got to get the ball.”

“It’s just more awareness of what is going on and that builds confidence and it builds camaraderie, the chemistry is there, and it seems like they got back to having a little more fun than they had been in the previous years,” he explained.

It’s possible the stress of being away from family in a pandemic, concern over the burgeoning civil right movement sparked by the killing of George Floyd, or the risk an injury might present to a looming contract extension, we could very well see the Celtics pick right back up where they left off.

The camaraderie and single-minded focus on winning together appears to be intact — and in just a few short weeks, we’ll get our first live-action tests of that premise.

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