One of these players played a lot and did a lot. The other didn’t really play.
For once, [autotag]Blake Wesley[/autotag] didn’t have to wait until the end of a blowout loss to enter a game. Still, his lone action over the past week came during the first half of the San Antonio Spurs’ NBA In-Season Tournament defeat Nov. 17 to the Sacramento Kings. All he registered in less than four minutes of action was one personal foul.
[autotag]Pat Connaughton[/autotag] had a terrific week, scoring in double figures in back-to-back games for the first time this season. He had 11 points, seven rebounds and three assists in the Milwaukee Bucks’ blowout In-Season Tournament win over the Charlotte Hornets on Nov. 17. The next night was his best game of the season as he finished with 16 points, five boards, three assists and two steals as the Bucks beat the Dallas Mavericks.
For the week, Connaughton averaged 9.0 points, 6.8 rebounds, and 2.8 assists a game while shooting 44.4% from the floor and making nine of his 12 field goals from 3-point range.
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Here’s where the Brooklyn Nets stand in the NBA’s In-Season Tournament after the games that were played on Nov. 14.
The Brooklyn Nets are now 2-1 in the inaugural season of the NBA‘s In-Season Tournament after beating the Orlando Magic 124-104 on Tuesday. Brooklyn is now 6-5 on the season despite dealing with significant injuries to multiple players in the starting lineup that the team is depending on for the success of the franchise.
Within the Nets’ bracket, East Group C, Brooklyn is in second place due to the fact that the first place team, the Boston Celtics, are 1-0 and therefore, have the best winning percentage in the group. It’s still early since the other teams in Brooklyn’s group, the Celtics, Chicago Bulls (0-1), Magic (0-1), and the Toronto Raptors (0-0), each have at least three games left in their In-Season Tournament slate with Toronto still having four games to go.
The good news for the Nets is that while it’s still left to be seen if they can have the best record in the group, they can still make it to the quarterfinals of the In-Season Tournament by having the best record of any team that didn’t win its group. Brooklyn has the Raptors left on its In-Season Tournament slate and has a +8 point differential, fourth-most in the East.
Somehow, Victor Wembanyama got his first-ever tech for bouncing a ball too hard.
San Antonio Spurs rookie phenom Victor Wembanyama had to learn the hard way on Tuesday night that with great wingspan comes great bounce…ability.
While playing in the first night of the NBA’s inaugural In-Season Tournament, Wembanyama accidentally bounced the basketball too hard during a stoppage in play and picked up his first-ever technical foul.
Yes, seriously, Wembanyama got his first tech over accidentally bouncing the ball too hard. You could see that he was surprised how high the ball went into the air after he made a defensive block and just dribbled it hard once the play was over.
The ref here really did not need to give Wembanyama a tech for accidentally bouncing a ball too hard. What are we even doing here, people?
Wembanyama will probably measure his bounces a bit more after this very strange moment, one that we’re not sure will ever really make sense as being the Spurs rookie’s first-ever technical foul.
Here’s where the Brooklyn #Nets stand in the NBA In-Season Tournament through two games played.
The Brooklyn Nets have played two games of their four-game slate in the NBA In-Season Tournament and so far, they have had mixed results. For the purposes of getting to the knockout stage of the In-Season Tournament, Brooklyn can make it out of their bracket by either having the best record in their group or by having a good enough record to be a wildcard team.
So far, the Nets have played the Chicago Bulls and the Boston Celtics within the In-Season Tournament schedule, but the outcomes of those games were vastly different. The Nets played the Bulls on Nov. 3, but escaped Chicago with a 109-107 win after Zach LaVine missed a mid-range jumpshot at the buzzer.
Brooklyn played its second game of the In-Season Tournament at the Celtics on Nov. 10 and lost 121-107. The Nets were missing three starters including the high-scoring Cam Thomas due to a left ankle sprain.
Brooklyn plays its next In-Season Tournament game on Tuesday against the Orlando Magic.
The Brooklyn #Nets are in second place in the East Group C bracket of the #NBA In-Season Tournament. It is also important to note that the Toronto Raptors and the Orlando Magic have not played their tournament games yet. Brooklyn plays Orlando on Tuesday for their third game. https://t.co/UG8s0hj5ar
The reason this post only is about [autotag]Pat Connaughton[/autotag] is because [autotag]Blake Wesley[/autotag] didn’t play at all over the past week. Wesley isn’t injured, but San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich has not called his number lately. It really makes you wonder what Wesley’s future in the Alamo City holds.
Anyway, Connaughton had a modest week in which the Milwaukee Bucks won two of three games. Connaughton’s best game was at the beginning of the week Oct. 30 to help beat the Miami Heat in the second of a back-to-back for the Bucks. He scored eight points and had five rebounds, both highs for him in this young season. He made a single basket and pulled down two boards Nov. 3 in a win over the New York Knicks, which was the Bucks’ first-ever In-Season Tournament game.
For the week, Connaughton averaged 4.3 points and 3.0 rebounds a game while shooting five of 11 from the field and splitting a pair of free throws.
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What’s up, folks! Welcome back to Layup Lines. Thanks so much for chopping it up with me today. I appreciate you.
The in-season tournament is finally here! We’ve been waiting months for this moment and it’s finally culminating. Just in case you need a refresher on how things work for this, here’s a quick one we put together just for the occasion.
It should be lots of fun. It’ll be interesting to see whether this thing works out or not. The stakes aren’t the most riveting — players and coaches of the winning team get to split an $18 million pool.
That’s not nothing, obviously. To be clear, I’m not already trying to fix this idea when it hasn’t presented any problems yet. But I do think there’s a way to raise the stake a bit more for next season if the NBA wants to. It’s a pretty easy add — just involve the NBA playoffs.
“I think the greatest incentive for everybody to do it would be an automatic playoff bid. … If it was a playoff spot, I think everyone would take it very, very serious, right? I think the older teams would take it serious. But then it might … what would [the winning team] do then?”
Now that’s a spicy tournament.
Theoretically, it’s pretty simple to do. If this tournament works out well, the league could spice things up with an automatic playoff berth for the winner. Make it so that the team that wins gets no lower than an automatic 6th seed in the conference.
If you’re one of the top seeds in the playoffs, maybe you get to choose your opponent between the play-in teams that make it in. Or maybe you get to choose your homecourt format for the first round of the playoffs. There are some things the league could throw in to make that interesting for the best teams, too.
It’s probably best the NBA didn’t go that route this year. It’s hard to justify raising the stakes so high on an unproven event. There’s a chance this thing doesn’t go well and nobody likes it. That’s probably not going to happen — but there is a chance!
It’s best to test things out first and see how they work before the stakes are raised again. But don’t be surprised if this is something that’s being considered in a few years. It gives the players something other than cash to play for and makes things a tad bit more riveting.
Just food for thought, though. For now, let’s enjoy the format we do have. Here’s to a good in-season tournament, NBA.
James Harden still doesn’t get it
(AP Photo/Richard Vogel)
On Thursday in his first press conference with the Clippers, James Harden made his best Jay-Z impression. “I’m not a businessman. I’m a business, man,” the hip-hop laureate once famously said.
“When I meant a leash, I don’t mean just shooting the basketball every time. Like, I think the game and I’m a creator on the court. … I’m not a system player. I am a system. You know what I mean?”
I’m not a system player. I am a system. Sheesh.
There were plenty of rumors about Harden wanting a different role in Philadelphia. He didn’t seem to enjoy the play style centered around Joel Embiid. Those were only rumors, though.
Here he kind of confirms all of that. And that’s probably not what you want to hear if you’re a Clippers fan.
Harden is about to be the third option on this team behind both Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. There’s not going to be a ton of room for Harden to create. He’s going to have to feed off of other players. It remains to be seen whether he can do that or not here.
If his last stint in Philly is any indication, he can’t. Let’s hope that’s not true.
What to watch
Make sure you take a good look at each of the NBA’s in-season tournament courts tonight. They’re certainly going to be a sight to behold.
I’ve made my opinion that I don’t like these very clear. Some of them are already beginning to pop up on social media. The Pacers were kind enough to share a time-lapse video of the staff laying the court down and it looks wild.
For years, an in-season NBA tournament felt like one of those far-out ideas that always seemed cool but would probably never be executed.
Fast forward to today and it’s happening.
The NBA’s in-season tournament is finally here. The league has been building up to this moment for the last few years and now we’re actually going to see what this thing looks like and how it’ll work out.
That’s the big question everyone has: How exactly does this thing work? The NBA is going to be an American basketball version of a soccer league. It’s going to be pretty strange. It could also be pretty fun, too.
Let’s take a look at everything we know about it so far.
Here’s each and every NBA in-season tournament court, ranked
The NBA’s new in-season tournament is finally beginning on November 3. To celebrate it the league is giving its teams some shiny new courts to play on, too.
In preparation for the action, each team is getting a new court with a new color scheme. I won’t lie to you — most of them look pretty bad. Some are solid, though! And there are a few good ones sprinkled in here and there, too.
But, regardless, it’s the thought that counts. It’ll be nice to see some variation on the court for once — especially when it comes time to differentiate in-season tournament games from the plain regular season games.
I’ve done enough rambling here, though. Let’s dive in on these new courts.
The NBA has finally figured out how to make the regular season matter a bit more.
Welcome to Layup Lines, For the Win’s basketball newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox every afternoon. This is Mike Sykes
Howdy, folks. Welcome back to Layup Lines. Let’s talk a bit about the NBA’s schedule release day.
I won’t lie — at best, I can only describe myself as apathetic when it comes to the NBA’s schedule release day. I don’t love it. But I don’t hate it, either. I wouldn’t say I had any particularly strong feelings about it.
Because, well, let’s face it. It matters, for sure. But how much does it actually matter? We know how these things work — everyone plays everyone at least one time. All that really matters is when you play that team. That’s why it’s usually hard to get people to go up for the league’s schedule release day.
It’s the opposite of the NFL where people’s entire days are planned around it. The teams drop their social videos and fans everywhere go crazy. They begin predicting their team’s records for the season and looking forward to the different matchups they have.
The NBA hasn’t really had any momentum like that — until now.
It’s not an apples-for-apples comparison, of course. But it feels like people cared a bit more about the schedule this year than usual. There are a few reasons why.
First, obviously, is the social videos. NBA teams have done a really good job with this sort of thing over the last couple of years, but this year felt especially fun. The Nets had a particularly good one here, but there were plenty more to choose from, too.
Another big reason why is the league’s new in-season tournament. It’s honestly fascinating! Prince Grimes wrote about it in an earlier edition of Layup Lines from a bettor’s perspective and it only grew my intrigue. Seeing that the league’s best talent wasn’t necessarily the favorites there was interesting.
Will the NBA’s schedule drop ever be quite as exciting as the NFL’s? No. There are just way too many games that people don’t care about.
But has the NBA finally figured out how to make it’s schedule a little more fun? Yes, absolutely. And I think we’ll see the benefits of that this season.
The Tip-Off
Some NBA goodness from around the USA TODAY Sports network.
It’s everything we love about the NBA. It tapped into a bit of weird nostalgia that I didn’t know I actually longed for.
“Oh my goodness. The Trail Blazers blew the competition out of the water with this utterly fascinating 90s infomercial from the fifth dimension. It’s almost like an Adult Swim short, taking the viewer on a very strange journey that features cheap graphics, mascots and a soothing voice over.
This isn’t just a schedule release video; this is legitimate art. Someone needs to get the folks behind this on another short film, stat! We’d watch it.”
The rest are worth checking out, too. The Nets have a couple that will make you laugh. But, yeah, the Blazers did their thing, man.
The Chicago Bulls are committed to winning. After getting bounced in the play-in tournament this past season, Arturas Karnisovas said Chicago had no plans to rebuild. Its plan has been to run it back while making some offseason additions, which, so far, has meant the free agent signings of Jevon Carter and Torrey Craig.
Heading into the season, the Bulls are looking to make it back to the playoffs, but their first chance to compete for a title will be well before spring. The NBA announced its new in-season tournament, and the Bulls landed in one of the easier groups.
Each team plays a set of group games and moves on to a single-elimination tournament bracket that culminates in a final. Chicago’s group of five consists of the Boston Celtics, the Brooklyn Nets, the Toronto Raptors and the Orlando Magic.
Overall, the Bulls landed in one of the easier groups of the tournament. The Celtics, fresh off two straight runs to the Eastern Conference finals and one finals appearance, are the best team. Outside of them, wins are up for grabs.
The Raptors are in a state of uncertainty similar to the Bulls, the Nets are trying to recoup talent after trading Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving this past year, and the Orlando Magic are a young team rebuilding.
Depending on how well Chicago’s talent meshes next year, they could either be the second-best team in this group or the worst, which says a lot about how much variation there could be in terms of the Bulls season next year.
