Tag: TJ Warren

The HoopsHype Weekly: Top 10 takeaways from Week 2 of the bubble, including biggest surprise stars

Our biggest takeaways from Week 2 of the NBA bubble, including who we think are the biggest surprise stars so far of the season restart.

You can get this content every Saturday morning in your email inbox. Click here to subscribe to the HoopsHype Weekly newsletter.

NBA action continued to pick up this past week, with games getting more intense and individual performances only getting more impressive. Below, our 10 biggest takeaways from Week 2 of the Orlando bubble.

1. Devin Booker is turning the corner as a player. The Suns 2-guard was an All-Star for the first time this season, though he made it as a replacement for an injured Damian Lillard, and even so, it’s clear that he’s playing at an even higher level in the bubble. The Suns are the only undefeated team in Orlando and Booker has been the primary reason for that, averaging 28 points and 6.5 assists over four games. We wanted to see Booker do it when it matters, in important late-season games, and he’s doing just that.

2. The Lakers’ poor bubble offense is getting concerning. Through five games in Orlando, the Los Angeles Lakers have by far the worst offense of all the bubble teams, scoring just 95.7 points per 100 possessions. The next worst offense, which surprisingly belongs to the Raptors, is nearly a full seven points per 100 possessions better than that. Sure, LeBron James missed one of those games for L.A. but even so, this is getting a tad worrisome with the playoffs right around the corner. The Lakers are converting a bubble-worst 23.4 percent of their three-point looks.

3. There are a few surprise stars of the bubble going off. TJ Warren, Michael Porter Jr. and Gary Trent – three solid players who have taken their games to another level in Orlando. Warren ranks second in bubble scoring, trailing just James freaking Harden himself, at 33.8 points per game. Porter is 10th at 26.3 points per contest, which is especially interesting considering he scored 20-or-more points in a game just twice before getting to Orlando. And Trent is leading the bubble in three-point shooting (minimum: 25 attempts), knocking down an astronomical 62.9 percent of his outside looks through four games.

4. The West’s 8th seed still goes through Memphis. After a massively important (and dominant) win over the Thunder on Friday, the Grizzlies now have a great chance to at least force a play-in game for the final playoff spot in the West. Losing Jaren Jackson Jr. hurt, and they’re going to be putting a ton of pressure on their rookie phenom Ja Morant, but the Grizzlies are still in a decent position to be one of the final two teams fighting for a place in the postseason.

5. Now healthy, the Blazers are flat-out scary. Memphis’ biggest foe for the final playoff spot in the West is undoubtedly Portland, who is 3-1 in the bubble and boasts the fourth-best net rating in Orlando. With an MVP-level Damian Lillard, a stud backcourt mate in CJ McCollum, a quickly-developing Gary Trent Jr. knocking down threes, Carmelo Anthony stepping up in clutch situations and a now-healthy Jusuf Nurkic, Portland might be able to make some noise in the playoffs. For what it’s worth, Charles Barkley has them coming out of the West. We won’t go that far, but they’re certainly a team to keep an eye on.

6. Brooklyn has stepped up despite the odds being against them. We’ll eat crow here: We said last week that the Nets, without most of their top players in Orlando, might go winless in the bubble. We were way off, as the team, led by Caris LeVert, Jarrett Allen and Joe Harris, have stepped up big time, going 3-2 over their last five games and locking up their spot in the playoffs. Good on you, Nets. Jacque Vaughn is making a strong case to keep that head coaching gig next season.

7. The Heat need to get healthy, and soon. With Jimmy Butler and Goran Dragic sitting out back-to-back games and set to miss a third contest in a row today, Miami doesn’t have much time to get healthy before the playoffs. The Heat won’t go far without their best and third-best players for a long stretch.

8. How will Philadelphia do without Ben Simmons? With an injured Ben Simmons set to potentially miss a good chunk of time, it’ll be fascinating to see how the Sixers do with Joel Embiid the focal point of the team once again. In their one full game without the All-Star point guard, Philadelphia handled Orlando pretty easily, winning 108-101 behind 23 points and 13 rebounds for Embiid. A player who could see his role expand sans Simmons: Al Horford, who also did well against the Magic with 21 points and nine rebounds.

9. The Spurs will not go away. San Antonio, an afterthought this season restart, especially after the news that LaMarcus Aldridge wouldn’t be joining them in Orlando, is 3-2 in the bubble, two games behind Memphis and one behind Portland, and has a legitimate shot to make the playoffs. This might be one of Gregg Popovich’s more impressive recent coaching feats.

10. Indiana’s next few games are going to be hugely important for their future. That’s because if they suffer an unceremonious first-round defeat, even without Domantas Sabonis available, we could see them undergo a head coaching change this summer. More on that below.

A NEW HOT SEAT? According to Jeff Van Gundy and Zach Lowe, there’s scuttle going around the bubble that Nate McMillan’s job could be in jeopardy this offseason, a surprise considering his 181-137 record as the team’s head coach.

ARGENTINE STAR NBA-BOUND? There are strong indications out there that Facundo Campazzo, elite point guard for Real Madrid, could be headed to the NBA this offseason.

MAJOR LOSS IN PHILLY: It looks like the Sixers could be without star point guard Ben Simmons for a while after a knee injury forced him out of a mid-week game.

HIGH PRAISE: Gregg Popovich paid Nuggets big man Nikola Jokic a huge compliment this week, comparing the All-NBA center to Larry Bird and Moses Malone.

NEAR MISS: Look away, Knicks fans, because apparently, Kemba Walker was very interested in signing with New York last summer before Boston came along.

AWARD WINNERS: We polled multiple award-voters and collected other votes from media members who made theirs public to give ourselves a good idea of who this season’s major award-winners are going to be. It looks like Giannis is about to be an MVP and Defensive Player of the Year in the same season.

A LONG REIGN: Patrick McCaw has been an NBA champion three seasons running, giving him the second-longest championship reign since the 1960’s, trailing just Steve Kerr.

STRUGGLING LATE: We took a deep dive into Luka Doncic’s late-game struggles for the Dallas Mavericks this season.

STAY MELO: Although the media and NBA teams themselves counted out Carmelo Anthony prior to his resurgence in Portland, fellow players have always been in his corner.

LOOKING AHEAD: We haven’t even had the 2020 draft yet, but we decided to take a look ahead to 2021 anyway to see how the mock draft prognosticators think that class is going to shake out.

LeBron James listed as questionable for Saturday vs. Pacers

The Los Angeles Lakers could be without LeBron James again when they play their 6th seeding game on Saturday.

The Los Angeles Lakers are back on the court tomorrow for their sixth of eight seeding games but they might get a little bit more time to figure out their identity when they are playing without LeBron James.

According to the NBA’s latest injury report, LeBron James is questionable for Saturday’s game against the Indiana Pacers, with the Lakers citing a sore groin as the reason his status is in doubt. LeBron did not play in Thursday night’s loss to the Houston Rockets. In addition to LeBron, the status of reserve guard Alex Caruso is also questionable, according to the team’s latest injury report.

In their last game against Houston, Lakers coach Frank Vogel started Kyle Kuzma at power forward and inserted Quinn Cook into the starting lineup while benching starting center JaVale McGee for the entire game. Vogel also gave a lot of run to rookie guard Talen Horton-Tucker, whom he says is making a case to be included in the Lakers playoff rotation.

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T.J. Warren joins group with Steph Curry and Klay Thompson after 53 point performance in Orlando Bubble

With his 53 point performance against the 76ers in the Orlando Bubble, TJ Warren joined the Splash Brothers as the only players to record 50 points while taking fewer than five free throw attempts since 2010.

While the Golden State Warriors are in offseason mode, the hoops are heating up in the NBA’s Orlando Bubble. After only three days of action, the first 50 point performance has been officially recorded.

In 41 minutes against the Philadelphia 76ers, TJ Warren exploded for 53 points on 20-of-29 for the Indiana Pacers. Along with his career-high in scoring, The former Phoenix Suns record a career-best from beyond the arc, splashing 9-of-12 long-distance 3-pointers. Only four of Warren’s 53 points came from the free-throw line (4-of-4). The NC State product added four boards and three assists in the Pacers 127-121 victory.

After his 53-point performance against the Sixers, the five-year veteran joined a group that featured both of Golden State’s Splash Brothers. According to Stat Muse, Warren joined Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson as the only three players to record 50 or more points while taking fewer than free throw attempts since 2010.

Via @statmuse on Twitter:

In February of 2016, Golden State’s two-time Most Valuable Player dropped 51 points against the Washington Wizards on 19-of-28 from the field with 11 3-pointers. Curry added only 2-of-3 from the free-throw line in 36 minutes.

In 2018, Thompson torched the Chicago Bulls for 52 points in only 26 minutes for the Warriors. The five-time All-Star buried a career-high 14 3-pointers. On his way to 52 points, Thompson went 2-of-2 from the free-throw line.

Watch highlights from Warren’s 53-point effort via YouTube: 

The Pacers will have the opportunity to build off Warren’s career performance on Monday, Aug. 3, against the Washington Wizards.

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The HoopsHype Weekly: Seven one-on-one matchups between current NBA stars we most want to see

Shaq and Hakeem nearly played a pay-per-view one-on-one game in the ’90s. We break down seven one-on-one games we’d like to see with current players.

You can get this content every Saturday morning in your email inbox. Click here to subscribe to the HoopsHype Weekly newsletter.

ONE-ON-ONE: Last week, NBC Sports’ Tom Haberstroh dropped a fascinating article about how close Hakeem Olajuwon and Shaquille O’Neal came to playing a game of one-on-one on pay-per-view television all the way back in 1995, in what could have been a watershed moment for the Association. Unfortunately, it fell through at the last second, but it got us to thinking…

If a similar concept were brought up today, what one-on-one showdowns would we most want to see? So we came up with the seven most interesting matchups featuring modern NBA stars we could think of – six undercard style one-on-one games and the seventh, the main event. Let’s get right to it.

–Damian Lillard vs. Russell Westbrook: What better way to lead off the evening than with a matchup featuring two of the most explosive point guards in the game today, and two guys who have had some in-game beef in the past. Lillard famously hit a deep dagger in Game 5 of the 2019 playoffs’ first-round that sent Westbrook’s OKC team home, waving goodbye to the Thunder immediately after hitting the shot. Westbrook surely hasn’t forgotten about that, making this theoretical matchup a spicy one.

–Jimmy Butler vs. TJ Warren: The closest two high-level players came to actually throwing blows at each other this season came back in early January when Butler and Warren had to be separated by teammates before a fight broke out. We didn’t get to see another Heat-Pacers matchup after that, so to see a true culmination to this dust-up, Butler and Warren’s fictitious one-on-one showdown will have to do.

–Stephen Curry vs. Trae Young: Second-year Hawks guard Trae Young has been absolutely balling since reaching the NBA last season, and the most common comparison he gets, for obvious reasons (size, shiftiness and shooting ability), is Steph Curry. It would be absolutely awesome to see this teacher-versus-apprentice style matchup.

–James Harden vs. Luka Doncic: Another fascinating showdown between an established superstar and a young stud with a similar game, Harden and Doncic wouldn’t include much defense, but the offensive firepower the two ball-handling maestros would throw at each other would more than make up for that.

–Boban Marjanovic vs. Tacko Fall: After that many hotly contested matchups, we’re going to need a bit of relief to get our heart rates down ahead of the co-main event and main event. And a game of one-on-one featuring the two tallest players in the league, both of whom are absolutely adored by fans despite their limited skill sets, would be the perfect such remedy.

–Giannis Antetokounmpo vs. Kevin Durant: Two former league MVPs, the two tallest superstar-level wings in basketball and two players whose highly skilled games don’t make sense physically, Giannis Antetokounmpo vs. Kevin Durant makes for a fantastic co-main event. Will Durant come ahead, proving he’s still the best supersized superstar wing in the league after a year-long injury layoff? Or will Antetokounmpo win and show that that title belongs to him now? We’d love to find out.

–LeBron James vs. Kawhi Leonard: The battle for supremacy in Los Angeles bleeds out of the NBA season and into the main event of our card in a showdown featuring four-time league MVP LeBron James and two-time Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard. As if this main event couldn’t be any more gripping just basketball-wise, there’s even history here, with Leonard coming out on top over LeBron’s Heat in the 2014 Finals, as well as with Kawhi spurning the Lakers’ recruitment efforts and choosing the Clippers last summer. Boy, the money we’d shell out to actually see these guys get after it against one another in a game of one-on-one.

CORONA UPDATE: As the league gets closer and closer to a possible resumption to the 2019-20 season, and it looks like there’s real momentum towards that actually happening, we were hit with the unfortunate news that league legend Patrick Ewing has been diagnosed with the illness. Our thoughts are with Ewing at this time.

ANOTHER LEGEND GONE: Outpouring of love and support came from all over the place after it was announced that legendary Utah Jazz head coach and Chicago Bulls guard Jerry Sloan had succumbed to Parkinson’s disease. Rest in peace, Coach Sloan.

ALL-STAR DREAMS: The Nets reportedly have interest in adding a third star ahead of next season, and one guy they might be looking at is Bradley Beal.

ZION GOT GAME: There’s apparently been talk between Spike Lee, Ray Allen and Zion Williamson about a potential He Got Game sequel. Zion Shuttlesworth?

IMPORTANT PIECE DOWN: If the season does resume, Utah will have to go one without second-leading scorer Bojan Bogdanovic, who will miss months of action due to surgery on his wrist.

AFTER THE DANCE: Fantastic oral history put together by our own Alex Kennedy about the 1998-99 Chicago Bulls team that won 13 games. Multiple players from that squad and beat writers who covered them chipped into that piece.

GOAT DEBATE: Already having covered the cases of Michael Jordan and LeBron James, we next went in-depth on Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s GOAT candidacy. His legacy makes a much stronger case than you might think.

TROLL PIERCE? Paul Pierce is all over the airwaves recently due to comments he made in which he said LeBron wasn’t among his Top-5 players ever. What’s weird about that is just two years ago, Pierce said James was definitely in his Top 5 already.

WIZARDS OFFSEASON: We break down what the Wizards’ offseason will look like, from key personnel decisions they’re going to have to make to their future payroll – and much more.

DRAFT TALK: We were joined by BYU draft prospect Yoeli Childs to talk about how he’s preparing for the draft, what he envisions his role in the NBA being and a lot more.