NBA – Round Up – 04/03/19 – 10/03/19

Teams of the Week

Nothing but Nets

DINWIDDIE. Personally I hadn’t really known of Spencer Dinwiddie (pictured below), but this week he hasn’t half caught my attention. The Brooklyn Nets had 4 straight wins this week, with Dinwiddie topping the scoring in 3 out of 4 games. All the games that they won were games that they were looking to win and apart from a tight 114-112 win against the Atlanta Hawks, they dominated. With a spot to qualify still up for grabs in the Eastern conference, they will hope to extend this good run of form and make it to the playoffs.

Spencer Dinwiddie playing for the Brooklyn Nets (Tamayo, 2018)

Memphis finishing strong to a rough season??

What a week for the Memphis Grizzlies! At the start of this week everyone would have had the Grizzlies down for another disappointing week with them having to face the Portland Trailblazers and the Utah Jazz, who already have there playoff places, but how we were wrong. The Grizzlies may have struggled this season but with help from the scoring efforts of PG Mike Conley they cruised past these opponents. For me this may have just been a lucky spell as they are long out of playoff contention, but things may look promising for the Grizzlies come the 2019-20 season.

Doing better than Hotspurs

The San Antonio Spurs are currently on a phenomenal run of form, they have there place in the playoffs and extended there winning ways this week. Beating the Nuggets, Hawks and Bucks in the process. With a scoring partnership of DeRozan and Aldridge there is no wonder that they have there playoff spot. It will be interesting to see whether they can extend this form on to next week and due to how well they’ve been on recent, I personally don’t think there is any stopping them.

Room for improvement…

LeBron can’t do it all?

It just isn’t good enough by the Lakers the season. Defeats to the Clipper (there LA rivals), Nuggets and the Celtics sparks the major debate of what went wrong for the Lakers. Of course with LeBron James only recently returning from injury and Lonzo Ball being out for the remainder of the season it was always going to be difficult to pull off some wins. However, they just hasn’t even come close to there full potential and this could be the first year in 14 that LeBron has failed to reach the playoffs – is a transfer in the off season on the horizon – I would if i was him.

The realisation that you wont be making the playoffs (Martinez, 2019)

Mess with the Bull, you WONT get the horns?

Despite a surprise win against the 76ers this week the Bulls just haven’t got to full charge at all this week, or even this season. Back to Back losses against the Pistons and another loss against the Pacers shows the story of there season. I personally haven’t even tried to watch a Bulls game this season as it half the time just looks like a training game for the other team and they don’t even look like there trying. Zach Lavine is a player I admire but whilst at the Bulls I feel he is just wasting his time.

They’ll be Knicking themselves after this week

2nd time in two weeks the New York Knicks are finding themselves on my room for improvement list and my god do they deserve it this week more than any. 4 straight losses to the Suns, Kings, Timberwolves and the Pacers really just shows how bad they have been this season. In my opinion it has come to the point with the Knicks where I can’t see them getting out of this rut the seem to constantly be in. There’s going to have to be some overhaul for them ever to be ‘great again’ and I am not what that will even be.

Player of the week – IMO

The only person who I want to give player of the week to is LaMarcus Aldridge. With the way the fixtures and weeks have been the NBA carried on with Mitchell and Simmons as there selections (Basketballreference.com, 2019) (back to normal next week)but LaMarcus Aldridge for me is one of the main reasons to why the Spurs have had such a successful week. Averaging just shy of 30 points over the games and even mustering 15 rebounds in another. The big centre can be seen as one of the main reasons why the Spurs could be playoff contenders.

References

Basketball-Reference.com.(2019). NBA Players of the Week | Basketball-Reference.com. [online] Available at:https://www.basketball-reference.com/awards/pow.html [Accessed 11 Mar. 2019].

ESPN.com. (2019). NBA – National Basketball Association Teams, Scores, Stats, News, Standings, Rumors – ESPN. [online] Available at: http://www.espn.com/nba/ [Accessed 11 Mar. 2019]. – This reference for all statistics

Martinez, N. (2018). The Sad Truth About The Lakers. [online] Fadeaway World. Available at: https://fadeawayworld.net/2018/10/08/the-sad-truth-about-the-lakers/https://fadeawayworld.net/2018/10/08/the- sad-truth-about-the-lakers/ [Accessed 12 Mar. 2019].

Tamayo, P. (2018). Spencer Dinwiddie Offers Heartfelt Response To Nets Guaranteeing Contract. [online] ClutchPoints. Available at: https://clutchpoints.com/nets-news-spencer-dinwiddie-responds-to-brooklyn-guaranteeing-his-deal/ [Accessed 12 Mar. 2019].