NBA 02/09 Game Previews Articles

Game Recap 02/08: San Antonio Spurs @ Detroit Pistons

I watched Detroit's game last night against San Antonio and I quickly realized why we never had a shot of winning our play on the Under. It had to do with Detroit's style, as they played with an uptempo style, but at the same time with great flow. Of course the Spurs were soft, they were surprised to see the Pistons playing at a different style than usual, but Detroit's offense always attacked early on the shotclock and showed a great ball movement. Jose Calderon is starting to be a factor on the team and he had 8 assists and 0 turnovers, while putting the ball very well down low on Greg Monroe, who had 9-16 FG and 16 rebounds! Besides that, Brandon Knight looked super comfortable in playing off guard and it is seeming that it is the best position for him. Of course Calderon was dominated by Tony Parker on the defensive end, as the French player had 10-16 FG, 11-12 FT and 31 points, but who isn't dominated by Parker nowadays?

"This is the way we have to play, we have to be better defensively but we have to play an uptempo game," Pistons coach Lawrence Frank said. "We have to take advantage of a two-headed monster at all times. It's something that we're learning. Our guys are starting to figure it out."

Detroit shot 26-44 FG in the first half, while making 13 FG shots at the paint, 7 treys and just 6 midrange shots. If Detroit had Andre Drummond playing right now, they would be a very interesting team from now on. On the other hand, San Antonio was dominated on rebounds by grabbing just 41% of the rebounds and getting outrebounded in the offensive boards by 9-15! Detroit shot 24-35 (69%) FG at the rim and this was the first game where the Spurs really missed Tim Duncan, as Tiago Splitter is very far from being a good defensive players and of course, Boris Diaw can't help that much. So, when Coach Popovich puts Matt Bonner and DeJuan Blair playing for almost 20 minutes, San Antonio's defense will have problems on their defense from now on.

Game Preview Article: Denver Nuggets @ Cleveland Cavaliers

The Cavaliers have been a fun team to watch lately. They have one little guy playing like a MVP and suddenly a team that has no depth on their roster have now a decent second unit with great chemistry, thanks to a trade. The days were Luke Walton was their main frontcourt player coming off the bench or an inexperienced Jeremy Pargo having to run the second unit are now behind Cleveland. I have already mentioned this before their game against Charlotte, where I took the Over. In fact, we successfully took the Over on the Cavaliers's last three games: 

“The most curious aspect of the Cavaliers lately is that their second unit has been playing really well. Their trade with Memphis looked to be just for the Grizzlies to dump some money, but the truth is that Marreese Speights and Wayne Ellington have adapted very quickly to Cleveland and suddenly, the Cavaliers don't have that weak bench anymore, where Luke Walton was being forced to play significant minutes at the PF position. They have now more depth on their roster and some interesting chemistry as well. Against the Thunder, Speights was a major factor with 10-15 FG, 21 points and 10 rebounds, while the Cavaliers's bench outscored the Thunder's bench by 44-26! This improvement from Cleveland's bench has been preventing their level of play to go down big time everytime Irving is on the bench. This is quite visible on their offensive ratings, as they are averaging a 103.8 offensive rating for the season, while their offensive rating average on their last 10 games was 108.9!”

Guess what? Once again, the Cavaliers's bench was amazing yesterday and they were the X factor for Cleveland to pull away from Magic in the fourth quarter. They scored a total of 51 points and their two new players (Marreese Speights and Wayne Ellington) had 18 points and 14 points! Cleveland shot the ball well, they were aggressive by going to the FT line a total of 41 times and they committed 6 turnovers, while Orlando had 19!

There isn't much to say about Denver. If you have been following my work, then you have read a lot of stuff about Denver in my previews/recaps/plays ( http://andregomescapper.blogspot.pt/2013/02/nba-0207-game-previews-articles.html  & http://andregomescapper.blogspot.pt/2013/02/nba-0207-game-previews-articles.html).Denver's offense looks unstoppable lately, as not only they are attacking in transition and crushing the basket, but they are also hitting their outside shots. Surely it helps that all their recent games were at home, where Denver has only lost three times this season. Defensively, it looks like Denver only shows effort when it's needed, as on their last two games against Milwaukee and Chicago, Denver allowed their opponents to have major first half scoring outcomes, just to shut them out in the second half. Denver played tomorrow at Denver, so let's see if they will be totally focused in tonight's game and not already in tomorrow's showdown against the Celtics.

Game Recap 02/08: Golden State Warriors @ Memphis Grizzlies

It seems weird that we lost on top play on the Under 191 on this game, as the second half had just 73 points score, however the first half had an incredible 119 points scored! I watched the game and pace wise, this game wasn't different from what I was expecting. The pace was 87.7 and it fit the pace range that I had defined for this game. What happened in the first half was an abnormal offensive efficiency for both teams, especially Memphis. The Grizzlies's gameplan was as usual to feed their big men and try to play an inside-out game. Fortunately for Memphis and unfortunately for Golden State, Andrew Bogut is very far from being at his best right now and so, in 28 minutes played, Bogut grabbed just 6 rebounds and didn't have a single block, while getting completely outplayed by Marc Gasol, who ended the game with 9-14 FG, 11 rebounds and 5 assists.

The big difference for Memphis was the fact that they were red hot from the outside in the first half with 7-13 3pts. I would have understood if Mike Conley or Tayshaun Prince had a big game, but it was Tony Allen (13 points and 5-5 FG) and Austin Daye (12 points on 4-5 FG, with 3-4 3pts) that were red hot. This kind of unreal situations aren't "handicappable" for sure! Golden State never showed any kind of offensive flow the whole game and they ended it with just 18 assists. However, they were able to score due to the individual talent of both David Lee and Stephen Curry. Lee scored 20 points in the first half, but he was limited in the second half, where he scored just six points.  

What concerned me the most about Memphis's defense was their transition defense. After having allowed 16 fast break points to Atlanta on their previous games, Memphis allowed 19 fast break points and 8-10 FG on transitions (1.92 PPP) to Golden State! I believe this is a sign that Coach Hollins needs to work better with his post-trade roster to prevent their opponents from pounding them on this kind of plays.