Welcome to the Basketball Hangover. I write about what’s happening in the NBA daily, even when COVID has ravaged the league.
What Karl-Anthony Towns is going through is partly why the season just hasn’t been fun.
(PHOTO CREDIT: David Berning/USA Today.)
On Friday morning, friend of the site, Snottie Drippen, said something simple yet revealing about what I was thinking about.
This is self-explanatory.
It hasn’t. I’ve talked about COVID getting worse to the point rosters are getting affected immensely. The rosters getting decimated would lead to games getting postponed.
The NBA has tried “strengthening the protocol” (which was questioned by George Hill). And then the NBA got more strict with before-and-after game activities by putting security at halfcourt. It’s just so weird to do that when these guys are deemed to be safe to play a contact sport in basketball.
I also worried about the mental state of one Karl-Anthony Towns, who has lost so much family to COVID. He himself tested positive for COVID very recently. But in the beginning of the season, he said something very concerning about his soul being killed off. It’s just so hard to function when he has lost so much during this pandemic. What else can you say about that?
So when some of the best players from any team are not playing, it compromises the competition. And obviously, you worry about the players’ health because we don’t know how this virus works, for it has taken many people from the “very healthy” to the elderly.
It’s not just COVID but we see the news every day. We’ve seen a terrible human take over the role as president (thank God, he was gone on Wednesday). We’ve seen an insurrection at the Capitol. We’ve seen many rallies and protests only because black people just want to be seen as regular people. And we know that affects the players, too, because the league is mostly black. Yes, basketball is a nice distraction. But sometimes, it just feels like that the outside is too much and that sport doesn’t feel appropriate at this moment. There are certainly a lot more important things than a game, which is what Kyrie Irving recently said.
The NBA itself still has some good basketball, despite the rosters getting infiltrated by the virus. But this particular distraction from life has too many distractions outside. And it’s hard to enjoy the NBA because of them.
Maybe it’ll get easier as time goes on. But right now, it can be difficult to watch them play ball.
Bullet Passes
Like I said, there IS good basketball going on. Clint Capela went for 27 points and 26 boards on Wednesday in a win over Detroit. He followed it up with a triple-double against the Wolves on Friday. Not the conventional kind but the rare kind with blocks. 13 points, 19 rebounds, and 10 blocks. It’s the first triple-double of that kind since Anthony Davis did it in 2018 (25 points, 11 rebounds, and 10 blocks.)
By the way, that happened on Davis’s 25th B-Day. And his birthday happens to fall on that day the NBA was postponed due to the pandemic, March 11th. Woof.
Trae Young, Capela’s teammate, has also had an excellent last two games. He had 38 points and 10 assists against Detroit. Then on Friday, he had 43 points.
We had a nice duel between stars from the Celtics and Sixers. Jaylen Brown went for 42 points and 9 boards while Joel Embiid continues his run with 38 points and 11 rebounds. The Sixers took the duke by 12, though.
And wouldn’t it be nice to have Jayson Tatum on the roster? This was what I was talking about.
The Cavs got the best of the Nets again, who played without Kevin Durant. It’s pretty clear that Brooklyn needs to tighten up their defense if they really want to contend. I almost want to apologize for calling them a potential juggernaut.
Luka Doncic. 36-9-11. Of course.
Has it really been 15 years since Kobe Bryant scored 81 points?
Denver had a huge win over Phoenix in OT. The Nuggets are getting into a bit of rhythm; they are 7-3 in their last 10.
However, they are not the hottest team. Three teams in the West are on some nice winning streaks. Utah Jazz have won 7 straight. The Clippers took care of business against Oklahoma City, pushing their streak to 6 wins. And the Memphis Grizzlies, who will be idle for a while because of contract tracing (see what I mean?), have won 5 straight.
Pacers needed this. Malcolm Brogdon hit a clutch three to help Indy win in OT against Orlando.
ice-cold game winner@MalcolmBrogdon7 | #AlwaysGame pic.twitter.com/gzmGCQJGtj
— Indiana Pacers (@Pacers) January 23, 2021
NBA Scoreboard
Jan. 22, 2021
Watch This Play
Well, Jarrett Allen had something to say to his former team, the Brooklyn Nets.
JARRETT ALLEN 🔨
Served a poster on his former team pic.twitter.com/R3iPma9CIE
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) January 23, 2021
Allen even got a smile out of it after doing his old teammate, Joe Harris, wrong. That’s pretty funny.
Everyone, please take care of yourselves during this pandemic. And that goes for everyone involved with the NBA as well.
You can find Rey-Rey on Twitter at @TheNoLookPass.
You can also check out Rey-Rey’s podcast, Rey-Rey Is Fundamental, for more basketball content and, really, whatever else.