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Splash Brothers make it rain in Warriors' win vs. Thunder

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pernando adikate
Splash Brothers make it rain in Warriors' win vs. Thunder

Steve Kerr said he didn't have flashbacks watching Steph Curry and Klay Thompson drain 3-pointers at Paycom Center on Monday night in the Warriors' 128-120 win against the Oklahoma City Thunder, but it was hard not to think of the past when watching the Splash Brothers shine against their old rivals. 


Gone are the days of Curry, Thompson, Draymond Green, Andre Iguodala, Harrison Barnes and Andrew Bogut battling the likes of Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, Serge Ibaka, Andre Roberson and Steven Adams. The Thunder are young, fun and building their next core of stars.


A new rivalry could one day spark against Thunder stars such as Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Josh Giddey, Jalen Williams and Jaylin Williams, a healthy Lou Dort and after Chet Holmgren makes his NBA debut. 


For the Warriors, Jordan Poole, Andrew Wiggins, Jonathan Kuminga, Patrick Baldwin Jr., James Wiseman, Moses Moody and the rest of the young Dubs might be leading the way. But on Monday night in OKC, it was time for Steph and Klay to make it rain on the Thunder once more. 


The two combined to score 66 points. They made 53.7 percent of their 41 shots, 50 percent of their 28 3-pointers and all eight of their free throws went down. Curry led the way with a game-high 38 points, going 12-for-20 from the field, 8-for-14 from deep and 6-for-6 at the free-throw line. Thompson added 28 points as he went 10-for-21 overall, 6-for-14 beyond the arc and 2-for-2 on free throws. 


Curry scored 13 points in the first quarter and was a plus-18 in plus/minus as the Warriors entered the second up 38-20. He made five of his seven shots and three of his four tries from long distance. Thompson was going shot for shot with him, scoring 10 while going 4-for-5 from the field and 2-for-3 on threes. 


"You got to play the full 48," Steve Kerr said to reporters after the win. "The start that we got off to, though, set the tone for the game. We played a great first quarter and they had to swim upstream the entire final three quarters. Even though they got close, we were able to hold them off." 


In that first quarter, the Warriors made 15 shots and all 15 were assisted. Their first 18 made shots were off assists. The streak ended when Jordan Poole dribbled past and around four different players on the Thunder before finishing off a fancy finger roll. 


One game after the Warriors handed out a season-high 40 assists in a win over the Toronto Raptors, they totaled 37 assists Monday against the Thunder. Curry on Friday dished 11 assists. This time, he one-upped himself. 


He and Draymond Green each topped all players with 12 assists apiece. 


"Oh that first quarter was beautiful," Thompson said. "I think the ball was humming around." 


The latter half of Curry's 12 made shots were the most important. After dropping 18 points in the first half, he scored 20 in the second half. But the one with the longest meaning was his seventh made field goal of the night, a strong finish at the rim.


That gave him 7,217 made field goals for his career, passing the all-time great Wilt Chamberlain for the most in Warriors franchise history. 


"What a legendary accomplishment," Thompson said. "I mean, Wilt Chamberlain is one of the greatest athletes to ever walk this earth. The fact that Steph was able to do that a foot shorter than him, that's special."


Down the stretch, the Warriors received contributions from a handful of players in the win. Thompson scored the most out of the eight players who saw action in the fourth quarter, with nine points, three made shots, two free throws and one emphatic dunk. 


The Warriors finished January with a 7-6 record. Thompson played 10 of those 13 games and put together his best month yet this season. He averaged 27 points on 45.9 percent shooting, 43.1 percent on 3-pointers and 90.9 percent on free throws. 


Returning from his left shoulder injury on Jan. 10, Curry put an exclamation mark on the month as the Warriors won their third straight game and earned their first win streak on the road this season. In nine games this month, he averaged 29.1 points and 5.8 assists, shooting 47.8 percent from the field and 40.8 percent from downtown. 


What was a slow start to the month was about as good of a finish as Curry and the Warriors could have hoped for.


"Just really smooth with the ball, running off the ball -- off screens -- playing good defense, rebounding," Kerr said of Curry. "He was just quick to the ball and looked fantastic out there."


The rivalry between the Warriors and Thunder is long gone, for now. Nights of Steph and Klay lighting it up still are very much here to stay.



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2023 NBA All-Star: Joel Embiid biggest starter snub; Anthony Davis had a strong case over Zion Williamson


Embiid should be starting over Giannis Antetokounmpo


The 2023 NBA All-Star starters were announced Thursday night, and naturally, a couple players who are looking at bench roles have a legitimate beef. First, here are the starters, which were selected using a weighted system in which the fan vote accounted for 50 percent, and the media and player votes 25 percent each. 


It's not an honest snub unless you can say who should be replaced, and in this case, Embiid deserved to start over Anteokounmpo. The media and players agreed, voting Embiid third among frontcourt players behind Tatum and Durant, but Embiid wound up fourth in the fan vote, where Giannis was first. That was the difference. 


I get the argument that the fans are the lifeblood of the league and they should get to see who they want to see in the All-Star Game, but they got this one wrong. Embiid scores more than Antetokounmpo with a far better true-shooting percentage. 


Embiid is top five in many catch-all advanced metrics, top 10 in all of them and trails only Jokic in PER. Giannis, meanwhile, barely outpaces Embiid in Defensive Win Shares and Defensive Box Plus/Minus while registering 14th in VORP, 18th in OBPM, 26th in RAPTOR WAR, 27th in Win Shares and 46th in OWS. 


Those last couple numbers reflect Giannis' continued shortcomings in the half-court, particularly as a perimeter creator. Giannis is incredible, obviously, but this season is serving as a reminder that he's still a more flawed player than his status as arguably the best player in the world suggests. 


Despite having to cover for James Harden and Tyrese Maxey in the backcourt, Embiid has Philly's defense ranked No. 7 in the league, per Cleaning The Glass. Take Harden off the court, and Embiid has Philly operating at a 104.4 defensive rating, which would by far rank as the best in the league. 


Giannis' offense doesn't look nearly as good, neither on paper nor to the eye. His midrange shooting is way down, and if you put him on the court without Jrue Holiday to create, the Bucks become a net neutral team, per CTG, with a bottom-dwelling offensive rating. All told, Giannis is in command of an offense that ranks 23rd both overall and in the half-court, per CTG. 


Look, we're splitting hairs here. Both Embiid and Antetokounmpo are top-of-the-food-chain players. But Embiid is having a better year, even when you factor in Khris Middleton's absence. He should be higher than Giannis in the MVP race, and with all due respect to the fans, he should be starting in the All-Star Game. 


Davis is averaging 27.2 points, 12.1 rebounds and 2.2 blocks with a 65.9 true-shooting. Those first three numbers trump Zion Williamson's marks -- the rebounds and blocks significantly. The TS percentages are nearly identical. 


With Davis on the floor, the Lakers, with no other elite defenders, register what would be the league's best defensive rating, per CTG. Zion has gotten better defensively, but he's far more a product of a good New Orleans defense than a standout himself, whereas Davis is the Lakers' defense. There was a stretch when Davis was the best player in the league this season. That cannot be said of Williamson. 


So why wasn't Davis named a starter? Simple, he hasn't played enough -- just 29 games. That would be a valid argument when we talk about the next guy on this list, Domantas Sabonis, who has played all but two games for the Kings, but Zion has only played 33 games himself. Playing four more games shouldn't make Zion a starter when Davis has been the better player. 


Domantas Sabonis

Sabonis has been an absolute stud for the Kings. A Nikola Jokic light, he's a brute in the post but also the offensive hub of a second-ranked Kings offense that falls by 10 points per 100 possessions when he sits, per CTG. Care to guess how many players are averaging at least 18 points, 12 rebounds and seven boards this season? One. Sabonis.  


As mentioned above, Sabonis has also played 45 games to Zion's 33, and that's to say nothing of the two more weeks, at least, that Williamson is in line to miss. The Kings have a a three-game edge over the Pels in the loss column entering play on Thursday. Sabonis ranks ahead of Williamson in VORP, BPM, DBPM, OBPM, WS, OWS, DWS and Total RAPTOR and RAPTOR WAR. 


So what was the problem? Zion is a flashier name and scores more points, and fans are suckers for both. Zion got the fourth-most frontcourt fan votes; Sabonis was ninth. Zion has been awesome when he's been on the court, but considering the gap in games played, Sabonis deserved this starting spot. 


Tyrese Haliburton

Haliburton is the Sabonis of Eastern Conference guards. He has been magnificent all season, but he is not the big name. Seven guards got more fans votes, and he was sixth in the player vote. 


Donovan Mitchell is a no-brainer starter, and Kyrie Irving is more than worthy. But if anyone has a legitimate beef over Irving, it's Haliburton, who leads the league in assist percentage and is second to James Harden in assists per game despite not dominating the ball; Irving's 29.1 usage rate ranks 19th league-wide, while Haliburton's 23.7 ranks 82nd. 


Haliburton is also a better shooter than Irving at 40 percent from 3 on almost eight attempts per game with a slightly higher true-shooting number. Again, I don't have an issue with Irving being a starter. He's been really good. But if Haliburton would've gotten the nod, I wouldn't have objected that either. It's a borderline snub. Definitely worth mentioning in this post. 



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LeBron James scoring record: Predicting when Lakers star will pass Kareem with game-by-game projections


LeBron James is just 117 points away from becoming the NBA's all-time leading scorer


LeBron James has officially hit the home stretch of his pursuit of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's record for the most points in NBA history. After Saturday's game against the Boston Celtics, he is 117 points shy of owning the career scoring title. The Lakers may have lost this game in heartbreaking fashion, especially for James, who was furious with a non-call on his possible game-winning layup. 


But LeBron certainly did his part, scoring 41 points in an overtime defeat. (We had projected that he would score 29 points.) He finished the night with six 3s, shooting 15 of 30 from the floor. That performance shaved his pace down by a game, but he will sit out the Lakers' next game on Monday against the Nets. At James' season-long scoring average of 30.2 points per game, James would break the record in four games -- a home date against the Thunder on Feb. 7 if he doesn't miss any more time.


Of course, we know that averages can be a bit misleading.


And there are additional factors, including whether he wants to become the new standard-bearer in road game or in Los Angeles, or whether he can maintain he level of play week after week as a 38-year-old player who has spent more than half of his life performing an extremely high level.


On top of that, Anthony Davis is back in the lineup now. Rui Hachimura needs shots after his acquisition via trade as well. So maybe James gets hot for a few more games. Maybe he's cold. So instead of relying on an average, let's take a game-by-game approach to predict how many points he'll score against each opponent to break Abdul-Jabbar's all-time record.


The Lakers have been a bit more aggressive about playing James on both legs of back-to-backs recently. In the first four back-to-backs James would theoretically have been healthy enough to play, he participated in both halves just once. In their last four, he's suited up for both legs all four times. The major difference is that Davis wasn't available for the last three of the Lakers' back-to-back sets. Now that he is, the Lakers can be a bit more judicious about when James plays. Nothing would ever keep him out of a Madison Square Garden game, so the Brooklyn contest on Monday became the obvious choice. Indeed, it was announced Sunday that James (and Davis) would sit out Monday's game at Barclays Center. And with Kevin Durant sidelined, it might not even be an automatic loss for the Lakers. -- Projected points away from record postgame: 117 


New York's defensive problems extend well beyond Mitchell Robinson's absence. He's missed the last four Knicks games, but they ranked 25th in defense (119.5 points per 100 possessions allowed) over their past 10. Their best perimeter defender has been Quentin Grimes, who is simply too small to handle James. That will leave RJ Barrett with the job. Barrett is fine defensively, but "fine" is rarely acceptable where James is concerned. Throw in his love of putting on a show for the New York fans and this could be his biggest game of the record push. -- Projected points away from record postgame: 80  


The Pacers held James to just 22 points in their first meeting this season, but the greater concern here, even if it makes a win more likely, is that the absence of Tyrese Haliburton creates conditions for a blowout. The Lakers aren't going to push James into extra minutes if this game isn't close. So on the fourth night of a lengthy road trip, James will put up numbers, but he's not going to go crazy. -- Projected points away from record postgame: 55


When a healthy Anthony Davis plays against the Pelicans, he tends to dominate. He scored 87 points combined in two meetings against his old team in 2020. The trouble is, either the schedule or injuries have weakened him for most of his subsequent matchups. Now that Davis appears to be relatively healthy, he's probably going to do the lion's share of the scoring for the Lakers in this one. While James is currently on pace to break the record in this game, if he sits out the Nets matchup as we predict and tallies the previous numbers, he would be within striking distance on any night he steps on the floor following the five-game road trip. -- Projected points away from record postgame: 31


This is roughly when we should expect the gravity of the record to hit him and for him to start pressing a bit. Remember, Stephen Curry was taking over 14 3-pointers per game in the seven games leading up to his 3-point record-breaker last season, and he was hitting them at only a 34.7 percent clip. So expect a high-volume, low-efficiency game out of James in this one, especially since he'll be spending it in the "Dorture Chamber." Few defenders are better at forcing big wings into shooting jumpers than Luguentz Dort, so this will likely be a relatively quiet James game, but he'll just be a few buckets away by this point. -- Projected points away from record postgame: 5


If you're a conspiracy theorist, here's something to take note of: The Feb. 7 game between the Lakers and Thunder is not slated for national television. The late window game for TNT is the Timberwolves against the Nuggets. But this game? It will be nationally televised as the second half of TNT's back-to-back. Do with that information what you will. Regardless, the pace takes us to Milwaukee, a team James has tended to succeed against. It's a home game for the Lakers, allowing the team plenty of room to honor him. It comes against a worthy opponent, and there will surely be postgame quotes about how Giannis Antetokounmpo -- his opposing All-Star Game captain -- might be next. It's simply too easy a scene to set. Expect this game to be the record-breaker, and, word to the wise: If LeBron is as close to the record at tipoff as we think he is going to be, this isn't the night to arrive fashionably late.

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