Nothing easy, except scoring on the Raptors. (Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

Finished this up late again today, my apologies. I wish I could blame the mental trauma from that Raptors loss, but that wasn’t even it. I might have to change the title to Basketball For Brunch. Anyway, let’s get to it.

The All-OTN Team

Will Bynum: 10 Pts (4-9 FG, 0-1 3PT, 2-2 FT), 3 Reb (1 Off), 7 Ast, 1 Stl, 2 TO, 3 PF in 33 mins.

On night where Rodney Stuckey (17 points on 16 shots, 4 Ast) and Ben Gordon (18 points on 16 shots, 0 assists) didn’t score very efficiently or distribute, Bynumite stepped up with a team-high 7 assists. Pity it wasn’t enough to help a not-yet-100% Gordon get a victory against his old team, where a smattering of ignorant fans were booing him.

Shannon Brown: The Lakers didn’t play last night, but here’s a video of Lamar Odom gushing about “Mr. Fantastic” for his Let Shannon Dunk campaign:

Favourite bit there: “Even the shots that he blocks or tries to block are like posters.” Yup.

Jared Dudley: 6 Pts (2-6 FG, 1-2 3PT, 1-2 FT), 3 Reb (1 Off), 1 Ast, 2 PF in 21 mins.

Uninspiring numbers for Jared in another bad loss. The Suns failed to score 100 points for the second time this season and the second night in a row, falling 107-90 to Cleveland in a game that by all accounts didn’t feel even as close as that. I’d like to tell you Dudley’s hustle and defensive intensity was a positive (as it was in their loss to the Knicks – see the “Aside from Jared Dudley and Steve Nash…” sentence here), but I can’t be sure because I didn’t see the game and none of the recaps I’ve seen have mentioned his name, preferring to focus more generally on his team’s epic failure. We know he’s keeping his head up, though.

Amir Johnson: 9 Pts (4-6 FG, 1-2 FT), 7 Reb (3 Off), 1 Blk, 2 TO, 5 PF in 19 mins.

“If you are looking for bright spots in this game, Amir Johnson certainly is one of them, if not the brightest one.” – Leo Rautins, during the Raptors telecast.

I fortunately did not see too much of this horrible 146-115 blowout as it was happening (although I feel like I saw every second because of all the tweets and text messages I read), but I believe I saw the perfect microcosm of Amir Johnson’s game during a timeout of the Bucks/Wizards game. In one possession in the first half, Amir Johnson grabbed a difficult offensive rebound, kicked the ball out, eventually received it again, and hit a tough inside shot. On the ensuing defensive possession, he had a vicious block but then sent Zaza Pachulia to the foul line after the Hawks recovered the ball. That is Amir: activity all of the time, even if his team is getting slaughtered. 5 fouls in 19 mins, though. You know I love the guy, but I have to mention the fouls.

Serge Ibaka: 2 Pts (1-2 FG), 2 Reb (1 Off), 1 Stl, 1 TO, 2 PF in 6 mins.

Rats. Only 6 minutes for Serge. Sort of hard to complain, though, as I would have played Nick Collison over him on this night too. Collison was brilliant as he returned from a sore knee – 18 points on 8-9 shooting, with his one miss coming on a three pointer at the end of the shot clock with 20 seconds left in the game. Add in the defense (drawn charges, 1 steal, 1 block) and his team-high 7 rebounds (5 offensive!) and he might have been the most important player in this 117-106 Thunder victory over the Sixers. But wait, this is supposed to be about Serge Ibaka! Not to worry, I have a link to share. Here’s Tom Haberstroh of Hoopdata giving Ibaka some love for contributing more quickly than anyone expected and being a major contributor to his team’s elite defense around the basket.

Rookies

Brandon Jennings: 17 Pts (7-21 FG, 2-8 3PT, 1-2 FT), 2 Reb, 7 Ast, 1 Stl, 0 TO (!), 5 PF in 36 mins.

There’s some good and some bad here. Obviously, looking at the stats, you don’t like the shooting. I can tell you one positive from this though – Jennings made more floaters than he missed last night. That is HUGE. As per Kevin Pelton of Basketball Prospectus, Jennings’s recent shooting slump is mostly because he is missing shots around the basket. My eyes tell me that this is because, rather than getting all the way to the hole for layups, Jennings is shooting a lot of contested floaters around the rim. In Jennings’s words, from the always-excellent Bucksketball:

I learned in pre-season that I wasn’t going to be able to go to the rack that much, so I had to change things quickly and get a floater going. It makes things easier. It’s still in the development phase.

I’m not worried at all about Brandon’s 3-point shot. He had an off-night from behind the arc last night, but that happens to everyone. If he gets more consistent with his floater, I don’t see how you stop him. You already can’t let him shoot from distance and have to be terrified of his pull-up jumper. Watch out, league.

…I can’t move on from Brandon without talking about the last few possessions of the game, though. I was on an emotional rollercoaster watching this. First, he took a ballsy pull-up jumper with 50 seconds left when his team was down by 1 and then committed a silly frustration foul when it missed. Then, with his team down 3, he hit an incredibly difficult leaning three to tie it up with 10.5 seconds left. I’d say it got me out of my seat, but I was already standing up. Unfortunately, on the next possession, he bit on an Earl Boykins pump-fake and sent him to the line for what turned out to be the game winning free throws. The game ended when Luke Ridnour (who played a great game, more on him soon) badly missed a desperation three with 1 second left in the game. I can’t have been the only one who wanted Jennings to get that last shot.

DeMar DeRozan: 21 pts (6-11 FG, 9-12 FT), 3 Reb, 2 Ast, 3 PF in 30 mins.

I really wish his career-high didn’t come on a night like this. But then again, it gives me something positive to think about. Look at that, 12 free-throw attempts! Love that. I saw DeRozan get two impressive and-ones near the end of the first half and it would seem that he kept up that aggressiveness for all of his career-high 30 minutes. Raptors colour guy Leo Rautins, who has not been one to hand out excessive praise to the rookie, said he played with “hustle and determination that wasn’t necessarily shared by his entire team.” That’s a very polite way of saying it.

Jonny Flynn: 12 Pts (5-12 FG, 1-4 3PT, 1-2 FT), 2 Reb (1 Off), 9 Ast, 2 TO in 30 mins.

Gotta love those 9 assists, even if the 12 points on 12 shots is a bit blah. Whenever I watch Minnesota play, I feel like Flynn deserves more assists than he gets – he simply does not have shooters on the team that will convert open looks. Luckily, Ryan Gomes knocked down some shots tonight, going 8-13 including 2-3 from downtown to score 20 points. One of his threes came off of nice behind-the-back feed from Flynn with 1:39 left in the game. The miss? It came with 1:14 left on a wide open corner three, set up by… you guessed it, Flynn. It’s easy to dismiss the rookie from Syracuse, trying to run the triangle with an incredibly unbalanced team, but you shouldn’t. He can play. This was the first time he had recorded 9 assists in an NBA game, but it won’t be the last.

Toney Douglas: 17 Pts (7-11 FG, 2-5 3PT, 1-2 FT), 1 Reb, 1 Ast, 1 Stl, 4 PF in 21 mins.

Nice line for Toney Douglas. He can really, really score. Reason #958 I’m happy Allen Iverson ended up in Philly: he’s not taking minutes from Douglas. I’m not getting too optimistic about his standing in New York, though – this performance came on a night where they were losing by 22 at the end of the third quarter. Douglas only got these minutes because the game was lost and Nate Robinson is in the coach’s doghouse. Blarg. Stupid Knicks.

Tyreke Evans: 26 Pts (7-14 FG, 0-2 3PT, 12-14 FT), 5 Reb, 6 Ast, 4 TO in 32 mins.

Now this I can be optimistic about. Yeah, it was against Indiana. But isn’t it crazy that we suddenly EXPECT the Kings to beat Indiana? This team has a 9-8 record and a 4-game winning streak despite losing Kevin Martin five games in and not seeing a single minute from Francisco Garcia. Huge credit has to go out to Paul Westphal and everyone in the rotation, especially Evans. I admit that, as far as ROY is concerned, I’m with Kelly Dwyer and not Zach Harper, but Evans has been fantastic this year. He can get to the basket and score with ease and has played point guard with much greater success than most people imagined he would have. If he shoots fewer jumpers and gets to the foul line at a rate similar to last night, I might have to reconsider my stance on the aforementioned award before this season is over.

Fun With Stats

Blowout city: There was a point last night where, of the eight games being played, four of them (TOR/ATL, NYK/ORL, PHX/CLE, DAL/NJ) had a point differential of at least 20.

Let’s get the Raptors out of the way: Chris Bosh scored 2 points, going without a field goal for the first time since November 6, 2007, when the Raptors were routed by the Milwaukee Bucks. Bosh only played 16 minutes, sitting during the first time because he was in foul trouble. One of those fouls was assigned to someone else at halftime, but by then it was way too late. Oh, and the Italian Rodman? Andrea Bargnani failed to grab a single rebound in almost 22 minutes of action last night. Sad face.

No more negativity here. Let’s talk about some point guards. I love me some point guards. First, Jason Kidd: 16 Pts (5-6 FG, 2-2 3PT, 4-4 FT), 8 Reb, 10 Ast, 5 Stl, 1 Blk, 4 TO, 1 PF in 34 mins. Wow. That’s… insane. I’d be impressed with a line like that even from 2002 Jason Kidd. The downside is it added insult to injury, as he did this whilst etching his former team’s name into the record books in a most unflattering way. Next, Russell Westbrook – weird line for him. Definitely not the perfection of J-Kidd, but check this out: 7 Pts (1-11 FG, 0-3 3PT, 5-6 FT), 5 Reb (2 Off), 15 Ast, 2 Stl, 2 TO, 3 PF in 33 mins of a winning effort. Again, wow. He was supposed to be a scorer, someone who could get his but would have trouble involving his teammates and being a true point guard. Well, hey, critics: 15 assists! He already has more than half of the 10+ assist games he had last year and we’re only a month in. Let’s just ignore the terrible shooting on this night. Hell yeah, development! Thunder!

Now, onto the bigs. I’ve gotta mention Brandon Bass here – this beast has been waiting patiently to be unleashed this season, as Stan Van Gundy has understandbly opted to keep the floor spread with the sweet shooting of Ryan Anderson and Matt Barnes off the bench at the 4 spot and stay big at the 5 with Marcin Gortat. With Bass out of the shuffle, he has been unable to show us what we saw from him last season: rebounding, interior scoring, solid D, and the mid-range shot. Against the Knicks, however, there was no need to stay big off the bench, so Bass got Gortat’s minutes at center. He responded by scoring 17 points in just 17 minutes, shooting 7-12 from the field and adding 3 rebounds. This is how you earn more minutes. Also, Marcus Camby had a Marcus Camby night: 9 points on 4-6 shooting, with 19 rebounds, 4 assists, 5 steals, and a block in 39 minutes. I miss seeing those numbers on my fantasy team. Gotta wonder, though – as Kelly Dwyer mentioned in the BDL chat yesterday, do the Clips try to trade Camby? His value has to be pretty high and Griffin is going to need every minute he can get when he comes back. Just something to think about.

One more tidbit before I move on – not only did Zydrunas Ilgauskas become the Cavs’ leader in games played last night, he moved into third place on the team’s all-time scoring list. He now trails only LeBron and Brad Daugherty. Effing great night for him.

Quoted

Argh, a bunch of depressing ones today. I apologize.

“It’s not the coach. Red Auerbach couldn’t coach us the way we are playing. It’s us. It doesn’t matter who you bring in. It starts in here. You have to have heart. You have to have the heart to overcome something like this.” – Chris Douglas-Roberts, after his team became the lone team in NBA history to lose its first 18 games.

I’ve been following CDR closely this season. I feel worse for him than any other player in the league. It’s not hard to see how rough this has been for him. He’s never been through anything similar to this in life. I really hope they win a damn game soon. Anyway, onto more depressing stuff – here are ex-Yellow Jackets and current-Raptors Chris Bosh and Jarrett Jack, post-game.

“We can’t give up 75 points in the half and expect to be successful in this league. We can’t come in with the mindset that we’re just going to outscore everybody. It’s not possible.” – Jarrett Jack.

“We’re not playing D and we’re not rebounding – we’re shooting ourselves in the foot twice.” – Jarrett Jack.

“You can’t say we did anything right on defense. We should be embarrassed, everybody should be embarrassed. Us, coaches – everybody who was involved in this game should be embarrassed.” – Jarrett Jack.

“I was upset that we don’t buy in on the defensive end of the floor and every time something happens, it’s, ‘it’s okay, it’s alright.’ It’s not alright. We’re letting problems go by without attacking them or challenging them or bringing them to the forefront or getting them solved.” – Jarrett Jack.

“Everybody can’t just walk on eggshells around here and act like we’re playing good basketball. We’re not, we’re playing terrible.” – Jarrett Jack.

“We haven’t stopped anybody all year.” – Chris Bosh

“We don’t get on the ground, we don’t consistently get rebounds, we give up points in the paint… We’re just not a good team.” – Chris Bosh

Jesus. It’s not even 9:00 AM and I need a drink. This is bad. Very, very, very bad. It’s only early December, but I’ve seen previous awful Raptors teams lose games like this. Well, rarely EXACTLY like this – I mean, down by 30 at the end of the third? Anyway, it’s obviously not the loss to Atlanta that bothers me. The Raptors need a win in the worst way, but I wouldn’t have been too upset with an L if they had just shown some signs of life on defense. Jay Triano stressed from training camp onwards that defense would be his main focus – he knew he had the pieces to be a great offensive team, but this squad severely lacked athleticism and one-on-one defensive skills. To compensate, you have to play extremely focused, smart team D. The Raptors have done this only for small stretches this year and haven’t done it at all during this 5-game losing streak. Damn it. I need a happy quote to cheer me up…

“That’s the closest I’ve ever come to tears on the basketball floor.” – Zydrunas Ilgauaskas, on his big night. The fans chanted “Z” for him. Yay!

Impressive

These will all be from the Bucks/Wizards game, since it had my complete attention.

Nick Young: 21 Pts (7-12 FG, 0-1 3PT, 7-7 FT), 5 Reb, 1 Ast, 1 Stl, 5 TO, 2 PF in 34 mins.

Gotta love his aggressiveness. The man just knows how to score at the NBA level. You can criticize him for being sort of one-dimensional, I guess, but when that dimension is great, it’s okay. Same argument I’ve always made for Ben Gordon, even though Young isn’t near Gordon’s level yet. Love seeing him starting again, though – those erratic minutes and DNP-CD’s from the early part of the season were starting to piss me off.

Earl Boykins: 13 Pts (3-5 FG, 7-10 FT), 1 Reb, 4 Ast, 2 TO in 19 mins.

I’ve always loved watching Earl Boykins play. You know why. He’s the tiniest guy on the floor, by far, but he doesn’t play like it. The effort, the confidence? Always there. I’m definitely enjoying his return with the Wizards, and so is Gilbert Arenas, as it’s allowing him to play off the ball. Put a smile on my face just to see Boykins on the floor at the end of this game, let alone seeing the ball in his hands on the Wizards’ final possession. Still not pleased with the result, but whatever. Go Earl.

Hakim Warrick: 20 Pts (6-9 FG, 8-8 FT), 4 Reb (3 Off), 3 TO, 2 PF in 32 mins.

14 of those points came in the first half, including two aggressive and-ones and the missed shot that resulted in Scott Skiles’s ejection. Quick note on that if you didn’t see it – Skiles was miffed that Hak didn’t get the foul, so he approached the nearest ref and screamed at him. Upon receiving a technical foul, Skiles made a “T” with his hands and screamed, “Technical!” in the ref’s face. For this, he received another tech and was ejected. After storming to about halfcourt to let out some more steam, he went back to the locker room. Anyway, Hak – love the effort, as always. Nice to see the shots falling tonight and VERY nice to see all those free throw attempts. It’s ridiculous how many of these Bucks I look forward to watching – him, Jennings, Bogut, Ilyasova, Bell, Luc Richard Mbah A Moute (come back soon!), Meeks, Delfino, and…

Luke Ridnour: 20 Pts (9-16 FG, 2-6 3PT), 4 Reb, 6 Ast, 1 Stl, 4 PF in 33 mins.

Whoa. Didn’t expect that. I didn’t even expect to become a Ridnour fan. This year, though, he’s proven to be a much more than capable backup point guard, even if I’d much rather have the ball in Jennings’s hands at the end of the game. You won’t see 20 point games from him all the time, but last night wasn’t that much of a statistical aberration. He has a PER of 18.3 this season. I love that Skiles has been playing him and Jennings together from the start, realizing that the advantages that the pair bring on offense far outweigh the defensive limitations of having two small, thin point guards on the floor on D. I wish Kurt Rambis would realize the same thing and play Jonny Flynn and Ramon Sessions together more often in Minny. While they did see some time sharing the floor last night in their 97-95 loss to Memphis, Sessions still played 6 fewer minutes than Damien Wilkins even though he was hot, going 7-9 from the floor.

Tweeted

@NBAKays: I’m starting to think that the Raptors are not a very good defensive basketball team. (When he tweeted this, the Hawks had 118 points with 9:41 left in the game.)

@NBAguy: @jeskeets who’s your squad?

@jeskeets: @NBAguy The [/covers mouth] Raptuyfdgyrs.

That does it. I’m going to puke.

@HowardBeckNYT: Not that anyone cares, but the Mavericks have scored 90 points on the Nets with 6:54 left in the third. They lead 90-66.

@johnschuhmann: This may be the Nets’ best offensive game this season… and they’re down by 27.

At least I’m not alone.

To watch

Al Thornton off the backboard to himself:

Trevor Ariza on Chris Kaman:

Apologies for not mentioning the Rockets/Clippers game until now. I fell asleep and missed it, bummer. Seems like it could have been a good one for three quarters, until the Rockets put the Clippers away with a 26-13 4th Q to win 102-85. Aaron Brooks managed 22 points on 9-11 shooting from the field.

Caron Butler on poor Andrew Bogut:

Derrick Rose’s alley-oop from Brad Miller:

LeBron’s sweet chasedown block in the throwback uni:

To read

Britt Robson, one of my favourites, takes a look around the league for SI.

Kendrick Perkins is getting scary good, says Chris Forsberg of ESPN Boston.

Bethlehem Shoals’s take on Ron Artest for the Baseline.

Eddy Rivera’s great interview with J.J. Redick for Third Quarter Collapse

Photo by Andrew D. Bernstein/Getty Images.

Barring the landscape changing with significant trades or injuries, the top 7 in the West this season is pretty much set with the Lakers, Spurs, Blazers, Nuggets, Mavericks, Jazz, and Hornets. A few interesting teams will be fighting for the chance to lose for the Lakers and I’m going to discuss them. First up, the Los Angeles Clippers.

I’m terrified to make a prediction about the L.A. Clippers. They’re a mystery. On paper they’re the eighth-best team in the conference, but I’m not the least bit confident saying that they’ll make the playoffs. In fact, if you were to tell me that you thought they would, I’d pester you to make a bet with me about it, even if it’s late-November and they’re becoming a trendy pick due to their soft early-season schedule.

There’s enough talent here for this team to win a lot of games and be one of the more interesting teams in the league to watch. Their three best players should be the sometimes-electrifying, bearded point guard Baron Davis; the freakishly talented, athletic power forward Blake Griffin; and the sophomore stud Eric Gordon. Davis, as a Warrior, did things like this which made him a hero to a long-suffering fanbase. Griffin, who still isn’t old enough to hit the clubs after games unless he’s playing the Raptors, can already put “meanest pre-season dunk in NBA history” on his resume. Gordon has one of the sweetest-looking jump shots in the league, right up there with Ray Allen and Anthony Morrow, and his jumper is far from his only weapon. Unlike last season, there’s a decent supporting cast here too. Still, I’m worried about them, mostly because of their coach.

Sports memorabilia enthusiast Bill Simmons called Mike Dunleavy a big dummy last season. If I hadn’t actually watched the Clippers last year, I might point out that Dunleavy had to deal with a coach’s nightmare: chemistry-killer Zach Randolph, the out-of-shape version of Baron Davis, and significant injuries to almost all of his key players. Seeing as I watched more Clippers games last season than any reasonable person should, though, I know better than to let him off the hook. This team underachieved last season even with all those things taken into consideration, and I’m not just talking about their atrocious record (19-63). They were the least entertaining team in the league, even worse than the fucking Kings. Save for Eric Gordon’s jump shot and a morbid interest in seeing how truly indifferent professional basketball players can look whilst playing the sport they’re paid millions of dollars to play, I could offer no compelling reasons to tune into a Clippers game last season. As Simmons pointed out, you’d think the coach would relinquish some control and have his team play uptempo, with Baron Davis running the show. You’d think, once injuries hit, that he’d be able to get at least some effort and hustle out of the bench guys who rarely get the opportunity play big minutes. Didn’t happen. Instead, Clippers fans were treated to the kind of boring, uninspired basketball that would fool a person subjected to it into believing that idiotic “college basketball is more entertaining” bullshit. The Clippers were going to be bad last season, but it didn’t have to be no fun.

Now, some things have changed. This roster is deeper, seemingly healthy, and they now have a guy who’s such a lock to win rookie of the year that betting types are saying to stay away because the odds are so low it isn’t worth your time. With Beardo in shape and Zach Randolph banished to Memphis on a team that might manage to play even less aesthetically-pleasing ball than last year’s Clips, things could drastically improve. As long as Dunleavy doesn’t fuck it up. One bad sign already: he’s talked about bringing Blake Griffin off the bench. This is obviously insane.

When you draft a guy as talented as Blake Griffin, you throw him right in there. Let him go up against the best. Have him turn the ball over, have him get picked on a bit on the defensive end, whatever. He’s such a beast of a scorer that it doesn’t matter. He needs touches, lots of them. He needs to learn what works and doesn’t work in the NBA. It won’t take long for him. For the short-term and long-term benefit of this franchise, making him a featured part of their starting unit is the right thing to do. Marcus Camby and Chris Kaman both know that Griffin is the future of this team. Baron Davis knows that if Griffin has a great season, he’ll look good too. The single biggest mistake Dunleavy could make this year is to make this kid and the crazy-efficient Eric Gordon (.593 TS%!) into role-players. Give ‘em the damn ball.

Aside from the Griffin/Gordon thing and a general fear of over-coaching, there’s one more thing I’m worried about in Clipperland: the small forward position. Al Thornton started there and played 37.4 minutes a game last season, but there’s no way in hell this should happen again. You know the ridiculously overblown Kevin Durant/Wayne Winston thing? Here’s all you need to know: KD is a mind-blowingly good scorer, but, at 21 years of age, he is pretty bad at almost everything else. This manifests in a negative score in a stat called adjusted +/-, meaning his team and individual teammates have been better when he’s on the bench. The same was true about Carmelo Anthony and Al Jefferson in their first few years, and it’s in no way a cause for concern because, again, the kid is 21 years old and scores more effortlessly than anybody else in the league. Anyway, Al Thornton also has a terrible adjusted +/-. He lacks superhuman scoring ability, however. His TS% of .503 in his first two years in the league is crap. He’s not particularly good at anything besides accumulating field goal attempts and, for the Clippers to be good next season, they need that bit to change. With their talent, there is no reason for Thornton to take a lot of shots. What they need at the 3 is someone who will play solid defense and hit open jump shots off of drive-and-kicks from Davis and passes out of the post from Griffin. Luckily, this is exactly what free agent acquisition Rasual Butler can do. Let’s hope the coach realizes this and puts him on the floor.

Unfortunately, I have no confidence in this happening because I don’t trust Mike Dunleavy. I can see the Clippers stumbling out of the gate, even against sub-par competition in November. I can see Dunleavy losing the team again and Bill Simmons linking back to this article. I can see Baron Davis and Eric Gordon being stifled. Hell, I can almost even see Tyreke Evans winning Rookie of the Year as I yell at the TV that Griffin should have been given the damn ball more. I don’t want any of this. I want a Clippers team that’s fun. I want Baron to look like this instead of this, Blake Griffin and Eric Gordon to make their fantasy owners happy, and Al Thornton to play a role that he’s suited for. If Dunleavy does this right and the team stays healthy, not only will these guys be watchable, they have a damn good chance of getting that 8th spot. This is one of the most intriguing teams in the NBA; for everyone’s sake, let’s hope the on-court product bears no resemblance to last year’s loathsome mess.