DeMar DeRozan’s 27 points helped the Sacramento Kings defeat the Cleveland Cavaliers, sending them to their third straight loss. Dave DuFour and Es Baraheni discuss the Cavs’ losing streak, debate game winners between Cade Cunningham and Andrew Nemhard, and catch up on the latest in the Western Conference playoff race. Then, the Athletic’s Jovan Buha joins the show with an update on LeBron James and Rui Hachimura’s respective returns from injury, insight on the relationship between Luka Doncic and JJ Redick , and to discuss the Lakers’ biggest weakness.Host: Dave DuFourWith: Es Baraheni & Jovan BuhaExecutive Producer: Andrew SchlechtAudio Producer: Grayson Moodyhttps://www.nytimes.com/athletic/nba/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Chapter 1: Why did the Cavaliers lose their third straight game?
Good morning and welcome to the NBA Daily. Coming up, the Cavs lost their third straight. We got a couple of game winners and we're going to compare them. And then Yovan Buha breaks down the Lakers, LeBron's comeback, and what they need to do the rest of the regular season. Good morning, everybody. Good morning, S. How are you?
Good morning, sir. Man, what a night of basketball. Oh, my goodness.
Another interesting night. We have playoff implications on the line with a lot of these games. But before we get to the games that actually have some weight in the standings, we got to talk about the former. Best record holder in the league, the Cleveland Cavaliers, for the first time all season, they don't have the best record in the league. They lost their third straight game to the Kings.
Big win for the Kings, who are trying to stay in the ninth spot and hopefully get into that eighth spot in the play-in. But I want to start, I just want to talk about the Cavs. Losing three straight for a team that we've seen just cruising all year long, it's starting to raise some questions. I joked and said that they were frauds because they lost two in a row.
But now that they've lost three, now they're definitely fraud. They're obviously not frauds. But I am a little bit nervous that the scouting report is catching up.
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Chapter 2: What playoff implications are affecting the Kings and Cavaliers?
Yeah, I mean, look, let me let me try to contextualize the losses. So Orlando, they don't have Evan Mobley. I think some of the physicality that Orlando throughout them outmatched Clippers. They had a fully healthy roster, but also some of that physicality. I think the length, especially Zubats, did a great job in that like fourth quarter to be able to dominate. Right.
You look at this game against Sacramento. I actually thought they did a really good job defensively against them. Devin Carter, the rookie, was just a pest at the point of attack. I thought Malik Monk had a lot of good moments defensively. So this Kings team that's desperate sort of dug in and played good defensive basketball with no Zach Levine, no DeMontis Sabonis.
So I think credit to the Kings for locking in and doing what they had to to win this game. They had some electric moments from DeMar and Malik Monk in that fourth quarter to basically seal the deal. But I do think to your point, we are seeing teams be more physical with Cleveland. And when you're not, when you're missing a guy like tonight, the Cavs were missing Darius Garland, right?
They are so much the sum of their parts. You know, they are again, like I mentioned, like this egalitarian offense, like, When you take out one of those components, it makes it a little bit easier to be physical with them, take away one part, and then now you have that advantage, if that makes sense.
Well, we've talked a lot about Darius Garland and what he brings for them in fourth quarters. Totally. They obviously were missing that. And you're going up against a Kings team that really kind of has its back to the wall a little bit. The game didn't mean that much for Cleveland. is another thing.
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Chapter 3: How do the injuries impact the Cavaliers' performance?
I'm not trying to, you know, OKC now could potentially get, you know, home court advantage.
Oklahoma City needs to do their destiny is in their own hands. If they win out in the regular season, they don't lose a game the rest of the way. They would be guaranteed home court through the finals if they made it there. So, yeah, no, no big deal.
No big deal.
Don't lose another game. Speaking of losing games. I want to ask you a question. We had a couple of game winners. Which one was the worst way to lose? You had Cade Cunningham versus the Miami Heat sending them to their ninth straight loss as with a banked in three pointer. And it's Cade Cunningham like really good, but he hits the bank three.
So you chalk a little bit up to skill and put yourself in position to be lucky. But it's also luck. Or Andrew Nembhard, who just as a byproduct of good basketball offense movement comes off a screen, catches a catch and shoot three wide open 14.7 seconds left and puts the game away for the Pacers. Which one's the worst loss?
Woof. Well, I think it's the worst loss would probably be the Mavs because they are officially out of the play in tournament. The Suns winning against the Bulls tonight made it so that the Suns jumped to 10th. Mavs now move to 11th and Suns have a tough schedule moving forward, but they're kind of in the driver's seat because they have the head to head advantage tiebreaker wise with Dallas.
So, you know, to your point about OKC, they kind of just have to keep winning in order to keep their spot here with 10th. When it comes to the game winner, though, like the greatness of the game winner, I think the theatrics of Cade. Sure. National TV. First, I think it was like one of the first times that Pistons were on national TV this year. They got flexed into this.
They got flexed into this game. I think that part of it makes it so much more intriguing because of how great this Pistons season has been. I mean, you you you think of like all the great moments from this Pistons year, the records that they've broken and we've talked about. This was sort of a cherry on top, affirming everything. Right. Yeah. Cade Cunningham, by the way.
Got to eat my Cade Cunningham pie here. Cade Cunningham, yeah, yeah. 25-point triple-double for him in a national TV game, which the broadcasters kept kind of bringing up that the Pistons were flexed into. Right. You know, they don't really control the schedule.
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Chapter 4: What were the highlights from the game winners last night?
You know, I talked about this with Fred Katz on the Cats and Shoot podcast, and we talked about the Knicks, and I think that the Detroit Pistons – are a little bit of a nightmare matchup for the Pistons. And I think that this idea that we're just going to, like, pat them on the head when we get to the playoff time and just say, hey, congratulations, guys. You did a really good job to get here.
Now go sit. While the adults go move on into the second round, this team has enough juice that I think that they could be a really scary matchup for anybody in the first.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, they are extremely confident and you watch them throughout games like it's. Ron Holland talking trash constantly, and he's one of their rookies. Isaiah Stewart, who's just like always in the mode of like defending his teammates. You have these veterans in Tobias Harris and Tim Hardaway and Malik Beasley, and those guys are uplifting the younger players.
It just feels like the camaraderie is there for them to like believe in themselves more than anybody else believes in them type of thing. And it just makes for a really dangerous team in the postseason.
It was a real Esfandiar's choice there to make you choose between talking about Cade Cunningham and the Pistons and Andrew Nembhard. I know.
I know. I know. It was tough. It was tough.
Hey, look, it was a pretty good game for the Pacers, too. Whatever. It's all good. It was. Speaking of the Knicks. They went to San Antonio, and they showed up to a rodeo. My guy, Sandro Mamulixvili. Mamu had the game of his life off the bench for the Spurs.
34 points, 7 of 7 from 3, 13 of 14 from the field, 1 of 1 from the free throw line, because you've got to hit those, 9 rebounds, 3 assists, a steal, and only one foul. In 19 minutes. Incredible game. Garma Joba. Oh, my goodness.
I don't know what that means, but I agree. Garma Joba. Mamu. What a game. So there's so much to talk about here, actually. Honestly. So 34 points in 19 minutes. That is the first time that has ever happened in NBA history. Ridiculous to think of that a player scored 34 plus points in 20 minutes. First time ever. Okay. The other thing. He's apparently a very, very good friend of Flava Flavs.
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Chapter 5: What are the current standings in the Western Conference?
Mamou is an extremely nice guy.
That's all I'll say about that. And also, hey, by the way, Goga also had a pretty nice game.
Yeah, yeah.
The Knicks did not have a good game.
No, they did not.
Not a good game for the Wolves, who lost to the Pelicans. So let's kind of update the standings just a little bit. The Timberwolves are desperately trying to get out of the play-in, and they keep... kind of shooting themselves in the foot. They're losing these games that they really need to win.
Zion Williamson had a really nice game, but the Pelicans are not a good basketball team, and the Wolves are supposed to be. The Wolves now statistically are the eighth seed. They are one game back of the Warriors for that sixth spot. They're tied with the Clippers. And, S, look, man, they were on this nice winning streak. Yeah. Now they're stumbling a little bit.
This is kind of what they've done all year long, where they have these nice runs and then –
just fumble the ones they're supposed to win yeah they are they're probably the most confusing team in the nba uh just because you know we've been through stretches where i try to convince you that the timbrels are better than they actually are and then they kind of prove me wrong in moments like this they lose in that weird fashion to the pacers and then they lose tonight to the pelicans and they didn't have anybody on the team who could guard zion williamson like there was just and for
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Chapter 6: What does the future look like for the Lakers and LeBron's return?
And so the Wolves, it's just confusing to watch that team night in, night out, not have a true identity to hang their hat on.
Yeah. The Suns win. The Mavs lose. The Suns are now in that 10th spot. The Trailblazers are only two games back of the Suns after beating the Grizzlies. This is starting to sound like basketball when they're talking about the tournament. But the Grizzlies now have fallen to the five spot.
in the west right the nuggets are the four spot and the lakers are uh back in that in that three spot um actually the lakers still oh you're right you're right they are yeah the standings just updated for us while we were recording it was very nice um so as you know we're looking ahead a little bit we're thinking about playoff time yeah Who has nothing?
They have to play like there is nothing to lose. They have to win every single game for the rest of this week. We're thinking the Wolves here, the Suns are really on the precipice. The Blazers, it seems like they kind of want to make the play in.
Who's the team? Who's got to play the most desperate basketball? Yeah, I think it's definitely the Suns. And it's funny because, you know, Ryan Dunn finally out of the doghouse. Also, Iguodara playing finally minutes. You know, their rookies were actually being really impactful early on in the season. They fell out of the rotation. Now they're back in. in the rotation.
Game changer for their defense to have those guys back out there. A hundred percent. And another thing to mention is that in this little stretch where they've been playing better, no Bradley Beal. And I think he has been pretty detrimental on the defensive end for them generally, just not, having that effort to buy in at the point of attack.
And so their point of attack defense is a little bit better over the last week or so. I'm interested to see how the Suns look because they have a really, really tough schedule moving forward too. So not only are there a bunch of must-wins so that they can stay in the play-in, but they're doing it against some of the best competition. So good test, tough schedule.
Yeah. The Lakers took care of business over the Nuggets. No Jokic, no Murray again for the Nuggets. No, no miracle. Although Aaron Gordon had another really nice game. But the Lakers took care of business and we caught up with Yovan before the game. So Yovan Buha, our beat writer that covers the Lakers over at the Athletic, caught up with him before the game.
And he mentioned this team needs to shoot. And they shot the ball extremely well. What did they put up in the first quarter? I mean, I thought they were going to score 60 at one point. They wind up with 46 in the first quarter. And here I am thinking, wow, Jovan, just so prescient of mine here. He really understood what was going to happen tonight.
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