The Athletic NBA Daily
Lakers Shooting Luck? + Clippers SNEAKY Contenders? | Slam N Jam
Sun, 09 Mar 2025
Andrew Schlecht and Alex Speers discuss the week of NBA Basketball 6th man of the year , and our players, stats and quotes of the week. Then they are joined by Law Murray of the Athletic to discuss the LA Clippers and the defensive fall off, Kawhi’s health, and what the expectations look like for the Clippers in the post season. Then the boys play a fun edition of Andrew vs. the Beat, a trivia game where Andrew is pitted against a beat writer.Host: Andrew Schlecht and Alex SpeersWith: Law MurrayExecutive Producer: Andrew SchlechtAudio/Video Editor: Jake Kleinberg Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Chapter 1: What are the top stories in NBA this week?
While it's fun to talk about sports curses, Curse of the Bambino, Curse of the Billy Goat, the Madden Curse, if a team was actually cursed, would it look any different than what is currently happening to the Dallas Mavericks?
This week's top story is that Mavs All-Star Kyrie Irving tore his ACL on a drive to the rim, knocking him out for the rest of this season and likely a large chunk of next season as well. In the very next game, a 137-107 loss to the Bucks, the Mavs were only able to suit up eight players.
And to add insult to the many injuries in Dallas, the Mavs franchise announced this week that season ticket prices would be going up next season, a continuation of their new strategy to do the dumbest possible thing they can think of.
In other injury news, the Sixers released a statement this week saying that the team and Joel Embiid had consulted with specialists about his troublesome knee and determined that he is medically unable to play and will miss the rest of the season. The team and Embiid are working on a treatment plan with the hope that he will be able to return next season.
The Sixers are in full tank mode, having dropped 12 of their last 14. You literally cannot escape. Bad news for the Mavericks, because those two Sixers wins over that stretch were a win over the Mavs and a win over Golden State, a game in which former Mav Quinton Grimes scored a career-high 44 points. Meanwhile, Caleb Martin has still not suited up for the Mavericks.
Die Sixers haben aktuell den gleichen Rekord wie die Brooklyn Nets, die zusammengekommen sind. Sie haben sechs Mal verloren, obwohl sie fast die Warriors am Donnerstagabend gewonnen haben.
Hot auf beiden dieser Teams Hüllen sind die Toronto Raptors, die nur ein Spiel zurück von Philly und Brooklyn sind und, wie wir später besprechen werden, auf dem höchsten Niveau an Schwierigkeiten im NBA-Historie-Tankjob aufstehen werden. Now from the bottom of the East Standings to the top, the Cleveland Cavaliers have now won 12 games in a row.
None more impressive than a 123-116 win over the Celtics in Boston last Friday night. Within five minutes of the game starting, the Cavs were down 25-3. While they would close that gap, the Celtics' lead ballooned back to 17 with eight minutes left in the third. From that point on, however, the Cavs outscored Boston 53-29, led by Donovan Mitchell's 44th.
Jason Tatum hatte auch ein tolles Spiel, er hat 46-16-9 gespielt, aber das war letztendlich nicht genug und die Saison-Serie ist nun 2-2. Die Celtics würden in der nächsten Saison wieder zurückbauen, mit einem Home-Win über den Denver Nuggets.
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Chapter 2: How is the Dallas Mavericks' season going?
Ja, du hast Steph Curry erwähnt.
Hast du seine Vor- und Post-All-Star-Break-Splitte gesehen? Nein, wir hätten ihn für einen Post-All-Star-Break-Bounce auswählen müssen.
Ich glaube, wir sollten ihn haben. Der Leap von Steph Curry. Hör mal zu.
Also vor All-Star-Break 23 Punkte, 4,5 Rebounds, 6 Assists. Das ist okay. Nach 28 Punkten pro Spiel, 4 Rebounds, 7,7 Assists. Er war ein plus 3,6 vor All-Star-Break. Er ist ein plus 22,6 nach All-Star-Break. Und sein wahrer Schuss ging von 59,7 zu 71,3. Post All-Star-Break. Man, he's doing just crazy stuff again. He did the turnaround from basically half court to end of quarter.
And he just looks like he's got a pep in his step now. And that should be scary for the rest of the NBA. Because he looks, I mean, during this stretch, he looks like a top five player again. Das war cool, weil ich glaube, dass LeBron sich in der gleichen Art und Weise verjüngt hat, seit der Verkaufszeit. Wir haben das von Steff gesehen.
Ich denke, dass die Western Conference Playoffs wirklich interessant sein könnten, mit Steff und LeBron, die auf so einem hohen Niveau spielen. Both teams have really got to stay engaged through the rest of the season, which I think could backfire on them a little bit, just because they're not going to really have time to rest, just because the rest of the Western Conference is so tight.
But it is really fun watching Steph Curry right now. He's definitely been on a heater since really the trade deadline and certainly since after the All-Star break.
Ja, ich hatte nicht wirklich darüber nachgedacht. Ich dachte, okay, sie werden jetzt in der sechsten Runde sein. Sie sind jetzt in einer schönen Runde. Aber jetzt fangen wir an, in der fünften Runde zu schauen. Und es gibt noch drei Spiele zurück. Aber die zwei Teams vor ihnen, Houston und Memphis, haben sich nicht gut gemacht. Memphis ist in den letzten zehn. Houston ist in den letzten zehn.
Keiner dieser Teams hat einen super hart oder super einfachen Schedule. Sie sind alle in der Mitte. Ich bin interessiert, was Golden State tun könnte. Selbst ein Spiel wie gestern Abend. Sie haben zwei Punkte über Brooklyn gewonnen. Es war nicht so, als wären sie super beeindruckend.
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Chapter 3: What does the future hold for the LA Clippers?
Zwei Spieler in dieser Lineup.
Lass uns mit Kevin Porter und Amir Coffey gehen.
Das ist falsch. Gehen wir mit deinem ersten Namen, Andrew. You can steal two points here, Andrew.
Get back in the game. Anybody that's played on the team this year? Yeah. Or the current guys?
Anyone who's played on the team.
Okay. Bogdan? Bogdan?
That is also incorrect, Andrew. Correct answers. Now, Law's second answer was correct, mere coffee. But unfortunately, your first answer was incorrect. So you didn't get the points. The other name, James Harden. James Harden, a mere coffee. Wow, just a mere coffee. Just one little coffee.
Andrew, du hast das Board kontrolliert, du bist bei vier, du musst anfangen, Andrew, oder es wird ein Ausbruch sein. Du kannst dich nicht überraschen an Shaqs Geburtstag. Ich weiß. Evita Zubats hat so far 133 Dunks dieses Jahr. Wer war der letzte Clipper, außer Zubats, der so viele Dunks in einem Jahr hatte? 133... So it's gonna be a big dunker. That's a lot of dunks. It is a lot of dunks.
Especially in this part of the season. You still got 20 games to go.
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