Every day in the NBA there is a lot to unpack, so every weekday morning throughout the season we will give you the three things you need to know from the last 24 hours in the NBA.
1) Trae Young is both lucky and good with game-winner against Milwaukee. Maybe it is better to be lucky than good, but in an ideal world you’d want to be both.
That’s what Atlanta’s Trae Young was on Sunday.
Young was not having a great night — 4-of-18 shooting for 10 points — but he and the Hawks had pushed a Bucks team resting everyone (Greek Freak, Middleton, Bledsoe all out) to overtime. In the extra period, the Hawks were down one, 135-134, with 1.1 seconds remaining, but Atlanta had the ball and time for one last inbounds play to get the win. Coach Lloyd Pierce ran a down screen to try to free Young moving toward the ball, but just as Young comes free inbounder, Kevin Huerter, decided he could lob the ball to John Collins at the rim for a dunk. However, Milwaukee’s Brook Lopez read it perfectly, deflected the lob, and… there’s Mr. Lucky, Young.
Give Young credit — the body control it takes to grab that in the air and get it back up on the rim is impressive. It is one of the best game-winners of the season.
It took a little bit of luck.
2) Night of ejections: DeMarcus Cousins, Nikola Jokic, Gregg Popovich all get tossed from their games. What was in the Gatorade in NBA arenas Sunday? There seemed to be ejections everywhere.
Let’s start with Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets. There was some history in this game between Jokic and Bobby Portis, they had been going back and forth all night, including Jokic getting a bloody nose on this play.
Through it all, Jokic felt he wasn’t getting the calls. Then in the fourth Jokic wanted a foul call on his putback bucket, didn’t get it and snapped.
That wasn’t the end of it, Jokic’s brother got into it with Bobby Portis and Jordan McRae after the game.
None of this is good, but let’s focus on Jokic’s ejection. He has lost his cool a couple times recently — remember the ejection vs. Indiana — where he lost his composure and in the process cost his team. Jokic cannot do that.
I get he was frustrated, but he is the best player on the Nuggets and the fulcrum of their offense, and in this case there was 3:47 left in a game where his team was down two. In a close game, the Nuggets need him on the court. He simply has to have more control than he has shown. Watch the video and you can see the referee gives him a quick tech, but then gives Jokic a chance to back off and move on to the next play. Jokic kept coming hard. He got tossed, and the Nuggets lost. Denver coach Mike Malone needs to sit Jokic down and get on him about his composure on the court. It matters.
Let’s move on.
DeMarcus Cousins also got ejected, although his was for a Flagrant 2 foul, an elbow to the head of Willy Hernangomez.
The NBA is quick with flagrant fouls for blows to the head, intentional or not. Was this worthy of a Flagrant 2 and an ejection? I don’t think so, I’d say Flagrant 1 and move on. But this is DeMarcus Cousins and he does not get the benefit of the doubt with officials.
Finally, watch Gregg Popovich lose his… um, cool (this is a family-friendly website) and get ejected. You don’t see this every day.
3) Duke is done, Zion Williamson is on to the NBA, and by the way, R.J. Barrett is not falling down draft boards. The next time you see Zion Williamson play, it will probably be in Las Vegas at the NBA Summer League.
(Or maybe the Utah or Sacramento pre-Vegas Summer Leagues, depending upon who drafts him.)
The NBA was buzzing about the same thing fans everywhere were on Sunday, that Duke got into one too many close games and screwed up your bracket (although those of us who picked Virginia to win it all feel pretty good today). This is a stacked Duke team with the presumptive No. 1 pick in Williamson and two other players — R.J. Barrett and Cam Reddish — who are expected to go in the top five or six. Michigan State earned the win. Duke had been living on the edge for a couple of games in a row, this time someone else stepped up with the big play and made the shot.
Zion Williamson will be the No. 1 pick and teams across the league are setting up altars and offering rum to Jobu in order to please the gods and land that pick — Williamson looks a franchise cornerstone player. The best prospect in the eyes of many scouts since Anthony Davis. Williamson is an insane athlete, already has an NBA body, can leap out of the building, shows a point guard’s feel for the game and can defend at the rim. But what some scouts like best is how hard he works and plays. He doesn’t just coast on all that natural talent.
In the Duke loss, Barrett was 7-of-17 with six assists but seven turnovers. Not a good outing on a huge stage. That, of course, led to overreaction from some on Twitter, people who have watched three of his games now saying “his draft stock is falling.”
No, it isn’t. Barrett likely goes No. 2 or 3 (depending on who gets the pick).
Scouts from interested team watched every game he played (most multiple times) and that team’s GM has now and/or will have seen many games also, on tape and in person — they have a much better and broader picture of the player. Teams with good scouting departments do not get swayed much by the NCAA Tournament or one game. They already know who the player is. That is certainly the case with Barrett, who has been seen as a top pick in this class for years.
Teams that like Barrett’s playmaking (which should look better in the NBA when there is more shooting around him). His decision making has improved over the course of the season, to the point that on this loaded roster Barrett became the guy Coach K trusted to run the offense through. He was incredibly efficient this season: He averaged better than 22 points, seven rebounds and four assists in a game. Whether he can make an All-Star level in the NBA is up for debate, but after Williamson there may not be a player of that level in this draft.
Barrett will be just fine. And get drafted very high, one off night or not.
