Last Night In The NBA: Opening Night Was Awesome

Good morning everybody and welcome to another edition of Last Night In The NBA where we catch you up on everything that went down from the night before in the Association. As you obviously know by now, it was Opening Night last night and boy did it not disappoint for most of us. We have officially moved on from the fake games to the real games that don’t matter because GS is going to win the title and frankly I could not be more excited. We had two games on the schedule last night which was a little lame, but it was still a great night of basketball for anyone who enjoys this league. Now I get it, there was also playoff baseball going on so if you decided to be a moron and watch that instead, I won’t judge you. Well I mean I will, but I’ll also tell you what you missed so just keep on reading.

Boston Celtics (1-0) 105 vs Philadelphia 76ers (0-1) 87

I’m going to have to ask you for the Celtics blog that will be coming later for my thoughts from a Celtics perspective, I’m still trying to come down and figure out how I am going to translate what I saw into words. You won’t want to miss that. Instead, let’s review how the Sixers did, because while the score would indicate they were in fact frauds and not good, that doesn’t mean guys like Ben Simmons didn’t put up insane empty numbers

Let me say this about Ben Simmons. His shot may still be messed up, but he is such a goddamn physical force it’s insane. I mean he gets where he wants to go whenever he wants and does things at his size that shouldn’t be possible. It really is impressive to watch in person, and you can see why Sixers fans hype him so much. That one play where he had that behind the head pass literally made me gasp. It’s OK to agree that the Sixers may stink, but Ben Simmons is AWESOME to watch.

Then there was his running mate in Embiid, and here’s another truth. Embiid can play like shit and still drop 20/10 on you with ease. That’s pretty cool

Unfortunately, the same issues we saw the last time these two teams played still exist. The Sixers, who lost some of their best shooters over the summer, cannot hit an outside shot and that’s a problem against a team that knows how to defend. The problem with these two is it’s a system thing, where the Celtics know what PHI wants to do, and the Sixers have no way of countering. They have to figure that shit out if they want to stop losing every time these two teams play. That’s not hyperbole either, the facts will show PHI has now lost 19 of 22 against BOS.

Oh, and for all that hype after Fultz made that one preseason three, he finished 2-7 with 3 TOs. Long way to go there as well. It wasn’t just him that struggled though, as a team they shot 39/19% and never had a quarter over 24 points. I don’t care who you are, you shoot like that at this level, things are going to end badly for you.

Golden State Warriors (1-0) 108 vs Oklahoma City Thunder (0-1) 100

Now, you win the title, which just so happens to be back to back, before we get into the game you deserve a minute to talk about the ceremony

Listen, you can hate the Warriors, but you cannot hate that ring. That thing is fucking awesome. Granted when you win so many of these things you have to keep pushing the envelope, but that reversible part? That just changed NBA title rings forever and is extremely cool. If you’re hating on that ring you’re just salty and that’s a fact.

What made this game interesting was it was very un-Warrior like. What I mean by that was normally they sort of coast through the first half to give you false hope, and then the third quarter rolls around and they bukkake you in 5 seconds and are up 20. Last night was different in that they really tried in the first half, built a 10 point lead, but then sort of laid an egg in that third quarter to make it a game. This game really was close until the final few minutes which had to make the league happy, but it made me very very sleepy this morning so I wasn’t exactly thrilled. At the end of the night the Warriors you all expect had great nights with Curry dropping 32/8/9 on 11-20 shooting

Durant with a cool 27/8/6 on 9-21 including some big buckets late

But they only made 7PM as a team which was odd to see. All in all it was probably a pretty awesome night in the Bay for the Warriors and their fans, let’s hope this is finally the last time we have to do this.

For OKC, it’s clear they could have obviously used Russell Westbrook. Something tells me maybe things would have gone differently, but the good news is now that he doesn’t have to stress about his free agency, Paul George looked awesome

Filling in was Dennis Schroder who made his OKC debut, and while he has some of the same issues we saw from him in ATL, he was still solid with a nice 21/9/6 and an outrageous haircut

But sadly, the Thunder had their lowest scoring quarter in the fourth when it mattered most (21), and as a team they shot just 36/27%. Hard to do that against the champs in their building and expect to win, even though they nearly pulled it off. Once this team gets Westbrook back and doesn’t face a team of basketball aliens, I think they’ll be fine.

And that’s it! You’re now all caught up on everything that happened last night in the NBA. We’re back tonight with 11 games on the schedule so basically a full slate. Get used to it because this is basically our life from now until June. Man does that rule. Obviously if you still want to make the decision to watch baseball tonight that’s fine, just come back tomorrow and I’ll fill you in on what you missed.