NBA / 21 / 22 / FG / FT / 3PM / TO / BL / STATS

Nik Stauskas went off AGAIN:

43 Points
6 Rebounds
5 Assists
76% FG
9/13 3PM

🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/M6CagVIjDf

— Hoop Central (@TheHoopCentral) March 3, 2022

its stauskas

need to unsee that finger guns + wink pic

i feel like its p essential to understanding nik stauskas aka 'the stak'

stanky stak

i do not have want to understand the stak

Kangz

The loss by the Sacramento Kings tonight extends an amazing streak:

Winning seasons in Sacramento with Rick Adelman as coach: 8 in 8 years

Winning seasons in Sacramento with anyone else as coach: 0 in 29 years

— Josh Dubow (@JoshDubowAP) March 3, 2022

adelman the goat king

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander since the All-Star Break (5 Games):

33.4 PPG
5.8 REB
6.4 AST
1.6 STL
58.5 FG%
42.9 3P%

He’s averaging a career high in points pic.twitter.com/wlrXD4ZCCp

— 𝑪𝒐𝒏𝒆 🌩 (@Three_Cone) March 5, 2022

Tyrese Maxey since the Harden trade:

26.8 PPG
64.9 FG%
70.0 3P% on 5.0 attempts

We promise we didn’t make up those shooting percentages. pic.twitter.com/csinSHA9bA

— StatMuse (@statmuse) March 5, 2022

Maxey is now shooting 47%/42%/87% for the year.

And he’s got a top 3 smile in the league.

mikal bridges has to be in the conversation for top smiles

Sixers could have had the all smiles team, but noooooo.

36-7 for dinwiddie tonight with luka out

The Efficiency Landscape. What Jumps Out? pic.twitter.com/fNJpJfOpwx

— Kirk Goldsberry (@kirkgoldsberry) March 4, 2022

The Celtics were a whole lot worse for most of the season than they've been lately?

thats what were hearing

jokic 46-12-11-3-4 (16/22 fg)

almost unfair given the opponent but evan mobley with a 20-17-4-3 tonight

j randle 46/10 career high points

those are the kings we know and love

23 points on 7-15 FG, 5-9 3 PT for dinwiddie tonight playing 40 mins with brunson out

he musta been really depressed playing for the wizards lol

his three point shooting feels like it’s running a little too hot to sustain but maybe luka is just feeding him enough open shots that it can work

it feels like his role is pretty structured tho. they have three ball handlers, two of which are almost always playing at the same time, with him playing off the other guy, with shooters and a roll guy. feel like it’s pretty simplified in a way that might be working for him

he started the season on fire. always been a guy willing to take and make big shots.

pacers are kind of a G league team rn but 41-13-5 for darius garland tonight

Giannis 4-4 from 3 tonight lmao

Kyrie Irving with the most efficient 50-point game in NBA history – 101% true shooting 🤯 pic.twitter.com/xkeZdaxygL

— Todd Whitehead (@CrumpledJumper) March 9, 2022

whenever you get more than 100% you know thats good

it’s crazy when you watch kyrie he’s completely unguardable off the dribble and is also an amazing shooter. gotta say it’s a great combo

I don’t much care for the man

just in terms of pure enjoyment of watching a basketball player he’s up there for me

when he's on, he's got few peers

def one of the more charismatic games ever

hes not unguardable tho, maybe by the hornets lol

hes very small is basically his main weakness, he can be physically dominated, kinda like steph except his game isnt nearly as heady, one weird thing about kyries game is he doesnt hunt 3s enough and then use that to open up his drives, hes a super skilled player obvs but his game isnt that smart, and obvs just a dire defender in both ability, effort, and just realizing its a thing

Kyrie is the Aaron Rodgers of the NBA, just fundamentally unlikeable and weird in ways that make it hard for him to win in the playoffs, but also one of the biggest pure talents the league has ever known who is capable of some of the most impossible statlines

its smart of him to only play like 1/3 of the games available every season to keep the mystery alive of how good he actually is. all the players reverence him like hes basketball god on earth. his reputation is built on a 3 game stretch in the '16 finals and, outside of that, hes done nothing but torch a couple franchises, sit out games and throw in some nice and1 highlights.

yeah its go time for kyrie this playoffs see what hes got if he plays lol

still #2 on that team tho

kinda doubt his ability to function as a #1 option deep into the offs

well, kyrie’s reputation as a basketball god is really built on the fact that he’s one of the best ball handlers of all time and is just extremely gifted at scoring in a variety of ways despite being tiny. he’s also one of the most creative finishers at the rim i’ve ever seen, again owing to his size. i don’t think it has anything to do with what he did in the finals, allen iverson won one finals game ever and is revered for being a tiny baller in much the same way (kyrie is a better player tho). kyrie is like the apex and 1 style player, breaking you down with magician level handles and spinning the ball off the glass like a wizard, but he can also take a similarly sized player into the post and hit the MJ/kobe style turnaround fadeaway that an entire generation of ballers was indoctrinated into thinking was the purest form of basketball

at the end of the day i think this is the kind of stuff that other players really respect. it’s the antithesis of, say, giannis, who got dissed by harden for being so freakishly athletic that he only needs a bare minimum of skill to be dominant. or to take it to its logical extreme, rudy gobert who has literally zero offensive skill and is widely disrespected by his peers despite being one of the best defensive players of all time. i think even w/ steph his peers saw his long range shooting as a kind of cheat code & it took him some time to really gain that respect, whereas when other players close their eyes and think of what would be the dopest thing to do on a basketball court, it’s basically the one on one genius and pure basketball skill of kyrie (for better or worse)

i think it’s true that he isn’t a number one option to carry you through the playoffs but i think that’s kinda true for like any guy that size. when was the last time a PG just carried his team to the title? pistons era isiah thomas or something? steph was a mold breaker in that way to some degree except he was so bad in the one finals that igoudala won MVP, then blew a 3-1 lead to a superhuman giant wing player, and then needed KD to help take his team over the line to dynasty status. chris paul needed harden to even get close to the finals & then needed booker and a whole great team around him to actually get there. so i don’t really hold it against kyrie, he def needs a bigger sized star next to him to really take a team to that level but so does almost any small guy

to his credit is also a team cancer whos always injured and has never bothered to even try to learn how to play d

and fwiw steph played plenty well to win finals mvp giving to iggy was just one of those dumb awards things

i mean is 26-5-6 44/40/77 really bad lol

i think its fair to say that steph lead his team to the finals and kyrie really shouldnt be mentioned in the same breath

he has a really unique combination of caring and not caring. like it's impossible to be that skilled without being dedicated to the craft of basketball, but then it's really hard for me to imagine so dedicated that is also so indifferent to actually showing up and playing.

idk i remember thinking at the time that iggy really did deserve it. in any event if you wanna throw steph in the category of PGs that took their teams to titles i'm cool w/ that, i love steph, but it says more about steph's historical greatness than it does about kyrie (or cp3, or dame, or jason kidd etc) having some fatal flaw to their games aside from being short