Big Government Kicks Westbrook Out, Ja Morant is Basketball’s Saviour and the Resurgent Celtics
After another huge week in the NBA that just happened to coincide with my work expecting me to be the lawyer they pay me to be instead of the NBA-addict I pretend not to be during meetings. Without at least 3 hours of Mike Breen commentary a week I go into withdrawals, chasing the high that comes from 60 year-old intermittently yelling ‘BANG’.
Before getting into it, on a note unrelated to basketball, I am completely devastated by the loss of the great Shane Keith Warne, who passed away at the age of 52 and will forever be the greatest bowler of all time.
I remember being 5 and my dad telling me to watch him closely, to watch his fingers when the ball came out his hand, it was like I was about to see someone do magic, and Warnie so often did. Before I understood exactly what cricket was, or even really what sport was, I knew Warnie was the best.
I’ll never forget his 700th wicket on boxing day in 2006 – as soon as the ball left Warnie’s hand you knew Strauss was gone. Warnie sprinted away as the bails tumbled, chased by some of the greatest cricketers of all time wanting to celebrate with him, wanting to share in another moment of individual brilliance, another time where Warnie made a world-class batter look like he’d never played the game before. Like many, I’ve been a critic of Warnie’s post-career commentary and I take it all back, I’m just sad now.
Soliloquising about the greatest cricketer of all time might not be the greatest way to lead into a basketball article, but the great man deserves recognition. To bring it back to basketball, he was our Jordan, rest in peace King.
Robert Willliams and the Resurgent Celtics
I’ve finally done my homework on Boston and caught up on their games – since the New Year Boston are 21 wins for 8 losses and have found themselves sitting comfortably at 5th in the Eastern Conference and are making a genuine push for home court advantage in the first round of the playoffs.
Now, I’ll admit to throwing barbs the Celtics way, but that’s because it’s fun to do and makes me feel good inside. In my own defence, the version of the Celtics on the court now isn’t much different from the version that ended 2021 with 16 wins and 19 losses, save for the addition of Derrick White.
The Celtics built momentum in the new year by beating up on the bottom half of the league, with a smattering of prove-it games against the Bulls, Heat, Nuggets and Sixers. It’s enough to decry any calls of small sample size with enough wins against genuine teams to show this is more than a blip. So, what’s the difference between the poo-poo Celtics and the team that just gave the red-hot Grizzlies a black eye?
The Celtics are completely suffocating teams on defense: they’ve held their opponents to an average of just over 99 points a game in 2022. The offense has improved from the clunky disorganised mess that saw Tatum, Brown and Smart stepping on each other’s toes as they fought each other for shots – they’re capable of scoring at least 100 points a night, that’s for sure. One of the improvements Boston has made to their defense has been the way they use Robert Williams.
Williams has taken up a rover-type role on defense, plugging whatever gaps spring up in the course of a possession. He’s a genuine 1 through 5 defender, who’s strong enough to battle with the big guys and fast enough to keep up with guards. Williams can fight through screens set by basically anyone but Joel Embiid, or can just extend his massive 7 foot 6 wingspan (he’s 6 foot 8 tall) and dare a player to try and make a pass or shot. So often, opposing teams 20 seconds into the shot clock and their lead ball-handler has run directly into a good four square metres of brick wall made by Robert Williams.
Williams is constantly blowing up offensive possessions, and he’s been given permission to move wherever he decides he’s needed most, regardless of who his man is supposed to be. This allows the Celtics to swap between zone and man defense on the fly, meaning that the other guys aren’t scrambling to cover for Williams as he constantly switches, they just slide into a zone when Williams changes his assignment. In one possession against Atlanta, Williams changed who he was defending 5 times, prevented 3 shots and ended up with the rebound after Atlanta were forced into a last second 3-point attempt with .5 of a second on the shot clock.
That’s become the hallmark of Boston’s defense: they know the other team has 24 seconds to decide how they’re going to score, and they spend every second of it pushing you to make the wrong decision. So often, they force teams to the very edge of the clock, and even when the ball finds an open shooter, the shooter has had to run three times around the court to try and find even an inch of space.
Williams is certainly more a defensive-minded player, he’s averaging 10 points from 6 shots a game: both career highs. He’s an athletic offensive rebounder who can work to clean up missed shots, but he’s been more effective in the last few months by staying out beyond the arc on offense, setting screens and being used in handoff actions, occasionally rolling to the rim but quickly ducking back out. A clear lane gives more room for Tatum and Brown to attack. Tatum has especially benefited from the extra space, allowing him to continue playing his usual isolation-heavy game, with the added threat that he can drive to the rim whenever he wants.
Outside of their two stars, Marcus Smart has become the playmaker the Cetlics have desperately needed and have lacked basically since Rondo left. Derrick White was a great trade deadline addition and already looks like he’s been on the team for 5 years and knows the offense inside-out. White is a product of the San Antonio Spurs and he seemed to be a favourite of Gregg Popovich, who included White in every Team USA squad during his time as coach. Now a Celtic, White might not appear to be lighting the world on fire based on his stats, but his ability to step up as a secondary playmaker takes a load off a team that previously had a habit of finding the ball stuck in the same players hands. Trading for Spurs players should be a goal for every franchise. Like White so many Spurs players are really smart guys who know how to play within a system, who perfectly understand their role on offense.
Just when their season was beginning to look, smell and taste like a complete failure, the Celtics have completely turned it all around. Maybe there’s some wisdom in not judging a team with a new coach that has 82 games to figure it out. For now, it’s all gravy in Boston and none of the issues that plagued the team have any chance to come back and haunt them in the playoffs – wait, have they figured out how to score against a zone defense yet?
Ja Morant is basketball’s saviour
Due to the events of the past week, it shouldn’t shock you to learn that I have ordered one of every Ja Morant jersey that the NBA store has to offer. I’d ask why you haven’t done the same.
In these articles, I try to shine a spotlight on areas of the league that you might not see in instagram highlights. However, Ja Morant is doing at least 3 things every single game that would be any other player’s career highlight. In the space of one quarter, Ja hit multiple deep 3’s, dunked all over 7-footer Jakob Poeltl and hit a twisting, falling, absolute nonsense buzzer-beater to end the half on his way to a career high 52 points. This was only 2 days after he’d scored 46 in a win against Chicago which included a 360-spinning layup with his back to the basket.
Ja is starting to receive some MVP buzz and I can’t think of any good reason why he shouldn’t be considered amongst Embiid, Jokic and Giannis as one of the top guys this season. I feel like I should be standing at an intersection screaming at pedestrians that Ja Morant is the saviour of basketball and failing to watch his games is a sin. I’m foaming at the mouth and speaking in tongues trying to tell people that he’s the youngest player since Lebron in ‘06 to score 40+ points in back to back nights. With everything going on in the world today, at least there’s the solace in the truth that Ja Morant is an incredible basketball player.
The Grizzlies are doing so many things right and there’s just no stopping Ja right now. He’s so athletic that his defender’s always on the back foot, waiting for the moment he decides to blow by, so he might just slow down instead and drop in a floater. His competitiveness seems to match his talent and he is doing everything to push his team to the next level. I can’t contain myself watching Ja play, I’m jumping out of my chair and screaming at the TV every five minutes when he makes yet another incredible play.
There are plenty of stats that I could pluck to tell you how good the Grizzlies are, but there’s no stat for pure excitement; Ja and the Grizzlies are the best show in basketball right now. You just need to watch every second of every Grizzlies game, regardless of who they are playing.
Big Government Kicks Westbrook Out
Just when the Lakers looked as if they were hitting rock bottom, they just kept making everything worse. This week’s lowlights included a 28 point loss to the Pelicans, which saw team owner Jeanie Buss leave her seat in the middle of the 3rd quarter. The Lakers are still sitting 9th in the Western Conference and don’t look like they will improve from that position. Since LeBron tweeted an apology to Lakers fans and promised to get better on 17 January, the Lakers have had 7 wins and 13 losses.
There’s a whole lot wrong with this Lakers team and not all of it is LeBron’s fault. They have somehow found themselves with both the oldest and most experienced roster in the league which also has the worst attitude in the league. Lakers fans, who are some of the most one-eyed fans in any sport, have been actively booing this team for the past month. It began with Westbrook, which makes sense because Russ has spent the entire season actively ruining this team, and even extended to LeBron after he passed the ball directly out of bounds in the direction of no one in particular. The active dumpster fire of the Lakers franchise is warming my soul.
Enter Reggie Jackson, aka Big Government, a nickname he’s earned for how often he’s bailed out the Clippers – without a doubt, the best nickname in the NBA. Big Government has been a nightmare for the Lakers this season, and the Clippers in general have been a nightmare for the Lakers, winning all of their last 7 matchups. Big Government has been looking to embarrass the Lakers, particularly Russell Wesbtrook, and he’s succeeding.
Earlier this year, Jackson casually skipped up the length of the court with his team down by 1 point and 12 seconds left in the game, before spinning through Russell Westbrook’s weak attempt at a double team on his way to score the game winning layup. The way that Jackson skipped up the court, so casual and yet so contemptuous, showed how little regard he has for the Lakers team, especially for Russell Westbrook.
Jackson’s contempt for Wesbtrook became apparent this week when he threw a kick towards Westbrook into his dribble combination, before crossing up Russ so badly that he was forced to trip Jackson to avoid being featured on every highlight reel, but the damage was already done. The casual way that Jackson throws a kick into his dribble, after he skips up the court again might be the most disrespectful move I’ve ever seen. It’s Jackson’s way of saying ‘I literally do not care about how you’re trying to stop me, because I already know it’s not going to work’. To make things worse, Jackson got the ball back on the inbounds after the foul, and hit a 3 directly in LeBron’s face for good measure. Game: Big Government.
For those not versed in NBA bench player history, Jackson was Westbrook’s backup in OKC for 3 and a half years before being traded to the Detroit Pistons. By all reports, Westbrook and Jackson weren’t exactly friends. Russ famously responded to a question about Jackson shortly after the two played against each other for the first time with nothing more than “who?” Jackson’s career stumbled in Detroit and he was waived by the team in 2020, when he took up a minimum contract lifeline with the Clippers.
Since leaving OKC, Westbrook has had the rub on Jackson and, for the majority of that time, has been the better player. Suddenly, Jackson has the opportunity to twist the knife against his long-time rival and here comes Big Government, skipping and kicking his way down the court.
When it comes to the Lakers, I’m nor changing from my view that this team is already dead and buried, and has been for at least two months. It doesn’t matter how many points LeBron scores on his own, they are just too far away from being a championship team.
If you think I’m desperately wrong or unfair or callous, please send me a DM.