NBA Daily Worst: Kobe Bryant Fails in the Clutch and More from the Weekend
Welcome back to the Daily Worst where every day we recap the previous day's worst plays of the night, or, if it's a weekend we recap a whole weekend of bad for you! Now, if you're on this list, worry not. Things could be worse. You could be a member of the Harbaugh family.
Worst Play
You know life is getting bad when you get schooled by Brian "The White Mamba" Scalabrine. Now, let's set aside the fact that Scal hasn't traveled like that since he got back from Turkey. Superstars get those calls.
What's even better is that wrap-around assist to Kyle Korver. When two of the most unathletic white dudes in the game today run a transition game like Dwyane Wade and LeBron James, and have you looking like fools, you can only hope that you don't have children.
Worst Coaching
When the Clippers got Chris Paul, Chauncey Billups and Caron Butler, I thought to myself, "How bad can Vinny Del Negro screw this up?" I found out on Friday night. I mean, how do you not account for the opposing team's best offensive player on a game-winning shot opportunity?
Kevin Love had enough time to count how many licks it takes to get to the tootsie roll center of a tootsie roll pop—and then check his math—before getting this three off. That's bad team defense, and that points to bad coaching.
Worst Clutch Performance
Yesterday we had two of the game's biggest stars pull a Billy Cundiff and choke under the pressure of the game. LeBron James and Kobe Bryant both came up with epic fails when their teams needed them to come up big.
With Milwaukee up five and the Heat trying to close in on the Bucks, LeBron James had an easy lay-in that would have reeled the team in by three, brought the fans to their feet and given Miami a chance to win.
Instead he just comes up inexplicably short. See the 1:40 mark of the video to see it.
For the other one look at Kobe Bryant's performance against the Indiana Pacers. With five seconds left he took an extremely wrong three that was challenged and that didn't even come close.
He could have easily passed it off to Pau, then run behind him to get it back and use Pau as a screen to create a better shot opportunity from the corner.
Kobe just had a LeBron-like two points in the fourth. If that were James, we'd be all over him about "clutch genes" and the like. When you look at overall percentages, Kobe doesn't really fare any better than James in clutch time or in game winners. It's all just an illusion painted by the media and by what they choose to pay attention to and ignore.
Worst Call
The worst call is given to the official who blew it the most, or in this case, didn't blow it. Watch at the 2:10 mark of the video above and see Matt Barnes absolutely blow up Darren Collison. I mean, that was one darin' collision! But no matter how much Barnes dared the ref to call it, the ref didn't take him up on it. He blew it, and by blowing it, I mean he didn't blow it.
Worst Team Performance
You can't make a buck with nine dimes, and you can't beat the Bucks with nine. The Heat were horrendous against the Bucks when it came to taking care of the ball, turning it over 21 times.
Let's just say when as a team your assist/turnover ratio is .428, you're not going to win.
Miami has been having a hard time when it comes to the second end of back-to-backs for the last two seasons. In the Big Three era, they are now 4-7 on the second half of back to backs. This is a pretty good indication of their lack of depth.
Bakers Award and Up-Chucker Awards
We give the Bakers Award every day to the player who made the most turnovers—the basketball kind, not apple or cherry. This weekend it comes not surprisingly form the Heat game where Chris Bosh turned it over eight times.
The Up-Chucker award goes to the player who, in spite of having a horrendous shooting night, refuses to bow to the reality that the shots aren't falling and keeps pouring them not-in and takes so many bad shots it makes you want to up-chuck yourself
This weekend that distinction goes to Darren Collison who went a whopping 1 of 12 from the field on Friday night and had an effective field goal percentage of just .125.
Kelly Scaletta is an NBA and Chicago Bulls Featured Columnist, and one of the top NBA writers on Bleacher Report. He is trying to get better at twitter if you would like to follow him.
