Anthony Davis Ready to Face Massive Challenge Ahead and Monday NBA Takeaways
It's hard to figure out which is more remarkable: Anthony Davis' ongoing redefinition of the breakout season or the fact that he's had to be this phenomenal to give his New Orleans Pelicans a sliver of a chance at a playoff spot.
Typically, a talent as transcendent as Davis is a luxury. For the difficult road ahead of the Pelicans, his eye-opening play is a necessity.
In the Pellies' 99-74 win over the visiting Philadelphia 76ers, Davis turned in a stat-sheet stuffing 32 points, 10 rebounds, four blocks, three assists and three steals. He went 12-of-19 from the field and hit all eight of his free-throw attempts.
Davis also didn't give away the rock once against the Sixers on Monday.
That collection of stats has been amassed just one other time this season—by DeMarcus Cousins on Jan. 9, per Basketball-Reference.com. But Cousins needed 25 shots to get his 32 points, and he turned the ball over a whopping seven times.
It says something that Davis' statistical exploits send us scrambling for precedent on a weekly basis. Most of the time, we emerge from those searches with one conclusion: Davis is usually the only guy to have ever done "Amazing Thing X."
As an example, consider the fact that if Davis were to finish the season with his current combination of a 31.3 player efficiency rating and 2.9 blocks per game, he'd be the first to ever do it. And that's not cherry-picking; that's taking two basic categories (Davis leads the league in both, by the way) and learning nobody's ever done what Davis is doing.
It's not just the numbers, either. It's how he's getting them. The Brow flashed his typical highlight-heavy repertoire against Philadelphia.
He skied for alley-oops that nobody else could have reached:
He finished in the post like a technician:
He executed spins on the break that forced viewers to wonder if he might genuinely be a new species of athlete:
Incredibly, for all of AD's breakout brilliance, the Pelicans sit 1.5 games out of playoff position. They've now won four in a row and have bumped their record up to 24-21, giving themselves a three-game cushion above the .500 mark—their biggest of the season.
With Jrue Holiday out until at least mid-February because of a stress reaction in his right leg and a consistent lack of help from the supporting cast, the Pelicans have no choice but to lean harder than ever on their 21-year-old savior.
Holiday's on-off splits showed a plus-2.6 net rating when he was on the floor before his injury, the second-best figure (behind Davis' plus-5.3, of course) of any Pelicans player with at least 1,000 minutes on the season, per NBA.com. Without him, New Orleans must turn to Tyreke Evans as lead facilitator.
He handed out 12 assists against the Sixers, which is a promising sign. But if Evans is dishing the rock, he's not chipping in as a scorer (six points on six shots on Monday), which places an even bigger burden on Davis.
And Davis already gets plenty of attention as it is.
New Orleans is caught in between the Phoenix Suns, who won 48 games last year, and the Oklahoma City Thunder, who everyone assumes will go on a massive run whenever they can get Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook simultaneously healthy for a prolonged stretch.
The odds are against the Pelicans. History says they're too thin, too inexperienced and, more generally, just not ready to compete with the teams they'll need to fend off for a playoff spot.
But history isn't something Davis has shown much respect for this year. So rule out his Pelicans at your own risk.
Around the Association
Snow Happens
An already light Monday schedule lost a pair of games to mean old Mother Nature, whose decision to dump heaps and heaps of snow on the Northeast caused the NBA to postpone tilts between the New York Knicks and Sacramento Kings, as well as the Brooklyn Nets and Portland Trail Blazers.
Here's the league's official release:
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters on Sunday: "This could be the biggest snowstorm in the history of this city. My message for New Yorkers is prepare for something worse than we have ever seen before."
Message received.
Marc Gasol Is Bored
If you're Marc Gasol and you've mastered high-post passing, perfect defensive rotations and ground-bound 19-foot jumpers, what's there left to work on?
Headers, obviously.
Gasol couldn't convert the dead-ball bucket, but he did contribute 16 live-ball points, 10 rebounds and four assists in the Memphis Grizzlies' 103-94 defeat of the visiting Orlando Magic.
Aided by Zach Randolph's 24 points, 10 rebounds and six assists, Gasol and the Grizz toyed with the young Magic in the second half after building a hefty 19-point advantage at the break. Don't let the final score fool you; this one was done early.
The Grizzlies now sit alone in the No. 2 spot out West. They'll be right back at it on Tuesday in a road matchup with the Dallas Mavericks. That meeting will give the Grizzlies a chance to exact vengeance for a 103-95 Mavs win on Jan. 19.
And who knows, maybe Gasol will work on his bicycle kicks.
Steven Adams Is the Best
The quality of play in the Oklahoma City Thunder's 92-84 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves was, to put it delicately, not great.
Russell Westbrook was 7-of-22 from the field, the two teams combined to make six of their 33 attempts from long range and the overall assist-to-turnover ratio in the contest was 30-to-28.
There were bright sides to all the bricking: Serge Ibaka had 19 rebounds, and Gorgui Dieng grabbed 18 boards of his own—because those misses had to wind up somewhere. In addition, Andrew Wiggins scored an efficient 23 points on 14 shots while playing some intriguing on-ball defense against Westbrook.
But nothing was better than Steven Adams' postgame analysis of notoriously physical teammate Kendrick Perkins doing battle with the incomparably intimidating Nikola Pekovic.
Anthony Slater of The Oklahoman relayed the nugget:
Adams also snuck in behind Nick Collison during an interview with one of his signature looks:
Anyway, does anyone else think it's entirely possible Pekovic has wrestled actual bears? No? Just me?
Fair enough. Moving on.
Boston and Utah Somehow Played an Interesting Game
When two teams combine to be 24 games under .500 halfway through the season, you don't typically expect the meeting to feature multiple angles of interest.
But the Boston Celtics and Utah Jazz surprised us all.
Boston weathered a fun, feverish third-quarter surge from the Jazz (35-16 in the period) to hang on for a 99-90 win, but that wasn't the key point of intrigue.
For starters, Trey Burke came off the pine behind Dante Exum (who was 0-of-2 and sported a grotesque minus-24 in 25 minutes) embracing the role of bench gunner. The nominal point guard fired up 20 shots in 32 minutes, making seven. He did not register a single rebound, assist, steal, block or turnover.
It was all chucking all the time for Trey who, incidentally, made four of his 12 triple attempts.
There was also Derrick Favors registering this rude denial:
Not to mention Tayshaun Prince emerging from the fog of NBA anonymity to score 19 off the pine for the Celtics.
Gordon Hayward showed off for Brad Stevens, his former college coach, with 26 points, six rebounds, three assists, three steals and two blocks.
I'm not going to sit here and encourage you to watch every midseason game between lottery squads, but this one proved that even in the blandest matchups, there are always worthwhile tidbits to savor.
DeAndre Jordan Catalyzes, Jamal Crawford Closes
The Los Angeles Clippers got a boost from DeAndre Jordan at the end of a lackluster first half. The sequence featured three blocks and a sick reverse jam in two possessions, and it's better seen than described:
He was swatting everything.
DJ finished with seven points, 12 boards, four blocks and three steals. Bigger news: He was also 1-of-1 from the foul line.
Unfortunately, a choppy third quarter meant Jamal Crawford needed to play big to help the Clips finish the drill in the fourth quarter.
He did, overcoming a rough start to the contest by scoring 21 of his 23 in the final stanza.
L.A. is now 31-14 on the season. Its five-game winning streak is tied for the longest in the West, and Jordan is making his case for an All-Star nod.
Don't look now, but the Clips are rounding into form.
