On Wednesday, an aura of collective joy permeated the homes of NBA fans around the world, as real basketball, an NBA team playing against another NBA team, took place for the first time since March. Sure these are exhibition games and don’t count towards qualifying, but they take on a new level of importance and energy due to the four-month hiatus.
The temptation to overreact to the first game of games is almost impossible to suppress, but a lot was reduced on Wednesday, from genuinely exciting to comically uncomfortable, when we first saw what NBA basketball will look like within the disney bubble. . Below are the scores of the first reboot scrimmages, along with some key conclusions.
NBA Scrimmage Scores for Wednesday, July 22
Bol Bol is an absolute delight
We had heard rumors that Bol Bol, the mysteriously tempting rookie from the Nuggets who hadn’t played an NBA game yet, looked great in practice, and we got to see his talent in full bloom on Wednesday in his Denver debut. The 7-foot-2, 20-year-old wasted no time working in the NBA on Twitter in a frenzy with his blocked shots, triples and ball handling. He finished with 16 points, 10 rebounds and six blocks in a win over the Wizards, producing countless highlights along the way.
Bol also reportedly caught the league’s attention as he underwent a random drug test after the game.
Bol’s performance was exciting on several levels. First, it was just fun to watch, especially after the long break from NBA action. Second, Bol just hasn’t played much since high school, taking the floor for eight G-League games this season after playing just nine games as a freshman in Oregon. Third, there is a real possibility that Bol could watch minutes during the seed games given the Nuggets’ current lack of bodies.
Obviously, looking good in an exhibition game against the worst team in the bubble is no guarantee of future success, but Bol, who has a ridiculous 7-foot-9-inch wingspan, displayed an intriguing skill set that shows the power of the second. round of the Nuggets. end up paying big.
A healthy and rested PG-13
As Robin of the Clippers for Kawhi Leonard’s Batman, Paul George hasn’t consistently looked like him this season after offseason surgery on both shoulders. However, it seems George got healthier during the break as he racked up 18 points in 19 minutes in Wednesday’s win over the Magic.
George has been in and out of the lineup throughout the season due to various injuries and load handling, and his point average has dropped considerably since last year, but when he and Leonard are on the court together, the Clippers have been nearly unbeatable (plus 11.6 net rating in 760 minutes). They will need George to be in top form if they are to compete for the title during the reboot.
Denver literally “miles high”
You may have been confused when you saw five Nuggets standing 6-7 or higher, three of them 6-11 or higher, for the opening tip against the Wizards. You weren’t alone. Because he only had eight players available, Mike Malone started 7-foot-tall Nikola Jokic as a base, along with four other players from the front court: Paul Millsap, Jerami Grant, Mason Plumlee and Bol Bol.
The lineup looked like something out of Gulliver’s Travels, but it ended up being quite effective due to the diverse abilities of the players involved. Eventually, a royal guard, Troy Daniels, entered the game and enlightened the Wizards by 22 points, but it was fun to see the gianto lineup do their thing for a while.
The missing Denver players have been the subject of much confusion throughout the “summer camp” so far, but some of the players were sitting by the court who had not yet been authorized to play. Nuggets broadcasters joked that Jamal Murray, who is in Orlando and healthy, did not play because he was tired of a recent golf outing. At least we think they were joking.
Unknown silence
This was our first look at NBA games without fans, and it was as strange as expected. You could hear the squeal of sneakers, the bounce of balls, and the players talking, while the voice of the AP announcer was much more audible than usual.
After the Clippers’ win, coach Doc Rivers said the positive is that the lack of crowd noise allowed players to hear their teammates cheering them on, which is not normally the case. Lou Williams said that once the game started, he didn’t even realize there were no fans.
The Miami Heat had fans (more or less) during their game against the Sacramento Kings, as members of the Heat faithful were projected on a large monitor sometimes for the “home” team.
It will be interesting to see how the lack of fans affects players in the bubble, especially at the time of the playoffs.
Hot Microphone
What would be any COVID related event without some technical difficulties? The Nuggets ambitiously created a broadcast team of several people, each set up in their own remote studio or at home. For the most part, it worked, but it inevitably turned into a nightmare called Office Zoom in the first half. For a few minutes (even during a break in the game), the stream sounded like this:
- “Can you hear?”
- “I have listened to you all along.”
- “I will stop silencing my computer and see if that works better.”
- “I can put the headphones back on.”
They finally figured things out, and all credit goes to Chris Marlowe, Scott Hastings, Dan Issel, and the entire production team for handling it quite professionally. But this only shows the difficulties associated with streaming games in this strange NBA situation.
Clippers announcer came to play
Not only the players had four months off. Clippers presenter Noah Eagle has clearly used his downtime to study the team as he walked out the door throwing gems like “Lou Williams leads all Clippers at waiting points with 66” and an incredibly detailed story. and well researched on rapper Sheck Wes tops the list of childhood friends and the Orlando Magic Mo Bamba center. Eagle set the bar high in his first game since halftime.
Where is Brooklyn?
The Nets are extremely short in the bubble with Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, Spencer Dinwiddie, DeAndre Jordan, Taurean Prince, Wilson Chandler, and Nicolas Claxton, all out of the reboot for various reasons. They were even more exhausted on Wednesday without Joe Harris or newly acquired veterans Jamal Crawford, Tyler Johnson and Justin Anderson. As a result, we saw a consistent dose from Chris Chiozza, Dzanan Musa, Jeremiah Martin, and Lance Thomas.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Brooklyn lost 31 points to the New Orleans Pelicans without Zion Williamson. It will be a difficult road to the playoffs for the Nets; Fortunately for them, the only team that can beat them is the Washington Wizards, who have their own problems. They’ll need tremendous bubble performance from Caris LeVert, who went 5-for-18 against the Pelicans as the team’s primary offensive weapon, if they are going to make noise.
How to ride a bicycle
Some felt that the four-month layoff could affect shooting more than any other skill, particularly since not all players had access to gyms, coaches, and their normal routines. An unaffected player: Duncan Robinson. The Heat sniper did not miss a beat on his first scrimmage, hitting 4 of 5 triples in less than six minutes to start the game against the Kings.
Robinson, who finished with 18 points on 5-of-8 3-point shooting, is second in the NBA in 3s this season and fourth in accuracy at 44.8 percent. Surely shooting doesn’t seem to be a problem for him in the bubble, either.
