The first game of the 2019-20 season was played 282 days ago. On Thursday, we have a kind of first game of the season that none of us could have seen coming. After a 20-week shutdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the season will continue in the Disney bubble with two games on Thursday. The NBA recently reported a second week in a row with zero positive tests for players’ coronavirus within the bubble, a promising sign as the NFL and MLB battle infections. Things can go south quickly, but at least for now, the NBA bubble experiment is working.
As you may have forgotten since the last time you saw NBA action, here are some key stories to watch as the league reboot begins Thursday night with the Utah Jazz vs. New Orleans Pelicans, followed by Los Angeles Clippers vs. Los Angeles Lakers.
Embrace discomfort
For those of you who haven’t been caught up in recent practice games (and who can blame them?), NBA basketball looks a little different in the bubble. The setup is probably the best you can hope for in this type of environment, as they’ve removed the empty seats (and cardboard cutouts) by surrounding the court with monitors displaying fans, dancers, and “local” team logos. Some of the practice games had fake crowd noise, while others did not, so it will be interesting to see how they handle things for opening night. Players are spaced on the benches. Some wear masks. There is no way to avoid it, it is rare.
That said, you should probably prepare yourself mentally for some discomfort. You’ll hear players cheering (or notably not cheering) on their teammates. There will be some inevitable mistakes with remote transmission. But hey, it’s NBA basketball and it will get better as things work out.
Lakers-Clippers redux star reducers
The top two Western Conference teams, who hail from Los Angeles, will meet for the fourth time this season on Thursday, although the circumstances will obviously be completely different. In the NBA you often hear about “schedule losses”, which means that due to travel circumstances, frequency of play, or quality of recent opponents, teams are not able to exert maximum effort in certain games. That won’t be the case on Thursday, which is an incredibly exciting prospect for NBA fans.
LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Kawhi Leonard and Paul George are healthy and ready (Davis said he hopes to play after being hit in the eye during a Lakers scrimmage game), and they all have the added benefit of more than four months. break from competitive basketball. Both teams are lacking key players (namely Montrezl Harrell and Lou Williams for the Clippers, Avery Bradley and Rajon Rondo for the Lakers), but the stars should shine brightly on opening night, something we’ve been waiting to see since the parenthesis began. in March.
Sion’s ‘short bangs’
NBA fans have been waiting for more than four months to see their son Zion Williamson’s uniquely effective playing style again, imagine a bowling ball with wings, and we’ll officially see it in action after the Pelicans announced that will play on Thursday. bubble opener. Williamson reportedly won’t have a minute limit per se, but will play in short bursts as he regains his conditioning after a departure from the Disney campus for a family emergency.
This is great news for Pelicans, who are fighting for a playoff spot and need every seed game win they can get. They had an absurd net rating of over 13.9 points for every 100 possessions with Zion on the court in 19 games this season, and they have a chance to take advantage of a Jazz team in their second real game of the entire season without 20 points per-player from game Bojan Bogdanovic, who is out for the restart after wrist surgery. The NBA is a more fun place when Zion plays, and it makes our reopening night that much more exciting.
LeBron on a mission
LeBron was reportedly one of the most vocal supporters of resuming the NBA season, which makes sense since the Lakers are the favorites to take the title home and we’re not sure how many more seasons the superstar can beat. 35 years. continue to act at an elite level. He may have a little more gray in his beard, but James could still be said to be the best player in the league, particularly when it comes to the playoffs. Expect him to come out energized to try to set the tone for his teammates in his first real NBA game since March.
AD vs. PG
The LeBron-Kawhi showdown will make the headlines, but the Lakers’ and Clippers’ success on Thursday and beyond could be due to the teams’ overqualified supporting stars Anthony Davis and Paul George. Both players battled persistent injuries throughout the season before closing, and now they appear to be healthy and in top shape. Assuming LeBron and Kawhi are both excellent and normal, the difference between the teams could be due to how dominant Davis and George can be when the other stars are resting or diminished by overloaded defenses.
This season, the Lakers have a net rating of minus 3.2 when Davis was on the court without LeBron, with the offense basically falling off a cliff. The Clippers drop from plus-11.6 with Leonard and George on the court to plus-2.2 when George plays without Kawhi. There are many other factors that contribute to teams’ performance without their best players, but it will be interesting to see how Davis and George play on reopening night and later in a possible playoff matchup.
The Zo Show
Those who dismissed Lonzo Ball as a failure after their first two injury-ridden seasons with the Lakers may want to review their position. Our own Brad Botkin detailed Lonzo’s significant improvement this season, averaging 13.8 points, 8.1 assists and 7.2 rebounds on 41 percent shooting 3-point shooting (nearly seven attempts per game) since joining the starting lineup of the Pelicans on December 23. In that stretch, New Orleans has a net rating of over 7.8 with Ball on the court, adding credibility to the idea that he also does the little things on both ends of the court to help his team win. Ball’s improved shooting form attracts the most attention, but his overall gameplay is one of the most entertaining in the league, now is a good time to start paying attention.
Jazz you need to tune
As previously mentioned, Bojan Bogdanovic missed just one game this season before undergoing wrist surgery that ended the season after the NBA shutdown, so the Jazz have just eight games before the playoffs to discover their best. approach to play without it. Bogdanovic is the team’s second-leading scorer with 20.2 points per game, and his only reliable 3-point high-volume shooter, with 42 percent in more than seven attempts per game. This season, Utah leaned toward a smaller, more extended offense, which has worked (from 14th in the NBA last season to eighth this season), but Bogdanovic was a big part of that. Utah’s offensive rating plummeted from 113.5 with Bogdanovic on the court to 105 without him. Now even more responsibility will fall on Donovan Mitchell, while Mike Conley and Jordan Clarkson will have to increase their score on the perimeter.
