LeBron James fired back at the Grizzlies and nemesis Dillon Brooks with a typical big-game performance on Saturday, Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times opines. Brooks got ejected for hitting James in the groin region, while the Lakers superstar delivered 25 points, nine rebounds and five assists in the 10-point Game 3 victory. “This is not my first rodeo, I’ve had this throughout my career with certain individuals,” he said.
We have more on the Los Angeles teams:
- James didn’t want to share an opinion on whether Brooks’ ejection warranted a suspension for Monday’s Game 4, Mark Medina of The Sporting Tribune relays. “I don’t know. I’m not part of the committee,” the Lakers star said. “If he’s in the lineup or he’s out of the lineup, we have to prepare no matter what. I look forward to the challenges that Monday will bring.”
- Lakers guard Austin Reaves is getting used to taking hits, Broderick Turner of the Los Angeles Times writes. Reaves said he was struck in the face three or four times during Game 3. He shook off the blows and contributed 13 points, six rebounds and two assists. “I’m getting used to it,” said Reaves, a restricted free agent after the season.
- There’s a simple reason why the Clippers are facing elimination — the Suns have their stars and they don’t, Law Murray of The Athletic notes. The Clippers are facing a 3-1 deficit with Kawhi Leonard sidelined the last two games and Paul George sitting out the entire series. That has put much more pressure on the remaining players, including four rotation members that joined the team in the last quarter of the regular season. “I think the biggest thing is acquiring four new guys during the trade deadline with only 21 games left,” coach Tyronn Lue said. “It makes it harder, because they’re still learning on the fly pretty much. And when Kawhi and PG both don’t play, it’s unfamiliar territory for the other guys.”
- Russell Westbrook has averaged 31.7 points and 7.0 assists in the last three games and former teammate Kevin Durant said his former teammate is showing up his critics, Janis Carr of the Orange County Register writes. “When he retires, people are (going to) really tell the truth about how they feel about his game,” Durant said. “Right now, the fun thing to do is to make a joke out of Russ but the way he’s been playing since he got with the Clippers is showing everybody who he really is.”
Good for Westbrook. Similar to CP3 a few years ago
“… who he really is”:
An empty stat player (numbers that don’t translate to winning)
Russ has been to the finals. And in the history of the NBA only 11% of players have been to the finals. So they must have some translation. And before you bring up KD, if you replaced KD with Westbrook on the GSW teams, they still winning.
Now if you want to have a real conversation, I would say Russ is a niche player, meaning his value is dependent on the system he is in. If you put him with players that are willing to run the floor, he would have won a lot more. He never got the right team around him.
“an empty stat player”
Deep thoughts.
Clippers experiment has to be the worst investment ballmers ever made, I would love to hear his thoughts when speaking specifically through a financial angle when using opportunity costs as the largest loss
For Ballmer it’s like counting the fluff in his pocket…
It’s not worth worrying about…
Through a financial angle, I think he actually did extremely well. In 21/22 season they profited $362million. Their 2nd best year was 18-19 at $282million, thats a 28% increase.
Now 19/20 and 20/21 were down years, but obviously the whole league was down, so you would have to extrapolate how they did compared to the rest of the league to get an accurate understanding of what they did considering the conditions.
Regardless in the last 3 years, the Kawhi years they profited $843million. Where the previous 3 years they profited $797million. So from a financial angle. Baller did pretty good
These are hobbies for these guys , doubt. They count Pennies along the way
The bigger question is who to commit too moving forward and more importantly ( imo ) who not too
I think they need to sign him for it to be worth it
Too true, too true KD!
A true hoops fan can’t hate one of the greatest ever, Russ is a legend, as simple as!
Tell that to every inbred yokel who has to say something about Lebron when the read his name