Ohonsi's NBA Blog

The timing for this is random but I still feel like saying this (this'll take a few minutes). Over the course of Russ' career, he's struggled with playing out of control, bad shot selection, a weak 3 point shot, and inefficiency. There have been times when Westbrook has "statpadded" (which is really overblown since it's not unusual for star players to do so). Most of his legacy is about his flaws which is illogical considering how great he's been. Anyone with basketball common sense knows that the most important skill by far is being able to create your own shot at an all star level. Other skills are important but this is the only one that can make a team with a relatively weak supporting cast much better than it actually is. For example, think of Iverson in '01. Russell did the same thing in '17 while winning 47 games. Westbrook averaged about 32/11/10 without a teammate who came close to making the all-star or all-NBA team. But the amount of peop...

How many people can say that their 2 favorite players ever in any sport got traded for each other in their primes! Well history was made yesterday (unofficially 😄). If Wall gets back to an all star level, this trade will basically be even. That "if" is a big risk Houston took considering Russ might've had his best season outside of his MVP year and John played his last game in Dec 2018. Even though Westbrook is better when they're healthy, Wall should be a slightly better fit because he's a better and more willing passer. However, I don't see the Rockets as a legit threat to make it out of the west because John essentially has the same strengths and weaknesses as Russ. The true finals contenders in the conference are the 2 LA teams and Denver. As for Washington, Westbrook and Beal (at worst, 2 of the top 15 players in the NBA) might be able to drag the Wizards to the playoffs despite a very lackluster supporting cast but I wouldn't be surprised if they di...

I'm very disappointed in Butler for wanting absolutely no part of AD throughout the whole game. I can't remember the last time Jimmy was afraid (in tonight's case he was completely petrified) of taking over late in the game. It was honestly pretty embarrassing. Also, I'm still sticking with the Lakers in 5 but they have to get the ball to AD in the post consistently which they haven't done the last 2 games. That's why their offense has been so stagnant, especially tonight, with LeBron dribbling the air out of the ball on the perimeter pretty much every possession. He and Davis need to get in the post way more often to create easier shots for themselves and teammates off of double teams. However, when a team has the luxury of having the 2 best players (by far) in a series, they'll probably get away with bad offense.

I c an't remember the last time a zone defense got shredded like Miami's did tonight. The ball got into their paint way too easily which is especially problematic when their only rim protector, Bam, wasn't playing along with the fact that Bron and AD (him especially) are simply too big for Miami to handle. It's a lot easier to hang near the basket unguarded in a zone and the Lakers 2 best players took full advantage of that. The Heat can't guard those 2 one on one but they'd be better off playing that defense than playing zone. Their zone defense also allowed the Lakers to set a finals record for 3's attempted.

Despite scoring 28 points in one half (which is rare), it was done in the 2nd half which is far more important since a scoring explosion is a lot more crucial during that time, I'm still putting the loss mainly on Tatum. He settled for too many tough 3's and basically didn't attempt any other shot in the 1st half which is why he scored 0 points. Tatum is way too good to be that bad. If he had a much more diverse shot selection and still didn't touch the scoreboard, I'd blame the loss primarily on the many turnovers caused by Miami's zone. Many people have jumped on the Herro bandwagon this playoffs and rightfully so. But the real ones knew from the summer league how high his ceiling is. He proved to be an effortless scorer who looked so natural with the ball. A team that plays really well together like Miami is especially dangerous because they're less predictable meaning that they have more players than usual that can go off like Herro did tonight. Though t...