NBA Week 22 Rewind: 73 wins looks likely for Warriors now
By Tom West
Who’s Heating Up?
The Atlanta Hawks are surging, finding some of the magic they captured the NBA with last season as they soared to 60 wins and the Eastern Conference regular season title. They’re now one of the hottest teams in the league, picking up their offense and rallying will a well-versed effort on defense, proving to be too much to handle, even with stickum-smothered basketballs from Dwight Howard.
With 11 wins in their last 13 games, the Hawks have been able to rise to 3rd in the East at 44-30, five wins behind the Toronto Raptors but just one win ahead of the persistent Boston Celtics. And in the contest before this 11-of-13 streak began, the Hawks went to overtime and almost beat the Warriors, falling 109-05.
It’s the typical elements of their style that has the Hawks at 3rd place now, leading them on a late season charge that has seriously helped their playoff standing. Since March 4 when they won 11-of-13, they’ve ranked 2nd in assists per game (26.7), 5th in blocks per game (6.1), and shot 47 percent from the floor while using their top-tier defense to rank 2nd in the NBA in net rating (+11.3).
The Hawks have made a slight reverse from last season in terms of what made their team win, falling from 6th to 14th in offensive efficiency while making an impressive climb from 7th in defensive efficiency to 2nd. They smother the perimeter with players like Kent Bazemore, Thabo Sefolosha and smart switches by the rest of the team, while Paul Millsap operates everywhere and protects the paint alongside Al Horford, enforcing the 4th best opponent shooting percentage within five feet (56.1).
Even though they aren’t the Raptors or Cavs, the Hawks deserve some attention as they sneak into top form completely unnoticed.
LeBron James put together his own highlight reel on the same Wednesday night that Stephen Curry and Co. rolled towards their 64th win of the season. A pin-point touch pass from the arc to Timofey Mozgov, a driving dunk that he reversed for no reason, and 26 points to follow up from his triple-double two days earlier gave us more of the plays that we know The King for.
As his career has continued, we’ve seen a slight decline in the terrifying, posterizing dunks, only adding to Curry’s takeover as the NBA’s best player in the eyes of almost everyone.
Yet, as the Cavaliers work through chemistry issues and wavering collapses on the court, LeBron is one constant producer, no matter what his cryptic tweets leave us questioning. The attitude is questionable at times, but when we see him reach a higher gear and enter take-over mode, he can dominate.
This season, LeBron has a rather moderate 15 30-point games to his name so far, adding two of them last week. With his second triple-double of 2015-16 (33 points, 11 rebounds, 11 assists), he helped the Cavs cruise past the Nuggets 124-91. With 26 points, he helped his team to a 113-104 win against the Bucks. Yet, despite 30 points on a near-perfect 13-of-16 shooting, the Cavs somehow lost to the Nets (yes, seriously, the 20-51 Nets) 104-95.
The Cavs continue to cause questions with moments like these. And as the season comes to a close and the team still lacks chemistry and constant effort, it seems more and more likely that LeBron is going to need to take over as only he can in the playoffs.
Klay Thompson struggled like every other Warriors shooter when they fell 87-79 to the Spurs on March 19. Suffocating defense, undefeated home court advantage, and the first block of a Stephen Curry three-pointer this season (courtesy of Danny Green) caused their worst offensive performance of the season and Thompson went just 7-of-20 from the floor for 15 points.
It was a sudden fall after he dropped 39 points on 63.6 percent shooting with 10 threes barely 24 hours earlier against the Mavericks, and now he’s found that same shooting rhythm again.
In a 114-96 rivalry victory over the Clippers, Thompson sparked the Warriors whenever they needed to make a run and led their charge in the third quarter when they turned a 2-point lead into a 14-point lead in a few minutes. He finished the game with 32 points on 12-of-21 shooting (7-of-10 from three) before capping off his week with back to back 40-point games for the first time in his career against the Mavs and 76ers.
As easy as it is to overlook Thompson as a shooter when he plays alongside Curry, don’t forget that he’s still going to retire as one of the best marksmen in NBA history, too.
Russell Westbrook is thriving as the NBA’s preeminent triple-double king and he’s helped the Thunder surge toward a five-game win streak. It’s exactly what they needed after a shaky spell, blowing more fourth quarter leads than any other team in the league and even being dealt losses by game-winning Ricky Rubio threes; something that’s enough to make anyone cry.
As for Westbrook’s incredible box scores, he’s done nothing but add his name to more and more places in the NBA history books. After recording three straight and increasing his 2015-16 total to 15 last week, he’s the first player to record that total in a season since Magic Johnson (17) and Michael Jordan (15) did so in 1988-89.
The only problem is a lack of efficiency as of late. Westbrook has still shot 45.4 percent this season (just 0.3 away from his career-high) and he has the ability to rack up 20 points on eight shots with a bunch of free throws to add up his total, but over the last five games he’s only shot 39.8 perfect while averaging four turnovers. Wavering efficiency, gambling with defensive positioning, questionable shots in key fourth quarter situations and turnovers are the primary weaknesses in Westbrook’s game, always leaving him open to typical hating and critique.
However, while those are areas in which improvement would obviously make a difference, there’s no way you can deny just how exceptionally talented he is in so many facets of the game.
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