Fri, Feb 14th, 2020

All-Star Break thoughts — Tatum’s leap — Linsansity

February 14, 2020

Friday, Feb 14th, 2020

  

  The Opening Tip

  • Surprises from the season heading into the break

  • Jayson Tatum’s leap

  • Which team is tanking best?

  • Eight years ago, Linsanity was peaking

1. The Lead: Five thoughts on the East and West standings heading into All-Star Weekend  

Via Yahoo Sports.

5. The ultimate prize in the East is the second seed. Whoever gets it (probably the Raptors or Celtics) will get to waltz through either the Magic or Nets and delay playing the Bucks until the conference finals.4. The Trail Blazers are running out of time to figure things out. They sit at an uninspiring 25-31 and are four games out of the eighth seed. Luckily, they have the fifth easiest schedule remaining while the eighth seed Grizzlies have the hardest.3. The Spurs are five games out of the playoffs with their least inspiring team since the late ‘90s, which says everything you need to know about San Antonio. The playoff streak might finally be over after 22 years, in which they won five championships. What a run.2. The Bucks lost their eighth game of the season on Wednesday against the Pacers, and are 46-8 heading into the break.

  • The ‘15-16 Warriors through 54 games: 49-5

  • The ‘95-96 Bulls through 54 games: 48-6

  • The ‘66-67 76ers through 54 games: 47-7

1.

To every 76ers fan

witnessing this emotional seesaw of a season, from every Celtics fan who witnessed the 2018-19 Celtics: We’re

really

sorry for what you’re going through.

2. Jayson Tatum’s grown-man move 

Jayson Tatum dropped 39 points last night in a Game of the Year candidate against the Clippers.

, in double overtime, avenging an overtime loss to the Clippers in L.A. in November.

Marcus Smart made a few big plays; Landry Shamet hit

to send it to double-OT; rookie Grant Williams played big minutes for Boston; but the story was Tatum going head-to-head with a title contender.

The Ringer’s Ryen Russillo

“Tatum has been on fire for a long stretch, but tonight feels different. Getting multiple buckets on Kawhi. Defending Kawhi. National TV vs. one of the real championship contenders. Tonight should be a significant date on his career timeline.”

He’s averaging 27 points and seven rebounds over his last 11 games.

3. Tankathon Update 

(Brought to you by our friends at tankathon.com)

It’s the All-Star Break, which means all these bumbling teams will take a few well-deserved days off from all their losing.A few notes:

  • The Knicks are safely out of playoff contention which means it’s time for them to start winning enough games to force themselves out of a top-four spot in the upcoming draft. 

  • We can’t say enough about Minnesota. After the D’Angelo Russell trade, the Wolves’ roster was barren enough to pull off a convincing loss to Charlotte on Wednesday. Also, they’re 9-33 since tweeting this.

  • Is Golden State bad or what? The Warriors’ unintentional comedy meter reached a new high on Thursday, when Shaq took a crack at pronouncing Alen Smailagić, who you might remember from our game show, Are these people current NBA players, or prime ministers of the former Yugoslavia?

An enviable commitment to tanking: Harrison Barnes announced on Thursday that he wouldn’t shave or get a haircut until the Kings reached .500, or the end of the season. Harrison -- if you wanted to know what not shaving until the end of April felt like, you could have just done it. 

4. Steven Adams’ first career 3, shimmy

Watch the way he guides that thing in.

5. 2/14/2012: Lin ... puts it up ... bang! 

On this day eight years ago, Jeremy Lin scored 27 points and nailed a game-winning 3-pointer on Valentine's Day to give the Knicks their sixth win in a row.His heroics in Toronto came at the height of Linsanity; the win capped a six-game win streak in which he averaged 26.8 points per game on 50.4 percent shooting. Before that, his season-high was nine.Some other memorable moments for Lin during that stretch: 

  • 2/04/2012: 25 points against the Nets, which started Linsanity. 

  • 2/06/2012: 28 points on 10 of 17 shooting against the Jazz.  

  • 2/10/2012: 38 points against the Lakers.

  • 2/19/2012: 28 points against the Mavericks.

 6.  Quick hits