Mon, Aug 17, 2020

Playoff thoughts — Java Jimmy — Jim Boylen

August 17, 2020

Monday, August 17th, 2020

  

  The Opening Tip

  • Today marks the beginning of the best two months in sports

  • Inside Jimmy Butler's new coffee shop

  • The Bulls recently fired Jim Boylen, who is notable only for his lack of success

Playoffs

1. The Lead: First round playoff thoughts, West edition

Image via Bleacher Report

No. 1 Lakers (-500 to win the series) vs. No. 8 Trail Blazers (+360 to win the series)

Game 1: Tuesday, 9 p.m.This is not a Grip Original Thought, but it’s a good one nonetheless: People flirting with the idea of an upset in this series like to bring up the point that the Lakers don’t have anyone to guard either Damian Lillard or CJ McCollum. (FWIW, Rajon Rondo is joining the team today.)COUNTER QUESTION: Who do the Blazers have to cover LeBron James? ... Carmelo Anthony? Their defense got shredded by Caris LeVert in a de facto playoff game last Thursday.This series is less lopsided than most No. 1 vs. No. 8 matchups, but to choose Portland straight up (like Charles Barkley has) is nuts.

  No. 2 Clippers (-530) vs. No. 7 Mavericks (+380)

Game 1: Tonight, 9 p.m. The Mavericks get to see Luka Dončić in the (NBA) playoffs for the first time, which will make the 2019-20 season all worth it. (Kristaps Porzingis will be making his postseason debut as well.) Dallas might put some pressure on the Clippers and force it to, say, Game 6, before L.A. takes care of business. Regardless, this is house money for Dallas, and the impending first round loss feels like the growing pain before the transformation into an elite team next season and beyond. 

  No. 3 Nuggets (-278) vs. No. 6 Jazz (+220)

Game 1: Today, 1:30 p.m.Denver's Michael Porter Jr. is averaging 22 points on 42.2 percent shooting from deep during the restart. He shakes up Denver's rotation and its playoff ceiling, and has rendered fellow young Nuggets Jamal Murray and Gary Harris much less meaningful. (MPJ and Nikola Jokic already have a better report than Jokic and anyone else on the team does.)The Jazz, who are thin on scoring without Bojan Bogdanović, will be without Mike Conley to start the series, and are going to have to stomach more Jordan Clarkson than they'd probably like. 

  No. 4 Rockets (-148) vs. No. 5 Thunder (+120)

Game 1: Tuesday, 6:30 p.m. Russell Westbrook is out to "start the series" after straining his quad, which is perfectly vague and means an even heftier dose of James Harden in the meantime. The entire Rockets experiment -- committing 100 percent to small ball and not playing anyone over 6-foot-8 -- is built on fragility. Westbrook's injury could be a fatal blow to a weird season in Houston if Harden doesn't score 40 points per game this series. (That's possible, of course.)  PS: We have a prediction. With no actual home court advantage throughout these playoffs, a team will go down 3-0 and will comeback to force a Game 7 for only the second time in NBA history. And if that doesn't happen ... we'll wipe all evidence of this section off the face of the earth. PPS: We'll do the Eastern Conference version of this on Wednesday. [LISTEN: The 25 most intriguing NBA playoff people]

2. Carmelo Anthony is a play-in game legend

The Blazers -- who have dominated the bubble thoughtscape in every way -- won the NBA's first-ever play-in game on Saturday, 126-122, with the 3-pointer above serving as the dagger. Carmelo finished with 21 points. In eight bubble games, he's averaging 16.5 points on 46.9 percent from 3. Curse that (person) with a calculator. 

3. An NBA player must open a competing coffee store to end this price-gouging madness

Jimmy Butler, who is predisposed to this kind of trolling, has apparently opened up a coffee shop in the bubble, called Big Face Coffee. A few notes:

  • He is running BFC from his hotel room. That sign is real and hanging outside his door. 

  • He appears to be selling all the gourmet options. It's clear he knows his way around a fancy espresso machine. 

  • BFC does not give handouts, and charges $20 for every drink regardless of size. Also, it's cash only. 

  • According to Butler, that $20 tag might go up soon. "You can't get coffee nowhere here," Butler told ESPN. "So I might bump it up to 30 bucks a cup. People here can afford it."

First off:

Bravo.

But what's missing from this saga is a spite store, like in the latest season of

Curb Your Enthusiasm

,

Latte Larry's

right next to

Mocha Joe's

after feeling slighted during a customer service interaction between he and Joe. (The two

of a history.)

So, this is a call

for another Heat player, say Meyers Leonard, to open up

Macchiato Meyers'

as the

Latte Larry's

to

Java Jimmy's'

Mocha Joe's

. 

 4. The Bulls fire Jim Boylen, who has an honest claim to worst NBA coach ever    

The Bulls fired coach Jim Boylen, who cosplayed a drill instructor for two years and did nothing to improve a moribund franchise, on Friday. He lasted two years. Among his transgressions (listed in full here): 

  • He created a "leadership council" after his team almost forced a mutiny a week into his Bulls tenure for "extreme tactics" during practice.

  • He installed a physical punch-in clock at Chicago's practice facility. 

  • He once called a timeout and drew up a play down 10 points with 30 seconds left, which would be annoying even in high school. 

  • He coaxed this evaluation from Bulls rookie Daniel Gafford last month: "I don’t like him a lot, but he's OK. Got some things he can work on, got some things he can get better at as a person and as a coach. I’m not going to hate on him. I’m not going to hate the man." Inspiring. 

[

READ

: 

]

5. By the numbers

  105.2 offensive rating

Of every team in the bubble, the Lakers have the third-worst offensive rating since the resumption of the season, at 105.2. (Offensive rating = points scored per 100 possessions.)  

  29.5-13.6-5.6

With the regular season finally over -- about 10 months after it began -- Giannis's absurd season is cemented: 29.5 points per game, 13.6 rebounds, 5.6 assists, 30.4 minutes per game. From a raw stats perspective, that's better than any season Shaq put up.

  +250, +250, +270

Entering the playoffs, Odds Shark has the Lakers and Bucks both at +250 to win the title, and the Clippers at +270. This is the type of even spread we've waited the past five years for.  

175-225

The Pelicans fired Alvin Gentry over the weekend, after five mostly underwhelming years. He did have two elite moments though: New Orleans' 2017-18 playoff run, and this. 

 6.  Quick hits 

  • This from Joel Embiid is the one of the funnier things he’s ever done. 

  • From Reddit: The Blazers are the first team since 1997 to qualify for the playoffs in the West with a losing record. 

  • The Raptors are the first team since the ‘73-74 Buffalo Braves to have five players average 15-plus points in a season. 

  • This Twitter thread from 2017 about a time Jusuf Nurkic stole a guy’s friend’s girlfriend is simply a must-read.

 7.  Off the press 

  • Who’s the right coach to unlock Zion? [The Ringer]

  • Damian Lillard and the Portland Trail Blazers are not your typical No. 8 seed [ESPN]