Wed, March 11th, 2020

#MeVsNuggets — Lakers-Nets — Russell’s 49 rebounds

Wednesday, March 11th, 2020

  

  The Opening Tip

  • A deep dive on the #MeVsNuggets challenge

  • Who would have thought Lakers-Nets would be so fun? 

  • What if we told you Frank Ntilikina had never scored 20 points in a game before last night?

Tonight's must-watch games

1. The Lead: The #MeVsNuggets challenge, explained

On Saturday, Larry Nance Jr. tweeted this little bit of inspiration: 

"Kinda upset that I won’t be getting to do #MeVsNuggets for the foreseeable future.. only got to try it my senior year of high school.. Good luck to all competitors today and stay safe out there Cavs fans"

We had two immediate thoughts:

  1. It’s cool that Larry Nance Jr, whose father, Larry Nance Sr., played his final seven years in Cleveland, gets to actually follow in his dad’s footsteps, and is so familiar with the Cavs’ franchise.

  2. What the hell is #MeVsNuggets? 

We now have the answers.

  The basics

The #MeVsNuggets challenge is a challenge dreamed up from the dark underworld of Cavaliers fandom, and it can be taken only twice a year, during one of the two times the Nuggets and Cavs play each other.The goal is simple: To eat more McDonald’s chicken nuggets than the Nuggets score points.A few examples: 

  • This guy live-tweeted his challenge in 2017; the first quarter was kind of a disaster, as the Nuggets scored 34 points compared to his 47 chicken nuggets eaten. Unable to sustain that devilish pace, he tapped out at 82. Denver finished with 126. 

  • In 2018, a guy -- and yes, it’s all guys -- ate 115 and lost, as the Nuggets beat the Cavs, 127-117. 

  • In 2019, this guy actually won, beating the Nuggets, 130-124. 

  The origins

According to this Complex article and this Darren Rovell tweet, the challenge was started by Twitter user @wayneembryskids, in 2011. In @wayneembryskids’ current Twitter bio, he has only two words, ‘IRRATIONAL FANDOM,’ so he as creator of the #MeVsNuggets challenge certainly checks out.

  The final burning question

How did Larry Nance Jr. do in the challenge? We’ve reached out to him for comment, and will update readers if he answers.For now, we can say definitively that Nance Jr. graduated from Revere High School in Richfield, Ohio in 2011, which means he would have done the challenge during the 2010-11 NBA season, which was also the challenge’s inaugural season.Here are the two Nuggets-Cavs scores from that year:

  • 01/15/2011: Nuggets 127, Cavaliers 99

  • 01/28/2011: Nuggets 117, Cavaliers 103 

Regardless of which game he chose, that’s a whole lot of nugs.

2. Of all things, a Lakers-Nets thriller

Drunk off all the recent MVP narrative power, LeBron missed this bunny that would have tied the game, and Anthony Davis missed the open 3 above, giving the Nets a 104-102 upset victory last night in Los Angeles.Here’s Spencer Dinwiddie’s shot with 28 seconds left that ended up being the game-winner for Brooklyn.The Nets are now 2-0 since firing Kenny Atkinson, and 22-22 without Kyrie Irving compared to 8-12 with him.

3. 03/11/1965: Bill Russell’s 25/49/6 statline  

On this day 55 years ago, Bill Russell and the Celtics beat the Detroit Pistons, 112-100, with Russell’s 27 points and 49 rebounds leading the way.Two quick things:

  • Russell played all 48 minutes in a ho-hum March game against a 31-46 Detroit team. 

  • The game was played in Providence, R.I., which the NBA did back then as a way of trying to attract new fans. 

Back to the rebounding: 

  • Russell’s 49 were a career-high, but he routinely pulled down 30-plus a night that season. 

This was possible for two reasons: 

  1. The Pistons hoisted 122 shots that night. (The Pelicans lead the league this year with 92.2 shots averaged; the Celtics led the league in 1964-65 with 107.6 shots averaged.) 

  2. In 1964-65, the league average for field goal percentage was 42.6 percent; in 2019-20, so far it’s 46 percent. 

In short: In the ‘60s, shots were flying up and clanking off the rim at an incredible pace, which set the tone for big men like Russell to grab 49 in one game and average 24.1 for the season.

 4. Coby White goes coast-to-coast

The Bulls-Cavs game last night was mostly a matchup of the two most directionless franchises in the league, but this Coby White layup that turned Larry Nance Jr. into a horizontal safety cone was cool.

 5.  Quick hits 

  • San Francisco has banned gatherings of more than 1,000 people for the next two weeks, which means the Warriors will play in front of no fans tomorrow against the Nets. They don't play at home again after that until March 25. 

  • Frank Ntilikina scored a career-high last night of … 20 points. 

  • A visual representation of how long LeBron has dominated the NBA.

  • Here’s an interesting snippet from the JJ Redick Podcast of him and Jimmy Butler criticizing the 76ers’ leadership. 

  • Please take a moment to think about the Warriors, who lost by 24 last night and are the first team eliminated from the playoffs. 

  • The Rockets actually won last night, snapping a four-game losing streak that us mini-ball lovers aren’t ready to fully digest.

 6.  Off the press 

  • How the coronavirus could change American sportswriting forever [The Ringer]

  • The ACC tournament was made for North Carolina. It’s leaving a Coliseum-sized hole. [The Raleigh News & Observer]