You're tuned into Heat Check with Triste Quick.
On this episode of the Heat Check, we got a lot popping around the league. We discussed the latest news, including Dame Dalla going out for sixty one, player taking a shot so bad that he gets his teammates ejected, Ruey Hachimurra breaking the Internet in Japan, and we get into some other news around the league, including some tea on the Jamess, Lebron James Junior and Lebron James Senior. Trade deadline approaching. So do me a favor, Nick, and drop that generic ass beat.
All right, let's start with the little.
News from around the league while you were sleeping.
Dame Time, Lillard, Damian.
LaMonte, Allie Lillard Senior, if you please put on a tray, a sixty piece extra crispy wing tray platter on Utah Jazz and their heads, just ridiculous readonculous, stupid flames. I'm getting text messages with the clock. That's the only thing I'm getting in the text message. Just easy, efficient, one of the best performances I've ever seen. And we talk about Dame Time, right, we talk about that it's the fourth quarter.
Usually late in the fourth this Wednesday.
It started late in the third where Dame made the final twenty consecutive points for the Portland Trailblazers.
He had fifty.
Points a fifty piece after three quarters of play, one of the very few to ever do that, and the entire game was kind of like just a little kid's fantasy in his backyard. Dame shot what twenty for twenty nine from the field, which is the fourth player in NBA history to get sixty and shoot seventy percent along the way. I will, of course, because he's right underneath the bucket and he's big, and he probably dunked eighty
percent of his shots. Karl Malone, who we hate for obvious reasons, David Thompson, who we've talked about recently.
And that's just the beginning.
According to the NBA, it was the most efficient sixty point game of all time.
Yeah.
Well, when he was told about this, hey, uh, this was a crazy game.
Did you know that this was historic? This is what he said.
No, I didn't. I mean, I don't. I usually when I leave here, that's when I check my phone and I have, you know, messages, and people send me stuff or whatever. But I mean, I didn't know that it's a sixty. It's the most efficient sixty point game ever.
For real.
That's my wife felt.
Yeah, it was pretty same. Maybe let's see, So does this sixty hit you different? That's crazy because I ain't nothing. I mean, I'm just sitting here thinking like I had a shot at the end of the shot clock from half court toward the end that I shot, it probably would have been a little bit better. I had a couple that I missed a free throw. Damn. You also tied Jordan.
With four, which is the third most behind Kobe six and Will thirty two.
So Kobe's wither, we ain't catching Will. That's up, that's out.
Dang, that's cool.
We're not catching Will. No, you're not.
So he was absolutely stunned, right, and this is what he had to say, pretty much exactly what you would think. I don't want to say that it was easy because they had big bodies and some long defenders out there. But I think usually I get into a groove where I'm just going without making those simple plays and teams start to come after me sooner. But I was kicking it ahead, I was swinging it, so it didn't feel like they actually came after me until the very end.
That's why it seemed like the most simple one of all of them, just the most simple sixty point performance of all of them that.
Dame has ever had.
So I think the thing that's interesting about this performance is a jumping off point into what Dame has a new name for this type of Dame performance. We've got Dame time, right, but this is something different. Dame refers to this as Dame Space, like space and time. Dame Time is scoring fifty time, Dame Space is scoring sixty on twenty nine shot attempts. Dame Space is something that he must do and is unattainable to do and live there for an entire NBA season because, as he said,
you would go crazy. If you were to do that, you would have no life. You would only be preparing for the game.
Sounds like me. Sound was like, well, my life is like the Dame Space.
But Portland is gonna need Dame Space because they are in the thirteenth seed. They are two games under five hundred, they have been blowing leads, they're not winning close games, and ultimately players that they should rely on, could rely on have relied on, are no longer reliable, I e use of Nurkic. So in the last ten games, Dame
has been an astronaut. He's averaging in the last ten thirty eight points per game, eight point five assists, four point one rebounds with one steal, and he's also limited his turnovers from turnovers.
Per game to three turnovers per game.
So his play, even when Portland loses, has been incredible, has been something fun to watch, even in a sad l And you know what I thought about it, long and hard.
I said it on Twitter last night. I don't care anymore.
Honestly, I don't care about Portland winning or losing, because ultimately that makes me sad. What I do care about is watching Dame Space. And if I can get Dame Space, I'm okay with that. I'm okay with Portland being the thirteenth seed and Dame feeling like he has to be Superman and he has to score sixty.
I am as a better just elated to.
Know that as long as they're in the dull drums, he's probably gonna be safe to go off for forty pretty much every single night, and they'll set the line at like thirty four and a half. I am just purely happy really to see Dame be Dame again. He remember, he missed almost all of last year with an abdominal injury and surgery. We weren't sure if we were gonna get to see this version of Dame ever again. And now we're getting not just Dame time, but Dame space
a whole new level. He came back from that injury and had the ability to, I don't know, defy time, space, gravity.
When is Dame.
There's another level coming, Dame Monster, Dame Dinosaur.
I don't know.
I think it's just something that we all need to appreciate the way that teams are blazing out West anyway, we're not doing anything.
Let's be honest. The Blazers, they're not gonna compete for anything. Of note.
You think this team can beat the Nuggets? You think this team can beat the Memphis Grizzlies. No, you think this team could even beat the fully healthy Who's guarding Zion on this team? It's certainly not Irks, not in a sire little no one. No one is stopping Zion on this team. So you have some fun young pieces. You got Jeremy Grant, You're gonna sign him to a long term deal. You're gonna figure out what's going on with anthrety Simons because he may not work long term.
You've got to figure out how to get Nirk.
Off the books and then, honestly and then develop the hell out of Keon Johnson and Shade and Sharp and maybe get yourself a lottery pick, because this lottery is gonna be nice. All I care about from now on, and all I think Plazer fans should care about now is Dame space. As long as he's healthy, as long as he's putting up monster games.
No more negative peeps from me, and honestly, the media should be the same.
Stop asking Dame when he's gonna grow tired of this organization. Stop asking him that that makes him sad, that makes him question whether he wants to be on this team. Why are you guys pushing Dame to want out? You cover this god forsaken team. You want to see no Dame on this team. You want to get him so mad that he remembers that he almost asked out. Fuck those people, Honestly, you are you are not worth the pen that is in your hand that you write those notes with.
All right, let's move on. Oh we gotta talk about this Warriors game.
Imagine, imagine taking a shot so bad it gets your own teammate ejected. Think about that that happened in an NBA game last night, and not just any teammate, your star player, one of the greatest shooters, if not the greatest shooter of our generation, Stephan Curry. Stephan Curry was so mad at Jordan Poole last night that he got kicked out of the game automatically. He was so frustrated
that he put on these historyonics. He was so bombastic, so showy in his frustration, tossed his mouthpiece across the stadium floor and immediately got sent away.
And I honestly believe that's something that we need to look at Jordan Poole about. Right.
I watched Jordan Poole shoot such an egregiously bad shot. Steph Curry was visibly done with him. He was done with the game. He knows that it's an automatic eject and he was like, I'm fucking done.
I'm done with this kid.
He kicked out of a rivalry game, right, like a rivalry game that was razor close with a minute to go, a minute to go, Warriors up to and it's just ridiculous. Do you know how bad your shot selection has to be for Stephan Curry to get ejected one out of the only three times that he's been ejected in his career.
In eight hundred and fifty nine games, Steph Curry has only been ejected three times, and one of those times was because of you and your poor decision making, which is exactly what happened, right Pool, This is what happened. Pool took a pass with Steph standing on the logo waiting for the ball. Steph's clapping for the ball. Yo, give me the ball, Give me the ball. And what does Jordan Poole do. He chucks a twenty eight footer that had absolutely no prayer of going in. That's Jordan Poolet.
Then runs up the court with a look of rage, takes out the mouthpiece and rifles it into the stands. This is not a Steph indictment. This is about Jordan Poole. We need to have a serious discussion about Jordan Poole. And I think for those who have known him since he played at Michigan, he has a nice kid, but he is one of the most infuriating players to ever step on a court.
This was the perfect example. Fucks up, comes.
Close to losing the game for you, and then redeems himself with the last minute lay up in order to get you the win. Where you you basically he's the puppy who shit around the house and then all of a sudden comes up to you with his toy late at night and you're like, oh, God, Like, okay, Jordan, I still love you. Yeah, I get into bed. You know that's he wouldn't even glance Steph's way because he just shit in Steph's corner of his bedroom.
God, Steph ejected, and I like the confidence to Jordan Poole.
I want to swag swaggy player, but damn you gotta have some situational awareness. Steph is thinking at this point, all right, we've got a Grizzlies team that's tough. They've come back from a fifteen point deficit. We gotta be smart. We got to hit timely shots. We've got to protect the ball because we've lost four games in a row. The season's on the line, and he's thinking all of this. And you know what Jordan Poole is thinking at that point in time, I'm a gunna heat check. That's all
he's thinking. I'm gonna shoot this fucking ball right now, Steph. Of course, gracious, this is what he had to say after the game, crucial.
Time in the game, and the way that our season is going is, you know those questions about the height and says, the urgency of every detail matters, and when you want something really bad, you know, like just getting to win, and then fourth quarter execution, clutch time type situation, you know, all that stuff does matter. So I reacted in a way that obviously put myself out of the game and put the team in a tough place. But the attentions and the energy around what matters in the
sense of winning, that's that's what it's about. Thankfully, we all responded, or my teammates responded extremely well. Clay with a big shot, JP with you know, the game winner at the end. The execution was great. We needed that one. So there's a lot of there's a sense of urgency for sure, and kind of let my emotions get in the.
Way of it, no shit, but let's not get in the way of knowing that JP got in the way of you.
Right.
I loved Jordan Poole. I met him when he was a freshman, he went to the Final four. He was alert, he was fun. He's well mannered, he's well meaning. There's not a bad bone in his body. I don't think he has any ill intent when he's taking twenty eight footers. I don't think he's spiting Steph Curry. But you gotta know, dude, you are not Steph Curry. You will never be Steph Curry. You gotta be more aware that this team is our dubs are in trouble, and you are a big part of why they are in trouble.