So those two games Dame going Crazy, Lakers historic comeback.
Still not the greatest thing I saw on the weekend, not even close. I don't even know how to describe what I watched.
I'm not sure. The Kings and the Clippers. The Clippers were down fourteen points with three minutes left to go, and the Clippers statistically had a ninety eight percent chance of winning according to ESPN stat Metrics narrator.
They did not win that game, Clippers, they lost.
And the Kings and the Clippers game ended with two overtimes three hundred and fifty one point scored.
The live over.
The total in the game for betters was two hundred and ninety point five, which is absurd number.
In its own right.
At the end of the third quarter, it hit the over with three minutes left to play in the fourth quarter and it sailed almost sixty points over that stat line crazy. It was the second highest scoring game in NBA history. But it was to me that that actually cheapens it a little bit, because it was a lot more than just a barrage of points. Right, You had
a drama, a storyline the entire way. First of all, you knew that the Clippers are trying to come back in the standings against their division rival, anyone who has the kings to win this division. This is a very important game as the Clippers try to claw in. It's Russell Westbrook's first game as a Clipper. He had massive impact in that game as the Clippers' offense was running much faster, much smoother. Anytime he was on the wing and got the ball, he attacked, got demonas Sabonis in
foul trouble. He had seventeen points Russell Westbrook seven for thirteen shooting plus three when he was on the court. That was an important showing for Russell Westbrook. And second, although you're gonna want to say, well, it was all offense, that's all it was. No defense was being played. That's why I hate the NBA. Blah blah blah.
That's not true. Nothing could be further from the truth. Both teams.
Yes, they shot sixty percent from the field overall and almost sixty percent from three, both of them. But you had some incredible Kobe Bryant like shot making going on. You had multiple defenders draped on players traps, and you had fucking Kawhi Leonards step back three with two guys in his grill and he's just hitting that. That was the kind of offense that we got to see. And in the final three minutes, the Kings caused turnovers on
five consecutive possessions. Fox himself responsible for three three turnovers in a row. You had bench players scoring forty plus in Malik Monk going crazy with his best friend. There were multiple seemingly knockout punches thrown, mostly from the Clippers to the Kings, multiple comeback runs. Key players in foul trouble like Demanda Sabonis. Westbrook fouled out, so did Sabonis.
Kawhi Leonard twelve for fourteen in that game at one point, pretty much unstoppable no matter what you threw at him. One shot looked like it was the first bad shot he had thrown up all game. Shooter's touch roll right in it was incredible. Paul George hit a half court shot at the end of regulation that would have robbed us of the two overtimes, but he was a millisecond too late. You had star players sitting out the second overtime because fuck it, dude, we can't do this anymore.
We've got load management to deal with. Paul George sat out the second ot. It was one of the most entertaining games I've ever seen on a basketball court, and it came down to a miss three pointer at the end of the second overtime, which, by the way, was bunkers because why is Norm Powell.
Involved in the offense.
In any way when Kawhi Leonard is right there underneath the basket and definitely will draw fout when you're down too. I don't unders down one. Actually I don't understand it. Why should have three in that scenario? But it was also something important there the real reason that I enjoyed this game so much. Man, The Kings are gritty. They are never stopping. They are hard rocks. You talk about guys who just when they get down, they just lay down and stay down.
They are not gonna lay down.
They are the product of Mike Brown and the symbol of a winning coach who has brought a culture that people thought would not be possible for this organization. A coach that said at this part of the season, right now, after the All Star break, with only twenty seven games, lovet He said, Yo, this is when the real season starts.
This is it? Really?
Like all the other bullshit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's all fun and games. This right now, this is when teams say, oh, like, we gotta get ready for the playoffs. We gotta solidify our spot in the standings. This is where he said the Kings are gonna be hunted. We are now the hunted. Have you ever heard anyone say that about the Sacramento Kings, Like they are coming for us, and you know what, We're gonna hunt them right back.
We're not gonna allow ourselves.
To slide down the standings, to just be happy with being a fun little story for the first sixty games and then be a play team.
No.
No three seed, that's us when you've got the three seed Kings being hunted by rivals in the dev vision alone, like the Phoenix Suns with Kevin Durant coming back, the Clippers with the whole new roster.
Our Dubs who look dead but are never dead.
Mike Mike Brown has done something in one year that almost nobody. Has turned a team that many people thought wouldn't even win thirty games into a team who legitimately after that game one seventy six point seventy five and they were asked about, oh yeah, like, what's up with this Clipper team? Like, how do you feel about playing against him? Playing against them? You had Deer and Fox and lake Monk saying, we don't give a fuck who's over there.
Literally, that's what they.
Said when specifically referencing playing against a former MVP in Russell Westbrook, a two time finals MVP, and Kawhi Leonard and an all NBA player and Paul George And you know what they said, We do not give a fuck about who we play. They are not scared. Why are they not scared? Because somehow Mike Brown, with this collection of really interesting pieces, has turned the Sacramento Kings into
a team who can just outgun you. They are averaging one hundred and eighteen points per one hundred possessions, which is not only number one in the West, that offense is not.
Only number one in the NBA.
That offense is the best offense in NBA history right now. Yeah, that is what they did. They have turned themselves into a gunna. They can shoot the three with Kevin Herder, Keegan Murray and Harrison Barnes.
We know that they do that really well.
They have Sabonis, who's a walking double double Darren fox who is not getting nearly enough shine right now, averaging over the past month thirty two seven and four on fifty four percent shooting, and is legitimately the best clutch player in the NBA. First in clutch points, first in field goal percentage, first in paint points, first in points off of turnovers, and first in fast break points.
All of those for our guy Foxy, which.
Now has turned in to a slight conflict for me national media hype.
The Kings are now getting national media hype.
On one hand, I was pissed that nobody wanted to give Sacramento any even hope that they would do anything, if even mediocrity before this, Like I said, Oh, maybe I'm crazy for thinking there'll be a playing team. I remember sitting right here in this spot being like, oh yeah.
Like I actually thought they'd be better than that.
But I was so afraid of people calling me an idiot. This is not your father's Kings team before the season started. And the other conflict is that the more people who stops slandering the Kings, the better. Right, That's good, but I'm kind of like, you're a little late. You're a little late. It's awesome to see this franchise do well. It's a great fan base. I'd love to see them get a little bit of national love, but we don't. We don't need full scale conversion. We don't need them
losing the chip on their shoulder. They are the three seed right now with twenty games left to go. So part of it is like, were you just waiting for the Kings to just fall off the map just never ever report what was going on and just pretend like it was a little blip on the radar. And now that there's twenty games to go and they've been sitting at the three spot for like two months, you're like, well, he should probably afflex him to a national televised game
or two. But it's a credit to Mike Brown man his winning mentality, because all he does really is win.
He got fired for winning. Mike Brown forty one and twenty.
Five as the coach of the Lakers, and he got fired five games into the next season after he took over for Phil Jackson. That's how much Mike Brown wins. Is like, even that level of success wasn't good enough for the Lakers, and the Lakers sent him outside of the bubble. Have had eight of ten losing seasons since he's coached them.
So there's that.
He spent seven years in Golden State, as we know, which you already know what time it is. There lots of winning. He spent time in Cleveland, which you know, a lot of winning with Lebron James, and very typically the media was very late on Mike Brown as well. Mike Brown, I decided I would head over as I was doing this piece, maybe I'll head over to the little sports book, sprinkle a little money on Mike Brown coach of the year. Who knows maybe five to one, six,
one seven to win something. You know, nobody's thinking about Mike Brown, right, nobody's thinking about him. Nobody's thinking about the Kings.
Uh.
Well, that one seventy six one seventy five sort of changed the odds a little because as of today, Mike Brown is currently leader in the clubhouse for Coach of the Year plus one ten, which is basically barely even money, barely there's no value there. You heard that, right, A Sacramento King's head coach is the odds on favorite to win Coach of the Year. If you had to guess where Mike Brown was at the opening as of October
twenty twenty two. Do you think he was like, what top fifteen, top twenty, top twenty five, None of those.
So it was Chris Finch at ten.
To one was number one leader in the clubhouse. Tylo twelve to one, makes sense that Clipper team had a lot of steam. Joe Mizzoula didn't make any sense. Boston Celtics had just come from the finals. You have to improve a lot in order to get Coach of the year. How's he gonna do that? Fourteen to one? Willie Green fifteen to one. A lot of steam on the Pelicans and them being great in the West. Michael Malone, I guess you thought already everybody was gonna be healthy for the Denver Nuggets.
JB. Bickerstaff at six at sixteen to one makes sense. You got Donovan Mitchell and My Brown sitting at fourth from the bottom. At eighty to one.
God, somebody I need to know who plays that bet eighty to one. Mike Brown was to currently plus one ten.
Should anyone have been surprised?
Mean, he's not looking at a team for the Kings that's trying to lose, not wanting them to just keep their head above water. He wants them to continue to put their boot on the next and the schedule lines up for the Kings to do that, put their boots on the next. Their next five games Thunder, Clippers, Wolves, Pelicans, Knicks, all winnable, four, the last four at home besides the Knicks. And so to me, the way that I know that
the Knicks mania is reel. For the first time I can remember, TNT flexed a King's Knicks game into prime time on the national feed at the expense of y honest and the Bucks versus the Nets.
Better late than never. But while you're at it, folks, wore me up on that purple bean. Baby, Let's move on.
We talked about the dysfunction in uh Atlanta multiple times now, I don't need to say how I feel about it. That franchise is a mess, and Nate McMillan, of course, became the next one to bite the dust, as they say, after Travis Schlank.
And I'm I'm.
Pretty sure this organization is like nuclearly toxic. But the way that I know for sure is that when asked about Nate's firing, Trey Young said he was quote honestly.
Surprised by it.
The most amazing thing I think about that statement is that it's only two words, and both words are lies, like both the both words are lies, like honestly surprised you neither of those things.
Trey is not being honest. That negates the first word.
And he was definitely not surprised because he definitely made that firing happen either sublimely or very overtly, given the fact that Sean said that the Hawks were trying to get him to resign for multiple weeks before actually firing him. So definitely not surprised and definitely not honestly surprised. So the Hawks, apparently we're just interested in one candidate, Quinn Snyder, who's a really, really good coach, but not a great fit.
In my opinion, I like him a lot, But this guy's gotta have PTSD for Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell like has two.
He probably aged him. Did you see what he looks like?
Quinn Snyder at the end of that thing, looked like he needed cocaine just to stay awake.
He looked like he needed all nighters.
Rails on top of rails, bitches, money parties, disco balls to continue doing his job. How is he going to do in Atlanta? How is he going to deal with a reboot with Trey Young more cocaine? I don't know how that's gonna work, dude, I do not know. He's got a five year deal now, with one of those years being now, which I think is funny.
Like the first year is twenty games.
Get your money. I guess money has not been disclosed yet. I can't wait to find out what that number is. I cannot imagine he wouldn't have benefited from waiting until the offseason. Better jobs would have come open. But they must have given him the bag. But now he's in Atlanta for the foreseeable future. And now he's also.
Lying trying to be optimistic because he's got his money too.
He said this, I think players want to get better. I think they want to be coached. The relationships are what allows you to coach them effectively. How did it work when Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert didn't like each other?
How did that work?
How is it gonna work when John Collins is still on this dogshit team and Trey Young won't pass him the ball? Do you not understand what Trey Young does Trey Young just dribbled, dribble, dribble, dribble, shoots from thirty floater floater lob maybe driving kick. He does not have a reputation for being like a coachable player. He does not have a reputation of like Trey Young has constantly
unproved throughout the course of his NBA career. Trey Young is averaging the worst percentage from three in his life right now.
He's actually regressing.
So for Quinn to be like, I think players want to get better inherently is a lie. In fact, only about five percent of players in the NBA want to actively get better and actively coach. The other ones want a coast.
That's what they do.
They want to enjoy their money, enjoy their life, be a human being, and hoop.
That's what they want to do. What do you think Trey Young's gonna do?
And you're like, hey, we're actually running running things through de Jonte Murray, Now, no, I don't.
Think it's gonna be good.
When you ask Trey like, hey, how do you feel we need to know if you're playing tonight and he tells you fuck off. I'm gonna decide last minute How are you gonna deal with that? Say, I'm gonna let you know at game time? How will I know I'll be there in my uniform? How will you not know I won't be there on the bench at all? Like he did to Nate McMillan. There is a decent chance this goes sideways like this. I'm saying it now February twenty seventh, twenty twenty three. This thing could go off
the rails in twelve months. If there is any hope for a rapport between Quinn Snyder and Trey Young, you can thank Donovan Mitchell for that. According to reports, Snyder and Trey Young are both expressing an.
Enthusiasm to begin working together.
Donovan Mitchell profusely praised Snyder in a private conversation with Trey Young and told him how instrumental the coach had been in his own development into an star. Also, quick little note, nobody asked Rudy Gobert his opinion. Rudy Gobert was not stumping for Quinn Snyder. But if Trey is looking at Quinn as someone to help him get in
a new stratus here, maybe maybe that will work. But that will actually require some level of self awareness, some level of intrigue and coachability, court awareness.
Just all kinds of things.
Better shot selection, which is pretty much a tall task which we've seen.
Very little from Trey Young.
All of us begs the question which I'm sure will someone will ask Quinn Snyder sooner than later, Quinn Snyder who is harder to coach Rudy Gobert or Trey Young. And I bet it's gonna be Trey Young, because this Hawks team has a lot of talent but is a long long way from being a contender, even with a good coach, elite coach like Quinn Snyder at the helm. That's all the time that we have for this episode of The Heat Check. Check Bear Friday morning for an
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