The Daily Bruh Review 12-9-14

Some how I was able to catch 3 different games on this Monday night. But first this night started with me deciding to eat pasta and clam sauce. Let me just say that somebody should have told me how smelly canned clam sause is man. It is stanky as hell. That has nothing to do with anything but I figured that I would warn you. Yeah I know, it is random so let's just go to some observations.

1.  Cleveland Cavaliers vs Brooklyn Nets.

Yeah the Cleveland Cavaliers are good and the Brooklyn Nets are bad. That is pretty much the conclusion anyone would get from this game. What I took from it was that the Cavs are starting to look more and more like the team we expected. LeBron being the primary facilitator has kind of loosened up the offense and they are even playing slightly better defense. These dudes are also crazy good rebounding the ball. They out-rebounded the Nets 55 to 33. There was a point where I saw Tristan Thomas get 5 offensive rebounds in what seemed like a 2 minute span.

I still think this team can use a rim protector and the show "The Starters" on NBATV was talking about a scenario where the Cavs trade Dion Waiters to the Grizzlies for Kousta Koufas. Not sure why the Grizzlies would want Waiters but all option seem reasonable.

But of course Waiters has his best game of the season probably. He shot 50% and scored 26 points from the bench. If he just embracing his bench role like Tristan Thompson has then he could really help the team.

The Nets are just really bad which doesn't surprise me but does because Lionel Hollins is a good coach.

By the way Jay Z's reaction to a crazy turnaround jump shot by LeBron was priceless.

2. Toronto Raptors vs. Denver Nuggets.

Kyle Lowry has really been stepping up his game with DeMar DeRozan out but this game really showed how valuable he was to the Raptors success even in a bad shooting night. At the end of the game the Nuggets decided to try to double team Kyle Lowry and it lead to so many great looks for his teammates in crunch time. I really like watching this Raptors team and Lou Williams is going to be an important pick up during this stretch with DeRozan out.

3. Green Bay Packers vs Atlanta Falcons.

The biggest thing I took away from this game was that Peyton Manning and Tom Brady are great Hall of Fame players for many reasons. But both have areas where they lack and they make up for it with their knowledge of the game. It seems as if Aaron Rodgers don't have many areas where he lacks AND he has the knowledge. The arm talent is there and he can also run. It is hard not to see what he is doing this year and not call him the best quarterback in the league.

Oh and I hate the Falcons for being within 5 yards of the touchdown 3 times and giving up on running it with Steven Jackson every time. I lost to the worst team in one of my fantasy football league for the 3rd time this year. This time I lost by 3.5 points. Yeah I'm salty. Wasn't in the playoffs but it was more of a pride thing.




Smaller Observations:

• Read an article that Washington QB Robert Griffin was punting balls to himself for 40 minutes after practice. Maybe he wanted to have fun like he did as a kid? Maybe he is just depressed as hell. Either way this is what the season has come to 2 years in a row.

• LeBron said that he was honored to play in front of Prince William and Duchess Kate. The Nets were probably embarrassed that they had to watch how bad they were. 

• Cleveland Cavaliers center Anderson Varajao has one of the dumbest mustaches I have ever seen. 

• I can't believe Kansas City Chief defensive back Eric Berry has lymphoma. That is just sad. Prayers up.

• I was just about to write that maybe LeBron was going to embrace his hairline and then I saw a Sprite commercial with his hair fully there. So maybe he isn't.

• John Wall's what-would-be-the game winning layup was awesome but this crazy circus shot when he began to take over in overtime is better.


• Also John Wall getting emotional after the game because a little girl that was his good friend lost her battle with cancer was a great display of humanity and was extremely sad. RIP Miyah.

• Eric Bledsoe is a guard... blocking potential game winning shots.

• Also I love the Suns and I love the Thunder but right now the Thunder is gunning for the Suns current spot in the western conference playoffs. I'm going to need the Rockets or somebody else to fall off.

• This sucks there is 11 teams in the western conference that I would want to see play in the playoffs. In the east there are only 4 teams I want to see play in the playoffs. Maybe make it the 16 best records make the playoffs. 

• The Suns loss sucked so much but I loved that game winning three from Blake Griffin. Just crazy that it went in. Blake Griffin gets the Bruh award of the night for shooting a shot that teammate J.J. Redick said he thought was an air ball and it happened to win the game.

• Check out this funny soccer video that Zach showed me. It's pretty damn funny

The Best Backcourt in the NBA?

In the upcoming days I will be starting my NBA season preview hopefully giving a look at all the teams, conferences, best storylines, best league pass teams and bold predictions.

So to hold everybody over I figured that I would dive in to this new debate over who has the best backcourt in the league. I heard the beef between Dion Waiters and John Wall and it really got me to thinking about who was truely the best backcourt in the league.

If you didn't hear the background on the story, here is an article that describes the situation in detail. Essentially Bradley Beal proclaimed that the Wizards had the best backcourt in the NBA and Dion Waiters called it, "Nonsense". Waiters believes that he and Irving hold that title.

Now I love Kyrie Irving but Dion Waiters seems like a random person to make lofty statements like that. I get the confidence but do the numbers really support this?

Now I needed somewhere to start so I decided to look at the rosters of all the teams in the league. The biggest thing that made this somewhat easy was the talent discrepancy at the two different guard positions. Most basketball fans know that point guard is one of the deepest positions in the league so finding a team with a good point guard is really easy. The shooting guard position is the one that is a little more talent challenged in terms of star power. So it narrowed down the choices a little bit.

Also be aware that some situations are in flux. The Thunder don't know who their starting shooting guard will be. I think if Reggie Jackson were to get that nod then he and Russell Westbrook would get at least some consideration in terms of a position on this list.

The top backcourts that I found in no particular order include:

Washington Wizards: Point guard John Wall and Shooting guard Bradley Beal.

Cleveland Cavaliers: Point guard Kyrie Irving and Shooting guard Dion Waiters.

Golden State Warriors: Point guard Steph Curry and Shooting guard Klay Thompson.

Brooklyn Nets: Point guard Deron Williams and Shooting guard Joe Johnson.

Toronto Raptors: Point guard Kyle Lowry and Shooting guard DeMar DeRozan.

Charlotte Hornets: Point guard Kemba Walker and Shooting guard Lance Stephenson.

San Antonio Spurs: Point guard Tony Parker and Shooting Guard Manu Ginobili.

Phoenix Suns: Point guard Goran Dragic and Point guard/Shooting guard Eric Bledsoe.

Those are mainly the only teams with formidable players at both guard spots. Most other teams have great point guards and specialist at shooting guards. This include the Clippers with Chris Paul at point guard and J. J. Redick, a shooting specialist at shooting guard. You also have the teams like the Heat and the Rockets that have an all-star shooting guard and an average or below point guard.

Now I can break out all the stats and we could count how much each back court scored and assisted compared to the others but that might not be a good indication when you try to factor in shooting percentages, defense, and how often they get to the foul line or create opportunities for their teammates.

The best way to look at all of those combined is to look at the win shares and efficiency ratings of each back court. Win shares is the estimated amount of wins that this person (or 2 people in this case) adds to the team. The player efficiency rating is the all encompassing statistic for how well a person plays. The average PER is 15. Kevin Durant posted a 29.8 PER for reference.

My gut and eyes told me that the Warriors were the best back court in basketball but here are the numbers:

Wizards: 11.9 win shares and 33.8 cumulative PER. (Beal only added 14.3).

Cavs: 8.3 win shares and 34.1 cumulative PER (Waiters only added 1.6 win shares and 14 PER).

Warriors: 20.1 win shares and 38.4 cumulative PER (Klay added 6.7 ws and 14.3 PER).


Nets: 10.3 win shares and 33.1 cumulative PER (Both had similar PER and ws).

Raptors: 20.5 win shares and 38.5 cumulative PER (Lowry added almost 12 ws, DeRozan almost 9).

*Hornets: 12.5 win shares and 31.5 cumulative PER (Lance had the higher ws, Walker had higher PER. Also played on separate teams last year so no as valid).

Spurs: 11.6 win shares and 38.9 cumulative PER (The low ws not surprising because the Spurs share the ball but man their PER is amazing).

*Suns: 14.4 (18.5 for full season) win shares and 41.0 cumulative PER (Keeping in mind Bledsoe only played 43 games. So he only had 4 win shares which would give him around 8 win shares in a full season)

Based on the numbers it looks like the Toronto Raptors had the best back court. I actually thought that they were underrated coming into this article. The numbers prove that to be incredibly true because they had more win shares than any other team and posted the 3rd highest PER. The Warriors were not far behind and I put them at second. The numbers rank out the teams:

1. Raptors

2. Warriors

3. Suns

4. Spurs

5. Wizards

6. Nets

                                                                                                        7. Cavs

                                                                                                         8.Hornets (only because they have yet to play with each other.)

So the two teams disputing this title were relatively low on the list. It should be noted that Bradley Beal was also hurt at times last season and increased hi playoff production to 19 points per game and a PER of 17. So he'll most likely get better and that coupled with John Wall's progression should jump the Wizards ahead of the aging Spurs.

The Cavs on the other hand was not surprisingly carried by Irving and I don't see that getting better with LeBron and Kevin Love in Cleveland to take away opportunities from Waiters (which is obviously justified). Their low ranking is also not surprising because of the reports the had issues last years.

The Suns are a team that might have had a chance to take the number one spot if they were healthy the whole year. Their PER was amazing. Also Bledsoe's ability to play defense at a high levels and the Suns system allows for both guards to flourish in the pick and roll.

The Warriors were great offensively and although they were carried a lot by Steph Curry, Klay scored at a great clip and added more defense than Steph Curry ever could. I still think this is the best back court to watch.

Once I started doing this blog I suspected that the Raptors would rank high because of their combined
scoring ability and their fairly underrated defensive abilities. Lowry is a hard nosed strong defender and DeRozan can be really scrappy as well. Imagine also how much higher their stat totals would have been if they traded Rudy Gay before last season. Seeing as their stats improved after Gay was traded to the Kings last December.

Everybody will have their own opinion but the Raptors might have the best back court in the NBA. Get those boys in Toronto more national TV games!!!!

NBA 1st Round Playoffs Preview

This has to be one of the most unpredictable NBA Playoffs in recent history. I have never been so unsure and excited about an NBA playoff before. 

The Western Conference is going to be epic and the Eastern Conference has some story lines as well. So needless to say I;m going to be making these predictions with very little confidence. But here you go.

The Obvious Picks:

East:

(1) Indiana Pacers vs (8) Atlanta Hawks:

The Pacers have been playing terrible. They lost to the Atlanta Hawks by 20 points a couple of games ago and the Hawks play well against them. But the Pacers are by far the better team. There is no way they could lose this series to a team that is way under .500, Right?

I mean I completely understand if you lost all confidence in the Pacers but they have to be able to win this series. I also think winning the series will help them get there confidence back.

Pacers in 5.

(2) Miami Heat vs (7) Charlotte Bobcats:

The Bobcats are way better than everybody thinks. The have a top 10 defense and a quick scoring guard in Kemba Walker. They also have one if the Heats major weaknesses, which is a scoring big man. Al Jefferson is definitely going to give the Heat some trouble. But it doesn't matter the Heat own the Bobcats almost as much as Michael Jordan does.

Heat in 5


West:

(1) San Antonio Spurs vs (8) Dallas Mavericks:

The Spurs have had trouble with some of the better teams in the league. Well as much as you can have and still win 60 plus games. But the Dallas Mavericks isn't one of those teams that the Spurs have trouble with. The Spurs swept them last year and has won 4 of the last 5 meeting in the playoffs. I don't think the Mavericks are an easy team but this is a terrible matchup for them.

Spurs in 5

A Lil' Tougher:

East:

(3) Toronto Raptors vs (6) Brooklyn Nets:


Everybody is just sleeping on how good the Raptors have been since trading Rudy Gay. They went from looking like a team headed for the lottery to the 3rd seed in the East. They have been beating teams. Sure the Nets have looked like a team that can compete since January but that has been more about their record against the Heat. This is going to be a highly contested series that I can see going both ways but......



Nets in 7


(4) Chicago Bulls vs (5) Washington Wizards

The Wizards are a good team but they probably don't have enough offense to win the series against an offense like this. The Bulls has their own problems scoring but they are the better team. The Wizards are a year and a player away from being a legit team.

Bulls in 6

West:

(2) OKC Thunder vs (7) Memphis Grizzlies

The Grizzlies is a team that nobody wanted to face in the playoffs. Unlucky for them they are playing a team that has the people inside to contend with Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol. The Thunder lost to the Grizzlies in the playoffs last year but that series had 4 straight close games that could have swung in either direction. Now the Thunder have Russell Westbrook back and played pretty well against the Grizzlies in the regular season. The Thunder finally has there team back to full health and they should be able to win this time around.

Thunder in 6

(4) Houston Rockets vs (5) Portland Trailblazers

This could be a toss up as well. Both these teams play a fast pace style and shoot a ton of 3's . The Blazers have an edge in the post because LeMarcus Aldridge is better offensively than Dwight Howard. This should be a fun series to watch. It should come down to wether one of the teams start to play defense and the Rockets are more likely to do that than the Blazers.

Rockets in 7

I Have No Idea:

(3) LA Clippers vs (6) Golden State Warriors

Yeah I have zero confidence in any pick I could make for this series. These teams play a fast pace and match up well against each other. They also don't like each other which means that the series is going to be heated. With Bogut out for the Warriors, the Clippers might have an edge inside but they need to hope that the splash brother (Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson) don't get hot for a game in LA because they are tough to beat in the Oracle Arena. I could see this series going Clippers in 7 or Warriors in 6 or vice versa. I'm not going to pretend to be any kind of confident but....

Clippers in 7

Second round teams:

East:

Indiana Pacers vs Chicago Bulls

Miami Heat vs Brooklyn Nets

West:

San Antonio Spurs vs Houston Rockets

OKC Thunder vs LA Clippers

I will continue this preview into the second round.