Paulo Alves

Well, lately it's been sort of the reverse.

They get up for the big games against the Nuggets, the Lakers, the Spotlight.

It's these sleepy games on the West Coast against lesser teams like the Kings, like the Trailblazers, like the Jazz that they're struggling with.

And so maybe this model, while more frustrating, it provides more upside in the grand scheme.

I'm open to that.

Anyway, I want to move on and talk about individual players that are contributing to this.

And, you know, Kevin Durant has been brilliant.

And this month, without Alper and Shingun, beyond just scoring at an extremely efficient level, which he's done since coming back at the end of November, he's also rebounding more.

He's assisting more.

He's been a better defender.

He's just fantastic across the board.

What he's doing at 37 years old is just absolutely phenomenal.

But everyone's favorite whipping boy early in the season, Amin Thompson, that is no longer the case.

Since the start of December in 17 games, he's averaging right at 20 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists per game, shooting almost 56% overall.

So Amin is getting better.

It's pretty clear that slow start to the year from an efficiency perspective was an outlier.

He's back to that guy he was all of last season and perhaps...

The slow start is just, you know, I've talked about it in the past.

He's a very unique layer in terms of his model.

And it just takes him, I think, a little bit of time to get used to the NBA speed and physicality and finishing through the contact that he absorbs on a lot of his drives because he is limited as a shooter.