Andrew Schlecht and Alex Speers discuss the week of NBA Basketball and bring back the Slammies, the made up NBA Awards we've done the last 4 seasons. Then they are joined by Mike Richman of Locked on Blazers to discuss the Portland Trailblazers and their fun unexpected season, Scoot Henderson's potential, the lottery and much more. Then the boys play a fun edition of Andrew vs. the Beat, a trivia game where Andrew is pitted against a beat writer.Host: Andrew Schlecht and Alex SpeersWith: Mike RichmanExecutive Producer: Andrew SchlechtAudio/Video Editor: Jake Kleinberg Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Full Episode
welcome to the saturday slam and jam here on the athletic nba daily on today's show we are bringing you the moments of the week the slammies are here once again and mike richmond of lockdown blazers joins us to talk about the portland trailblazers but to start al tell me about the top stories this week
Well, Andrew, the top story this week was the Denver Nuggets, who made firing Taylor Jenkins with nine games left in the season look pretty reasonable because on Tuesday, with only three games left in the season, the Nuggets fired both head coach Michael Malone and GM Calvin Booth.
Now, Malone ends his 10-season run with Denver as the franchise's winningest coach, leading them to the 2023 championship. Calvin Booth, he traded for KCP. He drafted Christian Brown. Two important moves for the Nuggets title run, but things had gotten rockier since then with Booth and Malone butting heads over team building philosophy and roster decisions.
Things came to a head after the Nuggets lost four in a row and looked at risk to fall into the play-in. has taken over as the Nuggets head coach for the rest of the season and got his first win as head coach against Sacramento on Wednesday night. Adelman started Jalen Pickett in the game and only played Russell Westbrook 16 minutes, his lowest minute total since early December.
Reports suggest that Westbrook's playing time and preferential treatment had been one of the issues this season for the Nuggets. Now, after a rocky week, the good news for Nuggets fans is that Jamal Murray, is likely to return on Friday night for a huge matchup with the Memphis Grizzlies. As of now, the Nuggets sit in fourth in the West, one game behind the Lakers, who also had an eventful week.
On Sunday, the Lakers got a dominant 126-99 win over the No. 1 seed Thunder in OKC, a game in which they made 15 three-pointers in the first half, tying a franchise record for most threes in a half. Two days later... It was Groundhog Day because the Lakers were once again playing the Thunder in OKC and once again hit 15 threes in the first half, tying a franchise record for most threes and a half.
Now, the game was much closer this time, however, with Luka hitting a shot with 742 left in the game to put the Lakers up by one. Unfortunately, while trying to shout a couple expletives at a fan after the maid basket, ref JT Orr was in his sightline and assumed that Luka was yelling at him.
Luka was assessed a second technical of the game and ejected, leading to a 29-12 finish for OKC, who picked up their 65th win of the season. The Lakers next game was one of the more anticipated games of the season with Luca returning to Dallas for the first time since Nico Harrison decided his Wikipedia entry needed an update.
The Mavericks played a pregame tribute video for Luca, which left him visibly emotional as the game started. The tears didn't slow him down, however, as he dropped 45 in his return, leading the Lakers to the 112-97 win.
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