Saturday Slam and JamAndrew Schlecht and Alex Speers break down the top stories of the week including Chet's injury, Wemby and Giannis' big nights, and the red hot Cavs. Then the guys break down their favorite things of the week including quotes from Chauncey Billups, the play of the Pistons, how bad the East is, and more.In Part 2 Tim Cato of the All City Network joins to discuss the very strange start from the Dallas Mavericks. What is killing them in crunch time? What is with the defensive effort? and moreIn the final segment the guys plan a fun edition of Andrew vs. The Beat, where Andrew takes on Tim in a Mavs trivia game.Host: Andrew Schlecht and Alex SpeersWith: Tim CatoExecutive Producer: Andrew Schlecht Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Chapter 1: What are the top NBA stories this week?
Yeah, it does.
It does. My favorite quote of the week comes from Blazers land up here in Portland. I'm going to talk about some of the good with the Blazers a little later. But first, I want to go back to Sunday night because the Blazers lost by 45 at home to a Grizzlies team that did not have John Morant. They did not have Desmond Bain.
after the game head coach chauncey billups among other things said that he told the team quote anybody that sleeps well tonight you're a loser which is an incredible quote imagine being a blazers player that night you get home after a tough loss you start dozing off then you wake up in a panic as you realize what a huge loser you are for getting some rest it's one of those quotes that can look
Good or bad, depending on how the team responds. And luckily for Billups, the Blazers absolutely responded because they won their next two games, which are both home wins over the Timberwolves. But if they come out and get blown out in those games, you kind of just have to say, well, I guess this is just a team full of losers based on what Billups said.
So it was just nice to see them actually respond to that quote because that quote was so direct. It's so funny. When you bounce back from it, When you bounce back from a quote like that, I saw some Blazers fans already putting that on t-shirts. You can do that when you bounce back. If you don't bounce back, that becomes the death knell of the season.
Oh, yeah. Chauncey called them losers, and they are. They need to get rid of Chauncey. They need to do all these things. I wonder if Chauncey's checking their Apple Watches the next morning. How did you guys sleep? Get over here. It's time to check out who the losers are. Who slept well? Who got eight hours in here? Loser.
We're moving on now to our favorite stat this week. And my favorite stat this week comes from Joe Wolf on at Joey underscore W who writes for the score. Now I've actually updated Joe stat since there's been a couple of games since he posted this on Twitter. He was comparing the average shot distance for two players. So how far are these players from the basket when they shoot the ball on average?
First player, Damian Lillard for his career, the average shot that Dame takes, occurs 16.4 feet from the basket. Makes sense. Long distance sniper his whole career. The player Joe compared Dame to, Victor Wimbinyama, who as of Friday, has an average shot distance this season of 16.9. He's 7'4". Average shot is almost 17 feet away. As another comparison, Steph Curry is at 17.6 this season. Wow.
I love this stat because it came amidst this larger conversation about Wemby's shot decisions this week, his shot distribution. And I think for non-Spurs fans who are hoping that Wemby isn't going to be a destroyer of worlds, who prevents their favorite team from winning a championship this in the future is questionable. Shooting is really all we have left.
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Chapter 2: What happened to Chet Holmgren's season?
is that maybe Giannis is better than ever. Here are his last five games. We mentioned the 59-point game. 59-14-7-2 with three blocks. He had 23-4-7. He had 43-13-5. 24-12-2. 31-16-2. Unbelievable. In that 59 point game, he had 22 of the Bucks first 24 points in the first quarter against the Pistons. Giannis now has the most 50 point games with 10 plus rebounds since the NBA-ABA merger.
And that's thanks to user fanofsports44 from Reddit, from the Bucks Reddit page. Same guy, fanofsports44, also reminded us that this week, that the day that Giannis dropped 59 was 15 years to the date that Brandon Jennings dropped 55 points as a rookie. Isn't that weird?
I remember watching that game.
Yeah, I remember like being like Brandon Jennings, like noose, like star of the NBA. Like that was wild to me. But that was 15 years to the day. Like that is absolutely mind boggling to me. Giannis is also the first player in franchise history to record a thousand career blocks. for the Bucs. Giannis has also improved in the mid-range.
I hadn't really... I watched him and noticed he's making more mid-range shots. He's shooting 46% from the mid-range this season so far, which is up 11 percentage points from the last two years. The last two years, like clockwork, he was 35% from mid-range. So it's just a shot you didn't want to take. And now... He's like three percentages away from where DeMar DeRozan is this year.
He's been really good in the mid-range. He's been incredible. He leads the league in points per game at 33. He's averaging 12 rebounds and five assists per game with almost one and a half blocks. He's shooting a career-high 61.6% from the field, and yet... All we want to talk about is this just flailing Bucs team. They've been horrible.
They went all in and won a title in 21, which wasn't that long ago. But the NBA is all about what have you done for me lately? And the Bucs lately have just held on to this aging roster for too long. They've made a super calculated misstep in trading for Dame, which has not worked out so far. And they're just kind of stuck.
Everyone wants to talk about trading Giannis, including Giannis himself to our very own Sam Amick this season. But again, to go back to the Eastern Conference, the saving grace for the Bucs is that they are in the East. Somehow they're only one game out of being a top six seed. One game after all of this hand wringing like they could be a top six seed in just a couple of games.
But what happens in the playoffs is going to matter most. They've got to be healthy going into the playoffs, Giannis included, Middleton included. They need to have some success, which they haven't had since the title. But Al, I still love watching Giannis. He deserves some shine for stepping up his game, even though he doesn't really have the squad to support him.
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Chapter 3: Why are the Mavs struggling this season?
This sets up a final question, or basically it just comes down to you, Andrew. If you get this right, you win the week. If you don't, you lose. Okay. Simple as that. Okay, I'm locking in. Dwight Powell is the longest tenured Maverick having played for Dallas since the 2014-15 season. Okay. Which current or former teammate has Powell played the most amount of games with in his career?
Oh, current or former. Current or former. Could be a current Mav, could be a former Mav. Okay. Wow. This is for all the marbles, Andrew. Could win the week with a correct answer. Shoot. Who would this be?
I mean, Luca just seems like the wrong answer. I guess I'll just say Luca, though, because I'm sure he's played a lot of minutes with him.
The correct answer. Most minutes played. Most games played. This just can't be the right answer. with Dwight Powell was not Luca. Now that means Tim wins the week. Tim, just to bury Andrew further, any guesses?
So Dirk kind of has the same situation where it feels like a little bit too obvious. And so I'm going to say, actually, So I was going to say Devin Harris or I was going to say JJ Barea, but I think I'm going to say Maxie. I think Maxie is my guess. That's interesting.
Three names, all wrong. Correct answer, Dorian Finney-Smith. Dorian Finney-Smith.
but the good news tim you won the week you have defeated andrew five to four congratulations i do look at that between the two of us a clutch time performance that was a clutch time performance and i and i i played the role of luca in in there it's kind of fitting that i even said luca um hey uh go check out tim's work uh at the all city network you can see him on the
Are you doing the postgame show most of the time for DLLS?
Yeah, I'm always hopping on, you know, as soon as I finish up my postgame duties. But yeah, I'm still a reporter and a writer. But yeah, we're also five times a week and I'll be on just about every show. And you can find my writing at alldlls.com. Awesome. Tim, thanks so much for coming on.
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