Goeiedag, enchantée and welcome to this week's episode of Eight 2 Four presents: All-NBA Team of the Week. Anthony Edwards, first pick in this season’s draft, is balling out. In their first game against Phoenix on Thursday he outscored everyone on the court and finished with 42 points making him the third youngest player EVER to make 40 points. The other two? LeBron and KD, Edwards is in good company. Damian Lillard does it again, dropping 20 of his total of 50 points in the last quarter to push the Blazers past the Pelicans in a very tight win. And his backcourt buddy, CJ McCollum has finally returned after a foot injury that kept him sidelined for 2 months. Against Dallas, his third game back and still on minutes restrictions, he scored 7 3’s to secure the win. With both Dame and CJ at the top of their game, the Blazers are a force to be reckoned with in the West. It inspired us to focus on some of the more impressive teams this week instead of individual players. For most of the season, these teams have been flying under the radar but are starting to push up the standings and claim their seat among the best teams in the league. Get ready for your All-NBA Team of the Week!
PICK #1
Our first pick of the week are the Phoenix Suns. Right now, the Suns are THE surprise in the league, sitting in the second spot in the West behind the Utah Jazz. All season they have been flying under the radar, mainly because everyone was busy talking about the Jazz’s fantastic run. They have one of most consistent teams in the league so far, winning 27 games out of 40 and have a 6.4 point differential, meaning on average they score about 6.5 points more than their opponents. That is the third best point differential in the league, after again the Jazz and the Milwaukee Bucks. All the required signs are there, the Suns are the real deal but why does their name never come up when people are discussing potential contenders? Because they still have everything to prove.
Last season, when the NBA was shut down due to Covid in March, the Suns were only 13th in the West and they were lucky to even get an invite to the bubble in Orlando. After putting on an amazing show, they were the only team to record a perfect 8 and 0 in the run up to the Play-Offs and they only just missed out on the Play-In game because of a stupid tiebreaker rule. They left the bubble a bit bitter and wanted to show the league that their magic run was not a fluke. In the off-season they signed free agents Chris Paul and Jae Crowder, two fantastic additions to a young and hungry team. Paul is famous for making every team he plays on better and Crowder is one of the best veterans in the league right now. Both guys were signed to help Devin Booker and his team mates to approach the game in a more mature way.
Paul took control of the team from day 1 and has them playing just like him, sober but effective. The Suns lost 9 of their 20 games but have been very effective since then. In their next 20 games, they only lost 4 times and in only 1 occasion the difference was more than 10 points. The Suns are playing as a team, and they are playing to win. The Jazz are starting to lose some games, the Clippers are falling apart and the Lakers struggle with injuries. It is likely that the Suns could end up with the number 1 spot in the West once the regular season comes to an end. But it doesn’t matter if they do or not, the Suns are a force to be reckoned with and will make a big splash in the Play-Off. It has been 10 years since the Suns were in the Play-Offs. Chances are that they’ll make it just as far as they did then, the Western Conference Finals.
PICK #2
Our second pick of the week are the Miami Heat. It was a surprise to most people that the Heat made it to the Finals last year. The most common explanation was that they were the team that adjusted the best to the special conditions in the bubble and that’s why they performed better on the court. It is a reasonable explanation but I have a better one: the Heat are really really good. Jimmy Butler is the kind of player that can drag his team through rough patches. He never gives up, will fight to the end and has this incredible ability to motivate the people around him to do the same. Rookies Tyler Herro and Duncan Robinson scored 3’s at an unbelievable percentage and Bam Adebayo proved that he is becoming one of the better bigs in the league.
They could only win 2 games in the Finals against the Lakers but considering they had lots of injuries in that series, that was spectacular on its own. The Heat were tired, bruised and battered at the end of the season and made it very clear that they were not going to be at full strength at the start of the season. They only won 7 of their first 20 games and sat well below the 10th spot in the East towards the end of January. They had missed Jimmy Butler for most of that period and it showed. Their roster is good but Jimmy is the heart and soul of the Miami team. Jimmy returned in February and so did their form. They only lost 5 games in their next 20 games and propelled themselves to fourth spot, or home court advantage, in the Eastern Conference, behind the 76ers, the Nets and the Bucks.
Losing Jae Crowder during the off-season was a bigger loss than they imagined in Miami, it shows on the court. Iguodala is not the player anymore that he used to be in Golden State and Dragic has been injured more often than not. They can use some help and the front office knows it. This week they brought in Trevor Ariza from OKC in a trade and I’m sure they will look in other directions as well before the end of the trade deadline. One name that keeps circling around Miami is Victor Oladipo. Oladipo spends a lot of time in Miami during the off-season where he trains with Dwayne Wade, the Miami legend. Victor dreams of playing at South Beach and is readily available in Houston. Is he the missing piece they need?
PICK #3
Our third pick of the week are the Denver Nuggets. The comeback kings from the Play-Offs last season. They came back from a 3-1 deficit against the Jazz in the first round only to repeat this little stunt against the Clippers in the second round. Up to that point only 11 teams in NBA history were able to come back from facing elimination, the Nuggets did it twice in the same Play-Offs. Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray proved to the league that they were going to be the next deadly guard-center duo since Kobe and Shaq. Murray played a legendary series against the Jazz, going for 50 points almost every game against Donovan Mitchell, who wasn’t holding back either. In the series against the Clippers, it was Jokic's turn to dominate. The Clippers had no response for the big man and he grabbed 22 rebounds in the deciding game. They had nothing left in the tank once they reached the Western Conference Finals against the Lakers and could only win one game, because LeBron and his friends took a night off.
The Nuggets lost Jerami Grant in the off-season but expectations were high. Both superstars had proven in the Play-Offs that they could handle the pressure and all eyes were looking at Denver. But there was nothing to see, the Nuggets were average. Only Jokic was playing at a decent level. Slowly, the attention turned to other places in the league and the Nuggets had time to fix their issues. Hovering around a .500 win percentage, the Nuggets were always within reach of the Play-Off spots and once Jokic, Murray and eventually Michael Porter Jr started to find each other, they started climbing in the standings.
Today, the Nuggets sit in fifth spot in the West, only one game behind the faltering Clippers, and are on track to secure home court advantage in the difficult Western Conference. Nikola Jokic is front runner in the MVP race and Murray has found his Play-Off form. They have the longest winning streak in the West and with an 8 and 2 run, they only need to allow the Bucks in front of them. The Nuggets are running hot and are back for another game of chicken in the Play-Offs. They can take on any team and have proven last season that they are never really knocked out of a series. Maybe this year they can survive three rounds in the West?
PICK #4
Our fourth pick of week are the Dallas Mavericks. Dallas is the home of one of the most prolific players in the league, Luka Doncic. The 22-year old is probably the biggest talent running around on the NBA courts and has everyone talking about him. He has no fear, is always in total control and seems to be able to decide exactly when and where he will get a bucket. Last season they took the Clippers to six games in the first round of the Play-Offs, if it wasn’t for a series ending injury for Kristaps Porzingis, they might have caused the first upset in the Play-Offs. But they didn’t and had to go home. In the off-season they traded Seth Curry to Philadelphia for Josh Richardson, they traded shooting for defensive aggression on the court but it turned out that was not what they needed.
At the start of the season, Luka was out of shape. Embarrassingly so, only James Harden looked worse and he was trying to force his way out of Houston. With Luka out of shape and Porzingis still injured, the Mavericks were counting on their role players to get buckets and they didn’t. Towards the end of January Dallas had dropped quite dramatically in the standings, in a season where the New York Knicks own their first round pick. A terrible scenario for the boys of Mark Cuban. But things turned around, Porzingis came back from his injury and more than anything else, Luka found his form. His shots from behind the arc were finally dropping. He slowly raised his 3pt percentage and all of a sudden, the Mavericks started winning games again.
The Mavericks are now in 8th spot in the West, fighting with San Antonio for the 7th spot, the best spot in the Play-In game tournament. It is unlikely that they’ll catch Portland and Denver, the teams in 6 and 5, but in Dallas nobody is worried about the Play-In games. A fit and focused Luka Doncic is the best player in the world to take to a knockout game. He can score from anywhere at any time, is impossible to guard and even if you do stop him, he will find a team mate wide open for an easy shot. I don’t doubt that they will make it to the Play-Offs again this season and if they do, they will be the team most likely to cause an upset. They can take on anyone on any given night, as long as they, KP in particular, can stay healthy.
PICK #5
Our fifth pick of the week are the Atlanta Hawks. The Hawks are the most confusing team in the league right now. After a lost season last year, they splurged in the off-season, signing 5 experienced players to help superstar Trae Young make it to the Play-Offs. And they started scorching hot, winning four of their first 5 games, including an 18 point victory against KD, Kyrie and the Nets. But then it was over, they only won once in their next seven games. Rumours started to come out of the locker room that Young and the other young star on their team, John Collins, were arguing about who’s team it is. The new acquisitions weren’t contributing and the Hawks were right back where they started, in the bottom 5 teams of the league.
Things went from bad to worse in Atlanta when Trae Young wasn’t selected for the All-Star game. A starter last season was completely overlooked, even by the coaches who select the reserves for the All-Star team. In the lead up to the All-Star game, the Hawks fired their head coach, Lloyd Pierce, hoping to create a change in the locker room. The coach had completely lost the support of his players, especially of Trae Young. Assistant-Coach Nate McMillan, who came over from Indiana during the off-season, took over and the Hawks were reborn. Under McMillan, the Hawks have now won 7 games in a row and sit in fifth spot in the East, tied with Miami.
The Hawks are finally playing at the level we thought they would at the start of the season but let’s not overreact just yet. All the teams they won against in their last seven games had a record worse than them, except for Miami. Their last four games were against the Kings, the Cavaliers, the Rockets and OKC. All teams out of the bottom ten of the league this season. With games coming up against the Lakers, the Clippers, the Warriors and the Nuggets we’ll have better idea where the Hawks actually sit among really good teams. If they can win some of these games, they will finally have the status of an outsider in the Eastern Play-Offs and who knows, maybe they can upset the Nets again, like they did at the start of the season.
This is our All-NBA team of the Week. Please share our podcast and give us 5 stars. If you have any questions, you can contact the show on eight2fouroffice@gmail.com. Thank you for listening, ballers out!
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