I have to blog about this basketball game which was played last night. It was awesome as the defending NBA champion Toronto Raptors staved off elimination in Game 6 to push their Eastern Conference semi-finals with Boston to a Game 7.
Just awesome. I would even go as far to say it was the most I’ve enjoyed an NBA game since the reboot in the Bubble.
The game was so good for me as an NBA fan I lost sight of the fact they were playing in a bubble. I left the Islanders-Lightning hockey game for awhile. The way these two teams went after each other was like normal NBA playoff basketball.
I tell you what…Toronto may have lost Kawhi Leonard in free agency, but the guys who stayed have some genuine heart. They play hard and for the most part they played smart for coach Nick Nurse.
Nick Nurse gets it. The game has changed. You have to go small and at times stay small with five guys who can switch defensively and who can all shoot the basketball.
Marc Gasol and Serge Ibaka left the game—and stayed out of the game. Why couldn’t Scott Brooks do that with Perk? Why couldn’t Billy Donovan do that with Steven? Why is this so difficult for Thunder coaches to come to grips with at crunch time.
In this moden game…there are times your big guy stays on the bench and watches.
If I had to pick the best coach in the league right now I’d pick Nick Nurse.
The Toronto Raptors have my respect. They bleed of TSN on my Toughness, Smarts, Nasty metric which I created to offset the frilly white millenials on the internet who have never played or coached sports.
You can have every metric in the world at your disposal, but if your ball club doesn’t play with Toughness, with Smarts, and with some Nasty…they aren’t going to win enough games to be champions.
I love their ball club. I’m not saying they’re going to win the whole thing, but I love the way they play. The way they’re put together and the manner in which Nick Nurse coaches them up.
I’m a big fan of Marcus Smart, so I was kind of torn coming down the stretch as to how this game should go in my heart.
Russell Westbrook should watch film of the Raptors. This is how the Rockets should play without Clint Capela. You can’t have one guy taking dumbass shots. You can’t have one guy not valuing possession of the ball and not making quick decisive switches on defense. It has to be five guys in unison playing small, but having enough physciality to rebound the ball.
Great ball game. I can’t wait for Game 7.
The winner gets Miami in the Eastern Confernce Finals. The Heat won’t be easy. I think we have two great conference fjnals on the horizon inside the Bubble.
Here’s Nick Nurse from last year after Game 6 versus the Mliwaukee Bucks. I refuse to post pressers with coaches wearing masks. It should be set up in the press room where the coach doesn’t need to wear a mask. Adam Silver needs to figure this out before the next round.
What is Nick Nurse talking about after this Game 6? He’s talking about Kawhi’s toughness in rebounding the ball. Toughness…he’s noting his team’s best player’s toughness to guys like Kyle Lowery, Siakam, Van Fleet, Norman Powell, AG, etc.
They obviously listened to the points their coach was making.
Mike Boynton is a tough-ass old school coach in a young body. Just sayin’. Maybe the next Thunder coach doesn’t have to be a friend of Sam Presti to be hired.