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Did you have any idea Zach LaVine dropped 43 in a Kings win over the Pistons last night? Or the Heat sent the Sixers to their 12th straight loss? No, you were just focused on your bracket and waiting for “One Shining Moment” to play!
Feeling Hot Hot Hot 🔥
How hot is that coaching seat?
We’re near the end of the regular season, which means some coaches will be fired pretty soon. We’ve already seen two coaches get fired in-season with the Kings letting Mike Brown go back in December and the Grizzlies recently telling Taylor Jenkins he doesn’t work there anymore. (More on the latter here.)
I don’t believe Charles Lee in Charlotte, Brian Keefe in Washington, Will Hardy in Utah or Jordi Fernandez in Brooklyn will have to worry about anything, despite their teams’ horrible seasons. The four coaches we are looking at here are all going to miss the postseason (we’re pretty sure on the fourth one). It’s measured on a scale of 1-5. If they get five fire emojis, you can expect resumes to at least be up-to-date.
Nick Nurse, 76ers (23-56): Nurse is completing his second season in Philadelphia. and this one was an abject failure. I’m not sure how much of that can be attributed to Nurse with Joel Embiid, Paul George and Tyrese Maxey combining for 112 games played. Nurse was fine in his first season with Philly (47-35), but it’s hard to know what he can do when the best player keeps getting hurt. I’m not sure I expect Nurse to be fired unless ownership decides they need a change. And ownership is kind of focused on Jayden Daniels and the Washington Commanders for the time being. How hot is this seat? 🔥🔥🔥
Willie Green, Pelicans (21-57): The Pelicans went through a ridiculous number of injuries throughout the season, and it almost immediately tanked their campaign. Remember, this Pelicans team looked really good and dangerous before Zion Williamson’s hamstring was hurt in the Play-In last season. And Green was a great defensive coach in the previous two seasons. Ownership seems to really like Green. I can’t picture him getting blamed for this season. How hot is this seat? 🔥🔥
Chauncey Billups, Blazers (35-44): I don’t think Billups is likely to get fired, and general manager Joe Cronin just got an extension in the front office. Cronin didn’t hire Billups, so maybe now that he’s entrenched in the front office, he might want to get his guy in there. The Blazers could also let him walk to another job if he’s interested in taking over elsewhere. He hasn’t had much of a tenure in Portland with the rebuilding, but we did see encouraging progress with the young Blazers in the second half of this season. How hot is this seat? 🔥🔥
Mike Budenholzer, Suns (35-43): Yes, Budenholzer just got hired last summer! It wouldn’t make sense for the Suns to fire him after one year. It’s not like they just did that with coach Frank Vogel. Oh wait … never mind! Budenholzer was supposed to fix all of the offensive and defensive issues this team had. The roster never embraced his style. It has been an absolute mess, and it’s the most expensive failure we’ve ever seen. It’s not easy to change the roster, so why not just have owner Mat Ishbia eat the remaining four years and $40 million? That ought to fix it! Or maybe you move Kevin Durant and see if what you get in return can be molded by Bud into something salvageable next season? How hot is this seat? 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
The Last 24
You won’t believe what Mavs fans are wearing
🏀 A haunting jersey. How does Luka Dončić still have a presence at the Mavericks’ arena? Dallas fans wear his Lakers jersey.
🏀 Pure domination. The Cavs and Thunder have been historically dominant. John Hollinger checks in to see what that means for the playoffs.
😡 Get angry. Ime Udoka and the Rockets want to provoke you beyond frustration. It worked against the Warriors.
🧠 Wise hooping. Chris Paul, even at the age of 39, is “constantly learning” as his legendary NBA career continues.
🎧 Tuning in. Today’s NBA Daily discusses whether Tyler Herro has a case for Most Improved Player.
📺 Don’t miss this game tonight. Celtics (58-20) at Knicks (50-28), 7:30 p.m. ET on TNT. Once again, the Knicks try to beat a top team in the East.
📺 League Pass gem. Timberwolves (46-32) at Bucks (44-34), 8 p.m. ET on League Pass (get it here). Both teams are battling for playoff positioning and need this one.
Men’s National Championship
Gators come up clutch once again
It only made sense that a championship game between the Houston Cougars and the Florida Gators would come down to a frantic final possession. We saw Houston survive tense games against Gonzaga and Purdue, then witnessed the Cougars’ historic comeback against Duke to get in position to compete for the national championship last night. Florida beat out Connecticut, Texas Tech and Auburn in tight games before facing Houston’s smothering defense.
So, even when Houston went up 12 in the second half of an ugly, defensively chaotic game last night, everybody had to expect this one to go down to the wire. The Gators started chipping away, and it wasn’t due to the heroics of Walter Clayton Jr. like everybody would have expected. He had a brutally tough game, not scoring until 14:57 left in the second half and not making a shot until the 7:54 mark. But he made a big 3-pointer with a little over three minutes left to tie the game.
Then, he made the biggest defensive play of his life to close it out. After Alijah Martin’s two free throws gave Florida the lead with 46 seconds left, and Denzel Aberdeen added one more to make it a two-point game with 19 seconds left, Houston was going to go for the glory on the final play of the season. They set up Emanuel Sharp for a title-winning 3-pointer and Clayton closed out hard.
He forced a near-travel by Sharp, Alex Condon dove for the loose ball and the Gators won their third title in program history. It was Houston’s fourth turnover in the final 2:05 of the game. That was the opposite of what the Cougars experienced against Duke two nights earlier.
It was a sloppy, uneven, ugly, defensive game. It was the perfect ending to each team’s run in this tournament, as Florida’s frenzied pace tried to turn the game on its head and Houston kept deflecting and denying everything it could. In the end, Houston came up short one more heroic moment, and Florida made Todd Golden the youngest title-winning coach (39) since Jim Valvano (37) won it with NC State in 1983.
Wésté Silvia
Connecting dots to how West can shake out
Let’s talk about the West playoff race. Can we talk about the West playoff race, please Bouncers? I’m dying to talk about the West playoff race with you all day, OK?
This playoff race keeps coming up with three through eight in the West all lumped together. As we showed you in yesterday’s Bounce, the Lakers, Nuggets, Clippers, Warriors, Timberwolves and Grizzlies are all separated by two games. If we leave the Lakers out of this, those other five teams are all separated by a half-game with the Dubs, Clips, Wolves and Grizz all tied with the exact same record.
It is a clusterf*** of a playoff race in the West. It’s going to come down to a lot of tiebreakers, and I thought it would be helpful if I got out some corkboards, some yarn, drank a whole lot of coffee and tied it all together for you in one place. When three or more teams are tied, the tiebreakers involved first come down to win percentage in all the games played between those teams, followed by conference record. For now, let’s leave the Lakers out of this, since they have a two-game cushion.
What would it look like for the other five teams if any three of them tied in the standings? Check out the corkboard! Also, the Clippers have one more game against the Warriors, and the Grizzlies have one more game against the Nuggets and one more game against the Wolves.
Graphic design is my passion. As you can see, there are a lot of possibilities here and the Wolves and Clippers are in the best positions for most of them. The Clippers had success against the Warriors (3-0) and the Grizzlies (3-0). Minnesota has success against the Nuggets (4-0) and the Clippers (3-0) to boost those combined games.
Now, I know what you’re wondering next. What if four teams tie like we currently see in the West? These would be the five different scenarios/combinations for four different West teams ending up with the same record.
Once again, the Wolves and Clippers are in good positions to come out ahead in these situations. And the Nuggets and Grizzlies are really not. If all five of these teams somehow finish with the same record, the following order would be:
- The Wolves then the Clippers then the Warriors then the Nuggets and then the Grizzlies.
- This could change due to the remaining games for each squad.
- The Wolves have a better conference record than the Clippers.
- They’re both 8-5 in games among these five.
- Grizzlies could leap the Nuggets in this if they win both of their remaining games in this group.
And, for one final potential headache, let’s throw the Lakers into it all. What happens if all six of those teams somehow end up with the same record?
It would be the Lakers then the Wolves then the Clippers then Nuggets then the Warriors and then the Grizzlies. As always, we root for maximum chaos here.
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(Top photo: Mark J. Rebilas / USA Today Network via Imagn Images))