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Red zone hides the odor of everything. Baker mayfield was playing football this year.
The Official NBA Season Thread: SFA Prevails
- Thread in 'Sports & Training' Thread starter Started by pmatic,
- Start date
Red zone hides the odor of everything. Baker mayfield was playing football this year.
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Also as a fan of the NBA, I myself am tired of the late game step back 3….
Especially done by dudes who can’t shoot.
Game on the line, it’s 100-102, guys shooting terrible threes instead of going to the cup or even attempting the mid range.
Some of the WORSE shooters now have the green light to shoot 3s and they aren’t even built like that
Guys like Russell Westbrook should not be shooting step back 3s at the end of the game, only down 1 or 2 points
Especially done by dudes who can’t shoot.
Game on the line, it’s 100-102, guys shooting terrible threes instead of going to the cup or even attempting the mid range.
Some of the WORSE shooters now have the green light to shoot 3s and they aren’t even built like that
Guys like Russell Westbrook should not be shooting step back 3s at the end of the game, only down 1 or 2 points
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Dudes in the NBA running away from wide open layups, or dishing it out for a 3, knowing his teammate gone brick, is the NBA’s problem
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vs
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I don’t see any issues with that. He’s saying Jabari producing without them taking the ball out of Sengun hands. Plus I wouldn’t want KPJ running plays for anyone lol
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The offense has been running through Sengun lately. There are definitely high low actions that can be ran w/ the both of them.
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Limit number of 3s that count per half. The eliminate corner 3s etc. expand the line fartherThe league can’t make people shoot 3’s less
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Whenever these cats start using the “Give him his flowers” nonsense for a guy of LEBRON JAMES’ stature you know he full of s*** and just pushing an agenda.
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Too many teams make the playoffs now. Regular season is pointless. Nobody watches full games anymore. You can just catch the top plays on House of Highlights, Reddit, Tik Tok etc. Plus all the injuries/load management. The top 2 teams played last night and 1 had half their roster injured. TNT Thursday more people talk about the post game show than the actual games . NBA knows drama. Nobody tops them in that...
. NBA knows drama. Nobody tops them in that...
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NBA commentary for games is atrocious
It probably won't affect viewership but damn does it make watching games less enjoyable to here people like Reggie Miller say dumb **** all game.
It probably won't affect viewership but damn does it make watching games less enjoyable to here people like Reggie Miller say dumb **** all game.
MVP
Supporter
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Luka Dončić is a basketball beast.
The sheer scope of his physical presence doesn’t come all the way through on TV or social media or wherever else you might consume all those how-did-he-do-that?! highlights. But when his Dallas Mavericks came through my part of the country over the weekend, with new superstar Kyrie Irving in tow for their back-to-back set against Sacramento and all sorts of questions swirling about how this new dynamic duo would work, I spent some time before both games to take a closer look at Dončić when he was in one-man show mode. After all, the blockbuster trade with Brooklyn that brought Irving to Dallas all but guarantees those days are gone — at least for the rest of this season (more on that later).
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To watch Dončić go head-to-head against Mavericks assistant coach Greg St. Jean — a strong and fit fellow who played his college ball at Wesleyan University — was to be reminded that most mere mortals don’t stand a chance against the Slovenian star. He bounces the basketball and whatever bodies get in his way. He seems to have a built-in radar for the rim — and his teammates — no matter what direction he might be looking or spinning.
It’s not just the deceiving size (he’s listed at 6-foot-7, 230 pounds but looks closer to LeBron James-type figure, a la 6-9 and 250) or the skill (this video is worth the 10 minutes of your time). It’s the fact that knows what he’s doing on the floor and what the defender has in mind, like a poker game in which he can somehow see every hand at the table.
This is the beauty of the peak Luka experience, and it’s the very thing that will need to be placed on the back burner if this Irving experiment is going to work. Or, as I’m sure Mavs owner Mark Cuban would rather see it put, he has to at least make some room on the front burner. There’s something else cookin’ next to him now.
When a player of Dončić’s caliber finally has the kind of co-star whose talents are in the same stratosphere as his own, sacrifices will inevitably need to be made. For all of his individual greatness — the MVP-worthy averages of 33.4 points, 8.9 rebounds and 8.2 assists that he compiled before Irving came to town — this Mavericks season lacked collective substance, in large part, because of the devastating loss of Jalen Brunson to the Knicks in free agency.
Enter Irving, who — at his best — is more than capable of turning Dallas into a West contender again. As he discussed after the Saturday night loss to the Kings, when I asked him about how his past might inform his present, this is hardly the first time he’s been through this sort of getting-to-know-you period. From Cleveland (James and, to a lesser degree, Kevin Love) to Boston (Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown) to Brooklyn (Kevin Durant and James Harden), Irving has had mixed results on this fascinating front.
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The question now, with his free agency looming this summer, is whether they can figure it out in the kind of way that makes him want to stick around. They’re 0-2 together so far, with losses against Sacramento and Minnesota and a showdown at Denver on Wednesday night that will provide the latest litmus test.
“It’s always a figuring out process when you’re playing with new guys,” Irving said. “Obviously, every situation is different, every circumstance is different. I appreciate you bringing up some of those other teams that I’ve played on, and the great players that I’ve played with. But I think the biggest asset I have is just being able to be fluid out there and adapt to the situation that they throw me at, role-wise. Point guard, playing on the ball. I’ve played with guys who have really been ball dominant, so it’s nothing new. But I think it’s just a figuring out process that just takes time. …I’m just an addition here to what they had going on. This team is already in a great position. I’m just adding on value and seeing where I can galvanize the group and lead as best I can and just be myself, ultimately.”
But therein lies the tricky part, right?
Even in the best of times, when Kyrie and LeBron made hoops history together in those 2016 NBA Finals for the ages, there was an unhappiness brewing beneath the surface that led to Irving’s trade request in the summer of 2017. His Boston experience was a bad look, with Irving swearing he was there for the long term early before failing to mesh with the young stars en route to leaving for Brooklyn in free agency two offseasons later. And the ill-fated Nets chapter, as has been well-chronicled, had a laughable level of dysfunction that was largely caused by Irving’s choices. There is, in other words, a whole lot more to this risky Mavs experiment than the notion of Irving being himself.
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As their first two games together showed — a Saturday night loss in Sacramento and Monday’s home loss to Minnesota — the first objective should be to avoid the kind of your-turn-my-turn approach that has doomed so many superstar pairings that came before. Especially when it matters most.
The most crucial moments of those games spoke volumes about their early discomfort together. It’s a small sample size, to be sure, but the early evidence is still worth examining.
Saturday night in Sacramento
This was Dončić’s first game back from his four-game absence from a heel injury, so it came as no surprise that he looked tired late (two points in the fourth quarter and OT). What better time, then, to lean on Irving? Not only did the new Mavs star look fresh, but he was en fuego (16 points in the fourth and OT). But that’s the quandary here, as those sorts of possessions have been Luka Time for the longest in Dallas — no matter the context — out of sheer necessity.
This time was no different.
The Mavs, down three with the ball and 18 seconds left in overtime, had Dončić inbound on the left side to Irving. He hands it back to Dončić on the left wing, then hesitates ever so slightly in his space. Irving eventually slides down to the left corner, pulling the Kings’ Terence Davis away from Dončić in the process. But there’s a claustrophobic feel to it all, and Dončić ultimately misfires on a contested three over De’Aaron Fox just as Irving gives him room to roam.
Despite all the extra time they could have taken — the game clock was at 15.1 seconds when he released and the shot clock was off — Dončić looked rushed. Roll the tape…
Not for nothing, the Mavericks’ self-analysis afterward came off as healthy. Coach Jason Kidd explained how it was Irving’s read to get the ball to Dončić — and Dončić’s to shoot. Dončić offered a genuine “my bad” when he discussed the play. As for Irving, he went to great lengths to make it clear that he had no issue with the way it went down.
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“We had to get a shot up anyway,” said Irving, who mistakenly indicated that there were nine seconds left when Dončić shot it. “So either way, it was gonna be a great shot for him shooting it, or me shooting it, just reading off of him. No pressure, in terms of ‘Give me the ball in those situations.’ If he feels confident enough to take the shot, so that when he shoots or anyone shoots on our team, it’s a great look as long as you’re confident in it. So I think it could have gone either way. If he would have passed it to me, probably maybe a different result — maybe not. But the what-ifs don’t matter.”
Irving’s Dallas debut against Minnesota on Monday
The Mavs were down by 26 at one point, so it was a minor miracle that they even had a chance at the end. And Irving, yet again, was the one doing the late damage that brought them back (26 of his 36 points in the fourth quarter).
With 14.8 seconds left, the Mavs find themselves in an eerily similar situation to two nights before: Down three with the ball and 14.8 seconds left.
The Mavs’ Theo Pinson inbounds this time, and he chooses to look past an open Irving and loft a high-arching pass to Dončić that is tipped into the backcourt by Minnesota’s Jaden McDaniels. Chaos ensues from there.
A Dončić pass to Irving at the top of the arc. Back to Dončić when Anthony Edwards contests. A Dončić pass back to Irving — who is less than 10 feet away — when McDaniels contests. A soft double-team on Irving, who pump fakes a 3, then tries to thread the needle down low with a pass into Pinson. It’s stolen by the Timberwolves’ Jordan McLaughlin. Ballgame.
As honeymoon stages go, this is heavy stuff for these new-look Mavericks. What are the odds of their first two games together having end-of-game sequences that laid the difficult dynamics bare? Then again, maybe it’s better that they work out these kinds of wrinkles now rather than in the playoffs.
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“I’m still trying to emotionally recover, man,” Irving told reporters afterward. “It’s still so raw. Ah, man. I would have liked to at least get a shot up.”
As the Mavericks are quick to highlight, Irving’s relationships with Kidd (with whom he worked on Team USA and looked up to as a youngster) and president of basketball operations Nico Harrison (the former Nike executive who knew him well from their shared time together there) matter a great deal here. While Dončić and Irving don’t know each other well, that trust and history between Irving and the other Mavericks power brokers should serve them well when it comes time to have tough conversations. It’s the kind of synergy that didn’t exist with the previous regime.
Yet while Harrison claimed he didn’t see this move as a risk, the stakes are unquestionably high. The second-year Mavs executive moved on from the Kristaps Porziņģis plan a year ago, when he sent the big man (and a second-round pick) from Dallas in exchange for Spencer Dinwiddie and Dāvis Bertāns. He missed the chance to secure Brunson with an extension during last season, then saw him leave for the Knicks when free agency rolled around. The flow of talent around Dončić, who is signed on a supermax deal through the 2026-27 season, was headed in the wrong direction.
In a holistic sense, the Mavs desperately need Irving to be the co-star who raises their collective ceiling while allowing Dončić to remain his brilliant and dominant self. They’d prefer it happens quickly, too, what with the Mavs hovering around .500 and the Phoenix Suns applying so much pressure to the Western Conference by way of the Durant trade that stole the trade deadline season spotlight. And as if this process won’t be challenging enough for Irving and Dončić, the unwelcome reality is that the questions about their future together — or perhaps lack thereof — aren’t going anywhere.
Even with Irving’s pregame plea on Monday for reporters to resist the urge to ask.
“It puts unwarranted distractions on us and our team,” Irving had said. “I’ve dealt with it before, and it’s very emotionally draining to ask questions like, ‘What’s the long term? What’s the long term?'”
But that’s what you get when you ask for a trade just five months before you’re going to be a free agent, and when the team that lands you gives up a 2029 first-round pick, two second-rounders and two quality players (Dinwiddie and Dorian Finney-Smith) with the hopes that this won’t be a rental situation. That’s what you get when two of the stars with whom you’re most closely associated — James and Durant — could still sway you into coming their way when this summer rolls around (with the Lakers and Suns, respectively). That’s what you get when you’ve earned a reputation as one of the most unpredictable stars the NBA has ever known.
Now as much as ever, the only way to quiet that noise is to find a way to make this work.
(Top Photo: Ron Jenkins / Getty Images)
The sheer scope of his physical presence doesn’t come all the way through on TV or social media or wherever else you might consume all those how-did-he-do-that?! highlights. But when his Dallas Mavericks came through my part of the country over the weekend, with new superstar Kyrie Irving in tow for their back-to-back set against Sacramento and all sorts of questions swirling about how this new dynamic duo would work, I spent some time before both games to take a closer look at Dončić when he was in one-man show mode. After all, the blockbuster trade with Brooklyn that brought Irving to Dallas all but guarantees those days are gone — at least for the rest of this season (more on that later).
ADVERTISEMENT
To watch Dončić go head-to-head against Mavericks assistant coach Greg St. Jean — a strong and fit fellow who played his college ball at Wesleyan University — was to be reminded that most mere mortals don’t stand a chance against the Slovenian star. He bounces the basketball and whatever bodies get in his way. He seems to have a built-in radar for the rim — and his teammates — no matter what direction he might be looking or spinning.
It’s not just the deceiving size (he’s listed at 6-foot-7, 230 pounds but looks closer to LeBron James-type figure, a la 6-9 and 250) or the skill (this video is worth the 10 minutes of your time). It’s the fact that knows what he’s doing on the floor and what the defender has in mind, like a poker game in which he can somehow see every hand at the table.
This is the beauty of the peak Luka experience, and it’s the very thing that will need to be placed on the back burner if this Irving experiment is going to work. Or, as I’m sure Mavs owner Mark Cuban would rather see it put, he has to at least make some room on the front burner. There’s something else cookin’ next to him now.
When a player of Dončić’s caliber finally has the kind of co-star whose talents are in the same stratosphere as his own, sacrifices will inevitably need to be made. For all of his individual greatness — the MVP-worthy averages of 33.4 points, 8.9 rebounds and 8.2 assists that he compiled before Irving came to town — this Mavericks season lacked collective substance, in large part, because of the devastating loss of Jalen Brunson to the Knicks in free agency.
Enter Irving, who — at his best — is more than capable of turning Dallas into a West contender again. As he discussed after the Saturday night loss to the Kings, when I asked him about how his past might inform his present, this is hardly the first time he’s been through this sort of getting-to-know-you period. From Cleveland (James and, to a lesser degree, Kevin Love) to Boston (Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown) to Brooklyn (Kevin Durant and James Harden), Irving has had mixed results on this fascinating front.
ADVERTISEMENT
The question now, with his free agency looming this summer, is whether they can figure it out in the kind of way that makes him want to stick around. They’re 0-2 together so far, with losses against Sacramento and Minnesota and a showdown at Denver on Wednesday night that will provide the latest litmus test.
“It’s always a figuring out process when you’re playing with new guys,” Irving said. “Obviously, every situation is different, every circumstance is different. I appreciate you bringing up some of those other teams that I’ve played on, and the great players that I’ve played with. But I think the biggest asset I have is just being able to be fluid out there and adapt to the situation that they throw me at, role-wise. Point guard, playing on the ball. I’ve played with guys who have really been ball dominant, so it’s nothing new. But I think it’s just a figuring out process that just takes time. …I’m just an addition here to what they had going on. This team is already in a great position. I’m just adding on value and seeing where I can galvanize the group and lead as best I can and just be myself, ultimately.”
But therein lies the tricky part, right?
Even in the best of times, when Kyrie and LeBron made hoops history together in those 2016 NBA Finals for the ages, there was an unhappiness brewing beneath the surface that led to Irving’s trade request in the summer of 2017. His Boston experience was a bad look, with Irving swearing he was there for the long term early before failing to mesh with the young stars en route to leaving for Brooklyn in free agency two offseasons later. And the ill-fated Nets chapter, as has been well-chronicled, had a laughable level of dysfunction that was largely caused by Irving’s choices. There is, in other words, a whole lot more to this risky Mavs experiment than the notion of Irving being himself.
ADVERTISEMENT
As their first two games together showed — a Saturday night loss in Sacramento and Monday’s home loss to Minnesota — the first objective should be to avoid the kind of your-turn-my-turn approach that has doomed so many superstar pairings that came before. Especially when it matters most.
The most crucial moments of those games spoke volumes about their early discomfort together. It’s a small sample size, to be sure, but the early evidence is still worth examining.
Saturday night in Sacramento
This was Dončić’s first game back from his four-game absence from a heel injury, so it came as no surprise that he looked tired late (two points in the fourth quarter and OT). What better time, then, to lean on Irving? Not only did the new Mavs star look fresh, but he was en fuego (16 points in the fourth and OT). But that’s the quandary here, as those sorts of possessions have been Luka Time for the longest in Dallas — no matter the context — out of sheer necessity.
This time was no different.
The Mavs, down three with the ball and 18 seconds left in overtime, had Dončić inbound on the left side to Irving. He hands it back to Dončić on the left wing, then hesitates ever so slightly in his space. Irving eventually slides down to the left corner, pulling the Kings’ Terence Davis away from Dončić in the process. But there’s a claustrophobic feel to it all, and Dončić ultimately misfires on a contested three over De’Aaron Fox just as Irving gives him room to roam.
Despite all the extra time they could have taken — the game clock was at 15.1 seconds when he released and the shot clock was off — Dončić looked rushed. Roll the tape…
Not for nothing, the Mavericks’ self-analysis afterward came off as healthy. Coach Jason Kidd explained how it was Irving’s read to get the ball to Dončić — and Dončić’s to shoot. Dončić offered a genuine “my bad” when he discussed the play. As for Irving, he went to great lengths to make it clear that he had no issue with the way it went down.
ADVERTISEMENT
“We had to get a shot up anyway,” said Irving, who mistakenly indicated that there were nine seconds left when Dončić shot it. “So either way, it was gonna be a great shot for him shooting it, or me shooting it, just reading off of him. No pressure, in terms of ‘Give me the ball in those situations.’ If he feels confident enough to take the shot, so that when he shoots or anyone shoots on our team, it’s a great look as long as you’re confident in it. So I think it could have gone either way. If he would have passed it to me, probably maybe a different result — maybe not. But the what-ifs don’t matter.”
Irving’s Dallas debut against Minnesota on Monday
The Mavs were down by 26 at one point, so it was a minor miracle that they even had a chance at the end. And Irving, yet again, was the one doing the late damage that brought them back (26 of his 36 points in the fourth quarter).
With 14.8 seconds left, the Mavs find themselves in an eerily similar situation to two nights before: Down three with the ball and 14.8 seconds left.
The Mavs’ Theo Pinson inbounds this time, and he chooses to look past an open Irving and loft a high-arching pass to Dončić that is tipped into the backcourt by Minnesota’s Jaden McDaniels. Chaos ensues from there.
A Dončić pass to Irving at the top of the arc. Back to Dončić when Anthony Edwards contests. A Dončić pass back to Irving — who is less than 10 feet away — when McDaniels contests. A soft double-team on Irving, who pump fakes a 3, then tries to thread the needle down low with a pass into Pinson. It’s stolen by the Timberwolves’ Jordan McLaughlin. Ballgame.
As honeymoon stages go, this is heavy stuff for these new-look Mavericks. What are the odds of their first two games together having end-of-game sequences that laid the difficult dynamics bare? Then again, maybe it’s better that they work out these kinds of wrinkles now rather than in the playoffs.
ADVERTISEMENT
“I’m still trying to emotionally recover, man,” Irving told reporters afterward. “It’s still so raw. Ah, man. I would have liked to at least get a shot up.”
As the Mavericks are quick to highlight, Irving’s relationships with Kidd (with whom he worked on Team USA and looked up to as a youngster) and president of basketball operations Nico Harrison (the former Nike executive who knew him well from their shared time together there) matter a great deal here. While Dončić and Irving don’t know each other well, that trust and history between Irving and the other Mavericks power brokers should serve them well when it comes time to have tough conversations. It’s the kind of synergy that didn’t exist with the previous regime.
Yet while Harrison claimed he didn’t see this move as a risk, the stakes are unquestionably high. The second-year Mavs executive moved on from the Kristaps Porziņģis plan a year ago, when he sent the big man (and a second-round pick) from Dallas in exchange for Spencer Dinwiddie and Dāvis Bertāns. He missed the chance to secure Brunson with an extension during last season, then saw him leave for the Knicks when free agency rolled around. The flow of talent around Dončić, who is signed on a supermax deal through the 2026-27 season, was headed in the wrong direction.
In a holistic sense, the Mavs desperately need Irving to be the co-star who raises their collective ceiling while allowing Dončić to remain his brilliant and dominant self. They’d prefer it happens quickly, too, what with the Mavs hovering around .500 and the Phoenix Suns applying so much pressure to the Western Conference by way of the Durant trade that stole the trade deadline season spotlight. And as if this process won’t be challenging enough for Irving and Dončić, the unwelcome reality is that the questions about their future together — or perhaps lack thereof — aren’t going anywhere.
Even with Irving’s pregame plea on Monday for reporters to resist the urge to ask.
“It puts unwarranted distractions on us and our team,” Irving had said. “I’ve dealt with it before, and it’s very emotionally draining to ask questions like, ‘What’s the long term? What’s the long term?'”
But that’s what you get when you ask for a trade just five months before you’re going to be a free agent, and when the team that lands you gives up a 2029 first-round pick, two second-rounders and two quality players (Dinwiddie and Dorian Finney-Smith) with the hopes that this won’t be a rental situation. That’s what you get when two of the stars with whom you’re most closely associated — James and Durant — could still sway you into coming their way when this summer rolls around (with the Lakers and Suns, respectively). That’s what you get when you’ve earned a reputation as one of the most unpredictable stars the NBA has ever known.
Now as much as ever, the only way to quiet that noise is to find a way to make this work.
(Top Photo: Ron Jenkins / Getty Images)
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Less games = less revenue…. That ain’t happening (unless players don’t mind a paycut)
The league generates to much money for them to minimize the 82 games
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Ideally, you'd make up the lost revenue from cutting games with higher quality games.
Welcome to your kodak moment!
Welcome to your kodak moment!
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I think the regular season does matter but attention spans for an 82 game season have shortened
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+ Gambling and fantasy sports
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This is probably an unpopular opinion but I have a bigger issue with the length of the playoffs.
I think the first two rounds should be 5 games, and the conference and league finals should be 7.
At least go back the 5 for the first
I think the first two rounds should be 5 games, and the conference and league finals should be 7.
At least go back the 5 for the first
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aepps20
Supporter
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That's the only thing that I care about. I want all the owners to get richer and richer. Ratings, revenue, profit sharing, and selling these teams for Billis is all that I want. Anything that hurts that goal is what I don't like. This includes da woke boi agenda and cancel cukture, not standing up for the anthem and other injustices.Me,aepps20 , and da owners think revenue is the most important aspect of being an nba fan
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At least Romo can break down a playSee Tony Romo
The NFL has its fair share too
Most NBA commentary acts like game is a drama show with which team can will themselves to victory.
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