Dec. 19: Kangz Get Spur Against San Antonio
Led by a fantastic Tyrese Haliburton and his 27 pops, Sacto snatched a W from the lowly Spurs and is now sitting in the play-in spots
You won’t believe this but the Sacramento Kings did something absolutely dope and uncommon yesterday night: they 1) won a game and 2) entered the play-in portion of the Western Conference standings sitting at 10th above Portland and tied with the Blazers at a 13-18 record through this very day. WOW.
The Kangz can very well thank second-year man Tyrese Haliburton for the win, as he started at the point — no Foxxy because COVID, you know how it goes — and finished with a solid 27-4-11-2 dub-dub on the night. Most impressively, he reached that tally WITHOUT attempting a single freebie. That demanded Ty to hit 63.2% of his 19 FGA, and he was good for a fantastic outcome all things considered even though the usage rate didn’t go above 25%. Uh, oh, FLEX on Coach P*p.
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— Truth be told, Tyrese wasn’t the lone gracious Kangz on the court yesterday. Damian Jones came out of left field — out of the pine, actually — and dumped 23 points while grabbing 8 boards in just 20 minutes. The big boi ATE a good bunch of goodies and swatted 2 rocks while also dishing out a dime and scoring at a 60% clip on a rather healthy 15 field goals, including hitting a couple of treys. It took COVID for Sacramento to explore the depths of its roster, but they surely found the GEMS.
— Marvelous game by Timmy Hardaway Jr., he the leading asset exchanged on that much-maligned Unicorn trade back in the day, who got to put on 41 minutes of court-time while finishing the night packing the line to the tune of a 28-6-6-2-1 all-across-the-board contribution for the s**tty Mavs. Of course, Dallas dropped this one to the Ant-less Wolves by six pops. Can’t fix this mob.
— Ja Morant left the COVID shelves, was part of Memphis’ shootaround, but ultimately didn’t play. No problem for the Grit, though, who now that are smelling Morant’s comeback decided to get back to the L column as they were doing prior to fielding lineups with the second-year guard. JJJ put on a shitshow (11-2-1-0-1), Kyle Anderson was molasses-bad (11-4-1-4), and even though Steven Adams and most-of-all Dillon Brooks cooked (37-3-3-1 for the latter including 4 treys on the day), Portland — of all squads — edged Memphis by five.
— My man Johnny Ledesma calling out Los Angeles for not trading DeAndre Jordan all the way east to Washingt*n or somewhere. He’s not wrong, but DAJ had himself a day yesterday in the loss of the Lake Show to the COVID-blasted Bulls putting up a low-but-efficient 9-7 (with a block!) in just 21 minutes of starting basketball at the C spot… because AD was out for yesterday’s affair and the next four weeks of play. Oh boy, are things gonna get tough for the now-play-in-ballers of LA.
— Shout out JaVale McGee for keeping his season-long flex on Shaq the Fool up with another incredible performance against Charlotte. All JaGee did was play 16 minutes off the pine, get 19 pops on 9-for-10 buckets, pull down 7 boards, and add one each of the dimes/steals/blocks varieties. McVale has been fantastic for the Suns and the JVMG+Ayton duo is looking TUFF these days.
— Not the best day for Big Boi Nurk, who in 34 minutes of indigestion could only put up a 9-11-1 line shooting 4-for-10 from the field goal and hitting 1-of-2 freebies against Memphis. Not that his counterpart in JJJ did much more, but you already know about that (peep above).
— Desmond Bane and Tyus Jones combined for 14 points, 2 rebounds, 7 assists, 2 steals, and one block. Alex Caruso alone dropped a 17-9-2-1 line with 3 treys to go. 🐍 BALD MAMBA REPPIN 🐍
— Wayne Ellington is still playing NBA basketball. Ellington. Basketball. NBA. Playing. Yessir! 36 minutes starting because the Lake Show sucks but here we are. Wayne with the 6-4-3-1 line on a putrid 6% usage rate… while Lake Fans keep clamoring for the addition of Danuel House off waivers. No, seriously. Pure Golden L*kers Exceptionalism right there, amirite.
These are tumultuous times right now. We might be on the move, even as soon as just four days/NL emails into this thing. But fear nothing, because we’re still thinking about you here at BBHQ and that’s why we’ll (possibly) be moving to another very tasteful place going forward. Still early to know because we have to wait for the information to arrive from the always-late West Coast but we’ll keep you posted asap here and over the bird-o whether that’s MINE or HEADFAKE’s.
S**t will keep being free when it comes to basketball, though the platform (HeadFake Zine over Medium) allows just a limited amount of free views (three if I’m correct) per month, so there will still be some sort of commitment from your side, though we will keep on the daily beat so you never miss an Association thing. 😘
🐦 You can always REACH me HERE if you dig Twitter b*rds
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