NBA Week In Review: Monday, Feb. 22
Contributed By Nolan Sinclair
The NBA trade deadline has passed and players have made it to their respective teams with hopes of success, buyouts, and possible reservations in the playoffs. Now that the second half has officially gotten here lets take a peek back at the action strictly on the court in our 10 second NBA Week in Review.
ATS Team of the Week: This week the nod goes to the Phoenix Suns. The Suns haven’t been an ATS legend, but they have been an impressive wager against the total. The Suns have fallen short of the total in seven straight games, which included all three games this past week. Not only did Phoenix fall short of the total but their defense seemed to stymie oddsmakers as the Suns were nowhere near the posted line. The closest the Suns came to the set total was 11 points, and the largest disparity was an 88-80 final versus the Hawks in which the total was set at 211.5. Well done Phoenix, I applaud your work on the defensive end of the floor. It is nice to see a team with Steve Nash and Channing Frye playing defense. Wait, what?
Bad Beat of the Week: Let me start this section off by saying I hate typing this paragraph out each week. Over my career I have been on the losing end of many of these types of games and it is impossible to laugh them off. With that said, if you took the ‘over’ on Friday, February 19th in the Miami/Memphis game I feel awful for you. The total was posted at 189 and with Memphis in the game you knew that you had a good shot considering they are a solid offensive ballclub. That opinion proved as wrong as could be as the score at the half was Miami 46 and Memphis 31. Yup, you read that right, the Grizz had 31 first half points. The third quarter was promising for Memphis however as they put up 26 points. The only thing is, Miami only scored 17. Awesome! “It’s OK,” you thought to yourself, “we still have the fourth quarter.” Nope, even the fourth didn’t provide us with points as Miami hit for 13 and Memphis only 19. All of these points left us with a score of 76-76. Wait, OVERTIME. Now we’re talking, we have a shot. Again, nope, each team only scored nine points leaving us with a score of 85-85. Wait, DOUBLE OVERTIME. Now we are talking again, we have a shot, again. Nope. Miami pulls away and wins 100-87, and if you do the quick math, that looks like 187 points falls short of the posted total of 189. Double overtime and we still can’t reach the total of 189? It’s not like we were asking for 220 points. All we needed was 189 damn points. Thanks a lot Miami and Memphis, thanks a lot. I hope bad things happen to you both.
Player of the Week: Russell Westbrook followed up his impressive Rookie/Sophomore game with a very impressive week. Westbrook lead the Thunder to a 3-0 SU week, while averaging 23 points, 11 assists, and eight rebounds a game. Every time I see Westbrook play I get more and more upset that the Knicks didn’t take him when they had the chance. Why is it that whenever there is someone I really want on the Knicks he doesn’t end up there? It all goes back to when they had a chance to draft Ron Artest and instead they took Fredrick Weiss. Those bastards. But I digress. Lets all give Russell Westbrook a round of applause. He has had quite the week and it looks like more outstanding play is in store for this budding star.
