I am happy (but surprised) your prediction for the Hawks was wrong, Miami have had their number lately.

I hope they take Boston too but expect a "Gentleman's sweep"

Atlanta's bench helps them in Miami, while the Wolves fail to hold onto their lead. Have to wonder about the Lakers prospects after they scraped through at home against a depleted and mediocre team.

Lakers-Wolves was one of the worst games of basketball I've watched in years.

Lakers-wolves was awful.

Also, one thing I've seen with basically all NBA teams is trying to be too cute with a sideline out of bounds. three of the four guys inbounds basically not even looking to get the ball and the one guy who is intended to get it doesn't move until 2-3 seconds have gone already. It leaves little margin for error when the one guy all of a sudden gets double teamed and his team mates look like they're listening to a podcast. Happened a few times yesterday.

Anyways, hoping my Raptors can get it done today, though not confident at all and basically think there's no way Jimmy gets swept like that for the next game anyway.

Giddey with a great outing so far against NOP. 24/5/8 with a quarter to play.

Would love to see either of these teams knock off the Lakers. That much better if it's Giddey and the Thunder.

"Would love to see either of these teams knock off the Lakers. That much better if it's Giddey and the Thunder."

the lakers are through. the only way they meet now is if they make it to the conference finals.

Raps out. What a crappy season!

Now gotta hope the Bulls beat the Heat so the Raptors move "up" one spot in draft lottery odds.

Oops, right you are. I'd have preferred these two teams to the Lakers/Twolves, so overly optimistic there.

Fantastic game from Giddey on probably the biggest stage he's ever had.

Giddey 1 board off a huge triple double. That was a big time performance for a twenty year old.

Massive from Giddey! Hope he and the Thunder can back it up. Wins by Thunder and Bulls help the Raptors get higher odds at the draft. If they both lose, Raps pick 13, one win, Raps at 12 and both win Raps at 11.

Lets go OKC and Chicago!

Phenomenal game from Josh, and yet he's the only OKC starter with a negative +/-.

Kind of highlights the weakness of the +/- a bit, especially when compared to Shai.

Minus 3 in a game like that is nothing, it's the big plus minus that gives indication. If you’re minus twenty plus but rest your team is minus ten or less it really tells you something.

New Orleans Pelicans had a dreadful season. With all the talent they got. Zion is never healthy, he barely played 6 games this season. Pelicans will keep underachieving if health keeps getting in their way.

Bulls had a great win from behind. Nothing worse losing a elimination final at home. 36ers, Perth have lost a few during the early 2000's. Hated that finals system when finishing 3rd to 2nd is a major difference to making the semifinals. I remember Perth in 2007 had a decent season but lost to Cairns at home, 36ers also lost to Cairns.

Josh Giddey killed it today. Nearly got a triple double, bugger that nine!

Harsh Zion joke I saw: "At least Zion can spend the next 6 months getting ready to play 2 months of basketball next season".

Just like Ben, Isaac LOL

Duke fan, so I have a lot of love for Zion. And there's the amount of games Embiid missed early in his career, before turning into the player everyone expected him to be. But I do wish he'd figure out what has to change in order for him to play more. 10% less effective Zion, twice as often, would be awesome.

And there's the fact that Zion plays more often than Ben, and is actually good at basketball when he plays. So he's always going to have that favourable comparison available.

If you're looking to compare to Ben its clear things arent going well.

more often than Ben, and is actually good at basketball when he plays

Well, I also compared to Embiid. You could make a good case that I'd be a better use of an NBA roster spot than Ben Simmons, because at least I wouldn't be eating so much salary cap.

There are guys who are good enough that teams will suck up their greatly reduced availability, just look at Kawhi. The Pels probably need to consider quite deliberately going that route with Zion, and aiming to get ~60 regular season games and have him healthy for the playoffs. The thing that worries me with Zion isn't really that he gets hurt, it's that he hasn't recovered from a single one of his injuries on the sort of timeline that you'd expect for how serious it was when it happened. It seems like he's being taken out of 3/4 of a season by basically a grade 1 hamstring strain. That's different than most guys who cop season-ending injuries.

To me its inevitable that in the next couple of years Zion signs a max deal and forces his way to the Knicks who are on the cusp of their best team in a long time and then never plays again.

Near-future headline: CAKE BETTER FOR BROOKLYN THAN SIMMONS or CAKE DOESN'T EAT UP CAP

Every series of Zion articles seems to imply that his club aren't happy with his conditioning. If true, he really needs to get it under control. He could be Oden or he could be Barkley.