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Derrick Rose, as far as I can tell, is posting the best on-off splits of his career. Even better than his ones from his MVP-level prime in Chicago. Part of that is because he is a total beast who somehow came back from the dead to destroy Father Time forever, and another part of that is that for much of the season he's been backing up Jeff Teague who doesn't seem to want to actually do anything on the basketball court. But it's not like we need advanced stats to tell us how good Rose is this year. We can see with our own eyes. When we get told that he's the most efficient player in the league outside of the paint, we believe it, but we also already kind of knew that. Anyone who watches his highlights knows that he never misses those pullup jumpers that he loves to take. People who watch his games might say that he sometimes misses those, but you know what I say to that? FAKE NEWS. SAD! This is another sick game for him that maybe could've been sicker if he had been a little more aggressive with the three-point chucking. It's been almost a month since he had more than 5 attempts from deep; shouldn't one of the most potent three-shooters be taking a few more of them? I know I'm nitpicking, but I want to see these 30-burgers turned into 40-burgers and that's the quickest way to do it. All clips property of the NBA. No copyright infringement is intended. Check out http://downtobuck.net !
There are a lot of people out there in the world today who know about celebrities and their happenings and their whereabouts, but I'm not one of those people. So when I hear that Tristan Thompson is embroiled in some drama with his girlfriend (or ex-girlfriend? don't know) Khloe Kardashian, all I can do is shrug. I get that having encyclopedic, but ultimately useless, knowledge of NBA players is just as pointless as having vast knowledge of celebrities. I am both the pot and the kettle in this situation and I am blacker than a coal mine at midnight. But I don't even know who Khloe Kardashian is, other than she's a "Kardashian", but I don't even know what being a "Kardashian" means either. I think Kim Kardashian is her mom, but I don't know anything else. Is Khloe an actor? A TV star? Does she possess exceptional beauty? Did she make...ahem...a "fornication tape"? Is a "fornication tape" rumored to exist? Is she only famous because of her drama with Tristan Thompson or was she famous before all of that happened? I thought about going to look up info about her but I don't want Google/the NSA to think that I'm some kind of vapid celebrity junkie, so I didn't. That's why I have to make all these guesses. Now that I think about it, I don't know if I even have the correct Kardashian in mind because I know there are multiple. Hopefully I got the right one. I wish I could Google this but I can't. Whatever drama does or doesn't exist between her and Thompson is, apparently, irrelevant now because Thompson is playing better than he has in a long time. If there's a "LeBron Effect", this dude definitely seems like he wasn't benefiting from it at all. All clips property of the NBA. No copyright infringement is intended. Check out http://downtobuck.net !
I would like to use this description box to issue an apology to Tristan Thompson and all fans of Tristan Thompson (I'm not sure you exist, but I'm not taking any chances here). In the two games prior to this, Thompson scored 18 and 16 points respectively, but the DownToBuck YouTube channel was strangely, and maybe even auspiciously, silent on the matter. This was because I lost track of Thompson during my extended highlight-making sessions, only to remember him after I had shut down my operation for the day. His mediocre performances were washed away in a sea of similarly mediocre performances performed by scrubs who I hold closer to my heart. Getting a chance to publicly issue this apology is the only reason I made this video, because Thompson as a scorer is not very much fun to watch. Sometimes he dunks but even his dunks are lame. Otherwise, he's a layup ("lame-up") machine. In fact, I can't even promise that I will continue to make Thompson videos unless he ups his scoring output. That's actually another reason I made this video: so I could clear the air regarding Thompson and his expected point totals. Sixteen is definitely in the "iffy" category. Eighteen is better, but still not a guarantee. If Thompson wants to ensure that a video gets made, he has to score at least twenty, and he can't hit too many free throws because those, like everything else he does, are lame too. All clips property of the NBA. No copyright infringement is intended. Check out http://downtobuck.net !
If the Wizards' season is going to get back on track, it's going to be because the team decided to follow Jeff Green's example for how to play basketball. Which is: sleepwalk through the motions while not caring about anything or anyone, ignoring all locker-room conflicts, and coasting on natural talent. There's enough natural talent on that team where they can still make the playoffs if everyone becomes an emotionless, passionless automaton. I'm having a fun time imagining Green just sitting there in the locker room while John Wall hurls expletives and insults and Scott Brooks, Markieff Morris strangles Austin Rivers, and Bradley Beal shakes his head while chugging vodka. That would make a good description, something like that, but now I'm two whole paragraphs into this one and I can't back out now. Good on Washington for not crumbling in the face of adversity like they have every other time this season. They were down by 24 I think, and they came all the way back to win against a team with a great record (notice how I didn't say "a great team"). Green was a big part of it, posterizing Boban Marjanovic, the hitting back-to-back threes to get the crowd energized, and eventually adding another dunk to finish off the Clippers. All while showing no emotion whatsoever. Wall, take notes. All clips property of the NBA. No copyright infringement is intended. Check out http://downtobuck.net !
The bucket-getter Trey Burke, the "Allen Iverson 0.7.1" Trey Burke, the redemption story Trey Burke, those are the Trey Burkes we're not seeing this year. We're seeing the bricklayer Trey Burke, the benched for Emmanuel Mudiay Trey Burke, and the DNP Trey Burke. What happened to last year's version? Was it all a mirage? Did his 42-point game even really happen? Hopefully this game marks a return to form. I was really digging his midrange game last season, and it would be a shame if one of the few practitioners of the art had to stop because he lost all his minutes to some bust who was too scared to play in college and ran to China instead. I'm actually feeling like a midrange renaissance is just around the corner for the NBA, so if he can hold on a few more seasons until teams are so paranoid about threes that they give up endless open long twos, that would be to his advantage. Also, I'm just gonna pretend that the Knicks won this game. For some reason I was pulling for them, even though I like the Pelicans. This is weird, because I don't think I've ever rooted for them before in my life. Not being a hater, just saying I hate the team who gave up a first-round pick for Andrea Bargnani. All clips property of the NBA. No copyright infringement is intended. Check out http://downtobuck.net !
After Derrick Rose's 50-point explosion a couple days ago, everybody (including me) was wondering: does this momentous occurrence mark the official return of Derrick Rose? Has he permanently regained his mojo? Will Bulls-era D-Rose reappear in Minnesota? Given that Rose took 20 shots in this game, the most on the team, my early answer is "yes". Rose has regained his swagger, at least for the time being. However, this presents problems for the Timberwolves, who now have four players who could be considered (or would consider themselves) the "first option": -Rose -Karl-Anthony Towns -Jimmy Butler -Andrew Wiggins Obviously not all of those guys can be the first option at once. There's only one first option on a team at any given time. And not all of those guys even deserve to be the first option. But the already unstable power dynamics in the Timberwolves locker room have shifted once again, and I'm eagerly awaiting the fallout. All clips property of the NBA. No copyright infringement is intended. Check out http://downtobuck.net !
Kyle Kuzma didn't have great showings in his first two games, especially in terms of the long ball, where he shot a combined 2-of-12. I can be impulsive sometimes, so obviously I started thinking: what if Kuzma's stellar rookie season had been a mirage? Four-year college players sometimes peak early, so you can't blame me for having this intrusive thought. Or, worse: what if Kuzma, at a fundamental level due to clashing play styles, is unable to play with a player like LeBron? What if the addition of a superstar point-forward changed the flow of the game in a way that Kuzma couldn't adapt to? I was happily proved wrong by Kuzma's 37-point explosion against the Spurs, which didn't result in a win for the Lakers (attention future readers, they're 0-3 right now even though they have Jabroni Lames), but did result in a correction of my attitude towards Kuzma, which is arguably more important than mere "wins". I was never the conductor of the Kuzma hype train, but I was always a willing passenger, and while getting off at the next stop was definitely a consideration for me, I can say that I will stay a passenger for a while longer. All clips property of the NBA. No copyright infringement is intended. Check out http://downtobuck.net !
Stephen struggled to free himself, but after a few seconds, he determined that it was hopeless. The tentacle which had grabbed him around his right ankle had been joined by another tentacle which wrapped around his right thigh. The superhuman strength he had displayed in scaling the mountain was nothing compared to the power of the entity which had captured him. He tried to remain calm by reminding himself that he had transcended his weak human nature, that his soul had reached a deeper connection to the forces outside the universe, but those thoughts could not extinguish the fear that the his essence could be fully annihilated at any point. He grasped the Three-Point Shooting Amulet which was still on a chain around his neck. Gripping this physical representation of his power soothed him somewhat, and he was, for the first time, able to observe the chamber that he was being dragged through. The interior walls, like the exterior, were covered with minute symbols that evidenced great knowledge, perhaps all knowledge that had ever been known or would be known. Like the rest of this world, the place was lit, but the source of light couldn't be seen. Lifting his head up slightly to look towards his legs, Stephen saw additional tentacles slithering and writhing along with the two that bound him. They extended an impossibly long distance forward and then around a curve in the corridor. Whether they belonged to one creature or multiple, he couldn't determine. When the dragging finally stopped, Stephen was in a chamber with a ceiling so high that the walls seemed to vanish into fog. The tentacles let him go, allowing him to stand up, but they stayed within inches him, ready to grab again if he started running. It was then that he got his first look at what he knew without a doubt was one of the Other Gods. It was comprised entirely of the dripping black tentacles that had taken him here. At the center of the writhing mass was a triangle of three eyes that blinked independently of each other. Stephen struggled to look at the abomination for more than a second at a time; its appearance was repulsively alien. There was no visible mouth, but the God spoke to him anyway. "What is your purpose? Why have you come?" Stephen again grasped the amulet, using its strength to look the fiend in the eyes. "To gain mastery over the art of three-point shooting with your aid." He paused, then added, "And to bring back news of the true Gods to those who I once called my fellow man, so that they abandon their adoration of the lesser Gods." "We cannot help you," the thing replied. "We do not desire worship. But you can help us. To have a human spirit, even one tainted by unwise rituals, would nourish us greatly!" At that moment, the veil of concealment was ripped away, and the entire illusion of the mountain and the great stone city disappeared. As Stephen was thrown back into the void, both his physical and mental senses crashed into each other like the waves of a sea beset with hundreds of storms. Unlike his entry into this dimension, there was no tranquility, only chaos. Every connection to reality was sundered. His sanity was broken. His mind, or what remained of it, could only repeat one panicked thought, over and over: "Where is the amulet?" He tried to see it, but there was nothing to see, not even blackness; it was as if the visual inputs to his brain had been replaced with random garbled signals. When he tried to move his hand to check for the amulet, he found that his physical presence had been discarded entirely, leaving only a consciousness with no form attached. The malefic voice spoke again. "What you observe now is the true nature of this dimension. There is no respite from the chaos. We will let the fear build up on your soul like a plaque, and then it will be devoured, and you will find what lies beyond is not pleasant." Distantly, Stephen could hear screams echoing through the void. The screams of those life forms foolish enough to journey into this dimension and paying the price with their souls. "I refuse," Stephen answered defiantly. "Return me at once to my home!" He couldn't tell where his voice was coming from but suspected that no actual sound waves were being generated. In response to this, an unbearable static noise filled his ears at a deafening volume. It moved up and down in pitch as if laughter. Stephen instinctively moved to protect his ears, but there were no ears to protect. "Such hubris," spoke the voice. "If you wish to act this way, perhaps it would be better to remove you immediately." Stephen cried out as he felt the first fragment of his soul get broken off and consumed. More Gods had joined in the feast, surrounding him, prodding him, driving him to incoherence. In one final act of defiance, he channeled his remaining energy even as it was being sapped from him, and yelled out "I refuse!" as this energy burst out of him. Then, silence. -- "Steph? Steph? Are you okay?"