The NBA season tipped off last night with two games. The opener featured the Cleveland Cavaliers hosting the Boston Celtics. While the night game had the defending champion Golden State Warriors vs. the Houston Rockets.
This off season the Celtics where able to land one of if not the top free agent on the market when they signed Gordon Hayward to a 4 year $128 million dollar deal. It was the first of a couple moves that the Celtics made that had many people thinking the could unseat the Cavaliers as the best team on the Eastern Conference. Sadly Heyward’s Celtics debut went horribly wrong.
Heyward went up for an alley-oop just about 5 minutes into the game. He collided with LeBron James on the play and his leg bent in a funny way and he collapsed under the basket. The players stayed away from Heyward as the doctors where checking him out, but eventually his teammates and the Cavaliers players came over to check on him as he was being stretchered off the court.
Heyward was taken into the Cavaliers locker room for his medical evaluation. Being that Cleveland was the home team their locker room is outfitted with more medical equipment than the visitors locker room is. Both Celtics and Cavaliers officials where in the locker room with Heyward along with doctors from each team. Heyward received X-rays in the Cavaliers locker room.
After the game Celtics head coach Brad Stevens said that Heyward had dislocated his ankle and fractured his tibia while the team announced the injury as a fractured ankle. No matter what his injury is Heyward was flown back to Boston last night and taken straight to New England Baptist Hospital according to reports. Heyward is scheduled to have surgery today.
Heyward’s teammate did rally and beat the Cavaliers 102-99 as Jaylen Brown led the way with 25 points. James just missed an opening night triple-double in the loss as he had 29 points, 16 rebounds and 9 assists.
In the night cap it was ring night for Golden State and as I’m sure most of you know that normally spells trouble for a team. No one is sure if it’s the change of warm ups or the delays the ring ceremony causes, but most teams struggle when they are given their championship rings. The Warriors didn’t fall into that trap to start.
The Warriors out up 35 points in the 1st quarter to take a slim 1 point lead. After a 36 point 2nd quarter the Warriors had a 9 point lead at halftime. Golden State was able to push their lead to double digits at the end of the 3rd quarter as they lead by 13. As the 4th quarter rolled around it appeared as the Warriors would be able to get by the new look Rockets on opening night, but the final quarter didn’t go their way. Did the Warriors run out of gas? Or was it the opening ceremony just catching up to them? Golden State managed just 20 points in the 4th quarter as the Rockets where able to make up that 13 point deficit and pull out a 1 point win 122-121.
James Harden led the Rockets with 27 points. Harden also recorded 10 assists. The Rockets only used 8players in the game and all three of the players who came off the bench scored in double digits led by Eric Gordon with 24 points. If you would’ve bet that Nick Young would be the Warriors leading scorer on opening night you probably would’ve won a lot of money, but he was. Young came off the Golden State bench to score 23 points. Young made 8 of the 9 shots he took in the game and was 6 of 7 from behind the 3-point line. Draymond Green was a point short of a triple-double as he had 11 rebounds, 13 assists, but just 9 points in the loss.
If you’ve ever played on a team you know that there are arguments between teammates and sometimes these escalate into physical altercations. Luckily these fights are rare and they don’t often end in an injury, but that wasn’t the case for the Chicago Bulls at practice Tuesday.
Nikola Mirotic and Bobby Portis are battling each other for playing time at the power forward position. At practice on Tuesday it was reported that the two started by talking trash to each other which we see happen in ever NBA game.
In this case the incident between Mirotic and Portis sadly continued to escalate as it was reported that Mirotic charged Portis on a couple of occasions before Portis retaliated with a punch. Portis’ punch landed right in Mirotic’s face and he dropped to the floor.
Mirotic ended up being taken to the hospital and where he was diagnosed with a concussion and fractures to his upper jaw. The Bulls have said that surgery is a possibility for Mirotic.
Bulls general manager Gar Foreman was at practice and saw the altercation happen according to reports, but he didn’t comment on it. In a statement released by the team the Bulls said they are ” evaluating disciplinary action.”
The Bulls open the season Thursday night on the road against the Toronto Raptors.
Is there anyone out there who can figure out this NFL season? There seem to be quite a few upsets every week and as you’ll see it’s affecting our records when it comes to picking games.
For Week 6 Dan the Man was the only one who was able to get above .500 at 8-6. Schaumburg Stu was right at .500 with a 7-7 record. I was a game under .500 at 6-8 while Mr. Fantasy struggled to a 5-9 record for the week
On the season Schaumburg Stu is still in the lead with a record of 53-38, but Dan the Man has closed the gap to just one game as his record stanza at 52-39. I am hanging around in 3rd place with a record of 49-42 while Mr. Fantasy finds himself in the cellar, but he is just one game behind me at 48-43.
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