NBA In-Season Tournament group play concludes: Who should be the favorite going into the Knockout round?
The Inaugural In-Season Tournament has provided some great competitive basketball and has brought a playoff atmosphere in November which has been great to watch. Some teams were at their best during the tournament group play games while others did not play as well as expected. The most impressive team in the tournament performance has to be the the Los Angeles Lakers who have struggled with their consistency so far this season but came ready to play in all their group play matchups. The Lakers not only went a perfect 4-0 in the group stage but also had the highest point differential of any team in the NBA winning 3 of their 4 games by double digits. With said, they should be the clear favorites going into Knockout stage where they matchup with their division rival Phoenix Suns on Tuesday. In the East, another team I think could also make a run to the championship is the Milwaukee Bucks who have also been inconsistent likely due to them still building chemistry with Damian Lillard. Still, they managed to come up with hard fought wins with their best being a win over Miami. The Bucks now get a rematch with the Knicks in the Knockout stage to decide who heads to the Semifinals in Vegas. For my Knockout round picks I am going with the Lakers, Kings, Bucks and Celtics to all move on to the Semifinal round.
Are the Dallas Mavericks contenders?
The Dallas Mavericks look much improved compared to where they were at last year thanks to the improved cohesion of their dynamic duo in Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving. At 11-8, the Dallas Mavericks are sixth in the west and are a matchup problem any night due to having the sixth ranked offense in the league. Unfortunately, despite their explosive scoring ability what keeps them from being contenders in the west is their inability to lock in defensively. Currently, they are the 22nd ranked defense giving up 118.0 points per game which makes at times makes them overly reliant on their offense to win games especially against good teams. Without improving on the defensive end it will be hard to expect their offense to carry them through the season even though the Mavericks have one of the best perimeter scoring combos in the league in Doncic and Irving. A move they will need to consider making is adding more perimeter defense like they had when they made the conference finals a couple years ago.
Bulls in the midst of a disappointing season: when will the rebuild begin?
It's hard to believe just a couple years ago the Bulls looked like a contender with the same nucleus of talent they have now but it appears the group will not live up to the hype they had when they were first brough together. The trio of Zach Lavine, Demar Derozan, and Nikola Vucevic has gotten to a rough start to the season as the Bulls rank 12th in the East with a 7-14 record despite the money spent to put the roster together along with the talent. Lavine and Derozan have already been heavily involved in trade talks but with their expensive contracts it will may come down to the trade deadline before any moves are officially done. As of right now, it does not appear that Lavine has a significant trade market but with Bulls record they may consider lowering their asking price to accelerate the rebuild process. At worst, the Bulls roster will surely look much different next season as I expect both Lavine and Derozan to be on new teams next season if not by the trade deadline this season.
Game of the week- The Kings were down by as much as 24 points against the Warriors in this In-season tournament matchup but managed to storm back in the 4th to get the win thanks to an incredible game winning shot from Malik Monk with 7.4 seconds remaining.
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