It was survival Tuesday for the Bucks, Blazers and Nets, despite the latter only being down 2-1 in their series with Atlanta. A 3-1 deficit on the way back to Atlanta would have been impossible to overcome, but a vintage performance by Deron Williams tied the series up, and gives Atlanta fans very real pause. Either team could survive this first-round skirmish between the No. 8 seed and the No. 1 seed, and that diminishes any momentum ATL had coming into the real NBA season.
But that was just a game to tie the series. Portland and Milwaukee were both on the ropes, though the Blazers and Grizz were game behind due to the schedule. The Bucks, even if their coach was going Waaahhh on the sidelines, stunned the Bulls in Chicago to make it 3-2 now with both teams heading back to Milwaukee.
The Blazers just forced a Game 5, but they came back from a 10-point deficit with eight minutes and change in the fourth quarter and that’s a testament to Damian Lillard and the entire Blazers team; they could have easily packed it in and started thinking about summer vacation plans at that point, but they soldiered on instead and now they’re returning to Memphis. Hopefully LMA doesn’t want to bounce early again.
Enough with the backstory, let’s get to the plays…
A pair of Zaza Pachulia pump-fakes that were anything but puffery
Zaza Pachulia bought the old floor at the BMO Bradley court and donated it to a gym in his native country. The 31-year-old Georgian is just selfless like that, but not when it comes to his little mid-range game. Last night he got Pau Gasol first, then Jimmy Butler as both bit on a pair of pump-fakes from that odiously inefficient spot between the paint and the arc, and somehow sank the resultant shots after getting bumped.
With Pau, he didn’t get the And 1:
With Jimmy, he did!
Dual circus shots is not a John Irving short story, but it should be.
Michael Carter-Williams outplays Derrick Rose down the stretch
MCW was maligned in Philadelphia for being the best player on the worst team in the NBA. His 2014 Rookie of the Year award was looked at suspiciously since it came more as the result of volume than anything resembling efficiency. That storyline continued since his deadline trade to Milwaukee, as the Bucks cratered towards the end of the regular season and walked into their first-round series with Chicago with a noticeable limp in their step.
After the first three games, that same narrative was buttressed further as D-Rose of old made an appearance. But then Derrick got burned backdoor in Game 4, and last night Carter-Williams had his revenge with an all-around dazzling performance in a second consecutive knockout game. He scored 22 points, dished nine assists, grabbed eight rebounds, blocked three shots and muzzled D-Rose pretty well in the fourth.
Jason Kidd was sort of an arse for bouncing from Brooklyn last summer and ousting former Bucks coach Larry Drew, but — even in such a short amount of time — you gotta admit he can coach.
Vintage Deron Williams shoots Brooklyn to a 2-2 tie with Atlanta
Jack pretty well summed up D-Will’s performance last night in Brooklyn to knot the first-round series with Atlanta, certainly better than anything we can produce. But it’s worth looking at most of his best plays after matching a playoff-career high with 35 points on 13-of-25 shooting, including 7-for-11 from downtown.
Also, this isn’t the last we hear from D-Will because he wasn’t just feeling it from deep…
Damian Lillard’s four-point play caps the Blazers’ comeback to survive
We’re old, so we had to watch this in the morning. We almost turned it off when Memphis went up 80-70 after a Jeff Green three-pointer with 8:48 left in the fourth, but we’re glad we stuck with it.
Damian Lillard was his usual best in the fourth, when the Blazers were on the verge of elimination. He scored 12 of his game-high 32 points in the final session, capped off by this incredible four-point play with two minutes remaining and the Blazers trailing 86-84.
After that play to get the lead, the Blazers didn’t look back on their way to a 98-92 win, sending the series back to Memphis, where they’ll look to survive like Milwaukee last night in a do-or-die Game 5 on the road.
Deron Williams breaks DeMarre Carroll’s ankles and reminds the Brooklyn crowd of his Jazz days
DeMarre Carroll is supposed to be an ostensible LeBron and ‘Melo stopper on the wing for the top team in the East. But his defensive real plus-minus wasn’t so great this year (No. 35 among small forwards), and he’ll be having nightmares about this play last night.
Deron Williams was obviously feeling frisky last night, and decided to cross him up so bad, you half wondered whether Carroll crossed over. Maybe he really is a future Knick?
Let’s look at it again from another angle, so you can appreciate just how badly Williams faked Carroll out of his jock:
