A TRAGEDY Struck The NBA...

Last night, tragedy struck the NBA. We witnessed a bunch of catastrophic injuries that left all of us traumatized, but let's start on a good note with Luka Doncic prepping a little magic show for the fans in Utah. Luka almost broke Bayley's ankles and I mean literally as we see him stomping on his sneaker before stepping back for the three. The Lakers stormed all the way back from minus 18 in the first quarter to take a three-point lead heading into the locker rooms. One guy that was instrumental in the Lakers regaining control of the game was Mathis Thibault. Look at Thibault shooting a no-dip 3 off the assist by Doncic, cash. He had 11 points on 50% efficiency but his defense was key. Matisse has the instincts of a cheetah securing a couple of extra possessions for L.A. in less than a minute which resulted in a 6-0 blitz. He had three steals and one block in this one, but the main shot blocker for the Lakers had a pretty disappointing game. Walker Kessler picked up his fourth personal early in the third period, which limited his production to just 2.7 rebounds and one block in his first game back in Utah. Regardless, nothing else matters when you have this guy leading your team. Just like he did at halftime, Luka finished the third with a triple right in the face of his defender. And when winning time came, he unlocked Godmode. Heat check! Doncic delivers a 50-burger in the third game of the season, putting the Lakers up by 6 points in the clutch. And up by 4 with time winding down, he made the right play by not forcing his hand. Stone Cold Reeves hits the dagger with his 29th point of the night on a blistering 80% shooting from downtown. Luka finished the game just 2 rebounds shy of a 50 point triple double becoming the fastest player in franchise history to reach 3,000 points. The gap between him and the other Lakers grades is wild by the way. And the gap between the Pistons and the Sixers was wild as well, especially in the first half. Cunningham scored 15 of his 26 points in the first half to put his team up by 20. Detroit played without Jalen Duren and Ausar Thompson who got injured in the previous game. And if that wasn't enough, Isaiah Joe took a scary fall in the first quarter and had to leave the game five goodness and he hit hard took a hard fall, Isaiah Joe there, Isaiah Joe stuffed it and went right on the tailbone i mean that was a magnificent break they were running wings filled and the ball was there on the money he was able to elevate dunk with his left hand but it looked to be some contact that forced his legs from underneath him he had nothing to land on but the backside we'll show it to you again you see fine line the rookie coming in just got him with a lot of body and again with Joe just his momentum carrying him out of bounds he was unable to break the fall. And Philly was missing Embiid and V.J. so the oldest guy in the league was forced to do some superhuman stuff just to keep them afloat. LeBron his patch is hurt LeBron switches to the left LeBron. LeBron played the point on offense and the center on defense probably wondering on a couple of occasions why did I ever sign up for this. Wasn't a lot of it there to start the third but Cade silences the crowd. Here comes Cade, ahead to Robinson. Duncan! Oh, he went to the left hand and somehow finished. Isolated his defender, and now the Pistons back up double digits. No need to rush if you're the Pistons, by the way. Collins, what about it? Cade had a lot of help from John Collins, who posted 16 and 11, as well as Robinson and Jenkins, who combined for 39 points on a sizzling 61% from beyond the arc. All of this resulted in a wire-to-wire win for the Pistons in Philadelphia. And playing without Kawhi Leonard, who was out with a swollen knee, the Raptors didn't even stand a chance against the Wolves in Minnesota. Coming out of the timeout, turnover, Toronto ball the other way, a beautiful lob, pinpoint pass, up top. Damn, LaMelo plays so smooth and elegant, it seems effortless. So, up by 20 in the third period, he was out there playing on rookie mode. Up top, there is a recipient of a gift, thrown from long range. Oh, and the crowd loves that action. See, that's what LaMelo ball, there is a metric that the NBA.com website does factor in the hockey pass. And after back-to-back lobs, he saved the dessert for last. Oh my goodness, Melo took Murray Boyle's james skating, hitting him with an array of crazy moves before the step-back splash. And on the sidelines was all of us when he saw that. And he wasn't too shabby either. Edwards led his team with 26 points on 56% shooting from the field and the game turned ugly in the fourth quarter as they led by as many as 32 points. On the other end, But the Raptors ceiling is pretty low without the claw and we saw why. Scottie Barnes ran around for 28 minutes without scoring a single bucket. Yeah, he shot 0 for 12 from the field and finished the game with 0 points and 3 turnovers. With the Wolves defense focused on him, he really struggled getting into his rhythm. This has to be his worst game in a while. RJ and Quigley are not the type of players who can drag a team themselves so Toronto will need Kawhi on the floor in order to hope for any kind of success. And I know I was hoping that my Knicks could get their first win of the season with the Orlando Magic coming to the MSG. And it went pretty well at the start. A 12-0 opening to the game, let's go. OG must have been fired up inside like me when he did this. Ananobi runs through Carter Jr like a freight train sending him crashing to the floor. He got a flagrant for that but he kept bulldozing through the defense the entire game. OG scored 8 straight points early in the 4th to give New York a double-digit lead. We're good, right? Well... Franz Wagner with 9 of Orlando's 11 points in a span of 2 minutes took over the lead! Jeez! And he continued doing damage when it mattered the most. Wagner played like a man possessed in the final period, single-handedly turning over the game. But in the midst of Orlando's avalanche, a tragedy struck when… Suggs in the open floor. Oh, he missed it. He slipped. He slipped and grabbed his knee. Oh, he's hurt. What was he thinking? Clyde, when he went up, something happened to his knee on the, as soon as he jumped off, and he's in a lot of pain. He missed 47 games last year. He's been injury prone. But what he was trying to do, all he had to do was lay the ball up. He was going to dunk it. He was going to lay it up. And now you see what's going on here. Last year he missed time, some with the left knee Jalen Suggs steps awkwardly and bends his knee resulting in a lot of pain for him. He couldn't put any weight on it and had to be carried off the floor. His career is riddled with injuries so I just hope it's not the worst. Back on the hardwood, Franz was putting on his finishing touches. Check this out, Wagner exploded for 21 of his 23 points in the 4th quarter to secure the comeback win for the Magic. Unbelievable. I guess I'll wait some more for my Knicks' first win of the season. In OKC, the Thunder were expecting to cruise against the Clippers on their way to a 3-0 but they were in for a nightmare. That was a hard screen by Jackson and it looked like Wallace dislocated his shoulder. He left the game and didn't return. So having one less perimeter defender out there made things easier for the Clippers. Chris Dunn exploded to the rack for the poster jam over Chet. That was nasty. Still, the Thunder consolidated their troops and took control in the clutch. J Dub finishes the easy dunk in transition to put his team up by 5 points, but just a A minute later, disaster struck for the Thunder. Man, this is devastating. Look at Shea tearing up immediately after seeing what happened to his teammate. It's really heartbreaking for Jalen to go down like that after finally healing up since the playoffs. We all wish him a speedy recovery. The Thunder won the game eventually behind SGA's 34 points but the atmosphere after the game was depressing. a tough circumstance there late with Jalen. What's going through you right now? I don't know. I just feel bad for him. Nothing more than that. You guys close out the game. You do everything as a team here early in the season. How do you guys rally together and continue to push through here in the early going of the season as a group? We don't have no choice. This is what we signed up for. It's obviously going to be tough without a player like that. He's not gone forever. He'll be back better than ever, and we know it. On the contrary, the Grizzlies are pretty hyped up. Who would have thought that Ty Jerome out of all people will lead the league in scoring after 3 games and that Memphis will be unbeaten. Yeah, he racked up 31 points in the win over the Kings and is averaging almost 35 per game on 56% shooting from the field. That is insane. And this dunk by Tyrese Haliburton was pretty crazy too. Are you kidding me? Achilles what? Halliburton bounces a self-lob for the two-handed jam for the surprise of everybody. He had a smooth double-double of 24 points and 10 assists in the dominant win over the Nets. That's it for now. We're 1800 subscribers away from 700k, so hit that button and talk to you in the next one. Peace out.