Month: November 2022

Indianapolis’s offense has struggled to find its footing through the first half of the campaign.

The Colts fired offensive coordinator Marcus Brady following a tepid start to the 2022 season for the team’s offense, the team announced Tuesday morning.

Owner Jim Irsay confirmed the news in a tweet shortly after the announcement, wishing Brady “all the best.”

“This was an incredibly hard decision, but one I felt needed to be made in the best interest of the team,” coach Frank Reich said in a statement Tuesday. “I appreciate Marcus’s commitment to the organization, and he made a significant contribution to our offensive success over the last five seasons. I wish him the best moving forward.”

Brady first arrived in Indianapolis in 2018 as the assistant quarterbacks coach and quickly moved up the ladder to become the quarterbacks coach in ’19 and ’20. He was promoted to offensive coordinator in ’21. 

Unfortunately for Brady, the Colts haven’t found their footing on offense this season after trading for veteran quarterback and former MVP Matt Ryan in the spring. Through eight weeks, Indianapolis ranks 30th in the league in scoring offense (16.1 points per game) and is tied for the most giveaways (16) in the NFL with the Patriots and Saints.

The Colts sought to right the ship beginning this past weekend by benching Ryan and handing the starting job to second-year signal-caller Sam Ehlinger. The former Texas quarterback’s first NFL start was anything but smooth sailing as Indianapolis scored just 16 points and lost to a middling Commanders team 17–16. 

With Ehlinger poised to hold onto the starting job for the remainder of the year, barring any other dramatic changes, the Colts (3-4-1) will look to move forward on offense with a clean slate.

More NFL Coverage:

• Adam Zimmer, Bengals Offensive Analyst, Dies at 38
• NFL Week 9 Betting Guide: Matchups, Spreads and Odds for SI Sportsbook Perfect 10
• Tom Brady Says There’s One ‘Silver Lining’ for Bucs at 3–5
• Horseshoe Huddle: Report: ‘Odds are Good’ Colts Trade Nyheim Hines Tuesday

For more Indianapolis Colts coverage, go to Horseshoe Huddle. 

He is expected to miss the next two games.

Clippers star Kawhi Leonard is expected to miss the road trip to Texas when his team faces the Rockets and Spurs as he continues to deal with stiffness in his surgically repaired right knee. This would push him to six straight games missed and his coach says the star wing is not happy. 

“He’s frustrated,” Los Angeles coach Tyronn Lue said before the game against the Rockets on Monday, per ESPN. “He wants to be out on the floor and then not being on the floor, and then now he can’t travel. He wants to travel, but the doctor said it’s not the right thing to do right now with the stiffness and what he is going through.”

Leonard tore his ACL in Game 4 of the second round of the playoffs against the Jazz on June 14, 2021 and missed all of last season as a result. He made his return in two of the Clippers’ first three games of the season, logging 21 minutes in each off the bench. The stiffness began Oct. 25 at shootaround and he hasn’t played since. After the Texas road trip, the Clippers will host the Jazz on Sunday but it’s unknown if he’ll be able to make his return then. 

“[Leonard is] just frustrated after putting in all the work the last 15 months,” Lue said. “And to get to this point and not being where he wants to be physically . . . but he is getting better and that is the most important thing.”

More NBA Coverage:

• Donovan Mitchell’s Takeover Has Been a Work of Art
• NBA Odds, Lines, Spreads and Bets: Warriors-Heat
• Turner: Lakers Should Take ‘Very Hard Look’ at Trade for Him
• All Clippers: Injury Update: Kawhi Leonard ‘Game-to-Game’ With Knee  

For more Los Angeles Clippers coverage, go to All Clippers.  

She’ll become the franchise’s fifth coach in the last six years.

View the original article to see embedded media.

The Wings are planning to hire Sparks assistant Latricia Trammell as the organization’s next head coach, as first reported by Howard Megdal of The Next Hoops.

Megdal reports that Trammell is expected to sign a three-year deal with Dallas, becoming the franchise’s fifth coach in sixth years. She previously spent time at the college level, as the coach at Oklahoma City University and Western State, before taking on assistant jobs with the San Antonio Stars and most recently, the Sparks.

Trammell will succeed Vickie Johnson, who the Wings decided to part ways with earlier this offseason even after the franchise made the playoffs for the second year in a row. However, Johnson’s relationship with many players in the locker room had soured during her two seasons with the team, prompting Dallas to move on after the 2022 campaign.

Johnson finished her time with the franchise with a 32–36 record. 

Trammell will inherit a Wings team laden with young talent, led by two-time All-Star Arike Ogunbowale. The rest of the young core contains players such as Allisha Gray, Veronica Burton, Satou Sabally, Awak Kuier and Marina Mabrey, all of whom are poised to provide significant contributions next season.

More WNBA Coverage:

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• Brittney Griner Appeal Rejected by Russia

Daily Cover: Homers, Handshakes and Hoskins: The Long Road to the World Series 

It would have been understandable, if not conventional wisdom, to expect the Cavaliers to struggle a bit early on this season.

After swinging a stunning late-offseason trade for three-time All-Star Donovan Mitchell, Cleveland lost the ability to develop true on-court chemistry during the preseason when Evan Mobley suffered an ankle injury that kept him out of the lineup. Then, in the team’s season- opening loss two weeks ago, Darius Garland, the other All-Star member of the Cavs backcourt, was sidelined with an eye laceration that he’s still yet to return from. The predicament made for a bit of an uphill climb for Mitchell, who’d now be a lone, star wing surrounded by a completely different sort of offensive talent than what he had with the Jazz, who led the association in offense last season with an elite screener and an abundance of floor spacing.

In the five games since Cleveland blew a late lead in Toronto, though, the Cavs have been just fine. Better than fine, actually. They’ve reeled off five straight to open the campaign 5-1 without Garland as Mitchell has picked up the slack with MVP-caliber averages: 32.2 points and 7.3 assists on 49.6% shooting overall and 45.5% from three while playing a league-leading 39 minutes per night.

It’s certainly one hell of a way to get around the “How will Donovan Mitchell fit in?” question.

Mitchell’s early takeover has been a work of art. After dropping 41 in a victory over the defending conference-champion Celtics last week, he torched the Knicks with a dominant you-should’ve-just-given-into-Danny-Ainge performance Sunday: 38 points and 12 assists, with eight triples; five of which he sank in a tone-setting first quarter.

More of the game has been placed in Mitchell’s hands than he’s even used to. His usage rate—the percentage of team possessions that end with him shooting or turning the ball over—is virtually the same as it was in 2021–22, and in 2020–21. But with Garland out, his ballhandling has increased by nearly 50%. Mitchell’s 9.1 minutes of possession per game, which rank second in the NBA behind Luka Dončić, are up from last season’s 6.2 minutes per night.

He’s making the most of the extra time on the ball, logging a career-high 34% assist rate while also doing max damage when calling his own number. Mitchell rates in the 98th percentile in isolation offense, shooting a blistering 70% on his one-on-one looks, per Synergy Sports.

Perhaps most impressive is the fact that he’s been able to smoke opposing defenses despite them keying in on him from one play to the next. In Utah, where the Jazz had three other wing starters who shot nearly 40% from deep, stoppers often couldn’t limit Mitchell by throwing too much attention at him. With Cleveland, which features 33% career three-point shooter Caris LeVert and a pair of non-shooters in Mobley and Jarrett Allen, it’s a more worthwhile gamble to make the other guys beat you if they’re stationed out past the free-throw line. (That can be a risk, too, as Mitchell has shown the ability to pick defenses apart when they neglect the bigs.)

Yet Mitchell has gotten the best of nearly everyone. The best example came Sunday, when he used his incredible quickness and footwork to all but dice three defenders by splitting a pick and roll, then turning on the spin cycle above the charity stripe. The result was an enormous, video-game style jam for the 6′ 1″ Mitchell. Except this, like the Cavs’ success so far, was real.

“Donovan was not going to let us lose this game,” coach J.B. Bickerstaff told reporters after the victory. “He is a complete basketball player. The dude is elite. I don’t know what he can’t do on the floor.”

To be clear, there are a number of other factors at play in the Cavaliers’ fast, shorthanded start. The team plays at the pace of a tortoise, which helps them limit opponents to the fewest three-point tries in the league on a night-to-night basis. Second-chances against the Cavs are rare. Cleveland thrives on turning opponents over, and when that happens, the club has been fantastic at cashing in on the mistakes, scoring 1.53 points per possession after forcing a miscue. That’s the third-highest rate in basketball, according to advanced-data site, Inpredictable.

Like with any team, there are areas to keep an eye on. How do things change, with Mitchell and the Cavs more generally, once Garland returns? It’s natural to think about how those two will play off one another within the offense. (Bickerstaff has already vowed to stagger their minutes so that at least one of them is on the court most of the time.) But the real question is whether Cleveland—currently a top-three defense—can continue to be elite on D with a pair 6′ 1″ guards defending the perimeter. The pathway to getting stops is clearer when one man is sidelined.

Similarly, there’s still the question of which player would be best to step in and grab the starting small forward role on a more permanent basis. (It’s been a moot point with Garland injured, since there’s been an extra spot available.) LeVert can score—he also had 41 in the win over Boston—and has been a good distributor to start the season. But he isn’t a high-level defender, and isn’t the most natural fit to try and stop the murderer’s row of scoring forwards—Giannis, Tatum, Durant—that any East contender might have to go through during a playoff run. Isaac Okoro, the small forward who’d seem best suited for that role on D, hasn’t looked anywhere near aggressive enough on offense to hold down the spot, and has seen a bit less playing time as a result. Dean Wade, the Cavs’ formerly undrafted forward, has been the best shooter to fill the role, and may get more opportunities in the future. But in all honesty, it could end up being Mobley, the towering 21-year-old talent, to take on such defensive responsibilities.

It’s a beautiful, privileged set of problems to even be pondering for the moment. As I wrote in my season-preview feature on the Cavs, it’s been almost 25 years—1998—since they reached the playoffs without LeBron on the roster.

If they can keep up this momentum—or even a moderate chunk of it—once Garland returns, they’ll be able to dice through that statistic the way Mitchell has with defenses thus far. And so far, it’s looking like they’ll be able to do just that.

Meat and potatoes: Good reads from SI this past week

My teammate Howard Beck penned a column on Kyrie Irving retweeting an antisemitic film at a time where antisemitism is markedly on the rise.

Rohan Nadkarni went long on Ben Simmons, and why the struggling Nets to try his hand at center. In a separate piece, he wrote about the disappointing Sixers, and how their early-season issues include franchise centerpiece Joel Embiid.

I shined a light on the unexpectedly fun Utah Jazz, looking at why they’ve had so much success early on.

Our Ben Pickman wrote about what’s been among the most fun NBA rookie classes in recent memory.

The five most surprising lineups—good and bad—to start the NBA season

The Kings’ starting five: +22.5 pts per 100 possessions in 41 mins over five games

The grouping of De’Aaron Fox, Kevin Huerter, rookie Keegan Murray, Harrison Barnes and Domantas Sabonis has had a little bit of everything.

Elite rebounding marks, grabbing nearly 30% of its own misses while gobbling up nearly 83% of its opponents’ misfires. Ample shooting, knocking down almost 53% of its shots and 42% of its triples, even with Barnes and Sabonis struggling mightily from deep so far. (The smooth-shooting Murray’s been such an instant fit in this way.) And the defense has been surprisingly solid. That’s due in large part to this group, which has allowed 93.2 points per 100 possessions—a rate that would stand as the league’s best mark on a teamwide scale thus far. The lineup also plays at a blistering pace of 104 possessions per 48 minutes.

But here’s an enormous key: playing uptempo on offense hasn’t resulted in a lack of effort on defense. At least not yet. In a key development from a season ago, Sacramento—which has preached the importance of committing to transition defense—is relatively average in that regard so far, ranking 13th. That’s a night-and-day improvement from the 2021-22 campaign, when the Kings finished as the league’s fifth-worst transition D.

The Nets’ starting five: -14.2 pts per 100 possessions in 67 mins over six games

It’s a hell of a thing to look at Brooklyn, which employs Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving—a pair of stars who are part of NBA history’s elusive 50-40-90 club—and see the club’s starting lineup is generating an anemic 101.5 points per 100 possessions. If you’re keeping score at home, that’s near-the-bottom-of-the-league bad; on par with the wayward-shooting Lakers, and the Clippers, who’ve largely played without Kawhi Leonard so far this season.

Yes, we assumed there’d be growing pains for Ben Simmons and, because of his shortcomings on offense, the guys around him. But we didn’t know there’d be this many minutes—97 so far, or almost 17 per night—with Simmons and starting center Nic Claxton sharing the court each night. (Wing Royce O’Neale rounds out Brooklyn’s starting five.)

The Simmons-Claxton pairings are understandable given that Simmons will often be assigned to the opposing team’s best wing scorer, whereas Claxton is more keen to defend traditional bigs than Simmons. But things get cramped quite quickly, even with scorers Durant and Irving, with two non-shooting threats on offense. Especially when you have a shooter like Joe Harris (who started Monday as Simmons sat out with a sore knee) who can be plugged in instead.

It will be interesting to see how Steve Nash seeks to go small, with Simmons at center, more often once Seth Curry is back. Using lineups like those would allow the team to better use its shooters, but would come with the downside of making a finesse Brooklyn club even less effective on the glass.

The Warriors’ “PTSD” lineup: -8.3 per 100 possessions in 37 mins over six games

It’s been a relatively common refrain so far this season as it relates to the Dubs: The team’s youngsters haven’t performed well as a second unit, and largely to blame for Golden State’s struggles to start the year.

That isn’t completely wrong, of course. Jonathan Kuminga in particular has been rough, shooting 33.3%. Lineups with him, Jordan Poole and James Wiseman have been blasted by 38.5 points per 100 possessions over 28 minutes so far, while ones with Kuminga, Poole and Moses Moody have lost by 17.3 points per 100 possessions in 22 minutes. With Wiseman, specifically, there just isn’t much second-unit cohesion just yet.

But the early returns on the PTSD lineup—composed of Poole, Klay Thompson, Steph Curry, Draymond Green and Andrew Wiggins (who gets no part of the acronym here, apparently)—haven’t been very good, either. Especially not when compared to last postseason, when the Warriors outscored playoff opponents by 13.8 points per 100 possessions with that grouping, and logged a 64% true-shooting percentage.

To this point, the five-man unit has defended very poorly, surrendering 117.2 points per 100 plays while being a sieve from a defensive-rebound perspective. Opponents are grabbing nearly 32% of their misses. Both are marks that would rank near the bottom of the league on a full-time scale.

Coach Steve Kerr has been vocal in calling out his team’s lack of communication defensively. And a struggling Klay Thompson has spoken about continuing to try to work himself back to where he was before his injuries.

If there’s a silver lining here, it’s that the Warriors also have one of the best statistical lineups in basketball so far, and it requires just one quick swap: plugging in Kevon Looney for Poole, which immediately mitigates the defensive-rebounding problem. The Dubs are a plus-25.3 per 100 over 81 minutes when Looney plays with that group.

Washington’s (former) starting five: +21.6 pts per 100 possessions in 69 mins over six gms

Perhaps the biggest pleasant surprise on this list comes from the Wizards, who’ve seen fantastic results when playing Bradley Beal, Kristaps Porzingis, Kyle Kuzma, Deni Avdija and surehanded newcomer Monte Morris. In fact, Washington’s had more success on offense with that group—a blistering 128.6 points—than any other five-man lineup in the league with at least 50 minutes played.

Interestingly, though, coach Wes Unseld Jr. opted to shake up his starting five Monday night, plugging in 30-year-old forward Anthony Gill in place of the 21-year-old Avdija. It was a move he’d soft-launched a game earlier, against the Celtics, by bringing Avdija off the bench to begin the second half.

Unseld said the club had a need for more playmaking in the second unit following the hamstring injury to Delon Wright, which will sideline the guard for six to eight weeks. Avdija, who possesses point-forward skills at 6′ 9″, figures to have more of a chance to handle the ball with that second group than he would with Beal and Morris in the starting five. (As a starter, Avdija was often taking on the most demanding defensive assignment from night to night.)

Just in case anyone was planning to go to Unseld with a pitchfork over the decision, it’s worth noting that the metrics with Gill as the fifth member of the group are more than solid, too: +12.8 per 100 possessions in 38 minutes of work so far.

The Clippers’ lineups with Kawhi, who’s only been able to play twice so far

It feels too soon to be “out” on the Clippers, who many of us—myself included—picked to reach the Finals this year. And to be sure, it is still a bit too early to have a change of heart, in my opinion.

That said, I wasn’t expecting Kawhi Leonard to have only played two games out of the Clippers’ first seven outings. And he’s going to miss at least the next two games as well, based on what coach Ty Lue said yesterday.

Lue said Leonard was feeling “frustrated” over his inability to be back at this point, after having missed a season and rehabbing for the better part of a year from a partially torn ACL in his right knee.

Numbers probably don’t matter that much for Leonard and Paul George, a pair of players who would illustrate the ability to contend if both are healthy simultaneously. Still, in the 39 minutes those two played alongside each other, Los Angeles was 13.7 points better than its opponents per 100 possessions while notching a 62.2% true-shooting percentage.

Seeing Leonard get more reps with new Clipper John Wall, along with the other roster additions, would be an enormous plus for this team. But the question of how often we’ll see that this season seems very much in the air at the moment.

Thanks for reading The Playmaker. Feel free to forward this email to a friend or tell them to sign up at SI.com/newsletters. If you have any specific questions, just reply to this email or send a note to nba@si.com and I may answer it in a future edition.

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Bets and odds for Tuesday’s four-game NBA slate, highlighted by the Heat welcoming the Warriors.

Tuesday is a light night around the league. Only four games are on the schedule after a loaded Halloween slate.

There’s a matchup between the Bulls and Nets taking place in Brooklyn, No. 1 pick Paolo Banchero’s Magic head to OKC to take on the Thunder and the Timberwolves will look to unseat the red-hot Suns. But the game that I’m highlighting today is between two underperforming contenders, one that won it all and the other that was a game away from making it to the Finals.

It’s Warriors–Heat in Miami. These teams already met once this season and they’ll wrap up the season series Tuesday. Get the breakdown and bets for this cross-conference matchup, as well as the odds and lines for the rest of Tuesday’s games.

Bet on the NBA at SI Sportsbook

Golden State Warriors vs. Miami Heat Odds

Time: 7:30 p.m. ET
Spread: Warriors -1.5 (+105) | Heat +1.5 (-125)
Moneyline: Warriors (-110) | Heat (-110)
Total: 226.5 — Over (-110) | Under (-110)

Warriors Straight-Up Record: 3-4
Warriors Against The Spread Record: 2-5

Heat Straight-Up Record: 2-5
Heat Against The Spread Record: 1-6

It’s been a rough go for the Warriors and Heat in the early part of the season. Both teams are on two-game losing streaks heading into Tuesday with essentially opposite reasons for their sub-.500 records. Golden State has the top-ranked offense and ranks last in defense. Miami’s contrast is less drastic, but it is bottom five in scoring and ranks 11th in defense. These teams played Thursday in California and the Dubs scored a decisive 123-110 victory.

The difference in the first meeting was Golden State’s 50-31 edge on the boards, including a 16-8 advantage on the offensive glass. The Warriors’ point total was the most the Heat have allowed this season and Steph Curry, who’s led the team in scoring every game so far, finished with 33 points and seven three-pointers. Miami has to be better on the boards and against the three when the champs come to town. Nothing it has shown thus far should inspire much confidence on either front. The Dubs will get another win against the Heat and this one goes over, as has been the case more often than not for both teams’ games this year.

BETS: Warriors -1.5 (+105);  Over 226.5 (-110)

Chicago Bulls vs. Brooklyn Nets Odds

Time: 7:30 p.m. ET (TNT)
Spread: Bulls +1.5 (-110) | Nets -1.5 (-110)
Moneyline: Bulls (+100) | Nets (-118)
Total: 230.5 — Over (-110) | Under (-110)

Orlando Magic vs. Oklahoma City Thunder Odds

Time: 8 p.m. ET
Spread: Magic +3.5 (-118) | Thunder -3.5 (+100)
Moneyline: Magic (+125) | Thunder (-150)
Total: 216.5 — Over (-110) | Under (-110)

Minnesota Timberwolves vs. Phoenix Suns Odds

Time: 10 p.m. ET (TNT)
Spread: Timberwolves +3.5 (-110) | Suns -3.5 (-110)
Moneyline: Timberwolves (+140) | Suns (-167)
Total: 227.5 — Over (-110) | Under (-110)

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The Pacers center was asked if he’d make a deal if he were the Lakers.

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Before this season, the Lakers shopped around to see what they could get in a potential trade involving Russell Westbrook and their first-round draft picks in 2027 and 2029. One of the most intriguing potential deals that was reportedly considered was for Pacers center Myles Turner and shooting guard Buddy Hield.

Eventually, Los Angeles opted against making a move but during an interview with ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, Turner was posed an interesting question. He was asked if he were the Lakers, would he pull the trigger on a deal for him that involved their two first-round picks? 

“If I’m the Lakers, I take a very hard look at this with the position that you’re in,” Turner said on The Woj Pod. “I know what I can provide for a team—my leadership, my shot-blocking, my three-point ability and just my ability to make plays out there on the floor.

“But as far as pulling the trigger . . . I get paid to shoot. I’m not paid to make these calls so I couldn’t answer that,” he added. 

His comments could be interpreted as a message to the Lakers to make a deal for him, but he later addressed the interview and the response it received.

“I understand that some of the things I might’ve said in that podcast could’ve gotten misconstrued answering hypothetical questions. This isn’t a hypothetical. I’m here in Indiana,” Turner told HoopsHype. “I’ve got real estate in Indiana. I’ve got a fan section in our own arena. I’m a Pacer. I’ve been a Pacer my entire career. I can’t tell the future, but where I’m at right now, I’m very happy.”

The 26-year-old has been with Indiana since he was drafted in 2015 and is currently averaging 13 points, seven rebounds and 3.7 blocks per game. 

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For more Los Angeles Lakers coverage, go to All Lakers.