NBA Playoffs 2017: What We Learned Over The Opening Weekend
By Mason McFee
Portland Doesn’t Like the New KD(s)
Portland is one of the youngest rosters in the NBA, and Golden State exposed that fact on Sunday.
With KD back in the starting lineup, the Warriors were their usual selves – Curry was hitting 3s from ridiculously deep per usual, Draymond was fired up (he nearly had a triple double), and even Zaza was contributing with some nifty screens and passes. The star of the show was C.J. McCollum.
Wait, what?
Along with being one of the youngest teams in the NBA, the Trail Blazers have one of the highest payrolls in the NBA – coming in at $112,416,238, which is only fifteen million dollars short of Cleveland’s exorbitant spend of $127,513,094. In the NBA, that’s not a whole lot of a difference. But back to Christian James.
Being a ‘scorer’ doesn’t do McCollum justice. I prefer supa, hot, FIYA. The dude finished with 41 point, going 4-6 from 3, 8 rebounds (don’t remember that), and a steal and a block.
C.J.’s partner in crime DameDolla chipped in 34 points of his own, but Portland got 9 points from its bench (as opposed to Golden State’s 22), and only 25 combined points from the rest of Portland’s starters. Zaza was the only Warriors starter that didn’t finish in double digits.
Portland is a good team, they just showed on Sunday they still have a long way to go before they can be in the contender conversation.