i do really enjoy having jalen brunson as our point guard…i think he is a championship level player, i think he can drag a few other folks along with him…

having said that – god damn but there are a lot of really good point guards playing right now…

de’aaron fox is a franchise leader…

A one-eye test I had this evening. I watched the first half and Julius seemed really switched on. Then I was being somewhat distracted in the third, but every time I looked up he was doing something brain dead — standing still next to his man when someone was getting double-teamed, losing the ball — I made a joke about his half-time meds, but damn it felt that way. I know IQ shat the bed shooting-wise, and Jason Tatum needs to be torn to pieces by weasels, but it felt like our slide downhill was being spearheaded by Big Jules losing focus.

As to Obi, seems like he hid his deep resentment pretty well during his time here and it is now leaking out. It would probably be more appropriate and meaningful if he backed up his comments with a level of play that indicated he only needed to be liberated from Thibs Jail to show out. Sadly, thus far he’s playing 5.6 mpg more and averaging fewer points per 36 on lower usage than he did here, and is posting a career-low BPM because despite them needing him out there offensively and defensively, he’s not producing. I think he was glued to the bench for the entire 4th quarter vs. Philly.

At some point he needs to stop making excuses and just worry about playing better before Carlisle decides to go in another direction.

The Celtics being good actually annoys me much more than us possibly being mediocre. Fuck the Wizards and Blazers for allowing this to happen!

Obi Toppin, leak-out artist extraordinaire, has predictably become one of Haliburton’s favorite targets. The former Knick had been eyeing the Pacers for more than a year, and strategizing with his agent about how he might be able to get to Indiana. A trade granted his wish. It was a perfect opportunity for the Pacers to supercharge their frontcourt with one of the league’s most sensational open-floor talents. “It’d be hard for me to imagine that you couldn’t take a guy like Obi Toppin and turn him into a world-class track athlete,” Carlisle says. “Or triple jump? Can you even imagine?”

Seems like it was competitive until it wasn’t.

Here, something to cheer you up:

“When you’re in the mix, you feel like you’re involved,” Toppin says. “It feels like they need you out there offensively and defensively—you’re not just sitting there in the corner, waiting for a shot.”