Good morning. We have that and more in Thursday’s NBA newsletter.
The 2017-18 NBA season officially began on Tuesday, but there’s nothing more representative of the mayhem of the league than a preposterous Wednesday with something like a dozen games, many going simultaneously. In that spirit, here are 11 things that happened Wednesday we did not see coming.
1. The Nets scored 131 points on the Pacers … and lost! We did not see that coming.
2. Stanley Johnson went 0 for 13 from the field. We did not see that coming.
3. Markelle Fultz is really shooting free throws like that. We did not see that coming.
4. The Boston Celtics are 0-2. We did not see that coming.
5. Giannis Antetokounmpo is the early leader for MVP. We did not see that coming.
6. The Suns lost by, uh, 48 points in their season opener. We did not see that coming.
7. Nerlens Noel was a perfect 6 for 6 from the field, had a team-best +9 plus-minus, was not in foul trouble and … sat the final six minutes of a narrow Mavericks loss. We did not see that coming.
8. Chandler Parsons got booed in Memphis. We did not see that coming.
9. Red Panda dropped bowls. We did not see that coming.
10. DeMarcus Cousins had seven blocks. Sev-en. We did not see that coming.
11. Ekpe Udoh got 13 minutes for the Jazz. We did not see that coming.
12. The Minnesota Timberwolves collapsed down the str—no, wait. We totally saw that coming. Strike that one.