Jonas Valanciunas, the fifth pick in the 2011 draft, made his NBA debut this season and is now four games into his NBA career.
Game number four, a 108-88 road loss to the Thunder, included the following lowlight for Mr. Valanciunas:
How do you say “posterized” in Lithuanian?
My interest in the Olympic basketball proceedings has been lukewarm, but I could not let this pass:
Mr. Westbrook: goodwill ambassador for the United States or international purveyor of viciousness?
(Tip of the cap to Chris Ryan at Grantland.)
It’s that time again – NBA.com has posted the Top Ten Plays for the week ending on Thursday, April 19. Click here to watch them. (The NBA still won’t let me embed the video. Thanks a lot, David Stern.)
In no particular order, thoughts on the plays of the week and the players who made them:
Okay, there is a particular order: Russell Westbrook’s flush on the alley-oop from Kevin Durant was ABSURD. How did that get stuck in the second spot?
The mention of Kevin Durant required the inclusion of a photo of the Nike Zoom KD IV in the team orange colorway. Photo courtesy of oneness287.com.
2007 Dunk Contest winner Gerald Green proved that he has other skills that are highlight-reel-worthy when he canned a three-pointer with a high degree of difficulty and locked up this week’s eighth spot. Jonathan Abrams’ piece for Grantland about Green’s odyssey (he literally played in Siberia) to return to the league is highly recommended reading.
It Goes to XI has perhaps been less than kind to the Celtics’ Greg Stiemsma, but he earned his spot in this week’s Top X with a rejection of Earl Clark that was just plain mean-spirited.
Rudy Gay took off a long way from the basket before hammering his way to number five this week. Clearly, Gay was only able to finish this dunk because he was not weighed down by Memphis’ green-and-yellow throwback uniform.
Finally, Utah’s Paul Millsap landed at number three for his tip jam that pulled the Jazz into a tie with the Mavericks at the end of regulation. Utah went on to win the game in three overtimes. Millsap’s clutch dunk was the finest play from that game that did not involve Delonte West’s finger and Gordon Hayward’s ear.