OverTime, So These are a Few of my Favorite Things from the 2019 NBA Regular Season.

Photo courtesy of The Miami Herald.

I've been waiting to write this article for 25 weeks. Every week that passes in the NBA season is often seen as just another marker on the road to the playoffs, and while I love the playoffs as much as the next guy, I despise how they end up overshadowing the heroics of the regular season. Because the NBA regular season is a 25 week marathon packed full of highlights. Why should we forget those just because we have 2 months of playoff basketball to watch? We shouldn't. Basketball has the rare ability to make me smile, scream, and sob, sometimes all at the same time. Its best moments should never be forgotten.

So, in order to celebrate the regular season coming to an end this week I've done the best thing I've ever done (really, I had a ton of fun preparing this piece). I compiled my favorite moment from every week of the NBA regular season. You don't have to scroll through highlight reels or try to figure what the best moments of the season were, cause I'm going to straight up tell you. So put in some headphones, turn your volume up, and get ready. This shit is gonna be fun.

But first, a tribute to those lost this season.

Ladies and gentlemen, your 2018-2019 Los Angeles Lakers pic.twitter.com/vFsx0dJ6tD

— Steven🎪 (@SotoHive) February 26, 2019

Week 1

Let's start off with this awesome double block. What I love most about this double block is not that it happened against the Celtics, although that is very sweet, it's that it was committed by Danny Green and Kawhi Leonard, both former Spurs, both in their first week as Raptors. It really shows exactly what Toronto got out of trading for them last summer.

Week 2

This is not your typical no-look pass. Unlike the typical no-look pass, where the passer is the one not looking, in this case it was the recipient, Taurean Prince, who wasn't looking. Trae just flung that ball across court hoping that Prince would see the ball before it spiked him in the back of the head. And Trae was right. Taurean got that shit and buried it. Beautiful.

Week 3

Maybe you forgot about Derrick Rose, the 2011 MVP whose career essentially ended when he snapped his leg. Maybe you thought his time in the NBA was over, his career had died. Well, let me tell you (or maybe remind you) that Halloween brought him back from the dead. Rose hung the best game of his career 7 years after he won MVP with a team most people forgot he was on. To say the game was emotional is an understatement. I, like Rose, was in tears as I watched him block Utah's last shot, winning the game for his Timberwolves. He earned every goddamn point he scored that night, and no one can take that away from him. It is one of the single best performances of this season. I hope we see many more Halloweens with D. Rose.

Week 4

My love for Caris LeVert is well documented. At this point in the season, 4 weeks in, he was hitting all sorts of shots he shouldn't have been hitting, including the one above - a gamewinner against the #1 seed in the West. Long live the legend of LeVert.

Week 5

I'm not one to praise Portland basketball. I generally think that the Trailblazers are all bark and no bite. That being said, you will not find better ball movement than the clip above. This shit is jaw-dropping. It's almost as if these guys are professionals in what they do instead of just a team that gets swept out of the playoffs every year.

Also, I'm gonna cheat and add something else for this week. In fact I'm gonna do this a few times so get used to it. Week 5 was also the first week that Jimmy Butler was a 76er, and it just so happened that Philly played Charlotte that week. Well, in what turned into a spectacular game, Kemba Walker, Charlotte's superstar who I'm also on record of being very keen of, hung 60 points on Philadelphia. And yet they lost, because at the end of overtime, Jimmy Butler swatted a Kemba lay-up out of bounds, but somehow managed to save it, making it Philly's ball. And then he went on to ice the game winner, sealing it for the 76ers. It was a truly mesmerizing pair of performances from Walker and Butler. So, I'm just throwing the whole game's highlights beneath.

Week 6

Skip to 1:10 in the video above and watch as De'Aaron Fox literally splits the entire Utah Jazz defense. He blows by 5 defenders. F I V E. That's every Jazz player on the floor. The self-proclaimed "fastest" kid in NBA really lives up to that title.

Bonus from this week: Vince Carter, the greatest dunker in the history of the sport, scoring his 25,000th career point on a dunk against the team that drafted him 20 years ago. Iconic.
 

Week 7

This is the pettiest block I've ever seen, and I will never not laugh at it.

Week 8

The second play of this video (about 12 seconds in) epitomizes the two-way threat that is Kawhi Leonard. Dude gets a steal, launches himself into the bench, and man gets up, runs the floor, and finishes with a dunk. That kind of court movement shouldn't even be allowed.

Week 9

I'm not putting a play from week 9 in here. Instead I'm giving you this highlight reel of Derrick Jones Jr., my favorite dunker in the NBA. Some of the dunks in the video are from this season, but most are not. All of them are spectacular. And if you're too "busy" to watch the video, or don't care because it isn't actually from this season, then watch the one below. It is from this season and it is the best dunk of the year and it should be the new icon for the league and and and...

Week 10

The first half of this season was defined by this one simple phrase: "THAT IS LUKA MAGIC!!!"

Week 11

Jarrett Allen will be a Defensive Player of the Year in his career. I know this to be true, because as shown above - it is self-evident. This is another highlight reel that doesn't match the week, but it doesn't matter. This kid would take a bullet to stop a basketball from going in the rim. He deserves major respect.

Week 12

Harden may not be my pick for MVP this season, but he did hit one of the most unbelievable shots I've ever watched. Down 2, with only seconds left in overtime and 2 Warriors in his face (including a former Defensive Player of the Year), he pulled up from long range and sank a dagger into Golden State's heart. It was hero ball at it's finest.

Week 13

Okay, because I'm fickle and indecisive I'm making week 13 a three-peat. Three plays, one week.

Nikola Jokic is the best passer in the NBA, and while I could fill this blog with highlights of his passing from every week, I'm simply going to choose my favorite pass. And this is it - a 70 foot, practically no-look, baseball pass to Jamal Murray. Speaking of Jamal Murray...



James Harden ended Jamal Murray's career. Like this play literally killed Jamal Murray. He doesn't play anymore. He hung up his jersey in shame. (Of course he didn't do that - thank god, Murray is a treasure - but really he should have.) But wait, speaking of James Harden...



This shit kills me every time I watch it. It is fucking hysterical. The best part about this play is that after Harden gets the ball rocketed into his skull, it bounces right back to Giannis, who sends to Ilyasova, who proceeds to bury a 3, and upon the ball going in, the commentator goes, "Just the way they drew it up!" Like nah. I don't think they drew up a play where Giannis tries to decapitate Harden with the basketball, and if it fails then they'll just settle for a 3. That isn't what they drew up. But if it is, well, that's fucking genius.

Week 14

The only thing better than a good buzzer beater is a good reaction, and Buddy Hield's reaction to hitting this shot is one of my favorite things to watch.

Week 15

I'm cheating on this week too, because the play above wasn't actually from this week. But I'm putting it here because it's an awesome around-the-world dunk, and it's almost as thrilling to rewatch it as it was to see it live in person.

Week 16

I'm not putting anything here for week 16. There's a really cool circus shot that Portland Trailblazer CJ McCollum made that I could put here, but I'm not going to. Just imagine I did. CJ tries to throw an alley-oop and accidentally throws the ball straight into the net instead. That's the play. Got it? Good.

I can't bear to put 2 Portland plays in 1 blog.

Week 17

You're gonna have to put a little work into this play and skip to the 13:20 mark to watch it. It's a fantastic save by the Boston Celtics, that gets the ball from corner to corner in miraculous fashion. It also involved my 4 favorite Celtics, so there's that too. Good, good hustling.

Week 18

I've probably watched this play a hundred times and every single time it makes me want to throw up. There's something so visceral about it. It is quite possibly one of my favorite plays of all time, and it is quite easily my favorite All-Star play of all time. This shit doesn't even make sense. There is no humanly explanation for how Giannis brought that ball down. Steph bounced it to the shot clock - the shot clock!! - and Giannis was still able to slam it home. It is un-fucking-real.

Week 19

A prettier play, you will not find. And for DeRozan to pull this beauty on the team that backstabbed him and traded him away - well that just makes it a work of art.

Week 20

That Giannis alley-oop might be one of my favorite plays of all time, but this - this - is my favorite play of the season. Everything about Dwyane Wade's buzzer beater against the Warriors is fucking perfect. How he rushes into the paint, then retreats, gets the ball back, gets blocked, and still fumbles a 3 point attempt off without travelling or double dribbling before the buzzer - it's all comically professional. And his reaction is priceless. If it weren't such an exhilarating and fun moment, it would probably make me cry. I'm gonna miss D. Wade so much. This is a perfect ending to a Hall of Fame career.

Week 21

The more I watch this play the less I understand how the Bulls kept this ball alive. Like, I'm not even lying, I think about this play a lot. Young Bull flung himself sideways into the stands to recover the ball and then they turned it into a perfect alley-oop for a Dunk Contest winner. You might need to see it a few times. I know I had to.

Week 22

Skip to about the 1:05 mark in this video and you'll see one of the best drawn up plays you can execute. Donovan fakes into the paint, kicks to the arc to Rubio, who automatically releases an alley-oop pass to Gobert. The transitions are so seamless, it almost feels staged. But it's not. The Jazz are just that good.

Week 23

There is no good explanation as to how the Hornets won this game. When Jeremy Lamb launched that ball from behind the half-court line, Kemba Walker turned away from the basketball, sure they had lost. The fact that the ball went in is un-be-liev-able. Nothing explains this moment better than one commentator screaming into the microphone, "OH MY GOD!! OH MY GOD!!" while the other shouts, "WHAT?! WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!" It's just fucking chaos. I love it so so so much.

Week 24

This was the first full live NBA game I watched in 3 months, and let me tell you, when Trae hit this miracle shot everyone in my hostel woke up. I don't know if I've ever been louder. Sure, it was the middle of the night here in Africa and I was being a terrible neighbor, but goddamn what a fantastic ending to a clutch overtime game. I will never be quiet when I watch this play. I'll scream until Atlanta can hear me, god dammit.

Week 25

So, maybe you heard that just over a week ago Crenshaw rapper, Grammy nominated artist, and community hero, Nipsey Hussle was murdered outside his store in L.A. If you haven't heard about it or don't know who he is, you should look him up. He was a cultural icon, a young man who used to roll with the Rollin' 60's Neighborhood Crips before he rose above the gang-banging and gave his life to music and community service. He was close friends with Russell Westbrook, so just days after his murder, when OKC played the Los Angeles Lakers (Hussle's favorite team) Westbrook decided to make history. He posted a 20, 20, 20 for the first time in the modern NBA. And when it was over, he dedicated it to Nipsey Hussle. On the eve of the regular season's end, when the league's best players are saving their fuel for the playoffs, Westbrook went onto the court and paid a touching tribute to his friend and his hero. It's as historic as it is moving, and it exemplifies the power of basketball.

That tribute caps off my favorite moments from the 2019 regular season. I'm sure I'll have many more moments in the 2 months of playoff basketball to come, and I'm sure I'll do plenty of writing on the playoffs, but until then, please enjoy these clips. And don't you forget them, please.