Friends in fast breaks,

I straight up don't understand what happened this weekend. I get it, bench battle while the starters rest up. But WOW, the final weekend was anything but boring.

MAKE YOUR PLAY-IN PICKS

• Go Pick >>
• Pick deadline: 4:30pm PT Tuesday (4/11)

First, a breakdown of The Glove PlayoffS Pick'em. Then a quick run through the wildness we saw this weekend. Finally, the finale of our Wilt One and Done.

GLOVE PLAYOFFS PICK'EM

We pick 5 times:

1. The Play-In (4 picks)
2. First Round (8 picks)
3. Conference Semifinals (4 picks)
4. Conference Finals (2 picks)
5. Finals (1 pick)

For the Play-In, you're picking which of the teams will claim the 7th and 8th seed spots in each conference. Due to the short turnaround and unique nature of the play-in tournament, there are MINIMAL guardrails on your picking here. You NEED to make sure your picks are valid. You can see the Play-In matchups and how they function here.

For all other rounds, you're simply picking which teams will win their series. 

There are two TIGHT turnarounds from now to Play-in and Play-in to First Round. Stay on top of your emails and text reminders to get your picks in ASAP so you don't miss out. 

GET A FRIEND IN! Send them your referral link. The Playoffs are fun. They're more fun with a couple friends to root with (or against...). This is how we grow. If you get friends in, that makes it clear you want NBA to be a key sport going forward.

A WILD FINALE

We start with the rest-a-thon. We knew stars and starters would sit, they're not risking their health or putting themselves at unnecessary risk with playoff spots locked up. But did I expect more than HALF our OAD roster to sit out? God no. Commish and I already discussed it - We'll exclude this week next year and end one week earlier. This kind of resting is the opposite of what we want. There will be a survey coming in the next couple weeks where you can share your thoughts.

The Warriors wanted to avoid the Play-in and needed a win over the intimidating... let me check my notes... Blazers? Not a tall order. So did they jog their way to an easy win over the tanking team? Nah, they set a NEW RECORD for most points in the first quarter with 55. They ended up winning by 56 points. They literally could have NOT SCORED in the first and still won. 

Turmoil. Two SEPARATE incidents involving bench scuffles from players ON THE SAME TEAM. Plumlee and Hyland got into it on the Clippers bench. Not good. Gobert threw a punch at Anderson on the Wolves bench. What is in the gatorade? Doubly bad for the Wolves since this is their enormous incoming trade asset doing the fighting. And then their defensive stalwart forward broke his hand punching a wall afterwards... That's how you win a Play-in game right? Break down entirely beforehand? I'm so sorry Commish.

And ending on a positive note: Living fossil (42 years old) and "player coach" Udonis Haslem played his final game. He played 25 minutes (compared to his 46 minutes all season) and scored 24, including an alley-oop and three 3s (adding to the six he'd made in his career previously). It was a fun farewell that included the gift of a rocking chair pre-game - Check the header image.

ONE AND DONE RECAP

Weekly Standings | Player Performance | Overall Standings

Backup Picks

• 38 of our pickable players didn't play this week and they were taken by 142 pickers
• We ended up with 72 double DNPs who received no points
  • We absolutely hate this, but there was nothing we could do
  • No injury report was ready for the tsunami of rest days taken

Results

• A. Edwards (33 points) was the best we could do this week
  • At least he's looked good MIN fans?
• Other top scorers: K. Thompson (29 pts, 10 picks), T. Young (27, 2), K. Leonard (27, 24), J. Green (26, 10), S. Curry (25, 9)
  • This was a heck of a week to make up ground
• We had two "big" misses: R. Barrett (28 pts) and K. Porter Jr (26) that went unpicked
• We scored a pathetic 14.5 points per pick
  • This was EASILY our worst mark by a mile
• Our biggest flop?
  • N. Jokic takes the cake, 6 points for 22 pickers. He even played 27 minutes, but only took five shots...
  • But lets be honest... there were an enormous numbers of disappointments from our games this week, both amongst those who played and those who DNP'd

FINAL Standings Check
We have prizes for Overall points, as well as most points scored over three different Intervals (Weeks 1-8, Weeks 9-16, and Weeks 17-23). There's something to play for all SZN!

Interval 3 (Weeks 17-23) Standings

• On the trusty knees of Kawhi, @dcwiek scooped enough points to jump out of the T4 from last week to take the lead!
• Congrats to our final Interval winners!
• Reminder: Prizes go out at the end of the NBA Season, after the Finals

Overall Standings

• And, in a familiar story... @dcwiek managed to jump ahead with a great pick on Kawhi to take the crown
  • A testament to their performance: T7 in Interval 1, T142 in Interval 2, 1st in Interval 3
  • You're NOT OUT OF IT because of a few bad picks! 
• Ten pickers managed to average 30+ ppg this season, literally our top 10. A round of applause for an astonishing feat 👏👏👏
• Reminder: Prizes go out at the end of the NBA Season, after the Final

Team SZN Performance

• @StatCzar takes home our best placing at 45th
• It was an honor to pick with you all this season!
• Reminder: We play along for fun and pride, we can't win anything

Yours in hoops,
The GM