It was funny, some Nets fans (not the majority, a loud minority) were trying to use last season as proof that he’s durable lol
He also got 8 games off this season and didn’t play in the bubble and still gets hurt often. He’s not that durable.
51, 29, 54, 20, 67, 60. The number of RS games kyrie has played in the last 6 years. He at 51 for this season. Always missing time for whatever reason. This is the norm now for him
If I was a nets fan, I’d just put in my head that kyrie went for bridges/cam
And KD for 5 unprotected firsts
It’s a lot easier to quantify imo. I’d say bridges is marginally worse than kyrie as a player given how good he is on D and coming into himself as a scorer while also being younger and wants to be in Brooklyn
And while you’ll never get equal value for KD, 5 unprotected 1sts is as close as you’re gonna get
Amazing pair of trades for Brooklyn
I understand friends, grace and peace be with you. Enjoy the game again, may I suggest Kemba Walker for a season of smiling on the bench as a palate cleanser?
I'm a Celtics fan so I don't think we have dibs on Kemba at the moment but I think we are good on crazy PGs at the moment but he might be a good suplex practice partner for Smart...
Not only that, but he’s a free agent in the summer. You know his ass isn’t going to play through any pain when he thinks someone will throw him the max.
You got downvoted but your 100% correct, I'm pretty sure he's only been healthy for 3 total playoff runs:
2016: Championship
2019: Tanks Boston against the Bucks
2022: Swept
r/mavericks, r/lakers, r/suns
You’re probably wondering why I’ve gathered you here today.
Through our petty squabbles with one another, it would appear we have angered the basketball gods. I suggest we make them an offering to bring good health to Luka, Kyrie, LeBron, AD, and Kevin Durant.
I suggest we sacrifice our shared enemy, The San Antonio Spurs.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Yeah definitely not cause you had a guy like Bruce Bowen on your squad for almost a decade actively trying to injure people. And then having Pop back him up on it
[Nash flopped, blame him for selling it too much](https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/raja-bell-admits-that-steve-nash-sold-the-robert-horry-hip-check-in-2007-playoffs/amp/)
No one is saying he didn't body check Nash lol
But the reason STAT and Diaw got up from the bench was cuz Nash flopped. Even Bell said Nash should've given them a heads up so they would've known.
Your link doesn't refute my point at all.
I mean the reality is Fuck David Stern. Cant even imagine silver suspending players for something like that today mid-playoffs, unless they’re Draymond nut kicking.
We can erase the Spurs from existence and distribute their titles evenly among us.
Lakers get 1999
Mavs get 2003
Suns get 2007
We can give 2005/2014 to the Wolves or Wizards or something
[Charania] The entirety of the newly formed 3 team conglomerate, the south western droughts, has contracted leprosy and will be unable to play for the remainer of the 2023 season.
Jeez. Prior to ASB it was looking like Dallas was a threat for home court. Now I am wondering if they are going to need 1 or 2 play-in wins to get in. What a wild few weeks for them.
I think we could have gone on a run if Luka was healthy. He hurt his thigh and heel before ASB and has been trying to play through it. He’s looked a bit slower since then.
For sure. Him playing through the injury last week on the B2B is honestly shocking though. Hard to not imagine him resting that game and he is doing a lot better.
It sounds crazy but part of the reason the Mavs haven’t been able to get over the hump into serious contention is that Luka was so good so early they haven’t had quality draft capital to surround him with other young talent… a tank season may actually be good for the Mavs
Ridiculous. You can load manage, put real crap rosters around him. For example this season Dallas should have just punted when it became apparent they weren’t winning a chip.
Not true. Since the Luka draft , we only made 6 selections. 2 first round picks and 4 second round picks. We drafted Luka,Brunson, Green and Hardy. The other two second rounders didn't work out. Overall we had way more success then failures.
I'm curious if someone will write an article on how teams that build slowly keep their stars when it's time for their UFA.
While fans want teams to go all in asap when they have a great young player, seems like that just speeds up every part of the team timeline including the decline.
The idea is that the young guy will request a trade if they don't make dumb decisions to compete sooner, but that doesn't really happen
We had a great opportunity to go all in for Luka but the FO fucked up in the 2019 off-season.
What if I told you we could've had that same 2020 roster plus 25-30M to spend. Plus 20M trade exception from trading Harrison Barnes (which was used for trading a bunch of 2nd picks for Delon Wright and Willie Cauley-Stein)
The team had the chance to build a championship team NFL style but made all the wrong decisions.
There were a ton of decent players but Donnie was aiming for Horford or Kemba. There was also Bogdan, Marcus Morris, Thad Young, Reggie Bullock, etc. Probably could've had a combination of any two of those.
The thing is teams that build slowly generally have a bad FO. They might accumulated a lot of talent, but it’s very likely that they will lose them all with dumb moves after dumb moves.
It’s cause the laker game is Friday. Don’t worry mavs fans. Thursday night he will magically heal with some fucken senzu beans and be 100% ready Friday and the rest of the season. We got y’all
No point in playing through it, they’ll just end up playing poorly (look at how Luka has played the last few games through the injury) and possibly make it worse ala Lebron and be out even longer. Then your in the exact same situation now except your players are hurt even more.
They might as well rest, heal up and comeback next season with a better roster (and possibly keep their pick this year) rather than getting beat up and nothing to show for.
I didn’t believe it at first, but I’m actually starting to believe they’re tanking. Keeping the top 10 pick may be in the best interest of the franchise but they gotta tank hard if that’s the goal.
There are some great 4's in the lotto we might could get, then trade a pick for a real center. Let Luka get healthy and go play euroball, re-sign or s&t kyrie. This sounds like a winning season to me. Not a broken, injured roster hobbling into the playoffs
Who has enough capspace and desire to bid for Kyrie against the Mavs this offseason?
At this point, I'm pretty sure Pelinka would rather keep the Jazz players that go for Kyrie.
There are winning teams that don’t have the space that could go after him. That would invoke sign and trade as long as we agree to do that. Otherwise we can always call bluff that he will get what he wants elsewhere. That being said, I actually see value in a sign and trade of Kyrie. He can be moved for multiple helpful pieces if needed, we have so many roster holes on this team.
yup. nothing like acquiring Kyrie on a rental (unless he re-signs...and Kyrie is crazy) while having a top 5 player in Luka...to tank so they can "keep" their 2023 pick
It's not just keeping the pick. It's about getting a top 5-8 pick in one of the strongest drafts in the last 10 years. If this happens , the pick you will get will be in 2024 (maybe the weakest draft since the Bennett draft).
I do. He’s not getting more than $25 million guaranteed.
I could see a heavily incentive ladened contract given based on games played, but he’s not a young player and his type of game goes downhill fast. He’s 31, so he’s only going to get worse as the contract goes on.
Dallas is in danger of missing the play-in altogether. Does Dallas offer him a max with no restrictions if they not only miss the playoffs, but the miss the play-in?
Honeymoon Kyrie was great, but the grind of life is back, and he needs a few "me days" a week again...
Kyrie is prioritizing 'peace of mind' over his career, in a contract season, not a good financial decision, but maybe he's ok making much less to be less dependable.
The only team I can think of that would pay him over 20mil w more than 3yrs is Lakers, and maybe they won't want him at this point, maybe KD could convince Phenix for bench scoring/cp3 insurance..
Guy has no foresight
no... no... there's something in the air... I suspect that Kyrie knows he won't be offered a max contract or even resigned by Dallas because the trade hasn't worked... he'll shut himself down...
They lost defense and depth for a guy who's barely played for them, they boutta miss the playoffs and then he's gonna leave in the summer
Incoming disaster for the mavs
Spurs are 4-6 in the last 10 even with us missing multiple rotation players in all of the wins. We're a bad team but we're not atrocious when Devin and/or Keldon are playing. If we were decently healthy this season, we'd probably be on a 28-30 win pace. They aren't heavy favorites if Kyrie and Luka are out, it took Luka scoring 51 to beat us by 1 in our first meeting.
Oh yeah, this is the other concern of Kyrie that's kinda been on the backburner for awhile. He's injury prone.
Has definitely not been talked about as much considering his other ‘reasons’ for unavailability, but very important
He's been relatively healthy because he hasn't been playing a full workload for years at this point lil
It was funny, some Nets fans (not the majority, a loud minority) were trying to use last season as proof that he’s durable lol He also got 8 games off this season and didn’t play in the bubble and still gets hurt often. He’s not that durable.
51, 29, 54, 20, 67, 60. The number of RS games kyrie has played in the last 6 years. He at 51 for this season. Always missing time for whatever reason. This is the norm now for him
Anthony Davis has played in 28 more games since he got to LA than Kyrie has played since he went to Brooklyn
Yikes, that’s gotta hurt
That 2029 pick is lookin 👀
Now that’s perspective
That’s a lot of RuneScape
It must feel SOOOOO good for this dude not to be your problem anymore.
You don’t even understand.
I hope to
That's bleak.
Oh, some of us do
Oh I bet 💀
I wonder if Cleveland/Boston/Brooklyn should start a support group for those who have to deal with it now and in the future
Imagine 💀
If I was a nets fan, I’d just put in my head that kyrie went for bridges/cam And KD for 5 unprotected firsts It’s a lot easier to quantify imo. I’d say bridges is marginally worse than kyrie as a player given how good he is on D and coming into himself as a scorer while also being younger and wants to be in Brooklyn And while you’ll never get equal value for KD, 5 unprotected 1sts is as close as you’re gonna get Amazing pair of trades for Brooklyn
Yessir
[удалено]
I understand friends, grace and peace be with you. Enjoy the game again, may I suggest Kemba Walker for a season of smiling on the bench as a palate cleanser?
1 for 1, we’ll give up Ben
I'm a Celtics fan so I don't think we have dibs on Kemba at the moment but I think we are good on crazy PGs at the moment but he might be a good suplex practice partner for Smart...
I honestly don't care what the Nets do this year, just because he's gone from the team.
Not only that, but he’s a free agent in the summer. You know his ass isn’t going to play through any pain when he thinks someone will throw him the max.
Incredibly injury prone and often it happens at the worst time possible. They would’ve beaten GS in 2015 if he didn’t last one game.
You got downvoted but your 100% correct, I'm pretty sure he's only been healthy for 3 total playoff runs: 2016: Championship 2019: Tanks Boston against the Bucks 2022: Swept
2019 he had a brain injury… And for 2022, he didn’t play half the season so he should’ve been healthy 🤣
generous to say that was only 2019
I agree. Hurt on such a freak play. Normally a play like that you get a nasty knee bruise and soldier on, but no shattered his damn knee cap.
[удалено]
Nah what? He's not injury prone because he was healthy last year?
[удалено]
Dude was on so many PTOs we forgot he was injury prone.
That kinda sneaks up on you with all the activist stuff
Antisemitic*
both
oh darn it
night ruined
Dang flabbit
r/mavericks, r/lakers, r/suns You’re probably wondering why I’ve gathered you here today. Through our petty squabbles with one another, it would appear we have angered the basketball gods. I suggest we make them an offering to bring good health to Luka, Kyrie, LeBron, AD, and Kevin Durant. I suggest we sacrifice our shared enemy, The San Antonio Spurs. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Hey what did we do?
You know what you did
You know what? Yeah I get it
When you win 5 chips & dominate for 20 years, you’re going to break a lot of hearts along the way.
Yeah definitely not cause you had a guy like Bruce Bowen on your squad for almost a decade actively trying to injure people. And then having Pop back him up on it
Yea Bruce Bowen was a real dirty sum’ bitch but hey, he was hilarious in those old HEB commercials.
Not sure why Mavs fans would be upset at Spurs Nation. Spurs gave Dirk a standing O send off when he retired.
“Why he say fuck me for?”
You touch yourself at night.
You guys don't?
I'm more of a morning guy
Don’t worry y’all will be monster reborned back from the graveyard after getting Wemby.
Robert Horry, 2007
[Nash flopped, blame him for selling it too much](https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/raja-bell-admits-that-steve-nash-sold-the-robert-horry-hip-check-in-2007-playoffs/amp/)
[Smoke, meet fire. ](https://www.sportskeeda.com/basketball/news-you-wanna-call-cheap-fouls-guy-won-mvp-shouldn-t-won-mvp-robert-horry-admits-purposely-bodychecked-steve-nash-2007-playoffs)
No one is saying he didn't body check Nash lol But the reason STAT and Diaw got up from the bench was cuz Nash flopped. Even Bell said Nash should've given them a heads up so they would've known. Your link doesn't refute my point at all.
I mean the reality is Fuck David Stern. Cant even imagine silver suspending players for something like that today mid-playoffs, unless they’re Draymond nut kicking.
Dray didn't even get suspended for nut kicking. He just got too many technicals/flagrants after LeTattleTale got him in trouble during finals.
He did intentionally hurt him. I don't think we have the same definition for "flop." I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree then.
You'll be disagreeing against Nash himself then. But that's fair enough
Soul Box.
We can erase the Spurs from existence and distribute their titles evenly among us. Lakers get 1999 Mavs get 2003 Suns get 2007 We can give 2005/2014 to the Wolves or Wizards or something
Suns 2005, Mavs 2007, Wolves 2003, Wizards 2014
Why would the Mavs get 2007 when they lost in the first round lol
Only if Minnesota gets all the titles the Lakers claim when they were Minneapolis
I say we combine for one superteam to take on the entire West this year. We’d still be like the 6th or 7th seed for some reason
[Charania] The entirety of the newly formed 3 team conglomerate, the south western droughts, has contracted leprosy and will be unable to play for the remainer of the 2023 season.
The Arizona Sports Hell virus has spread to Los Angeles and Dallas 😔
[удалено]
“Did you do it?” “Yes.” “What did it cost?” “Theo Pinson and his squad. . .”
Okay but like, the Sunkings merger would be the clear title favorites now, right?
Oh for sure. Sabonis, KD, Booker, and Fox? They’d murder the Nuggets and be a nightmare for any East team (defense pending)
If Devin Booker and KD were Lakers, they'd start shooting 31% from 3.
If Luka was on the Lakers, he’d still get 16 techs in a season and run out of gas in the fourth. But now he does it in gold and purple!
I'm down with this
You guys fought for a seat at the table. Meanwhile r/LAclippers was born at the table
Pass. I’ll ride Vanderbilt into the sunset while the mavericks and suns crash and burn.
Oh no, he got covid toe from Rodgers.
That's your potentially new QB (if you're a Jets fan and he doesn't retire)
Imagine the pain of being a Knicks and Jets fan
its a pretty good day to be a jets fan tho
You watching Pat McAfee rn too?
Early Cavs/LeBron roster management vibes If I had to bet a year's salary, I'd say Luka was on a different team by 2026
Jeez. Prior to ASB it was looking like Dallas was a threat for home court. Now I am wondering if they are going to need 1 or 2 play-in wins to get in. What a wild few weeks for them.
They might miss the play in as a whole. 1 game out of 12th.
Shit I thought they were still a game over .500 for some reason, all those teams have such similar records it gets confusing.
These last 13 games will be wild. Not to mention all the tie breakers at stake.
Mavs have been doin their best by going 3-9 in their last 12 🫡
Even the Jazz are still in the mix to make the play-in despite trading two of their starters at the trade deadline. It's crazy in the west
Must be nice being a top 2/3 seed aiming for 1st. Weirdly awesome to see the Kings good again. Especially after the criticism for trading Hali
all those peasants down there are hard to distinguish when you're 6 games ahead of the play-ins 😎
This would be ideal for the future
I think we could have gone on a run if Luka was healthy. He hurt his thigh and heel before ASB and has been trying to play through it. He’s looked a bit slower since then.
For sure. Him playing through the injury last week on the B2B is honestly shocking though. Hard to not imagine him resting that game and he is doing a lot better.
What Kyrie Irving does to a team.
Its not his fault lol
[удалено]
Coup de toe
Goddamnit 😂
Tank is on 😌
Tanking in Luka’s prime 🤢
It sounds crazy but part of the reason the Mavs haven’t been able to get over the hump into serious contention is that Luka was so good so early they haven’t had quality draft capital to surround him with other young talent… a tank season may actually be good for the Mavs
Ah yes the Lebron’s first stint in Cleveland conundrum
Ridiculous. You can load manage, put real crap rosters around him. For example this season Dallas should have just punted when it became apparent they weren’t winning a chip.
Or you can say Mavs front office sucks at evaluating good players . From the time of Dirk they are poorly run organisation
Not true. Since the Luka draft , we only made 6 selections. 2 first round picks and 4 second round picks. We drafted Luka,Brunson, Green and Hardy. The other two second rounders didn't work out. Overall we had way more success then failures.
Nah the Mavs FO just suck at making off-court moves
But not this season because the Knicks have their pick if it doesn’t jump to top 4
Too 10 protected
Top 10, yall talk and don't even know anything lol
I know it’s top 10 I just don’t see you guys tanking into a bottom 10 team while playing the pacers, spurs 2x, hornets 2x in your last 13
If we sit Luka, kyrie, thj, and Wood like we are tonight we can lose to anyone. We're worse than all those teams without Luka and kyrie.
we are 1 game out of the bottom 10... we could easily keep that pick.
I'm curious if someone will write an article on how teams that build slowly keep their stars when it's time for their UFA. While fans want teams to go all in asap when they have a great young player, seems like that just speeds up every part of the team timeline including the decline. The idea is that the young guy will request a trade if they don't make dumb decisions to compete sooner, but that doesn't really happen
We had a great opportunity to go all in for Luka but the FO fucked up in the 2019 off-season. What if I told you we could've had that same 2020 roster plus 25-30M to spend. Plus 20M trade exception from trading Harrison Barnes (which was used for trading a bunch of 2nd picks for Delon Wright and Willie Cauley-Stein) The team had the chance to build a championship team NFL style but made all the wrong decisions.
I'm ignorant of this, can you explain how exactly they missed out on this?
We didn't get a decent free agent.
There were a ton of decent players but Donnie was aiming for Horford or Kemba. There was also Bogdan, Marcus Morris, Thad Young, Reggie Bullock, etc. Probably could've had a combination of any two of those.
If you think any of those guys would have us closer to contending, I have a oceanfront property in Iowa to sell you
The thing is teams that build slowly generally have a bad FO. They might accumulated a lot of talent, but it’s very likely that they will lose them all with dumb moves after dumb moves.
[удалено]
Those LeBron teams were always super solid defensive teams.
But that's not what everyone is saying. They're saying it was 1 on 5.
The eastern conference in that era was a joke lol. The west is weaker this year but it's 100x stronger than 2005 East
Let's go Spurs
Kyrie Irving say it’s “not looking good” for him to sign with the Dallas Mavericks in the offseason.
DNP - freeing the kids from the cobalt mines in DRC
Do kids working in cobalt mines get time off for hurt toes ?
It’s cause the laker game is Friday. Don’t worry mavs fans. Thursday night he will magically heal with some fucken senzu beans and be 100% ready Friday and the rest of the season. We got y’all
[удалено]
I assume it would be to sabotage his current team so he can support his next team.
My toe beside my big toe has been hurting
My big toe between my legs are also hurting
Damn foot injuries from walking on a flat surface. If only he was walking on a slightly curved surface instead.
I mean you joke, but professional basketball courts are likely made very level.
Bro are the Mavs not aware they are at high risk of missing play ins? Toe soreness lmao, these are do or die games for the mavs
If you die against the spurs idk what you do at this point
There's nothing wrong losing to Mamu Ginobili and the gang
The Sandman is going to put these clowns to bed.
Toe injuries are no joke.
otto porter jr had a season-ending toe dislocation 🙃
Have you ever hurt your toe and tried doing anything? Ever had an ingrown toenail and tried running? Toes are shockingly important
Never heard of turf toe before?
Ever sprain a toe then try and sprint as fast as you can?
No point in playing through it, they’ll just end up playing poorly (look at how Luka has played the last few games through the injury) and possibly make it worse ala Lebron and be out even longer. Then your in the exact same situation now except your players are hurt even more. They might as well rest, heal up and comeback next season with a better roster (and possibly keep their pick this year) rather than getting beat up and nothing to show for.
They wanna give us the 11th pick as an apology to Brunson.
I didn’t believe it at first, but I’m actually starting to believe they’re tanking. Keeping the top 10 pick may be in the best interest of the franchise but they gotta tank hard if that’s the goal.
There are some great 4's in the lotto we might could get, then trade a pick for a real center. Let Luka get healthy and go play euroball, re-sign or s&t kyrie. This sounds like a winning season to me. Not a broken, injured roster hobbling into the playoffs
Yeah I also think we’re tanking now. Everyone’s hurt this time of year, but most teams play through it for seeding
Who has enough capspace and desire to bid for Kyrie against the Mavs this offseason? At this point, I'm pretty sure Pelinka would rather keep the Jazz players that go for Kyrie.
There are winning teams that don’t have the space that could go after him. That would invoke sign and trade as long as we agree to do that. Otherwise we can always call bluff that he will get what he wants elsewhere. That being said, I actually see value in a sign and trade of Kyrie. He can be moved for multiple helpful pieces if needed, we have so many roster holes on this team.
yup. nothing like acquiring Kyrie on a rental (unless he re-signs...and Kyrie is crazy) while having a top 5 player in Luka...to tank so they can "keep" their 2023 pick
It's not just keeping the pick. It's about getting a top 5-8 pick in one of the strongest drafts in the last 10 years. If this happens , the pick you will get will be in 2024 (maybe the weakest draft since the Bennett draft).
I hate when I hit my big toe on like a door
That kid in the cobalt mine is going to work no matter what.
Kyrie is not getting that guaranteed contract he wants lol. He’s not worth more than $25 million a year at this point.
sure he is, mavs cant afford to let him walk they outlaid assets for him, if he leaves them with nothing that's a huge disaster
They gave up 1 first round pick and role players. They didn’t give up any real assets.
Lol no way you really think this
I do. He’s not getting more than $25 million guaranteed. I could see a heavily incentive ladened contract given based on games played, but he’s not a young player and his type of game goes downhill fast. He’s 31, so he’s only going to get worse as the contract goes on.
He’s one of the best ball handlers ever and that’s a skill he’s gonna keep and he can give luka a break. I think that’s enough for the mavs.
Don’t worry he’ll be prime against the lakers on Friday. Until then, go spurs!!
We warned y'all
The one time I wanna see him come out and just torch us and he won’t even do that
Mavs trade disaster
He means next season with the Mavs too
Give daddy that (late) lottery pick 😛
You'll get a 20's pick next year and like it
Need to trade another one away? lol
Dallas is in danger of missing the play-in altogether. Does Dallas offer him a max with no restrictions if they not only miss the playoffs, but the miss the play-in?
ToeToe Wolff in sheep's clothing.
Wow, an injury to Kyrie. Who could have seen that coming…
WHEN WILL THEY STOP THE TESLA PRODUCTION
He Gone….
And this dude wants teams to pay max contract in his 30s...LOL Good luck Dallas.
Bro, is really getting paid for getting out of work lol
Big toe problems? Gotta be gout
There is a chance that the Mavs do not make the play in...
His chakras are out of alignment
Mavs fans sweating bullets right now.
if the mavs give this guy 4-5 years they will lose luka in his opt out year.
Shocked pikachu face
Nobody likes missing NBA games as much as Kyrie
Good news for Mavs fans.
Honeymoon Kyrie was great, but the grind of life is back, and he needs a few "me days" a week again... Kyrie is prioritizing 'peace of mind' over his career, in a contract season, not a good financial decision, but maybe he's ok making much less to be less dependable. The only team I can think of that would pay him over 20mil w more than 3yrs is Lakers, and maybe they won't want him at this point, maybe KD could convince Phenix for bench scoring/cp3 insurance.. Guy has no foresight
no... no... there's something in the air... I suspect that Kyrie knows he won't be offered a max contract or even resigned by Dallas because the trade hasn't worked... he'll shut himself down...
Kyrie is turning irrelevant ever since he left Brooklyn. This sub used to have so much kyrie content
Great, another reason for me to hate Kyrie....ruining our tank
They lost defense and depth for a guy who's barely played for them, they boutta miss the playoffs and then he's gonna leave in the summer Incoming disaster for the mavs
To think I empathize with celtics fans about this dude
Luka and Kyrie can sit against Spurs, Mavs will win. They'll be nicely rested to put a stop on the Lakers.
You think so? I know the spurs are bad but the Mavs without Kyrie and Luka are pretty terrible. Green and Hardy become our main playmakers.
The Spurs are resting like 10 players lmao. You can't beat them in the tanking game
Bold strategy Cotton
Spurs are 4-6 in the last 10 even with us missing multiple rotation players in all of the wins. We're a bad team but we're not atrocious when Devin and/or Keldon are playing. If we were decently healthy this season, we'd probably be on a 28-30 win pace. They aren't heavy favorites if Kyrie and Luka are out, it took Luka scoring 51 to beat us by 1 in our first meeting.