Good morning. Let’s basketball.

The Outcast (Despair); Sandro Botticelli; 1496

The Milwaukee Bucks fired Adrian Griffin Tuesday morning with the team sitting at 30-13, tied for the second best record in the league. This is in no way an outrage, however, because it was clear to almost everyone that Griffin was not the right head coach for this team, and the only question was whether the Bucks front office and the star who pushed for his hiring would acknowledge that before Griffin’s presence contributed to a lost season in the way of a bad playoff series.

Well, the Bucks front office and the star who pushed for his hiring have acknowledged it. I suspect that Griffin will be back on an NBA bench as an assistant this summer, and that he’ll never be a head coach again. Lesson learned for everyone.

As of Tuesday it had been 89 days since the Bucks’ first regular season game this season. The team met the 90-day return policy on their head coach. Impressive.

There’s not a whole lot to say about Griffin getting fired. I feel for him, because he’s been on a journey trying to get one of the 30 head coaching jobs, and he flamed out spectacularly. I hope he can come to terms with that, and find peace in the effort.

And Then What?

Doc Rivers is the name that immediately surfaced in reports as a replacement for Griffin. Rivers was not a finalist for the job over the summer. The decision was reported to be between Griffin, Nick Nurse and Kenny Atkinson. Nurse is now off the market and Atkinson, I would think, is extremely unlikely to leave Golden State at this time. So, assuming you’re not going to punt the season with career assistant and interim head coach Joe Prunty cleaning up the mess, you’re stuck with candidates like Rivers, one of the Van Gundys, Nate McMillan or someone of that ilk.

The Rivers thing gets weird in two areas. First, The Athletic reports that the Bucks brought Rivers in as an adviser to Griffin about six weeks into the season.

With [Terry] Stotts out of the picture and the Bucks still looking for their identity as they made the semifinals of the In-Season Tournament, the franchise reached out to Rivers to serve as a veteran coaching voice to help Griffin find a path forward through the season.

While the Bucks had compiled a 15-6 record before their trip to Las Vegas, leadership organized a meeting between Griffin and Rivers, who was broadcasting In-Season Tournament games for ESPN. Per league sources, the organization believed Rivers, a 24-year NBA head coach and champion with the Celtics in 2008, could offer Griffin advice and guidance on how to navigate his first NBA season with high expectations and a championship-caliber team.

Red flag alert! Griffin had better have reactivated his LinkedIn page as soon as Rivers popped over for a chat session at the behest of Griffin’s bosses. Danger zone.

The second weird thing here is that during TNT’s Tuesday night broadcast, Bleacher Report cited “CNN Sport” saying that the Bucks were hiring Doc. NBA TV then reported that news citing CNN, which was followed by the NBA on TNT studio crew then sharing that report with a national TV audience and discussing it as a done deal. Meanwhile there was nothing actually on CNN or CNN.com about this news.

CNN, TNT and Bleacher Report are all owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. WBD also staffs and operates NBA TV.

Meanwhile, none of Doc’s ESPN co-workers reported the same news. Neither did Shams Charania or anyone at The Athletic, or The Ringer (where Doc makes podcast appearances with Bill Simmons and his son has a pod), or Yahoo!, or anywhere we are used to seeing NBA news. It was CNN. And CNN eventually did put up a non-bylined piece citing an anonymous source.

Kevin Draper has a good thread about this. The typical newsbreakers are reporting that the Bucks are trying to hire Doc, but that there isn’t an agreement in place yet. Even Chris Haynes, who works for TNT and NBA TV as a sideline reporter and published on Bleacher Report, says there is no done deal.

This is all so totally bizarre. And frankly, that kind of matches with Doc’s media presence. Strange connections with that guy.

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Scary Terry Hours

We’re going to get to Tuesday night’s basketball eventually, I swear.

But first: the Hornets traded Terry Rozier to the Heat for Kyle Lowry and a future first. We’ll write more about this later this week, but my initial reaction is that Rozier is going to be in most crunch time lineups for Miami (important) and the Heat can still create the space they need for a superstar should one shake loose in the next year or so.

For Charlotte: yeah, rip this thing down. Collect what you can. Gordon Hayward, you’re next.

Scores

Nuggets 114, Pacers 109 — We see you making a late All-Star push, Jamal Murray. 31 points. Meanwhile, Nikola Jokic has a 31-point triple-double. Just a normal Tuesday.

The Indiana Pacers are 0-3 with Pascal Siakam in the lineup. They are done to No. 7. No word on when Tyrese Haliburton will permanently return to the lineup. He is currently cosplaying as a Southwark boy riding an ocean liner to new exciting opportunities in America.

Knicks 108, Nets 103 — Helluva way to take control of the game late for New York.

After the game, Mikal Bridges expressed annoyance at the fans chanting “Let’s go Knicks” down the stretch … in Brooklyn. Welcome to Rivalry Week in the Big Apple, bud. Get used to it.

Blazers 109, Thunder 111 — One of the strangest ends to a game this season. The Blazers are up one with two timeouts left and just under 20 seconds on the clock, with a narrow shot clock differential. The Thunder also have a timeout, but the play here is to try to force a turnover or get a steal for a few seconds, then foul if you can’t.

OKC traps Malcolm Brogdon near midcourt, he picks up his dribble and … that’s where the debate starts. Did the Blazers call timeout before Brogdon double-dribbled? Is calling timeout merely saying the words and making the hand motion, or do you have to do it loud enough and in time to get the refs attention away from the play?

That type of turnover isn’t all that rare. But it’s compounded by Billups then getting called for two technical fouls and tossed out of the game. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander splits the free throws to tie the game, and Jalen Williams wins it.

Bill Kennedy, who didn’t call either tech, explained after the game:

The first technical foul was issued due to contact while Chauncey was trying to express himself to the official. He makes contact with the official two times, and the result is a technical foul. The second technical foul was assessed due to the fact that Chauncey aggressively now tries to follow and pursue the official after the first technical foul was assessed.

Brandon Schwab is the ref that call the first tech after the contact. Fair enough. Why the third ref, John Butler, a relatively young official, swoops in to eject Billups as the coach continues to argue the call to Schwab is a mystery to me. That’s over the line. Billups was continuing to argue his case but wasn’t being unnecessarily aggressive or demonstrative in my book. If anything, Kennedy should have made the decision on a second tech in that high-pressure situation.

Here’s what Kennedy says about the timeout:

The referee in the slot position was refereeing the double team that was right in front of him, which makes it difficult for number one to hear and number two to see a coach request a timeout behind him. He is taught to referee the play until completion, which a double dribble happens, and he correctly calls the double dribble and then pursuant (to that) the technical fouls come forward.

This may be the letter of the law, but Billups, Mark Daigenault, all the players and everyone who watches NBA basketball knows that officials very often grant timeouts to coaches “behind the play” before plays reach completion. I don’t know why Brogdon, a smart vet, isn’t also calling for timeout there. But to act like these calls don’t get granted is ludicrous to me.

The Blazers have filed a protest that is unlikely to go anywhere but a wastebasket. The NBA can’t or won’t erase the technical fouls, and I suspect those are too consequential to the endgame sequence to unwind the double-dribble, even if the league agrees the timeout should have been granted. The Blazers got screwed.

(Even if Portland did get a timeout, got fouled and hit two free throws, the Thunder could very well have forced overtime.)

By the way, with the Nuggets and Thunder wins, we now have a three-way for the No. 1 seed in the West.

Jazz 124, Pelicans 153 — It’s King Cake Baby season. Scary hours.

This team has the potential to be incredible on offense. Incredible. (Potential.)

Lakers 116, Clippers 127 — James Harden is playing as well as he has since … 2019? Same for Kawhi Leonard?

Schedule

All times Eastern.

Hornets at Pistons, 7 — Here’s your big chance at Win No. 5, Detroit!

Timberwolves at Wizards, 7 — After the Charlotte collapse on Monday, it’s been noted that the Wolves have three get-right games lined up including this one. The Charlotte game should have been a get-right game, though!

Grizzlies at Heat, 7:30

Blazers at Rockets, 8

Cavaliers at Bucks, 8 — Cleveland’s hot streak vs. Milwaukee’s fired-coach bounce, a real battle of ephemeral entities

Suns at Mavericks, 8:30, ABC — legitimately good ABC Wednesday game on tap

Thunder at Spurs, 9:30, ESPN — no, you don’t have to decide the Rookie of the Year race right now, the season’s only half over!

Hawks at Warriors, 10 — it’s going to be a really emotional night for the Dubs; great piece from Marcus Thompson III in The Athletic on how Steve Kerr is navigating the trauma.

Be excellent to each other.