How good is the NBA?

The fans in Miami start chanting “Paul Pierce Sucks” when they say goodbye to Dwyane Wade and it’s like the seventh most interesting thing that happens on the night.

Dirk goes for 30 and announces his retirement.

Wade goes for 30 at his final home game.

Magic Johnson quits without telling his boss, a woman he says he loves like a sister.

Jamal Crawford, the greatest sixth man since Havlicek, becomes the oldest player to ever go for 50 points in a game.

Detroit’s booed off the home court at halftime, gets down 22 and basically save their season by beating Memphis, which was led in scoring by Bruno Caboclo and Delon Wright.

What a league. What a game.

Oh, and the Raptors finish with the second best record in the league, win more road games in a season than they ever have and get through Game 82 unscathed.

As we wrote early yesterday, the now-completed season was a series of very many warmup games but it was a fun ride with a lot of entertaining one-off games that kept people happy and now the big-time stuff can begin.

All we gotta do now is find out when and against who and since all of the early games start at 8 p.m. ET, it’s going to be another late night on the couch at Casa Doug.

And, of course, there was this:

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THREE POINTERS

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Five strangers getting along

You know how we’re always talking about the need for familiarity and how Marc Gasol needs to play with Fred VanVleet and integrating guys into lineups is paramount.

Check this out.

What a load of hooey!

Okay, maybe not hooey but that’s five guys – Jeremy Lin, Norm Powell, Chris Boucher, OG Anunoby and Jodie Meeks – who had never stepped on a basketball court for a real game once before working on one possession like they’d been teammates for a decade.

Pretty, wasn’t it?

Now, we’re right when we talk about the need for familiarity, really. It’s better that players get used to each other at both ends of the floor so that tendencies and the reactions to them are second nature but that play right there was gorgeous and it was as if everyone just knew where to go and what to do when he got there.

It is the beauty of basketball.

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No substitute for hard work

Give Chris Boucher credit.

He got an early look with Serge Ibaka getting the night off and he went hard, played mostly under control and not selfishly – he has a tendency to try to make a mark too quickly when he gets his chance – and put up some pretty good numbers.

I don’t know if he’s an NBA player – at least a rotation guy on a good team – but he is intriguing and does go 100 miles an hour every time he’s on the court and that’s a bit of a skill.

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Taking, and making, 3s

This got mentioned in the Game Centre thing but it bears repeating since it tells a story of stark contrast in this Raptors team.

They finished last night’s game, and the season, with 1,015 made three-pointers, the most in team history by a mile and they’re now just one of a dozen teams to have made 1,000 or more threes in one season.

Considering how average a three-point shooting a team they were through the turn of the calendar year, that’s an amazing turnaround. I always thought they were better than a bottom third shooting team and that it would come around but I didn’t see this, that’s for sure.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but John Rusin, the crack stats/fonts/information guy from the TV broadcasts, points out that Toronto was 23rd in three-point shooting on the day they acquired Marc Gasol and are first in the NBA since that day.

Not bad, eh?

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And, now, for the rest of the story:

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This is pretty impressive and I didn’t know how deep the list was so I’m betting not many of you did and that’s bad on all of us.

It’s WNBA draft night tonight -- solid idea by TSN2 to broadcast it at 7 p.m. if you care and that shows that the network gets it a little bit after it carried a bunch of the NCAA tournament – and I suspect Chatham’s Bridget Carleton of Iowa State will hear her name called.

So I’m sitting there yesterday afternoon thinking there aren’t an awful lot of Canadian women who’d been drafted – I remembered Cal Bouchard was the first, that Stacey Dales went highest, that my buddies Shona Thorburn and Kim Gaucher went in the same draft and there was Tammy Sutton-Brown and Natalie Achonwa and Kia Nurse and I had Kayla Alexander and, had I thought a lot harder, maybe I would have gotten one or two.

But Canada Basketball’s Matt Walker came through with the entire list to save my brain and Carleton will be the 17th Canadian picked – mock drafts I’ve seen have her as a second-round pick.

The full list:

2018: Kia Nurse; 2017: Saicha Grant-Allen; 2016: Adut Bulgak, Jamie Weisner (now Scott), Ruth Hamblin, Nirra Fields; 2014: Natalie Achonwa, Michelle Plouffe; 2013: Kayla Alexander; 2007: Amanda Brown; 2006: Shona Thorburn, Kim Smith (now Gaucher); 2003: Jordan Adams; 2002: Stacey Dales; 2001: Tammy Sutton-Brown; 2000: Cal Bouchard.

Not bad at all.

And, I know it’s apples and oranges and there’s a lot of difference by, since 2000, there’s been 19 Canadian men taken in NBA drafts. Nineteen with a few to come this year vs. 17.

Seems we haven’t made as big a deal out of the WNBA draft as maybe we should have.

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Yeah, we need some mail, folks. Hardly any there, we’re creeping towards the end of the week, I’ve got a relatively slow day ahead of me so if you’ve got anything on your mind, get on over to askdoug@thestar.ca.

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I honestly do not care who wins the Stanley Cup.

I hope it’s a good tournament and there are compelling games and wonderful storylines and series that are heart-stopping. But a winner? Makes no never mind to me whichever team it is.

Except …

I want the Carolina Hurricanes to do really, really, really well.

That Storm Surge thing they did for all those home wins was hilarious and fun and showed a spirit that I really appreciate.

Yes, I had to check to make sure the Hurricanes were actually in the Stanley Cup playoffs but, Go ‘Canes!

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Okay, part of today is figuring out playoff coverage, both set-up and game day stuff, and what new bells and whistles we might try to come up with.

Got any bright ideas, I’m all ears.

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