When you think about awesome point guard battles that happened/are currently happening on the sixteenth of two-thousand and seventeen, you probably think of Chris Paul vs Russell Westbrook or Stephen Curry vs Kyrie Irving. Right? Right. That’s what the people at TNT thought when they were choosing the matchups for the MLK day extravaganza.
Just shows how normal fans and fatcat executives alike are suckered in by “star power”. The greatest PG battle tonight didn’t occur in either of those nationally televised games. It happened when the Denver Nuggets and Orlando Magic faced off in Denver. Emmanuel Mudiay vs. Elfrid Payton. Mudiay finishing with 18 and 13, Payton with 20 and 12. And not a single jumper was made that day. That’s a lie, actually. I haven’t gotten to the Payton highlights, but Mudiay did make two threes, and he didn’t lay them up. Really, though, a battle between these two dudes could be expected to end with only bricked J’s by both.
13 is a career high in assists for Mudiay, which is a bit of a surprise. Looking at his stats, this is his first game with double-figure dimes this season. And he got 11 a couple times in the first month of his career, but then never improved on that until now. So good for him! He’s still not a good player, but this is the kind of thing you can build off of I bet.