21 points, 16 rebounds, 5 blocks. That’s more of an “Anthony Davis” statline than a “Nikola Mirotic” statline, but we’re living in crazy world where nothing makes since anymore, and Mirotic now plays a traditional power forward role instead of the “chuck threes like a shooting guard” role he played in Chicago.
As usual, I’m exaggerating to make a point, but I was impressed by his tenacity on the glass tonight. The old Mirotic was never this aggressive except when it came to shooting from outside. I guess he knows that he has to some dirty work because there are basically no other bigs on the roster who can help Davis out other than Cheick Diallo. Not even “basically”, actually, the Pelicans are totally depleted and those three dudes have to handle both bigman positions.
It was also impressed by his shot-blocking tonight. When I saw “5 Blk” in the boxscore, I assumed that one of them was legit and 4 of them were strip-blocks. Nope! 5 legit blocks, including a clutch one late in regulation that ended up being really un-clutch because the Nets made a three on the out-of-bounds play. It kind of seemed like the opposition was doing more work on the rejections than he was, as they were basically throwing them into his waiting hands, but it was still good defensive effort or whatever.