Rui Hachimura had 9 points in the first 4 minutes of the game. If you’re an advanced mathematical practitioner (as I am), you can quickly deduce from that information, combined with your knowledge of his final point total as well as the length of a regulation NBA basketball game, that he scored only 8 points in the remaining 44 minutes. If you’re NOT an advanced mathematical practitioner, just ignore this whole paragraph and go back to watching First Take clips. That may be more your speed.
I’m gonna be honest with you, I pretty much spent my whole evening refreshing my ultra-sophisticated custom box-score script, waiting for Hachimura to score more points. His point total was so low that I thought the damn thing was broken, I debased myself and checked the NBA official box-scores but they said the same thing: 17 points. Still a nice amount of points for a rookie, I guess. And it’s my fault anyway for getting hyped when I saw he had those 9 points so quickly. Just another (needed) reminder that I should NEVER get hyped for a performance in progress. EVER.
And not only did he score not even that many points, he only had ONE midrange jumper. That’s supposed to be his bread and butter. It IS his bread and butter. Drew Gooden agrees with me, and it makes me sick to my stomach to be in agreement with him, but he’s so right: when Hachimura gets the ball in that area, it’s basically a free bucket. I guess the ‘Zards are tanking so hard right now that they don’t want free buckets?