iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 13/07/2025

At least the Club World Cup had a better half time show than the Super Bowl.

Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 12/07/2025

For anyone who wishes they had the chance to see Andrew Bynum unleashed in a Summer League setting, tune into this Suns-Wizards game.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 01/07/2025

Milwaukee isn’t doing a total teardown and could use a primary ball handler for the foreseeable future with Lillard gone. The Spurs should be calling and offering De’Aaron Fox as the main piece of a Giannis deal.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 01/07/2025

The Lakers have LeBron James and Luka Doncic and might be a lottery team. Amazing work by Rob Pelinka.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 26/06/2025

The Nets drafted a Russian, a Frenchman and an Israeli tonight. Not sure about their crunch time five but their mock UN assembly will go hard in this geopolitical climate.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 26/06/2025

They should send one of those Knueppel kids to live with the Ball brothers for two weeks like an episode of Wife Swap.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 23/06/2025

I don’t think a franchise has ever lost more in one game. It might be the most devastating game in NBA history. What a horrible way for the NBA season to end.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 23/06/2025

This Pacers loss might be the worst of all-time. They lose a winnable game and a championship because of an injury that will likely prevent this team from ever getting close to this stage again. Never has more been lost in one night.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 23/06/2025

Didn't think I'd ever turn off an NBA Finals Game 7 after one quarter, but the Haliburton injury just ruins the game. OKC will be one of the most undeserved champions ever. Only tested twice all season and both times an injury eliminated their opponents for them.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 23/06/2025

I’m surprised Carlisle hasn’t realized that McConnell cannot play in this building. He’s a home arena energy guy but he gets swallowed up in an environment like this.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 23/06/2025

Damian Lillard, Jayson Tatum and Tyrese Haliburton all in one postseason. Something has to be done this offseason about the amount of games played. It’s unsustainable with the pace the game is played at.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 23/06/2025

Playing on a strained calf in an NBA Finals game on the day Kevin Durant gets traded…devastating.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 20/06/2025

Obi Toppin’s first quarter shot making was absolutely essential for Indiana tonight. He’s had such a fun Finals run for a guy you could have easily pictured dropping out of the rotation after a really poor start in Game 1.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 20/06/2025

That close to the second half was absolutely electric from Indiana - and only serves to make the Game 4 collapse hurt worse. Imagine that sequence to put them two quarters away from the title.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

From a logistics perspective, the only way to have a matchup like Mamelodi Sundowns vs Ulsan Hyundia (you don't even know what sport this yet, I'm guessing) in June in America and not have horrible attendance is to make it a double bill with PSG-Atletico. Can't schedule it alone.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 14/06/2025

Myles Turner is 4-of-20 from three in the Finals and is averaging 4 rebounds per game in around 30 minutes a night. Completely unacceptable performance and a big reason why the Pacers won't win this series.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 14/06/2025

This is just an unthinkably bad defensive possession from Nesmith and Nembhard. Completely undoing all of the good they have done in this series and gifting OKC a game that it had no business winning. Conceding the switch is bad enough, but the hard show at the nail is foolish (and they do it twice)

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 14/06/2025

Carlisle has been horrendous in the second half. No sense of the moment. Playing McConnell and letting OKC erase leads playing 4-on-5 made this a close game in crunch time and going back to Turner has been a destructive decision.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 14/06/2025

The Pacers just threw away an NBA championship with some of the worst execution you will ever see on both ends of the floor. Trace it back to SGA’s 3 with three minutes left. Unbelievably bad defensive execution from Nesmith and Nembhard down the stretch.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 14/06/2025

Carlisle keeps giving away leads with McConnell out there instead of Haliburton. Indy had a chance to keep that in the 8-12 range but you can’t keep letting McConnell run your offense. OKC knows he can’t do anything with the ball.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 14/06/2025

Carlisle with way too many minutes of McConnell in this quarter. Really missed a chance to take control of this game.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 12/06/2025

Of all of the fun fourth quarter factors that contributed to that amazing Pacers win in Game 3, the biggest had to be the degree to which Myles Turner dominated Chet Holmgren.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

I think I want Durant to wind up in Minnesota, if only because that likely means Randle goes to Phoenix, and I don’t see any way for the Wolves to succeed with him on their cap sheet.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

Aaron Nesmith's rebounding in that fourth quarter was crucial.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 26/05/2025

This is a great series because the Knicks secretly want to be down 20 in order to win and the Pacers secretly want to be down 9 with less than a minute left.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

I’m in the waiting room at a doctor’s office and I just witnessed the most insane thing I’ve ever seen. They are playing Masked Singer on the lobby TV and the singer is an NBA player.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

It was easy to see this coming, though. OKC just had a grueling seven-game test against a championship core that sharpened their habits. Minnesota has coasted here against a horrendously imbalanced Lakers team and the Santa Cruz Warriors.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

The Pacers finishes this postseason have made the Aaron Gordon moments feel like routine basketball endings.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

We’ve now seen fouling up three burn the Thunder in Game 1 against center and New York tonight. One thing analytics doesn’t account for, especially in the playoffs, is how much this strategy amplifies the pressure on the free throw shooter just to maintain that three-point lead.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

That was one of the great choke jobs in modern sports history.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

I suspect the idea that the Towns trade was a win-win move won’t survive the Conference Finals.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

I guess it’s a Canadian thing.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

Nikola Jokic has never beaten a team with more than 50 wins in the NBA playoffs.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

Fun to think that we probably should be getting Round 2 of Wolves-Thunder this year. If SGA doesn’t foul Washington in Game 6, Dallas would have had to deal with this Game 7 environment and might not have survived. Who would have won between Minny and OKC last year? Would either have beaten Boston?

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

It might not be as bad as blowing a 20-point lead in the fourth quarter on your home floor in a Game 7, but Jokic is putting together an atrocious Game 7 effort today.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

Crazy to me that JJ Redick played a 40-year-old out of position at center for an entire half in Game 3 in a first round series and yet Adelman really thought Jokic and Murray could sit in a second round Game 7.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

Not to be outdone by Daigneault, David Adelman inexplicably starts the second quarter with Jokic and Murray on the bench. Denver’s lead immediately evaporated. I wouldn’t sit either at all in this game but resting them both at the same time is suicidal.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

Well, this is Game 7. You’d think the head coach might have discussed this with his staff and players after the first six times it happened. But Mark Daigneault seems to think it’s smart to live and die by Lu Dort, Chet Holmgren and Alex Caruso jumpers.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

Just in shock that an NBA coach would start Lu Dort in all seven games of this series. There’s stubborn and then there’s this.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

Denver's defense continues to hold up because its opposition continue to put offensive zeroes on the court for them to ignore and build their zone around. In Round 1 it was Kris Dunn and Derrick Jones Jr., in Round 2 it has been...basically everybody. Dort, Chet, Caruso, Wallace.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

We're seeing how important it is to have tough shot makers in the postseason in this OKC-DEN series. Jalen Williams shot 37% from 3 this season but was just 2-of-15 on tightly guarded 3s. Michael Porter Jr. was 54-of-154 on tightly guarded 3s. In the playoffs, you have to make tough shots.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

One of the easiest things to do as a coach is play your best players. It's so simple. In an elimination game, your MVP candidate has to play 40+ minutes. It does not take a lot of brain power to figure that out. Jokic 41 minutes. Murray 42 minutes. SGA 35 minutes.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

No matter who you think is better between SGA and Jokic, it’s pretty clear that Denver has the next best three or four guys in this series. Funny how the conventional wisdom that Denver had no depth and OKC was loaded has been proven categorically false in this series.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

Denver fired its coach three games before the playoffs and still has a massive coaching advantage in this series. The Mark Daigneault effect.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

Denver supposedly has no depth, but Julian Strawther has outplayed Jalen Williams in an elimination game.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

How the remaining starting lineups have played so far this postseason: Haliburton-Nembhard-Nesmith-Siakam-Turner - 124.4 OFF RTG, 102.3 DEF RTG, +22.1 NET Conley-Edwards-McDaniels-Randle-Gobert - 117.9 OFF, 98.8 DEF, +19.1 NET Murray-Braun-Porter-Gordon-Jokic - 117.6 OFF, 108.7 DEF, +9 NET

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

I think Minnesota has to be very cognizant of its flaws to start the WCF. They’ve had a very easy first two rounds that afforded them an insane margin for error. OKC or Denver is going to be so sharp coming off that series that it might shock the Wolves.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

It would be great for the NBA if Steph and Giannis used all the good will they’ve built with their franchises to steer themselves to the same destination in the East. Homecoming for Steph in Charlotte?

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

That Butler trade was abysmal at the time. But the worst is yet to come. Look how bad he is right now. He’ll be 36 to start next season. He hasn’t had a superstar playoff performance since Round 1 in 2023. He’s due $121 million during the next two years. Just an indefensible trade.

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Mark Travis @marktravis.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

Doesn’t matter who you root for: Watching Steph have a fantastic season for a 37-year-old only to now see him sit on the bench and be forced to watch Brandin Podziemski decide his team’s fortune is incredibly cruel and unjust.

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