Dion Waiters Heat Warriors
NBABy Andrew Bucholtz on

The NBA has been generally dominated by the Golden State Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers over the past three seasons, leading to concern over superteams. The teams have met in the Finals the last two years, and with them leading their conferences again this season, they might get there again. Monday night saw a different story, though.

Golden State and Cleveland have played on the same night 110 times over the past three years, but they’ve only both lost on five of those occasions. Monday was one such night, and it was a pair of surprising teams playing spoiler. The 18-27 New Orleans Pelicans wound up beating the 30-13 Cavaliers 124-122, while the 15-30 Miami Heat knocked off the Warriors 105-102 on this Dion Waiters three (interesting that one of the best three-point shooting teams out there lost on an extraneous three the other team took late in a tie game), which went in with less than a second left:

Waiters also delivered a great celebration:

And the expression on Klay Thompson’s face as Waiters was embraced by teammate Goran Dragic summed it up nicely:

MIAMI, FL - JANUARY 23: Dion Waiters #11 of the Miami Heat is congratulated by Goran Dragic #7 during a game against the Golden State Warriors at American Airlines Arena on January 23, 2017 in Miami, Florida. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)
MIAMI, FL – JANUARY 23: Dion Waiters #11 of the Miami Heat is congratulated by Goran Dragic #7 during a game against the Golden State Warriors at American Airlines Arena on January 23, 2017 in Miami, Florida. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)

Meanwhile, the Cavaliers-Pelicans game was also ridiculous, as New Orleans was without top player Anthony Davis, Kyrie Irving dropped 49 points for Cleveland, and LeBron James added a triple-double (26 points, 12 assists & 10 rebounds) for the Cavs. Jrue Holliday had 33 points and 10 assists for New Orleans, and Terrence Jones dropped 36 points, added 11 rebounds, and also came up with a huge block on LeBron:

https://twitter.com/Scott_Charlton/status/823741497182920706

No one’s suggesting that the sub-.500 Heat and Pelicans are suddenly going to dethrone the Warriors and Cavs at the top of the NBA, but on this night, they came up with a pair of impressive wins. Individual games are a small sample size, and teams are always going to have nights where things go wrong, but that five in 110 stat shows how rare it’s been over the past three years for both Golden State and Cleveland to have off nights. They did Monday, though, and Miami and New Orleans certainly capitalized. On this particular day, the superteams ran into some kryptonite.

[ESPN Stats Info]

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.

View all posts by Andrew Bucholtz

Comments are closed.