Derrius Guice Jersey

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SACRAMENTO Authentic Armani Watts Jersey , Calif. — If given their choice and presented with an opportunity to be honest, the Houston Rockets and Sacramento Kings probably would both admit they would rather not even play their regular-season finale.

But they don’t have a choice, and no such admission is coming.

So, the Rockets and Kings will suit up and insist they won’t just go through the motions when they play Wednesday at the Golden 1 Center.

“People pay for their tickets,” Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni told the Houston Chronicle last week.

The folks in Houston are getting a better bang for their buck than the Sacramento fans.

The Rockets (65-16) long ago wrapped up the NBA’s best record and home-court advantage throughout the playoffs. The only mystery for them is which team they will play, and the path that might await them.

Houston may not find out its opponent until after its contest with the Kings.

Minnesota and Denver entered Tuesday’s action tied for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference, and they both were one game behind San Antonio, Oklahoma City and New Orleans. All of those teams play their finale on Wednesday.

“The ultimate goal is holding that trophy up,” Houston guard James Harden told the Houston Chronicle. “So, until we do that, there’s no celebrations. We haven’t done anything yet.”

Harden enters the finale averaging 30.4 points, more than two per game better than runner-up Anthony Davis of New Orleans, and he could win his first scoring title. He also needs nine points to reach 2,200 points for the fourth straight season.

Houston’s bigger concern is injuries.

Forward Luc Mbah a Moute, who averages 26 minutes per game Derrius Guice Jersey , suffered a dislocated right shoulder in Houston’s 105-99 road win over the Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday. The Rockets already were without forward Ryan Anderson (ankle).

Houston’s 105-99 win over the Lakers prevented the Rockets from having their first two-game losing streak since January. The Rockets have gone 38-5 since that skid.

Summer vacation starts early for the 12th straight year in Sacramento.

The Kings (26-55) will wind up with their lowest win total over a full campaign since a 24-58 finish in 2010-11. But they haven’t stopped playing hard, as evidenced by a 98-85 loss in San Antonio on Monday.

“We fought, we scrapped,” coach Dave Joerger told the Sacramento Bee. “We were not out there just soaking up minutes.”

The Kings’ season has been in keeping with what Sacramento said it would offer. General manager Vlade Divac made it clear before the season even started that the Kings were starting anew and playing for the future.

The season will be known for the development of guards Buddy Hield (13.5 points per game in his first full season since being acquired for DeMarcus Cousins); top draft pick De’Aaron Fox (11.6 points per game and a team-best 4.4 assists) and European transplant Bogdan Bogdanovic (11.8 points per game, including 12.4 per game since the All-Star break).

It also will be remembered for the surreal nature of their last long homestand, during which protests against a police shooting of a Sacramento man was the backdrop to four losses in six games.

The Kings’ 13 home victories overall are the second fewest in basketball, behind only the Phoenix Suns (10). The Kings opened their home campaign and season with a 105-100 loss to the Rockets. They will close out the season against the same team they opened it against for the first time since winning the opener and finale against the Los Angeles Lakers in 2011-12.

Case Keenum took the reins of the Broncos at this week's OTAs for the first time as their undisputed starting quarterback. By all accounts, he did just fine. He was no towering specimen of bazooka-armed mega-talent, but that's not what the Broncos need. He was poised, confident and leader-like.You know: all the nice things we say about ordinary quarterbacks.Keenum, the 30-year-old undrafted rookie-turned-knockaround backup-turned-breakout 2017 star, sounded happy with his new role as a peerless leader who doesn't have to compete for every rep."It feels different. It feels good. I like it. I think that that puts different things at ease and lets you go out there and play. It lets you cut it loose. It's nice," he said聽Tuesday,聽per聽Rod Mackey of Denver's 9News.comVeterans like Emmanuel Sanders also sound thrilled to have Keenum on board. Or at the very least, they're thrilled to be off a two-year merry-go-round of competitions among untested prospects."I remember when I got out here Adidas Nazem Kadri Jersey , I went out to the team store and I saw Case Keenum jerseys," Sanders said before OTAs, per Andrew Mason of聽the Broncos website. "Thank God I don't have to deal with that again."Everyone is acting like it's perfectly normal for a quarterback who was held in about as high regard at this time last year as Chase Daniel and Matt McGloin to be handed an uncontested starting job for a veteran-laden team that talks about itself like it's a Super Bowl contender.It's not normal. It's actually a super risky gamble.Keenum leveled up from career benchwarmer status when he climbed off the bench to throw for 3,547 yards and 22 touchdowns in 14 starts last year, leading the Vikings to an 11-3 record and taking them to the NFC Championship Game.Jamie Squire/Getty ImagesHe earned a Provisional Franchise Quarterback Learners Permit with that performance. He now makes sense as a bridge quarterback for some rebuilding team with a hotshot rookie, or as the backup who pushes a fading veteran. He deserves a chance to prove he can replicate his 2017 success, but with a rock-solid Plan B in place if he cannot.But there are no challengers at all in Denver. Keenum's backups are Paxton Lynch, who went 0-2 with a 72 quarterback rating last year, and Chad Kelly, a seventh-round rookie. In other words, your college roommates: The guy who skipped class to play Overwatch all day and the one who kept getting out of trouble because his uncle was a big deal in the alumni association.The Broncos are actively avoiding quarterback competitions after two years of juggling Lynch, Trevor Siemian and Brock Osweiler. They believe they can win a Super Bowl with great defense and ball control, because they just did so three years ago. They wanted a veteran starter and a drama-free offseason, and they weren't about to get picky.Keenum will certainly be better than Huey, Dewey and Louie were last year. (And if you are now picturing John Elway as Scrooge McDuck Customized Jacksonville Jaguars Jerseys , my work here is done.) But that's not the goal the Broncos should be shooting for. The real question is whether Keenum will bring anything more to the Broncos than firm handshakes in the locker room and a commanding voice in the huddle. No one seems to want to ask or answer that right now.If it turns out the Broncos paid $36 million for a guy who rode a hot streak and an ideal situation to a career year, then backed him up with no one but Harold and Kumar, they will have set themselves back years.David Zalubowski/Associated PressThe good news is that Keenum's advanced statistical profile looks great, at least at first glance. He finished second to Carson Wentz in ESPN's Total QBR. He led the league in Football Outsiders' DVOA, which is usually a useful tool for identifying a mediocre quarterback riding a hot streak. He ranked 51st on the NFL Network's Top 100, though that countdown always looks like it was selected by players swiftly checking off some boxes before grabbing their fishing poles and golf clubs.But the deeper we dive into the data, the more trouble we find.Football Outsiders uses a聽metric called ALEX, designed by Scott Kacsmar, to determine how often a quarterback throws past the first-down markers on third and fourth downs. ALEX is pretty intuitive: An ALEX of 1.5 means that the quarterback's average third- and fourth-down throw traveled 1.5 yards past the first down marker; a -1.5 means the quarterback is a dreaded dink-and-dunker, throwing his average third-down pass a yard-and-a-half in front of the sticks.Keenum's ALEX of 0.1 ranked 31st聽in the league. By contrast, Aaron Rodgers led the NFL with an ALEX of 4.0, Carson Wentz was second at 3.3, Tom Brady fourth at 2.5. The NFL average is 1.1. At 0.1, Keenum shares a neighborhood with a Hall of Famer (Drew Brees, often a statistical outlier) Authentic Jonathan Cooper Jersey , an up-and-comer who also benefited from a great situation (Jared Goff)鈥攁nd then a rogue's gallery of Josh McCown, Jacoby Brissett, Blaine Gabbert, Brian Hoyer and the innovator of the dump-n-shrug offense: Jay Cutler.Here's where the data gets kooky: Keenum didn't throw past the sticks often, but his third-down conversion rate of 46.3 percent ranked fifth in the NFL. So somehow Keenum's short passes got results.Maybe Keenum is a newly discovered Brees, a pinpoint short-passer and brilliant decision-maker who puts receivers in position to gain yards after the catch. But it's more likely that Adam Thielen, Stefon Diggs and the deep corps of Vikings weapons excelled at turning short receptions into first downs and making their quarterback look good.Adam Bettcher/Getty ImagesThere's more bad news. Football Outsiders'聽John Kinsley created an Efficiency Score metric for deep passes, using film study to adjust for the lengths of passes, dropped passes, dropped interceptions and heroic efforts by receivers to turn bad throws into big plays. Kinsley's research ranked Keenum as the least accurate downfield passer in the NFL last year.Yes, I'm skeptical of these home-brewed "efficiency scores," too, even whe.