NBA scrimmages, July 22: Recapping the first wave of games

The NBA season is scheduled to restart on July 30th, but before then, each team will engage in three inter-squad scrimmages as part of final preparations. The scrimmage schedule opens on Wednesday, July 22nd and runs through Tuesday, July 28th. We’ll be adding notable updates throughout the day, including final scores and injuries.

Here is a list of game for Wednesday, July 22nd:

FINAL: Los Angeles Clippers 99, Orlando Magic 90
FINAL: Denver Nuggets 89, Washington Wizards 82
FINAL: New Orleans Pelicans 99, Brooklyn Nets 68
FINAL: Miami Heat 104, Sacramento Kings 98

WAS-DEN Final — Troy Daniels scored 22 points and Bol Bol had a double-double to lead the Denver Nuggets to a 89-82 victory over the Washington Wizards on Wednesday afternoon in the first scrimmage for both teams. Nikola Jokic posted 16 points, seven rebounds and seven assists for the Nuggets at point guard. Here’s the full recap.

ORL-LAC Final — Lou Williams scored 22 points and Paul George added 18 of his own to help lead the Clippers to a 99-90 win over the Magic. Check out the full recap here.

ORL-LAC Third Quarter recap — The Magic cut the lead down heading into the fourth quarter. Michael Carter-Williams continues to play strong and Orlando has shown a lot of resolve coming back down 11 at halftime. This is shaping up to be a pretty good finish.

ORL-LAC Halftime — PG-13 bangs a three-pointer to give him 13 points while L.A. has an 11-point lead at halftime over the Magic, 53-42. Considering there were only 20 minutes in that first half, you can see that the scoring is up. We could have easily seen both teams get to around 55-60 points by halftime. George looks good, Joakim Noah looks good for L.A. It took the Clips a bit to get going, but they’re pulling away from Orlando.

WAS-DEN — BOL BOL JUST BLOCKED A SHOT, RAN THE FLOOR, AND THEN BANGED A 3-POINTER LIKE HE’S BEEN DOING THIS FOR YEARS.

WAS-DEN — So we’ve got starting lineups for the Nuggets and IT’S POINT GUARD NIKOLA JOKIC TIME!!!!

ORL-LAC Second quarter — Michael Carter-Williams and Lou Williams has been the matchup to watch so far in the first half. MCW looks really, really good on the floor. Lou Will has been aggressive on offense — really everyone is being aggressive. There isn’t much defense and the game has kept up the pace.

ORL-LAC First quarter recap — This has been a really fast-paced quarter. The Magic have a 26-21 lead after 10:00 of play in the first basketball action since early March. Lou Williams has been a shot of life off the bench for the Clippers, who got off to a slow start. You can tell Kawhi and PG aren’t going all-out yet. Aaron Gordon has a few buckets and looks in mid-season form for Orlando. Overall, it’s nice to have basketball back.

We are back! We’re early in the first quarter and the Clippers look very rusty. Kawhi Leonard and Paul George both have a couple of misses.

What to watch for

Nikola Jokic is apparently in the best shape of his life and the Denver Nuggets look energized at practice heading into the first round of scrimmages. It will be interesting to see how Jokic looks in actual game action in his slimmed-down figure. Jokic was already one of the premier big men due to his inside-out game and ability to make passes others just can’t. Now, he looks like a gazelle running up and down the court. Will we see Jokic be more aggressive on offense? I sure hope so.

Both the Washington Wizards and Brooklyn Nets are in action with both rosters depleted. There will be no Bradley Beal and Davis Bertans for Washington, while Brooklyn is without, well, like half its roster. No Kyrie Irving, no Kevin Durant, no Taurean Prince, no Spencer Dinwiddie, the list goes on and on. So if you’re looking at getting an edge heading into the return of actual NBA betting, monitoring how both the Nets and Wizards look will be key.

You can watch all of these games live on NBA League pass.