Why does Sherron Collins look like a miniature version of Big Baby in the above photo? Lolz. Uh, anyway, there were eight NBA games last night. Some of them were close. A couple of them were blowouts. A few of them were in between. All of these games had one thing in common, though: the road team won. That’s not as strange as it may seem, seeing as the road team was the better team in all but one matchup (ATL @ CHA)… but still, I bet this doesn’t happen often on an eight game night. I don’t have a whole helluva lot of time today, so let’s get right to it…
Random Observations:
- Highlight Recap: Nikola Pekovic swats the hell out of Jrue Holiday. Jrue The Damaja gets the last laugh. Lou Williams denies Wayne Ellington. Andrew Bogut hits Carlos Delfino with a behind-the-back dish. Derrick Favors tells Danilo Gallinari to take the weak stuff back to Europe. Russell Westbrook steals and slams. Top 10 plays.
- The Hawks jumped out to an early 22-point lead on the Bobcats. Said Dominique Wilkins on NBAtv: “There’s no coming back from this.” Said Captain Stack: “O RLY?”
-
The Bobcats outscored the Hawks, who went four minutes in the fourth without scoring, by 15 in the second half. Stephen Jackson, who makes love to pressure, not only made that game winner… but scored Charlotte’s previous six points. He had 32 in the game on 12-24. Shaun Livingston added a season-high 22 points along with six boards and five dimes. Joe Johnson went 4-14 and 0-5 from three for the Hawks, who missed 21 of their last 25 shots.
-
The Spurs scored 71 points in Friday night’s loss to the Sixers. They dropped 72 in the first half on the Wizards last night. I don’t feel the need to elaborate. San Antonio hardly even played Manu, Tony, and Timmy (39 minutes combined) as they skated to a 118-94 victory. Washington probably could’ve helped themselves by getting a hand up as the Spurs went 13 of 25 from downtown. Tony Parker and George Hill were the game’s leading scorers with 18 points each. Said Flip Saunders: ”Words can’t totally explain how I feel.” Can you come up with any that come close, coach? “Disappointed. Embarrassed.” So you didn’t expect to be annihilated by the league’s best team? “I didn’t see this coming. I don’t think anyone saw it coming.” Thanks, Flip. Good luck in Cleveland.
-
Marcus Thornton, quite possibly the league’s biggest enigma, came off a DNPCD and led the Hornets with 24 points in 27 minutes. The dude will probably play like six minutes and go 0-3 next game. Anyway, Thornton’s 24 weren’t quite enough as the Hornets lost by nine to the Bulls, 88-97. Chicago shot 51.5 percent, and of the 10 players they played, nine of them scored four points or more. Derrick Rose led the attack with 23 points and six assists on 8-8 freethrowing. New Orleans took 17 extra freebies, but they didn’t make ‘em. Thirteen misses from the stripe really ended up costing them big. Chicago went 21-22 as a team… Ronnie Brewer was responsible for f@cking up the perfect night with a brick late in the third quarter.
- I told you this would be a good one! The Thunder improved to 9-3 in games decided by a single bucket by knocking off the Kings 99-97. The Kings haven’t been nearly as successful in close games… they’re 7-14 in games decided by three or less. DeMarcus Cousins has apparently had enough. Via HoopsWorld…
Cousins overtly expressed his frustration over the final play in Saturday night’s game, in which Greene inbounded the ball to Tyreke Evans, who missed a potential game-winning three. Cousins felt he had position in the post and lashed out at Greene because Cousins felt he had the better chance at making that final shot.
The end result was Cousins leaning pretty hard into Evans and Greene en route to the locker room, then, according to sources, things got even more out of hand in the locker room where Cousins and Greene started to swing at each other.When Cousins tried boarding the team plane for a road game in Phoenix, he was promptly removed while the team decides how to best deal with the situation. Some sort of suspension is expected.Link.
- No, Donte Greene did not make some glaring mistake by passing the ball to Evans. Cousins’ position wasn’t that great. He had Nick Collison posted up about 10 feet from the basket… but he wasn’t wide open for a guaranteed score or anything. The verdict: Cousins is f@ckin’ bonkers. Kevin Durant was the game’s leading scorer with 35 points on 13-22. He did choke a freethrow at the end that would’ve given OKC a three-point lead, but it didn’t matter. Three-point shooting was abyssmal in this game. Both teams combined for three makes on 25 tries. Six players went zero for whatever from beyond the arc.
- Peja Stojakovic made four threes and exploded for 22 points in a 106-102 Dallas win over Houston. Dirk Nowitzki shared team-high honors with Peja as he dropped 22 of his own, but Dirk needed 16 shots to Peja’s 12. The Mavs, who were pounded on the offensive boards and gave up 20 points off of TOs, won the game bacuse they knocked shots down. Fifty-five percent of them, to be specific.
- The Other Games: The Knicks didn’t need Amare Stoudemire to beat the Nets 105-95… they got 16 threes instead. Wilson Chandler made 3 of the 16 as he dropped 21 points and swatted five shots. The Bucks scored 97 points, but they gave up 103 to Frank Vogel’s Pacers, who are now 7-1. Danny Granger dropped a game-high 30 points. Kevin Love got his 40th consecutive double-double, but his T-Wolves picked up their 41st loss. Seven Sixers scored in double figures as Philly won easily, 107-87. Minnesota was outscored 24 to 5 in the fastbreak department.
Quote of the Day: Mike D’Antoni with a run-on sentence about Wilson Chandler…
“He played great and I was hoping before the game when Amare wasn’t there people like Wilson and stuff would come out and have to do it and the pressure would be off because Amare’s not out there.”
Read that five times and try to tell me you don’t have a headache.
Photo of the Day:
Garbage time: Gotta love it.
Garbage time: Even Sam Cassell says it’s ugly.
Garbage time: Steve Novak’s favorite time.
“BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, that sh!t was le terrible!”
“Nah, son, all three of those were hilarious!”
