Following the Nuggets’ victory, George Karl found a nice way to say ‘THANK GOD, MELO IS GONE!” Here’s how he put it: “The last two games have probably been as fun for me to coach and win because you’re playing hard and playing unified.” Yeah, I feel you George. Your team isn’t as good as it was least week, but at least no one on the current roster has publicly expressed a desire to be playing somewhere else. It’s pretty sad that every quote I’ve read from Denver’s coach, players, and management seem to show that everyone is relieved to see Melo take his leave. This is a guy who had been the face of their franchise for almost a decade, a guy who had taken them as far as the Conference Finals… and he made sh!t so dramatic this season that the organization is thrilled with his departure. Not the way I’d want to go out.
Random Observations:
- Highlight Recap, ah crap, the annoying guy is back Edition:
- Lowlight Recap: Unless Bosh has the worst reflexes known to man, this is just turr’ble…
- Speaking of flopping…
- I wish I could tell you that K-Mart decked him, but that was clearly a sell-job by KG.
- Only one of Denver’s former Knicks played well, but a familiar face was able to lead them to a win over a Celtics team that played like it had just lost a good portion of it’s roster. Maybe that’s because they had in fact just lost a good portion of their roster… the Cs only suited up nine players for this game, and although Chris Johnson and Von Wafer certainly didn’t lose it for them, they didn’t do enough to make up for the struggles of a few starters. Rajon Rondo, Ray Allen, Paul Pierce, and Glen Davis combined to miss 30 of 46 shot attempts as Boston put just 75 points on the board on 39 percent shooting. They missed 14 of 17 threes, and even though they missed 47 shots they only managed to come up with three offensive boards… four fewer than Denver, who shot 45 percent. Kenyon Martin was the familiar face who led the Nuggs in scoring with 18 points on 8-13 (including a three). Danilo Gallinari (1-6, 2 points) and Raymond Felton (2-8, 4 points) both struggled rather mightilly, but Wilson Chandler had a nice debut with 16 points and five boards. Denver ended up winning this one by 14, 89-75, but this thing was all tied up at 70 with 7:30 left in the fourth. Denver then went on a 19-5 run during which Boston went the final six minutes of the game without scoring. The Nuggets are fortunate that Boston was cold because they could’ve been burried early had the Celtics had a good shooting night. Denver had a season-low 37 points at the half.
- LEBRON FOR THE TIE………………………..
- ……………………wide right. A miss is a miss, but I’d be lying if I told you that wasn’t one of his uglier ones. I don’t have a problem with the shot–he created plenty of space to get a nice look–it just missed so badly that you can’t help but suggest that maybe a quick two would’ve been a better call. Anyway, forget that brick, I prefer to speak positively of LeBron today. He had a 50-second burst in last night’s game that summed up his physical freakishness more effectively than anything I’ve ever seen him do before. Between the 8:53 and 8:03 marks of the first quarter, he flew from coast to coast three times, twice finishing with insane dunks and once with a contested layup. Here are the dunks…
- I wish there was a video that just showed it as the broadcast did. The layup isn’t in there, which is a shame, because it was no less impressive than the slams. Unfortunately, that video doesn’t really show you how fast it all unfolded, either. You’ll just have to trust me on this… you could’ve blinked and missed it all… that’s how freakin’ fast he was trucking from one end of the floor to the other. I’ve never in my life seen a guy who is more fascinating to watch in the open court than LeBron James. His combination of speed, size, skills and explosive leaping ability has got to be unmatched in the history of the sport. What he did in this 50-second spurt… I’m convinced that no one else to ever touch a ball could’ve done it quite like he did. I don’t really have a point here, by the way… I just rarely find myself asking “what the f@ck?” out loud in a room by myself while watching a basketball game. LeBron garners a lot of disdain these days, even a little from me (mostly for things that come out of his mouth), but be sure to at least appreciate some of the things he does on the court. We may never see another player who does them quite like him.
- I got sidetracked yapping about LeBron… here’s how the Heat/Bulls game went down: Miami took a 53-44 lead into the break, but Derrick Rose and Luol Deng came out and scored 20 of Chicago’s 26 in the third, resulting in a four-point Chicago lead. The Bulls fell behind by four in the fourth after going over four minutes without scoring, but the Heat would go through a slump of their own. After leading 84-80 with 4:10 remaining, the Heat scored just five points the rest of the way… Chicago scored 13, resulting in a 93-89 victory. Derrick Rose missed five of his seven shots in the fourth, although his two makes were big buckets in the final three minutes. He also assisted on the biggest hoop of the night, a tie-breaking triple by Luol Deng with 16 seconds left…
- I’m not sure what Dwyane Wade was thinking leaving Deng completely unguarded. Well, I know what he was thinking (help on Rose), but I don’t think it was a good call. Deng has been knocking that long-ball down all season long, and LeBron is a good enough man defender to take care of business on his own. Anyway, forget that… this L is on Chris Bosh. It’s not often that it’s at all reasonable to blame a loss on a single player, but take a look at his shooting chart…
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I think there’s an X missing, because he missed 17 of his 18 shots and I’m only counting 16 Xs. Said Bosh: “It makes it frustrating just knowing that if I would have made two or three of them in a close game like that it would have made a difference.” Yup… 4-18 would’ve gotten the job done. Looking for more hilarious Bosh bashing? Click here.
Quote of the Day: Charles Barkley on the trade deadline…
“Forget Oklahoma City, Mo Williams and Jamario Moon are the real winners!”
Photo of the Day:
