Other than an injury to one of the big three, this is quite possibly the worst thing that could’ve happened to the Heat. We all know what their biggest problem is–depth–particularly at a couple of spots: center and point guard. While Mario Chalmers shouldn’t be a player who’s loss cripples a contender’s championship hopes, he may be in this case, because Miami simply does not have too many other healthy and competent NBA players on their roster. I think Mike Bibby has done a pretty nice job offensively with the Heat… but he’ll have to start now, so the bench loses the only punch it’s had lately. I suppose one positive is that Eddie House could get back in the rotation. He’s not much of a point guard, but LeBron can handle the play making. I like Eddie’s catch and shoot abilities on this team. Chalmers will have an MRI today… we’ll see how it goes. If he’s out for an extended period of time it might be R.I.P. for the 2010/11 Heat.
Random Observations:
- Highlight Recap, Blake Griffin Edition:
- Highlight Recap, Tony Allen Edition:
- Highlight Recap, Everyone Else Edition: Zach Randolph with his second dunk of the week. LeBron drives and dunks. The Rooster crosses the King. Darrell Arthur with a block and a dunk. LaMarcus Aldridge putback slam. D-Wade goes baseline and throws it down. Chris Paul finds Emeka Okafor with a great bounce pass. OJ Mayo sighting.
- The Nuggets aren’t doing quite as well as I had predicted on this three-game challenge. They are now 0-2 with a 98-103 loss to Miami. I was actually impressed by their performance in the Orlando game because they showed that they can compete in a game where they don’t even reach 90 points, but they certainly weren’t able to put the clamps on LeBron and company last night. The King followed up his 43-point game against ATL with a 33-pointer last night. Miami got another 32 from Dwyane Wade, and 18 points and 11 boards from Chris Bosh. Mike Bibby came through with 14 off the bench… the Heat will need a lot more of that with the injury to Chalmers. Miami shot almost 51 percent as a team and knocked down 25 of 29 freethrows. The Nuggets struggled a bit offensively… Wilson Chandler and Danillo Gallinari combined to go 10-27 from the field (although Gallo made 11 of 12 FTs and scored 23 points). The usual dishing wasn’t really there, either (just 14 team assists). There were a ton of jumpers taken in this game… only 50 total paint points were scored.
- The Celtics, who had lost four of their last six, picked up a much-needed 89-85 victory in New Orleans. Boston’s starters struggled from the get go as the Cs fell behind by 14 at the end of one. Fortunately for them they’ve got one of the league’s best benches, especially now with the addition of Jeff Green. Green, Big Baby, and Delonte West, the only three Celtics who played off the bench, combined for 39 points on 17-23 from the floor. Big Baby actually matched Ray Allen for team-high honors with 20 points, including seven in the fourth quarter. Baby hit the go-ahead bucket at the 7:09 mark of the fourth as well as two huge freethrows that gave his team a two-possession lead with 15 ticks remaining. David West abused Boston’s frontcourt in this game. West dropped 11 fourth-quarter points and 32 total, whereas KG and Krstic combined for just 12 points on 6-15 (Nenad went scoreless on 0-2). Rajon Rondo now has another minor injury to deal with. He bumped knees with KG in the third quarter, but would return later on. He was the only Celtic starter who was playing well in the first half (4-8, rest of starters 5-17 at that point), but as I mentioned, Delonte West filled in very effectively. Boston tied the Bulls for the top spot in the East with this victory and will move on to play the Knicks in New York on Monday in a possible first-round preview.
- Blake Griffin’s 30/8/8 were his best numbers in at least a few weeks, but take the line with a grain of salt seeing as it came at home against the Cavaliers. This game got off to an interesting start as a crazy guy with a knife snuck in through the back door a few hours before tipoff. Via the LA Times…
There were three Clippers — Randy Foye, Al-Faroqu Aminu and Eric Bledsoe – warming up for today’s game against the Cavaliers when a knife-wielding man got on the court shortly before 11 a.m.
Foye was changing his shoe, and Clippers assistants Howard Eisley and Dave Severns were on hand too. Christian Eyenga was the only player on the court for the Cavaliers. There were also plenty of children around. Eyenga said a Clippers cheerleader shouted that a man had a gun.
“That was crazy. … Next thing you know, I look up, and it’s like somebody standing 15 feet from me with a long knife, a long shiny knife,” Foye said after Saturday’s game.
“I’m looking, like, ‘Is this real?’ I was in shock when I saw it. So I kind of got up and ran across the court, slipped a little bit. … But it was serious — because there were a lot of kids in there. We were thinking about the worst-case scenario if he would have grabbed one of them kids and held them hostage or something.
“If something had happened with one of those kids, it would have been heart-breaking.”
Said Aminu: “It wasn’t like he was trying to hurt anybody. It was more like he was trying to get attention. He never came close to me, so I was cool. He got close to Eric (Bledsoe) though.”
Foye said he was running away with one shoe on and one shoe off. He said Eisley got away by jumping over the scorer’s table.
“I looked up and Eric Bledsoe was right next to me,” Foye said. “I think he [the armed man] ran right past Eric Bledsoe. His attention was on everyone else, like trying to get away from the guards on the bench.”
Officials said that the man — who has not yet been identified by the police — was mostly speaking gibberish. Foye heard him clearly, at one point: “I know what he was saying: ‘What are you going to do? Shoot me?’ That’s all I remember him saying.”
Foye said he had seen violence first-hand when he was growing up in New Jersey.
“I’ve never seen nothing like that, up close, since,” he said. “My tendencies of getting out of the way of harm kicked in. I just took off.”
Link.
- There’s still no word on what this guy’s intentions were. It seems that it may have simply been some nutcase in search of a little attention. Anyway, no one was harmed, the guy was taken out by rubber bullets, and the game went on almost as scheduled. The Clippers won it 100-92, snapping a two-game slide. Eric Gordon is back… he dropped 29 with some 6-10 long-range accuracy. The long-ball turned out to be the difference in this game. Each team shot 48 percent (Clipps made one shot more than the Cavs), made 17 freethrows, and were virtually equal in every other team statistic. LA knocked down six more threes than Cleveland, though. JJ Hickson led the Cavs with 28/9.
- The Other Games: The Spurs saw the Bobcats coming to town and decided to give Tim Duncan a day off. They still won easily, 109-98. Steve Novak was the game’s leading scorer with 19 points in 17 minutes. That makes me wish I watched this one… I always liked Steve Novak. He just keeps hanging around on someone’s bench with that deadly jumper. Indiana could’ve officially eliminated the Wizards from the playoff race, but they choked in Memphis (78-99). Tony Allen had another great game with 19/11/6. The Grizzlies now lead the Jazz by 1.5 games in the race for 8th place. Portland picked up a 110-101 win over the Sixers to keep themselves one game ahead of the Hornets for sixth place. Gerald Wallace dropped his Blazer-high of 25 points on 8-12 shooting.
Quote of the Day: We have a Tony Allen post-game interview!
Thank you, Basketball Gods!
Photo of the Day:
