11/3/10: Warriors Improve to 3-1.

With 12 games last night I could’ve given this post a lot of different titles.  The Lakers, Hornets, and Hawks all remain undefeated, Paul Pierce reached a milestone, The Clippers won a game, Kobe had a big night, etc.  I went with the Warriors because, well… raise your hand if you predicted that the Warriors would be 3-1 four games in.  I don’t see any hands going up.  That could be because I’m in an empty room, or it could be because the Warriors weren’t supposed to be any good.  I’ll go with letter B, not supposed to be any good.  Now that I have finished justifying my excuses for putting a favorite team of mine in the title, we can begin… 

Random Observations:

  • Highlight Recap: Blake Griffin explodes for a dunk on Nenad Krstic (I was scratching my head just like DeAndre after the play).  Derrick Favors dunks Boris Diaw to the floorKobe sets up Odom for a dunkA couple alley-oops by the LakersUtah’s great ball movement results in a dunkTyreke tools on Barnes and finishes with a bonkers layupMonta Ellis with one of his many great finishesGoran Dragic with two sick passes which led to dunksDwight Howard block party.
  • Dorell Wright hit another seven triples (putting him at 18/33 on the season, over 54%) and Monta Ellis dropped 39/9/8 as the Stephen Curry-less Warriors beat the Zach Randolph-less Grizzlies 115-109.  David Lee had 15 points and 16 boards, and Reggie Williams contributed 16 points off the bench.  Monta scored 17 of his 39 in the 4th period, making an array of difficult jumpshots as well as a few of his signature one-man-fast-break style coast-to-coast buckets.  I think it’s fair to say that Golden State benefitted from Memphis’s lack of Z-Bo.  They managed to out-rebound the Grizzlies pretty badly (19 offensive boards) which helped them win while being pretty severely out-shot from the floor.  The Warriors also got to the line nine times more than Memphis and hit five more three pointers.  Mike Conley continues to make the Grizzlies management look a little less stupid by putting up nice numbers (18/7/13), and Rudy Gay had his second 30+ point night in a row.  Oh, I’d just like to mention that this was a very entertaining basketball game, and if I remember correctly it was on my games to watch list for this week.  Thank you Grizzlies and Warriors for making it seem like I know what I’m talking about.
  • Clippers win!  Clippers win!  It had to happen at some point.  I’m a little surprised their first victory came in blow-out fashion against the Thunder, but when you look at Kevin Durant’s shooting numbers it’s easy to see how this happened:  KD went 6-24 from the floor and didn’t hit a single one of his ten three point attempts.  Durant has struggled shooting the ball over the first four games, he’s down to 35% now.  Credit Ryan Gomes for playing pretty good defense last night.  Rookie PG Eric Bledsoe had 17 points and 8 assists for the Clippers.  Eric Gordon finally got a few threes to drop and scored 27, and Blake Griffin posted 18/9 on his hometown team.  The only Clipper who didn’t play well was Chris Kaman, who hasn’t played well at all this season and should consider joining Baron on the bench.
  • Paul Pierce scored his 20,000th point (3rd Celtic, 36th NBA player to do so) on a clutch freethrow in OT as the Celtics beat the Bucks by three.  The Celtics were up three with 20 seconds to go, but Brandon Jennings scored a layup to bring the Bucks to within one.  Ray Allen was fouled and missed one of the freethrows, allowing Carlos Delfino to send the game into OT with a layup of his own.  The Celtics had a couple big steals in the extra period which helped seal the win.  Rajon Rondo dished out another 15 assists, which actually dropped his season average a little bit.
  • Kobe Bryant scored 30 points, grabbed 10 rebounds, and handed out 13 assists (17th career triple-double) as the Lakers beat the Kings in Sacramento.  All of LA’s starters scored in double figures, Gasol had 22/11, Odom had 18/8…  just another game for the 5-0 Lakers who continue to look even better than they did last season.  DeMarcus Cousins had a hard time staying on the floor against Pau.  He had five fouls in 20 minutes and made only 3/13 shot attempts. 
  • Kevin Love finally recorded 30 minutes of playing time in a single game!  Way to go Kurt Rambis, it only took you five games and an injury to Michael Beasley to figure out that it’s a good plan to keep your best player on the court, if possible.  Love delivered with 22/9, but his squad ended up getting absolutely destroyed by the Magic, 128-86.  When your second best player on the active roster is arguably Luke Ridnour, things like this tend to happen.  The situation is getting a bit ugly in Minnesota as the T-Wolves have lost their last two games by a total of 74 points.  Hopefully Rambis realizes that it’s not Kevin Love’s fault and continues to keep him on the court a little more.  Dwight Howard put in major work for the Magic, notching 18/16 with 8 blocks in just 23 minutes.  Darko “Manna From Heaven” Milicic held onto his spot in the starting lineup, but made his case to become a pine-rider a little stronger with an 0-6 performance.
  • I haven’t watched enough of the Spurs to see how this is happening, but Richard Jefferson is putting up 20 PPG through four games.  You may recall that his scoring took a huge hit last season, dropping to just 12 PPG after seven straight seasons of 15+.  I just thought that was worth mentioning.  The Spurs beat the Suns by two to improve to 3-1. 
  • Utah beat the Craptors by 17, but I’m still going to talk about the Craptors, because  my main man Sonny Weems had 23 points off the bench.  Way to go, Sonny! Andrea Bargnani actually had a decent number of boards (9), probably because Reggie Evans finally took a night off from his glass-cleaning duties (he only had 6).  Toronto still can’t guard anybody.  Utah shot 56.5% as a team and had three starters score 20 or more.  CJ Miles added 19 more off the bench.
  • The rest of the games: New Orleans remains undefeated (4-0), Houston remains defeated (0-4), Hornets by 8.  Charlotte got their first win, it came by two points over the Nets.  The Hawks are now 5-0 after beating the Pistons (who are now 0-5) by 9.  Carmelo Anthony did something he rarely does–missed at the buzzer–and Denver lost to Dallas by one, 35 points for Nobrickski.  Last but not least, Elton Brand (25/12) led the Sixers to a 26 point win over the Pacers.

Quote of the Day: Nuggets commentator Scott Hastings on Dirk Nowitzki…

“He’s the most uncoordinated coordinated guy I’ve ever seen in my life.”

No, it doesn’t make any sense, but I still feel like it paints a great picture of Dirk’s game. 

Photo of the Day: “Hey, what’s up Kevin?  Damn, you look like you just missed 10 three pointers in a loss to the Clippers or something…  you alright, man?”

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