In earning the 16th and final playoff spot, Zach Randolph and company have taken the Grizzlies to the postseason for the first time in five years, and also given themselves the ability to shave their beards (As you may recall, the Grizz pledged not to shave until they made the playoffs). Man, that really would’ve sucked had they somehow fallen out of the race. Marc Gasol would’ve looked like a legit Grizzly come training camp of next season.
So the field is set… but the order is not. I don’t believe any positions were shuffled last night, but various wins and losses brought a couple of upper-echelon teams closer together. Details after the highlights…
Random Observations:
- Highlight Recap, DeMaR DeRoZaN Edition: Remember Kevin Durant’s shoe-less block? Well, DeMaR also lost a shoe, but check out his recovery…
- Highlight Recap, Everyone Else Edition: Brook Lopez does something unexpected. Russell Westbrook gets up, throws down. LeBron dunked this one kinda hard. D-Wade hits LeBron with a full-court pass. Javale McGee cuffs it on Nenad Krstic. KG avenges Krstic. Corey Brewer swats Eric Gordon. Joakim Noah pulls a Kareem from three-point land.
- The Lakers lost their fourth in a row in a heated contest in Portland. The Blazers took it 93-86, but it never should’ve been that close, because they had a 24-point lead with 3:30 to go in the third quarter. The Lakers had gone 1-14 in the period to that point, but they’d cut the lead in half by the time the buzzer sounded. They’d get as close as seven with two minutes to go, but six straight Blazer points would then put the lid on it. This was a really fun game to watch even though it wasn’t close during the third quarter. If you watch any significant amount of NBA basketball you know that virtually no lead is safe with an entire quarter to go, and a team as good as the Lakers almost always has a run in them. LA made the run, and they out-played Portland in the fourth, but the hole they dug for themselves ended up being a little too deep. Like I said, it was a very physical game, which always adds to the entertainment value. It was like that mostly due to Ron Artest’s shenanigans…
- He was trying to instigate Gerald Wallace all night long, and while Wallace never really lost his temper (and put up 19/13/7), he did let Ron Ron know he wasn’t going to put up with the bullsh!t. The Rose Garden crowd then showed their appreciation…
- I know it wouldn’t have been a good decision what with the playoff race being in full swing and all, but part of me wishes that G-Wall took a swing at Artest. I don’t think Ron really wants it… he’s just like KG… always starting sh!t, never finishing it. Someone needs to call his bluff… it’s been a while since Big Ben sent him scurrying off to lie down on the scorers table. I’m pretty excited that this LA/Portland matchup is now a little closer to becoming a first-round reality. Portland kept themselves a half-game up on the Hornets for 6th, and LA’s lead for second place is now just one game. Note: Andrew Bynum’s streak of three consecutive games with 15+ rebounds came to an end as he grabbed just six boards in 31 minutes. LA’s starting frontcourt got pretty badly out-played by Portlands. LaMarcus Aldridge had three alley-oop dunks in the game. I believe he leads the league in alley-oop slams, and everyone knows he and Andre Miller are always connecting on spin+lob conversions. I’m sure it was part of the scouting report for Pau Gasol… but being Pau Gasol, he didn’t perform well as things got physical, and LaMarcus continuously toasted him for dunks. Said Phil Jackson: “These guys just don’t want to play hard right now. I hate to have this setup going into the playoffs when we’re just not playing hard.”
- The Clippers scored the first two buckets in their matchup with the Mavs and never trailed in the first half as they took a 54-47 lead into the lockerroom. The Clipps were really rolling… even Craig Smith was in on the action, dropping seven points in the second quarter. As the Clippers often do, though, they fizzled in the third. Following one Blake Griffin bucket at the 11:25 mark, LA failed to score for nearly six minutes. They committed multiple unforced turnovers and displayed really poor shot selection during the stretch… they essentially appeared to be toast. Meanwhile, Dallas was dropping 14 points to take the lead by 7. The Clipps weren’t toast, however… Mo Williams dropped two threes and an old-fashioned three-point play during a 13-1 run that tied the game up at 75. Just when you thought they had re-taken the momentum, though, Tyson Chandler came through with a tip at the buzzer to give Dallas the lead back… and they would never trail again. Props to my main man DeShawn Stevenson for coming in off the bench and hitting a big triple to make the lead four with just over six minutes to play. It’s not easy to sit on the bench all night and come in and stick a swagged-out three. It was his only bucket of the game, but it was a big one. Corey Brewer randomly exploded for 20 points, matching Dirk for team-high honors. Mo Dub led the Clipps with 29. This W keeps the Mavs a single game ahead of the Thunder for third place, and moves them within a game of the second-place Lakers.
- The Nuggets and Thunder set a grind-it-out tone with some combined 15-45 shooting bricking in the first quarter. The game just got off to a really ugly start… it seemed that every score was off of an offensive board, and at one point there were back-to-back shot clock violations. OKC would end up finding a little offense later on while Denver never really did. KD dropped 16 of his game-high 28 in the third as his team built a double-digit lead and pretty much ran away with it. He was gifted with six freethrows on two of those goddamned swing-through moves… one of which I definitely didn’t feel was actually a foul. He got a few other questionable calls along the way, too… that resulted in 10 FT attempts and eight Thunder points, and they always seemed to come right when OKC needed them. I’m not blaming it on the refs or anything (it isn’t their fault that Denver shot 40%, turned it over 18 times, and bricked 13 threes), but I feel like it could’ve been a lot closer than 104-89 had the officials not given Durant some of those questionable whistles. George Karl is choosing to look at the bright side of this week’s pair of losses to Oklahoma: “I think there’s somewhat of an advantage of being the angry team going into a playoff series. I think we’ll be the angry team, hopefully.” You may be getting your wish to play Dallas anyway, George. OKC is just a game out of third with this W. Note: How ’bout my main man Kenyon Martin? He did 14/13 last night, and he’s now doing 15.5/7.5 over his last five.
- KWAMAY BROWN has had a solid season for the Charlotte Bobcats. He’s started 47 games, appeared in 63, and put up his best scoring/rebounding numbers since ’06/07. That being said, I didn’t expect this when I clicked on the box score of their 103-112 L to Miami last night…
- That’s got to be one of the top statistical games he’s had since highschool. The 23 points are not a career high, however; he once put 30 on the Queens during his days with the Wizards.
- Speaking of the Queens, they lost to the Grizzlies 96-101, which is how Memphis clinched that final playoff spot. Z-Bo did 27/15 on 10-18 while five other Grizzly Bears also scored in double figures. Said Mike Conley, who posted 12/8: “I’m ecstatic. For guys that have been here for the long ride, we’ve had a lot of ups and downs. This team has fought. We’ve had some guys go down. We’ve gone through a lot of adversity. For us to be in this situation at the end of the season, clinching a playoff spot is (exciting).” Fun fact: the only current Grizzly who was around for the 2006 playoffs run (guess it wasn’t much of a “run”, they got swept) is Shane Battier. You may recall that Battier was shipped to Houston for Rudy Gay and my mainest of main mans Stromile Swift prior to the ’06/07 season, though. Looks like Mr. Battier is Memphis’ good luck charm. I’m hoping he’ll actually help the Grizz win a postseason game this time around (they’re 0-8 in franchise history).
- The Other Games (that mattered): Chicago clinched the top spot in the East with a 93-82 win over the Cavs. Derrick Rose didn’t really do anything, but he didn’t have to because Carlos Boozer was good for 24/11. JJ Hickson recorded his third double-double in a row (22/15) in a losing effort. The Knicks have suddenly won six in a row… they travelled across the river and knocked off the Nets 116-93. How are they doing it? They’re putting up 117 PPG during the streak. Philly beat Toronto 98-93, so they remain within a half-game of those streaky Knickerbockers. Jerryd Bayless put up another 24 points; that’s five games in a row with 19 or more. That one-on-one meeting between Rajon Rondo and Doc Rivers must’ve gone well. Coming off of a complete dud against Derrick Rose and a little chat with his coach, Rondo put 20 points and 14 assists on John Wall and the Wizards in a 104-88 victory that kept Boston locked up with Miami for second in the East. New Orleans stayed just a half-game behind Portland with a 109-97 W over Phoenix. Willie Green set a Hornets franchise record by making his first 12 shots of the game. He missed his last five, but he dropped 31 in a win, so who cares?
- The Other Games (didn’t matter): Danny Granger dropped 28 as the Pacers beat the Hawks up on the glass and picked up a 114-102 W. ATL has now lost three in a row, but they’re not playing for anything and Josh Smith is sitting. Chris Wilcox sighting! John Kuester gave the good ol’ Terp 24 minutes, which he flipped into 27 points and 13 boards.
Quote of the Day: Joakim Noah on Chicago’s drastic improvement over the past year…
“Last year we qualified on the last day and now we are the No. 1 seed. That feels pretty good.”
Photo of the Day: This made my day…
