John Wall returned after missing four games and didn’t miss a beat. He came off the bench, but played 36 minutes and scored 25 points as the Wizards beat the Sixers in dramatic fashion. The Hawks lost to the Nets and have now dropped seven of their last nine after opening the season at 6-0. Dirk Nowtizki dropped 42 on the Pistons. Tracy McGrady had his first dunk since who knows when. Not too long ago that dunk would’ve been incredibly lame by T-Mac’s standards. Watching great, athletic scorers age and evolve into three-point-gunning role players always makes me sad, especially when the process begins much earlier than it should. T-Mac is only 30, and his decline began way back in ’05. That’s just not right.
Random Observations:
- Highlight Recap: NBA.com put out my kind of top 10… I think eight of the ten plays are dunks. Derrick Rose makes Derek Fisher dance and finishes over Gasol. JJ Hickson alley-oops on some Pacers. Brandon Rush beats the buzzer from long distance. Javale McGee gets up quick to finish his own miss.
- In case you’ve forgotten, let me remind you what happened last time the Wizards played the Sixers (November 2nd). Philly was up three with a couple seconds left, but Cartier Martin knocked down a clutch three to send the game to OT. Washington ended up winning the game 116-115. Twenty-one days later, Philly led by three with seven seconds left. John Wall caught the inbound pass, and Philly decided to foul him to prevent a three-point shot from going up. Smart play, but unfortunately for the Sixers, John made a smarter one. Wall saw the foul coming and launched a shot from nearly half court as he was hit… so he was rightfully given three shots from the line. He knocked them all down, and the game went to OT. Nick Young ended up burrying the game-winning three from the corner for Washington. The final score was 116-114, just one point different from the November 2nd game. Funny coincidence. A few statistical notes: John Wall scored all 25 of his points in the second half, Javale McGee dropped 24/18 with four blocks, and Andre Iguodala had 23/11/8.
- Dirk Nowitzki put 42/12 on the Pistons as Dallas slid past Detroit 88-84. Dirk didn’t get much help from his teammates in this one. Dallas’s bench shot 9-30 and the other four starters were just 8-25. Good thing Dirk’s a beast… he’s putting up 33 PPG over the last three games.
- New Jersey snapped a three-game losing streak; they beat Atlanta by six. A couple players who haven’t been performing well had big games: Brook Lopez had 32/9, and Jamal Crawford had 21/5 on 8-14. Joe Johnson continued to struggle… he went just 6-18 from the field on his way to 16 points. The Hawks have lost three in a row and seven of their last nine.
- The other games: The Knicks made it four in a row with a win over the Bobcats. Toney Douglas led the way with 22 points, and five other Knicks also scored in double figures. Pau Gasol was held to a season-low 12 points (props to Joakim Noah), but the Lakers still beat the Bulls by seven. Derrick Rose had 30/5/8. Shannon Brown hit five threes and dropped 21 off the bench for the Lakers. Danny Granger had 24 points as the Pacers beat the Cavaliers by 11. Indiana has won three of their last four.
- Kobe Bryant’s 2010 Christmas kicks will be based on one of my favorite childhood movies. Interesting idea, poor execution. Not only are they really ugly, they wouldn’t have reminded me of the Grinch if I didn’t already know that that was the goal.
- Terrence Williams has been suspended two games for repeatedly breaking team rules. I can’t find any articles that actually specify what he did. This doesn’t really surprise me as this isn’t the first time that T-Will’s caused problems. The guy is talented, but he really needs to get his act together before he gets completely lost in the shuffle. He wasn’t even averaging 20 minutes a night up to this point, and this obviously won’t help his case for more playing time.
Quote of the Day: Stephen Jackson on missing a potential game-tying shot…
“It was a tough play, a long shot. I didn’t get my feet into it. It is what it is, the life of Stephen Jackson.”
I’m not sure why Stack thought this was a good opportunity to break out the whole “poor me” thing… usually he saves that for when he gets ejected or fined or something. This dude has knocked down plenty of clutch shots in his career. No need for the emo mess.
Photo of the Day: I think T-Mac misses Texas…
