The month of December began with a couple major upsets. Blake Griffin went bonkers (as he does pretty much every night) and led his Clippers to a win over the best team in the league. Shane Battier came up big for Houston on the offensive end as the Rockets handed the Lakers their fourth consecutive loss. There was also a great non-upset: Russell Westbrook barely missed out on a monstrous triple-double as the Thunder needed three OTs to beat the Nets. Read about those games, two more close games, and eight blowouts… right now!
Random Observations:
- Highlight Recap, Blake Griffin Edition: Double-clutch reverse jam. Two-handed putback dunk. Alley-oop reverse layup. Two-handed dunk. Alley-oop dunk from Baron Davis.
- Highlight Recap, Everyone Else Edition: VC baseline reverse. DeRozan sick pass to Ed Davis for a dunk. Javale McGee throws it down. Ed Davis swats the crap out of John Wall. Russell Westbrook one-handed putback. DeShawn lobs to Chandler. Josh Smith swats the thug out of Tony Allen. Dwight Howard sends Luol Deng’s shot to the stands. JR Smith monster dunk. Darko Milicic putback dunk. Shaq throws it down.
- The Clippers snapped their latest losing streak (just two games?!) by beating the best team in the league. Blake Griffin scored 31 points, grabbed 13 rebounds, and dished four assists as LA gave the Spurs the business. It was only a five point victory, but this one really was all Clippers all the way. Blake Griffin was a complete monster, scoring in a wide variety of ways. He tooled on Matt Bonner with strong post moves, soared past Tim Duncan for dunks, and just pretty much owned anyone and everyone in the building who was wearing a black and silver tank top. Baron Davis returned after missing the previous 10 games and dished 10 assists in just 23 minutes. More importantly, he actually appeared to be mentally engaged in the game. He looked like he cared, which is the key with Baron. We’ll see how long that lasts. Eric Gordon had 21 points and six assists.
- Shane Battier dropped 11 of his 17 points in the final three minutes (including back-to-back three-balls, corner pocket) to put the Rockets over the Lakers by 10. Lamar Odom had a great game with 25/11 on 11-16, but Gasol sucked (eight points on 2-8) and Kobe struggled with his jumper again (10-24 FG, 0-3 from distance). This loss extends LA’s skid to four games, which is somewhat interesting, because they haven’t dropped four games in a row since April of 2007 (Smush/Kwame era). Interesting statistic: none of Phil Jackson’s championship teams have ever dropped four in a row. If I’m a Lakers fan, does that concern me? No, not really. This team is proven… they’ve been involved in the last three NBA Finals with essentially the same group that they have now. I figure Pau Gasol will get back to beasting and the bench will start knocking down shots again and they’ll go on a nice winning streak and no one will remember this. I’d say that’ll happen sooner rather than later. I think Phil Jackson’s got this under control. Here’s his response after being asked if he’s feeling concerned: “Concern? It’s way too early in the season, and we’ve got a long ways to go. We’ve got some guys struggling and need to get better.”
- Following the Lakers loss, Ron Artest prank-called a Houston Radio station pretending to be Luis Scola. “Going to celebrate by eating some Spanish food”? Dude, Ron, Luis is from Argentina. Also, I wonder if Chuck Hayes was really “free ballin’”?
- The Thunder needed 15 extra minutes of basketball to defeat the Nets. They were up three with 1.5 seconds remaining in regulation, but Anthony Morrow hit a deep three off one foot to send the game to OT. New Jersey was in excellent position to win this thing–up 3 with under five seconds left in the second OT–but Stephen Graham did the dumbest thing he possibly could’ve done: he fouled Jeff Green on a three-point attempt. Jeff knocked down all three freethrows and sent the game to the third extra period. Russell Westbrook would then take the game over. He scored all 13 of OKC’s points in the third OT and led his team to a three-point victory. Westbrook had one of the best stat-lines of the year with his 38 points, 15 rebounds, 9 assists, and three steals. Brook Lopez took advantage of the 63-minute game and FINALLY got his first double-double of the season. Jeff Green had 37 for OKC.
- The Atlanta Hawks, who will be without Joe Johnson for over a month due to an elbow injury, beat the Memphis Grizzlies by three. Mike Bibby and Jamal Crawford hit six of nine from distance and scored 31 points. Three of Bibby’s threes came in the final five minutes. Josh Powell scored a season-high 16 points off the bench. Six Atlanta players scored in double figures, and as a team they gunned at over 53% on the night. It was a nice team effort from the Hawks, who are going to need guys to step up in the absense of Joe Johnson. Actually, they were needing guys to step up already, because Joe was playing more like a D-League call-up than a 100-million dollar man.
- It’s rare that Kevin Love isn’t the main man on the boards in a T-Wolves game, but he wasn’t last night. Tyson Chandler had 14 rebounds in the third quarter (a Mavericks franchise record) and 18 boards in the game as the Mavs crunched the Wolves by 14. The Mavs’ bench put in most of the offensive work in this game… they out-scored the starters 59-41. For those of you who have been intrigued by the recent Darko Milicic explosion: The Serbian Gangster had a decent game with 12/8 and a couple blocks. Dallas has now won seven in a row and improved to 11-2 with DeShawn Stevenson in the starting lineup.
- Joakim Noah pulled an Andre Bargnani and went reboundless for the sixth time in his career. The difference between this time and the other five times Noah went boardless is that last night he got plenty of playing time. How do you not get a single rebound in in over 25 minutes? It’s not like your teammates were getting them, the most boards any Bull recorded was four. The Bulls actually set a franchise record for fewest boards in a game (21). Come on Joakim/Chicago, that’s turr’ble! Anyway, the Bulls lost by 29. Dwight Howard didn’t have a great game (just 13/12 on 5-12), but Brandon Bass picked up the slack with 17 points off the bench. Jameer Nelson and Wince Harder combined for 46 points, 10 boards, and nine assists. Oh yeah, Carlos Boozer made his Bulls debut in this game. It must suck to make your first appearance in a game where your team sets a franchise record for rebounding futility, especially when you’re a big-money power forward. Welcome back, Carlos.
- The other games: The CRaptors shot 58% from the floor and dropped 127 on the Wizards. Canada’s team took the game by 19, my main man Sonny Weems had 18. The Boston Celtics shot 57% from the floor but only managed to beat the Blazers by four. Paul Pierce dropped 28, and Wes Matthews had 23 for the Blazers. The Heat got a nice warm-up for tonight’s game against the Cavs; they coasted past the Pistons (25-point victory). The Hornets got back on the winning track with a 16-point victory over the Bobcats. Deron Williams dropped 24/16 and three additional Jazz-men scored 16+, Utah beat Indiana by 12. Carmelo Anthony got tossed, but the Nuggets still got a win over the Bucks. JR Smith is apparently out of the doghouse; he played 32 minutes and recorded 20/10.
Quote of the Day: Stan Van Gundy explains why you should never watch ESPN…
“How’d the Heat do tonight? Was their chemistry good, did they all get along? Tomorrow, the only the thing that’s going to be on ESPN is LeBron going back to Cleveland, right? Because ESPN only covers two stories — Brett Favre and the Miami Heat. And then we have about five minutes for the rest of the sports world.”
Stan moves up three notches on my totem pole.
Photo of the Day:
