Sunday afternoon was wilder than Jordan Hill’s dreads. Here’s your game-by-game summary…
New York 113, Atlanta 112: The Knicks weren’t able to keep the Hawks from scoring without the help of Tyson Chandler, but Amare Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony lit the board up for 61 of the 113 points New York scored in their narrow victory at the Highlight Factory. Carmelo (39 points) was bouncing back from a 12-point, 13-shot performance against the Cleveland Cavaliers. Interestingly enough, Chandler’s absence allowed him to shift back to power forward, the spot from which he’s been doing a lot of his recent damage. Marvin Williams had one of the best games of his life, scoring 29 points and grabbing 11 rebounds, but he made a bit of a hesitant play on the game’s final possession, causing time to expire before his slam dunk attempt (although his drive was unsuccessful, notice who he toasted on the play). I love the fact that Williams attacked the rim, but you’ve got to either pull up or start the drive faster with just 3.4 seconds to work with.
The Knicks are certainly an enigma. They’ve shown that they can win games in a variety of ways, but only with certain combinations. They’ve yet to prove that all of their pieces can work in unison, and you have to wonder whether or not they’d be wise to try and shake up the core going forward. For now, I don’t consider them a threat to whichever top-flight team they’ll be seeing in the first round.
Note: Josh Smith went 5-13 with 5 turnovers and a late-fourth-quarter air ball. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I want to love Josh Smith, but he has too many of those games.
LA Lakers 114, Oklahoma City 106: There was a point in time when I thought Jordan Hill would be a factor this season. I never could’ve predicted that he’d play a key role for the Lakers in a double-overtime win over the Thunder, though. The point in time I’m referring to was back in December, when Hill, still a Houston Rocket, scored 17 points and grabbed 13 rebounds in a preseason game against the Spurs. He looked a lot like he did yesterday afternoon; big, athletic, and like “a presence,” as Mike Brown put it.
Hill got his opportunity when a lethargic Andrew Bynum sat down for a second-quarter break. Bynum had only been able to produce 4 points and 2 boards in the first quarter, and he looked to me like he was straight up napping on one inbound play where OKC scored an easy bucket at the rim. Surprisingly, Hill came in and gave the Lakers nine minutes of production, scoring 6 points and grabbing 4 boards. He went on to play more minutes than Bynum, keeping the star on the bench for the duration of the fourth quarter and both overtimes. He finished with 14 points, 15 rebounds, and 3 blocked shots–more of each statistic than he’d racked up in over a month as an LA Laker. Credit Mike Brown for having the courage to stick with the player who was producing. Hill came up with some big offensive boards down the stretch, along with an overtime basket. It’s clear that Brown attended the Gregg Popovich school of coaching.
In addition to Jordan Hill, storylines from this thriller include Durant and Westbrook’s combined 14-56 shooting, Devin Ebanks’ defense, and Scott Brooks’ refusal to double Kobe Bryant down the stretch. Oh, and the Artest incident, of course. It’s a damn shame RonRon had to go do something stupid because this turned out to be an extremely interesting game for a variety of other reasons.
As far as long-term outlook the game reaffirmed a few of my concerns with Oklahoma City: jumpers don’t always go in, and size tends to become key.
Sacramento 114, Charlotte 88: The Bobcats have dropped 20 in a row and have just three more opportunities to avoid finishing with the worst record in NBA history. I knew they were bad, but to lose a home game to the Kings by 26 with your pride on the line… damn. This team may be even worse than we thought it was.
Detroit 76, Toronto 73: The craziness of this compressed season has worn on the officials, too. Alan Anderson appeared to have his baseline jumper blatantly goaltended by Greg Monroe with just 22 seconds left in the game. Toronto was only down one at the time, meaning Anderson should’ve been credited with a go-ahead bucket. The good news for Raptor fans is that their team has moved down into a tie for 12th place. Go Nets, right?
Miami 97, Houston 88: The Houston Rockets won’t be the last team LeBron eliminates from playoff contention this season. James dropped 11 of his 32 in the fourth as he led the shorthanded Heat to a comeback victory, Cleveland style. Chandler Parsons had an impressive 23-point outing, going 10 for 13 from the field. Miami actually got decent bench production in this game… 33 points from Mike Miller, Shane Battier, Joel Anthony (WTF, 11 points?), and Terrel Harris.
San Antonio 114, Cleveland 98: Tim Duncan was able to rest as the Spurs stretched their lead over the Thunder to 1.5 games. Stephen Jackson dropped 17 points, his most since returning to San Antonio. I didn’t see a second of this one, but according to Pop it was “a relatively sloppy game.”
Golden State 93, Minnesota 88: The T-Wolves once led by 21 points if I’m not mistaken. They always go away from Nikola Pekovic, which I don’t understand. If I was Rick Adelman I’d instruct my team to ride the Serbian Steamroller until his wheels fall off. Pek scored 19 points and grabbed 16 rebounds, but it was Charles Jenkins and his 24/6/9 that led to a Warrior W. Jenkins has been putting up a lot of assists lately; 9.5 per game over his last four. I’m not going to pretend to know a lot about the guy, but I can tell you that he’s well put together. He’s listed at 6’3 220, and he looks every bit of that. From Queens, too.
Denver 101, Orlando 74: The first thing I noticed when I took a look at this box score was that JaVale McGee went 8 for 11. My next move was a Youtube search.
He dunked a few times.
LA Clippers 107, New Orleans 98: Until Eric Bledsoe drew a charge that prevented a Jerome Dyson three-pointer and Randy Foye went back-to-back bingo it certainly looked like the Clipps were going to lose this game. That would’ve been bad because they’d have been tied with Memphis. Chris Paul came up huge with 33 points, 4 rebounds, 13 assists, and 8 steals, but Randy Foye’s six three-pointers really made the difference. He was extremely timely, hitting three in the first six minutes and three in the last six minutes. Eric Gordon’s return to LA could’ve gone better (4-13, 17 PTS), but he did make one play that made Clipper fans miss him. Paul topped it though (with the help of Eric Bledsoe)…
