Cleveland finally got one! Led by Mo Williams and Anderson Varejao, the Cavs picked up their first victory since November 27th. It required five extra minutes and a terrible showing from the Knicks, but after losing 10 in a row I’m sure they’ll take it. As for the Knicks, they’ve suddenly dropped three in a row immediately after winning 13 of 14. Anyway, the Cavs weren’t the only bad team that pulled an upset last night. The Clippers got their second road win of the season, and Philly beat a short-handed Orlando squad. Find out exactly how it all went down right after the highlights…
Random Observations:
- Highlight Recap: Anderson Varejao throws down in Amare’s vicinity. Javale McGee denies Dwyane Wade at the rim. See the top 10 for a plethora of sick dunks as well as a beautiful dish by Andray Blatche.
- New York looked terrible against the Cavs. Down the stretch they did nothing but go one-on-one, and they were pick-and-rolled to death by Mo Williams and Anderson Varejao. I’m not exactly sure how many points Cleveland got out of that P&R combo, but I know it resulted in multiple buckets in the overtime. Varejao scored 14 points and grabbed 17 boards in the game, but more importantly he frustrated the hell out of Amare Stoudemire. The Knicks continuously went to Amare in the fourth when they were in need of a bucket, and Varejao forced him to shoot jumpers and turn the ball over (Stoudemire gave it up eight times and shot just 8-19 in the game). Andy was simply all over the court… he scored important baskets, grabbed big offensive boards, blocked four shots, flopped a bit… the guy simply came up HUGE. Mo Williams and Antawn Jamison had nice games as well (23/14 and 21/9 respectively). Amare Stoudemire used the loss as an opportunity to remind us of his excuse-making skills: “It has been a long week. We gave it all we had in the Miami game and back-to-backs are always tough in this league.” As you can see, he’s averaging 1.5 excuses per sentence… good enough for the league lead.
- The Clippers got their second road win in a row by edging the Bulls 100-99. Not only was it their second road win in a row, it was just their second road win of the season. I guess winning NBA games on the road is just like anything else… once you’ve done it once, it’s a lot easier to do it again. In typical Clipps fashion, they did damn near find a way to lose. LA led by seven with just 42 seconds left, but they’d proceed to give Derrick Rose a three-point play, turn the ball over, allow Carlos Boozer to score an easy layup, miss a layup of their own, and foul Rose at the buzzer. With his Bulls down two, Derrick stepped to the line and knocked the first one down confidently. At this point I was 100% sure OT was coming next, and the Clipps would surely lose. Rose pulled the string pretty bad on the second one, though. It was way short… clanked hard off the front of the iron… game over, Clippers win! Blake Griffin was his usual beastly self (29/12/4). Derrick Rose led the Bulls with 34/6/8. Other than those two, I didn’t feel like anyone played all that well. Eric Gordon had seven turnovers, Baron Davis made some weird passes and dribbled out of bounds late in the game… I guess Carlos Boozer was alright. He dropped 25 on 12-20 but only grabbed four boards and turned it over five times. Both teams left lots of points at the line. The Bulls went 15 for 23 and LA made just 18 of 30.
- The Orlando Magic were able to complete two blockbuster trades today, but they couldn’t get a win against Philly. Dwight Howard gave it a pretty good effort (26 points and 20 rebounds), but he missed 7 of 17 freethrows and had an uncharictaristically rough shooting night (8-18). Andre Iguodala, Elton Brand, and Louis Williams all scored 20+ for a Sixers squad that converted 26 of 31 attempts at the stripe. Williams went 13-14 himself. Philly was killed on the offensive glass, but Orlando couldn’t make it count by putting the ball in the basket. To be fair, the Magic had just eight players in uniform. They had to start JJ Redick and Quentin Richardson. That’ll always make things a little more challenging. Final score: 97-89.
- Rudy Gay was suspended, but the Grizzlies still forced the Spurs to play five extra minutes to get their 23rd W of the season. Tony “it ain’t Chinese algebra” Allen filled in pretty nicely for Rudy… he dropped 15 on 5-9 in his first start this season. OJ Mayo returned to the starting lineup and knocked down five triples on his way to 27 points. The Grizz made a nice comeback in the 4th after trailing by double digits in the third… but unfortunately their six OT points were doubled by the Spurs. Tony Parker led San Antonio with 37 points and nine assists.
- LeBron/Wade/Bosh scored 72 of Miami’s 95 points, and they needed every single one of them to beat the Wizards by one. Nick Young and Kirk Hinrich started in the backcourt for the Wall-less/Arenas-less Wizards. They played well, combining for 43 points and 13 dimes. Nick Young had 30 of the points and Captain Kirk dished 12 of the assists. Go figure. Josh Howard played for the first time this season and scored 13 points in 22 minutes off the bench. This game ended controversially. I’m going to talk about the finish, but if you’d rather watch than read, here’s the game highlights. Miami trailed by five with 30 seconds left, but Chris Bosh made a three, then was fouled on a three. He made two of the freethrows, and then Nick Young was called for fouling James Jones during a scramble for a loose ball. Jones hit both, tie game. Kirk Hinrich was then fouled and knocked down one of two, Wiz up one. Dwyane Wade drove the ball to the basket, and guess what happened? Another foul. Are you seeing a trend here? Anyway, Wade made both, Heat up one. Kirk Hinrich took the inbound pass, went coast-to-coast, took the ball to the rim, and created some contact with Chris Bosh. Another foul, right? No… the refs mysteriously decided to swallow their whistles this time. Hmm… well, Kirk wasn’t hit that hard… and he’s also Kirk Hinrich playing against a team with three much more prominent 2003 draftees on it. Yeah, not so mysterious after all. There was definitely some contact on the play and the refs had been calling it pretty damn tight, so I think Kirk should’ve been at the line with a chance to win it for Washington.
- The other games: D-Will went for 22/11 as the Jazz beat the Bucks 95-86. Kevin Love had 43/17 (not a typo), but his Wolves lost another close one, to the Nuggets this time (115-1113). Every Blazer starter scored in double figures to help Portland edge the Warriors 96-95.
Quote of the Day: JR Smith on Kevin Love…
“He played brilliant.”
No offense, JR, but what the hell do you know about brilliance? Funny choice of words.
Photo of the Day: Don’t go rushing to Youtube, he didn’t dunk it…
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