San Antonio’s latest 10-game win streak has come to an end at the hands of the Orlando Magic, who snapped a 4-game losing streak of their own. Turkoglu, Richardson, and Arenas all played well as the Magic coasted past the team with the league’s best record. This is Orlando’s first win since making the trades, and it has to be a huge confidence booster. The Magic will play Boston on Christmas day, which will obviously be a tough one, but they couldn’t have possibly gone into it on a better note.
Random Observations:
- Highlight Recap: It was a Thursday, so there’s not much to put here. Dwight Howard snatches a shot by Chris Quinn. Dwight spikes the ball off Quinn’s head. It was a rough night for Chris. Pooh Jeter finds Omri Casspi for a dunk. LeBron steals and windmills. LeBron catches an oop from Carlos Arroyo. I guess that’s it.
- San Antonio’s good luck charm failed. The Spurs entered last night’s game against the Magic at 15-0 when Chris Quinn sees minutes. They’re now 15-1. Dwight Howard notched 29/14 and J-Rich/Turk/Arenas all scored in double figures as Orlando picked up a 22-point victory. Seven Magic Men scored 10+, and as a team Orlando shot almost 60% from the floor. Eight Spurs actually scored in double figures… they had no problem putting the ball in the basket, they tallied 101 points… but they allowed the other guys to drop 123.
- The Kings swapped out their husky frontcourt for their slim one, but they still couldn’t get a W. DeMarcus Cousins was demoted to the bench for his shenanigans in a recent loss to the Warriors, and his overweight buddy Darnell Jackson joined him. Said Cousins after the game: “The only thing right now is that we can grow from it and learn from it. Yo! Darnell! Burger King?” Ok, I added that last part myself. Samuel Dalembert actually had a good game based on the stat sheet: 13/12 with two blocks, although he did turn the ball over four times and missed four shots that were all most likely uncalled for. The Bucks got 15/13 and 4 blocks from their center (Bogut) and 19 from little Earl Boykins off the bench… they beat the Queens by five. It seems like Sacramento blows a fourth-quarter lead every night. They had a six point edge with about seven minutes left in the final period last night, but Milwaukee made the next six buckets. Earl Boykins, who put the Lakers away in the 4th a few days ago, once again came though with the clutchness: nine fourth quarter points.
- Jared Dudley set a career high in scoring for the second game in a row. He dropped 27 on the 20th against San Antonio, and last night he went for 33 (and 12 boards) against Miami. Phoenix lost on the 20th and lost last night, though. LeBron James led the Dwyane Wade-less Heat with 36 points in an unusually low-scoring Phoenix Suns game: 95-83, Miami. The Suns shot just 40% from the floor, 68% from the line, got out-rebounded, and turned the ball over 19 times. Marcin Gortat played 17 minutes and recorded 4/4 in his first game as a Sun. Mike Miller went 0-3 from the floor, but he scored his first and only point as a member of the Heat on a freethrow. Steve Nash had a weird line: 4 points, 18 assists.
Quote of the Day: LeBron James on Muhammed Ali (he was at the Suns/Heat game)…
“I have (met him before), but it feels like the first time every time you meet him. He’s by far one of the top two athletes in the world.”
How can someone be “by far” a top two athlete in the world? No matter where you put a guy on a two-man list he can only move one position in either direction. LeBron should just refrain from speaking to reporters. I love watching the guy play basketball, but sh!t goes downhill fast every time he opens his mouth.
Photo of the Day: LeBron doing one of the many things he’s better at than talking…
“by far one of the top two players” = he is surely at least the 2nd (the 3rd is very far).
Super excteid to see more of this kind of stuff online.
Airlines,Thank you for your jnvluiee, immature and laughably off-base comment. When you come here and act like that, you make it very easy for readers to spot the real idiot. When the Lakers added Pao Gasol, they added almost the statistical twin of Chris Bosh, and with that single addition, the Lakers went to the NBA Finals the next three years in a row. The Heat added Bosh and James, and time will tell how many titles the super friends will eventually win, but history will always judge Lebron as the superstar who quit on a team that had the best record in the NBA for 2 years in a row, and went to the Finals before that, and dumped them in an egotistical infomercial so that he could go where he thought it would be easy to win a title. By the way, Kobe didn’t have Shaq, Shaq had Kobe. On that team, Kobe was the Pippen of the Lakers and led the team in assists, and Shaq was the go to guy.