12/27/10: Dirk Goes Down.

Dallas coach Rick Carlisle missed last night’s game recovering from knee surgery… hopefully Dirk Nowitzki won’t be missing any action for a similar reason.  Nowitzki hit the deck in a non-contact scenario, but surprisingly left the game and didn’t come back.  He was backpeddling after he released a jumper and simply tripped over his own feet.  I thought he had tweaked his ankle and would certainly return to the game, but apparently it’s something with his knee.  At least Rotoworld is calling the injury ”minor”…hopefully that’s accurate.  Oh yeah, Dallas still beat Oklahoma City by 10. 

Random Observations:

• Highlight Recap, didn’t count edition: Had Gilbert Arenas been playing H-O-R-S-E, he would’ve won.  Eighty-five footer off the shot clock?  Nice shot. 
• Highlight Recap: My main man Blake Griffin dunks yet another alley-oop from the Baron.  Griffin with a sick layup.  Serge Ibaka swats the hell out of Tyson Chandler.  Ibaka with another swat, Harden with a slam.  Tyreke Evans one-handed slam.  Tyreke blocks Blake Griffin.  Top 10 has more.  Oh, check out the play at the 1:05 mark of the GSW/PHI highlights.  Rodney Carney rims out a dunk which ends up serving as an alley-oop to David Lee for a dunk of his own.
• Well you know the Mavs lost Dirk, you know they won by ten over the Thunder… all that’s left for me to tell you is how they got it done.  Shawn Marion came up big in place of Dirk… he came off the bench and scored 20 points on 10-15.  OKC had a one-point lead with nine minutes left, but Dallas went on a 7-0 run and held onto the lead the rest of the way.  Jason Terry scored 11 of his 13 points in the final period.  Kevin Durant scored 28, but took just five shots in the final period.  He missed three of them and also turned the ball over twice.  The Mavs are now 11-1 on the road, that’s the best in the NBA.
• The LA Clippers appeared to be well on their way to a smooth victory… but you know that’s never how it goes down.  Baron Davis looked like the Golden State version early on as the Kings litterally let him waltz to the basket a couple times.  He’d only end up with 11 points, but he helped the Clippers jump out to a 28-21 lead at the end of the first.  Eric Gordon would take over from there.  Gordon scored just one basket in the first, but went on to drop 29 over the course of the next three quarters.  Blake Griffin had another big night with 24/14, and all was looking well with 2:30 remaining… the Clipps had a nine point lead at that time.  Said lead was cut to six by a Fransisco Garcia three, and then cut to four by a Tyreke Evans dunk, and finally cut to one by a Tyreke Evans three-ball.  Both of these teams are notorious for late-game chokes, so it was hard to tell where this thing was headed.  Eric Gordon, who had just dribbled off his foot on the previous possession, converted a difficult reverse layup to boost the lead back to three with a minute left.  Carl Landry would answer with two freethrows.  The Kings ended up with the ball trailing by one with 27 seconds left.  Tyreke Evans got into the paint, but Baron Davis stripped the ball from him and advanced it to Blake Griffin for an uncontested dunk that put the Clipps up three with five seconds left.  Ryan Gomes then tried to intentionally foul Tyreke Evans, but didn’t do so fast enough, and Tyreke was able to throw up a three-point attempt.  He went to the line and made the first two, but rimmed the last one out.  He ended up getting his own rebound, but missed a 10-foot bunny at the buzzer.  It was a frustrating way for Sacramento to drop their 8th in a row… but Tyreke dropped 32 on a bum foot, so you can’t be too mad at him.  LA turned the ball over 19 times (compared to 9 for the Kings) allowing Sacramento to get more shots off… they just simply didn’t make enough of them.  The Clippers outshot the Kings by 7%.  Random note: Ryan Gomes played 17 minutes and put up zeroes across the board.
• The Bobcats played their first game under new head coach Paul Silas and actually picked up a win!  Don’t get too excited… they played Detroit, and they almost blew it.  The Kittens built up a 16-point halftime lead, but were outscored by 11 in the fourth period.  Ben Gordon had two chances to send this game to OT.  He missed a three, and Tyrus Thomas was sent to the line.  Thomas missed both freethrows.  Gordon then missed another three, which was rebounded by Tyrus Thomas.  He made them both this time, sealing a 105-100 victory.  Aside from bricking those freebies and coughing the ball up on six occasions, Tyrus had a great game: he swatted five shots and scored 14 in 23 minutes.  Hopefully Silas will FREE TYRUS.  DJ Augustin led Charlotte with 27 points.  The ‘Cats scored 100 for the first time in eight games, which is an encouraging sign.  I don’t expect much, but maybe Silas will at least make them watchable.
• The Hornets made it through November at 12-5, but are now just .500 in the month of December.  It gets worse.  Last night they were beaten by 15.  It gets worse.  The 15-point beatdown was put on by the Minnesota Timberwolves, who came in losers of eight of their last ten.  It gets worse.  Rookie Wes Johnson, who averages 9.5 PPG, lit the Bees up for a career-high 24 points.  I don’t think it gets any worse, but there’s more: Michael Beasley dropped 30/9/7… all five T-Wolves starters scored in double-figures.  Said Chris Paul: “I think this one we’re going to be mad at for a long time. Of course, you’ve got to get over it, but at the same time, we should have beat this team. Bad, bad, bad loss for us. I don’t know, they just beat us.”
• Break up the Warriors, they’ve won three in a row!  They beat Philly tonight and the other two victories were also over pretty scrubby teams, but whatever.  Break ‘em up!  Dorell Wright made five of eight threes and eight of eleven shots on his way to 28 points.  The Dubs made a season-high 15 triples on just 23 attempts as the Suxers bricked 13 of 17 tries from distance.  Final score: 110-95.  Moped and David Lee both had double-doubles.
• Lamarcus Aldridge scored 12 of his 26 in the fourth as the Blazers picked up an impressive win in Salt Lake City.  Unfortunately–but not surprisingly–they lost another big due to an injury.  Marcus Camby went down with a turned ankle and did not return.  I’m not exactly sure how severe the injury is yet, but it didn’t look too good.  Anayway, the Blazers outscored the Jazz by five in the final period and took the game by that same margin.  How ’bout LaMarcus Aldridge?  This guy is really stepping his game up: 26/11 over his last six.
• The other games: The Orlando Magic got 20 points from Hedo Turkeyglue and skated past the Brooklyn New Yorkers by 16.  Brook Lopez continues to amaze me, and not in a good way.  We’re 31 games in and this fool still has ONE double-double on the season.  That’s pathetic.  Anyway, moving right along… the Grizzlies beat the Craptors by 11 in Memphis.  Z-Bo led the way with 21 points.  The Hawks showed no fear of the deer as they beat the Bucks by 15 in a rematch of last year’s first round playoff series.  The Bucks made 10 fewer shots than the Hawks on the same amount of attempts, yet still managed to lose the battle on the offensive glass.  The Rockets are suddenly .500… they beat the Wizards by seven, their 5th win in a row.  Shane Battier is somehow averaging 14 PPG over the last three.

Quote of the Day: Remember a few days ago how I said LeBron should just refrain from speaking to the media?  Well…

“That’s crazy, because I had no idea what the word ‘contraction’ meant before I saw it on the Internet. I never even mentioned that. That word never even came out of my mouth. I was just saying how the league was back in the ’80s and how it could be good again. I never said, ‘Let’s take some of the teams out.’”

See, LeBron, this never would’ve happened if you’d just take my advice and STFU.  Let your game and your sketchy-ass manager do the talking.

Photo of the Day: I enjoy confrontations at the rim, especially when they result in someone getting posterized.  Unfortunately, neither of these two plays ended with a dunk, but the pictures are still interesting…