ESPN NBA

Sort of a slow day, huh? I get the feeling everybody is sitting in traffic, or shoveling snow, or buying discounted retail goods. A small number of bullets for a slow day:

• After today, I'll be taking some time off until, oh, next year, but TrueHoop never rests. Kevin Arnovitz will be here, and the big news is that on Christmas Day, he'll be LIVEBLOGGING ALL FIVE GAMES IN A ROW. Hornets at Magic, Spurs at Suns, Celtics at Lakers, Wizards at Cavaliers, and Mavericks at Blazers. That'll be more than 12 hours of liveblogging. Pretty cool. The first games starts at noon eastern. The last game starts at 10:30. My Christmas wish for Kevin: A strong internet connection, and stronger coffee.
  
• O.J. Mayo seemed to enjoy getting a crack at Kobe Bryant. Sure, Bryant's Lakers won, but Mayo looked comfortable on the same court with him. TrueHoop reader Alan e-mails: "Last night, OJ Mayo went up against Kobe, a reputable wing defender and his generation's most reasonable MJ fascimile, and at one point canned a 3 in his face. In crunch time, he confidently whipped a pass to an open Darko when Kobe and a helper collapsed on him. In their first meet in the NBA, Kobe and Mayo resembled some of Kobe and MJ's early matchups. Then, Kobe was 19 and MJ was 35, and now, Mayo is 21 and Kobe is 30. Kobe likes his jumper more than MJ did, and in turn, Mayo likes his jumper more than Kobe did. But like a young Kobe, Mayo embraced the challenge against the more experienced 2-guard, and demonstrated a fearlessness and skill, honed from hours of hard labor, that the young Kobe and the young MJ approached their games with."
• This guy dares to suggest how The Wire could have been better.
• Roland Lazenby is back on his blog Lakernoise, and he says the Lakers have a serious flaw: "Phil Jackson's teams have always struggled with small, quick guards that break down the bigger guards that Jackson likes to use. This type of penetration has proven deadly for the Lakers in particular. So Rambis has basically chosen to pack in the defense and concede the open three-pointer. ... Everyone involved senses problems, including Jackson's fine coaching staff (Rambis, Frank Hamblen, Brian Shaw, Jim Cleamons, and several others). These coaches are not all on the same page about this defensive philosophy, but Rambis is calling the shots. So pack it in they do. ... The Lakers are a team sorely in need of a defensive overhaul and some new defensive life, which means they'll probably have to make some personnel changes to achieve it. Kobe Bryant is still an excellent on-ball defender. The problem comes when he's playing off the ball. Bryant has a tendency to gamble off his man and leave him open to do major damage when Bryant's gambles don't work, which is often. The Lakers need to rethink their defensive philosophy and come up with something that gives them a reasonable chance to defend. For starters, they need to re-establish tough man-to-man principles, get back to the basics, so to speak. If they don't do that, it won't matter how dominant they are in the Western Conference. If they're lucky enough to return to the league championship series, they'll once again find a Rajon Rondo and others breaking them down, with Celtics shooters killing them with open threes, just as Eddie House, James Posey, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce did last year."
• It's not yet released, but here's a little teaser of a documentary about Basketball in the Barrio, a pretty cool El Paso-based effort to use basketball to inspire peace. The camp is the work of author, professor, and coach Rus Bradburd, whom I have talked to in the past.
• John Hollinger points out that tonight's game scheduled in Portland could have some real travel challenges with Portland virtually shut down due to snow. Hollinger's insight: Even if both team charters can land somewhere and the teams can bus in, if the referees -- who fly commercial -- can't make it, there won't be a game. UPDATE: Casey Holdahl of Blazers.com says the team learned the referees are in town. Game on.
• Golden State of Mind: "Orlando Magic = Mike Tyson. Golden State Warriors = Dude Getting KO'd (badly)." That state of mind can't last forever.
• Kevin Sawyer on Detroit Bad Boys: "Since acquiring Iverson, starting point guards are averaging 19.1 ppg on 54% shooting, with 5.8 assists, and 4.9 free throw attempts per game. It's like playing Tony Parker over and over again. Last year? Opposing PGs averaged 10 ppg and 4.9 apg on 41% shooting, with 2.2 free-throw attempts per game. Only six PGs even scored 19 points in a game. During one seven game stretch, no starting PG hit a single free throw (Rajon Rondo missed his lone attempt)."
• Dirk Nowitzki discusses pulling a Tim Duncan, and offering to take less money to help his team sign talented teammates.
• This is so strange. Not sure I have ever heard of this before. But the Suns held a draft-style workout for a backup free agent point guard. (These minutes, of course, were supposed to go to rookie Goran Dragic, who as predicted by many, has not been everything they had hoped.) Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic writes: "The Suns have finished evaluating their six prospective point guard candidates and now will huddle up to settle on who will ultimately be the player signed on Wednesday to join the team. Darrell Armstrong, Dee Brown, Eddie Gill, Troy Hudson, Walker Russell and Damon Stoudamire went through a series of one-on-one, two-on-two and three-on-three play this afternoon on the US Airways Center practice court. It was a draft-style workout but with five NBA veterans participating (Russell is the exception). 'It was a really highly competitive workout," Suns Senior Vice President of Basketball Operations David Griffin said. "The guys not playing games of late (Armstrong, Hudson and Stoudamire) were in amazing condition. We had a very healthy cross-section of guys.'"