- Mystifyingly poorly. That's how Zach Randolph handled what could have been the biggest possession of the Clippers' season: Down two at home, inbounding the ball for the last shot. Kevin Arnovitz of Clipperblog: "Baron tries to split [two teammates], but the whole ordeal is clumsy -- LeBron actually beats Baron around the screens, making any attempted inbounds pass to Baron impossible. Eric is stuck. He could go to Thornton on the near side wing, but Williams -- who's guarding him -- has cut off that angle. Finally, Randolph steps toward the sideline to receive the ball from Gordon. When he does, Eric steps onto the court and asks for it back, only Randolph never looks at him. Never looks at anyone. With the court spread, there's a nanosecond when you believe Zach might just want to take Varejao off the dribble, but that notion dissolves pretty quickly. Instead, Randolph takes a couple of dribbles, then elevates to launch the shot with exactly 5.0 seconds left. His teammates are perplexed. Al Thornton drops his arms, then after the whistle is blown, looks back as if to confirm he saw what he thinks he saw, then turns around in disgust. Baron looks angry and Eric bemused. 1.6 seconds remain. When Cleveland inbounds the ball, Mo Williams is fouled with 0.00.6, and sinks both FTs, which ices the game." Video.
- If you're still fascinated by the Rudy Fernandez vs. Trevor Ariza takedown, look at the photo eight seconds into this slideshow. The ball is gone. But Fernandez is remains a yard off the floor, and Ariza is still tugging on his arms, pulling him further off-balance. I'm fine with hard fouls. But if someone has that kind of a fall, it's no good pretending it wasn't a dangerous play. NBA players know how to avoid knocking people out of the sky. Falls like that ... you only get so many of those before someone has the kind of truly terrible injury that makes basketball seem like a meaningless hobby. It is right to prevent such falls, and you can't prevent them by telling offensive players not to jump at the rim. You can only prevent them by telling other players to beware the high-flyers. Which every player knows, and Ariza, on this play, ignored.
- One night in 1990, on the second night of a back to back, Patrick Ewing almost beat the mighty Boston Celtics -- Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parish, and company -- more or less by himself. Ewing made 20 of 29 shots, and 11 of 13 from the line, to total 51 points while grabbing 18 rebounds, before fouling out. The so-so Knicks almost got the win. But they didn't, and it turned into their sixth loss in a row in a stretch when a good season became, thanks to losing nine of ten, a mediocre one. (They finished 39-43, and were swept by the Bulls in the first round.) What does Ewing get for his big game? Not what he wanted. But instead, he gets to tell Dwight Howard, again and again, that his assistant coach was once capable of scoring 50.
- J.A. Adande on how LeBron James as bowling ball: "One LeBron play that might not make the highlights: He bowled over almost 14 feet and 500 pounds' worth of Clippers on one drive to the hoop. LeBron picked up a 7-10 split, knocking down Marcus Camby, ricocheting into Chris Kaman and sending Kaman tumbling down onto LeBron's right foot. James went hopping to the sideline, not putting any weight on the right foot. But he shot the free throws and stayed in the game, even knocking down another Clipper, Mike Taylor, on his to a three-point play on his next time down the court."
- Do athletes get into character, like actors?
- Jeremy from Roundball Mining Company is having a hard time believing in the Nuggets: "The opportunity to claim home court advantage and win the Northwest Division title is still there as long as the Nuggets take every second of every game seriously from here on out. I just wish I thought they had it in them. Prove me wrong Denver, I beg you."
- The Lakers have had a lot more back-to-back games then their opponents.
- Remember Maurice Taylor? One thing you may not remember about him, is that apparently he is Italian. Or at least, that's what his passport is likely to say soon.
- Matt McHale, of By the Horns and the blogger at Basketbawful, reflects a day later on what happened: "I waxed poetic about Wade's amazing game at By The Horns, but now I'm gonna vent. What the hell? Seriously, what the hell?! The Bulls played one of their best games of the season, but Wade went all God Mode on them, scoring 48 points on 15-for-21 from the field [!!] and 5-for-6 from downtown [!!!]. And let's talk about those threes. One was a 32-footer to beat the halftime buzzer. One tied the game with 11.5 seconds left in regulation to force overtime. And his final triple -- which came off a steal that robbed the Bulls of their final possession and a chance to win it at the end of the second overtime -- was a crazy running lightning bolt of a buzzer beat that won the game. This wasn't just crazy, it was crazy-insane. Seriously. That is not fair. I can think of only a handful of ways Wade's game could have been more epic: If it had come against the Cavaliers, Celtics or Lakers; if it had happened in the playoffs (preferably a seventh game); if he had simultaneously saved all the children and a puppy from a burning orphanage; or if it had caused the fall of the Dark Lord Sauron's tower of Barad-dûr. I'm not sure what else the Bulls could have done. It's awfully hard to gameplan against fate."
- Brandon Roy tells the Oregonian's Joe Freeman that the Blazers have come to expect a certain kind of play from the Lakers: "Before the game, me and LaMarcus (Aldridge) were laughing, saying, 'They're going to do something.' He was like, 'Well, we'll be ready.' And I was like, 'Yeah, we will be ready.' So I'm not saying that we predicted it, but we knew they were going to ... try to be a bully. Again, I'm not trying to say (the Lakers are) dirty. But it just seems like every time we play them (there's something). But we're ready to defend one another."
- Your dad, the Timberwolf.
- How are the Jazz handling the win streak? Pretty calmly, says the Salt Lake Tribune's Ross Siler. But then he adds: "I did catch Jarron Collins mooning Mehmet Okur as Okur talked to reporters after the game." Whoa. Collins, for the record, is a 30-year-old with a Stanford deg
ree in urban studies. - Lorenzen Wright tells the Plain Dealer the #1 rule of NBA travel: "Find the nearest Cheesecake Factory or P.F. Chang's. You can never go wrong when you have those."
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Henry AbbottTrueHoop ESPN Archive |
J.A. AdandeTrueHoop ESPN Archive |
Kevin ArnovitzTrueHoop ESPN Archive |
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