NBA double-dip [NBA roundup]
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009, 7:40 pm
I had to spend an extra hour at work, followed by Christmas shopping
last night, so I never got around to writing my NBA roundup for
Monday's games. Instead, I watched Paper Heart, a positive
adorable movie that I wrote a little about over at The Woj. Anyway, here's two days of NBA
in one.
Monday
Pacers 98, Magic 106: Orlando started slow (30-17 first
quarter), but finished strong (27-17 fourth quarter) on the back of
Dwight Howard, who had a 20/20/20 game: 21 points, 22 free throws (13
made), and 23 rebounds (nine offensive). That's a season-high for the
NBA this year. Howard also blocked four shots. It doesn't seem like
he's had these kinds of games as often this year as he did in 2009,
but maybe that's just my happy memories of his leading my fantasy team
to a championship. Vince Carter had 28 points to lead Orlando, and
the bench had 49, led by Anthony Johnson and JJ Redick, who also
combined for 12 assists. Roy Hibbert was +11 in his time on the
floor, but that time was only 15 minutes, as he ended up with five
fouls (which goes a long way toward explaining Howard's 22 free throws
-- Jeff Foster also had five). TJ Ford had 13/6/7, which if you
squint kind of looks like an off night for Rajon Rondo. Tyler
Hansbrough jacked up 12 shots in 24 minutes and ended up with eight
points. He did have six boards and three assists, though. Active!
The man is active.
Warriors 101, Sixers 117: Philly can't score, but one
well-known remedy for scoring woes is to play Golden State. Seven
guys with 11+ for Philly, with Elton Brand putting in 11 ... off the
bench. In 17 minutes. Which he was apparently not happy about,
making some kind of comment about how Mikki Moore was a starter in the
NBA (he's the starting center for the Warriors these days) but somehow
he wasn't. Eddie Jordan shook things up, going small with Jrue
Holiday in the backcourt, pushing Andre Iguodala to the small forward.
Holiday had 15/7/6 and three steals, so it worked alright for him.
Allen Iverson shot 7-10, so it really worked for him. Thaddeus
Young had 26/14/4 with three steals of his own, so that was nice.
Iggy didn't do much with the change, though, shooting 4-20. He did
have eight boards and three steals, though. (Three steals was kind of
going around.) Corey Maggette scored 24 off the bench for the
Warriors on the strength of 15 free throw attempts. Monta Ellis and
Stephen Curry apparently couldn't deal with the defensive stylings of
Iverson and Holiday, though, as they combined to shoot 8-27 and turn
the ball over seven times. (Maggette had six turnovers of his own, it
should be noted.)
Celtics 110, Grizzlies 105: Boston was only up two with 0:42 to
play after an OJ Mayo jumper, but Ray Allen nailed a three 25 seconds
later, and Rasheed Wallace stole a Z-Bo pass to seal things up.
Wallace wound up with 15 points on 15 shots, including 1-6 from three.
(By contrast, Ray Allen also shot six threes, but he made by of
them.) It's hard to complaint, as a Celtics fan, since the team is
20-4, but Rasheed might well shoot his team right out of a playoff
game or two if he does this all year. The big men got no love from
the refs, by the way: Kendrick Perkins fouled out, KG picked up five
fouls, and even Wallace had four. On the other side, Marc Gasol had
five of his own fouls, and Hasheem Thabeet had three in 18 minutes.
Z-Bo probably would have had more fouls, but we all know his
reputation for physicality. Rudy Gay led Memphis with 23/7, but
misssed all five of his threes. (The Grizz hit just one of their
thirteen threes overall.)
Hornets 90, Mavs 94: Dallas led this by nine with four to play,
but New Orleans closed to two on Darius Songaila buckets at 0:22 and
again at 0:13. Dirk made a layup after the first basket and Jason
Terry hit his free throws after the second, though. Chris Paul missed
a three with seven ticks to go, and that was that. Paul, in fact,
missed all four of hit threes, and shot just 9-22 overall, undermining
a 20/4/16 line, with five steals to boot. Still, poor shooting or
not, 16 assists to one turnover (especially when you create five
turnovers of your own) is pretty damn impressive. Songaila hit all
six of his shots in just eleven minutes of PT, while David West went
back to being David West again: 11/4. That's awful. Dirk only scored
ten against his nemesis, but JJ Barea had 23 on 10-13 shooting, and
Jason Kidd had 13 assists of his own. Josh Howard had 14/8 off the
bench, but five turnovers.
Thunder 93, Nuggets 102: All that stuff about this maybe being
the year for Hijack City is looking less and less good, as they're now
a 12-11 team. Kevin Durant had 32/10 in this one, and for once his
+/- was the best among the starters, albeit still negative (to be
expected when you lose, of course). Birdman had 15/11, three blocks,
and three steals for the Nuggets, and hit nine of this ten free-throw
attempts. That's pretty good for a guy who's at 64% for his career.
Carmelo had another 30-point game.
Wolves 110, Jazz 108: I can't get a handle on Utah, and I doubt
anyone else can, either. They beat good teams, lose to bad teams.
They're 14-10, but two of the ten were to Minnesota? The Wolves got
22+ from Corey Brewer, Al Jefferson (who added 12 boards), and Jonny
Flynn, and Kevin Love had fourteen more rebounds. Deron Williams had
38 points and 13 dimes with just one turnover (which is remarkable --
the guy took 20 shots, 18 free throws, and had 13 assists, and he
turned the ball over just once? Come on, that's absurd), and Carlos
Boozer had 14/14 before fouling out, but they got beat on the glass
(Minnesota took 34 of 41 on defense and 14 of 43 on offense) and gave
up a go-ahead layup with three seconds to go to Jonny Flynn.
Wizards 95, Clippers 97: Another close one! Antawn Jamison's
32/11 wasn't enough to overcome Gilbert Arenas's poor game (4-14
shooting, 1-7 from three, six turnovers, fouled out in 34 minutes),
despite 12 team steals and a four-block game by Brendan Haywood.
Chris Kaman had 23/11, Baron Davis couldn't hit a shot (2-14), but had
twelve assists, and Eric Gordon went off (10-15) for 29, tying his
season-high.
Tuesday
Nets 89, Cavs 99: Brook Lopez! 22/15. Rafer Alston! 20 off
the bench. Final score! Lose by ten. LeBron had an understated game
with 23/6/7 and six turnovers, but Shaq and Big Z had identical 7-9
shooting nights, for 16 points apiece (they each made two free throws,
although Shaq took six attempts to Z's three). Both also had five
boards, a steal, and three blocks. Shaq out-assisted Z by 2-1.
That's a pretty awesome center combination, though, not just because
of the identicality, but because you get yourself 47 minutes of pivot
play that results in 32 points on 18 shots, ten boards, three assists,
and six blocks. With just three turnovers and five fouls? And the
opposing center shoots 6-17? Fine job, gentlemen, fine job.
Knicks 87, Bobcats 94: The Knicks led by eight going into the
fourth, had a six-point lead with 4:00 to play, and had some lead all
the way until the 1:57 mark, when Flip Murray completed the Bobcat
comeback with a three on a Boris Diaw assist. From there, Ray Felton
hit two layups, Stephen Jackson dunked +1, and Felton hit two free
throws to ice it. From the 3:57 point until the end of the game, the
Knicks got exactly one basket, a Wilson Chandler layup. Not pretty.
Stephen Jackson wound up with 24 (but on 22 shots, and with five
turnovers), Felton had 18 (six assists, five turnovers), and Gerald
Wallace made his usual multifaceted contributions with 21/8/5 and four
steals. I wonder if this Bobcats team is any fun to watch. Stephen
Jackson, Gerald Wallace, and Boris Diaw, with Tyson Chandler catching
an occasional lob at center and Ray Felton running a solid point, has
to be fun, right? Somehow, I bet Larry Brown kills any joy the team
might bring. Big Cock missed all his threes for the Knicks, and Jared
Jeffries had six steals, but fouled out. Chris Duhon led the team in
scoring, which is not a phrase you want to hear me utter.
Raptors 95, Heat 115: Chris Bosh had 28 on 13 shots, but a
bunch of Ratpors shot for shit in this one: 3-11 from Hedo, 2-9 from
DeMar DeRozan (still shaking off the effects of almost getting knocked
the eff out by Trevor Ariza?), and 0-7 from Marco Belinelli were the
lowlights. Also, Bosh was kept off the boards in a big way, as he had
just two rebounds. Two boards in 31 minutes? You know what
that means. Basketball-Reference Play Index! I searched Chris Bosh's
history for 30+-minute games with two or fewer rebounds. I got this
-- four games in his career. This wasn't his low, as he had a
one-rebound game in 35 minutes against Washington in the '07 season.
His two other two-board games both came in the '04 season. In other
words, this was a pretty rare feat accomplished by Miami.
The Heat dominated the boards in general, getting 33 of 37 available
boards on defense and grabbing 12 of 40 on offense. Michael Beasley
led the team with 11 (and also led the team in scoring with 28 --
that's precisely the kind of game Heat fans have been waiting on), but
Haslem, Wright, and Anthony contributed a combined 21 in 64 minutes
off the bench as well. Carlos Arroyo moved into the starting lineup,
but Mario Chalmers actually played more minutes (27 to 21) and had
eight dimes while missing all four of his threes. Neither one could
do much for Dwyane Wade, who shot 8-19. Wade only played 29 minutes
because he sat the entire fourth quarter. (This may have had
something to do with Beasley leading the team in scoring, since he
played 36 and thus was presumably the main offensive option during
garbage time.)
Lakers 96, Bulls 87: Not the most impressive final score by LA,
but a road win is a road win. The Celtics were the "first team" to
twenty wins, but Boston and L.A. have the same number of losses, so if
LA gets a win in their next contest, they'll be on even footing.
Anyway, this game: Kobe shot the ball 26 times and had eight
turnovers, which is sort of vintage Kobe, but he did end up with 42
points, so his efficiency actually wasn't bad. This was good, because
Ron Artest was awful on offense, shooting 3-14 (but with zero
turnovers in 45 minutes) and the Lakers got destroyed on the glass:
Andrew Bynum had just three boards, Joakim Noah had 20, and the Bulls
grabbed 22 of 53 rebounds on their offensive glass while permitting
the Lakers just 6 of 35 on the other end. Pau got 16 boards, but he
only managed eight shots and four free throws, so the Lakers continue
to fail to get him the ball. It is beyond me why L.A. is struggling
so much with this facet of the game. Anyway, I mentioned Noah's 20
boards, but I didn't mention yet that 14 of them were offensive. He
may have been cleaning up his own garbage, though, as he shot just
4-16. Either way, it's the best offensive rebounding game since
Shaq's 14 in 2003. The last guy to top 14 was, of course,
Dennis Rodman (who else?), who had 15 two days before Christmas in
1997. (Weirdly, Jayson Williams had 14 of his own two days
after Christmas in 1997. Big holiday for offensive
rebounding.)
Pistons 96, Rockets 107: Chase Budinger got the start for
Trevor Ariza, out with a forearm (a forearm aimed at DeMar DeRozan's
head, that is). He made the best of it with a 16/12/5 game. He
missed four of five from three, but shot 5-6 otherwise and hit his
three free throws. The kid really can play. Aaron Brooks also had a
nice game with 23 points and 10 dimes despite also missing a bunch of
threes: 0-6, in fact. The Pistons were led by the mighty backcourt of
Rip 'n' Stuck, who combined for 38 points on 46 shots. Ouch. (Still,
admit it, you like "Rip 'n' Stuck" -- it's a good nickname.)
Spurs 104, Suns 116: Tim Duncan went all vintage for a night
with 34/14 and three blocks, but the rest of the team shot 26-64.
That includes Roger Mason's solid 7-13 night (5-8 from three), so if
you take him out, too, you're down to 19-51, which is not good. Amare
pretty much matched Duncan with 28/14 of his own -- no blocks, but
three steals, which are better since you get the ball, not a guarantee
with a block. Nash added 25 and 13 dimes and Goran Dragic finally had
a good game, shooting 4-5 from three en route to 18 points in 25
minutes.
Kings 88, Blazers 95: Portland may be a walking MASH unit, but
they've still got enough to beat the Martin-less Kings. Tyreke Evans
scored an efficient 19 to lead Sacramento, and Beno Udrih continued to
pour it in off the bench with 17, but LaMarcus Aldridge and Brandon
Roy each had 25 (Roy adding ten dimes and Aldrige grabbing nine
boards) to lead the way.
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