I asked someone the other day where Trevor Ariza was hanging out these days. Turns out he's on the Magic bench. He didn't do much in this game, but I saw his name, so I thought I'd mention it, if for no other reason than to show that even if drafting is Zeke Thomas's strength, he's not necessarily that good at it. Dwight Howard had an odd game for the Magic: he scored 17, grabbed 14 boards, and blocked three shots, all of which are good, and about what you expect from Howard; problem is that he also turned the ball over eight times, which is unacceptable, particularly for a center. How did Howard have the ball often enough to turn it over that many times?

Allen Iverson's 6-20 shooting undermined good games from a variety of other guys: Chris Webber (8-16), Sam Dalembert (7-8), and Kyle Korver (9-16 for a team-leading 23 points). One problem for the Sixers is that they seem to be playing only three or four guys who are threats offensively. Andre Igoudala took just two shots in 29 minutes (though he did have seven assists and five turnovers, so the ball was in his hands); Kevin Ollie shot twice in 16 minutes; and Steven Hunter shot once in 19 minutes. I guess when you've got Mean Willie Green gunning 14 shots in 29 minutes, it gets hard for other guys to find shots.

The individual difference in threes can be explained this way: Mo Williams missed all six of his attempts for Milwaukee, while Antawn Jamison hit 4-6 for the Wiz.

Chris Bosh had 19 points, 17 boards, and six assists for Toronto. Is Bosh reminding anyone of Kevin Garnett (very good inside/outside big man playing in a city out of the way of any major media market and without the surrounding parts to make the team a threat to do much at all)?

A forward by the name of Walter Herrmann got into the game for Charlotte. I wanted to note this because I'm pretty sure his name means "Mr. Man" in German. Babelfish confirms this. I am hereby a fan of Walter Mr. Man.

I don't know who Kirilenko was guarding, but Wally Szczerbiak shot just 5-15 from the field. Paul Pierce got his 30, and three different players scored in double digits off the bench, led by Rajon Rondo's 13 in 25 minutes. Bassy Telfair played just seven minutes, despite starting, which smells like an injury. Indeed, the recap notes that he left the game with "shortness of breath" and was later diagnosed with "bronchospasm." WebMD says that a bronchospasm is a narrowing of the airways, and a search for the word turns up a bunch of results about asthma.

Jason Kidd just missed another triple double, finishing with 12 points, nine boards, and nine assists. Vince Carter led the Nets with 33 points, but also turned the ball over five times. Meanwhile, Marcus "Dude, It's a Dell" Williams missed all five of his three attempts off the bench, and also turned the ball over three times.

The Knicks' box scores this year are broken records: Channing Frye plays poorly in few minutes, despite starting; Jamal Crawford, Nate Robinson, and Stephon Marbury take most of the shots; and David Lee provides great White Guy Hustle ™ off the bench. The variation comes from how well the guards shoot and how well Eddy Curry and Q Richardson play, and that variation explains why the Knicks lost this game: Crawford and Robinson shot 7-20 and 3-9, respectively (though Marbuy missed just three of his eleven shots), and Curry shot 2-11 and grabbed only five rebounds in 22 minutes (it looks like foul trouble kept him down, as he finished with four). Richardson played pretty well, shooting 5-10 and adding five assists, but the Knicks needed to transfer six to eight shots from Crawford and Curry to Richardson to win this game.

Tyson Chandler was ejected for the Hornets, who got 21 points from Peja Stojakovic, but uncharacteristic shooting from Chris Paul (6-17) and David West (6-16), who grabbed thirteen boards, but ended up fouling out.

Lamar Odom, who was having a decent all-around game (16 points, eight boards, seven dimes) was tossed after his second technical. I'm not entirely sure he deserved the second one, though Bill Walton was adamant about it. After a foul called against him (as I recall), he took off both of his wrist bands and tossed them. That sounds bad, but there are two caveats: first, he tossed them off the court, in the general vicinity of the Laker bench; second, he did this forlornly, not demonstratively, and I'd bet that 17,500 out of the 19,000 fans in attendance didn't even notice.

I'm all for teeing guys up if they want to do what became endemic over the last few years: running around the court, arms outstretched, yelling every time a foul was called. But some of the things I've seen techs issued for this year go far beyond the necessary boundaries of a crackdown, and I think "taking off your armbands" fits into that category. Again, it's not like Lamar tossed them to the crowd or threw them on the court.

It's similar to the tech Rudy Gay got on Wednesday the fifteenth. He got hit going to the basket, got the foul, and slammed the basketball down, not in relation to a call (which was, of course, for him) but because he got hit and it apparently hurt. Had he bounced the ball straight down, so that it bounced up into the air, I'd guess nothing would have come of this. Instead, though, the angle was a little different, and the ball bounced into the crowd underneath the basket. I, personally, don't think that's deserving of a technical foul.