NBA 11/16

By Jason Wojciechowski on November 25, 2006 at 4:49 AM

  • Houston edged Chicago by one with a balanced attack: T-Mac had 21 points, eleven boards, and seven assists; Yao had 20 points and 12 boards (though he shot worse than he usually does); and Rafer Alston had 19. This overcame Ben Gordon's 37 points off the bench for Chicago. The Rockets sent Gordon to the line 16 times.

    Ben Wallace continued his mediocre play with just five rebounds and one point, though he did rack up five steals and was probably the force that made Yao miss 12 of his 19 shots.

  • Golden State continued its surprising ascendancy, beating Sacramento (a surprise itself) by twelve. Kevin Martin had 26 for the Kings, but Ron Artest and Mike Bibby combined to shoot 0-11 from three and 11-37 overall. Artest had nice supplementary numbers, though, with 12 boards (five offensive), five assists, four steals, and a block. I'm not sure what Ron-Ron is doing taking 22 shots anyway. He's a pretty good offensive player, but with Bibby, Martin, Shareef, and Francisco Garcia coming off the bench, Artest shouldn't be shooting more than twelve to fifteen times per game, and given his size and strength, he shouldn't be wasting his time shooting threes, either, when he's got a post-up matchup against someone like Jason Richardson, Mickael Pietrus, Monta Ellis, or Baron Davis.

    That's essentially a four-guard lineup for the Warriors, isn't it? Three for sure (Ellis, Richardson, Davis), and then Pietrus is a swingman, but he's only 6'6", so he's probably closer to the guard end of the spectrum.

    That four-guard lineup led to some eye-popping numbers for the Warriors: Jason Richardson scored 16 and yet was only the fourth-leading scorer; Baron Davis scored 36 and still passed out 18 assists; Andre Biedrins grabbed 16 rebounds (which comes largely because he's the only rebounder in the starting lineup); even Mike Dunleavy got into it, scoring 10 points on 4-5 shooting from the bench. Biedrins blocked four shots, though he also had five fouls and six turnovers.

    The teams weren't terribly turnover-happy (20 and 19), but there were some great individual numbers: Biedrins' six, Baron Davis with eight, and Kenny Thomas with six of his own in just 17 minutes for the Kings. Also, Jason Hart fouled out in just 21 minutes off the bench for Sacramento.

    And one more tidbit: after the Warriors won the first quarter by a score of 40-28 (a 40-point quarter is neat enough, but wait for this ...), the last three quarters were scored 25-25, 27-27, and 25-25. That's pretty cool.