NBA notes - 11/30/2006

Kobe took care of Utah today. He scorched them for 30 points in the 3-rd quarter and ended up with 52 points in a rout. He hit 9 consecutive shots in the 3-rd quarter. It was great to watch (unless you are a Utah fan!). I have been joking lately that once Kobe gets on a roll, his team will go into a funk! Right now they are playing as a team and winning a lot of games with a lot of help from Luke Walton, Andrew Bynum and Lamar Odom. Once Kobe starts dominating the ball, things will be back to normal and Lakers will start dropping in the Pacific standing! But jokes apart, the Lakers might be for real with Kobe and the supporting cast I just mentioned plus the coach “big chief triangle”.I am very curious to see where they go this season. Right now they are 10-5 and Utah is 13-4.

Detroit beat Miami in a close one. Dwayne Wade had a tough night (5-23), and this version of the Heat are going to lose on most of those nights. I am kind of surprised Riles went with the same team this year. It's an old team and I thought he would have liked to add some talented young players and re-tool just a little bit. I guess the money situation was too tight.

Detroit @ Miami - 87-85
Utah @ LA Lakers - 102-132

We are done with the month of November and on to December. We start the month off in style with the Suns playing the Bucks. Should be a high scoring affair.

Interesting games on the board for tomorrow, the 1-st (Friday)

Milwaukee @ Phoenix - Can the Suns keep the winning streak going? How much will Michael Redd score? He is "HOTT" right now.
Sacramento @ Dallas - Used to be a great match-up few years back. It could be a close game if Nowitzki is not 100%.

NBA notes - 11/29/2006

I write about how good Andris Biedrins is a couple of days back and suddenly everybody is jumping on the bandwagon! Steve Kerr has him at the top of his list today as the biggest surprise of this season. Good job Steve ! The Warriors lost a close one again today. They should start winning some of these to really become a playoff team. Baron Davis was back and had a great game and so did my other "young stud" Monta Ellis (Not sure how he is missing from Steve Kerr's list).

Happy to report that the Suns win again. Good game all-around though they lost a big lead again. But this was an early lead that disappeared and they pulled away later in the game to win. Amare (22-15), Nash (17-8), Raja (20) and Marion (13-12-4-4) all had good games and LB was back running circles around people as always. Amare got over Yao and surprisingly the Suns out-rebounded the Rockets 55-36. I think Amare is beginning to consistently contribute now.

Utah beat San Antonio for a big win. Boozer continued his MVP-type season with a 23-16 night. AK-47 filled up the box-score as always and the Jazz made a statement.

Houston @ Phoenix - 91-102
San Antonio @ Utah - 75-83

Interesting games on the board for tomorrow, the 30-th (Thursday)

Detroit @ Miami - Interesting game, even though the Heat are not the same Heat anymore.
Utah @ LA Lakers - Good match-up between 2 well coached team with winning records involving Kobe Bryant. The "Big chief triangle" just got fined for criticizing the officials after the last Jazz game.

NBA notes - 11/28/2006

Quite a few upsets today. The Bucks beat the Lakers, Memphis beat Denver and Toronto beat the Hornets, all on the road. Good news for one of the other Western conference teams in the playoff hunt I guess. The Clippers lost to Sacramento and are still winless on the road. This was Brad Miller's second game back for the Kings. Apparently Mike Dunleavy is going to get a 4 year extension to coach the Clippers. Good choice, but things can go south any minute down there at Clipper-land.

As for the individual stars of the day, Micheal Redd scored 45 pts and outplayed Kobe. Adam Morrison had a good game for the Bobcats. He is averaging 16 pts, shooting around 40% from the field and 37% from 3-point land. Not bad for a rookie. The real stud though was Melo. Denver lost, but he had a 37-9-7 night. All of his numbers seem to have gone up from last season. Amazing, considering he averaged 26.5 pts last year. He is averaging 5 more pts, more rebounds, way more assists, better FG% and better FT% thi year. Thats impressive folks.

LA Clippers @ Sacramento - 80-93

Interesting games on the board for tomorrow, the 29-th (Wednesday)

Two big ones from the West tomorrow.

Houston @ Phoenix - Yao VS Amare again after a long time. Real test for the Suns. Are they really back and are they all the way back? We will see.
San Antonio @ Utah - Perennial contender VS latest contender. Utah has lost 2 in a row and can show they are for real with a win here.

NBA notes - 11/27/2006

Just like I had expected, the Warriors not only play the Spurs tough, they actually hand them their first road loss of the season. They probably have two of the best young players in the league not named Dwight Howard. Andris Biedrins and Monta Ellis. Andris is really quick, tall, athletic and has great hands for a big man. He blocks a lots of shots already at this young age and he frequently has high-teen numbers for points and rebounds. Tonight against the Spurs and Timmy, he had 18 and 15 with 6 blocks. Thats all-star numbers folks! Monta is another great young player who is lightning quick and is a very good shooter already. Watch out for these 2 players over the next few years. They are the reason the Warriors are beating the Spurs and the Jazz of the world even without Baron Davis.

Speaking of Dwight Howard, the Magic beat the Jazz today and are 11-4. I think they are for real especially with Grant Hill playing well and providing some leadership to the young guys. Great story. AI had 40+ (45) again today and still lost to Wade (33/7/13) and the Heat. Some of Wade's moves tonight were RIDICULOUS. Even Sportscenter couldn't keep it out of their top-10.

Orlando @ Utah - 88-75
San Antonio @ Golden State - 102-111

Interesting games on the board for tomorrow, the 28-th (Tuesday)

LA Clippers @ Sacramento - Not great games tomorrow. This one might be mildly amusing for Pacific division fans.

NBA notes - 11/26/2006

Today, the good run for a few NBA teams continued. Suns have won 6 of 7 after losing 5 of 6 to start the season. So they seem to be right back on track. Denver won their 5-th straight today easily against the Clippers. Melo is becoming an absolute stud in this league. Looks like the Clippers are slowly moving towards their paper-clips days. They should eventually turn it around with all the talent they have. San Antonio is having a tremendous season as usual and have not lost a game on the road. They 4-3 at home. Go figure.

The most surprising team to me are the Lakers. I am waiting for them to come down to earth, but they are still dominant. They beat NJ Nets today to go to 9-4. If the Lakers stay this hot, Pacific division is going to be an absolute war day in and day out. Lets see where this thing goes.

Clippers @ Denver - 88-103
Suns @ Portland - 119-101

Interesting games for tomorrow, the 27th (Monday)

Orlando @ Utah - Two surprise teams from either conference. Orlando is 10-4 and Utah is 12-2.
San Antonio @ Golden State - Could be an interesting one if Golden State is at full strength. They can give the Spurs a good game on their back-to-back night.

Suns notes – 11/25/2006

Suns won again against the NJ Nets on Friday. But it was an ugly ending again for the Suns. A huge lead disappearing in the 4-th quarter. This was even more shocking (or should I say choking :-)) because the Suns first team had problems scoring or stopping the Nets “garbage guys”. Lawrence Frank put all the starters on the bench and the bench players led by Marcus Williams almost took the game away. The Suns finally won by Single digits and Marcus Williams had a million points in 3 seconds or something ridiculous like that ! There was also a side-show at the end when Marion took a couple of bad shots and missed 2 free throws and had an argument with coach D'Antoni. ESPN caught it and Jim Gray was happy to talk about it as always. I think it was just “heat of the moment” stuff and things should be fine between them. Amare had a monster game and I was impressed to see him get all those bocks on the defensive end.

The Suns play Portland next and I just hope they dominate and finish strong.

More NBA notes - 11/25/2006

Utah finally lost one. The Warriors beat them without Baron Davis, Mickael Pietrus in addition to all the other injured players they have. Utah was on a back-to-back and on the road after a big win over the Lakers. So may be a letdown was expected. But still a good win for the Warriors. Washington and Detroit played a high-scoring scorcher that Detroit took. And Lebron got over AI. Efficient night for Lebron (10 of 20) and in-efficient night for AI (10 of 28).

Utah @ Golden State - 78-91
Detroit @ Washington - 115-111
Philadelphia @ Cleveland - 95-108.

Interesting games for tomorrow, the 26th (Sunday)

Clippers @ Denver - Clippers are not under-achieving this year and Denver is on a roll lately.

NBA notes - 11/25/2006

Yesterday's Dallas-San Antonio game was probably the headliner. Great match-up with a great ending. Nowitzki was the man again. Suns won against New Jersey, but the game was too close for comfort at the end. Suns once again had problems holding onto a big lead and Marcus Williams almost killed them at the end. Utah won again. They look unstoppable right now. Golden State couldn't really hang with Denver and are on a disturbing 3 game losing streak. Monta Ellis talking about meeting Denver in the playoffs sounds funny at this point. AI, by the way dropped 46 on Chicago. Amazing.

Dallas @ San Antonio - 95-92
Orlando @ Miami - 107-104
New Jersey @ Phoenix - 93-99
LA Lakers @ Utah - 108-114
Golden State @ Denver - 129-140

Interesting games on the 25th (Saturday) are as follows.

Utah @ Golden State - Can Utah keep on keepin on?
Detroit @ Washington - Can Washington challenge Detroit?
Philadelphia @ Cleveland - AI Vs Lebron.

NBA notes – 11/24/2006

No games yesterday on turkey day. Interesting match-ups for the today or as follows. Of course the Suns games are always in the list. Well, mostly in the list.

Dallas - San Antonio - Heavyweight battle.
Orlando VS Miami - New kid on the block battling the reigning champs.
New Jersey @ Phoenix - Nash VS Kidd. What more do you want?
LA Lakers VS Utah - Can the Lakers hang with Utah?
Golden State VS Denver - GS is becoming fun to watch. Plus the se 2 teams are good middle-of-the-pack western conference teams.