The big news today was the suspensions handed down for the brawl. To my surprise, the experts were right about Melo. He got suspended for 15 games. Nate Robinson and J.R. Smith each got 10 games. Mardy Collins, whose hard foul on Smith sparked the fighting, was suspended six games and Knicks teammate Jared Jeffries will miss four. Also, the Knicks' Jerome James and Denver's Nene were both penalized one game for leaving the bench area during the chaos. So basically Denver is in trouble and Melo's reputation takes another hit. It's amazing to me how guys who have had trouble in the past always seem to find it again and again. It looked like Melo had finally matured and was really becoming a true professional and a major star in this league, and then this happens. A lot of people are also criticizing him for back-peddling after the punch. Looks like he lost a lot of points on both the class scale and the street-cred scale.
George Karl really got on Isiah and accused him of instigating the whole thing. He called him all kinds of names. He was also very defensive about accusations that he was trying to run up the score on behalf of Larry Brown! I still think there's something to it. Adrian Wojnarowski took George Karl to task in his column for Yahoo sports. He says Geoge lost the season for Denver because of the stupid “holier-than-thou” attitude of the tarheel family. After all this, Denver took the court and promptly beat the Wizrads behind players named Linas Kleiza, Yakhouba Diawara and Eduardo Najera. Gilbert Arenas stunck up the joint shooting 10/30 after the 60 point performance. But Denver is going to suffer in the long run. They'll miss Melo and drop in the standings. They were 13-9 and 7-th in the west when the suspensions started. Lets see where they are in 15 games.
Dallas got great games from Nowitzki and Howard to easily dismiss the Kings. The Warriors as usual had problems in the 4-th quarter and lost to the Nets in-spite of Vince Carter basically not showing up. Kidd got another triple-double, his 6-th of the season. Looks like Kidd is back all the way from his micro-fracture surgery. Good news for Amare Stoudemire fans. Kidd is pouring in triple doubles regularly again. Lots of buzzer-beaters on this day. Wade won the game at the buzzer for the Heat against the Hornets and Marbury did the same for the Knicks against the Jazz after even some Knicks thought they just lost the game on Deron William's 3. Marbury got the outlet pass, never stopped, and surprised everyone by going coast-to-coast for a layup. Starbury is playing well lately with Francis out. Chucky Atkins hit a ridiculously long 3 to tie the game in the first overtime for Memphis. They then went on to beat Seattle in double overtime.
Hornets @ Miami – 99-101
Washington @ Denver – 108-117
Dallas @ Sacramento – 109-91
Golden State @ New Jersey – 97-105
Interesting games on the board for tomorrow, the Dec 19-th (Tuesday)
Toronto @ Phoenix – Can the Suns win a record 15-th in a row?
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