Dallas wins 60 - NBA notes - 03/28/2007

The Mavs won their 60-Th game today against a Bucks team that just would not go away. The Bucks actually lead most of the night with Redd hitting all kind of shots from all over the court. The Mavs looked shaky with Nowitzki playing just 15 minutes on a bum ankle. Jason Terry lead them with 27 points in the win.

King James had a horrible shooting night at the Garden and the Knicks got enough from Eddie Curry to win this game. The Cavs better hope LeBron doesn't have too many of these 6/20 shooting nights in the playoffs. The other star from the LeBron-Melo-Wade draft, Chris Bosh led the Raptors to a big win against the Heat with a 13-18 night. Indiana, without Jermaine O'Neal today, had no shot at New Jersey. The Nets rolled them up pretty easily. Indiana is 1.5 games behind the 8-Th spot now and the Nets are in the 7-Th spot.

The Clippers lost 1/2 a game in their lead for the 8-Th spot as they couldn't beat the Rockets and the Ming Dynasty. Yao had 24-15 and McGrady had 27 points on 30 shots. T-Mac is not shy about jacking it up and neither is Corey Maggette. If the paper-clips ever realize that getting the ball to Elton Brand is a good thing, this team can do some damage. They are now 1.5 games ahead of the Warriors and 2.5 games ahead of the Hornets who lost to the Spurs and Timmy today. Timmy had 31 points and hit his first 3 pointer of the season. It should be late March or April since Timmy is beginning to get on a nice roll.

Miami @ Toronto - 83-96
Cleveland @ New York - 93-97
Houston @ LA Clippers - 92-87
Indiana @ New Jersey - 94-118

Interesting games on the board for Mar 29-Th (Thursday)

Detroit @ Chicago - As good as it gets in the L-East. Two teams that have won 7 out of their last 10 games face each other.

Phoenix @ Golden State - Should be a fun one since both teams like to run-and-gun and the W's usually play the Suns close.

Sweet Weekend in the NCAA.

The tournament rolled on last weekend with some fun games and great names. The games were tight and a lot of fun. Kansas won by 3 against the Salukis, UCLA won by 9, Memphis by 1 and Ohio State by 1 on Thursday. That's some March madness folks. The Suck-eyes (luck-eyes if you want to go with a classier approach) won by a point against Tennessee after trailing by 17 in the first half. Vols basically choked this one away and the Suck-eyes are living dangerously. Greg Oden was in all kinds of foul trouble in this one, but he put the exclamation point on this game with a block on the final drive of the game. Ramar Smith's shot probably wouldn't have gone in, but Oden blocked it anyways. Suck-eyes move on.

By the way, I don't hate this OSU basketball team. In fact, I like this team and their 42-year old freshmen Greg Oden, but it's just that the Suck-eyes stole my Arizona State's only real chance at a football title in the 1997 Rose Bowl. They scored a TD on multiple pass interference calls after Jake the Snake drove us to what we thought was a game winning touchdown drive with less than 2 minutes to go. Anyways, coming back to Oden, doesn't he look like he is 42 years old? Rick Pitino had the famous rant as the head coach of the Celtics when he said his team was young and improving and the fans should be patient. He said "Larry Bird is not walking through that door, fans. Kevin McHale is not walking through that door, and Robert Parish is not walking through that door". Guess what, if the Celtics end up drafting Greg Oden, I guess Robert Parish will be walking though that door. Oden looks exactly like Parish, only older!

On Friday, Oregon beat UNLV by 4 and Georgetown beat Vandy by a point. Georgetown's game winning bucket from Jeff Green could have easily been called a travel, but it was not and the Hoyas move on. North Carolina and Florida had relatively easier games as they dispatched USC and Butler respectively. So here are the scores from the Sweet 16.

UNLV - Oregon - 72-76
Texas A&M - Memphis - 64-65
USC - North Carolina - 64-74
Pittsburgh - UCLA - 55-64
Vanderbilt - Georgetown - 65-66
Southern Illinois - Kansas - 58-61
Tennessee - Ohio State - 84-85
Butler - Florida - 57-65

The Elite 8 featured 4 1-seeds, 3 2-seeds and a 3-seed. I have never seen a tournament stay this true to form. Very few upsets and the seeding stay true. The committee should be patting itself on the back for it, though some experts criticized them for not picking enough mid-majors and also for slotting the few mid-majors they did pick against each other in the early rounds like Old Dominion and Butler. That took away a lot of the upset potential and the David-V-Goliath feel away from the early rounds. In any case, you can't really complain if you have a Kansas-UCLA match up in the Elite-8. The Bruins got to play this one in San Jose, and it was a home game pretty much for them. They put away Kansas pretty easily behind some great D. This game featured more steals than a busy shopping district in LA during a race riot. UCLA had 15 and Kansas had 17. A hard-fought, high-energy game and Ben Howland jut has his guys playing hard and D'ing up.

The suck-eyes took care of Memphis with a late run and a good 17 point night from Oden to get to the final four. They'll meet the Hoyas who beat the Tar heels on Sunday with a late surge. They got back from 11 down to tie the game and won it in overtime by 12 points as they saw the heels miss shot after shot after shot. The Heels missed 22 of their final 23 shots to lose this one in shocking fashion. The Hoyas have some size and their bigs were clutch late in the game. For the heels, Psycho-T - Tyler Hansbrough was unstoppable with 26-11, but even he went cold at the end. I am glad John Thompson III is going to the final four. I always liked his dad the "towel" Thompson.

Florida beat Oregon in the other game to setup a re-match with UCLA. Oregon's guard Tajuan Porter let them down with a 2/10 shooting night. They did get 27 from Aaron Brooks, but they needed everybody against this tough Florida team.

These are the elite-8 scores for the record.

UCLA-Kansas - 68-55
Memphis-Ohio State - 76-92
Oregon-Florida - 77-85
Georgetown-North Carolina - 96-84

My Final Four predictions, not that my bracket was any good :-)

UCLA beats Georgetown in the finals.

Kobe is back to Earth - NBA notes - 03/27/2007

Kobe came back to Earth finally. He scored 23 on 7/26 shots and the Lakers lost to the lowly Grizzlies who got just 10 points from Pau Gasol and Mike Miller was not even on the court. Bad loss for the Lakers and Kobe. A buzz-kill after all that happened last week. Odom had 3 points in this game though he had 16 boards and 11 dimes.

King James had a 28-7-6 night against the Pacers to hand them another loss. Jermaine O'Neal showed up like a man again with a 32 point night, but the Cavs were not going to lose this one after one of those stupid "players-only meeting" that apparently James called for. It worked for the Cavs for whatever reason and the Pacers have now lost 15 of 17. Poor Jermaine O'Neal should be dying inside.

Crazy win for the Sonics today behind Rashard Lewis's 35 points, 21 of which came in the money quarter. Up by 25 points with five minutes left in the third quarter, Minnesota was outscored 51-18 the rest of the way and 25-2 to end the game, losing 114-106 to the Supersonics . This might effectively end the playoff dream for the T-Wolves. Good news for the Hornets, Clippers and the Warriors.

Memphis @ LA Lakers - 88-86
Cleveland @ Indiana - 105-94

Interesting games on the board for Mar 28-Th (Wednesday)

Miami @ Toronto - Identical records, tough Miami look like the better team these days.

Cleveland @ New York - King James in the Big Apple.

Houston @ LA Clippers - Important game for the Clip-Joint in the playoff race.

Indiana @ New Jersey - Indiana needs this one real, real bad.

March Madness from Sheed - NBA notes - 03/26/2007

The NCAA tournament this season has not had too many buzzer-beating crazy plays. So Sheed decided to compensate for it in the NBA against the Nuggets. The Nuggets were leading by 3, with the ball, and with less than 2 seconds to go. But they couldn't inbound the ball and the Pistons stole the ball. It ended up in Sheed's hands way back in the back-court. He heaves a 60 footer to beat the buzzer and the shot goes in off the glass! A crushing blow to the Nuggets. The game goes to overtime and Denver has no chance in OT. Big-shot-Billups had 34-5-10 in this game. Bad loss for the Nuggets.

Carlos Boozer poured in 41-16 today to beat the Wizard. This guy is a handful when healthy. He hit 15/21 shots to prolong the difficult Western roadie for the Wiz. Luol Deng had 38 points for the Bulls against the Jail-Blazers. Orlando won at New York to stay afloat. New York is struggling again after a good mini-stretch. Starbury was carrying them for a bit, then had a couple of bad games, and was back again today with 32 points, but was not enough. In Phoenix, the Suns beat Memphis behind 27 from Amare and 29 from Raja Bell. Shaq-Daddy had a double double with 22-11 as the Heat beat the Hawks. The Spurs beat the Warriors by 37 a day after beating the Sonics by 41! Timmy and his boys are rolling right now. Duncan looks good and the team seems to be firing on all cylinders. The Spurs are going to be a tough out for both the Suns and/or the Mavs in the playoffs.

Denver @ Detroit - 109-113
Orlando @ New York - 94-89

Interesting games on the board for Mar 27-Th (Tuesday)

Memphis @ LA Lakers - Kobe had 60 the last time these two teams met.

Cleveland @ Indiana - Cavs needs a bounce back game after what happened against Melo and the Nuggets on national TV.

Kings upset the Suns - NBA notes - 03/25/2007

Kobe was held under control today by Golden State. He scored only 43! He started the game on fire and scored at will in the first quarter. Pretty soon, the Lakers were leading by 19 and Kobe cooled off since the game looked to be over. But the feisty Warriors fought their way back in and the game tightened in the third. Kobe was also double teamed and hounded and he missed quite a few shots in the third and early fourth. The Warriors actually led this game with a few minutes to go and Kobe and the Lakers had to come back and win it. The Warriors had a shot to win it at the buzzer when Al Harrington missed a 3. Kobe finished with 43 on 15-33 shooting, which is not as great a percentage as he has been shooting lately. The Warriors lost a tough one and they got eaten up on the boards. Lamar Odom had a 24-19 night and the W's were out-rebounded 63-33.

The Kings surprised the Suns and beat them today in Sacramento. It is a tough place to play, but they are not a great team this season and the Suns were expected to win this one. As always Barbosa had a great game for the Suns with 27 and even scored 17 straight during one stretch in the first half, but Bibby was just too good today. He had 37 on 9/12 from the 3-point land including a couple of big ones in the final minute. I guess the Kings were ready for this one on national TV ad Bibby wanted to outshine the 2-time MP3 Steve Nash. Nashty had 18-9 himself, but was outplayed on this day.

Denver won at Cleveland rather convincingly with Melo pouring in 27 and AI coring 18 to go with 12 dimes. King James had just 18 in this one. Indiana lost again, this time to the Bulls, in spite of Jermaine O'Neal scoring 39 points. The Pacers are on a free-fall. I guess the trade is not working out anymore. The Hornets had a big win against Houston to keep it's playoff drive going. Chris Paul had 28. Both Nowitzki and Howard scored 28 as Dallas beat Atlanta. Detroit won again and the Spurs bitch-slapped the Sonics by 41 points.

Denver @ Cleveland - 105-93
Golden State @ LA Lakers - 113-115

Interesting games on the board for Mar 26-Th (Monday)

Denver @ Detroit - AI and Melo go into play the best of the L-East.

Orlando @ New York - Marginally interesting match-up at the bottom of the L-East.

Vinsanity in Charlotte - NBA notes - 03/24/2007

Vinsanity bailed out the Nets today with a spectacular play. With the Nets trailing by 2, Kidd took a jumper which was well short of the rim, but Vince caught the air-ball and slammed it home for an alley-oop dunk that tied the game. He also dominated the OT period to win the game for the Nets who stayed in the 7-Th spot in the L-East. All in all, Vince had 40 points today.

Clippers won again today against the Wizards. Clippers are on a mini-roll right now. Jason Hart's buzzer-beater at Milwaukee seems to have given them a bolt of new-found energy. After crushing the Jazz yesterday, they beat Agent-0 and the Wizards today to stay a game in front of the Warriors. Maggette had 29 points to offset the Agent's 30. Maggette has been carrying them lately as he had 29 points on 15 made free throws. Brand had 18-14 and the Clippers are surviving pretty well without either of their point guards - Livingston or Cassell. Jason Hart has stepped in and helped them out pretty well. As for the Wizards, this Western roadie has been a painful experience without Caron Butler. They seem to need all 3 (Gil, Tawn and Caron) to do what they do best. Wizards just shot 5/23 from 3. Wizards have no problems jacking up threes, but today they didn't fall. They are barely clinging on to the lead in the Southeast as Miami had their second straight bad loss - at home to the 76'ers.

There's still no definitive news on Wade's return. The Jazz got back on track with a 118-108 victory over Memphis. Deron had 21 and 13 dimes. Who is the better PG now - Chris Paul or Deron Williams? I think it's pretty close right now though Chris Paul looked like the clear-cut winner last year.

Washington @ LA Clippers - 105-111

Interesting games on the board for Mar 25-Th (Sunday)

Denver @ Cleveland - Melo-V-LeBron with AI in the mix.

Golden State @ LA Lakers - The Warriors are fighting for the 8-Th spot and the Lakers are just riding Kobe to wherever he takes them.

65, 50, 60, 50 ... - NBA notes - 03/23/2007

Here's the daily Kobe report. He had 50 today for the 4-Th straight 50 point game to become only the second player in NBA history with at least that many points in four consecutive games. He had 50 points on 16/29 shots and made all of his 16 FTs. He also had 7 boards but just one assist. That assist explains the 50 points I guess! Philip is suggesting he has been motivated by those suspensions to go on this tear. The good news for Kobe is, the Lakers are winning after a prolonged losing stretch. Odom had 15-10-6 to help the cause. Chris Paul had 28-6-12, but who cares!

The Spurs won a tight, hard fought game against the Pistons. It was not easy, but the Spurs just seem to know how to win these games. Both the Clip-joint and the Warriors won as they stayed close in the playoff race. The Warriors played a really fun, high-scoring game against their old friends Antawn Jamison and Gilbert Arenas. Agent-0 had 29 and 13 dimes, but the day clearly belonged to Boom Dizzle. Baron had 34-9-15 for a near triple double as he totally dominated this game. When healthy, this guy is clearly one of the top 3 or 4 point guards in this league. It's a shame he only averages 54 games a year. Biedrins, Monta and J-Rich had great games for the W's as well. Stephen Jacko got himself ejected from this game for some stupid reason and the W's had to survive his absence. Since the big trade, the Warriors have been playing some good ball and have enjoyed a lot of balanced scoring. They should be in the playoff hunt until the end, schedule permitting!

Detroit @ San Antonio - 89-90
Washington @ Golden State - 128-135
LA Lakers @ Hornets - 111-05

Interesting games on the board for Mar 24-Th (Saturday)

Washington @ LA Clippers - Clippers are suddenly on a roll a they are looking to lock up the 8-Th spot.

Kobe drops 60 again - NBA notes - 03/22/2007

Kobe scored 60 points again and the Lakers needed every point as they won by 2 against the Grizz. This guy is on an amazing roll right now. This is his 3-rd straight 50 point game. Reminds me of the run he had in 2003 when he scored 40+ in 9 straight games and 35+ in 12 straight or something. He is truly an once in a generation talent. Mike Miller and Pau Gasol had 33 and 35 in the loss and nobody even noticed them because Kobe scored almost both their totals combined. Odom was involved in this game too with 20-15 and that's always good news for the Lakers.

Amare was back to his old self with a monstrous 33-21 night. Good comeback for Amare after the 4 point night against the T-Wolves. Nash helped him with a 17 point 16 assist night to lead the Suns to one of their typical wins. No Artest for the Kings, not that it would have mattered in this game. Tough loss for Denver as Tyrus Thomas tipped in a Ben Gordon's miss at the buzzer to erase a good night from AI and Melo. Detroit's run was stopped by the Rockets at Houston as Yao Ming had 27 points and helped his team win 8 out of 10 games since he returned from injury. "Skip 2 My Lou" Rafer Alston is quietly having a big season for the Rockets. Looks like Van Gundy has a proven way of handling NBA players. I still can't believe this guy threatened to go back to And-1 street ball while he was unhappy in Toronto! That's like someone threatening to stop driving a Ferrari and go back to driving a Geo Metro. Whose exactly is such a threat directed towards?

Detroit @ Houston - 85-91
LA Lakers @ Memphis - 121-119
Sacramento @ Phoenix - 100-118
Denver @ Chicago - 108-109

Interesting games on the board for Mar 23-rd (Friday)

Detroit @ San Antonio - Could this be a Finals preview?

Washington @ Golden State - Agent-0 goes back to his old stomping grounds.

LA Lakers @ Hornets - Laker games might just be must-see TV rest of the season with Kobe going nuts right now.

Cleveland is no Dallas - NBA notes - 03/21/2007

Dallas won rather easily at Cleveland. Not a good shooting night for the King. He had 31 on 12/28 shooting and that's a problem for the Cavs. More often than not, the Cavs need a perfect night from LeBron to win against good teams. He doesn't get great help on a consistent basis though his teammates can't do much if he takes 28 shots and clanks 16 of those like he did today. I like Larry Hughes since he is quite talented, but I am not sure he complements the King all that well. He is more of a really-poor man's LeBron and they need a scorer who can shoot a lot better than Hughes to run alongside LeBron. That's why a Bibby trade would have been awesome. That's also why they pursued Michael Redd before settling on Hughes few years back.

Bad loss for the Kings as the T-Wolves beat them on the road to push the Kings further back in the Western standings. Geoff Petrie needs to re-build this puppy from the ground up. He has done it before and he can do it again, but I am a little surprised he has not started the process yet. Magic got a good game from Grant Hill (24-5), but still lost at Toronto. A promising season is fast going down the drain for the Magic. Bosh had a monster night with 34-16. Tim Duncan made sure Indiana's painful slump continued as he poured in 27 to beat the Pacers 90-72.

Big win for the Paper-Clips on the road at Milwaukee as Jason Hart hit the game winner. This helps them immensely in the race for the 8-Th spot in the West. Agent-0 was back today with 42 big ones at Seattle. He won the game on a buzzer-beater with a strong drive to the hoop a day after he missed a buzzer-beating jumper to lose at Portland. That's how things roll with Agent-0 - you win some and you lose some.

Dallas @ Cleveland - 98-90
Minnesota @ Sacramento - 95-89

Interesting games on the board for Mar 22-st (Thursday)

Detroit @ Houston - Detroit has an decent record against the west.

LA Lakers @ Memphis - What will Kobe do next?

Sacramento @ Phoenix - Phoenix needs to keep winning to keep up with the Mavs.

Denver @ Chicago - Another test for the Nuggets.

March Madness.

The NCAA tournament is THE best event in the American sports calendar. It' better than the NBA finals, Super Bowl, BCS and the World Series. I just love it though I am not even a big college guy. I prefer pro-leagues and there's nothing like the NBA if you want to watch basketball, but the tourney is just special. I watched a lot of games last weekend and there were not too many upsets and crazy finishes in the round of 64. The usual 5 upsetting a 12 was missing. The biggest upset of the first round was also the best game of the first round as no-11 Virginia Commonwealth beat no-6 Duke 79-77. Many Duke-haters were happy though I am not one of them. I like Duke and coach K, but I am all about the small schools and the tournament upsets. It was a great game.

The "money day" of the first weekend was Saturday. Oh boy! That was one great game after the other. The Ohio State-Xavier game went to OT as OSU won 78-71. Then Texas A&M and Louisville played a dandy as A&M won 72-69. Butler beat Maryland 62-59 in another beauty. But the best game of the day might have been the double OT thriller between Vandy and Washington State. Vandy beat the 3-rd seed 78-74. Just one great game after the other and you are sitting on the couch taking it all in and loving life, wishing every month was March! Sunday was a bit of a letdown, but that's how the tournament goes. You have no idea whats going to happen on any given day and this is what sets this apart from every other sporting event. UNLV upsetting Wisconsin was big on Sunday, but for me, Texas losing to USC was a killer as it destroyed my bracket since I had Texas going very, very deep. Way too much trust in Kevin Durant, which I knew was a mistake, but was carried away.

Now on to the sweet 16. Fewer upsets means more great match-ups in the sweet 16. We got some great games coming up. My ranking of the sweet-16 match-ups from best to not-so-best are as follows.

UNLV - Oregon - UNLV is the closest to a Cinderella in this tourney now. I like the Oregon guards, especially Aaron Brooks.

Texas A&M - Memphis - Tough one to call here. The best name in the tourney, may be ever - Acie Law, the IV-Th!

USC - North Carolina - Tim Floyd is slowly, but surely building a powerhouse at USC. They may become the Florida of the West in a few years given their resources, facilities and access to top-notch talent in the LA area.

Pittsburgh - UCLA - Mentor versus the teacher, both coaches from UC - Santa Barbara of all places.

Vanderbilt - Georgetown - The SEC player of the year Derrick Byars is a stud, but Georgetown is a fashionable pick among experts to go all the way.

Southern Illinois - Kansas - The usually under-achieving Kansas seem really focused this time around.

Tennessee - Ohio State - Bruce Pearl's team likes to run and gun and play a fun style. Lets see if it works against Greg Oden and the Thad-five.

Butler - Florida - Florida should be too tough to handle for Butler, but I'll be rooting for the under-dog like millions of others.

Suns back on track- NBA notes - 03/20/2007

Suns got back on track today and they won without great help from Amare who was in foul trouble all night. D'Antoni made his usual change in the starting lineup that he does whenever the Suns stumble - Barbosa in and Diaw out. Both had decent games. Diaw had 11 points and 9 assists. Thats what the Suns need from him. The Suns shot well from the 3 taking 38 shots from beyond and connecting on 16. Thats too much threes for other teams, but just about right for the Suns. Raja Bell hit a lot of 3's in the second half to help the Suns pull away. He had 22 and Nash had 18-5-11 and the Suns neutralized KG' 30-16 on this night.

Denver won at New Jersey behind Melo's 30. Good road win for the Nuggets. Golden State played a good one at Utah, but came up just short. This would have been a big win for the W's with a tough stretch of their schedule coming up, but it was one of those "so near, yet so far" situation for the Warriors. Al Harrington had 27, J-Rich had 21 and Boom-Dizzle 20. But the problem for the W's as always was defense and size as Boozer had 25-21 and Deron Williams had 17 assists. One guarantee about any Warrior game. Win or lose, the W's will let one of their opponent have a record night - career high or franchise high or a season high or something. Thats a running joke on their post-game shows.

In other games, the Clip-joint won at Chicago to tie with the Warriors for the 8-th spot. Bad losses for the Cavs against the Bobcats and the Wizards against the Blazers. LeBron had 37, but shot only 12/31 in the loss.

Minnesota @ Phoenix - 90-108
Denver @ New Jersey - 94-90
Golden State @ Utah - 100-104

Interesting games on the board for Mar 21-st (Wednesday)

Dallas @ Cleveland - Clearly the headliner for the night. Should be a fun one.

Minnesota @ Sacramento - All the pretenders fighting for the 8-th spot

Bad Loss for the Kings - NBA notes - 03/19/2007

No great action on the court today in the NBA. So I thought I'll start with a funny story. Apparently Tim Duncan is a huge Chicago Bears fan. So soon after the Super Bowl, during one of the Spurs games, Bruce Bowen threw a pretty bad pass at him which Timmy couldn't handle. So Timmy looked at Bruce after the play and said "Nice pass Rex!" in an obvious reference to the Bears beleaguered QB Rex Grossman. That's pretty funny.

The Sacramento Kings are kind of still in the playoff hunt in the West, but they had a bad loss today at Atlanta. The Hawks played without their leader Joe Johnson, but still managed to crush the Kings. The Kings are now 2.5 games behind the 8-Th spot. In the other game, the Hornets blew out the Celtics at home, well, one of their homes - Oklahoma city. Paul Pierce had 28 in the loss.

Sacramento @ Atlanta - 76-99
Boston @ NO/OK Hornets - 88-106

Interesting games on the board for Mar 20-Th (Tuesday)

Minnesota @ Phoenix - Suns have to get out of the 2-game losing streak.

Denver @ New Jersey - Can the rejuvenated Nugget win on the road?

Golden State @ Utah - Utah is struggling and the Warriors are hoping to stay at the 8-Th spot.

50 for Kobe - NBA notes - 03/18/2007

Kobe backed up his 65 point night against the Jail-Blazers with 50 against the T-Wolves. The only way the Lakers can win these days is if Kobe goes over 40 or 50. Not a great strategy to win games especially since the whole story of the first half of the season for the Lakers was the "new, ball-sharing, teammates-trusting Kobe". Now it's a different game and the Lakers are barely clinging onto a playoff spot. Kobe became the first Lakers player with consecutive 50-point games in 44 seasons. Only two other players have recorded back-to-back 50-point games in the last 10 years. Antawn Jamison did it in December 2000 against Seattle and the Lakers (51-51), and Allen Iverson did it in December 2004 against Milwaukee and Utah (54-51). KG had a 26-15-6 night and Ricky Davis had 33-6-6. It should suck for them to lose after playing that well.

Dallas today beat a Detroit team without Chauncey Billups. It was another close game that the Mavs won at the end. Nowitzki seems to be continuing his pursuit of the MVP crown after that minor setback against Nash and the Suns. He had 28-12 today. Heat finally lost today against the Orlando Magic. Magic won on the road and Shaq's 20 was not enough. Houston won by 50 at Phily. Surprising considering the Rockets sometimes play like they just want to score 50 in the entire game and win it defensively. The Kincks won against the Raptors easily to stay just half a game behind the 8-Th playoff spot.

Dallas @ Detroit - 92-88
Minnesota @ LA Lakers - 102-109
Toronto @ New York - 74-92

Interesting games on the board for Mar 19-Th (Monday)

Nothing interesting tomorrow. Just 2 mediocre games.

Slumping Suns - NBA notes - 03/17/2007

Another big, ugly loss for the Suns, this time against the rich, creamy Nuggets. Suns got "Answered" today as AI had a monster night with 44 pts and 15 assists. Those are jut ridiculous numbers and Melo was the beneficiary of a lot of those assists as he dropped in 29 points. They started hot early and blew the Suns out with 70 points in the first half, both things the Suns are known for. After having just one assist in the first half Friday, Nash had just 2 in the first half today. Those are Marcus Banks numbers and not MVP numbers! The Suns again looked sluggish, slow and a little distracted and with AI coming at them full speed, they had no chance. This crushing defeat was equal parts Suns and AI. The Suns have been sluggish all month. But then they played their best game Thursday against Dallas and now they seem to suffering from their weeks-old sluggishness combined with the emotional high from that Dallas game. They better get out of both soon. This is the wrong time of the year to be slumping. Barbosa had 25 points and he seems to be the only consistent contributor lately. Nash had 15 and 10 dimes. Denver seems to be on a roll having won 4 straight. They are hoping this is what they get out of the big 2 consistently and turn the season around. The problem is, they are now embarking on a long road trip which can bring new challenges.

Utah lost again, this time in King's court as C-Booze played his first game at Cleveland since he left town 3 years back. He has always been injured and in this one, he was booed unmercifully though he had a decent 19-14 night. But the story as always was the King. He had 24-17-9. Those are King-sized numbers folks. How many dudes in this league can lead his team in all 3 categories. In fact, he was tied for the team lead in blocks and steals with 2 each. Essentially he lead the team in all 5 categories! That's awesome. The Cavs have now won 8 straight.

In other games, Agent-0 had 30 pts on 18 shots and 11 dimes as the Wizards beat the Hornets. If Agent-0 is this efficient every night, the Wizards can do some real damage in the L-East. Indiana finally won a game. Ofcourse it help to play the Atlanta Hawks, that too without Joe Johnson. The Kings won at Orlando 95-83. Kevin Martin had 20 points, but here's the stat of the night. He just hit one shot, a 3. He got the other 17 points on free throws. He shot 17/20 from the charity tripe and 1/8 from the floor. I like Kevin Martin, but who the hell fouls Kevin Martin every time he touches the ball? No wonder the Magic have been sucking so bad lately. Boston pulled a fast one on the road and beat the Spurs. Bad loss for the Spurs who really seem to go only as far as Ginobli takes them. That guy is so key to this team and he had only 8 pts today. The Celtics seem to have a decent front-court now with the "Truth" Pierce and Al Jefferson producing every game. They may have a formulae here and if they add Greg Oden to the mix and a PG, they may be on to something. 20 and 30 for Jefferson and Pierce today and 20 and 30 for Timmy and Tony for the Spurs. Boom-Dizzle, or Baron Davis for the uninitiated, hit a sweet mid-range jumper with 2+ secs to go to win the game for the W's against Ray-Ray and the Sonics 99-98.

Utah @ Cleveland - 73-82
Phoenix @ Denver - 107-131

Interesting games on the board for Mar 18-Th (Sunday)

Dallas @ Detroit - Another potential final preview (minus Chauncey Billups though).

Minnesota @ LA Lakers - Will Kobe have another 65 point game? Can the Lakers win without that kind of effort from number 24?

Toronto @ New York - As good a it gets in the bottom feeding Atlantic division.

Whats Ricky doing?

Here's a fascinating story about Ricky Williams and what he is doing right now. A very interesting mix of football and Eastern Indian philosophy. I would be intereted in seeing what happens to this dude when he comes back.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2007/03/01/SPG5KODA3M1.DTL

Here's the whole article reproduced below.

Williams' clear vision: An NFL comeback

Scott Ostler

Thursday, March 1, 2007

(03-01) 04:00 PDT Grass Valley, Nevada County -- Dreamers and desperados came to these lovely foothills a century and a half ago seeking gold. Ricky Williams comes here seeking the antidote. If you're seeking Ricky Williams, you turn off Route 49, the old gold-mining trail that is now a speedway, wind along a beautiful country road for 6 miles, travel down a bumpy dirt road for a mile and arrive at the Sivananda Ashram Yoga Farm, 80 green acres of ommm.

There is a cluster of cheery, brightly painted, main buildings, and several tiny cabins overlooking a pond, near which is the "Fire alarm gong." The farm sits in a valley and it's all very clean and quiet and peaceful. Hey, it's a yoga farm.

A sign on a door inside the main building: "Blessed self: No entry, please. Office staff only."

This is where Ricky Williams spends his non-football days, teaching (without pay) and studying yoga and its many elements, such as meditation, spiritualism and positivism.

Though most come to the yoga farm to collect their thoughts, a man from the NFL's drug-testing lab comes here two or three times each week from Oakland to collect Ricky Williams' urine. As a four-time loser in the NFL drug-test lottery, and still on suspension, Williams gets cut no slack.

Yes, Williams hopes to play football in the NFL this year. Soon, he will petition the NFL commissioner for reinstatement, having been suspended in '06 for flunking that fourth drug test.

Williams also intends to continue along his yoga spiritual path, even though being both a running back and a yogi seems the strangest dual career since Clark Kent/Superman.

Less than a mile from the farm, perched on a mini-mountaintop, is Williams' home. He just moved into the plain, yellow, two-bedroom wooden house that he bought sight-unseen.

He lives here with his partner, Kristin Barnes, and their children, Prince (almost 5) and Asha (5 months). This valley is Ricky's home base when he's not playing football or on a yoga road trip to India or the Bahamas.

How he got here: Williams retired from football just before the '04 season and traveled to Australia. A man he met there gave him a book on Ayurveda, an ancient Indian system of healing. Upon returning to the United States, Williams surfed the Web for an Ayurveda school, found one in Grass Valley, and studied at the school for one semester, during which a friend "dragged" him to the yoga farm. He knew there would be altars and chanting, and he says the whole idea frightened him.

"One class and I was hooked," Williams says.

After the class, he was approached by Swami Sita, the camp's director. She told him, "I have a job for you."

She gave Ricky a sledgehammer and asked him to knock down two old sheds. It took him two days. It's called karma yoga, selfless service. Swami Sita, obviously a sharp cookie, picked up on what the football world knows: If you're looking for a one-man wrecking crew -- take that any way you want -- Ricky is your guy.

Swami Sita and Williams sat and talked, and he says, "I've always felt misunderstood, but in two hours, she was able to understand me better than anyone has in my whole life."

Williams says yoga has weaned him from pot. And yes, it's weirdly comical that he found the way to deal with his marijuana habit in a place called Grass Valley.

(Another oddity worth noting: Ricky drives a Nissan Pathfinder.)

Because Williams is youngish (29) and in great health, he would seem to have at least a few years of great football left ... if he can avoid the bong.

And he does want to play. He skipped his annual trip to India in order to be accessible to the drug-testers.

"Smoking marijuana got me in a lot of trouble," he says.

He says he smoked to cope with social anxiety disorder.

"One of my biggest problems is that I'm always so influenced by what other people are thinking about me," Williams says. "When I smoked, I would achieve some kind of peace, regardless of what people around me were thinking about me. I came here and I was able to manufacture that kind of peace without having to use any kind of substance. ...

"Here, we don't talk about social anxiety, about things being clinical. We see that it's much deeper than that, it comes from identifying yourself with the wrong thing. If you identify yourself as a great football player, anytime anyone challenges that, you're going to have some kind of problem.

"The reason I was smoking was to find that place of clarity. When I realized I could get it through this (yoga), a light went on. ... Because it was a habit of mine for a couple of years, the thought (of smoking) does come back into my mind. Fortunately for me, the thought that comes right behind it is that there's a better way."

If Williams continues to test clean, and the commissioner green-lights him back into the NFL, the yoga mentality will come in handy in coping with negativity, because Williams has way too much baggage to be given a clean slate by fans and media.

Speculation will continue that he's back only for the money, to avoid repaying the $8.6 million bonus he was ordered to forfeit after walking out on his contract with the Miami Dolphins before the '04 season.

But questions about the money don't rattle Williams. If you want to draw an angry reaction or touch a nerve with this guy, pack a lunch. Everything, going in or out, passes through Ricky's mellow filter.

"In the past, I had a rebellious streak; I'd say it's not true (that he's coming back for the money)," Williams says. "In the past, I might have been so offended that I wouldn't come back. I don't take it personally anymore. Now I see if you do what you're supposed to do in life, you get rewarded, and one way is to get a paycheck. If I was doing something for the money, I'd be quite miserable."

Williams plans to use football as a pulpit from which to teach, in word and deed, the benefits of yoga. His role model and mentor is Jim Brown, who uses his football fame and power, and his occasional notoriety, to push for positive social change.

The hero of "The Razor's Edge" (by W. Somerset Maugham) is Larry Darrell, whose life path is very similar to that of Williams (Ricky has not read the book). Darrell's girlfriend asks him how he plans to use the wisdom he seeks.

"If I ever acquire wisdom," Darrell replies, "I suppose I shall be wise enough to know what to do with it."

Williams believes he knows what to do with his.

"I think I'm in a perfect place to help spread news of one of the ways to find happiness," Williams says. "If I can take what I've learned and somehow be able to efficiently, consistently express it through a whole football season, it says a lot for me and where I've come from, and it says a lot about the teaching. I think a good teacher has to be a good practitioner of what he's teaching, and I think this is a great opportunity for me to see how far I've come."

Can he still play? Williams had a non-superstar season in the CFL last year, and he's now a vegetarian, and he's so ... mellow. Can Tofu Boy put a hurt on linebackers? Isn't yoga about controlling the mind, "taming the wild horse," and football is about getting the horse so fired up that it busts down the barn door?

"Some people say that (a vegetarian or yogi) can't have that violent streak that you need," says Williams, a solid-looking 220 pounds, close to his playing weight. "I think it's a myth. We talk in yoga about instinct and intuition. They're similar, but one is a higher faculty of the mind.

"When you lift weights or run, adrenaline kicks in and that's a form of instinct. But when a football player gets into the zone and they're just feeling everything, that's intuition. When you really learn to focus your mind and tap into intuition, it's so much stronger than instinct. You have to give up one to get the other. So I might not have the edge, but I'll have the ability to get into that heightened state any time I want."

Williams has hitched a ride on the great wheel of life. Football led him to spiritual discontent, which led him to yoga, which now leads him back to football and a way to lead others to yoga.

"The goal of Classic Yoga," says the yoga farm's Web site, "is inner peace and self-realization, i.e.: realization of one's potential."

If Williams is allowed back into the NFL, we will see whether he is merely a super-glib huckster who squanders more human and athletic potential than most people can only dream of, or a man whose journey and karma yoga hard work have allowed him to tap into the clear, clean center of his mind and soul and become a better person, and a leader, and maybe a superstar again.

It figures to be a fascinating drama unfolding on a huge stage. He says he is ready.

"I feel I've lived more in these past two years than I did in the previous 27," Williams says, gazing over the railing of his back deck. "One thing I've learned about life is that if you really let go, it's just a joy ride."
Ricky Williams timeline

1998 -- Wins Heisman Trophy at Texas.

1999 -- Drafted by New Orleans Saints, No. 5 overall pick.

2002 -- After three seasons in New Orleans, traded to Miami Dolphins. Leads NFL in rushing with 1,853 yards.

2003 -- Tests positive for marijuana, second failed test, suspended for first four games of season.

2004 -- Retires just before start of training camp, after third positive-for-marijuana test.

2005 -- Un-retires and returns to Dolphins, first serving four-game suspension.

2006 -- Suspended for season after fourth positive test, this one not for marijuana. Plays for Toronto Argonauts of CFL.

2007 -- Plans to apply for re-instatement to NFL and play for Dolphins.

The Kobe show - NBA notes - 03/16/2007

Kobe had one of those night again. He had 65 points. Not quite 81, but awesome nonetheless. He had 2 games over 60 last year and this is his first one this year. Looks like Kobe decided that the Lake-Show was done and it was time for the Kobe-show. They had lost 7 straight and they entered the fourth trailing by 3 against the lowly Portland. He scored 24 points in the fourth. Thats a good game for most NBA'ers and he had it in one quarter. He then added 9 more in OT to win this one for the Lakers. He shot 23-39 from the field and 8-12 from downtown in this one. One of those "the basket looked so big" nights for Kobe.

Suns had a bad loss today. They lost at home to Detroit and the game was not even close. More shockingly, they just scored 83. Major letdown after that awesome double OT win at Dallas. Hope it's just a one-game letdown and nothing major. It's hard to even say what dodn't work since both Amare and Nash had good games. Amare had 24-15 on 50% shooting and Nash had 20-6 shooting 8/9. But he had only one assist in the first half. Thats unheard of. D'Antoni said they just gave back what they earned at Dallas. Good point. Detroit won without Billups who was replaced by Flip Murray who scored 25 points. This guy can score. It's amazing how he is not able to get consistent playing time anywhere in the NBA.

Speaking of Dallas, they got back on track behind some strong 4-th quarter performance by Dirk. He scored 19 in the fourth including a late basket at the end. No "choker" talk after this one. Both Dirk and Howard scored 30 each. Dallas is back on track after 2 losses. If anything, it looks like they knocked the Suns off track just a bit.

The Warriors crushed the T-Wolves at home and they are now very much in the hunt for the 8-th. Randy Foye had a good game for the Wolves in the spirit of March Madness I guess as his friends from Villanova were losing on the other channel. He lead them with 20 points. Monta had 24 for the Warriors. The Rockets beat the Raptors as ex-Raptors stepped up. Rafer Alston had 23 and McGrady had 24. Yao helped the ex-es with his own 23-8-9. Almost a triple double for Yao. The other interesting result of the night was Utah losing at Phily 88-89. They have now lost 4 straight. Surprising since they just got everybody back healthy and on the same floor.

Detroit @ Phoenix - 105-83
Boston @ Dallas - 101-106
Minnesota @ Golden State - 86-106

Interesting games on the board for Mar 17-th (Saturday)

Utah @ Cleveland - Good game. Plus C-Booze goes back to Cleveland.

Phoenix @ Denver - Suns might have trouble with this one on the road on a back-to-back night coming off that bad Detroit loss.

Shaq is up, Kobe is down. - NBA notes - 03/15/2007

The Shaq-Kobe contrast is still pretty stark. Kobe's image is pretty much re-invented along with his number 24. He is widely considered the best there is in the NBA and is rarely blamed for the Shaq-trade anymore since all of that is becoming old news these days. Shaq on the other hand appeared to be on a decline and though he won a ring in Miami, thats equal parts Wade and Shaq with Wade winning the finals MVP. Also Shaq has been talking too much garbage lately damaging his own reputation. But recently it looks like the contrast is on display again. With Wade out, Shaq has been playing real well and the Heat have won 9 of 11. Kobe on the other hand has been losing a lot lately with all the Laker injuries. So looks like Shaq can win without Wade, while Kobe needs all his teammates. He actually got back both Odom and Walton today. They looked good for a half, but Denver pulled away in the third and Kobe had no answers. Linas Kleiza had 29 points on 5-6 three pointers and Melo had 26.

The Heat beat the Nets behind 21-12 by Udonis Haslem. Kidd had a near triple double with 9-10-14, but shot just 3-13 in the loss. That actually was better than the 4-15 shot by Vinsanity. The Bucks fired Terry Stotts and his replacement Larry Krystkowiak lead them to a surprising victory over the Spurs. This ended the Spurs 13 game winning streak. Redd had a 13-20 shooting night for 29 points. Those are some good numbers against the Spurs D. I guess the Bucks played some passionate ball for their new coach. This usually lasts for about 2 games before they come back to earth and play like they usually did for the old coach.

LA Lakers @ Denver - 86-113
Miami @ New Jersey - 93-86

Interesting games on the board for Mar 16-th (Friday)

Detroit @ Phoenix - Possible finals matchup. Suns should be on a high after the Dallas win.

Boston @ Dallas - Dallas is on a 2 game losing streak. It should end today.

Minnesota @ Golden State - Games for the 8-th spot in the West.

Instant Classic - NBA notes - 03/14/2007

Big games usually end up being anything but. A lot of hype and a big thud sometimes. This one was different, actually much different. Phoenix and Dallas played a classic today which had everything. The game did not just feature one big comeback, it featured 2. The game did not just need one OT, it needed 2. The game did not just feature one MVP type performance, it featured 2. May be even 3. The Suns ran away with the first quarter and led by 14 after one. Dallas cut into that lead in the second and absolutely crushed the Suns in the third 38-16. The game looked over. The crowd was roaring. The Suns offense had stalled and it was late in the game now with the Suns trailing by 15 on the road. Nash returned to start the fourth instead of resting like he usually does. He was needed to stop the bleeding and he did just that. Slowly the Suns cut into the 15 point lead. Suns can't get too many stops. So sometimes these comebacks take longer if they are not pouring in the threes on offense. They got to within 8, 7 and 6, but it appeared like they were running out of time.

Then Nash took over with a lot of help from the Mavs. He got a couple of quick scores. He got fouled a couple of times. With the Suns trailing by 5, Josh Howard jumped at Nash's fake and fouled him to give him 3 freebies. Nash hit all 3 and the Suns fouled Nowitzki. He then obliged them by splitting his 2 free throws. So now the Suns had the ball trailing by 3 with 14 secs to go. Nash dribbled up court and took a quick 3. It rimmed out, but Marion was the right guy at the right spot as he secured the offensive board and passed it to Nash again. Nash got a do-over on his 3 and nailed it this time. This guy is just awesome. Suddenly the game was tied and Dirk still had just 2.7 secs to try his magic. He beat the Suns on a buzzer beater the last time these 2 teams played at Dallas. But this time he missed the shot and the game went to overtime.

Amare had a phenomenal game though Nash's finger-prints seemed to be all over this game. Nash did score 10 points in the last 55 secs or so, but Amare shot 16-19 in this game for 41 points with a lot of them coming in the first overtime! He hit a lot of mid-range jumpers too, which is the new wrinkle to his game. I am sure the Mavs had visions of what Amare did to them 2 years back in the playoffs. They couldn't stop him them, they still can't stop him today. It was once again a 2 man game with Nash and Amare (and Terry and Nowitzki at the other end) down the stretch. This game looked every bit like a playoff contest. Amare dominated the OT despite 2 horrible offensive foul calls on him. One was a flop by Josh Howard with Amare trying hard not to crash into him and the other one was a elbow to the face of Stackhouse who just dove to the floor like he was shot. I am OK with the second call, but the first one was really bad. So the Suns couldn't close it out in the first OT though they had the lead. Terry hit a clutch 3 to tie the game with Nash right in his mug. Suns had the last shot with 4.9 seconds to go. D'Antoni drew up a play for Barbosa. I was OK with that call. LB is not a bad offensive option especially when the whole World is expecting them to goto Nash. He can drive on anybody and he got to the paint, but couldn't finish. Terry did a decent job of staying with him and Dirk jumped at him at the end too. So time for the second OT.

In the second OT, more great plays from both sides. Big shots all over the place. Stack hit a big 3. Marion had a great steal on Terry. Terry actually had a bad second OT with 3 turnovers. With Mavs trailing by 2, Nash made a brilliant play to steal the inbounds pass and throw it out off of Terry's leg. He also took a charge on Terry after Dallas stole the ball from him. Lots of drama, but it finally came down to Nowitzki again with the ball trailing by 2. He missed the shot with Nash soaring for the final defensive rebound of the game. Fitting end, considering how the Mavs absolutely dominated the Suns on the offensive board 27-11 once again exposing the Suns lack of size. The Mavs also shot 55% from 3 against the Suns modest 41%. Amazing that the Suns won the game with those kind of numbers.

Both Nash and Nowitzki had MVP type games. Nowitzki had 30-16-6 and Nash had 32-8-16. But Nash also had the game tying 3, a clutch steal, took a charge at the end and got the game's final rebound. And by the way, he got the W. I think Nash is looking like the MVP every time he steps on the court. The bigger the game, the bigger is his game. He is a special, special player. The doubters are looking more and more stupid every game.

In other games, Starbury's 31 was not good enough to push the Knicks over the Raptors. The King came back and had 29 points to beat the Grizzlies. How bad are the Grizzlies if only 14000 people showed up to see King James? Elton Brand had 37 points and the Clip-joint gave a good fight to the Rockets, but the Rockets won 109-105. Agent-0 had 35-5-8 as the Wizards dumped the Pacers. The surprising game of the day was the Magic beating the Jazz 101-90 in Orlando. Dwight Howard had 31-15 and C-Boozer's 29-7 was no match on this day.

Phoenix @ Dallas - 129-127
New York @ Toronto - 94-104

Interesting games on the board for Mar 15-th (Thursday)

LA Lakers @ Denver - Kobe-V-AI, but the Lakers are beat right now.

Miami @ New Jersey - Can the Heat continue their win streak?

Heat are smoking Hot - NBA notes - 03/13/2007

Big win for Heat today against a solid Utah team. Utah had won a bunch of games coming into this game and Heat were going for their 7-th straight themselves. Interesting game till the end and the Heat again won behind some balanced scoring. Antoine Walker had a strong night scoring and the Heat are just clicking right now for whatever reason. The Okur-Boozer gang played well, but just fell short.

The King took the day off with back spasms and the Cavs beat the Kings anyways. They are now 3-0 without LeBron. Go Figure! Ira Newble went from nowhere on the bench to the starting small forward to score 12 points. Goes to show you how hard it is to survive in this league. There are tonnes of talented guys who can't even get on the floor. Thats how competitive things are in American professional sports leagues. Another guy who I always thought would do well if he got a chance, Sasha Pavlovic, scored 25 to match Larry Hughes's 25. I am glad the Coach is finally using players like Sasha because, for a while, he never valued offensive talent and just went with people who he thought are good defensively. The King needs help on offense and Sasha is one of the few guys in that team with some true offensive skills.

Tony Parker had 25 as the Spurs won their 13-th straight. Clippers are going down a slippery slope right now. C-Webb had a 24-8-6 night as the Pistons won at Seattle. Josh Smith had an awesome 26-17 night as the 76'ers lost at Atlanta. Phily has been on a roll lately. Richard Jefferson had a big night with 26-6-3 as the Nets won on the road against the Hornets. Good win for Minnesota too.

Big game tomorrow between Dallas and Phoenix.

Sacramento @ Cleveland - 100-124
Utah @ Miami - 86-88
LA Clippers @ San Antonio - 84-93

Interesting games on the board for Mar 14-th (Wednesday)

Phoenix @ Dallas - Great match-up after a while in the NBA. Suns are 0-2 this year against the Mavs.

New York @ Toronto - Suddenly a relevant game.

Warriors crush the Mavs - NBA notes - 03/12/2007

You always hear that the NBA game is all about match-ups. They start talking about this a lot more especially when the playoffs start. Sometimes it makes sense, but sometimes it just sounds like something the over-paid, dim-witted TV analysts have to say to justify their jobs on 24 hour all-sports TV networks. This was one of those days where the whole match-up angle made a lot of sense. The Warriors crushed the Mavs to stop their 17-game winning streak, but it was not even that surprising to me. Believe it or not the Warriors have won 4 straight against the Mavs and 5 of 6 the last 2 years. They match-up very well against the Mavs and with Nelly coaching the Warriors now, the Mavs have problems against this team. The Warriors blitzed them right from the start and though the teams were tied at 33 after one, the Warriors felt good coming out of that quarter and just kept on going. Nowitzki had just 13 in this one and the Warriors had an impressive win finally.

The Suns beat the Rockets for their 9-th win in 10 games since the all-star break. It looks like the Brazilian Blur has been carrying the Suns lately. He had 32 points on 12-18 shooting with 5-6 from beyond the arc. Yao shot 1-9 and T-Mac shot 8-28 and thats not going to get it done for the Rockets. Thats some pathetic numbers against a soft defense like the Suns. Orlando's free fall continued today with a 119-108 loss at Charlotte despite 26-11 from Dwight Howard. Carter had 30-10 to guide the Nets over Memphis. The Nets might have some juice now with Richard Jefferson back from injury. The Magic are probably done.

The other big news of the day was from the Big Apple. Knicks chairman James Dolan announced an extension for Coach and President Isiah Thomas in a surprising move. He had said at the beginning of the season that Isiah had just a year to show some improvement and he now says he has seen it. I kinda agree with Dolan. Isiah has been one of the worst GMs probably in the history of the game. But he was not fired earlier and this is definitely not the time to fire now given the Knicks have looked much better under him than they ever did under the hall-of-famer Larry Brown. He has gotten a lot out of Eddie Curry, which has also improved his image as a GM because that was one of his big moves last year. He has also convinced Starbury to play in a system and defer to Curry and Jamal Crawford. He also has Stevie Franchise play second or third fiddle to all these other guys and he has the Knicks in the playoff race. I think he has earned an extension. My point is simply this. If Dolan didn't fire Isiah for all that he did between 2003 and 2006, there is no reason to fire him now that he has actually improved the franchise in the last 6 months or so.

Dallas @ Golden State - 100-117
Houston @ Phoenix - 82-103

Interesting games on the board for Mar 13-th (Tuesday)

Sacramento @ Cleveland - The Kings are in The King's way.

Utah @ Miami - Miami has been rolling without Wade, but here's a good test coming from the real conference.

LA Clippers @ San Antonio - The paper-Clips meet the streaking Spurs.

Sweet 17 for the Mavs - NBA notes - 03/11/2007

Embarrassing loss for the Lakers today. They lost by 36 points and the game was not even that close :-) I said that the Lakers can win if Kobe scores 81 and boy was I right! They have nothing else going on right now and Kobe can't do it himself. This is how bad their lineup with all the injuries. Kobe shot 6-19, which is hardly impressive. But most of the other guys in the starting lineup shot worse than him. You got to understand that some of those shots were wide-open shots manufactured for them by Kobe. All of this combined to result in an easy 17 for the Mavs. Now they will try to beat the Suns' 17 game streak from earlier in the season.

Riles drew up a game-winning play at the buzzer for Udonis Haslem of all people and the Heat surprised the Wizards at the end to win by 2 points. Balanced scoring for the Heat with 8 guys in double figures. Daddy played only 16 minutes for 12 points. Looks like this Heat team is gelling well without D-Wade. Eddie Jones is contributing big and the Daddy is again showing he can play with a variety of guys. Gil had 33 points and Jamison had 26-15 in the loss.

Denver took care of the Kings on the road for what feels like the first semi-meaningful win for the Nuggets since AI came to town. Artest was back for the Kings and Bibby had another big night with 34 points. But Melo's 29 and AI's 24 were good enough for the Nuggets. The King continued his brilliance as he had a 26-7-6 night against the Pacers who were without O'Neal. The good times are here for the Cavs right now. In Houston, the Rockets beat the slumping Magic 103-92, but more importantly, Yao was back big time with a 37-point night on 14-22 shooting. Those are the kind of numbers he was putting up before the injury. I am sure the Rockets are happy to see this.

Dallas @ LA Lakers - 108-76
Washington @ Miami - 104-106
Denver @ Sacramento - 113-101
Indiana @ Cleveland - 88-99

Interesting games on the board for Mar 12-th (Monday)

Dallas @ Golden State - Mavs go for the 18-th straight. This will erase the Suns' 17 straight earlier in the season.

Houston @ Phoenix - This should be a good one with Yao back and healthy and the Suns struggling just a bit.

Franchise sighting. - NBA notes - 03/10/2007

There was a Stevie Franchise sighting today. In the spirit of March Madness, Francis hit a buzzer-beating 3 to defeat the Wizards to cap off a 26 point night. Bad loss for the Wizards. Agent-0 should be tired or something. He is shooting really bad since the All-Atar break. Spurs won their 12-th straight as expected. The Nets were no match for them, not after both Coach Frank and J-Kidd got ejected.

The King had another phenomenal game today. He had a 32-8-9 night and the Cavs won a close one at Milwaukee. He had the ball at the end, but found the open Anderson Varejao for the go-ahead bucket. Redd had 29 points, but Eric Snow played great D on him and got mad props from Coach Brown. Phily won another game today as they beat Indiana on the road behind the new AI's 25. What in the World is happening with the 76'ers? Utah won another game as Okur scored 29. This dude is ballin' right now! The T-Wolves had a bad loss today at Atlanta despite 32 from KG. Nights like this should be frustrating the hell out of KG.

New Jersey @ San Antonio - 77-93
New York @ Washington - 90-89
Cleveland @ Milwaukee - 94-92

Interesting games on the board for Mar 11-th (Sunday)

Dallas @ LA Lakers - If Kobe scores 81, may be the Lakers can prevent the 17-th straight win for the Dallas.

Washington @ Miami - Wizards actually have the better record, but Miami might be the better team now.

Denver @ Sacramento - Good game in the lower half of the Western playoff race.

Indiana @ Cleveland - What will Bron do next?

Father Time! - NBA notes - 03/9/2007

Shaq-Daddy is looking good right now. He had 32 on 13-16 shooting - thats almost flashback numbers. Daddy is showing that he can still do it if needed. Wade is good and he is the goto guy for the Heat, but thats only because he is good and not because the Diesel is not good anymore. Of course you could say he can't do it day-in and day-out, but he still seems to be able to do it 2 out of 4 days and that aint bad at all. In fact it's real good for the Heat who have now won 5 in a row. T-Wolves had no answer for Shaq in-spite of KG's 23-11.

Kobe went to Lower Merion High and did some off the court work before the game at Phily. But his on-court work fell short of perfection. He had 30, but Andre Iguodala's 31-8-4 on 11-18 shooting finished off the under-staffed Lakers. Phily seems to be doing better with the new AI than they did with the old AI. Andre Miller also had 23-3-8. This guy is one of the most under-rated point-guards in the league. I would definitely have no problem building a team with this guy at the point. Kobe again elbowed a guy in his face, with Kyle Korver being the victim this time. I don't think Kobe will be suspended for this one, but the elbow-shot made it to the highlight shows. Kobe also got booed a lot at Phily as always. Looks like they are never going to forget him claiming that he is "coming to Philly to cut their hearts out," during the 2001 NBA finals.

It was Nachbar-time for the Nets as Visanity stunk it up against his cousin. T-Mac had 34 and Yao had 24-13 to dump the Nets who were led by Bostjan Nachbar's 29. I guess he wanted to teach his ex-team a lesson. The Clip-joint lost to the Warriors on the road. B-Dizzle had 25 points to lead the W's against the team currently in the 8-th spot. The Clips have a tough trip trip ahead and they may fall out of the playoffs in a week or so. The problem for the W's is that they are in a 5-way fight with the Clips and 3 more teams in the T-Wolves, Hornets and the Kings.

The Suns won again, but the question in Phoenix again was "what's wrong with the Suns?". They again looked sluggish and won by a point against the Hornets scoring just 104. The Hornets could have won it at the buzzer, but David West threw an air-ball. Amare had 18-11 and Nashty had 15 and 10 dimes. Diaw is back now and may be that'll help. They are 9-1 in the last ten games and you can't really complain about that kind of a record, but they do need to look better winning games against the bad teams. Otherwise, you may have big problems against the good and great teams.

Melo came back today, but the Pistons still won at Denver comfortably. C-Webb lead all scorers with 20-9 night. In Boston, Al Jefferson had 31-16 to help the Celts beat the Sonics 118-103. Surprisingly 18000 people till showed up for this game at Boston. May be they thought Kevin Durant was already in town :-)

LA Lakers @ Phily - 92-108
NO/OK @ Phoenix - 103-104
New Jersey @ Houston - 91-112
LA Clippers @ Golden State - 89-99

Interesting games on the board for Mar 10-th (Saturday)

New Jersey @ San Antonio - Spurs going for 12-th straight.

New York @ Washington - New York is in playoff contention and this is a game they would love to win.

Cleveland @ Milwaukee - King V Redd usually means high-scoring fun.

The Ginobli show - NBA notes - 03/08/2007

The Ginobli show is coming back to your nearest NBA city and boy are the Spurs happy to see it! He torched the Kings for 31-5-3 today coming off the bench and he has been doing that a lot lately. This is the Ginobli they had 2 years back when they won the championship. If you remember, he became the goto-guy and Timmy was reduced to setting screens for him in the last 2 minutes of the game. Then last year, Manu got injured and never got into a groove. Still the Spurs were one play away from a trip to the finals and a possible championship. Ironically, it was Ginobli who committed a stupid foul on Nowitzki at the end of game 7 to screw things up for the Spurs. This year started like last for Ginobli, but he seems to be on a roll lately. Thats very good news for the Spurs and bad news for the Mavs and the Suns. Timmy had 16-13 and the Spurs beat the Kings for their 11-th straight.

The Bulls got back on track against the lowly Magic. D-Howard had 17-14 with 2 blocks, but nothing else is happening for the Magic these days. I am happy Grant Hill is playing, but he is not doing anything noteworthy. He started the season a lot better than this. The Magic are now barely holding onto the 8-th spot in the L-East. For the Bulls, it was the usual Ben Gordon-Kirk Hinrich show with a helping of Luol Deng. Benny had 25.

In other news, a dude is suing the Pacers and their Mascot for permanently injuring him. Nathaniel Jackson, who lives in northern Indiana's Adams County, alleges in his lawsuit that as he entered Conseco Fieldhouse for a March 11, 2005 game against Golden State he was asked to take part in a free-throw shooting contest during a time out. Jackson, who is in his mid-20s, initially declined, saying he was recovering from back surgery but was assured that "there would be no reason for concern or injury," according to the lawsuit, which was filed March 2 in Marion Superior Court. After taking part in the free-throw contest, the lawsuit states that Jackson began to leave the basketball court but was tackled from behind by the team's mascot, "Boomer," a 6-foot-tall blue cat with gold whiskers. The employee who knew about Jackson's back surgery immediately told the mascot about the surgery, and Boomer responded by kicking at Jackson's legs, the lawsuit alleges.

This may be a rare, legitimate suit of this kind, but who knows.

San Antonio @ Sacramento - 100-93
Chicago @ Orlando - 100-76

Interesting games on the board for Mar 9-th (Friday)

LA Lakers @ Phily - Kobe comes back from suspension and goes back to Phily where he went o high school.

NO/OK @ Phoenix - The Suns look a little sluggish right now. Keep and eye on them.

New Jersey @ Houston - Vinsanity-V-McGrady.

LA Clippers @ Golden State - This is the game for you if you are interested in the 8-th spot in the NBA playoffs.

Who can stop the King? - NBA notes - 03/07/2007

King James had another great game tonight as he helped the Cavs beat the Pistons on the road. He had 41-7-8 and tied the game on a dunk to send it to OT. He hit a long 3 at the buzzer to win it, but it was just a bit after the buzzer. So they had to do OT where he had an amazing block on Rip Hamilton. The game-tying dunk showed you what's different with Pistons this year. I don't think James would have had such easy forays to the basket if Big Ben was standing here. C-Webb is awesome on the other end of the floor but he is no Big-Ben on defense and it showed today.

Shaq had 24-9-8 and showed us how good a passer he can be. Eddie Jones had 23 as the Heat crushed the Bulls. In Phoenix, Amare was ejected in the third quarter with his second T and the Suns were taken to OT by the lowly Bobcats! But they hung on to win as the Brazilian Blur scored 32 points and Nash had 24-6-11. The Suns shot 19-38 from 3-point land. 38 threes! Thats something. They have been playing some uninspired ball lately and they need to fix it soon if they want to win against the big dawgs. Denver went into Oakland without Melo and lost to the Warriors 96-110. Melo stayed back to see the birth of his baby. So AI was on his own and was on fire the first half. The Warriors slowed him down in the second half and took control of the game. The Warriors have everybody healthy now and have won 2 straight. Baron Davis had a 22-5-9 night to offset AI's 35-6-3. Denver is not a good team right now without Melo. May be not even with him, but definitely not without him.

The other big news of the day was Kobe's suspension for flailing and throwing his arm backward at Marko Jaric's face. Poor fans of Milwaukee didn't get a chance to see Kobe. Instead they got a Lakers starting lineup of Smush Parker, Sasha Vujacic, Mo Evans, Brian Cook and Andrew Bynum. Thats a total of 39 points per game! The Bucks beat them easily. The national media and the fans seem to be pretty critical of Kobe. He didn't get too much love on this one. Even people who said he didn't deserve the suspension when he hit Ginobli on an identical play, didn't defend Kobe this time.

Cleveland @ Detroit - 101-97
Chicago @ Miami - 70-103

Interesting games on the board for Mar 8-th (Thursday)

San Antonio @ Sacramento - No Ron-Ron for the Kings.

Chicago @ Orlando - The Bulls need to get back on track after the spanking at Miami.

Streaking, West coast style. - NBA notes - 03/06/2007

It feels like the entire Western conference is on a massive winning streak. The Mavs won their 16-th straight and the Spurs won their 10-th straight today. I am losing count of how many mega-streaks the Mavs have been on this year. This is their third such streak and they are just one short of the 17-game streak the Suns went on earlier this year, which incidentally was the second of two mega-streaks the Suns have been on themselves. Bottom-line, the Western playoffs are going to be nuts and I can easily see any of these 3 teams winning it all. Timmy had 24 and Manu had 23 as the Spurs came from behind to beat the Blazers.

Agent-0 is winning again now that Tawn and Caron are back. They crushed Toronto today with a season-high 129 points. Tawn and Agent-0 both had 25 points as did C-Bosh for the Raptors, who are losing quite a bit lately. Kobe dropped 40 on the T-Wolves on 13-30 shooting as the Lakers lost another close one in double OT. KG had 26 and Ricky Davis had 33 for the T-Wolves. The Lakers are struggling badly with all the injuries. Kobe is forced to shoot a lot more and is not making a lot of those shots either. I never thought I would say this, this might be one team that can probably use Scottie Pippen. He knows the coach, the offense and knows how to play with a dominant shooting guard like Kobe. Now with Lamar out, they should try this guy out.

In New York, Starbury had 40 points, but missed what would have been a game-tying free-throw as the Knicks lost by a point to the Sonics (100-99). Starbury is on fire since Jamal Crawford went down and has scored 34, 38 and 40 in the last 3 games. I like Starbury. He can do well in the right team and the right system. Of course, it's his fault he gave all of that up when he wanted out of Minnesota and KG-land.

The other news today was George Karl openly blasting Carmelo. He is accusing him of not focussing and blaming him for too many turnovers, not seeing open teammates etc. He is threatening to move to a dictatorship from democracy (whatever that means) and put him on the bench. George Karl is very vocal and this is an interesting strategy. Melo seemed to respond at least for a day as he had 21-7-6 with just 2 turnovers. Those are good numbers for Melo, especially the 6 dimes. Melo is another guy who needs to rebound better. He apparently had more double-doubles in one year at Syracuse than he has had in his entire career in the NBA. Thats not a good ratio!

Toronto @ Washington - 109-129
LA Lakers @ Minnesota - 107-117 (2 OT)
New Jersey @ Dallas - 89-102

Interesting games on the board for Mar 7-th (Wednesday)

Cleveland @ Detroit - Always a good match-up.

Chicago @ Miami - Can Shaq-Daddy handle the defensive minded Bulls? Or will his minions do it themselves?

Yao's (almost) back - NBA notes - 03/05/2007

Yao was back today, though he looked real rusty. He threw up an array of air-balls and rim-rattlers. He also had a nasty fall as he tripped over big-Z and luckily it was not as bad as it looked. T-Mac had another tough shooting night as he shot 10/32 and they were no match for the LeBrons. King had 32-12-8 as his awesome stretch continues. By the way, he should have 12 boards every game given his size and athleticism. I will cut him some slack on the assists as he might actually have 8 dimes every game if any of the other Cavs can shoot to save their lives! LeBron also stole an alley-hoop dunk from Anderson Varejao as both went up for the ball simultaneously. Van Gundy seemed to go to Yao a little bit too much on his first day back. He is either sick of seeing T-Mac shooting or may be he just realized T-Mac is having a bad shooting streak going the last few games.

The Warriors went into Detroit and bitch-slapped the best team in the East 111-93. Looked like they were really motivated after the "T-defeat" at Washington yesterday. Also B-Dizzle was back and that always helps though he had 7 turnovers. The Warriors put 6 guys in double digits. Detroit is not going to win too many games when Lindsey Hunter is their leading scorer with 20. San Antonio won at the Clip-joint for their season-high 9 straight wins. They are slowly but surely asserting themselves in the race for the West. In other games, Mehmet Okur scored 32 for the Jazz on 13/15 shooting. I am amazed watching this guy shoot. At 7 feet, he is probably one of the best shooters in the league. He can hit an array of jumpers from pretty much anywhere on the floor. He is as comfortable from mid-range as he is from beyond the arc and his stroke is pure. He is the Turkish Nowitzki! Utah easily beat the Bobcats in-spite of Gerald Wallace scoring 33 points. He is quietly having a monster year - the kind of which only the true fantasy geeks might appreciate or even notice :-)

Houston @ Cleveland - 85-91

Interesting games on the board for Mar 6-th (Tuesday)

Toronto @ Washington - Division leaders square off.

LA Lakers @ Minnesota - Every game is a tough game for the Lakers now.

New Jersey @ Dallas - The winning streak continues.

Suns slug it out - NBA notes - 03/04/2007

The Suns won today against the Lakers and it was a good game to watch, but not a very impressive performance by the Suns. Their offense was not humming like usual. They did not blow the Lakers out at home, but more surprisingly they never had one of those offensive stretches where they make the opponent feel overwhelmed and overmatched. And this was against a Lakers team that was hurting bad. Kwame just came back from his injury and they are still missing Radmanovic, Luke Walton, Chris Mihm and now they say Lamar Odom might be done for the year. Thats 2 of their starters from last year including their second best player, their biggest bench contributor in Walton who became a great starter for them this year and their biggest off-season aquisition in Vlad-Rad. In-spite of all that, the Lakers had a shot at winning this one at the end as Kobe just shot 11-28 for 31 points. A better game from Kobe, and this might have been a different story. I heard the Lakers are 10-16 or something ugly like that without Luke Walton. Apparently, he is their best "triangulator".

Games like this scare me about the Suns. The moment a big-time, nationally televised, playoff-intensity game shows up, their offense stalls just a little bit! All said and done, this style may not be 100% playoff-proof. The run-and-gun (and fun) and the 3's disappear to some extent as the pressure mounts. Of course a lot of the problems on this day was because of the Lakers. D'Antoni gave them a lot of credit for imposing their tempo on the game. They always play great D and make sure the Suns don't run away with it. The Big-Chief-Triangle didn't win 9 rings for nothing! He knows how to D-Up. But still, I would have liked to see the Suns play better in this game against a depleted Lakers team. Nash had a great game with 23 and 10. There was a great stretch late in this game when Kobe and Nash were dominating at their respective ends of the floor and trading MVP-level punches. It was awesome to watch. Marion had 13-12 and played great D against Kobe and fouled out. Raja Bell may be a little over-rated with his D and I feel a lot more comfortable seeing Marion on Kobe. The Brazilian Blur had 20. Barbosa is one guy who always plays well against the Lakers these days.

The other big story of the day was how the Warriors lost to the Wizards. The Warriors have been finding new ways to lose games for 12 years now. But even by their standards, this game was weird. They go in to Washington to play against their former-friends and current-foes Gil and Twan and play real well to lead by 2 with a few seconds to go. So it's last shot time for the Wiz and they got Agent-0 handling the rock. He drives to the hoop and barely gets the shot off before the buzzer and the shot clanks off the rim. But the whistle blows after the buzzer on Pietrus for a foul on the drive. I am not sure about the call, but Nelly jumps up and down as you would expect any coach to do after such a call. Apparently he called the ref a f'ing idiot and gets T'eed up on top of this foul. So Gil gets to shoot 3 free throws with 0.1 sec on the clock. He nails all 3 in-spite of a Nelly timeout between the 2-nd and 3-rd and waves the Warriors good bye. It's good Nelly is Nelly and not a young 38 year-old coach trying to make name for himself! He can survive this. Interesting week for Nelly after all but conceding defeat in the playoff push early in the week.

Ben Gordon and Michael Redd combined to score 100 points today! Ben had 48 and Redd had 52 on identical 18-32 shooting in a match-up between 2 of the premier pure scorers in the league. Chicago won the game in OT 126-121. Boston needed double OT to beat the T-Wolves. Delonte West, another one of those guys having a better NBA career than people expected out of him coming out of college, had 31 points. There was a Troy Hudson sighting with 26 points. Not sure what happened to this guy after that awesome season 3 years back. KG had 33 and Ricky Davis had 35 in losing efforts.

LA Lakers @ Phoenix - 94 - 99

Interesting games on the board for Mar 5-th (Monday)

Houston @ Cleveland - T=Mac V LeBron with a side of Yao? Yao is expected to play in this one.

The King on Fire - NBA notes - 03/03/2007

LeBron's amazing run continued as he had 36-5-6 on 10-20 shooting against the Raptors. Bargnani missed this game since he was visiting his grand-father who is ill in Italy. Bosh had 25 points, but didn't shoot particularly well. King James raised his average to 33.6 points in his past seven games. He is on a tear right now like he was last season. He has not been as good this season as he was last year and may be he is getting there in time for the playoffs. The Spurs had no problems against the Rockets today. Timmy had 26 points and the Spurs held T-Mac to 21 points to throttle the Rockets offense.

The Magic gave the Mavs a surprisingly close game, but as usual the Mavs closed the door on them late. I think it's now getting to a point where the Mavs are bored playing everyday against inferior competition and they just turn it up in the 4-th after sleep walking most of the night. Today it was Jason Terry's turn to impress. He shot 6-11 from beyond the arc and scored 29 point to help the Mavs win 103-98. Starbury had 38 points and Steve Francis had 26 points for the Knicks as they are learning to play without Jamal Crawford. Jamal seemed to be Isiah's favorite offensive weapon. The ball always went to Jamal or Eddie Curry and now that Jamal is hurt, it's more shots for Marbury, Q and Francis and they should be enjoying it.

Toronto @ Cleveland - 97-120
San Antonio @ Houston - 97-74

Interesting games on the board for Mar 4-th (Sunday)

LA Lakers @ Phoenix - First real meeting after last year's playoffs. They played on opening night, but without Kobe.

Shaq-Attack - NBA notes - 03/02/2007

Shaq was ballin today with 31 points and 15 boards. Remember the days when this used to be normal numbers for him? It feels like that was a generation ago. Shaq has not had too many of those games the last 2 years ever since Dwayne Wade started asserting himself on the court. But now with D-Wade out, golden opportunity for the Diesel to show he is still the daddy. He was probably very happy to see the pistons without Ben Wallace, though he never had too much trouble with Ben Wallace either since the Pistons usually let Ben guard him one on one. But still, it would have felt real good to see C-Webb and Dale Davis trying to defend him. Even a healthy, athletic C-Webb back in his Kings days was never matched up against Shaq. How do you expect him to stop the daddy now with one good knee? Good win for the Heat and I would be very interested to see how good can Shaq be.

There have been a few of these good stories this year. T-Mac was having lower numbers and was even talking about how his body was aging due to all that basketball he has already played. But when Yao went down, he is back to being the old T-Mac showing he can still do it and was only willingly taking a back-seat to Yao for the good of the team. Shaq can look just as good if he keeps putting up 30-15 type numbers. The question is, can he consistently do it at this age? He tried to answer it himself in the post-game interview in a way only Shaq can. "Word is, they think I'm an old man," said O'Neal, 35, who was surprised that the Pistons did not double-team him. "Pat Riley told me this morning to go out and get 30 points. I take it personal when people don't double me. It's against my religion to not double me. I'm the baddest big man in my age bracketus". So here's another new term from Shaq-tionary "age bracketus". He explained that it means he was the best 21 year-old when he was 21 years old and he is now the best 35 year old big man. He is s funny dude.

Here's some more fun quotes from Shaq after the Heat met the President at the White House. "When it comes to ridiculization, if you can't walk in a man's shoes, you shouldn't ridicule him," O'Neal says. "When I was sitting in the blue room and seeing all the (stuff) the president has to go through, people bringing him letters and a million people walking around, I couldn't do that job." O'Neal wasn't above pulling a prank. He let air out of the ball that was given to Bush, and when the president tried to dribble it, the ball wouldn't bounce. "You don't want the president bouncing the ball and hitting him in the face and we'll be all on TV," O'Neal says. "I don't want nothing happening to the president on my watch."

In other games, Sacto went into LA and punked the Lakers. The Lakers are hurting right now. Bibby always steps up for these games and he had 33 points. Kwame came back and should help them a bit. Houston went into Denver and won as expected. T-Mac had a bad shooting night, but Melo and AI went bad-shot for bad-shot with him and had equally bad shooting nights to lose another one. AI should be pissed right now. He just can't win the last few years and it reflects badly on him now that he is in a new team with supposedly more talent. Wizards won against the Hawks 93-92 as Jamison returned with a 22-6-3 night for the captain. Suddenly Jamison has become most known captain in sports after Derek Jeter! Milwaukee went into Toronto and shocked the Raptors. Now that the Bucks have Redd and others back from injury, they are beating some good teams. Ginobli had a 31-4-5 night and looks like he is rounding into top form. A healthy, good Ginobli might be what separates the Spurs from another Championship. Phoenix busted out the whupping-stick on the Pacers. This one was over in the first half.

Detroit @ Miami- 82-85
Houston @ Denver -108-87
Sacramento @ LA Lakers - 116-108

Interesting games on the board for Mar 3-rd (Saturday)

Toronto @ Cleveland - Good L-Eastern conference match-up. King James is on fire now.

San Antonio @ Houston - All the inter-texas-triangle match-ups are pretty good.

The good King and the bad King - NBA notes - 03/01/2007

Spectacular performance from the King against the toughest team in the league on the road. LeBron scored 39 pts, 3 boards and 5 assists. Thats superstar numbers, but the Cavs still lost a close one. LeBron missed 2 crucial free throws and 2 3-pointers at the end. He also set up his teammates in the last few minutes for open 3's that they missed. The Mavs streak continues and all kinds of talk about the Cavs now. There's some talk about how LeBron is still not clutch enough and is not a closer. There's talk about how the Cavs don't have enough around him. There's talk about how the King is getting frustrated with the Cavs because of the talent around him and he might even want out if this continues. There's talk about how Danny Ferry is very aware of it and thats why they desperately wanted Bibby. By the way, Bibby would have been a PERFECT fit for the Cavs. A dependable shooter and a point guard who can clutch up with the best of them! There are also some rumblings about his big ego and poor shot selection at times. I think there is some truth to all of this.

Basically the expectations are too high for Bron-Bron. So if they don't win it all, there are going to be some criticisms over the next few years. Every super-star has to go through this. LeBron is still young and he is not a closer like Kobe or even Wade, at least not yet. Who can blame him if he has a big ego as well? There's nobody who has had to deal with the kind of hype this guy has dealt with since he was 14! Some of that has to get to his head eventually. Given all that, I would say he has been fairly controversy free and always seems to say the right things to the press. He is mature, but I can see in his demeanor and even his game that he may have some ego. He shares the ball real well, but sometimes I feel like he was a much better passer 2 years back. Hope he stays on course and realizes that in a year or two, they should put enough talent around him and he would also be good enough by then to win it all. There's no point getting upset with his front-office this early in his career. Hope he has his head screwed on straight like KG who, to this day, has not asked for a trade out of Minnesota in-spite of the fact nobody would blame him if he did. LeBron needs to be patient and also keep working on his game and things will work out in Cleveland. It's not that hard to build a winner around King James though the whole C-Boozer episode is still hurting the Cavs. They would be awesome if they had Carlos Boozer as their power forward. It was not meant to be and now LeBron should sit tight like KG and see what happens in Cleveland.

Cleveland @ Dallas - 92-95

Interesting games on the board for Mar 2-nd (Friday)

Detroit @ Miami- Another tough test for the Heat without Wade.

Houston @ Denver - Decent Western match-up.

Sacramento @ LA Lakers - Biggest rivalry in the league 5 years back! The Kings should wake up for this one even today.