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.

Suns disappoint - NBA notes - 02/28/2007

Suns blew one big-time today. They had an unique opportunity to win all 15 road games against the other conference (L-East) for the first time in the history of the game and they lost the 15-th and final game against the lowly Philadelphia! They now end the Eastern road trip 14-1! They didn't have Marion and Diaw today and Bell and Barbosa combined to shoot 5/17 from 3 and 9/32 overall to throttle the Suns offense. Only Nash and Stoudemire showed up and the Suns scored only 94 points. Anything less than 100 points usually means a loss for the Suns and the Sixers won even without any spectacular individual performances. The Suns never led in this game and this game probably shows how important Marion is to this team. He should feel happy tonight :-) Amare still had 31-14 and Nash, 23-5-9.

Miami won a road game behind Shaq's 23-10 against a depleted Wizards team. Gil shot 3-18 and this is becoming a daily story now. Toronto won at Houston today even without a strong showing by C-Bosh. They had balanced scoring and a good shooting night. Bargnani is amazing! He had 20 points on 8-12 shooting with 4-5 from the 3. This guy does look more and more like a young Nowitzki. T-Mac couldn't get it done today against eh Raptors. Denver won behind a strong night for AI. The guy can still have a 34-7-4 night any day of the week. Melo had 23 and a decent win for the Nuggets against an Orlando team thats struggling.

Boozer was truly back today with a 24-16 night against the Grizz. This was his routine before he got hurt and he might be back to that level soon. Knicks lost at Boston without Jamal Crawford who might be out for the season. Heat, Nets, Knicks and the Magic are all bunched up for the Eastern playoff spots 7 thru 10. Sacramento won a high-scoring game at home. Kevin Martin is enjoying Ron Artest's absence :-) He had 36 points today to go with Bibby's 30. Martin is the new fan favorite at Sacto and they better start re-building around him. He is not a super-star, but a good scorer to have on your team, especially when he is cheap.

Phoenix @ Philadelphia - 94-99
Toronto @ Houston - 106-90
Orlando @ Denver - 101-111

Interesting games on the board for Mar 1-st (Thursday)

Cleveland @ Dallas - Big match-up on paper, but I expect Dallas to blow the Cavs out.

Baker's dozen for the Mavs - NBA notes - 02/27/2007

Shaun Livingston's injury yesterday was one of the worst thing I have ever seen on TV. The guy took off on a fast-break and went in for an uncontested layup, only to crumble on to the floor with what looked like a dislocated knee cap. Not only was it a strange injury since nobody touched him, it was a gruesome one. I never thought a guy's leg can bend that way! You could see the knee-cap all whacked out and the team doctor had to pop it back in before wheeling him away. Now they are saying he has torn his ACL, PCL, MCL and lateral meniscus. He will be sidelined eight to 12 months. I hope he comes back healthy. He is a central piece to the Clippers puzzle. Not that the paper-Clips have solved too many puzzles over the last 15 years, but he is one of the few good players they have drafted over the years.

The Mavs won their 13-th straight today. The T-Wolvers didn't even show up today. They lost 65-91. KG shot 5-16 and thats hardly a challenge to the high-flying Mavs! Howard was back after he tweaked his ankle yesterday. He had 17-7 and Dirk had 23-14 to keep the good thing going. Cuban is now talking about bringing Reggie Miller back. Not sure they need him, but Miller might need them. The Mavs' bete-noire Phoenix Suns won again at Indiana. They have not lost a single game on the road against the East. Thats unheard off and tomorrow they play their last road game on the Eastern sea-board against the 76-ers. If they win, which they should, they would have gone 15-0 on the road against the (L)East. Today they were trailing by 18 points against the Pacers in the third before coming back and winning by 11 points! A 18 point lead against the Suns should feel like 5 points against other teams. The Suns can probably erase it in 5 minutes and thats only because the other team would burn 3 or 4 of those minutes on their offense! Nash-ty had 23 and 11 assists with Marion pouring in 22. Diaw finally came back from injury played some for the Suns.

The Nets shot the lights out from beyond the arc to beat the Wizards. Apparently the Kidd can shoot! He scored 26 points on 6-9 from downtown. He also had 8 boards and 9 assists. Agent-0 had 26 on 25 shots. He is in trouble now with both Butler and Jamison out with injuries. King James had an awesome game with 35-5-8 today against Chris Paul and the Hornets. Paul had a bad game with 7-5-5.

Washington @ NJ - 101-113
Phoenix @ Indiana - 103-92

Interesting games on the board for Feb 28-th (Wednesday)

Phoenix @ Philadelphia - Suns are going to be the first team to sweep the inter-conference road schedule. They are 14-0 as of today.

Toronto @ Houston - Can Toronto beat a good Western team?

Orlando @ Denver - Can Orlando pile on a struggling Denver?

Mavs win a dozen - NBA notes - 02/26/2007

Mavs have won 12 straight again. Howard tweaked his ankle and might miss a game or two, but shouldn't be a big problem for the Mavs. I don't see a weakness with this team right now. They should be the hands-down favorites to win the title this year. The Spurs beat Toronto today at home behind 24-16 for Timmy and 27-5-9 for Tony. They had Bargnani guarding Timmy at times and thats what I could call "coach approved rookie-hazing"! I saw Robert Horry get a flat-footed offensive rebound in this game and just put the ball back in without even leaving his feet. He was so wide open (probably pushed off the guy boxing him out), that he didn't even feel compelled to jump for the put-back. He probably figured it's not playoff time yet, why waste some energy jumping!

Kobe was sick today and shot just 7/21, but still had 35 points and the Lakers won at Utah. Big win for the Lakers after a few bad losses. Utah finally had all it's bullets and looks like they didn't know what to do with everybody. Miami lost at New York with Eddie Curry scoring 28 points. I never thought I would see the day when Eddie Curry would outplay Shaq-Daddy. Starbury scored 18 of his 25 points in the 4-th and Heat better get used to these kinds of games. They are going to be up and down without Wade. Their role players will over-achieve on some days at home and lose a lot on the road. And thats just the way it's gonna be unless Shaq takes a road trip to Orlando and finds his fountain of youth. Speaking of Orlando, they won on the road after a long time. Bad loss for the Bulls. Boston won at Houston as T-Mac joined Yao on the bench with a flu. The Truth had 28 pts. Denver won at Memphis behind huge nights for Melo (33-6-3), AI (25-5-9) and Nene (27-9). This could be a recipe for success for the Nuggets if only these 3 guys can do to real NBA teams what they did to the Grizzlies today.

LA Lakers @ Utah - 102-94
Toronto @ San Antonio - 91-107
Miami @ New York - 93-99

Interesting games on the board for Feb 27-th (Tuesday)

Washington @ NJ - Should be a fun, high-scoring contest.

Phoenix @ Indiana - Suns are yet to lost on the road against the L-East.

STAT is back - NBA notes - 02/25/2007

Amare had a monster game today reminding us of his STAT-days from the 2005 playoffs. He had a 43-17 game with Marion going for 21-7 and Nash scoring 14 points to go with 13 assists. It's time to officially declare "Amare is back"! I think he is close to 95% of where he was before the injury. We don't see as many ferocious dunks as we saw before, but thats partially because he is a mature player now who knows how to score without picking up 3 offensive fouls a quarter. There's more finesse and jump shots in his game today and thats not all because of the injury. In any case, the West better watch out for this guy.

Vinsanity had a 40 point night to help the Nets beat the Knicks. He also had 9 boards and 8 assists. Not bad for someone who was going to be traded 3 days back. Vince's cousin T-Mac went in to his old stomping grounds and scored 34 points (not quite the 45 I had predicted) to beat the Magic in front of his mom. Orlando is struggling lately and not sure if they'll even make the playoffs. Right now they are behind the Nets for the 8-th spot. The other guy who had a huge scoring night today was Kevin Martin of Sacramento. He had 35 points as the Kings beat Pacers with Ron Artest missing the game for personal reasons. Not sure what thats all about. Hope he didn't take some time off to feed his (allegedly) starving dogs :-) The Kings are actually putting together a playoff run and might overtake the Warriors and the Clippers to get in.

Chicago lost at Detroit after leading by 16 points in the third. Detroit is back to doing what they do best. D-up, play some team-ball, execute in the clutch and win. Ben Wallace was back in Detroit and the PA announcer gave him a nice intro, calling him the "cornerstone of Detroit's resurgence"! I have never seen the official PA guy treating a returning player that nice. The C-Webb experiment is still doing real well. He won the game on a tip-in off a Billups miss. He had a 21-9 night. Cleveland had another disappointing loss at Miami even without Wade. King had 29-3-7, but Daddy had a 19-11 night to lead a bunch of Heat role players to the promised land. Lets see how far the Diesel can take them now.

Garnett had a 26-17 game to beat the Wizards. Agent-0 had a 4-22 shooting night and thats not what wins games for the Wizards. He shot 1-11 from downtown. You would think you will stop shooting the 3 after 5 or 6 misses, but then again he shot only 3-11 from inside the arc. So I guess he figured it didn't matter where he was shooting it from today.

I was watching the Lakers - Golden State game today and saw a really bad performance by Nelly's Warriors. They are embarking on a 6 game roadie and that might end their playoff dreams. Kobe had 26 points and Mo Evans had a matching 26 on 10 less shot attempts than Kobe! It's amazing how the game gets really easy for the role players when they play with a super-star like Kobe. Evans was wide-open all night, and mostly right under the basket. By the way, what's up with the Warriors defense? Looked like every time Kobe got double or triple teamed, the open guy was right under the basket and not at the 3-point line like defensive rotations often dictate. I was also surprised by the number of Laker and Kobe fans you see in every venue around the league. Kobe is hugely popular and his image-rehab seems to be totally complete. Amazing, considering he had to deal with the double whammy of the rape case and the Shaq trade.

Chicago @ Detroit- 93-95
Houston @ Orlando - 97-93
Cleveland @ Miami - 81-86
Phoenix @ Atlanta - 115-106

Interesting games on the board for Feb 26-th (Monday)

LA Lakers @ Utah - Kobe goes in to Utah to face a tough opponent.

Toronto @ San Antonio - If Toronto thinks they are real contenders, this is their place to prove it.

Miami @ New York - Pat Riley takes his team into New York to face the much-improved Knicks, but is without Wade.

Elton is an awesome Brand! - NBA notes - 02/24/2007

Elton Brand reminded us why the Clippers were so good last year. He had 31-12 with 8 blocks. It's amazing how dominant this guy can be from anywhere on the court, especially if he is playing bad defensive teams like the Warriors. For a 6-8 guy, he is a fantastic shot-blocker too. But Brand is having a down year compared to last and thats one of the reasons they are struggling. His numbers are down across the board (except for his shooting %). He is scoring more than 4 points less than last year and that combined with a decaying Sam Cassell and a dysfunctional Corey Maggette is enough to derail this team. Brand was a MVP candidate last year and this year, he was not even an all-star though the West picked 16 players with all those injury replacements. But today was different for the Clips. Everybody chipped in with great games. Tm Thomas had a 17-10 night with quality shots. Meggette had 18 points and Livingston had 14 points and 14 assists. Thats the Shaun Livingston the Clippers have been waiting for. The Warriors were really good in this one until the 4-th reminding me of an old Warriors joke. What's the difference between a dollar bill and the Golden State Warriors? You can get 4 good quarters out of a dollar bill. The Warriors have a boat-load of wing players now and Nelson is just wheeling these guys in and out. They got Stephen Jackson, J-Rich, Pietrus, Matt Barnes, Azubike, Monta Ellis and Jasikevicius. Thats not even counting Al Harrington who in my opinion is an over-rated big. He is just a bigger wing player.

Denver lost at Dallas as Melo and AI combined to score 60 points and committed 16 turnovers. 16 TOs almost erases half of their 60 point output. Thats either a symptom of poor decision making or guys not having played together enough on this team. I think it's a combination of both. Nowitzki had 31-11 and Josh Howard had 27. They have now won 11 straight again. In other games, Toronto, Utah and San Antonio all won.

Denver @ Dallas - 95-115
Golden State @ LA Clippers - 90-103

Interesting games on the board for Feb 25-th (Sunday)

Chicago @ Detroit- Two teams on a roll run into each other here. Should be a playoff-intensity game on national TV.

Houston @ Orlando - T-Mac returns to Orlando. He might drop 45 here, or at-least try to.

Cleveland @ Miami - What a waste of a game without D-Wade.

Phoenix @ Atlanta - The Suns lost to the Hawks at home without Nash. Atlanta can expect a spanking.

Booze is back - NBA notes - 02/23/2007

Carlos Boozer came back today. Didn't play too well or for too long, but Utah didn't need him at Denver. Neither did they miss Mehmet Okur (out) or AK-47 (left the game very early with a tweaked knee). Essentially what I am saying is, Utah's B-Team punked the Nuggets at Denver. Melo had 36 and 6 assists on 12-18 shooting and AI shot 11-18 for 33 points to go with his 5 assists, but they still lost comfortably. The 2 stars are trying to be very well-behaved with the ball and still they keep losing. Chemistry is such an intangible. I can't even tell you what's wrong with them, but it's just not working out, at least not yet. It's not even that they gave up size to get AI. They have Nene and Camby starting and that should actually take care of rebounding and interior defense since Camby is also a good shot-blocker. Looks like the idea of having 2 monster scorers who both can't do anything else is not a good recipe for success. No wonder George Karl conceded the division a few days back only to back-track later. Utah is VERY, VERY good. Deron Williams is a stud. They have found their PG of the future not too long after Stockton retired. He is second only to Steve Nash as the leading assist-man in the league with 9.3. He had a 26 pt 14 assist night to show the Nuggets how it's done.

Marion had 27-14 and the Suns beat the T-Wolves to avenge the streak-breaking defeat they suffered earlier this season at Minnesota. Amare had 23-11, Barbosa had 24 and Nash had 9 with 15 assists. In other words, just another game for the Suns! Toronto and Chicago are on a roll right now. Both of them won big games today against Indiana and Washington respectively. Chris Bosh is blooming into a superstar right now and seems like a class guy too. Chicago beat Agent-0's 36 points and the Wizards. Luol Deng celebrated his non-trade with a 32 point night.

Indiana @ Toronto - 88-110
Washington @ Chicago - 90-105
Phoenix @ Minnesota - 116-104
Utah @ Denver - 114-104

Interesting games on the board for Feb 24-th (Saturday)

Denver @ Dallas - Not sure why I still think Nuggets games are interesting, but I still feel that way with Melo and AI on the same team.

Golden State @ LA Clippers - One of these 2 teams may make the playoffs in the West.

NBA notes - 02/22/2007 - Kidd and Nash .... almost

The trade deadline was a big non-event as expected. Nothing went down. Lakers were not willing to part with Bynum, and rightfully so, for J-Kidd. Bulls were not willing to part with Ben Gordon and/or Luol Deng for Pau Gasol. Not sure how right the Bulls were with that call. I might have gone for it. Cavs had nothing to part with to get Bibby. They don't have any young talent (except King James that is). They were willing to give Drew Gooden, but who wants Drew Gooden? There were a few small deals not worth discussing.

The most fascinating story I read today was about how the Phoenix Suns suddenly jumped into the Kidd trade talks and almost pulled it off. Thats something. Kidd and Nash running and gunning in this offense would have been awesome! The Suns would have gotten way more than the backup PG they have been looking for the last 3 years. I would guess they probably tempted Rod Thorn with those Atlanta picks. Not sure what else was offered to offset the salaries etc. I hope they didn't dangle Marion, but they probably did since these trades have to match the salaries.

As for the games today, Cleveland lost at home to Chicago. May be they were all depressed that Ferry couldn't score Bibby for them after all that time he invested :-) Dallas had no problem dealing with Miami without Wade. Shaq had 17 points and that was not even enough to offset Jason Terry's 21, let alone Nowitzki's 31-11. Agent-0 poured in 43 to beat the Kings. Artest had 32-6-3 but nobody could stop Agent-0.

Miami @ Dallas - 100-112
Chicago @ Cleveland - 84-98

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

Indiana @ Toronto - Almost identical records for these L-Eastern conference powerhouses!

Washington @ Chicago - Another good L-Eastern match-up.

Phoenix @ Minnesota - Phoenix lost there last time. Revenge time!

Utah @ Denver - Can AI and Melo win any meaningful games?

NBA notes - 02/21/2007 - Wade is gone!

Big news of the day was D-Wade's injury. Thats a huge loss for the Heat and the NBA in general. He is one of the biggest stars in the NBA and the national TV schedule has many telecasts planned around him and now those Heat games are not as much fun to watch. There's a Wade-LeBron game on ABC this weekend thats just not relevant now. They put on a tremendous show last year. One of the best regular season game you'll ever see. Shaq is still a big name, but the Heat are Wade's team now. Not sure how bad the injury is, but it doesn't look good now. The contact itself looked harmless and it was not one of those Wade flying through the air and crashing into bodies injury. He just extended his arm, reached in and hit Shane Battier as Shane was driving to the basket, but he immediately collapsed in severe pain. They had to cart him away in a wheelchair. The Heat lost to the Rockets and McGrady had 32-3-8

James scored 29 points, and Varejao slammed home teammate Sasha Pavlovic's missed shot with 16 seconds left to lift the Cavaliers to an 86-85 victory over the Raptors. The Suns took care of the Celtics at home. Nash had 14 and 13 and STAT had 32-12. Marion had 17-11 and 4 blocks. Amare is scoring 30 routinely these days. He might be back to his peak form already.

There were a few other interesting games on a busy day. Bucks lost at Indiana in double OT. Redd had 38 points. This guy is a true scorer. But O'Neal's 29-15 was too much for the Bucks. Mike Miller scored 45 points against the Warriors in a losing effort. He hit 16-27 shots with 9-17 being 3's. He put on a great show, but the young Warriors had balanced scoring on their side and won it at the end. Biedrins and Monta Ellis are just special players. Look out for them.

Thursday is the Trade deadline. Lets see what happens. Apparently Cleveland is desperate to get Mike Bibby.

Miami @ Houston - 102-112
Cleveland @ Toronto - 86-85
Boston @ Phoenix - 108-118

Interesting games on the board for Feb 22-nd (Thursday)

Miami @ Dallas - Without Wade, this may not be the match-up we all expected.

Chicago @ Cleveland - Good central match-up between teams that are pretty close to each other in the standings.

NBA Sabermetrics.

Interesting article today in San Jose Mercury about how statistical analysis and NBA "sabermetrics" is catching on big time in the league right now. I have always been fascinated by this area ever since I read the book Moneyball on the Oakland A's and Billy Beane. I know it was just a matter of time before we got something similar in the NBA and the NFL. It does look like thats happening now. This is a good article on the issue.

NBA gets warm & fuzzy with math

USING BERRI'S WINS PRODUCED EQUATION, DAVIS IS RESPONSIBLE FOR 5.7 OF THE WARRIORS' 25 VICTORIES THIS SEASON

By Mark Emmons
Mercury News

The cheering of Bay Area fans over the Warriors trade that shipped Mike Dunleavy and Troy Murphy -- along with their hefty contracts and headbands -- to Indiana last month continues to echo. The deal, which brought Al Harrington to Oakland, was wildly popular.

It shouldn't have been. Or so believes David Berri.

``Harrington at power forward is a disaster,'' Berri said. He called Harrington one of the five least productive regulars in the NBA last season, a player who will not improve the Warriors, and ``won't help his next team, either.''

Berri points to the Warriors' 6-8 record since Harrington and Stephen Jackson joined the lineup and adds: ``That's exactly what you would expect.''

And who is Berri? A guy whose sports career ended in junior high, Berri is a Cal State-Bakersfield economics professor and co-author of the book ``The Wages of Wins.''

He is part of the statistical analysis trend that is gaining an NBA foothold. Think ``Moneyball'' on the hardwood. Just as the numbers-centric view of evaluating players championed by the A's Billy Beane has revolutionized baseball, more NBA franchises are utilizing sophisticated algorithms to better understand their sport's X's and O's.

Armed with spreadsheets and dizzying formulas with names such as WINVAL, ProductivityValue and Player Efficiency Rating, some very smart people are trying to measure an individual's contributions in a complex team game.

``We absolutely take this very seriously,'' said Pete D'Alessandro, the Warriors' director of basketball operations. ``If you're not doing this, you're probably not keeping up. I can't imagine a team out there that at least isn't paying attention to it.''

Some franchises are adding front-office evaluators who know far more about snapping pencils than breaking ankles. The Houston Rockets' general manager in waiting, Daryl Morey, is a graduate of MIT's Sloan School of Management who has no coaching, playing or scouting experience.

The stat geeks are checking into the game. And the conclusions of some challenge conventional wisdom. Exhibit A: Berri's opinions about Harrington.

Quantifying game

There's a long history of stat-crunching in baseball, where sabermetrics -- derived from the acronym SABR, which stands for the Society for American Baseball Research -- is something of a religion. Quantitative analysis of baseball essentially involves computing the results of one-on-one confrontations between pitchers and hitters.

But basketball is more complicated on account of its interdependency among five players.

``When a basket goes in, you have no idea how to apportion the credit,'' said Dan Rosenbaum, an economics professor at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro and a consultant for the Cleveland Cavaliers. ``Some should go to the guy who scored, some to the guy with the assist, some to the player standing at the three-point line who drew defenders to him and created open space. It's even harder to assess who should get credit on defense. That's why evaluations have been subjective.''

Now, other -- and provocative -- tools are emerging. Traditional box scores can be inadequate in judging a player's performance, so statisticians are devising new measures. They comb data in search of a new sport buzz word: efficiencies.

Some, such as ESPN.com writer John Hollinger's Player Efficiency Rating, combine a range of stats to create one number they believe best captures a player's effectiveness. Others borrow from hockey's plus-minus method. So, if a team scores two points more than the opponent while a player is on the court, he would have a plus-2 rating.

But that basic concept is only the starting point for complex equations that could make a fan's head hurt.

Roland Beech works out of his home office in Aptos, where he endlessly watches games -- often in slow motion -- and charts stats. He has created an adjusted plus-minus measurement he calls ``on-court/off-the-court.''

``If you play for the Memphis Grizzlies, your plus-minus is likely to be negative no matter who you are,'' said Beech, founder of the Web site 82games.com. ``But does the team play better with you or without you? With this, you can get a sense of if a guy is actually improving things.''

Such systems are gaining credibility. A few years ago, Beech was one of several people who were doing analysis on the Internet fringes. ``Now, most of my friends from back then work for teams,'' he said. So does Beech, who declined to identify the franchise. Dean Oliver, who played at Cal Tech, has a doctorate degree and worked as an environmental engineer, was hired last year as the Denver Nuggets' director of quantitative analysis.

The Dallas Mavericks also were early adapters. The Mavs reportedly use WINVAL, a modified plus-minus method devised by Jeff Sagarin and Wayne Winston, one of owner Mark Cuban's college professors.

``It's critical,'' Cuban wrote in an e-mail. ``But of course, having seen the other systems, I think ours is the only one that's worthwhile. The primary thing to note is that if you are using publicly available NBA stats as your only source of data, it won't be of any value.''

As people like Beech, Rosenbaum and Oliver have joined teams, their best work is no longer public.

Teams are secretive, too. Warriors executives Chris Mullin and D'Alessandro both declined to speak in specifics about what their team does. But Mullin puts validity in the numbers . . . up to a point.

``I heard there's a book out where they make the case for the most overrated player: Allen Iverson,'' Mullin said. ``Well, Iverson is pretty good. So when I consider statistical formulas, something like that is a red flag.''

That would be Berri's book.

Subjectivity reigns

``I've had people say, `You hate Allen Iverson,' '' said Berri, who wrote ``The Wages of Wins'' with Martin Schmidt and Stacey Brook to examine what they call myths in sports. ``I don't know Allen Iverson. I've got nothing against him.''

But when you factor in Iverson's low shooting percentage and turnover rate, ``he's a slightly below-average player,'' Berri added.

He believes teams overpay for scorers and are idiots to do so. He cites the $36 million deal Harrington got from Indiana last summer. ``If you score, you get paid,'' Berri said. ``Al Harrington scored for the Atlanta Hawks last year and got rewarded. Well, Al Harrington also can't rebound.''

``The Wages of Wins,'' published by Stanford University Press, argues the best way to judge players is through a relatively simple formula that uses statistics found in box scores and results in a Wins Produced number.

Cuban wrote that the premise is ``ridiculous'' because ``it completely discounts the value of coaching.''

Berri doesn't seem bothered by criticism. He says he has no interest in working for an NBA team. And he understands the scorn that would be heaped upon a general manager if he, say, traded Denver star Carmelo Anthony for New York reserve David Lee.

``They would put a show on ESPN Classic about how it was one of the dumbest deals of all-time,'' he said.

Still, Berri ranked Lee as the NBA's sixth-most productive player at this season's halfway point.

For the most part, basketball analysts lack the smugness sometimes found in baseball sabermetrics. Instead, they're more willing to concede what they don't know. (For instance, it's much easier to say what is happening rather than why it's occurring.)

Beech and Rosenbaum said it's a mistake to become slaves to absolute numbers. They are less concerned about assigning numeric value to a player and more interested in helping coaches figure out which players work best together.

And, of course, just because there's more data available to coaches doesn't mean they will actually use it.

``I don't believe in overdoing statistics,'' Warriors Coach Don Nelson said. ``I'm from the old school. What you see is probably what you get. I just use the statistics to confirm what I see.''

One quandary faced by teams, added the Warriors' D'Alessandro, is the lack of uniformity among the numbers guys. D'Alessandro is friends with Beech and Oliver, and sometimes has gone to lunch with them.

``Listening to them banter back and forth, I'm always learning something,'' he said. ``But I've also noticed that neither of them are in agreement on anything. Obviously someone is not right.''

Berri expects the resistance of some NBA insiders to the new math to continue. ``It's really hard to change the way you see things,'' he said. ``It's rarely the case that somebody comes along with new information about the world and people go, Oh, I was wrong!''

And he knows Warriors fans won't agree that they're wrong about thinking their team fleeced the Pacers.

``Troy Murphy was a slightly above-average player, and Warriors fans hate hearing that,'' Berri said. ``Sorry, it's true.''

NBA notes - 02/20/2007 - Nash is back

Nash was back today for the Suns and boy what a difference that makes. The Suns offense was flowing and they won easily to stop the losing streak. Doug Collins made the point that nobody means more to their team than Nash and I totally agree. Every team will struggle without it's star player and Barkley also made the point about how everybody talks about Nash, but it's the same with Milwaukee and Redd and Boston lost all those games without Paul Pierce. But there's something about this offense and the style of play and how integral Nash is to what they try to do almost every possession. Without him it's an entirely different offense. Mike D'Antoni says he calls about 30% of the plays with Nash and 80% of the play without Nash. So Nash is the most indispensable player for his team in the entire league. Redd and Pierce play for bad teams and they make a huge difference. But good teams usually have more talent, multiple stars and they don't go into the tank like the Suns if the team MVP goes out. Spurs won't win the championship without Timmy, but I am sure they will be in the playoffs. Same with Mavs and Nowitzki. Even the Lakers do surprisingly well without Kobe. Cavs without LeBron may be the closest to the Suns without Nash and that too only because the Cavs are not that good a team and they don't have much talent around Bron-Bron. They had a ridiculous stat today about how 16 players or so have had career years the last 3 seasons with the Suns and Nash!

Marion had a great game today with 31-9. Good to see the Matrix come out of the mini-funk he had been in. Amare had 22-9 and Kurt Thomas was back playing meaningful minutes. Nash had a 13-2-12 night. He tripped and fell on the floor in the 3-rd quarter and got up holding his hurt shoulder. Not a pretty sight for Suns fans. But he went back the very next play and took a violent charge on Elton Brand barreling down the floor! Nash is a tough son of a gun! The coaches jumped up from their seat and took him out of the game for good after that play since the Suns were already up 20 or so.

Looks like D'Antoni is suddenly in love with Pat Burke. It's very interesting sometimes how this guy uses his bench. He tries somebody for 2 games and then gives up on them. Barkely was criticizing him for not using his bench enough. I totally agree on this one with Chuck. I never agreed with these experts who say the Suns have a thin bench. That was the case 2 years back, not anymore. Charles echoes my sentiment when he says the Suns are probably the deepest team in the league. Amen to that brother! They really are VERY deep. It's just that D'Anoni doesn't use all of them or sometime any of them! He sticks with his 7 guys and doesn't play the rest. I am not even being critical of him, it's just the way he coaches this team. Also, the TNT gang spoke about how they need to develop a backup point and Nash breaks down at the end of every season. Well, I am sure Nash hates the notion that he breaks down and I think he doesn't have that problem the last couple of years. That used to happen to him in Dallas, but he has worked very hard to improve his conditioning etc. The reason Suns lost last year to the Mavs or to the Spurs the year before was because the other team was better and not because Nash broke down. These are myths that the experts just hold on to forever. But I agree with Barkely that Mike has to develop a backup point. Nash has some chronic back issues and is getting old. It's definitely good to save him for the playoffs. Marcus Banks should be allowed to run the point. You can't expect him or the team to be as good as they are with Nash . There's a reason why Nash is the 2-time MVP and is being paid 65 mill as opposed to whatever Marcus Banks makes. Of course he is not going to be as good as Nash at his job and it's the coaching staff's job to find a way to work with that for 15-18 minutes a game. Draw up new plays, run him with Amare and Marion, use him with Barboso, play him with Diaw or do something to use him effectively. The guy is decent and can help you.

In other games, Spurs took care off the Nuggets rather easily. AI played and it didn't matter. I think it's officially time to give up on that trade. Like many astute observers had pointed out, thats just too much offense and one-dimensional talent with very little defense, rebounding etc. to compete against teams like the Spurs. Agent-0 scored 38 points and KG lost on the road. Utah lost a close game at Portland without Deron Williams. Okur had 25 and R-O-Y (Rookie of the Year) had 27. Boston lost a close one on the road at Sacramento 101-104.

The trade deadline is coming up on Thursday. It would be interesting to see if Bibby, Gason, Vinsanoty or Kidd get moved.

Phoenix @ LA Clippers - 115-90
Denver @ San Antonio - 80-95
Minnesota @ Washington - 100-112

Interesting games on the board for Feb 21-th (Wedneday)

Miami @ Houston - It's not Shaq-V-Yao, but still a good game with the resurgent Miami.

Cleveland @ Toronto - Toronto will be up for this one. Bosh and LeBron are from the same draft too.

Boston @ Phoenix - How does Nash handle back-to-back after his injury break?

NBA All Star Weekend - 02/19/2007

All star weekend is over with the West crushing the L-East 153-132 as Kobe won the MVP with a 31-5-6 night. He had some monstrous dunks and was cheered wildly. But as usual, the All-Star game was a sloppy, no defense, no chemistry, sometimes ugly affair. This had me thinking about the whole All-Star weekend. How good is it? How to make it better? I actually like the NBA All-Star weekend. I think it's a nice change-of-pace during a long season and it's good to see the skills competition, the 3 point shootout and even the slam dunk contest. The dunk contest is probably the most over-rated event of the Saturday. Gerald Green won it this year on what's now becoming an annual ritual. Somebody goes retro and pays homage to a legend from his team, wears his jersey and does their dunk from the 80's or whatever. 2 years back, Josh Smith started it by wearing Dominique Wikins jersey. Last year it was Nate Robinson jumping over Spud Webb. This year, Gerald Green pulled out Dee Brown's jersey and did his hand over the eyes dunk. He also jumped over Nate Robinson and finally a table to win the contest. Dwight Howard had an awesome dunk where he put a sticker at the top of the back-board. For some reason, this didn't get the high-score it deserved.

Some dunks are still awesome, but overall it's just not the show it used to be. In a league where probably 95% of the players can dunk these days, how big can the event really be? They had a stellar panel of judges this year with MJ, Nique, Dr.J, Vince and Kobe. Thats the other problem. I think Kobe and Vince along with D-Wade, LeBron and Josh Smith should be in the contest instead of in the judge's table. All the big names are missing the last several years and it has become an event for the rookie and second-year leapers. NBA seems to get top guys for the 3 point and the skills contest, but not sure why they don't do it with the dunk contest. You had LeBron, D-Wade, Kobe, Nowitzki, Gil etc. in the other 2 contests, but Dwight Howard was the lone All-Star in the dunk contest. Also they should something about missed dunks. Too many missed dunks suck the energy out of the event.

The race between Dick Baveta and Charles Barkley was the highlight of the Saturday night events. Chuck backed up his talk with an easy win. I thought he would lose for sure, but I guess once a great athlete, always a decent athlete. The slimmer, fitter-looking Baveta just could not get it done though he dove at the end as Barkely started showing off by running backwards. Seeing Baveta dive was awesome!

But at the end of the day, the biggest problem with the weekend is the All-Star game itself. Also the Rookie-Sophomore game. These games are pretty badly played, with no defense anywhere in sight, no chemistry between the players and guys trying to do too much. You see balls flying all over the place and but for the occasional dunk, there's no electricity in the game. Guys don't play hard and it shows. There were a lot of talk about how to improve the All-Star game on the day after, but the good thing was, some of it came from the players themselves. Chauncey Billups talked about it and I am glad he did. It's better than the media being the only one caring about it. A lot of these stars still talk about it like it's a great show and it's actually a good thing they don't play defense. Some guys in the media talked about making it a World-V-US game like they do it in hockey. There are a lot of international players in the NBA today, but it's still an American sport. The World would have a lot fewer deserving all-stars than the US team and it would take a lot of good all-star spots away from US players. I am not a hockey fan, but I would guess it's a lot more even in the NHL since hockey is essentially a Canadian sport with a lot of European stars as well.

So the US-V-World is a good idea, but that may not work. My idea to fix the game is simple. Throw money at it. Get 2 or 3 sponsors, make them pay 5 or 6 million each, call it the Verizon All-Star game, and the winner takes 12 million dollars with each player getting 1 mill. The losing team just gets the appearance fee. I don't care how rich you are, you want the million and that might make these players try harder.

So thats my solution for the All-Star weekend. In a nut-shell, more money for the winners and put the top super-star athletes in the dunk contest.

There were also other interesting stuff from the weekend. I loved the whole Shaq dance form the East practice session. That cat can move for a big, actually huge guy. It was funny to watch him dance, but he is good. Also, Kobe got a lot of love. Looks like Kobe's image has come a full-circle and is back on top again. They were comparing this to how he was relentlessly booed in Phily the last time he won the All-Star MVP. To be fair to Kobe, I think he is also genuinely a changed person these days. He is extremely nice with people and is rarely cocky or arrogant with a mike on his face. Now all he needs to do is win a championship and he'll be on top the Sports World. He is pretty close to top already. I also heard that Vegas looked like a zoo this weekend. Apparently it was bigger than the Super Bowl crowds in Vegas and big fight weekends. That surprised me. I thought this wouldn't be such a big event except for the celebrities. Super Bowl for instance brings 300,000 average fans to Vegas. I guess some people call the NBA all-star game the black Super-Bowl for a reason! You add up the celebrities, their entourages and the fans, it becomes huge. Apparently the traffic was really bad and Nowitzki almost missed the 3 point shootout!

Of course there was the obligatory police trouble with 2 shooting incidents, one in the MGM Grand parking lot and the other at a strip club. Apparently the Titans problem-child Pacman Jones was involved in the strip-club incident. He and rapper Nelly were at the joint and Pacman started throwing thousands of dollar bills at the stage. woman started fighting over the bills and eventually somebody shot at somebody. Now they are saying Vegas may not even want the all-star event anymore!

Interesting games on the board for Feb 20-th (Tuesday)

Phoenix @ LA Clippers - Will Nash play? Can the Suns start the second half on a winning note?

Denver @ San Antonio - Spurs are back at home and Denver would love to beat them to start this stretch.

Minnesota @ Washington - Minnesota needs to beat good teams on the road if they are to become a real playoff team.

NBA notes - 02/15/2007

Cleveland got a big win at LA today with King james scoring 38 on 10-16 shooting to beat Kobe's 34 and the Lakers. This was a great win for the Cavs. Not only dod they win, they won a close game with playoff intensity on the road against a clutch player called Kobe. They also seem to have started the process of tweaking their offense. It looked like they were losing this game early in the third, but they ran and went on a few fast-breaks for easy scores and eventually took the lead. It seemed like they have started running a lot more. Thats probably why they scored 114. The Lakers shut their fast-break down in the 4-th, but they still held on to win this one. They ran even without the young Daniel Gibson, though Eric Snow is no joke. He had a great game, dished out a few good assists on the break and knocked down clutch free-throws. But the most amazing thing is how the Cavs have him defending Kobe. He is 6-3 and 33 years old, but actually does a good job on Kobe, definitely better than the other Cavs. Thats a tough, talented sun of a gun! As for the Lakers, they seem to be on a a long funk having lost 5 straight now. Not a good way to go into the All-Star break.

Dallas Mavericks, Nowitzki and the gang did what they always do. They beat another quality team on the road. They have now won 9 straight (again) and it looks like the Suns can kiss the home-court goodbye. Suns are now 4.5 games back of the Mavs. Nowitzki had a 26-8 night to take care of T-Mac's 27-10. The Mavs are scary good right now.

In other news, Timmy Hardaway was "fired" by the Commish from all NBA duties. He came out and apologized, but the damage was done. Apparently Scottie Pippen wants to comeback at 41 years old! Shocking how all these guys never learn from their friends and keep making the same mistake. Like Charles says, you were not good when he retired, why would you be good now after sitting on the couch for 2 years? You may feel better, but you can't play better. Good call by Chuck.

Dallas @ Houston - 80-77
Cleveland @ LA Lakers - 114-108

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

All-star break - Rookie-Sophomore game.

NBA notes - 02/14/2007

Big news of the day was Tim Hardaway saying flat out "I hate gays. I am a homophobe." It's amazing how mainstream bigotry towards Gays is and how ignorant people are. The only reason he is able to say something like this is because of how acceptable he thinks his opinion is. He later apologized, but the damage was done and he helped us realize how far away we are as a society from accepting gays in American sports. Thats indeed sad.

In other news, San Antonio had a big win at Detroit behind some good D and balanced scoring. Timmy had 23-8. Minnesota beat Denver for a big win. KG had 17-19, but Mark Blount had 24 points. Melo's 28 points were not enough for the Nuggets. Deron Williams had 33-6-12 to beat the Cavs in a close one. Larry Hughes had 33 and the King just shot 9-25 for 23. King is in a slump lately and I hope the all-star break does him good though he will be Vegas. Suns lost at Seattle without Nash and Diaw. Aside from how key Nash is to the Suns, this stretch also exposes their lack of depth. Is it a lack of depth or Mike D'Antoni is just refusing to use players like Jalen Rose? One good news for the Suns is that Marcus Banks has been good in this stretch. He had 21 pts again today on 9-15 shooting on a day when his teammates combined to shoot 39 % Yes, the Phoenix Suns shot 39 %. If that doesn't tell you how good Nash is, nothing ever will!

The Nets went in to Toronto and got a close-up look at the best team in their division. Toronto got 25 points from Bosh against 17 for their ex-homeboy Vinsanity. The Nets aren't any good without Kidd either, however they are not too good with him either :-) New York got blown out at Golden State after beating the Lakers yesterday. Thats life in the NBA for you. Stephen Jackson had 36 points for the Warriors. Chicago lost at Charlotte. Boston finally got a win behind some great 3 point shooting. Pierce had 32 points to stop the bleeding for the Celts. It would have gotten real ugly if they had lost this one since they are going on an extended West coast trip pretty soon. Glad the Celtics stopped the streak before the trip. But then again, the streak at least kept the Celtics in the news after several years of being totally irrelevant in the NBA.

San Antonio @ Detroit - 90-81
Denver @ Minnesota - 94-99
Cleveland @ Utah - 98-99
Milwaukee @ Boston - 97-117
Phoenix @ Seattle - 90-114
New Jersey @ Toronto - 109-120

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

Dallas @ Houston - Big game for Houston to show their rival how good and how real they are.

Cleveland @ LA Lakers - Kobe V LeBron again, this time in LA. Should be a tough one for the Cavs.

NBA notes - 02/13/2007

Great road win for Toronto. They won a close one at Chicago behind a 25-14 night for Bosh. The Raptors are for real and have won 8 of 10. They got Bosh playing at a very high level, T.J.Ford is back from injury and Bargnani is very good (he had 22 today). They are clearly the best team in the Atlantic and Bosh might be becoming a superstar, a double-double machine. As for the Bulls, Deng had 30 pts again on 15-23 shooting. San Antonio took care of New Jersey today rather easily. They went on a 20-0 run at the start of the second quarter to put this game away. Nets had no shot in this one without Jason Kidd. Apparently Kidd and AI are going to miss the all-star games as well. Thats 5 injuries counting Nash, Boozer and Yao Ming. The all-star rosters look really diluted right now!

New York went in to LA and beat the Lakers again. They beat them at home when Kobe was suspended and now on the road on a dunk by Eddie Curry with 7 secs to go. Curiously enough, Kobe did not even touch the ball in the Lakers final possession which ended with a Lamar Odom air-ball! Sometimes you wonder what's going on in Big-Cheif-Triangle's head. Phil can't get the ball in to Kobe's hands? Kobe had 31 points in defeat. In Milwaukee, Dallas trailed big, but Nowitzki scored 38 points to bring them back and win the game in the final minute. Andrew Bogut had a 16-17 night.

D-Wade had 35 points today after he looked to be hurt on a hard fall. Luckily for the Heat fans, he came back and as usual dominated the fourth quarter with 16 points to end up with 35 points. What's up with this guy and the fourth quarter? Portland had no answers to him. T-Mac had 28 and 12 assists to beat Sacto in OT. Ron Artest had 39 points for the Kings. Apparently he is hoping for another trade and is playing hard for it.

Toronto @ Chicago - 112-111
San Antonio @ New Jersey - 107-85

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

San Antonio @ Detroit - Should be a good one here with playoff intensity.

Denver @ Minnesota - Who's the second best team in the Northwest division?

Cleveland @ Utah - Crucial road test for the King before the All-star break.

Milwaukee @ Boston - Interesting only because the Celtics are riding a 18-game losing streak.

Phoenix @ Seattle - Can the Suns win on the road without Nash? A loss here might just wrap up the MVP trophy for Nash :-)

New Jersey @ Toronto - Vinsanity goes back to Toronto, possibly alone without Kidd or Jefferson, to face a red-hot Raptors team.

NBA notes - 02/12/2007

Not a very busy (or interesting) day in the NBA. The paper-Clips got blown out at Detroit without Elton Brand. Another string game for C-Webb. He had 19-9-2 in just 28 mins. This deal is working out really well for Detroit. Warriors lost at Denver and also got the bad news that Baron Davis is going to have another knee surgery. Baron Davis is killing them every game he doesn't play. I mean they have very little talent outside of him and it seems like they never have a full team for more than a few straight games because he is so fragile. This guy is one of the best guards in the league when healthy, but he rarely is healthy. This injury pretty much wraps up another lottery season for the Warriors unless Mullin pulls another shocker by getting Pau Gasol or something. Atlanta went in to Utah and lost as expected. Their road-luck finally dried up. Deron Williams had a 7-9-6 night. He is quietly shaping up as one of the top point guards in the league. Apparently he was upset that Sports Illustrated didn't list him as one of their point guards of the future in their NBA season preview edition. I don't blame him. I was surprised to not see him in that article either. They even had his backup Dee Brown in that list.

Golden State @ Denver - 111-123
Atlanta @ Utah - 76-102

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

Toronto @ Chicago - 2 good L-Eastern conference teams meet up.

San Antonio @ New Jersey - Spurs road trip continues. Lets see if they can win @ NJ.

NBA notes - 02/11/2007

Another "DNP" for Nash and another "L" for the Suns. One of the reasons Nash won the MVP 2 years back was because of how bad the Suns played when he was out for a few games. Sometimes you appreciate things only when you don't have it and realize how much you miss it. That might be happening to Nash again now. The Suns are 2-2 without him the last 4 games. On top of that, Boris Diaw also missed this game. Chicago won this one with a great run in the money quarter. They outscored the Suns 37-19 in the 4-th. The "young 3" of the Bulls were great today. Hinrich had 29, Gordon 27 and Deng had 29. I am really impressed with the Bulls and Hinrich. They are well-coached (Scott Skiles is a hard-nosed, defensive minded task-master), fundamentally sound and they move the ball real well. Hinrich in particular runs the offense real well. He is not a great point guard or a phenomenal shooter, but he plays under control and just seem to knows what's going on all the time. But I am hurt whenever I see Deng knowing that he could have been a Sun! The Suns traded that pick away to save some money. He could have been a perfect fit for this offense with his athleticism and length. Imagine Deng backing up Marion !

Shaq and D-Wade did strut their stuff today against the Spurs. D-Wade is something else in the fourth quarter. It's amazing how he steps up in the money quarter almost on a whim. He just pulls up and starts shooting those long jumpers from the center of the court and they always seem to go in in the 4-th even if the same shots are off target in the other 3 quarters. The guy had 20 of his 26 points in the fourth and controlled this game. Shaq had a strong 16-7 night as well. The Heat have also gotten Eddie Jones back now and he is contributing on both ends of the floor as always. I thought the Heat were done this year, but looks like they might have a deep playoff run in them again. As for the Spurs, another bad loss with Timmy having a bad day. Manu had 26.

Kobe and the Lakers lost again though Kobe put on a show on national TV just like Wade. He had 36 points on a variety of jaw-dropping plays, and even though LeBron had a mediocre game, the Lakers couldn't close it out. Good win for the Cavs. They have major issues on offense. LeBron is not yet a complete offensive player like Kobe. He is still young and improving. So they get stagnant on offense sometimes and they don't have enough dependable shooters around him. Larry Hughes is good, but can't shoot. Same with Eric Snow. So when they double LeBron, he doesn't know what to do and the offense just stalls. This is the problem with defensive-minded coaches. They just don't cut the offense loose. They have some talented offensive players, but they don't play them because they are not good defensively or whatever. Today, they were saved by Sasha Pavlovic. He is the only guy who was willing to take the initiative and create some plays on offense instead of just standing there and watching LeBron. He had 21 points and I hope coach Brown use him more. There's some talk by LeBron about running more and I think they need to do it. LeBron is unstoppable in the open-court and he is still a couple of years away from being the same in the half-court. Daniel Gibson started today and hopefully thats a good sign for the offense.

Clippers got crushed at Indiana. Indiana seems to be doing well with the new lineup. More well defined roles and mature play seems to be paying off. Gilbert Arenas claimed he will score 50 points against the Blazers on Feb 11-th. He came out today and shot 3-15 for 9 points! Thats shocking to see Gil not drop 50. The Wizards lost and coach Eddie Jordan ripped his team for a lack of leadership outside of Antawn Jamsion. I guess he didnt' like Gil calling his shot like that and I don't blame him. Also, we all forgot about Jamison this year and they have now lost a bunch of games without him. Atlanta has now won 5 straight road games with a close 106-105 win at Golden State. Josh Smith had 29-10 and had some ridiculous dunks! The Hawks have a good young nucleus with a lot of lanky, wiry thin, young athletes. The arms on Marvin Williams seem to extend from Atlanta to Miami or something! What's the wingspan on that dude? Speaking of ridiculous dunks, the dunk of the day was by Andre Iguodala against Dallas.

San Antonio @ Miami - 85-100
LA Lakers @ Cleveland - 90-99
Chicago @ Phoenix - 116-103
LA Clippers @ Indiana - 80-94

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

Golden State @ Denver - Could be relevant for the 8-th spot on the West though the Warriors usually stink on the road.

Atlanta @ Utah - Atlanta has won 5 straight on the road. Can they keep it going at Utah? Me think not!

Phoenix Suns notes - 02/10/2007

Suns are still doing well. Their record is 39-11 and are 2 games behind the Mavs. They have lost 3 of the last 6 since their 17 game winning streak. One of those losses was the last game of a long road trip at Minnesota with KG scoring 40+. The other loss was yesterday without Nash against our archenemy Joe Johnson and the Atlanta Hawks. They also won at Denver when Nash left the game early and beat Portland in OT on the road without Nash. They beat Spurs in this 6 game stretch in a close one where the Spurs looked every bit the contender they have been the last few years. That was a good win for the Suns.

The one bad loss was against the Jazz at home. This was shocking to see the Jazz kind of dominate the Suns at home! The Suns probably wanted to win this game badly since they have already lost twice to the Jazz. Now it's 0-3. Mehmet Okur looked like a freaking cross between Wilt Chamberlain and Steve Kerr! He absolutely dominated the inside and as always nailed those 3's and other perimeter shots. The Jazz are a big team and the Suns were over-matched size-wise as always. And all this without Boozer! AK-47, Boozer and Okur may be the best front-line we have seen in a long time. There's not a single thing these 3 guys combined can't do. They are big, talented, athletic and versatile. And Deron Williams is one of the better PGs in this league and sky is the limit for the Jazz if Deron keeps improving. The Suns still came back and made a game out of it and they might have even won it if Marion and Barbosa were not in foul trouble. With all that said, the discouraging part was how easily the Jazz scored throughout this game and how much trouble the Suns had defending them. The Suns have not shown us yet that they can handle the Jazz in a 7 game playoff series.

The good news for the the Suns is that Amare Stoudemire is having a great stretch right now. He is truly STAT right now - standing tall and talented. He had 28 against the Jazz, 36 against Denver, 36 against the Blazers and 29 against the Hawks. He has taken even more of a scoring load with Nash out. By the way, his field goal percentage is still a whopping 60%. The only issue for the Suns here could be that Marion I think is kind of losing his touches to Amare. His numbers are down the last couple of games. Hopefully he doesn't sulk and go into the tank. He even made it to the "HOT-NOT" list for NBA fantasy players on the "NOT" side! His FG% is down as well which means he is still getting some shots, just not converting enough of them. Hopefully he turns it around and becomes the MATRIX we know again. After all, he will be at the all-star game for the Suns along with Nash and Amare for a reason and he sure can get back to that all-star level soon.