Post Up: Party Crashers

Suns spoil DWill’s home debut; Celts take down Jazz.

One day, maybe not too far away, John Wall (9 points, 10 assists) may evolve into something similar to what Derrick Rose (21 points, 9 assists) is right now. But that day is not here yet, and in the meantime, DRose and his Bulls are going to continue running all over J-Dub’s Wiz. This one wasn’t even close, as the Bulls dominated both the scoring and the boards (Chicago’s Bash Brothers-like front court of Carlos Boozer and Joakim Noah combined for 31 points and 21 rebounds) en route to the victory. The Bulls are now just a single game behind Miami, and only two behind Boston for the East’s top spot.

Phoenix 104, New Jersey 103

In Deron Williams‘ home debut, with Jay-Z, Beyonce and Michael Strahan watching courtside, DWill put on a solid show—13 points, 18 dimes—but a Channing Frye game-winning J with under 10 seconds on the clock spoiled the party. Minutes earlier, Anthony Morrow hit three free throws to force extra time, and after Frye’s second huge bucket this week, DWill missed a runner for the win, and a Kris Humphries tip-in was converted just a few milliseconds too late. Brook Lopez scored a game-high 28 (plus 10 boards), while Morrow put in an impressive 22 points during the L. But, seriously, who knew Channing Frye was so clutch? Dude won the game for the Suns in Indiana, and then won this one for the Suns in New Jersey. Which, I believe, qualifies as bi-winning. Word to Mr. Sheen.

Denver 100, Atlanta 90

Gonna go out on a limb and say that Carmelo guy isn’t being missed too badly in Denver. The Nuggets picked up their third win in four games post-Melo, riding a strong fourth quarter to the W behind JR Smith’s 19 points and double-digit scoring from five different (K)Nuggets. Joe Johnson led the Hawks with 22.

Boston 107, Utah 102

The Jeff Green (5 points) era got off to a rocky start, but some hot shooting from Ray Allen (25 points) saved the C’s, as they held on for their 43rd win. This one was ugly (the Jazz are now playing without Deron Williams, you know), and Boston’s post-Perkins interior D was nothing to brag about (see Al Jefferson’s 28 points and 19 boards), but it’s still a little early to start with the rash opinions of the Green-for-Perkins swap. The Celts will return home now, with the Suns on deck for tomorrow night. Pro tip: If things are close with the clock approaching double zeros, guard Channing Frye. Tight.

Sacramento 105, L.A. Clippers 99

Some folks in Sacto were a little emotional in last night—”Here we stay” chants rang off at various points during the game, on the heel of the news the Kings may or may not be relocating—and, fortunately, the Kings’ players followed suit, coming through and defeating the Clippers by a small margin. Down five going into the fourth, Marcus Thornton (who scored a season-high 29, with 16 in the final quarter), put the Kings on his back and pushed them through the Blake Griffin-led Clips. Professor Griff scored 27, while Randy Foye dropped 23 in the loss.

Last Call: Channing Frye, for the win. Well, not right away, but eventually. And yeah, that’s two nights in a row Frye has occupied this space. Your move, every other NBA player.

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Tags: Atlanta Hawks, Boston Celtics, Chicago Bulls, Denver Nuggets, Los Angeles Clippers, New Jersey Nets, Phoenix Suns, Sacramento Kings, The Post Up, Utah Jazz, Washington Wizards

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http://slamonline.com AllBall

Enigmatic, no it isn’t. I only ever mention PER in regards to CP, because of the slow pace his team plays, which means his raw per game stats aren’t indicative of how he is actually playing.
You don’t think CP is instrumental in NO winning? Come on now. D Rose shortcomings are always glossed over with ‘He is trying to will his team to a win’.
Type in Chris Paul CBS interview on google and see what he has to say about ‘super teams’ and winning in general and his will to win will be apparent.
I mentioned D Rose shooting today because jahmai mentioned how the elite always seem to play bad against Rose/Bulls. D Rose didn’t play great last night, and his shooting percentage is an indication of that. The Bulls won last night because of, you guessed it, defense and rebounding!
http://www.slamonline.com Stepfan

You take Drose off of the Bulls, they are not a playoff team. You take lebron off the Heat they still make the playoffs. Drose is MVP. But don’t be surprise if it’s co-mvp.
http://nobulljive.com/ Enigmatic

Of course CP is instrumental to NO’s winning.
http://slamonline.com Allenp

He made one of the most efficient scoring guards in the league shoot 30 percent from the floor. And yeah, Paul got to line, but so did Rose, and it was his passing that clearly helped his team pull away along with their defense and rebounding.
The man is killing. He’s right there with CP3 and Dwill with the only knock being his defense right now, and even that’s not putrid anymore. From a player skill perspective, Dwil and Paul are still better, from a player impact perspective, Rose is better, easily.
And both he and his team make things difficult for elite guards.
the nerve

fukk d rose i’ll klapp dat nicka!
showtime

@ the philosopher that would be loon that convertered
http://www.slamonline.com Jahmai

You know what’s so awesome? It’s March and Drose still had the MVP lead with most writers and analysts, we’re just a month and a half away from season’s end. Drose would have to have a pretty big production drop-off and LeBron only would have to be LeBron for the lead to change, but this is the coolest MVP race I can remember, because if Drose doesn’t get it (I would be sad) but it’ll go to LeBron, and I like Bron too and I love greatness, so a 3peat is pretty cool.
JTaylor21

Enigmatic, is there something wrong with that? Also BBReference has an article where they looked at how good teams would be without their star players, peep game;
Phx without Nash= 9-48 (Jukai rejoices)
NO without CP= 15-46
DAL without Dirk= 17-42
MIA without Bron= 32-28
LAL without PGasol= 34-27
BOS without Rondo= 34-23
ORL without DHow= 37-23
MIA without DWade= 39-21
CHI without DRose= 39-18
LAL without Kobe= 42-19

Now I’m not saying that this is a guarantee of what teams would perform without their respective MVP candidate but it’s useful information for those who claim that certain teams would suffer without their star player.
http://www.slamonline.com Jahmai

*has
http://nobulljive.com/ Enigmatic

JT – Nah, nothing wrong with that except…dude was WACK as f*ck on the mic.
But, least we know he wasn’t no studio gangster.
And Chicago would not be at 39-18 without Derrick Rose.
Not in a million years.
T-Money

i find the ORL and CHI numbers very hard to believe.
http://slamonline.com Allenp

Yeah, those numbers completely invalidate whatever advanced metric was used to create them. Seriously.
After Rose, the Bulls only scorer is Boozer and their point would be C.J. Watson. YOu are not sniffing 40 wins right now with that combo, even with Noah and Thibs.
I don’t even know about Phoenix. Dragic was pretty capable, and so is Brooks.
Orlando with Gortat might have still been decent, but without Gortat, no way.
http://www.slamonline.com Jahmai

Chi and Orl that good? There are alot of things that can’t be measured in numbers, like the ffect Dhoward has on his teammates d, derrick rose giving his team confidence, a leader to follow, being a go to guy, there’s absolutely no way you could measure how a team would fare without it’s stars based on statistics.
showtime

Oh this for d rose argument …that surprisely happens every day. Some mention swap and the coach tibb . Tibbs is abosulutrly the reason for the change. If he not their the bulls are just a 500 team like the years before. Basically the newyork knick now…
http://slamonline.com AllBall

Enigmatic, we agree that Rose is the MVP so we don’t need to debate much else.
Allen, Rose passing was the difference when? In New Orleans? Or in Washington last night?
In New Orleans it was clearly rebounding and FT’s.
Last night it was clearly 2nd chance points/rebounding, with defense 2nd, Rose passing would have been 3rd.
Rose is better than Deron and right up there with this version of Chris Paul, but if Paul can get back to 90% physically in comparison to the 06-09 guy we saw, Chris Paul will clearly be the best 1 in the L. He is better at everything skill wise now, he just isn’t as quick or explosive as he was. I don’t expect him to ever get back to dunking on Dwight kind of level, but somewhere close and the PG debate is over.
http://slamonline.com nbk

The Slam staff done messed up, ya’ll underrated Rose on the top 50….haha jk, but seriously, good job.
http://nobulljive.com/ Enigmatic

That article is another example of how advanced stats can go horribly wrong.
http://slamonline.com nbk

Deron Williams has played 3 games for New Jersey is averaging 14 points and 15.7 assists, on the NETS. We as fans discredited individuals for being on bad teams way too often, Rose is the MVP, but I’m not gonna call him the best PG in the league until he wins atleast a playoff series.
http://www.slamonline.com Nick Tha Quick

What JT left out was what Cleveland is without Anderson Verajao. 2-40!
JTaylor21

It’s just a statistical view of what happens when a player is not in the game, how good can the team be without him, it’s not reality.
Here’s what the author wrote; “It also shows us that Chris Paul and Dirk Nowitzki are very clearly the top candidates if you want to take the “hypothetical team record without him”. West #5 seed New Orleans is Sacramento-level terrible when Paul rides the pine, while Dallas goes from being the #2 seed in the conference to the equivalent of the New Jersey Nets when Nowitzki isn’t in the game”.
There’s no need to get mad at me, the article looks at how a team would do if said player was riding the pine not how the team would be if the player went down with a serious injury.
http://thetroyblog.com Teddy-the-Bear

heh, kinda funny most of us thought Rose was ranked too high on that sLAM list
JTaylor21

Okay, maybe Chi wouldn’t be 39-18 without Rose or Orl wouldn’t be 37-23 without DHow but it goes to show that all the talk about teams like the Bulls and Orl completely falling apart without the services of DHow and DRose is baseless. Those teams wouldn’t be as good as they are now but they wouldn’t be as bad as some of y’all claim.
http://slamonline.com nbk

THe Cavs would be 4-36 w/ Verajao, at best.
MUBWAR

After watching the Celtics game last night, Allen should change his name to King Clutch or Mr. Triples. The dude is just wet from all corners of the court.
http://nobulljive.com/ Enigmatic

What about the Raptors without Bargnani? Maybe 12-48?
Speaking of the Raptors, when I was watching the Bulls/Wizards game I thought “damn, how could the Heat give up 113 points to this crappy team? I thought their defense was supposed to be elite?”
Took a few seconds before I realized, “sh*t, how in the hell did the Bulls give up 118 points to the Raptors AND lose?”
It must have been a bad week for elite defenses.
MUBWAR

No Enig Raptors have a whole lot of Offense with Banana and Derozen with a facilitator like Calderon. Only problem, not a single player in a raps uniform ever heard of the DEFENSE.
http://slamonline.com Allenp

AllBall
Nope, talking about against the Hornets.
It wasn’t the assists, it was the smart passing out of the double team after he struggled early. Dude was getting the hockey assist if not the basketball assist.
http://nobulljive.com/ Enigmatic

@MUBWAR – True, they can score. Barbosa’s still doing his thing too.
And everytime I watch the Raps Sonny Weems, whom the Bulls drafted, impresses me.
No regrets on trading him for Asik though, cause Asik is gonna be solid.
But the Bulls still shoulda held them down defensively.
JTaylor21

AllBall, I’m sorry but Rose is not better than DWill. Is he having the better season, hell yeah but the better player is still DWill. @Enigmatic, the bulls D is better than Mia based on two factor; sustained focus and Thibs.
MIA on the other hand employs CB and DWade (yes I’m getting on Wade about his D, the only good game he had defensively was in LA vs Kobe).
If Wade focuses on the defensive end and CB eats his spinach then MIA’s an elite defensive team but that’s unlikely.
You don’t have to worry about that for Chicago because the Bulls bring it every night.
http://slamonline.com nbk

JT – AllBall is clearly a Hornets homer, just like the Lakers and Knicks fans you can’t really get them to think about certain things rationally. He’s going to do anything that separates Chris Paul from Deron Williams instinctively, that’s why Derrick Rose has somehow leapfrogged Williams (who most people think is better then the current Chris Paul, and even some think he’s better then any version of him) but stayed worse then Chris Paul.
http://slamonline.com AllBall

Allen, he did get a ton of hockey assists in the 2nd half, but you can’t discount that the Bulls interior players are decent passers, too.
I still maintain that the difference was FT’s and rebounding, being plus 20 on the boards, and plus 10 on the line will usually win you games.
http://slamonline.com AllBall

Better than any version of him? The same guy who averaged 21 11.5 4 3 on 49 percent shooting in his 3rd year. Who carried that Hornets team, which started a past their prime Morris Peterson and Peja Stojakovic to 56 wins and a game away from the conference finals?
Then the next year averaged 23 11 5.5 3 on 50 percent shooting and carried an even worse team to 49 wins? No, Derrick Rose is not close to being better than THAT Chris Paul.
Neither of those teams were comparable to the talent Rose has now.
If you are amongst those ‘some’ who think he is better than any version of CP, your knowledge of the game is a lot lower than I thought.
I’ve watched all of Derons Net games btw, and in San An and in Houston those stats were meaningless. The Spurs were content to outscore the Nets, and the Rockets played absolutely no defense but it didn’t matter because they were hitting everything, and pushing the pace.
Now last nights game Deron was great, but I would still take D Rose.
http://slamonline.com AllBall

Deron Williams is not close to that Chris Paul either. That is a really bad statement. Some people have really short memories. CP should have won the MVP that year, that has been agreed by the more knowledgable people on this site before.
http://slamonline.com nbk

I always was a healthy Chris Paul guy, but I don’t think he will ever be there again, simply because that’s what was said, by people in the Hornets organization. And Deron Williams was almost right there with that Chris Paul, he is still a better basketball player then Derrick Rose, he just isn’t having an effect on team success like Rose is, but that’s as much a function of the system and personal as it is ability and talent.
http://slamonline.com nbk

And yes he was close, bigger more physical, averaged 2 less points 1 less assist and 1 less steal. That’s really really close, and team success wise they both have been the same distance.
http://shinefluid@aol.com just bcuz

ppl continue to doubt d.rose is on his way to greatness and better than all these other dudes and thats fair! But ima say this its things you canNOT account for. None of these other guards have what he has on the inside. NONE OF EM
http://nobulljive.com/ Enigmatic

Chris Paul 100% healthy would be the top PG in the league, in my opinion.
But like nbk said, I don’t think we’ll see that Chris Paul again.
I’d take Deron over CP now too.
And I think it’s only a matter of time before Rose and John Wall are better than both DWill and CP. They’re only 22 and 20, respectively.
http://slamonline.com AllBall

Team talent has been totally different since they have been in the league, however. That was until Deron went to NJ.
Almost right there, and really really close is not the same as some people thinking he was better than that CP.
Derons best year was last year when he averaged 21,10,4,1. That is not comparable to 23,11,5.5 and 3 steals, in a sense that ‘some’ or ‘most’ would think that Deron is better than THAT CP. You are way off base on that one.
http://slamonline.com AllBall

Enigmatic, that is debatable.
nbk’s initial statement is just false. If you think 21,10,4,1 is better than 23,11,5.5,3 when the guy with the better stats is also more efficient, carried a worse team to the same point, well you just shouldn’t think that.
http://nobulljive.com/ Enigmatic

Of course it’s debatable, it hasn’t happened yet and may never happen.
That’s why I said “I think”.
http://slamonline.com AllBall

Enigmatic, I meant that is a good debatable topic, whereas nbk’s statement was just wrong.
http://slamonline.com nbk

My initial statement where I said I was always a healthy Chris Paul guy? Or the one where I said it makes absolutely no sense to say Derrick Rose is better then Deron Williams but not Chris Paul? Because those both seem pretty logically sound to me.
http://slamonline.com Allenp

Worse is debatable.
People undervalued West and Chandler, overvalued Boozer, AK47 and Okur.
As we can see, West and Chandler are very, VERY good players with or without Paul (I know NBK hates West, but dude can play.)
I was on Team Deron for a while, then Team Paul, then Team Deron, and now Team Paul.
I think people who say either player is “clearly” better than the other player are ridiculous, and those people tend to by Chris Paul fans.
I’ve watched both cats play, and looked at their numbers. It’s funny how stat heads only use stats to reinforce their pre-conceived biases and ignore them when they don’t.
http://slamonline.com nbk

West can play I don’t hate the guy, I hate how overrated he is. LIke saying he is a top 50 player year in and year out, or saying he is better then LAMARCUS ALDRIDGE. WHICH IS BANANAS
http://slamonline.com AllBall

nbk, i’m talking about your statement that Deron is better than THAT CP, who tore up the league for 2 years straight when healthy.
Allen, gtfoh, CP’s best year statistically, where he had 23 11 5.5 3 on 50% shooting, the rotation players besides Paul were Tyson, West, Peja, Rasual Butler, Holton Armstrong, James Posey, Sean Marks and Antonio Daniels.
Deron’s best year wasn’t last year, I got that wrong, statistically his best year was 08-09 he averaged 19, 11, 3, 1 on 47%. When I posted Derons stats earlier I put this years numbers up. That year Derons rotation players where Okur, Boozer, Millsap, Kirilenko, Ronnie Brewer Korver, CJ Miles, and Ronnie Price. That Jazz team has more talent.
CP’s best year team wise they lost in gm7 of the WC SF to San An, on the season CP averaged 21, 11.5, 4, 3 on 49%. His rotation players were West Chandler Peja Mo Pete Bonzi Wells Bobby Jackson Jannero Pargo and Rasual Butler.
Derons best year team wise they won 51 games, lost 4-1 in the WC F to San An, he averaged on the season 16/9/3/1 on 46% shooting. His rotation players were Boozer Okur Harping Fisher Kirilenko Millsap and Ronnie Brewer. In both cases, CP had better stats, worse overall talent, and the teams advanced almost to the same stage.
http://slamonline.com nbk

I didn’t say that dude, I said some people believe that. When I say I’m a healthy Chris Paul guy that doesn’t mean I’m a fan of his, he’s a guy, I’m not a fan of any of them, I mean I think he is a better player when healthy, but that will NEVER be so again.
http://slamonline.com nbk

(Him being healthy I mean)
http://nobulljive.com/ Enigmatic

Hey, Boozer isn’t that bad.
A consistent 20 and 10 guy. His man-to-man defense is still horrble at best, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the way dude has bought into Thibs’ system as far as team defense goes.
It’d be nice if he could block some shots every now and then, though.
Cause your point guard getting 22 more blocks than you when you’re 6’9″ and he’s 6’3″ is not a good look.
http://slamonline.com Allenp

Nah, you gtfoh.
First, the year Paul had his best stats his team didn’t win.
Second, the year he did win, the only year he was winning, he played with a decent team. West, Chandler, Bonzi, Bobby Jackson, Pargo and Butler. And Peja.
Those are not bums.
Like I said, people overvalued Deron’s running mates and undervalued Paul’s.
West=Boozer
Chandler > Okur
Ak 47 > Peja
Bonzi and Mo pete = to harping and Brewer
Fisher > Pargo
There was not a huge talent difference as Paul fans like to pretend, and the proof is in the production of players like Bonzi, Pargo, Butler, Chandler and West when they didn’t have Paul to lean on.
As I’ve said, and I will continue to say, Deron and Paul played in two different systems with two different responsibilities. They put up different stats. But, it was always obvious when watching them hoop that they were on the same level, at least to me. If people don’t believe that, that’s their choice. I really don’t care anymore.
http://slamonline.com AllBall

The year Deron had his best stats, they lost 4-1 in the opening round. The year Paul had his best stats they lost 4-1 in the opening round. And Pauls stats were a lot better.
I’ve been watching both West and Boozer all season, there is no way that they are =. Neither play defense, Boozer is a better rebounder, slightly better scorer, and is a way better finisher at the basket.
Why didn’t you compare Millsap to anyone? The year Deron put up his best stats, Millsap was a good player by then. Mo Pete was terrible at this point, no way = to Harping or Brewer. Now Bonzi was/is tough as fckin nails.
Your wrong on this, Utah had more talent, how ever marginal you think it is.

Post Up: Party Crashers

Suns spoil DWill’s home debut; Celts take down Jazz.

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