Wow. Nice set of games last night, hey? We’ve been spoiled in this opening week.
I’ve got to start out by saying this is going to be a short post today. It’s just the way it has to be. I’ve got the Pistons in town tomorrow and my wrists are absolutely burning right now. It’s Tuesday night as I write this and Atlanta is up by four with just under a minute and a half to go in this Atlanta/Portland game. After an ugly first half, the Blazers made it interesting in the second.
Game of the night had to be Lakers/Thunder, right? I didn’t even see most of this as I was liveblogging the Suns/Heat over at The Score, but damn, what I did see was wild.
Kevin Durant so morphed into rookie Kobe Byrant in Utah with the airballs in crunch time last night. Minus the playoffs and all of that, of course. It just showed KD35 will be great in time, just like Kobe. Also, Lamar Odom airballing that free throw? What was up with that? I just can’t believe that the Thunder not only hung in there with the Lakers, but took them to overtime and barely allowed them to escape with a victory despite the nightmare airballs in the end.
Kobe played with flu-like symptoms but hit the final basket for the Lakers in overtime, despite turning the ball over seven times. He finished with 31 points as Andrew Bynum had 22 points and 10 boards and Ron Artest scored 20. Durant led the Thunder with 28 as Jeff Green added 18.
There was a crazy game in Chicago that ended with Derrick Rose blocking a shot by Brandon Jennings, Ersan Ilyasova taking an awful three and the Bulls escaping with a victory after coming back from 18 down in the third quarter. I only got to catch the fourth quarter of this one, but really, can anyone deny me the right to say that Brandon Jennings is going to be oh so great and sooner than people thought, too?
Didn’t think so.
Jennings finished with 25 points as Andrew Bogut scored 16 points to go with 13 rebounds. For the Bulls Luol Deng was a monster, scoring 24 points to go with 20 rebounds and Rose finished with 16 points and five assists, but also five turnovers.
The Heat and Suns were in a close game down the stretch before the Heat fell apart in the fourth quarter, getting outscored 29-15 as Steve Nash fuelled the Suns to their fourth victory to start the season. Nash finished with 30 points, 25 of them in the second half as the Suns simply proved too potent in the fourth for the Heat to try and contain. Dwyane Wade had 23 points, nine rebounds and seven assists for the Heat who dropped their first of the season.
Carmelo finally had a rough shooting night from the floor, finishing just 6-of-17 in Indy, but he still racked up 23 points on the night as the Nuggets easily dealt the Pacers another loss.
I heard Gil was looking good in the first half of the Cleveland/Washington game, but again, I didn’t get to see it. Unfortunately for the Wizards, LeBron and the Cavs don’t fade easily and Cleveland put in a strong second half to get the 102-90 victory, Bron leading the way with 27/8/6/3 as Shaquille O’Neal added 21. Arenas and Caron Butler scored 22 points apiece for the Wiz.
On Twitter, Jared Dudley named his teammate and captain, Steve Nash as the “best white boy in the NBA.” Dirk Nowitzki begs to differ, scoring a Dallas franchise record 29 points in the fourth quarter of the Mavs game against Utah to get his team the victory while finishing with a ridiculously efficient 40 points on 11-of-22 field goals to go with 11 rebounds. The Mavs outscored the Jazz 44-18 in the final period as they shocked Utah.
To put that into perspective: Dallas scored 52 points through three quarters and then Dirk scores 29 in the fourth and the team goes off for 44. Crazy.
The Hawks held on to take down the Blazers, 97-91 in this game that I was watching when I started this. Jamal Crawford led the way with 27 points and seven assists. Wanna know why this happened? Because I just let him go in my fantasy league, naturally.
Okay, I’ve got to get some sleep. Shootaround in the am, work meeting in the afternoon and then it’s game time for me. No Tayshaun and probably no Rip. Somehow I feel like Will Bynum is going to have himself a game tomorrow evening. That being said, it would be really nice if the Raps could pull off the W, especially since the team is honouring both Charles Oakley and Alvin Williams.
And with that I’ll leave you with this, courtesy of my man Doug Smith’s Raptors Blog: “Pimpin’ ain’t easy, pimpin’ ain’t dead; the ho’s are just scared.” – Charles Oakley
I love this game. Yes, yes, I do.
