The Post Up: Grizz Goodness

by Holly MacKenzie / @stackmack

And back to our regularly scheduled programming here in the Post Up…

Seriously though, one more thank you for every thought, prayer and kind comment that was sent my way yesterday. Thanks for hanging in so I could show love in my post and stay true to how I was feeling inside. I don’t ever want to give you something that doesn’t feel real and writing anything other than the emotion I was feeling would have felt off.

Means more than you know.

Is it wrong that I kinda wish Brandon Jennings had the high top fade for his SLAM cover?

Wow, the universe gave me a great night of bball to dive into last night, didn’t it?

There were a ton of crazy finishes on last night. I missed some of them because I was liveblogging the Houston/Lakers game for The Score, but flipped over in time to catch the end of Portland/Memphis.

Wow.

As Jerryd Bayless drove to the hoop and was fouled I realized as the play stopped that my body was tense and I had bawled up both hands and held them by my face. Haven’t done this for a team in a long, long time. I was pulling hard for the Blazers like they were my team or something. Bayless broke me just a little on the first free throw. The ball was in, halfway down, bounced around a bit and then bounces back out. The home rims were not kind to JB.

The Grizz got the W, Zach Randolph had 27 and 14, Marc Gasol had 18 and 10 and OJ Mayo had 27 while also drawing a HUGE offensive foul on Brandon Roy down the stretch.

This game was their 18th victory, last year that didn’t happen until the 65th game of the season. Wild. All hail Zach Randolph, including…. NEW fan Matt Moore of Hardwood Paroxysm. If you know anything about my former editor and forever friend (and if you don’t, it’s time to check him out), it’s that he doesn’t do fandom of one particular team. Well, after the victory of the Grizz tonight, he’s pledged his allegiance and he’s a Grizz Guy.

Let’s never let him forget it. Frontrunner for the fan blog name?

“God Chose Memphis” courtesy of @isaiahk

No Foster, Hansbrough or Murhpy, but the Pacers had Hibbert. Against Dwight and the Magic. And it worked. Of course it worked. Wanna know why? Because the Magic head home to face the Raptors tonight. *sigh*

Hibbert was awesome though, scoring 26 points to go with eight rebounds, three assists and four blocked shots while going against Howard who was held to 11 points on 2-for-6 field goals to go with his 15 boards. VC had 15 points… on 15 shots. Magic have gotta start getting Dwight more touches or getting him to be more aggressive, or something.

I say this when the team is still 24-10. Hmm. I expect a lot from the good teams, I guess.

In LA, the Lakers had Ron Artest back, but were without Pau Gasol against the Rockets. They didn’t know if they’d have Lamar Odom because he was sick before the game, but the guy ended up starting in place of Gasol and turning in his best performance all season in a game that was close because of how the Rockets hustle and fight on every possession.

Odom finished with 17 points, 19 rebounds and nine assists. He gave them energy, he got them loose balls and offensive rebounds and he was fired up all night. He even had a beautiful move around his defender going to the right hand, which, as a fellow lefty, I was excited about.

The Chicago Bulls miss Ben Gordon.

I’m confident in saying he wouldn’t have missed that wide open three-pointer.

Chris Webber said Gerald Wallace should be going to the All-Star game. Do you agree?

Wallace has been amazing. The rebounding is just ridiculous for a 6-foot-7 guy. I’d love to see him in the mix.

32 and 14 from Antawn Jamison in a Wiz win against the Sixers who fell apart late. I don’t want to say anything else about the Wizards because this Arenas thing is just too much at the current moment for my brain to take in.

Catch the Monta Ellis “foul” on JR Smith at the end of the game to put JR on the line with 0.4 seconds remaining to win the game for the Nuggets against the Warriors? Yikes. I don’t know about that. Neither did JR, considering he was ready to go to the locker room, thinking he’d lost the game on his missed three-pointer. Tough break for the Warriors on a big night for rookie Steph Curry who had 26 points while Ellis had 32 in the loss. Kenyon Martin had 27 points and 13 rebounds for the Nuggets in the win.

27/11/7 + two steals and a block for Tyreke Evans. Yeah, yeah, they lost to the Suns as Steve Nash saved his team for the 113-109 victory, but that’s a hell of a line from the rookie, in just his second game coming back from an ankle sprain and then returning in the game after tweaking it. 24 points and seven rebounds for Casspi, too. My fave rookie tandem, for sure.

Okay, I know there’s more, but I think I covered all of the good stuff that I saw. If I missed your fave plays, tell em, thanks!