Observations I made tonight while watching the NBA slate of games.
- Good news/Bad news for Suns fans. Good news: they won in San Antonio for the first time in the regular season since 2003. Grant Hill also proved his worth (hint: its in the half court) and Boris Diaw gave them something. Bad news: Tony Parker didn’t play (so multiply Jacque Vaughn’s 14 by two) and Tim Duncan still owns Amare’s soul ending up with 36 and 17 including 8 in the first four minutes.
- Speaking of Duncan, he should be on the “downside” of his career but I just don’t see it happening. As long as he can run up and down the court he’ll be the best player on the planet in my book.
- Who would have ever thought that Mike Dunleavy would have dropped 36 at MSG? Seriously the Pacers are kind of like the Blazers of the West (except not quite as young). No one saw it coming but at the same time it isn’t that surprising. Dunleavy, Jermaine, Murphy, Granger, Tinsley, Foster and Marquis Daniels…you could do worst for a core of players. Plus the freedom that O’Brien’s offense has brought them has done nothing but good. They’ll be even better when Diogu is healthy.
- How do the Knicks keep getting demolished? They either win or lose by 20 there is no in between.
- I forgot to mention Marvin Williams in the Most Improved Player talk…boy has he been something for the Hawks. The Hawks are puzzling by the way. They’ve won 6 of their last 9 and show that promise but right when you think they might be there they show just how far away they are. I put part of their recent success on the injuries that have forced the Hawks to go with one point guard. That man is Anthony Johnson and he has a least brought a bit of consistency to the Hawks.
- Utah is a team in desperate need of a shooter. That pick and roll that I fawned over last year is not quite as lethal when the other three guys on the court are Kirilenko, Jarron Collins and CJ Miles. Now instead of having to worry about a skip pass to a shooter you just suck in on Boozer and contain Williams. That ends that. With them unable to spread the floor it puts a lot more pressure on Williams to make more out of rhythm plays.
- I love how Cleveland got about 15 times uglier the minute Varejao came back. For some reason Mike Brown loves that guy, I don’t know why he should be playing Gooden more he’s been killing all year. Plus he’s on my fantasy team..but I disgress. The guy is an offensive liability the likes of Theo Ratliff. How many more times can LeBron see a trap and watch Devin Brown and Larry Hughes clank open jumpers?
- The one thing you can always say about D-Wade…the man is clutch. If the Heat could just keep it close going into the fourth I guarantee they would have a much better record. For instance tonight, Wade dropped 12 in the fourth to lead them to an ugly four point win over Minnesota. He’s a finisher.
- By the way…does anyone else miss when Zo was super hyped up? Like when he first came back and would block a shot and go nuts to the point where everyone was like ‘Damn Zo calm down’. Now he just acts like its business as usual. That bothers me.
- Not sure exactly what else to say about the Blazers and this win streak. Another signature of a good team: gutting out wins they pretty much had no business winning. Tonight was one of those. Definitely don’t even want to think about that P word until we go on that nasty road stretch next month.
- Jameer Nelson got pissed at Orlando for not offering him the same money that Devin Harris got, citing that…well he’s better than Devin Harris. So in his matchup against Dallas and Harris he of course…gets outplayed by Devin Harris. Harris had 15 points, 9 assists and 1 turnover as his team won. Nelson had 13 points and 5 assists and his team lost.