+7
The L.A. Lakers beat the odds to actually score in overtime in a road win over the Boston Celtics. Across the country, Sacramento was booming as the Kings knocked off the Thunder.
One game after Monta Ellis scored 48 points in a loss to Oklahoma City, Stephen Curry picked up the mantle and scored 36 points while Klay Thompson knocked in 14 fourth quarter points to lead the Golden State Warriors over the Denver Nuggets 108-101 in Denver Thursday night.
Curry scored 21 points in the first half and didn't let up, shooting a scorching 13-17 from the field for the game while contributing seven assists and seven rebounds as well. Thompson only played five and a half minutes until the fourth quarter in which he shot 6-8 from the field and 2-3 from three-point range to help seal the win and give him 19 points for the effort.
The Warriors shot 13-25 from long range and blocked 14 shots, a season high for the team, led by Ekpe Udoh's team-high five. As a team, the Warriors showed quick feet and some good half court defense, holding the Nuggets to 43 percent from the field and only eight offensive rebounds.
Arron Afflalo was the only Nugget who found his stroke for the home team, scoring 26 points on 8-16 shooting. Nene was 6-7 for 15 points, but the length of Andris Biedrins and Udoh often caused the ball to stay on the perimeter.
The Nuggets used a late first half 16-4 run to take the lead into the half, capitalizing on getting seven of their eight offensive rebounds in the quarter. But as the second half began, Dorell Wright joined Curry in getting hot from the outside, hitting three 3-point baskets in the third quarter and helping to spark a 23-5 run that would give the Warriors the lead they would not relinquish.
Ellis had eight first quarter points himself, but seemed to understand the heat that his backcourt mate, Curry, had going for him and didn't force the issue, resulting in a solid 6-14 shooting night for a total of 14 points.
Over at Denver Stiffs, Andrew Feinstein laments Denver's efforts to keep up with the hot-shooting Warriors:
Capable of catching fire with their assortment of streaky shooters, the Warriors did just that on Thursday night by connecting on 52% of their three-point attempts and 51.9% of their field goals. Trying to match them shot-for-shot, the Nuggets - who haven't been able to shoot straight en route to five straight losses and six losses in seven games - managed to connect on just 37.5% of their three pointers and just 43.5% of their field goals. And the three point numbers are somewhat misleading as rookies Jordan Hamilton and Julyan Stone each made 50% of their threes when the game was no longer in doubt.
For the winner's take, check out Golden State of Mind.
These Lakers and Celtics know each other's habits pretty well, and it's gotten to the point that neither team can create much offensively to surprise the other. So, when the two teams met in Boston on Thursday night, both defenses were well prepared and full equipped to stifle the opposing offense. The dearth of scoring on either side went beyond good defense, though. Neither team could execute anything at all. There were few turnovers, but folks on both sides missed one jumper after another, including some customary, almost automatic looks that were suddenly going astray.
Kobe Bryant was at his most maddening for the Lakers, taking 24 shots to reach 27 points, but tossing in the occasional tough off-balance jumper to break up his misses. L.A. did get solid performances from Pau Gasol (25 points, 14 rebounds) and Andrew Bynum (16 and 17), and a helpful 11 points from Matt Barnes, but almost nothing outside of that. The Celtics got more balanced scoring, but didn't shoot any better than the Lakers did. Neither team cracked 40 percent on the evening.
A night of poor shooting for nearly everybody involved culminated in a dismal fourth quarter and overtime. The game was close throughout, and stayed that way because neither team felt like taking a real lead. Kevin Garnett, who was 6-23 on the night, went ice cold in the fourth quarter, missing seven consecutive looks at the long jumpers and inside buckets we're so used to seeing him finish. Boston, though, managed to pull ahead by two on a Ray Allen three-pointer going into the final minute. They locked down on the other end and seemed to have enough momentum to finish out the game, but Pau Gasol tipped in a hideous Bryant miss to draw even with nine seconds left. At the end of regulation, Paul Pierce picked up his dribble to soon and got trapped into hitting Mickael Pietrus for a 30-foot heave as time expired (which came remarkably close, as it happened).
Overtime was no cleaner. The Lakers hit a few jumpers, Paul Pierce answered with a couple of his own, then an Andrew Bynum tip-in of a Bryant miss pretty much won the game with 90 seconds left. The Celtics had a change to win it as time expired, but Paul Pierce rimmed out a jumper and Gasol (who'd been making useful little plays all night) swatted Ray Allen's follow attempt to seal Boston's fate. Thus, the game closed with five empty possessions, a fitting end to a game that was part defensive battle, part rim-rattling shank-fest for the rivals. At least both teams were in on the deal and missed at a similar enough rate to keep it close throughout.
The Lakers' much needed road win (just their fourth this season) moved them to 15-11, while the Celtics dropped to 14-11 with the loss.
Check out Silver Screen and Roll for Lakers coverage and Celtics Blog for -- you guessed it -- some excellent Celtics blogging.
Continuing our series of basketball players looking awkward in photos with basketballs, we reached new heights on Thursday night. Previously, Drew Gooden was terrified by a basketball, then enamored by a basketball, and finally he became a basketball.
Serge Ibaka, however, went right for the kill shot. For whatever reason, he tried to eat a basketball. It was as if the object was just an orange or something.
Just hours before the Phoenix Suns and Houston Rockets tipped off at U.S. Airways Center on Thursday night, the league announced that point guard Steve Nash earned Western Conference All-Star honors for the eighth time in his career. By the way he played, you would have thought Nash had been snubbed. The future Hall of Fame floor general -- who turned 38 years old on Tuesday -- scored 14 points on a perfect 7-7 shooting and dished out 13 assists as the Phoenix starters scored 76 of the team's 89 points on a combined 57.7 percent from the field and outscored Houston's staring five by a whopping 33 points. However, the Rockets' bench outpaced the Phoenix reserves 57-13 in points, 26-4 on the glass and 18-3 in assists as Houston picked up a 96-89 road victory.
The plus-minus differential in the box score can sometimes tell a misleading story, but in this case the numbers are spot on across the board. This contest truly did feature a matchup of the Suns' ying versus the Rockets' yang. No Houston starter manage a positive plus-minus differential, while every member of Suns' feature quintet of Steve Nash (+14), Jared Dudley (+5) , Grant Hill (+14), Channing Frye (+0) and Marcin Gortat (+9) all avoided a negative split. The bench stats for both teams flipped that script upside down. Every Suns player who came off the bench recorded a negative plus-minus mark, while Goran Dragic (+27), Courtney Lee (+18), Chase Budinger (+25) and Patrick Patterson (+20) all shot 50 percent or better off the bench for the Rockets and helped key the road win for Houston.
The marked disparity between the bench and starters for each team led to some wild swings throughout the game. The Suns jumped out to an early 17-8 lead thanks to three early assists and two quick points from Nash, but the Rockets answered the run with a huge second quarter from their backup unit. The Lee-Patterson-Hill-Dragic-Budinger unit combined for 20 of the team's 23 points, including 11 made baskets and 9 assists as a group, in the period to give the Rockers a 10-point lead heading into halftime. Alvin Gentry came back with his starters in the third period, and the Suns quickly worked in a 26-9 run to put Phoenix back on top 70-63 with 3:15 remaining the third period. Rockets head coach Kevin McHale acknowledged the advantage of his bench in the fourth quarter, as he left Luis Scola and Kevin Martin on the bench for the entire quarter. The reward for McHale was a 22-13 advantage in the final frame that propelled Houston to victory on a night that otherwise seemed destined to belong to Steve Nash.
Aside from the sweeping dominance of the Rockets' bench unit, the other reason the night did not completely belong to Steve Nash is that former Suns guard Goran Dragic played up to the challenge. He scored 11 points on 5-8 shooting and dished out a team-high 11 assists, and looked a lot like the player Nash mentored in Phoenix during the 2010-11 season than he has at other times in the season. Dragic couldn't quite match the 14 points and 13 assists posted by Nash, but he did look effective, disruptive and creative when running transition offense.
When the game got tight in the fourth quarter, the Suns wilted under the pressure. After such a strong night, the Phoenix Nash-Dudley-Hill-Frye-Gortat unit only managed four points in the final 6:10 of the game. At the same time, the Rockets scored 12 points off the bench during that decisive span and came away with a 96-89 victory in hand. Turnovers killed the Suns' in late-game execution on Wednesday, while Budinger and Lowry did the heavy lifting to seal the outcome.
Channing Frye led the Suns in scoring and rebounds with 21 points and 10 rebounds, and every Phoenix starter scored in double figures. Patrick Patterson shot 6-8 for 14 points and grabbed 6 rebounds. For the Rockets, no player in the starting lineup shot better than 50 percent from the field. The staff at The Dream Shake chose to focus their attention on Dragic and company after the game:
Dragic may have been the bench leader, but the bench as a whole was just wonderful. All were great. But the best performer (after Dragic) was certainly Patrick Patterson. Patterson played like the Rockets' power forward of the future, knocking down everything he was given, rebounding well, and just rarely making a mistake. We talked about this in the OALABII post -- Patterson plays very intelligent basketball. The game-icing rebound (I like thinking of it that way) was a clever little tip from Patterson (against Gortat) towards Lowry. Oh, and he scored 14 points (on 8 shots, half of which must have been wide-open jumpers he found). So, you know, P-Squared was great.
Dragic-Patterson reminds me of the '09 bench one-two of Lowry-Landry. That was pretty cool back in the day, too.
With the loss, the Suns snapped a three-game winning streak and fell to 11-15 overall, while the Rockets improved to 16-11 and are now 3-1 on their six-game road trip.
For more on the Houston Rockets, visit The Dream Shake. For news and notes on the Phoenix Suns, check out Bright Side Of the Sun.
You know it's a good dunk when the entire announcing team just starts screaming and grunting unintelligible words. That's exactly what happened on Thursday night as Russell Westbrook drove the lane, took off in traffic and soared over everyone to throw down a ridiculous dunk. It destroyed pretty much everything.
Westbrook came off a screen and found space right down the middle of the lane, helped by a nice seal along the way. He jumped, he flew, he dunked, he might've bruised the rim. And it was probably one of the best highlights of the night -- there's nothing like a powerful dunk, after all.
This was one way to begin a game. Rajon Rondo, being goofy Rajon Rondo, paid tribute to the Super Bowl runner up New England Patriots, it appears, immediately after the opening tip. It was just about the most Rondo thing possible.
This was actually a team effort, but I'm not sure why Rondo served up a second snap. Kevin Garnett collected the tip, bent over and long-snapped the ball to Rondo. The wily point guard then snapped the ball to himself and dribbled up the court to actually begin the game.
Thunder Vs. Kings: Sacramento Pulls Off A Huge Upset
The Oklahoma City Thunder have a dirty little secret. The Thunder have the best record in the Western Conference, and obviously they have star power to spare with All-Star starter Kevin Durant and fellow All-Star Russell Westbrook, named as a reserve on Thursday. The Thunder's offense is potent, ranked in the top five in the league in efficiency. The defense, while not stellar, is still around the league average in efficiency. But the Thunder are No. 30 in the league -- dead last -- in turnovers committed.
Thursday night in Sacramento against the Kings, those turnovers haunted the Thunder. They committed 23 for the game, with several key ones coming in the final minutes as they were losing an eight-point lead. Sacramento capitalized on the Thunder miscues to record a 106-101 victory, the fourth win in five games for the suddenly surging Kings.
The game was close throughout after the Kings ran out to an 11-2 lead at the very outset. That nine-point margin would prove to be their biggest lead of the game, while the Thunder never led by more than eight. But Oklahoma City built their lead late, and it seemed as if they had the game well in hand when a Daequan Cook three put them ahead 95-87 with less than 6 minutes remaining. But the Kings kept battling, and back to back threes by Marcus Thornton within a span of 40 seconds knotted the score at 97.
Meanwhile, in those final crucial six minutes, the Thunder committed five turnovers -- three of them in the final two minutes. The Thunder took the lead for the last time at 99-98 on a Westbrook jumper with just 80 seconds left in the game -- but they proceeded to come up empty on their next three possessions, with two of them ending in Westbrook turnovers. The Kings scored seven unanswered points at the free throw line to put the game away.
Russell Westbrook is a singular NBA talent; his athleticism is breathtaking. On one drive and dunk, TNT analyst Chris Webber lost his composure completely, screaming incoherently at a national TV audience, because Westbrook is that spectacular.
He finished the game with 33 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists -- and 7 turnovers. It was the ninth time this season that Westbrook, ostensibly a point guard, has had as many or more turnovers as assists in a game. That's more than a third of the time, and that's not good.
Sacramento struggled to score all night. Serge Ibaka of the Thunder blocked 10 shots (the second time he's done so this month) and when Ibaka wasn't there, Nick Collison was taking charges. Consequently the Kings shot a poor percentage -- but the extra shots they got from the Thunder turnovers kept them in the game. The 23-12 disparity in turnovers combined with a 17-12 Sacramento edge on the offensive glass resulted in 22 extra field goal attempts for the Kings. That's how you win a basketball game while being outshot 48 percent to 40 percent.
The Kings were led by Tyreke Evans with 22 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists and 4 steals, DeMarcus Cousins with 19 points and 9 rebounds, and Thornton with 15 points, including those two huge three-pointers. The Kings may actually have a decent core going with those three. In addition to Westbrook's 33, Kevin Durant had 27 and James Harden had 17 for Oklahoma City. And that's what you call a great core.
Oklahoma City is now four games into a five game road trip on which they find themselves 2-2. They pulled out last-minute wins in Portland and Oakland, but couldn't find the same magic in Sacramento. Overall they drop to 20-6, still good for best in the West, but second to Chicago overall in the NBA. Sacramento improves to 10-16 overall, 7-4 at home. There just aren't a lot of easy road wins in the Western Conference.
For more on the Thunder, you are Welcome to Loud City. To catch up on the Kings, treat yourself like Sactown Royalty.
Feb 10 8:02a by Steve Perrin - 0 comments