+3
The Bulls relied on Mike James (!) to handle Rajon Rondo as the Big Three fell short. In Portland, the Clippers managed to earn a "repugnant win." The Pacers' victory over the Nets wasn't much prettier.
In a matchup between two of the best defenses in the league, one could reasonably expect a game as low scoring as this was, 89-80. But the Boston Celtics likely did not expect the following:
For all of the Bulls' offensive rebounds, it translated to only 12 points, but it was six points more than Boston gathered on their offensive glass. Joakim Noah had eight of those offensive boards (16 rebounds overall) and scored 15 points as a result. As for Boozer, all 15 of his boards were defensive and he also had five assists, as the Bulls controlled the glass on both ends of the floor.
While Boozer was hot, Luol Deng was busy proving why he is an All-Star. After harassing Allen on defense, Deng shot the ball particularly well, going 6-9 from three-point range and also leading the team with 10 assists, the last of which had the Celtics defense leaving not one, but two Bulls open at the rim in a halfcourt set.
It was that kind of night for the C's, who didn't have their shots falling against the energetic Bulls defense. Garnett was good, shooting 7-13, but Pierce, Allen and Rondo combined for 17-46, a 37 percent clip from the field. Allen did have three shots from deep go down in the third quarter to get the Celtics back out in front, briefly, but he ultimately had a hard time getting good set looks at the basket.
Rondo ended with a tidy 17-7-8 line, but those eight assists comprised more than half of the 15 total for the Celtics. Meanwhile, the Bulls assisted on 27 of 30 made baskets, using a patient, side-to-side approach that was only temporarily derailed by a Celtic zone. Once figured out, the Bulls made ways to rip the exposed middle of that zone, too.
Indicative of the way the game went for Boston was Rondo just missing beating the shot clock on a put-back early on in the game, but on the other end, the Celtics forcing a loose ball in the air with almost no time left on the shot clock for Chicago, while the ball ended up on the right hand of Taj Gibson, whose momentum carried he and the ball to score and beat the buzzer. That bucket gave the Bulls a 71-69 lead and sparked a 12-0 run that put the game away.
At Blog-A-Bull, your friendly BullsBlogger talks about the impact that the 36-year-old journeyman point guard had on this game:
He didn't finish with a great statistical line, but James helmed the point as a part of the Bulls biggest runs of both halves, the team finishing with +15 with him on the floor. James may actually be the best pure distributor and pick-and-roll player on the (healthy) roster, and Thibs went to him in crunch time (after a blown defensive play by John Lucas) through the time he fouled out.
Meanwhile, at CelticsBlog, there were no excuses offered for the loss:
Well.....the second half of the third quarter of this game turned out to be sort of exciting - for a moment. The Celtics however lost focus in certain parts of this game (especially the 4th Qtr) and in the end this lack of focus sealed their fate. The final score of 89-80 doesn't really seem correct (it feels like it should more of a point spread), as we simply faded away in the 4th Quarter with bad shots, lack of mental toughness, and were unable to control the Bulls on the glass.
It's a common trope in the sports lexicon -- the ugly win. The ugly win occurs when a team plays less than it's best game. When the offense is not clicking and the shots are not falling, but the team still finds a way to come out on top. But "ugly win" does not begin to describe what the Los Angeles Clippers did on Thursday night in Portland against the Trail Blazers. We need something more to convey how horrid, how noxious, how truly gruesome this game was. To the thesaurus! I hereby propose a new basketball cliche: the repugnant win.
The Clippers got a repugnant win Thursday night against the Blazers, 74-71. The points scored marked a season low for both teams. The Clippers scored a season-low 32 in the first half and just 12 in the second quarter. Portland scored just 11 in the final quarter. Neither team could break 40 percent shooting from the field. The Clippers made only 2 of 17 three-point attempts. It was a game only a Clipper fan could love. Actually, strike that. This game was not in any way lovable by any person.
Blame the lockout. The Clippers were playing their eighth game in their eighth city in 13 nights, and had arrived in Portland in the wee hours after their game in Los Angeles on Wednesday. The Blazers were playing their third game in three nights, the finale of a back-to-back-to-back. Portland started well, scoring 27 in the first and jumping out to a big early lead. But they were playing on pure adrenaline, pumped up by their home crowd. This effect was heightened by the fact that they were playing without leading scorer LaMarcus Aldridge, who sat out his second straight game with a sprained ankle. The crowd tried to encourage and reward the undermanned Blazers for their scrappiness and hard work, but after the initial buzz wore off, there was nothing left -- no one on the Blazers had their legs by the fourth quarter (their 12th quarter in 51 hours, as it happens).
The Clippers came back from 18 down in the game, and the truly astounding thing is that they were not behind by more. L.A.'s offense in the first half was an abomination. In fact, their most effective set early on was a little thing called the "offensive rebound" -- that's where someone misses a jump shot, and then either Blake Griffin or Kenyon Martin gets a putback. The advantage is that it's easy to run -- the disadvantage is that it's not a very efficient strategy. Of L.A.'s 15 first half field goals, more than half were after misses.
Griffin is really the only reason L.A. was still in the game and close enough to think about a comeback in the third. He led all scorers with 21 points and also had a game high 14 rebounds. All 21 of his points came in the first three quarters -- and his teammates had pitched in with a mere 31 more to that point.
Of all the out-of-sorts players, no one was more discombobulated than Clippers point guard Chris Paul. Through three quarters he was scoreless on seven shot attempts, with one assist and three turnovers. He was, in short, unrecognizable.
Actually, it was quite a compelling illustration of his MVP credentials -- for those three quarters he was terrible, and he took his entire team down with him. His face might as well have been on a milk carton because he was just plain missing.
And then he showed up. After going scoreless through three quarters, he single-handedly outscored the Blazers in the fourth, 13-11. He was 5 for 8 in the period, including a three-pointer with the clock running down that gave L.A. a four-point lead with three minutes to go, and a jumper a couple minutes later that stretched the lead to five, which proved to be enough.
Fittingly, on a night when the Clippers missed their first 11 three-point attempts and trailed because of those misses, it was their first three-pointer of the evening by Mo Williams that gave them the lead, and Paul's own dagger less than a minute later that put Los Angeles up by two possessions for the first time in the game.
In addition to Griffin's 21 and Paul's 13, Williams had 17 off the bench for L.A. No other Clipper had more than six. For the Blazers, Nicolas Batum started red hot, making six of seven first quarter shots for 15 points -- but he only scored four more the rest of the way. Wes Matthews had 16 for the Blazers, and Jamal Crawford put up 19 off the bench.
The Clippers will take a win, even a repugnant win. With it, they improve to 19-9 with a big showdown against San Antonio looming on Saturday. The Blazers have now lost four straight home games after beginning the season 11-1 at the Rose Garden. They drop to 16-15 overall. They need some rest -- and to get LaMarcus Aldridge back.
For more on the Clippers, visit scenic Clips Nation. To read about the Blazers, move to the Blazer's Edge.
The beauty of a meeting between two sliding teams is that one of them must momentarily rise, even if the game itself is far from beautiful. Thursday's match-up between the Nets, losers of seven straight, and the Pacers, who had dropped five in a row, was waaaaaay far from beautiful, but Indiana survived some dicey late-game execution to break their streak by the score of 93-88.
New Jersey bolted out to an 11-point lead in the first quarter behind Deron Williams' determined scoring and Kris Humphries' perfect shooting from the field. That momentum was promptly dashed with a 15-0 Pacers run that spanned the first and second quarter, then with a flurry of scoring from Danny Granger.
Granger, playing quite ably despite a sprained left ankle that had held him out of the previous game and a half, led Indiana the rest of the way and kept them steadily afloat despite team-wide 40 percent shooting and momentary confusion over whether or not the world had ended. (If you had "A.J. Price pump fake" in your office Cause Of The Apocalypse pool, please collect your prize, then get underground immediately). Granger's 32 points led all scorers, and included 4-7 shooting from downtown.
Indiana's defense, too, spurred the comeback and kept them up throughout. Paul George, who often switched over to bother Deron Williams, was the key defensively, and Indy Cornrows noticed a marked uptick in his contribution on that end, particularly in the second half:
The third quarter was an ugly showcase of solid defense; all led by Paul George, who didn't have a lot of numbers besides his four steals, but absolutely focused in on his game defensively, disrupting the New Jersey rhythm offensively. Meanwhile, the refs were swallowing the whistles at every drive at the basket, as both teams went back and forth, struggling to score any points in the third.
The game stayed close for most of the rest of the way. Indiana's shooting didn't get any better, but the Nets completely crashed after shooting 57 percent in the first half, despite getting quite a few calls in their favor (or did it just seem that way because the Indiana crowd reacts so ferociously when the refs make a call against the Pacers?).
Indiana pulled ahead by nine with less than two minutes remaining and appeared to have the game in hand, but made just enough horrid passes and blown layup attempts to allow the Nets a shred of hope. In the end, Indiana made their free throws and Granger stuffed an Anthony Morrow three-pointer that would have cut it to two.
The narrow win got Indiana back in the win column and up to 18-12, while the Nets kept sliding to an overall record of 8-23.
For more on the Pacers, visit Indy Cornrows. For more on the Nets, head over to NetsDaily.
VIDEO: Lights Out In Indiana
by Tom Ziller
From NBA Scores & More, Seth Rosenthal noticed an odd moment in Thursday's Nets vs. Pacers game:
The moment that sparked that concern is below the jump.
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Feb 17 8:14a