NBA Scores & More: Gregg Popovich Tanks Streaking Spurs, Heat Victorious In Shootout Against Kings

When not a single starter shoots better than 50 percent and your top scorer maxes out at 15 points, one might think your team has had a rough night. But the Memphis Grizzlies took the ball inside against the Philadelphia 76ers early, took a big lead and held on down the stretch despite 22 points from a hot Jrue Holiday for a 89-76 win in Memphis Tuesday night.

The 76ers have success in getting teams to rely on long two-point shots to score, but early on Memphis ran their offense through the low post and their newly minted All-Star Marc Gasol to take advantage of the absence of Elton Brand, who missed the game due to a sprained thumb. Gasol and fellow starting frontcourt mate Marreese Speights helped the home team to a 27-7 start and the Sixers struggled to get to 10 before the first quarter ended.

In the second quarter, Holiday got hot, knocking down five of eight shots, including three from downtown to help Philly get to five before halftime. Included in that 32-point quarter were 13 straight Sixer points from Holiday, who scored with a layup, dunk and three three-pointers during that run. But while Holiday was hot, the usually sturdy Sixer bench was ice-cold.

Louis Williams, Evan Turner, Thaddeus Young and Nikola Vucevic combined for a 7-32 shooting night (22 percent) and never gave Philadelphia the usual push that had propelled them to a 20-12 record coming into the game.

Memphis never had a single player step out in the scoring department in the second half, as eight different Grizzlies participated in a 22-point quarter. The Grizzlies used excellent ball movement, usually through Gasol, to accumulate 25 assists on their 31 baskets. Gasol led all Grizzlies with seven assists, part of a 15-14-7-5 (blocks) effort to ward off the usually pesky Sixers.

Gasol led Memphis in points, rebounds, assists and blocks for the game, the last before the All-Star break for the team, while the Sixers were led by the game-high 22 points from Holiday and seven assists from Andre Iguodala.

The Sixers got the lead down to as little as four with eight and a half minutes left, but Memphis got three three-pointers -- one from O.J. Mayo and two from Rudy Gay, who made only three shots the entire game, but scored eight in the final quarter -- to pull away with a 15-6 run to close the game.

For more from Philly, check out Liberty Ballers. For the Grizzlies take, head over to Straight Outta Vancouver.

Only Gregg Popovich. Seriously, what other NBA coach would rest his two best players as his team is riding an 11-game winning streak? Other than the coach of the San Antonio Spurs, who could get away with it? Now that Phil Jackson and Jerry Sloan are gone? Every other coach out there is fighting and scratching for every single win -- worried that another bad loss could mean his job. And they'd sure as heck be trying to an extend the longest winning streak of any NBA team this season. The opponent, the Portland Trail Blazers, were at the end of a brutal stretch of games, six in eight nights. Seems like a game to win, right? Popovich? "Let's see what Eric Dawson can do."

This isn't going to be much of a recap folks. More of a rant. Portland scored 22 straight midway through the first quarter to break it open and the Trail Blazers won by 40. That's it ... there's your recap. But of course, you'd expect them to win by 40 against the Austin Toros.

The Spurs starting lineup consisted of DeJuan Blair (OK, he's a starter), Richard Jefferson (check), Danny Green (spent most of last season in the D-League), Kawhi Leonard (rookie) and Cory Joseph (rookie, spent four games in the D-League). Wait a minute you say, where are the Spurs we recognize, the famous ones, the ones people have heard of? Well, Manu Ginobili has a strained oblique muscle and is out for two weeks (this just four games after returning from a broken hand that kept him out for 22 games). Tiago Splitter, the first big off the bench, is also out for two weeks after straining a calf muscle.

What about Tim Duncan and Tony Parker, you say? Where are they? Well, they're resting. Apparently they're very, very tired and they're resting.

Which means the fans at the Rose Garden got to see Jefferson trying to defend LaMarcus Aldridge (he couldn't; Aldridge scored 21 points in 27 minutes) and a bunch of second stringers try to play with the Blazers (they couldn't). What's interesting is that the way the Blazers shot threes (15 for 28, tying a season high in makes), it seems unlikely that any Spurs lineup could have beaten them. So again we see that Gregg Popovich is a genius.

Among the questions one might wonder from a game like this:

• Jefferson's 31 years old and Parker's 29. Do you suppose RJ said to Pop, "Hey man, what's the deal? Why don't I get the night off? I'm old, I like to rest, too. Are you saying that I'm not as important to the team's championship aspirations in the long run? Oh, that is what you're saying. Never mind. Please don't give my starting job to Kawhi."
• This was San Antonio's only appearance in Portland this season. What about the children of Portland who are huge Tony Parker fans? Little hipster francophiles, looking forward all year to their one chance to see their hero play? What about the children? Won't someone please think of the children?
• With the All-Star break just one game away, couldn't Pop have asked his stars to play one more game? "Let's see, Timmy gets his first midyear week off in a decade three days from now ... he definitely needs to rest up for that."
• What about San Antonio's 11 straight victims on their recent rampage? Parker dropped 42 on the Thunder. You don't think Scott Brooks is saying, "Why couldn't he have rested against us?"

On the plus side, multiple Spurs players established career highs in this game; career highs that like Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game, will probably never be broken. Leonard (43 minutes, 24 points), Joseph (37 minutes, 13 points) and Eric Dawson (32 minutes, 9 points) all established high marks in minutes and points, while James Anderson established a career-high with 35 minutes. For Dawson, a 27-year-old rookie just signed from the D-League for a 10-day contract, the odds are pretty good that he won't play 32 minutes combined in the rest of his NBA career.

Of actual interest from a basketball standpoint, coach Nate McMillan tweaked the Portland lineup, inserting Jamal Crawford at the point guard and benching Raymond Felton. This comes a week after Nicolas Batum replaced Wes Matthews as the starter at shooting guard, so McMillan has completely turned over his starting backcourt in eight days. Crawford, one of the NBA's top sixth men over the last few years and the 2010 winner of the Sixth Man award, responded with 20 points and eight assists, making his first five shots, all three-pointers. So the change went great tonight, but we'll have to wait and see how the team plays against NBA competition.

With the win, the Blazers move to 18-16. The loss drops the Spurs to 23-10.

For more on the Blazers, move to the Blazersedge. To read up on the Spurs, try Pounding the Rock.

The New Orleans Hornets set expectations near zero after they opened the season with a 4-23 record and shut down Eric Gordon with a right knee injury, but now they are playing a much feistier brand of basketball. Just ask the Indiana Pacers, who were lucky to escape with a 117-108 home win over the Hornets in overtime on Tuesday night.

A scorching 72.2 percent shooting in the first quarter allowed the visitors to carve out an early 31-24 lead, and that hot shooting endured to the intermission -- the Hornets hit an astounding 69.7 percent on field goals in the first half. Pacers head coach Frank Vogel tried to slow New Orleans down with a timeout with 9:33 remaining in the opening quarter, but a smooth three from Marco Belinelli, transition layup from Gustavo Ayon and mid-range jumper off a curl cut from Trevor Ariza forced Vogel back out of his chair just two minutes later to call yet another timeout. His theatrics didn't make an immediate impact on the course of the game, but eventually Vogel got his chance to impact the game down the stretch. Roy Hibbert kept Indiana within striking distance in the first half.

Eastern Conference NBA All-Star reserve Roy Hibbert discarded his face mask for the first time since breaking his nose against the L.A. Lakers on Jan. 22, and responded with a career-high 30 points on 11-17 shooting. Hibbert helped the Pacers withstand the Hornets' early surge by pouring in a quick 19 points in the first two quarters while the Hornets tried single overage, and then he closed the door in overtime with some clutch plays to punctuate the hard-fought win. The Indy big man found success by anchoring himself in the paint against overmatched inferior defenders. Hibbert attempted all 17 shots within 10 feet of the rim, grabbed more offensive rebounds (7) than any Hornets player grabbed total rebounds and attacked the rim whenever the basketball hit his hands. His aggressiveness and effectiveness limited the Pacers' halftime deficit to just three points, and some overtime domination helped seal the win.

Solomon Jones and Chris Kaman failed to stop Hibbert on defense, but they combined for 26 points on on 11-17 from the field and more than held their own on the offensive end. In fact, that's the best way to describe the general offensive effort from the Hornets: they more than held their own. Grieves Vasquez (9 points, 7 assists) and Jarrett Jack (19 points, 10 assists) thrived by distributing the ball in the post and along the perimeter. Aside from the success down low by Kaman and Jones, Marco Belinelli stroked his jumper whenever afforded space, and hit double-digits in points for the eighth straight game by notching 15 on the night.

Trevor Ariza turned Danny Granger into a non-factor on the offensive end -- Granger only scored 14 points on 4-14 shooting -- by applying serious defensive intensity along the perimeter. On offense, Ariza continued his stretch of hot play and pumped in 21 points and 5 assists hit a clutch 16-foot catch-and-shoot jumper to tie the game at 100 with 5.4 seconds remaining in regulation. The Pacers led prior to that shot because of strong second halves from Paul George and Darren Collison. After the intermission, Collison worked high pick-and-roll with Hibbert and David West more than usual in the second half, as he scored 14 of his 18 points and dished out five of his six assists during that span.

Paul George never got his outside stroke going, as he shot just 1-6 from three started 1-9 and missed a potential game-winning jumper at the end of regulation, but his willingness to attack the rim came in handy during the overtime period. George did not contribute as much as Hibbert with regards to the 54-36 points in the paint advantage for Indiana, but his efforts enjoy praise just the same. He angled and sliced his way into the paint with more conviction later in the game and came up with some big baskets.

After a pivotal tip dunk to put the Paacers up five points with just over three minutes left in overtime, the Pacers swingman swiped a steal, dished an assist and then unleashed a wicked windmill dunk to set the Pacers' total at 117-106. The Hornets went cold in the overtime, and it became the Pacers' turn to get red hot from the field. A sparking 63.6 percent of Indy shots found the bottom of the net in overtime, and as the Pacers pulled out a 117-108 home win. George grabbed a loose ball and immediately turned it into a fast break opportunity at the end of extra time, so the Fresno State product focused on making the most of it. Take a look. Just as a reminder, George will be participating in the Sprite Slam Dunk Contest at NBA All-Star weekend...

For more on the Indiana Pacers, check out Indy Cornrows. Hornets information and analysis is available on At The Hive.

The Sacramento Kings and Miami Heat entered Tuesday's contest headed in opposite directions. Miami had won seven straight, all by double digits and mostly on the road. Back at home for the second night of a three-game home stand, the Heat faced a Kings team that had lost five straight, including the first four games of their six-stop road trip. To their credit, Sacramento held various leads and kept it competitive most of the way, but when it came down to winnin' time, the Heat ended the affair swiftly and mercilessly, eventually emerging with the 120-108 win.

While the Heat coolly racked up highlights (seriously: this happened within seconds of this), the Kings generated plenty of their own offense. Sacto point-center DeMarcus Cousins was stifled the whole way by Chris Bosh and company, but the rest of the Kings stepped up in his stead. Jason Thompson (16 points on the evening) found the touch in the first quarter, Marcus Thornton (23) got hot in the second, and Tyreke Evans got 3 of his 21 points on this rather remote buzzer-beater. It was cuddly lilliputian Isaiah Thomas, though, that kept Sacramento alive in the second half. Thomas drained five three-pointers in the third quarter alone, scoring 20 points in the period and allowing the Kings to keep pace despite an offensive explosion from Miami.

That offensive explosion was unrelenting, though. Miami got 30 points from Dwyane Wade, another 38 from Chris Bosh and LeBron James combined, and their very own three-point outburst to match Thomas's. Mario Chalmers (or, as the Miami announcers so gratingly call him, "Rio". That doesn't even fit the cadence of his name pronunciation, guys.) did Isaiah one better, drilling six shots from downtown, including three in that firefight of a third quarter.

Eventually, the Heat brushed aside those plucky Kings, took a double-digit lead, and ran their lights-out shooting percentage up to 56 percent on the evening. Sacramento went zone for long stretches, and the Heat capitalized by hitting 10 of 23 three-pointers. (The Kings, incidentally, sank 13 of 27, so perhaps there was just something in the Gatorade).

Miami's seventh straight win moved them to 26-7 overall while the Kings fell to 10-22 heading into the final game of their road trip in Washington tomorrow night. They'll be looking to avoid the East Coast sweep in that one.

Check out Peninsula Is Mightier to read about the Heat and Sactown Royalty for more on the Kings.