Pondering what went wrong…
(Photo. Stephen Hill)

If you were interested in the Michael Redd vs. Bruce Bowen battle, Spurs/Bucks was entertaining. (Bowen won this round: Redd ended up with 14 points, mostly on free throws.) Aside from that, it was just the champs running Milwaukee through a clinic. Manu (21 pts) came off the bench in the first half and scored 12 points in about 4 minutes, giving it to everyone from Charlie V to Charlie Bell and hitting a crazy leaner at the 1st quarter buzzer. It was almost a 30-piecing by halftime, and the second half was a lot of Tim Duncan locking Jake Voskuhl in the chamber and Tony Parker/Manu running fast-break drills. With the stars sitting out the fourth, guys like Ian Mahinmi and Darius Washington were even getting theirs. And it didn’t help the Bucks that Yi and Andrew Bogut spent a lot of time on the bench in foul trouble … The Sonics were on the wrong end of a Detroit Pistons Better Basketball clinic in the first half last night, but they showed some heart in coming back to make it competitive. Not a surprise that Detroit couldn’t hang onto the big lead; they’re good for playing down to the level of their competition and coasting at times. Detroit tried to establish Tayshaun Prince right away against Kevin Durant, but KD was up to it, getting a piece of two of Prince’s shots early on. After that, Rip Hamilton (32 pts) proceeded to put Damien Wilkins in the hamster wheel … Before Knicks/Heat, Mike Breen warned that “The reports of Shaq‘s demise have been greatly exaggerated.” Shaq didn’t exactly kill out there, but the Heat finally won a game and Diesel contributed 14 points, 9 boards and 3 blocks. We know the big fella isn’t 2001 version anymore, but Miami still needs to learn how to take advantage of him. There was one play when Eddy Curry fell down under the basket on New York’s end, so Shaq took off running the floor. J-Will missed him on the break, and when Shaq then got post position on David Lee, Ricky Davis ignored him and bricked a three … You have to hang some of NY’s loss on Steph. Up by one in the final minute, Marbury drove and threw a wild pass out of bounds. Then he let Jason Williams get free for Miami’s go-ahead bucket. On New York’s last possession, Steph ignored everyone else on the court and missed an awful three while trying to draw contact from J-Will. There was a good 3-4 seconds left on the clock when Steph let it fly, and before that he had his head down when he could have been looking for someone else with a better shot … Penny got the start and didn’t look bad. It’s clear he can’t really run with someone like Jamal Crawford for long stretches, but his floor game was solid (6 asts, 4 stls, 5 rebs) … Yao and T-Mac pretty much beat the ‘Cats by themselves, with some help from the refs. Down by one with 38 seconds left, T-Mac had nothing going with Gerald Wallace and Emeka Okafor shadowing him. He gave it up to Skip for a missed three, but Yao got the rebound and got fouled. He hit both freebies, and on Charlotte’s possession, Wallace tried to hit a tough runner over T-Mac but was called for a questionable push-off. It wasn’t a terrible call by the book, but it was one of those times where you just don’t blow the whistle … One time T-Mac was fouled coming off a screen to his right, and on the dead ball, flipped up a left-handed shot beyond the arc that went in … If you missed Sixers/Hornets you’ll just have to trust us on this: Willie Green was killing Chris Paul early on. It didn’t hold up, though, as Willie ended up with just 9 points and the Sixers got 20-pieced … Rasual Butler (from Philly) apparently had to get 60 tickets for family and friends. And counting those 60, there were maybe 63 people total in the stands. It was one of those games where you could hear the ball bouncing … Jeff Jordan scored 0 points and turned the ball over once in three minutes of burn in his collegiate debut, an Illinois win over Northeastern. And you know Mike‘s kid had more people looking to interview him post-game than teammate Shaun Pruitt, who went for 12 points and 17 boards. Last week we were looking up Jordan’s bio on the Illinois site. The “Personal” section included this line: “Father’s basketball accomplishments are far too great to even attempt listing.” … Hulk Hogan was at the Chargers/Colts game. Is he ever not in character? Does he even remember his natural personality anymore? … We’re out like Terry Bollea …