Photo. TadderWhether he was just trying to build suspense or he’s been operating on J.R. Rider Standard Time, Gilbert Arenas‘ comeback in D.C. was plenty dramatic. After going M.I.A. for morning shootaround and pre-game warmups — even the actually beginning of the game — Gil strode out from the locker room halfway through the first quarter. Not exactly a Willis Reed moment, but huge nontheless for a Wizards team who could make a little noise in the East bracket if they’ve got all their guys. Arenas checked in almost immediately (commendable job by Eddie Jordan for not actually giggling on the sideline) and proceeded to drop 12 points in the first half as the crowd went nuts. Arenas ended up with 17 points, but his defense wasn’t all there (like it was in the first place) and he obviously isn’t 100 percent. But just having him on the floor improves Washington’s offense automatically, even if he’s just a decoy … Naturally, on the same day Gilbert comes back, Antawn Jamison (shoulder) and DeShawn Stevenson (ankle) get hurt and will get have to get MRI’s to see if they’ll miss time. Both of them were taken out right at the end of the game, after the Wiz had blown a 10-point fourth-quarter lead. Arenas made a pair of free throws with 15 seconds to go to put them back up one, but then Stevenson rolled his ankle, and right after that Jamison went into the crowd trying to save a loose ball and hurt his shoulder. The Bucks got the ball back with 1.1 remaining, and Andrew Bogut hit Ramon Sessions in the corner, who knocked down a 20-footer for the win … In Dallas, Dirk Nowitzki was back as the Mavs tried to stay in the Western Conference picture. Last night they had the Warriors on the schedule, but GS looked like San Antonio had taken all their energy the other night; aside from Baron Davis (20 pts) and Monta Ellis (27 pts) putting in work, everyone else pretty much played like crap. Dirk scored 18 and looked like he’d never been gone, but really didn’t have to do a whole lot since his team had it in the bag … It’s clear that the Mavs at least are over the mental/psychological hurdle that is/was the Warriors. Avery Johnson isn’t adjusting his lineup to suit Nellie’s style, and even then Dallas — like the Spurs did — beat the Warriors at their own game … We don’t blame Josh Howard for taking advantage of his last game as The Man. He put up 25 shots and scored 28 points, including a reverse cram over Austin Croshere and Andris Biedrins. (How often must those two get dunked on in practice?) … You know, if Chris Webber had stuck around a little longer, last night’s game could have given us one last time seeing C-Webb and Juwan Howard on the same court at the same time. Of course that would require Juwan getting off the bench, which he didn’t do last night even in the blowout … The Lakers got Pau Gasol (10 pts, 6 rebs, 7 asts) back, but wouldn’t you know, Kobe stole the show. Mamba posted 36 points, 13 boards and 7 dimes. It’s easy to forget that he’s sticking all these jumpers with a bad pinky finger, too. Not sure if the digit still feel like a “noodle,” as Kobe kept saying when he first hurt it, but that can’t be easy to do what he’s doing when you’ve got two fingers on your shooting hand stuck together and don’t have much feeling in one of them … Pau looked pretty good, except for the time when Travis Outlaw palmed his face and crammed on him … Finally, Elton Brand played his first game of the season in a win over the Sonics. Now, rushing Dirk, Gasol and Arenas (and J.O., who we’ll get to in a minute) back from injury makes sense with their teams in the postseason mix. For Brand and the Clippers? The team really has nothing to play for, and Brand is playing with fire considering he could be a free agent this summer and might wanna go into the signing period healthy. But it seems like Elton actually has the purest of intentions; he wanted to come back as soon as he felt healthy enough to help his team, so that’s what he’s doing. The franchise invested a lot in him and he’s trying to give them what they paid for. You can’t hate on that at all. Brand scored 19 and gave Nick Collison buckets in the fourth quarter … So about Jermaine O’Neal. If you’re the Pacers, how do you handle this one? You’re hanging by a thread to your playoff chances, so it would help to start J.O. (a legit shot-blocker who demands a double-team on offense) and play him as much as possible. On the other hand, you’ve got about $44 million tied into Jermaine for the next two seasons; you don’t want to push him too hard right now and cost him games down the road. Last night Jermaine came off the bench and played 20 minutes, getting 12 points against the Celtics. The Pacers got blown out, which probably would have happened no matter how much J.O. played, so at least for a night it made sense to limit their star … In case you missed it yesterday, we posted the video of our Dime #40 cover shoot with Mike Beasley … Stephen Curry was at the Bobcats/Cavs game rocking a pair of Air Zoom LeBron kicks. Hope that doesn’t turn into an issue like when O.J. Mayo popped up at a Lakers game earlier this year … LeBron scored 29, but he fouled out in the fourth. With Mike Brown trying to find anything at all in his playbook that doesn’t involve LeBron, Wally Szczerbiak, Big Z and Devin Brown (picture LeBron if he’d eaten a lot more fast food growing up) stepped up and carried the Cavs to the win … Tie-game between the Hawks and Raptors with 0.5 on the clock, Toronto ran a beautiful play to get T.J. Ford a look at the basket by back-picking Josh Childress. Perfect midcourt alley-oop on the inbounds from Carlos Delfino, and T.J. elevated to drop in a layup. However, he was juuuust a bit late. The replay showed the ball was on Ford’s fingertips when the backboard light went on. In the overtime, Josh Smith hit some big-time shots to give ATL the win … Did you see that behind-the-backboard shot by Rudy Gay against the Knicks? He drove baseline left and got bumped out of bounds, and in mid-air flipped a one-hand shot over the glass that bounced in. The Griz went on to dump 130 points on New York and Isiah Thomas, who found out yesterday with the Donnie Walsh hire that he’s doing the lame-duck thing for a while … We’re out like Zeke (eventually) …
April 3rd, 2008 at 3:49 am
Furai says:
Dirk came back sooner then I thought.
April 3rd, 2008 at 4:18 am
d1n says:
Atl’s scorers table did it again…starting the clock before TJ caught the ball…you would expect them to be careful after fouling shaq out with 5 fouls…
April 3rd, 2008 at 4:19 am
qq says:
Furai, congratz, better not think next time.
April 3rd, 2008 at 4:24 am
drewstar says:
the tor/atl end of game clock error was actually cuz of the refs. but even before that, there shoulda been about close to 0.9 or 0.8 secs left instead of 0.5. multiple screwups..we’ll see how the league handles this
April 3rd, 2008 at 4:59 am
Jonny says:
Rudy’s shot was nice, but his dunks are even better!
http://www.squidoo.com/RudyGay
April 3rd, 2008 at 5:10 am
K Dizzle says:
lol @ “juuuust a bit late”. watch a replay and tell me the clock didn’t start early, dime.
as a personal favour, put aside the tj hate for about 0.8-0.9 seconds and watch it neutrally
congrats to the mavs for FINALLY beatin a maybe playoff team
kb24 - mvp
April 3rd, 2008 at 5:21 am
YOUNGFED says:
YOUNG FIZZLE FIVE POINTs:
1.) K-Hova is back baby!!!!
2.) Stucky is dat deal
3.) How many points did Tj get
4.) Glad to see in yesterdays post the Pistons finally gettin’ their props.
5.) Big-Ups to all my Hattterrrrssss.
TOP FIVE ROOKIES.
1.) Stucky
2.) Durant
3.) Horford
4.) Young
5.) Oden (honorable mention)
April 3rd, 2008 at 6:48 am
fal says:
i heard there was a team from Utah in the NBA. i can’t find anything about them on this site, though. is this really true?
April 3rd, 2008 at 6:52 am
FK says:
Raps will get that win once the league looks at it.
In any other arena the game stands, but the Hawks table just has too much of a history of errors for the NBA to let it stand.
April 3rd, 2008 at 7:19 am
loc says:
Booo to those damned refs and time keeps in ATL!!!
Haven’t yelled at the TV like that in a while
April 3rd, 2008 at 7:22 am
knoc says:
LMAO @fal
comon dime give the jazz some props
April 3rd, 2008 at 7:22 am
Atlantaclockisuseless says:
I know they juuuuuuuust missed the tip in but that ONLY happened because the dummy working the clock started it before TJ even touched the ball, replay clearly shows he clock go off
April 3rd, 2008 at 7:35 am
Mustard says:
Come on Dime, the clock started early on the inbound pass. Even you boys know that it shouldn’t start until the ball is touched. The ref actually said it was good. Then to overturn it when you know it was an error by the timekeeper. That should have been an important win by the Raps.
April 3rd, 2008 at 7:40 am
Amar says:
im a big jazz homer but they dont deserve mention for beatting the pups at home. a team that goes to the western conf finals should beat the knicks, nets, bobcats, heat and twolves twice on the road. thats six wins the ja* should have. if they have that, then they lead the west. but it is just sad when i have to talk about ifs, and seek solace in home wins over the twolves. jazz need homecourt in the first. it will be interesting to see if they get it.
April 3rd, 2008 at 7:43 am
qq says:
Dime, don’t be so ignorant. How can you judge that TJ was too late when you don’t even so the whole thing??? The clock started too early, he don’t even touched the ball when it was launched…
April 3rd, 2008 at 7:45 am
YOUNGFED says:
Um English please???
April 3rd, 2008 at 8:24 am
tuff juice says:
Wiz were outscored by 15 in Gil’s 19 minutes and he was guarding Sessions on that last shot and he looks fat…Caron for MVP
April 3rd, 2008 at 8:24 am
qq says:
YOUNGFED, sorry man that’s best i can do, not an English speaker.
April 3rd, 2008 at 8:42 am
GayforRudy says:
“YOUNG FIZZLE FIVE POINTs:
1.) K-Hova is back baby!!!!”
He is “BACK” from what exactly?
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:19 pm
mavid says:
Im convinced to be a fan of the raptors you’re required to be castrated.
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:35 pm
ash says:
dime, can you please retire the “dirk is soft” routine forever? dude is one of the toughest players in the nba, playing through injury. how many players come back from the nasty looking injury, esp a high ankle sprain in 10 days?
if you need more examples, dirk got both his front teeth knocked out in 01 by terry porter elbow, missed 30 seconds to drain the blood, and came back to lead dallas.
April 3rd, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Nick Barnes says:
Raptors fans are funny. Whining about the alley oop but no mention of how they lost the game in overtime.
April 3rd, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Dave says:
WESTERN CONF, TAKE NOTICE……Utah is starting to hit shots like crazy (26 trey’s in last 2 games at 60% shooting) and if they’re clicking on all cylinders the only teams that even have a shot at beating them are SA and LA. The Jazz swept the Pistons, beat Boston handily at Boston, and have the second best record against the top teams in the west behind NO.
The final four will in the West will be Utah, SA, LA, and NO. Phoenix is the wild card and could beat NO but nobody else.
Would love to see Denver make it in, just for the THUG highlights that would have to follow, regardless of who they play. They could conceivably scare Gasol into a bad series with all their “tough guys” and become the next most famous 8 seed.
April 3rd, 2008 at 1:16 pm
control says:
Toronto was straight out robbed. Nothing will happen though.
BTW, is that YOUNGFED asking someone to speak in Engrish? Ironic, considering he is one of the biggest abusers of the Engrish language who posts here.
April 3rd, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Dave says:
somehow the Pacers, Clippers, Knicks, and Sonics all have more relevance to what will happen in the playoffs than the Jazz apparently will.
Good to get some reading in on Elton Brand though, love the guy but he’s suiting up for what, a week this season?
SOMEONE GET A HOSE, UTAH’s ON FIRE!!!!
And just a side note——-I took an informal survey and all but one NBA executive would take Deron Williams over Chris Paul who were asked. The last one to say it was Phil Jackson. Just so you know.
April 3rd, 2008 at 1:52 pm
T-Dot Tom says:
Nick Barnes is funny, laughing about the Hawks win in ot, but in total denial as to how they got there.
Tribute to Youngfed-hova
Top 5 Rookies
1- Stuckey
2- Afflalo
3- Oden
4- Lebron
5- Isiah
April 3rd, 2008 at 2:04 pm
GEE...Fried chicken, black eyed peas, rice, greens, cornbread and Kool-aid ...what it do! says:
Houston Up!
First off it’s was kinda depressing last night with all these teams getting their stars back and …..Yao is probably somewhere with his stinkin’ feet up eating chicken wings. Would have been real nice if Yao could have came back last night with the rest. Certainly Houston needs him.
Anyway if Houston can just get 50 tonight, that will be one more short term goal completed. Then move on to the next one being, win at least 3 of the next 4 games. Still no worries though, cause Denver, G.S. and Dallas are beating the ish out of each other.
I don’t know, I got this feeling like Dallas almost wants to be a low seed so they can try to do what was done to them last year. I know, it’s highly unlikely any Dallas player feels that way. Think though, wouldn’t it make sense for them to use that as their motivator provided they make the playoffs as a low seed. Lets go do what was done to us.
The Lakers are once again the machine. If San An. and N.O. take any mo L’s, you can pretty much give L.A. that 1 seed.
How bout’ Atl. They doing pretty well right now. I am thinking they are the Denver of the East though. A team with a whole lot of talent that should be doing better and have a way better record. Sounds like a coaching change to me.
Shouldn’t Boston be giving their top 3 a break. I mean cut down those minutes and get your stars ready for the real big dance.
Mohawks and Beards that players won’t cut. Those are 2 things that I can’t wait to go out of style.
April 3rd, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Brown says:
The Raptors never should have been in a position to rely on a last-second shot. Bad calls are part of the game. Yeah they were robbed, but blowing a big lead put them in a position to be.
April 3rd, 2008 at 3:07 pm
word says:
you know Cuban is lighting asses on fire in the locker room to not fuck up the season, it could be avery’s ass if they do flop and i predict a repeat first round exit anyway for them (assuming they make it), we will see if Cuban keeps Avery around.
Stephen and Lebron must know each other b/c I saw Lebron attend Curry’s game last week, that is a good look for Curry to have some one like Bron support him, if he mentors him kid could end up a hall of famer.
April 3rd, 2008 at 5:50 pm
doc says:
Dave who is the thugs you are talking about on Denver.Its 2008 wake up dude thugs are out on the streets robbing and killing,those dudes ball every day.Arenas don’t know how to be a decoy.Dirk showed that heart last night that so many people doubt he has for no other reason than hes white I guess.But I guess thats what it is just like Denver full of thugs.Some people are fucked up.
April 3rd, 2008 at 9:26 pm
AirZoom says:
Since when did Nevada become a NBA factory. Ramon Sessions, Nick Fezekas, and Kirk Snyder all balling in the NBA.