Gimme The Loot
Mario Chalmers (photo. Sasha Nialla)Of course the Orlando Magic would choose now — after we just handed them the No. 1 spot in Dime’s NBA Hit List — to have their first two-game losing streak in months. After Jameer Nelson and the Eastern Conference’s third-best offense (behind Indiana and New York) got shut down against the Celtics the other day, last night they ran into a solid Miami defense. Leading the pack was Mario Chalmers (20 pts, 6 asts, 3 stls), who outplayed Jameer (16 pts, 4-11 FG, 3 turnovers) and made the play of the game: With Miami ahead by three with less than 15 seconds to go, Jameer drove right and was about to put up a shot when Chalmers played him perfectly and came up with a steal. After the Magic had to foul and then Dwight Howard picked up a silly technical, Chalmers and Daequan Cook iced it from the stripe … Up-and-down game for Dwight (22 pts, 10 rebs, 3 blks), who on one hand showed some real-life post moves when he was matched up with Jamaal Magloire and made some huge blocks in crunch time, but on the other hand, committed a killer turnover in that same fourth-quarter stretch, bricked a key free throw, and cost himself and the team with two immature techs straight from the Rasheed Wallace Handbook For Self-Implosion … Dwight vs. Magloire was like when you’re going up against an assistant coach in practice and you’ve got that confidence to try more things than you’d try in a real game. The best Magloire could really do was foul and/or get physical; as one of Miami’s announcers said, “[Magloire] is more bulky than he is quick.” Ya think so? … D-Wade had a relatively modest 27 points and six dimes, doing his best work on a couple late possessions when Orlando brought double-teams and he passed out of them to get Udonis Haslem open buckets. Haslem is destined to be the next Kurt Thomas, only with a better jumper; he’s money from that baseline spot. He’s also one of the last guys in the League still clinging to the cornrows. One of these days UD has to let it go before he’s walking around like Jerry Rice when his ‘rows started in the middle of his head … Speaking of thievery, Brandon Roy was digging in the Wizards’ pockets all night. He notched 10 steals in Portland’s blowout win, to go with 22 points, five boards and seven dimes. As if Washington’s turnovers (26) didn’t kill them enough, their post defense was once again a major problem. Greg Oden and LaMarcus Aldridge were doing whatever they wanted in the paint, mostly because nobody in blue was there to at least get in the way. Oden scored 18 points, and nine of his 14 rebounds came on the offensive glass. The Wizards are getting up there with the Warriors, where opposing bigs can crank out career days against them …
LeBron (photo. Mannion)Another night, another dominant performance by LeBron. Friday saw him drop 34 points, a near triple-double and the game-winner on the Warriors. Saturday he handed the Jazz 33 points, 14 boards, nine assists and about 4-5 dunks that would’ve made Gary Payton and Chris Webber lose their minds in the studio. LBJ’s two-hand windmill on the break was nice, but the best one was probably when he came off the wing and punched it on Kyrylo Fesenko despite taking a shot to the face. (We know NBA TV’s Rick Kamla has a borderline creepy man-crush on LeBron, but did you hear what he said about the ‘Bron/Fess dunk? Something along the lines of, “Somebody should tell [Fesenko] that’s King James, the best player in the NBA. Maybe he should go a little easier on him.” So dude is already 6-8, about 270, faster than 99 percent of the League, stronger than 99 percent of the League, and now 7-footers need to tap him lightly as he dunks on their heads? Wow) … Just like the GS/Cavs game, this one was shot-for-shot down to the wire. In fact, it reminded us of when the Cavs traveled to Salt Lake last year and our old friend Damon Jones got involved. We even went back and found the Smack from that night: “Damon Jones was just gross. We’ll forgive the no-chance-in-hell attempt at a game-winner he threw up after Deron’s shot. But on a critical possession late in the fourth, with LeBron (32 pts, 15 rebs, 13 asts) leading a 3-on-2 break, Damon got it on the wing, decided against a catch-and-shoot, made a move and took a fadeaway trey that missed EVERYTHING. Earlier in the game, Damon threw arguably the worst alley oop in basketball history. Two-on-1 fast break with Damon and LeBron, and Damon lobbed it literally over the Cavs bench. Hubie Brown was disgusted. ‘Ugh. What are you doing?’ he said under his breath.” Damon wasn’t there to ruin it this time, and Cleveland came up with the big plays necessary to pull out the win … You can’t put a price on leadership and experience, but there’s just something wrong about the fact that Ben Wallace ($14.5M) is making roughly $13.7 million more this year than Paul Millsap ($797K) … Looks like Elton Brand didn’t slow down the Sixers too much; they dropped 116 on the Knicks in Brand’s return from shoulder injury, although EB played less than 15 minutes off the bench in the win. Seeing as Tony DiLeo wants Philly to shoot more threes and Elton can produce 20-10-2 in the mold of Dwight Howard, maybe they can pattern themselves after Orlando. The Sixers would need a couple more pure shooters, and with guys like Andre Iguodala and Thad Young they can slash more often, but the basic ingredients are there with Brand anchoring the middle … Line of the day, courtesy Bob Knight to Digger Phelps during ESPN’s “College Gameday” show: “If they ever gave you a statue, I’d want to be reincarnated as a pigeon.” … We’re out like letting LBJ dunk on you …
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January 25th, 2009 at 5:43 am
Smush Parker says:
FIRST !!!
January 25th, 2009 at 5:44 am
Smush Parker says:
2ND !!!
January 25th, 2009 at 5:45 am
the cynic says:
The Cavs game was all about Mo Williams, he has proven to be one of the few good off-season acquisitions
January 25th, 2009 at 5:46 am
Dr Drey says:
first
January 25th, 2009 at 6:23 am
GoEasy says:
http://break.com/index/double-alley-oop-nba-jam-style.html
January 25th, 2009 at 6:37 am
Mister Sun says:
@goeasy
find something new!! we all know this already…
January 25th, 2009 at 6:58 am
smity far away says:
unnecessary damon jones hate…
January 25th, 2009 at 7:00 am
Iannyb says:
Good game D-wade and crew.Those guys don’t have a record to cause you to jump out your seats but they’re beating all the big boys.If they make it to the playoffs that would be an interesting situation right there.Nice game Lebron and the cavs,let’s see how this will pan out the second half,cause that is actually when the season begins.Lakers vs Spurs to day,let’s see if Bynum can go off like he’s been doing.Now is his chance to shoo his critics he aint just performing against lower teams.I do have lakers for this one thought,afterall I am their biggest fan.Go Lakers
January 25th, 2009 at 8:20 am
QQ says:
Damn, my squad’s on a losing streak… Gotta get up ad play hard the next game though.
And nice bit on the Damon ruining the Cav’s chance againts that Utah game last year. Has there ever been a time when Damon WASN’T destroying his own team?
January 25th, 2009 at 8:34 am
zaki_ffm@hotmail.de says:
we can talk about NBA….
January 25th, 2009 at 9:36 am
mavs all the way! says:
and did you see that kyle korver’s block? amazing. block of the year!
@ the cynic, i agree. and he might be the best pick up this season.
January 25th, 2009 at 9:57 am
that's whats up says:
2:30PM CST
Overrated’s vs. Spurs
January 25th, 2009 at 10:04 am
vinny says:
why the ben wallace hate- he helped lead a team to a ring-milsap will earn his way to a big payday, but the only reason he’s starting is because of an injury! If he stays healthy hell have a big payday when he earns it!
January 25th, 2009 at 11:33 am
len-e says:
on lebron:
as much as i would be scared and never would say that to his face let alone not run when he gave me a stare this has to be said:
lebron is flopping all over the court. as soon as he gets touched he falls, bends and crashes in the most theatrical way since… well, ever.
January 25th, 2009 at 11:48 am
Dennis Castro says:
Always appreciate the opportunity to get in a dig at Damon Jones…
Watched the Sixers-Knicks last night, Sixers still can’t defend the 3 pointer, but luckily for us, neither can the Knicks.
The Sixers half court offense is terrible without EB there to initiate it. The Knicks were still double teaming him even though it’s his 1st game back in over a month. Thought that was interesting, considering his timing is probably way off as well as his footwork.
Appreciated the fact that even though EB came off the bench and only got on the court for 16 mins, he was still one of the first guys off the bench to give pounds to the guys in the game. Dude is a class act and I laugh at the people who say the Sixers are a better team without him.
Those same people need to watch the Sixers half court offense in last years playoffs against the Pistons.
January 25th, 2009 at 11:58 am
Amar says:
can we talk about the NBA d-league? it’s supposed to be a place where you can stash young players, without having them be on the team plane and go to road games with the team, and magically they are going to become nba ready by playing against (and on the same team as) a bunch of people they were already better than back when they were in college?
young players apparently need playing time in order to get better, right? well, guys like larry bird and magic didn’t have the d-league . . . instead their coaches actually played them when they were young and they became okay nba players.
playing time against nba guys makes you better
playing time against guys where you just revert to fresh prince mode in the private school basketball team = not improving.
just my two cents.
January 25th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Celts Fan says:
@Amar – that’s assanine bro. Magic and Larry were good enough they woulda never needed to go down there. The DLeague is for guys that would do nothing but rot at the end of the bench early on and get DNP-CD’s all year. You get them some coaching and PT against a higher level of comp. than college and let them play in game situations w/ barely-below-NBA-caliber coaching. There isn’t a guy that’s gone down there and come back up that hasn’t said that it was good for him.
January 25th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
K Dizzle says:
Maybe we should revise yesterday’s Bynum vs Howard last shot question. Dwight had a junk crunch time showin. Down 3, ball gets tossed in, Dwight tries to dunk, gets stripped, that was your ballgame. You got Rashard, Hedo and Jameer with crazy 3 pt %ages in 4th quarters lately, you gotta kick that out.Well, you don’t haver to, cuz you Dweight Howard, but if Kobe, Bron and Duncan are kickin out to open teammmates, then Dwight needs to show some trust. At least Bynum knows that if the ball gets into him, he better throwin that shit back out to Kobe 9 times outta ten. Can’t wait for today’s Mason-flop, Ariza-no call-faketravel payback game today. Hopefully Bynum maintains against Tim so ther haters can have a day off.
January 25th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
D-NICE says:
Maagloire actually bodied dwight one time and dunked it. and Turkoglu had a crazy reverse layup on blount
January 25th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
will says:
Not many fans of the Cavs knew who Mo Williams was last year. Except for that game were he and Michael Redd beasted us all game then Redd hit a buzzer beater. Now the whole state of OH loves Mo cause he made us into a legit contender. Im a huge cavs fan but that title run a couple years ago was a joke.
January 25th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
rangerjohn says:
you guys catch this?
http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/blog/the_dagger/post/Please-note-that-Chase-Budinger-s-face-is-not-a-?urn=ncaab,136602
fucking ass hole steps on his face then afterwards is laghing and shit with his team mates.
January 25th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
doc says:
@ranger-yeah he stomped the shit out of Chase head.I heard Kamla say take it easy on Bron too.Like he’s above getting fucked up.The Cavs gotta be happy going 3-1 out West minus 2 starters.Mo balling his ass off.And yes my team still Philly but Im not impressed until they get at least 10 games over 500.I’d rather get a lottery pick every year than keep going 41-41 and getting trashed by a contender in round 1.And Sugar Shane took Margarito ass to college last night.
January 25th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Chaos says:
LMAO at Bob knight!
January 25th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
that's whats up says:
man, if I was Budinger, when that dude’s foot hit my face I woulda had a handfull of his nuts, puttin’ the Von Eric’s Claw to work on his dumb ass.
January 25th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Mr.Wang says:
and in honor of upcoming intramurals…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zta3CvAuq0
im out like homeboi getting blocked at the end of the vid
January 25th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Octopus Jonny says:
http://my.journaltimes.com/post/woelfel-world-of-sports/bucks_lose_redd_for_the_season.html
Michael Redd done for the year.
January 25th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
lifep says:
Ayo Dime…Bron’s measurements are officially 6’9″ 272….I heard this on a sports show a few weeks ago
January 25th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
BlackJesus says:
Yo
April 15th, 2010 at 3:06 am
Amber says:
Am I going to say first or last?
@lifep
Is it true? can you please give me the link?
I’m pretty much curious about Bron’s life.