D-Rose vs. D-Will in Boozer Bowl; Blake Griffin takes Manhattan

Beyond the sting of letting Carlos Boozer come into their house and get a win — nobody was really booing Ronnie Brewer or Kyle Korver — the Utah Jazz are hurting because they know they did everything possible to give last night’s game away to the Bulls … In the last two minutes of the fourth quarter, Al Jefferson and Andrei Kirilenko missed huge free throws on a night where the Jazz went 11-for-21 at the stripe. With one minute left, Derrick Rose (29 pts, 7 asts, 1 TO) lost Deron Williams on a sick behind-the-back crossover and missed the shot, but he ran D-Will down from behind and stole the ball before Utah could set up their offense. Next Jazz possession, D-Will and Jefferson botched a pick-and-roll — John Stockton and Karl Malone promptly rolled over, in unison, in their hyperbaric chambers — and Boozer (14 pts, 6 rebs) got the steal to set up D-Rose for two free throws. With one more chance to tie, Deron (11 pts, 12 asts, 5 TO’s) telegraphed a pass that Brewer intercepted to set up the clinching free throws … This was the Hornets’ crunch-time lineup in New Jersey: Chris Paul, Marco Belinelli, Willie Green, Dave West and Aaron Gray. The Hornets lost the game. We’re just saying, don’t get too comfortable with the idea that CP3 wants to stay in New Orleans longer than he has to … That said, Paul (4-15 FG, 7 TO’s) was off all night. West (32 pts, 15 rebs, 3 stls) and Green (19 pts) were the ones making clutch shots down the stretch as N.O. rallied from an eight-point deficit in the fourth quarter. In overtime, Paul (9 pts, 11 asts) committed two crucial turnovers as the Nets took an early lead. It was a two-point game with 20 seconds left when Devin Harris couldn’t get the ball inbounds before the five-second count (Harris caught on camera: “I f*cked up”), but Paul made another uncharacteristic mistake by picking up his dribble too early as the possession broke down and Green was forced into a miss. The Hornets were gifted another chance after Humphries bricked two free throws, but CP3’s three rattled out at the buzzer …Read More>>

Some of the Dime crew was at MSG for Knicks/Clippers, a.k.a. Blake Griffin‘s first pro game in the world’s most famous arena. Blake started out on fire — it seemed all of L.A.’s points in the first quarter were dunks by Blake (21 pts) and DeAndre Jordan. After the crowd got what they came to see, the Clippers went on to hand the home team a loss … Not too long ago, we heard some TV head compare Lou Williams to Vinnie Johnson. Blasphemy, right? But before our calls to Bill Laimbeer and Rick Mahorn to run some Acolyte Protection Agency game on the offender were returned, Lou did look very Microwave-ish against Orlando last night. Early in the fourth quarter, the Magic were up eight and Williams had five points. Then he went nuts. He scored 18 of Philly’s final 24 points, including two deep threes under the 30-second mark … But Vinnie-like or not, Lou can’t execute for the whole team. After Lou’s first triple made it a two-point game with 26 seconds left, the Sixers wanted to avoid fouling J.J. Redick, but let Dwight Howard (30 pts, 17 rebs) get behind the defense for a breakaway dunk, which Elton Brand made worse by fouling Dwight in the act. Williams (23 pts) answered with another trey to cut the lead to two, but again not wanting to foul J.J., the Sixers let way too much time tick off the clock. Jason Richardson added two more freebies, and Lou didn’t have a four-point shot in his arsenal … Other stat lines from Wednesday: Rodney Stuckey scored 22 points off the bench to help Detroit hand Cleveland its 26th straight loss; DeJuan Blair posted 28 points and 11 rebounds, while Tim Duncan added 16 points, 7 boards, 6 assists and 5 blocks in San Antonio’s win over Toronto; Roy Hibbert posted 29 points and 10 rebounds as Indiana edged Charlotte; Jason Terry dropped 22 points off the bench as Dallas beat Sacramento; Monta Ellis had 37 points to lead Golden State past Denver; and Nick Young scored 26 points to lead Washington past Milwaukee, including a baseline dunk where Young went spread-eagle and Ersan Ilyasova somehow moved backwards in mid-air trying to avoid his date with YouTube … Here’s why Duke still has to be considered the NCAA championship favorite: They’re NEVER out of the game. The Blue Devils were dominated by North Carolina in the first half at Cameron Indoor last night, but when Nolan Smith hit that triple to cut the lead to 10 with 19 minutes left, you just knew the comeback was going to happen. Lo and behold, Duke eventually took the lead and held on down the stretch to notch another W in college basketball’s best rivalry … Smith was a beast, finishing with 34 points and securing his ACC Player of the Year trophy. Over the years we’ve been somewhere between underwhelmed and occasionally impressed by Smith’s game, but he looked like a pro last night … Forget D-Rose, Russell Westbrook and LeBron: The fastest man in basketball is that dude in all-black who went sprinting across Coach K Court at the halftime buzzer. He covered 90 feet in like 1.7 seconds … We’re out like the APA …

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