At some point during the fourth quarter, as the Hawks were getting all they could handle from the Rockets and seemed on the verge of their first home loss of the season, Dominique Wilkins said the same thing you’re gonna hear from a bunch of opposing team announcers about the Rockets this year: “This is a GOOD basketball team!” in a surprised tone … In what might have been the most entertaining finish of the year, Houston went up by seven midway through the fourth when Aaron Brooks dusted Joe Johnson on a crossover/hesitation along the baseline for a layup. Read More »
No matter how old and inconsistent he gets, apparently Peja Stojakovic will always be able to light up the Suns. In what could have been one of those rock-bottom moments for the Hornets — national TV, no Chris Paul, interim coach, hosting a red-hot opponent who could conceivably drop 130 points on ‘em and get them booed out of their own gym — N.O. showed some heart and pulled off an upset win behind Peja’s 25 points, 13 boards and seven threes. It wasn’t the first time Peja has taken down the Suns on a big stage: Read More »
You know what you’re going to get when the Cavs and Wizards play on national TV: Plenty of talk about LeBron’s “rivalry” with DeShawn Stevenson, LeBron’s rivalry with the Wizards, Mike Miller wearing LeBron’s shoes, maybe Washington’s injury problems … And then there was the story line for last night’s game that nobody wanted to talk about: The gossip-page reports saying Shaq got caught messing around with Gilbert Arenas‘ girl. Anyone think there’s a slight chance that’s really why Shaq sat out? Say what you want about being a professional and focusing on the game, but that’s grounds for any grown man to get punched in the face at any random moment. Read More »
It took about 47 and a half minutes for Don Nelson to really miss Stephen Jackson. In the Warriors’ first game since trading Capt. Jack to the Bobcats, they were actually hanging with the Cavs on the road last night. On a critical possession with under a minute to go and Cleveland ahead by four, LeBron of course had the rock, a situation where S-Jack would normally have been guarding him. This time, however, Nellie had to enlist Vlad Radmanovic for the job. (Well, he didn’t have to; Anthony Randolph might have been a better choice.) To the surprise of no one, LeBron scored easily, sticking a pull-up jumper for the dagger … Read More »
As this edition of Smack is being written, ESPN’s 24-hour marathon of college hoops is underway. Writing about basketball in the middle of the night while live basketball is showing on TV with no end in sight for hours? This is the life … Are the Hawks really this good? When we ranked Atlanta 5th yesterday on Dime’s weekly NBA Hit List — maybe the highest we’d ever had them ranked, at least in the last 2-3 years — the response was surprisingly strong that Joe Johnson and Josh Smith and crew should have been in the top three, maybe even holding the No. 1 spot. True, the Hawks had won four straight going into Monday’s schedule, but they’ve always been one of those Zab Judah/Asafa Powell-type teams: Read More »
They’re panicking in Los Angeles. Or something close to it. While you could reasonably write off Friday’s blowout loss in Denver to tired legs from a back-to-back and the high altitude, there aren’t many excuses the Lakers can make after the Rockets (who were supposed to stink this year, remember?) went into Staples and thoroughly outplayed the champs … Trevor Ariza was the main story going into the game. He received his ‘09 championship ring in his first trip back to L.A. and was playing in front of his hometown crowd, but by the end it was all about Aaron Brooks. Read More »
Thank goodness they don’t teach defense in Golden State. Otherwise, how many highlights and one-night explosions would we have been robbed of over the last few years? As great as Brandon Jennings was last night — dropping 55 points on 21-of-34 FG with seven triples — it was hard not to look at the boxscore and say, “Oh, it was against the Warriors,” and allow the fifth-best NBA rookie performance of all-time to lose some of its luster. But just a little. Jennings was doing whatever he wanted whenever he wanted; if Monta Ellis was worried about he and Stephen Curry getting lit up by bigger guards, what did he think about skinny 6-1 Young Money carving ‘em up like Manny Pacquiao did Miguel Cotto? … Read More »
If the Nuggets were aware that the majority of NBA experts had kind of written them off as a legit championship contender going into this season — mainly because they hadn’t made any major moves over the summer — last night’s Hulk-Smash of the Lakers on national TV was a definite statement win. Carmelo dropped 25 points in just 29 minutes on L.A.’s shiny new Ron Artest acquisition, as the Nuggets turned a close game at halftime into a rout when they held the Lakers to EIGHT points in the third quarter. By the fourth, J.R. Smith (he’s not “Earl” anymore) was dropping threes and annoyingly twisting the knife in a way only J.R. Smith can. Glad to see he’s officially back … Read More »
You know you pulled off an incredible dunk when your team doesn’t even win the game, you lost to a team that features arguably the best/most famous (active) basketball player in the world and one of the two other most famous players in the world, the dunk itself happened way back in the first quarter of an East Coast tip-off, and it’s STILL the first everybody is talking about around the water cooler. A few minutes into Heat/Cavs, LeBron looked like he was gonna put somebody on a poster when he got a step on his defender and approached the rim with bad intentions. LBJ got stuffed by Jermaine O’Neal, though, creating a one-man fast break for Dwyane Wade. Read More »
During the ‘09 conference finals, Shaq showed up at one of Orlando’s home games against the Cavs, to the chagrin of a lot of people associated with the Magic. Last night Shaq was back in the building; this time wearing a Cavs uniform. Throw in the tension leftover from when Diesel was talking greasy about Dwight Howard and Stan Van Gundy last year, and you know the fans had a lot of venom toward Big Witness Protection. He played into it, too, doing stuff like leaving his hand in the air extra-long after a free throw. And the crowd was even more pissed when Cleveland walked out with a win … Read More »
