Unless you just came out of NBA regular season hibernation, chances are you saw Charlie Villanueva‘s on-court altercation with Ryan Hollins the other night. Yesterday, the NBA handed Charlie V a five-game suspension without pay for initiating the fight and attempting to escalate it by entering the Cavs’ locker room on two separate occasions following his ejection. That’s not smart. Read More »

And then there were two…days of the regular season left after Monday night. We had known for a few days that the Pacers were set up to be sacrificial lambs for the Bulls in the first round of the NBA playoffs, and that Orlando and Atlanta would begin where they left off last spring. But the real meat – who the Knicks would play and who would have the home-court advantage should Boston and Miami advance – wasn’t decided until Miami survived the Hawks’ second-stringers and the Celtics couldn’t survive Washington’s third-stringers … Read More »

Dwyane Wade once said a three-game Miami losing streak would be treated like the world was collapsing, but even the most staunch Heat hater has to admit this current skid comes with an asterisk. LeBron hurt his ankle late in the loss to the Clippers (though that one was probably a lost cause already), he missed the Denver loss (the second of a back-to-back), and he sat out again last night — plus Chris Bosh hurt his ankle and left in the second half — when the Heat lost to the Bulls … Even if LeBron had played, the story line would have focused on D-Wade and Derrick Rose. Read More »

As much grief as LeBron took for linking up with Dwyane Wade and allegedly costing himself a shot at ever winning a third (or fourth) league MVP trophy, nobody seemed to mention D-Wade might have cost himself a shot at winning his first MVP. This week, however, D3 is looking more valuable than any other player in the NBA … Last night Wade decimated the Rockets for 45 points on 17-of-24 shooting from the field and 10-of-10 from the stripe. He only registered one assist, but that’s because he was too busy serving hot bowls of blood pudding. Read More »

Though they signed contracts over the summer totaling about $286 million, and each is seen in some way as a franchise-changing superstar for their respective new teams, there has been a lot of nit-picking and hate spread around for Amar’e Stoudemire, Chris Bosh and Carlos Boozer before and during the season. But lately, all three fours have been killing it, especially Boozer. Over the last seven games – during which the Chicago Bulls have gone 5-2 without Joakim Noah in the lineup – Booz has averaged 26.2 points and 12.1 rebounds – including last night’s 31-point, 11-board effort in an overtime W against Detroit … Read More »

Until Monty Williams wised up, the Pistons had a pretty effective strategy going into overtime against the Hornets last night: Identify whoever Marco Belinelli was guarding and let that guy get buckets. Ben Gordon (25 pts) hit Marco for two shots right off the bat, and after Chris Paul switched onto BG, Will Bynum (21 pts, 9 asts) took Marco to the rack for another score. Monty finally got the picture and took Marco out, and the Hornets were able to take the lead with 15 seconds on a pair of David West free throws. Read More »

Beast of the Night: Charlie Villanueva finished with 23 points, 11 rebounds, 3 steals and 1 block last night in a surprising blowout victory over the Hawks. He chipped in three three-pointers and shot 59 percent (10-17) from the floor. Villanueva hasn’t started a single game this year, but he’s improved many of his stats from last season’s marks. Still, he remains far from an everyday fantasy stud and lines like this shouldn’t be expected from him that often. Read More »

Evidence was building up for Russell Westbrook, if anything, to have a meltdown in crunch time rather than take over last night’s Thunder/Blazers game. Throughout the second half, Wetsbrook was attacking the basket only to miss shots and not get calls. Meanwhile, Andre Miller (16 pts, 11 asts) was kind of busting Westbrook’s ass and picking apart the OKC defense Westbrook was supposed to spearhead. But right when it seemed Westbrook was one more no-call away from a technical foul or a rash of bad decisions, he locked in. Read More »

Beast of the Night: John Wall pleased the Washington, D.C., crowd and his fantasy owners in his big home debut. After doing “The Dougie” during the introductions, Wall danced his way to 29 points, 2 rebounds, 13 assists, 9 steals and 8 turnovers. He shot 56 percent (9-16) from the field and 79 percent (11-14) from the line. It’s a flawed line and the rookie nearly notched a somewhat unsavory quadruple-double, but this was an eye-popping performance, especially for owners in leagues that don’t count turnovers. Wall will have his peaks and valleys this season, but his peaks will obviously be thrilling. Read More »

The Miami Heat are officially ridiculous. Following the letdown loss in Boston and the underwhelming win in Philly, last night’s home opener against Orlando was the true debut of the squad we envisioned when Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade and LeBron James (we want to give Bosh a chance to hear his name called first once in a while) linked up over the summer … Defense was the name of this game. LeBron and his specially-made vampire-fanged mouthpiece was about as disruptive as somebody could be without actually recording a steal. Read More »