A legend passed a legend in Boston tonight. Paul Pierce needed 10 points to move past Larry Bird for No. 2 in Celtics history but Pierce dropped him by the third quarter as the Celtics beat the Bobcats, 94-84. Pierce will never move past the man from French Lick in the hearts and minds of Boston fans, even with now 21,797 points, but tonight wasn’t just about the points for The Truth. He added nine assists and eight boards to go with 15 points. Is that how a Celtic captain does it or not? … You knew Rajon Rondo (14 assists and 10 points) was looking for Pierce every time down the floor, too, and the C’s were setting up sets for him every chance they got. Not that the Bobcats could focus solely on the record man tonight. The other Big Two, KG (22 points) and Ray Allen (17 points) kept the Bobcats guessing … Read More »

The Clippers won the game last night against Orlando in overtime, but they may have suffered a devastating loss in the processs. Chauncey Billups left the game in the fourth quarter with a left Achilles injury and now it’s feared he may be lost for the season.

From the L.A. Times: Read More »

All hail Jeremy Lin. That’s now two games in a row that the seldom-used backup has torched opponents and lit the Garden on fire as if he was John Starks. Lin dropped 28 and eight in New York’s 99-88 win over Utah. Beast? Lin seems to finish every three point play, make all the right decisions out of the pick-n-roll and has even shown off his deep ball. At one point in the second half, he dropped a high-arching shot and then trotted back on defense with a swag unlimited smirk before sticking his tongue out (It looked like he had been sucking on some blue lollipops during the quarter break). Read More »

If the Atlanta Hawks had been involved, they could’ve just called a re-do of the last minute. They really should’ve. Miami had an ugly missed shot and a turnover and were on the edge of falling behind for the first time all game. But Derrick Rose clanked two free throws, then got another chance after LeBron had clanked two freebies of his own, but was short on a floater. Forget the win/loss records, the Heat can hold the Eastern crown a little longer, 97-93. Read More »

Buy Low: Carmelo Anthony is having a rough week. In his last two games, he’s totaled 16 points, 15 rebounds, 10 assists and a block, while shooting 5-of-21 (24 percent) from the field and hitting zero three-pointers. Melo’s shooting woes have plagued him all season, as he’s shooting just 39 percent from floor so far in the 2011-12 NBA season. If your league counts field-goal percentage as a category, ‘Melo is not much more than a top 50 fantasy asset – if your league doesn’t count that column, he surges to the top 20. All that said, he’s coming off a forgettable week for a Knicks team that looks about as healthy as Lindsay Lohan. But with Baron Davis on the way back and some kind of changing wind on the way (one can hope, right?), a guy as talented as ‘Melo is can’t be mired in this slump for too much longer. He won’t get cheaper than he is right now. Read More »

The best team in the NBA against the worst. Blowout right? But Washington grew tired of getting jumped and walking around embarrassed the rest of the day. So they put together by far their best performance of the season in their surprising 105-102 win over the Thunder. On a night where Andray Blatche got booed in the pre-game introductions, and then booed again just three minutes in when he started his lackadaisical routine by shooting air balls, eventually everything turned to gold because John Wall took over in the fourth quarter. Read More »

To a bookkeeper, it’s the same old Staples Center for Lakers-Celtics as it is for Kings-BlueJackets, but in reality, that’s not the case. And there’s an argument to be made that this year’s Clipper home games are somewhere near the top of the list, closer to the more important Laker Friday night games than an empty-arena Monday night stinker. It’s a new age if it’s anything. There have been previous big-deal regular-season games in Clipperland – Danny Manning at his peak, Sam Cassell and co.’s 2006 magic, Blake Griffin’s return from injury in 2010– but they were dinner theater compared to the Lakers’ Broadway shows. Read More »

You can’t fault America for disregarding an old team that lost in the first round last season. Since then, so much has happened in basketball that I doubt too many casual fans even realize the Spurs ran away with the Western Conference during 2010-11′s first 82 games. It took the new monarchs of Los Angeles all of one preseason quarter to take the torch from Miami as the new season’s most interesting group of newcomers. Chris Paul aka John Williams. Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan redefining the basic psychics of the game. Chauncey Billups playing with a controlled rage aimed at the entire basketball nation. But the Spurs showed Monday in their 95-82 revenge win against Memphis that balding heads aren’t bringing them to retirement homes and Saturday afternoon black-and-white cowboy reruns just yet. The two teams are ready to size each other up. They get their first taste tonight. Read More »

A lot of people made fun of us for talking the Clippers up, but what can you say? When you’re younger, more athletic, things just come easier. That’s just the way it is and as much as we love the game, as much as we love Kobe and Pau and the accolades they’ve won in the past, if you can’t see the Clippers are poised to take that crown than you are losing it. Or you just have more faith in the Lakers’ front office than we do. The Clippers let their big brother hang around for a while, and then in the second half they turned it up to a level the old heads couldn’t keep up with. 114-95, the Clippers ended up winning with Chauncey Billups (23 points) and Chris Paul (17 points, nine assists, five steals) doing the most damage, dominating the Laker guards at times … Read More »

These are strange times in the NBA. Strange times, indeed. We want to believe this whole fiasco revolving around the Chris Paul-to-the-L.A. Clippers trade is over. But we know, and y’all know, it isn’t. That’s what happens when a league is forced to trade one of its most visible and valuable assets. That’s what happens when there are accusations someone screwed around with the amnesty waiver process to make sure Chauncey Billups ended up a Clipper. That’s what happens when reporters ask a GM from Houston who thought he had a trade done last week, to comment on what exactly happened and the man backs off saying he isn’t allowed to speak on it. Read More »