Boston had every right to lose this game. They didn’t get into Atlanta until 4 a.m., and they fell behind big in the first half. By the second quarter, the Hawks’ announcers were asking, “Lets blow ‘em outta the building. Whadda ya say?” Lou Williams (28 points) came out and dropped 11 in the game’s first four minutes while hitting three triples, and Atlanta had the Celtics’ offense in a vice grip. Read More »

Anthony Davis is back and healthy. Greivis Vasquez finally got some love, winning Western Conference Player of the Week today (check out his numbers from the past three games: 21 points, 10 assists, 6.3 rebounds and 1.7 steals a night). Ryan Anderson is putting up even better numbers than he did last year next to Dwight Howard. Outside of Austin Rivers and his historically bad start to his rookie season, everything is looking up in New Orleans. Eric Gordon‘s presence is merely icing on the cake. Read More »

The last time James Harden played against his old team, he had a nightmare game, a half dozen of his shots blocked back into his face. This time, he made his first shot in Kevin Durant‘s face, and was good enough to drop 25 points (still only 9-for-33 shooting against OKC this year). But while the first half played out like a tape from the old And1 video game, the second half became a mismatch, and the Thunder went on to win 124-94. Read More »

A great recipe for disaster – at least if you’re the Lakers – is playing in Denver on the second night of a back-to-back. Old legs. The high altitude. The penchant of the Nuggets to play fast and frenetic. It almost never works out for L.A., and last night, not even 40 from Kobe Bryant was enough. Read More »

Sometimes we wish the NBA was more like the NFL. In football, you must bring your best effort or you’ll be left looking like Mark Sanchez on Monday Night Football, getting your skills compared to Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite. Read More »

They said they were going to stop the game in New Orleans once Kobe Bryant hit 30,000 career points. He did that just before the end of the first half, going off the dribble and hitting a running floater over Robin Lopez. But the game never ceased, and Bryant – fittingly, as always – didn’t stop either. He hit three more free throws in the final minute of the half to add to his total. The 30,000-point club also includes Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone, Michael Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain. How would you rate that five? Read More »

LeBron James dropped a ridiculous triple-double last night (26 points, 13 rebounds, 11 assists) but no one’s going to remember him carving up the Wizards. They’ll remember that with about 20 seconds left, he missed a wide-open wing triple that could’ve potentially been a game-winner. Read More »

The Oklahoma City Thunder laid the smackdown on the Bobcats on Monday night, winning 114-69, and negating the positive work new head coach Mike Dunlap had done with the Bobcats to start the season. The Thunder’s 45-point rout of the Bobcats was highlighted by their early 79-25 lead, which prompted DailyThunder blogger, Royce Young, to tweet: “It’s time like these where I really miss Cole Aldrich.” Hasheem Thabeet even recorded his first career double-double (!) in some prolonged garbage time. Read More »

With Mike D’Antoni literally sitting in Phil Jackson‘s old seat (and even walking like him) along the Staples Center sideline, the new Lakers era didn’t exactly start according to plan. They couldn’t make free throws (19-for-37). They couldn’t make shots. They couldn’t even stop Brook Lopez. But down the stretch, their defense was suffocating, and Kobe Bryant (25 points) hit enough free throws to hold off Brooklyn, 95-90. Read More »

Getting your hands on young talent in the NBA is the equivalent to finding a $100 dollar bill on the ground. Some of it has to do with luck; some of it has to do with being in the right place at the right time. Once you get it, you contemplate whether or not to hang on to it for a while, or trade it in right away for something that will benefit you immediately (or hope it does). The amount of young talent floating around the NBA is at an all-time high, and some teams are fortunate enough to have more than one young gun. Read More »