The Heat-Clippers showdown got undermined in the last three weeks by Chris Paul‘s hurt kneecap and a flu strain that made most Miami players sick before the game. Still, even with the whole Clippers roster (Jamal Crawford had 13 points, Paul had 3 and Blake Griffin had 13 in their respective returns) mostly healthy, shorthanded Miami bludgeoned its way to a rout made almost unwatchable it was so lopsided if it weren’t for LeBron James’ hypnotizing skills. Read More »

Celtics vs. Knicks felt like not just a big game, but a priority. This was appointment viewing after the trash-talk episode that landed the last Celtics-Knicks game on the front page of every sports page in the country. Read More »

It’s a new day in Washington, D.C. They finally have a real basketball team. In last night’s 93-83 win over Atlanta, John Wall played for the first time this season to a standing ovation. Then he went out and put in 14 points and four dimes in 20 minutes off the pine. He was also a catalyst in the game’s biggest stretch. With both teams in a daze to start the fourth, Wall came in and had back-to-back double-pump buckets in the lane that woke the Wizards up. Read More »

Hopefully you didn’t start throwing back cold ones too early in anticipation of the holiday yesterday, or else you probably missed some really good basketball. Case in point the battle in Florida between the Magic and Heat, which felt like an intra-squad scrimmage because so many Miami “fans” infiltrated the Amway Center. But there was one big difference: the game’s intensity was bordering on Duke/North Carolina levels. Read More »

FRESH PICKINGS: Bismack Biyombo (19 percent owned in Yahoo!, nine percent in ESPN) Bismack Biyombo has recently been promoted to a starting role for the Charlotte Bobcats, immediately setting him up to be a force in fantasyland, especially in head-to-head formats. Read More »

FRESH PICKINGS: Nikola Vucevic (62 percent owned in Yahoo!, 71 percent in ESPN) Although Nikola Vucevic is already heavily owned, his recent string of play should get his ownership up to close to 100 percent. Read More »

It was mid-August when the world passed judgment on the Orlando Magic and their trade of franchise center Dwight Howard. We killed them for receiving bit players in return, as well as for the direction the team was heading. Some thought GM Rob Hennigan was too young and maybe even in over his head. Read More »

All of a sudden, visions of an otherwise forgettable Orlando-Golden State game last season jumped out to us during the Magic’s stunning win over the Lakers in Los Angeles on Sunday night. When it became clear Dwight Howard was going to be fouled by his former team over and over again, to the tune of 21 free-throw attempts, we were reminded of the time Golden State chose to willfully foul Howard and put the game in his hands, 15 feet from the hoop, on an NBA-record 39 attempts. Read More »

The NBA season powers on entering its fourth week of action and we have a small but effective sample size to evaluate the season’s early surprise players. For purposes of clarity we are discussing the good surprises not the disappointing ones (that comes later).

Whatever the reason, each one of these players has emerged as a key contributor for their team. Here are the Top 10 Surprising Players this season: Read More »

The Knicks went on an easy little stroll Sunday afternoon at the Garden and not even Jrue Holiday‘s spot-on mimicking act of Carmelo Anthony could spoil the ride in a 100-84 win over Philly. Holiday was there more often than not to serve as the counter to a big play by the Knicks, but he was just one guy – albeit, one guy whose 5-of-6 shooting from deep helped Philly shoot better from behind the line than it did overall. Read More »