Forget Steve Nash and Baron Davis. Jeremy Lin is taking over NYC. The Knicks survived New Jersey 99-92, and it was their popular bench warmer who had the city juiced. Deron Williams (21 points, 11 assists), the former best point guard in the world, was getting worked over by Lin (25 points, five rebounds, seven assists) down the stretch. Jumpers. Pick-n-rolls Everything was out of wack for New York. Carmelo (3-for-15) couldn’t make a shot, and Amar’e Stoudemire wasn’t much better, but Lin was pulling out reverses, and after a three-point play, Tyson Chandler was doing the Brandy Reed celebration from back in the day … 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 »

This might be the year Josh Smith finally makes the All-Star Game. We don’t want to jinx him – everyone knows the type of luck he has when it comes to this – but his game has matured, he has his body in the best shape it’s ever been in and the Hawks figure to be, at worst, a No. 6 seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs. Last night in Atlanta’s 92-75 drubbing of Charlotte to end the preseason, Smith had 21 points and six rebounds, hitting 10 of 15 shots in the game. Read More »

While all these charity basketball games are clearly no substitute for the NBA, I’ll take anything I can get at this point. And if you’re like me, a trip to Dallas may be in your future. On Nov. 12 at 6 p.m., Josh Howard will take his talents back to The Big D to host The Josh Howard Celebrity All-Star Basketball Game at the P.C. Cobb Complex. Read More »

Let’s be blunt: the Toronto Raptors are a sorry bunch, in real life and in fantasy terms. Sure, there are a decent number of potential breakout candidates on this squad whenever the next NBA season begins, but there are also timeshares awaiting a few positions. There’s no true stud here, but when you’re in the latter rounds of your draft, keep some of these Canadian dinosaurs in mind. Read More »

Now it’s just getting ridiculous. On their final outing of a four-games-in-five-nights road trip, Jerry Sloan‘s boys faced a prototypical trap game: After huge wins in Miami, Orlando and Atlanta, last night’s tip in Charlotte presented a not-so-glamorous opponent and an understandable excuse to let one get away. But that’s not the Jazz way. Once again they fell behind by double-digits, this time in the first quarter, and once again their collective toughness and Deron Williams brought them back … 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 »

Early in the NBA season, it seems as though people are preoccupied with star players that were traded in the 2010 offseason and their new teams. But what about those teams that lost that star player. Are they destined for failure? Will anyone step their game up in the departed player’s absence?

I thought it would be interesting to look at five players who have recently risen to the occasion to deliver performances worthy of saying, “LeBron Who?” Read More »

By and large, preseason rankings are dumb. Not only because they’re completely based on speculation, but because that speculation then becomes taken as gospel, and then sets the tone for the rest of the season in polls that are supposed to be based on performance.

Look at it this way: If you predicted based on hearsay that N.E.R.D.‘s album Nothing (which drops today) will be a five-mic classic, then got a copy and find out it’s a one-mic stinker, would you still give it 3.5 mics because you don’t want to sink it too far in the rankings? Of course not. What you thought of the album before actually hearing the product doesn’t and shouldn’t matter. Read More »