Friday's OT's and Blowouts

ESPN had two games on the night, Miami @ New Orleans and Milwaukee @ Los Angeles, neither of which made the top 5 games of the night. There were actually some great games tonight, but unless you have NBA League Pass, you missed out on all of them. Lebron showed why he is the face of the league, Boston bounced back from their surprising loss, Washington beat out Atlanta in OT in a battle of Southeastern teams and Denver pulled out the win what was IMHO the game of the night.

There were some great games and some blowouts. Since my father is Asian, I was forced to sit through the second half of the D-League game between the Rockets and the Timberwolves, which the Wolves won by 1 in the second half (the final score was 113-81, 65-33 at the half). And sitting through that "game" meant missing the end of two great finishes, one in Atlanta, the other in Cleveland...

Anyways, the first game of the night was a Bulls win on the road against a reeling Sixer team. Luol Deng missed this game after it was speculated he might play since the Bulls had 3 days in between games. I would suspect he will return for his next contest, but nothing is certain as it doesn't seem Deng will return until he feels that he's fine. Andres Nocioni had a huge game, starting in Deng's place with 26 pts, 7 rebs and 2 blks and Joe Smith had another solid performance, chipping in 19 pts, 6 rebs. He's been incredibly hot lately and while I don't expect him to keep it up all season, he shouldn't be available in any league as he will get the PT and start the rest of the season, since the Bulls have zero post offense without him. For the Sixers, Samuel Dalembert had a monster game with his first career 20-20 game (21 pts, 20 rebs) as the Sixers did all they could to comeback at the end. They lost by only 3 after trailing by 12 at the end of the 3rd.

The Bobcats and Cavaliers were the best game of the night as the Cats were coming off a huge upset win in Boston. This game went into 2 OT's and Lebron's line was simply ridiculous... 31 pts, 19 rebs, 8 assts, 4 stls, 3 blks, 2 threes on 10-20 FG shooting and 9-15 from the line. The free throw percentage was disappointing and 8 turnovers were a bummer also, but you got to take your downs with the huge ups Lebron gives you. The Bobcats put forth a valiant effort with Nazr Mohammed putting in another great game off the bench, 21 pts, 15 rebs, but Lebron and the Cavs were too much for the young squad. Anderson Varejao was also big in this one playing more minutes than both starters Zydrunas Ilgauskas' 25 minutes and Drew Gooden's 34 minutes with 41 minutes. He had 16 pts and 18 rebs in those minutes. I picked him up after this game since he helps you in multiple categories, you just have to hope he plays enough minutes.

Boston became the first team to 30 wins as they won in a low scoring contest in New Jersey. Jersey was sticking with the Celts for most the game, but Boston eventually pulled away and took the game. Sean Williams contributed very little again in this one because he was in foul trouble, a frequent problem for the rookie. Josh Boone was the better producer of the two, scoring 14 pts and grabbing 16 rebs while blocking 4 shots. He only had 3 fouls. Jason Kidd was an assist short of another triple double and seems to come close to a triple double every night. Ray Allen and Glen Davis both returned to play in this game after missing the last Celtics game. Allen is coming off an offseason with surgery on both ankles so keep an eye out on his durability as the season progresses. Glen Davis is a rookie who's getting inconsistent PT right now so I don't expect him to be owned except in the deepest of leagues. For those leagues, Davis returned to play 14 minutes and score 7 pts.

The second OT game was between 2nd and 3rd in the southwest division. Washington went into Atlanta and won in the extra session. Washington's bench outproduced Atlanta's non-factoring bench outside of Josh Childress, who had 11 pts. Josh Smith and Joe Johnson both played over 49 minutes in this one. Al Horford did happen to grab a career high 19 rebounds in this one. The bigger story preceding this game was Atlanta's loss of a win against Miami since Shaquille O'Neal was wrongly fouled out of that game. Due to this error, the two team will replay the last 51 seconds of that game when Atlanta led 114-111 in OT, which was when O'Neal was disqualified from that game, the game which Atlanta eventually "won" 117-111. That game happened on December 19th and the replay will occur before the team's next meeting on March 8th. I'm more interested in the fantasy implications from that game, but it shouldn't be an issue in such a short amount of time.

Toronto won in New York. Usually I would leave it at that when it comes to two teams I don't really care about. Toronto is in another country and New York is the laughing stock of professional sports, but this game did feature one bright spot. That being Chris Bosh and not about his ridiculous commercial to get votes for the All-Star game. He scored 40 points in this one and grabbed 11 boards, which is definitely notable enough for me to mention. While I am talking about this game, I'd also like to heed some advice to Jose Calderon owners, which is that this guy should be one of the most dealt players before TJ Ford returns from his spinal issues, which he will return before long. The reports might be saying that Ford is uncertain when his return will be, but if he is going to miss a prolonged period of time, I don't believe so many reports would be released concerning his return. Anyways, I believe he should be back just before the All-Star break, which is relatively soon (less than a month, February 15-17).

Finally, ESPN's first game of the night, Miami @ New Orleans. This game was awful from the very beginning. The Hornets completely dismantled this putrid Heat team. I'll just get to the stats... Bobby Jackson and the Hornets bench finally showed some signs of life, as he went for 25 pts on perfect shooting (9-9) and SEVEN threes. This came out of absolutely nowhere as the former sixth man of the year had been shooting under 30% from the field this season, but it may the start of something special for the Hornets because they need all the production they can get off the bench. Chris Paul was also perfect from the field, 7-7 and 2 threes, with 16 assists in limited minutes due to the blowout. Final Score: 114-88

The game that couldn't end quickly enough: T-Wolves @ Rockets. This game was honestly unwatchable, but I sat though an entire half of it. The top performers in this game were Ryan Gomes and Corey Brewer, who lost his starting spot recently, from Minnesota and Luis Scola and Carl Landry for the Rockets. Landry played a total of 17 minutes in 3 games before this game. Oh yeah, this was again without T-Mac and it is the Rockets' 5th straight win without McGrady.

The best per-game matchup of the night was in mile-high, where Orlando was the visitor. Maurice Evans started the game again for the Magic and scored 15 pts. Keith Bogans had 3 threes and 14 pts off the bench. I think Evans will remain starting unless he plays his way out of the lineup. I just picked him up so I'm hoping that doesn't happen. Denver played great at home, as they should as Allen Iverson and Carmelo Anthony led the way. Both finished with double-doubles. Iverson with 21 pts, 13 assts and Melo with 32 pts, 11 rebs. Anthony has always taken some criticism for not rebounding well at his size, but he's got 25 boards in his last 2 contests, so people can't really argue with that.

The home-town game was too good either. Golden State held a comfortable lead for most of the contest as they went on to beat Memphis. Pau Gasol was a monster and did everything he could (43 pts, 11 rebs), but his supporting cast was awful. The rest of the Grizzly starters had 24 total pts on 9-33 shooting. The Warriors, on the other hand, were clicking the whole night. Monta Ellis hit his first 12 shots and Baron Davis almost had his own 20-20 game, coming one assist shy. Andris Biedrins left this game early when he took a knee to the hamstring. His condition is not currently known yet, but he did not return to the game.

The Mavericks beat down the Sonics in Seattle tonight and theres not much to say about it. With the Sonics, PJ Carlesimo seems pretty content with his lineup for the time being. Jeff Green is playing through his struggles in the starting lineup, Earl Watson is starting at PG and Wally Szczerbiak is the 6th man scorer off the bench. The freak-out-of-nowhere game that Johan Petro had previously was just that, he finished with 2 pts in this game on 1-6 shooting.

In LA, the Bucks actually played the Lakers quite well on national TV. Kobe dominated the first quarter with 19 pts and 4 threes, but got into foul trouble early in the 2nd quarter. With that said, he got his 4th foul early in the 3rd quarter, but Phil Jackson left him in there. He wasn't really heard much from until it mattered in the fourth quarter. He hit big shots down the stretch and finished with 37 pts. Andrew Bynum was huge again scoring 25 pts and grabbing a career high 17 boards. For the Bucks, they got a boost from the return of all-star Michael Redd from the bench. He scored 22, 10-17 from the field, and looked good moving around the court playing 25 minutes. With Redd returning, most of the Bucks' swing players (Bobby Simmons, Charlie Bell, etc...) will be next to useless on fantasy teams since they were really only contributors in scoring. Redd will be re-taking his role in the Bucks offense of about 24 ppg. Mo Williams is the Buck on a hot streak tho, averaging 28 ppg over his last three games and scoring just that number in this game. Milwaukee was on a little road win streak of 3 games, but they couldn't stay with the Lakers, who look like one of the best teams out west and in the league.