Tonight's Games

Only three games were on tonight in what I like to call the "TNT night".

- Milwaukee beat the Pacers at home tonight in a battle of bad teams. There's not really a better way of putting it. Both of these teams are talented in some aspects, but just aren't good enough to win even in the East. Jamaal Tinsley missed this game and Travis Diener actually had a solid game with the start in his absence (15pts, 9assts). Starters keep getting injured for Indy, yet it seems Troy Murphy gets no closer to starting again. He seems to be stuck on the bench for the foreseeable future. Michael Redd led the Bucks to the win with 37pts in this one, while Mo Williams struggled in his return (9pts, 9assts) after missing a game with a pinky injury.

- The first TNT game was a battle of the last two NBA Champs, who are now at opposite ends of the spectrum right now, SA@MIA. Miami was actually close in this one to pull off an upset of the defending champs at home, but they eventually lost their 15th straight despite D-Wade's 27pts, 9assts, 4stls and Mark Blount's 23pts. San Antonio got another huge game out of Tim Duncan, who had 30pts and 11rebs on 14-19 shooting.

- The next game was another great one at Oracle Arena in Oakland between the Nets and Warriors. Al Harrington hit 4 threes to help GS go up double digits in the fourth, but as the Warriors tend to do, they allowed the Nets to catch back up and eventually only won by 2, 121-119. The Nets got some big performances from Josh Boone and their "Big 3". Boone had 21pts and 17rebs (a career high), most of the points coming towards the end of the third when Don Nelson went with bad strategy, admittedly, in the "hack-a-Boone" (Boone was 7-15 overall from the line and 34% shooting coming into the game). RJ added 34pts and VC 29pts. Golden State got some crazy performances. I already hinted toward Al Harrington, who was 0-4 before the 4th and hit 4 straight 3's at one point, finishing with 19pts. Baron had a triple-double (25pts, 12rebs, 10assts while adding 5stls for good measure), doing his best impression of his idol and Bay Area native, Jason Kidd. And then there's Monta Ellis who scored a career high 39 in this one. It was a classic GS game and was exciting throughout, both teams putting on great runs at one point or another