Thursday on TNT & of this shortened week

There were just two games on tonight as TNT got in it's national broadcast before the weekend festivities.

The 1st was in Chicago, where the new look Miami Heat visited. The game was actually somewhat close, but the Bulls pulled out the win. Kirk Hinrich came off the bench again as a spark for the Bulls and produced a team high 24pts, while also getting 7rebs. Miami came up short again as they had production out of their new big two, but not much elsewhere. D-Wade had 30pts, 7rebs and 7assts while Marion put in 23pts, 7rebs and 4stls.

The next was a good one in Phoenix, where the Mavs were visiting. Devean George, as many of you have probably already heard, stalled the J-Kidd-to-the-Mavs talks, as his one year contract has the "early bird" agreement, essentially meaning he can turn down trades if he sees fit. I don't blame for not wanting to go to a bad team on a one year deal, but that definitely slowed down the excitement a bit going into the weekend. Ironically enough, he started tonight at forward, playing 43mins while only scoring 7pts. The Mavs are now looking towards the retired Keith Van Horn as a potential "expiring contract" to send to the Nets in George's place. Keep an eye on this until something works out, but as now it's all just speculation once again. For the actual game, Phoenix won it late by pulling away 109-97 and got their normal performances. Diaw should be owned in most leagues at this point since he'll be the main benefactor while Shaq's out (19pts, 8rebs, 5assts, 3blks tonight). Even when Shaq returns, I wouldn't say Diaw's value drops too much because it's not a given that Shaq won't get hurt again. For Dallas, they simply didn't have enough scoring options without the services of Devin Harris, Jerry Stackhouse AND Josh Howard. Dirk and Terry tried their best (36pts, 12rebs for Dirk and 29pts for Terry), but without another Mav scoring double-digits, they weren't going to beat the Suns.

One last note, Kobe's finger injury is apparently worse than at 1st thought. He's actually got a fracture in that pinky. I'm not gonna try to tell a competitor like Kobe what to do with his all-world body, but honestly if surgery if only going to cost them 6 weeks, he should take it. He would be healthy easily in time for the playoffs and if he keeps pushing off this injury, it may affect his play. As of right now, he plans to push it off until after the Olympics. Just so everyone's on the same page, that's until after SEPTEMBER, which is also right before the NBA season. It's a tough call, but he needs to get it fixed right now. As for this weekend, Kobe's obviously a starter at guard out in the West and a participant in the 3-point shootout. As of right now, Dirk has replaced him in the shootout, but Kobe plans on playing in Sunday's game. I don't know what the man is thinking, but he's a competitor like none other in the league. Hopefully this all works out for Kobe, but I personally don't believe he's going in the right direction.