Friday, March 7, 2008

Rockets make it 17 in a row by routing Mavs

Rockets make it 17 in a row by routing Mavs


NBA Tipoff: New Orleans vs. Houston
The Rockets have won 17 in a row. Can the Hornets cool them off? Marques Johnson says Houston will be hard to stop.

Johnson suspended 1 game for flagrant foul
The NBA suspended Alexander Johnson of the Miami Heat for Friday's game against the Golden State Warriors because of a flagrant foul earlier in the week. Johnson committed a hard foul Wednesday against the Toronto Raptors' Andrea Bargnani, the 2006 No. 1 overall draft pick. Bargnani was driving the baseline, Johnson leaped in an effort to keep Bargnani from scoring, and the collision sent the Raptors' forward to the ground in a heap.

What a long, strange game this is
As the Heat and Hawks get ready for 51.9 seconds of insanity, Mike Kahn looks at how this situation keeps getting stranger.

Spurs coach Gregg Popovich goes crazy, gets tossed

KD linked to this bad boy in Behind the Boxscore this morning, but it's worth a second look. Keep an eye on Spurs coach Gregg Popovich at the top of the screen. He loses his Shiraz immediately.

Couple this with Pop's Tuesday night outburst about the Spurs lack of focus, attention to detail and execution -- following their 10th freakin' win in a row! -- and it's easy to see why the Spurs are as successful as they are. Pop's ready for the playoffs and he's firing up the troops.



Hench's Hit List: Get over yourself, Riles
Hey, you made this mess, now suffer through it. Pat Riley lands on Kevin Hench's Hit List after saying he may skip upcoming games.

Behind the boxscore, where Chicago playing defense happens

Chicago 107, Cleveland 96

As bad as Chicago's been offensively this season, and they've been pretty lousy, it's the team's defense that has fallen farther in comparison to last year's 49-win team, which goes a long way toward explaining why the Bulls have to work so hard to get easy buckets.

The Bulls have dropped to 26th in the NBA in offensive efficiency, down six spots from last season; but the drop from 1st in defensive efficiency in 2006-07 to 8th this season is why the team might miss the playoffs for the first time since 2004.

(Actually, it's the rotation choices cobbled together by the team's two head coaches that have really put the Bulls in the muck, but I think it's fair to say that we've gone over that quite a bit already.)

Thursday's win over the Cavaliers has to be encouraging. Cleveland still put up a respectable amount of points, but Chicago harassed the non-LeBron James Cavaliers into a poor shooting night (the interior triptych of Anderson Varejao, Ben Wallace, and Joe Smith combined to shoot 4-19 from the floor), and Chicago was able to run as a result. When the Bulls consistently don't have to try and score against a half-court defense, a win is usually in the offing.

That said, there's no reason why James should be as passive as he was in the second half. Yes, the man was less than a day removed from dropping 50 half a country away at Madison Square Garden, but that's all the more reason to set up camp in the low post, draw fouls, and win the game from the line. Without the benefit of college tutoring, James' footwork has always been lacking down low, but he needs to find ways to overcome fatigue and pull out a win.

(I just spent a paragraph complaining about a player who scored 39 points, while his teammates combined to shoot 35.1 percent from the floor. Only three games on Thursday night, so I'm left to nit-pick. It was kind of fun. While we're at it, what's the deal with the Beatles? Magical Mystery Tour? Where do they get off?)

Joakim Noah (13 points, 20 rebounds) was awesome, and Bulls coach Jim Boylan deserves credit for going with Ben Gordon late in the game. It seems ludicrous to give Boylan credit for making moves that seem obvious and needed, but he's also the guy who pulled a white-hot Tyrus Thomas from the game in the fourth quarter of Chicago's loss to the Cavs on Sunday, only to watch Cleveland finish the contest on what felt like a 49-2 run.

Houston 113, Dallas 98

It's a pretty simple concept that seems to consistently elude all 30 NBA teams, every year, and cost them anywhere between 10 and 73 losses a season: if you don't put forth effort, you're not going to pull out the win.

On Thursday night, Jason Terry appeared to be the only one who showed up for the Dallas Mavericks, and the result was (what should be) an embarrassing home loss to the Yao Ming-less Rockets. Terry (17 points on 15 shots) actually wasn't much of a factor in the second half as the Rockets tilted their defense in his direction, but his teammates weren't into picking up the slack, and the Mavs sunk lower in the Western Conference bracket as a result.

Josh Howard led Dallas with 21 points on 8-19 shooting, but he missed nine of his first 12 shots, and most of his points came with the game already in hand. Jason Kidd was pretty bleh with seven points, six rebounds, six assists, and four turnovers - and, you know what? There's no reason why a talent like Kidd shouldn't be trying to make a bigger impact on a game like this with Dirk Nowitzki out. There's no reason why he couldn't have turned up the heat defensively, and no reason why he couldn't have given the Mavs a better chance at a win.

Of course, Kidd probably feels that the Mavs could have beaten Houston had the Nets re-signed Kenyon Martin back in 2004. Can't possibly be J-Kidd's fault.�

San Antonio 108, Indiana 97

I was blacked out of another Indiana game. League Pass seems pretty arbitrary with the Pacer contests they choose to black out here in the plains, so I didn't get to see Coach Pop's meltdown until TNT deigned to show the highlights.

Off the boxscore, one thing that stood out was San Antonio's rebounding advantage: Los Spurs out-boarded the Pacers 47 to 35 (semi-shocking), but it also held rugged glassworkers Troy Murphy and Jeff Foster to only 12 combined rebounds in about 65 minutes of play. That's a pretty solid accomplishment.

By the way, Kenny Smith had it right: if you're going to wear "Los Spurs" uniforms, why not go all the way and wear "Los Est�mulos?"


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