I watched some nationally televised games last night, and I thought some things about them. If you’d care to read them, please do.
New York Knicks 91, Miami Heat 86
A great deal of the talk surrounding this game will concern Carmelo Anthony’s defense of this game’s best player, LeBron James, toward the end of this game’s fourth quarter, defense which certainly tipped a few very important possessions in the Knicks’ favor (most notably Amar’e Stoudemire’s last-minute block of James that was created by Anthony’s body control and initial tip of the shot). Still, after watching this one and having to wash the taste of it out of my mouth for a few minutes, I can only exit thinking, “The Heat still don’t get it.” Miami has, at its worst moments this season, been feeling itself a little too much, and at no time was this dynamic more apparent than the Knicks’ runs to end the last three quarters of basketball. At the beginning of every quarter, the Heat boys took control, forcing the issue on defense and creating turnovers from a team that has not even begun to properly gel into a fully-functional unit. After such gleeful flurries, Miami got the idea in its head that its nucleus has won anything together or has any reason to coast against a New York team that literally has more weapons than its coach knows what to do with them all.
As such, the Heat relented, and the pair of late-game stalwarts that Denver sent to the Mecca went to work in the final minutes of each quarter. The Knicks showed poise and heart here, no doubt, and their team defensive effort in the second half should be applauded by all of us (read: me) who naturally assumed this Knicks outfit would simply be trying to outgun its opponents night in and night out. But if there’s a story here, it’s the pomp which which Miami though it could get away in this game. No team, no matter how many of the league’s top two players it has (and Miami has both of ‘em), can glide into victories without getting dirty or acting like opponents have the right to share the court. This league has 30 solid teams, and if Miami doesn’t get its act together and remember that it has not won anything of significance, one of those other 29 will remind the Heat itself.
Houston Rockets 91, New Orleans Hornets 89
Well, this has been fun for a couple of games, eh? Although this game was not always at the breakneck pace the Rockets and Nets employed Saturday night, Houston has found some success pushing the basketball and firing away at good, clean shots, a novel idea for a team full of shooters who don’t always do so well in half-court sets. Kevin Martin, the Rockets’ already All-Star level talent, appears to have benefited most from the trade deadline deals that have him constantly sharing the floor with another scoring threat, dopeboy extraordinaire Chase Budinger, as Martin has dropped 30+ in both outings since the deals and taken kindly to an uptick in minutes. Kyle Lowry stepped up to the challenge of holing this league’s best 1 guard (a night after guarding its second-best) in Chris Paul, while making Paul work on the other end by raining in four of his eight three-point attempts (a couple of those on ridiculous, clock-beating 30-footers) to post a handsome 18 points, even on 14 shots.
The aforementioned Paul had a clunker last night, one of many in recent weeks, as the little general posted an abysmal 6 points on 12 shots, never quite getting comfortable with the looks he was getting from Lowry and Courtney Lee on defense, as the Rockets consistently double-teamed and forced other Hornets to make it happen, which actually continued to happen (new Hornet/former-folk-hero-to-yours-truly Carl Landry and Marco Belinelli combined to give the Hornets 27 points off of the bench on only 19 shots) until a brief flash of Rockets magic in the middle of the fourth quarter saw the men in red take control. The Rockets, down 12, saw Lee, Lowry and Martin hit four threes in a literal couple of minutes to bring the Rockets roaring back, and after a Brad Miller jumper to take the lead, this one had fallen in Houston’s favor, as Paul’s usual late-game heroics were absent from an anticlimactic ending. This was a big one for a Rockets team that looks to be making an outsider’s late-season push at being eliminated by the Spurs in the first round.
Los Angeles Lakers 90, Oklahoma City Thunder 87
Did you see the end of this one? Then you know what happened. This stayed close for a very long time, but after the Lakers pulled away a bit in the mid-fourth-quarter thanks to Kobe Bryant’s jumpers, it seemed like the Thunder were going to need to hit some really big shots in the last minutes to continue it. The Thunder got multiple opportunities and simply could not come through in the final minute, leaving the viewer with some seriously painful images of Kevin Durant leaving the court in disgrace (undeserved feelings, of course, but his 21 points on 20 shots was not-so helpful). Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum’s big-boy statlines (18 and 11 plus 16 and 10, respectively) also helped the Lakers’ case, something I can’t feel too comfortable with saying will always be present until I see Kendrick Perkins suit up in turquoise and orange.
Atlanta Hawks 90, Portland Trailblazers 83
This is one of those nightly lines that makes the game seem so much close than it actually was. Portland stud LaMarcus Aldridge left the court with a balky knee toward the end of the first quarter of this one, and after all of that air was sucked out of the Rose Garden, the Hawks took whatever was left by stealing any ball that came within reach of their long arms and even longer verticals. Though the Blazers only had 14 turnovers, the Hawks scored 23 points off of those hiccups as Josh Smith and Joe Johnson made the Blazers look like tree stumps with their agility, athleticism and generic names. Jamal Crawford, though, truly shined with his Eddie House-like affinity for gunning and bizarro brilliant box score line, as the designated “****-it-I’ma-shoot”er poured in 23 points on 13 shots, even though he missed most of his field goal attempts (5-13).
The offense in this game was not so much existent, and while the Hawks at least feasted on Blazer miscues, Portland really didn’t have much going on that end even when Aldridge reentered the game. Rudy Fernandez continues to look every bit the prima donna failure he’s been branded, and Brandon Roy cannot run. Gerald Wallace’s debut thankfully evoked furious cheering, even if that was the loudest the crowd got for Wallace (who went 4-12 and grabbed five rebounds off of the bench) or anyone else on the Blazers, for that matter. There’s some combining of forces that needs to go on in Portland, and while they get that situation together, the Blazers are going to have trouble with fiery birds of prey like those in Atlanta (so sorry for that pun).
