Game Notes: 11/22

Milwaukee – 79 at Charlotte – 74

Ignoring the fact that they won, this was an ugly game for the Bucks. Andrew Bogut seems to finally be rounding into shape, posting his 5^th 15+ rebound game in his last 7 outings. Richard Jefferson had an unspectacular 15-7, Ramon Sessions rescued an otherwise dull line with 10/10 from the line, and Charlie V did much the same with 8/8 from the line and 4 blocks in 27 minutes off the bench. I would hesitate to say that the “tables turned” on the Augustin/Felton back court battle, because if you ignore Felton’s 7 steals and gross rebounding advantage they were hardly differentiable. Okafor had his first big game in over 2 weeks with 16 points and 18 rebounds. Gerald Wallace was unspectacular but not necessarily bad. Distraught over news of the “Return of the King snack attack” incident, Sean May spent the day at home sobbing while installing World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, and preparing his body for Thanksgiving by having a full Thanksgiving meal 5 days early. The result of all that was a DNP-CD.

Injury update: Luke Ridnour left the game with an injured knee. The extent of the injury is unknown, but if Sessions is still available in your league for whatever reason, you should pick him up. This may give Charlie Bell a little more PT as well, but he hasn’t been very useful this year, even in extended minutes.

Houston – 100 at Orlando – 95

T-Mac and Yao each played 30 minutes. T-Mac did little outside of score, and Yao had one of his nicer lines of the season with 22-13-2-2-1. Landry was the weapon of choice at PF tonight and turned in a quiet but effective line in large part thanks to 2 blocks. Perhaps more significant bench news than that is that Aaron Brooks only played 17 minutes (most likely due to Orlando’s big guards, and Rafer Alston posting a beautiful line of his own). Dwight Howard was in foul trouble pretty much the entirety of the first 3 quarters. Rashard had a great line if you ignore his FG%. Jameer was solid, but unspectacular. Pietrus was AWFUL (and could someone who watches Magic games please explain his TO’s to me?). Turkeyleg missed the game with the flu, which unfortunately is not an ailment that can be linked to his awful play through the first eighth of the season, but did allow Keith Bogans to start and do very little in 36 minutes, and somehow afforded a legitimate playing opportunity to JJ Reddick who (making this situation even weirder) somehow managed to earn 10 FT attempts. I would not pick up Reddick though, in part because Turkey glue will be back soon, and in part because I have trouble seeing every NBA player not secretly wanting to beat the shit out of him. He just looks like that kind of guy.

LA Clippers – 95 at New Jersey – 112

Baron had a big game with 30 points and 10 assists, but didn’t really contribute anywhere else (outside of the cats linked to those, 12/24 FG, 4 threes, 1 TO). Kaman played a ton, but was oddly unproductive. Thornton lived at the line to finish with a nice 20-7-3, and Marcus Camby continued his recent scoring surge to post 18-13-3-1-3. Vince and Devin Harris had big games again, but were both total bollox from the line. Yi and Brook Lopez each received heavy minutes and produced accordingly. Lopez with a double double, and Yi with 27 points on nice %’s. Bobby Simmons had his second decent game in a row, this time augmenting his line with 3 threes, and if he keeps getting ~30 minutes a night will be a guy to own.

Atlanta – 96 at Cleveland – 110

This one got out of hand early, but for some reason the Cavs left their starters in for the bulk of the fourth quarter while the Hawks didn’t play Marvin, Bibby, or JJ in the fourth at all. Nice. LeBron had a pretty lame line going until he feasted on Hawk scrubs in the fourth, and finished with a well rounded 24-7-8 while hitting all 7 of his FT’s. Delonte and Mo Williams were near clones of eachother, both shooting well and collecting assists, and Z had what is becoming the standard line for him of 17-7-0-0-1 on nice %’s and no TO’s. Horford and Marvin were the only Hawk starters to post competent lines, while Mo Evans and Acie Law turned in great lines off the bench that will probably not be replicated again this season barring several major injuries to starters.

Indiana – 100 at Miami – 109

Marquis scored 25 on a nice FG% but didn’t do much to fill out his line. Granger scored 23 with 4 threes and 6 assists, but also turned it over 6 times. Troy Murphy had a very odd line with 6-11-6, but good for him, while Rasho and Ford were solid but nothing to write home about. Dwyane Wade had a semi-monster line, but flung poo all over it with 5 TO’s and a 6/11 from the line. Still though, 2 blocks and 15/24 shooting from a guard is nothing to scoff at… unless the rest of his line also reflects the line of a center. Haslem continued his quiet and solid production. Beasley had nice scoring cats but little else, and Shawn Marion has finally had back to back strong games in Miami. I don’t know if this means anything… but YAY!

Chalmers/Quinn: These guys split time almost exactly tonight and they both sucked, although with 38 points, 5 TO’s and 8 assists it is pretty clear who had the ball in his hands pretty much the entire game.

Washington – 117 at New York – 122

Mike D’Antoni should have his own TV network just to guarantee that his teams will always have a national broadcast. I swear, any time his teams play athletic teams who are otherwise awful and non-competitive I want to watch because dudes just pop OFF. Antawn had 29-13 on hot shooting, Deshaun Stevenson nearly replicated his line from last night, and Caron had crazy production in a few short bursts after missing a lot of time in the first half for some unknown reason. All of the Knicks starters crushed in one way or another (due in large part to their playing 90% of the minutes). Q had 34-12-2-0-0 with 7 threes on 1 TO, 11/20 FG and 5/6 FT. Duhon had a pair of threes to go with 10 points and 11 assists. Nate posted a slick 27-6-6-1-0 tarnished only by 4 TO’s as his %’s were nearly flawless. D-Lee did what many of us set over-ambitious dreams on before the season, with 22-12-2 on great %’s, and finally, Wilson Chandler was the least spectacular of the bunch with a meager 23-6-2-1-1 and 1 three.

Knicks future: I had every intention of dropping Q until tonight. It is probably stupid to hold him because he *somehow* managed a decent line playing 44 minutes against a team that is more than willing to run with the Knicks, but still… depending largely on what sort of role Jared Jeffries has on the team, I think that all the Knicks who had value before the trades will hold their value. Mobley should start at SG, but I would be surprised if he played more than 25-30 minutes, while Q and Nate will back up there. Chandler, Q and Al should all spend time at the 3, while Chandler and Al will also get minutes at the 4, and Al at the 5. D’Antoni has always liked short (7-8) man rotations, and in Phoenix all 7-8 of those guys would be ownable. While New York’s talent is nowhere near the talent on the Suns roster at any point while D’Antoni was their head man, I think that if the rotation stays high and tight the same could be true here, simply because this system makes numbers happen.

Utah – 103 at Memphis – 94

OJ Mayo struggled from the field but saved his line with 10/10 from the line. Marc Gasol had another quiet but decent game. Darrell Arthur had his first big night in awhile with 16-9-0-1-1. Mike Conley had a strong night to tag onto a string of what has been a roller coaster week for his stats. The Memphis bench didn’t do anything, and Rudy Gay finally had a decent FG% but was pretty bad everywhere else. It is funny that he was traded for Shane Battier, because outside of the scoring his line is identical to Battier’s... only with way worse %’s. On the Jazz side, Ronnie Brewer had 21 points on a hot FG%, but his most notable stat is the 4 steals. CJ Miles was solid while AK47 ran the show and put up an outstanding 9-6-10-4-1, and Memo announced his mental return to the game with his first big scoring game of the season dropping 23 points and 4 threes on 9/15 from the field. The longer this team plays without Deron Williams, the more I secretly hope he never comes back… and I own him in 2 leagues!!! Just his attitude with AK, and these ridiculous quotes he keeps giving about when he will finally grace us with his return. The most recent of which is perhaps the most infuriating, announcing that he will be “on the Matt Harpring schedule” once he returns… Really man? You have had over a month, and were feeling good enough to give it a go last week. If you are hurt you are hurt, but you are starting to sound like a more facetious Michael Redd ie a douchebag that no one wants to own.

*Oklahoma City – 97 at New Orleans – 109

The audio of this game made it sound like it was a lot closer than the matchup of these two teams last night, but I couldn’t tell you what it looked like. While I did have this game on my television for stretches (flipping between this and OU/Tech), I was rendered temporarily blind… for I had the misfortune of seeing the Thunder’s “pre-game insider” which for this game was a behind the scene look at the making of the Thunder Girl calendar. While I usually don’t seek out things like this, I don’t mind when I stumble upon them, unless all of the girls have super craggy faces, bleached hair, and look like they have a history of methamphetamine use. This HAS to be the UGLIEST NBA dance team ever assembled. Maybe I was just spoiled by years of watching the Mavs dance team, which features a number of SMU students who manage to somehow present bikini tops in January with some margin of dignity (or really… they just don’t look like they grew up in a trailer park where domestic violence is just a thing people do, instead of a misdemeanor). But really… The Rockets dancers look super trashy, but at least they do the “fun weekend” trashy, and not the “hit with a stick” trashy. But I digress… this shouldn’t have been a surprise as I have sampled the talent pool in Oklahoma City on a couple of occasions and… wow. Why don’t they just have extra mascots or something? Kevin Durant had spectacular scoring cats, but nothing else (almost literally), Jeff Green as usual provided the yin to Durant’s yang and surrounded his 17 points with 5 boards, 4 assists and a steal (nice %’s too, which is nice to see). Russell Westbrook came off the bench for 30 minutes and set his season high in assists with 11, and Chris Wilcox (also off the bench for 30 minutes) added a double double. CP3 had his first triple double of the season, and not being satisfied with that, was spectacular in all other cats as well. David West had nice %’s and 33 points, but outside of the 8 boards didn’t manage much else. Peja and Tyson must have hooked up with the Thunder girls last night, because they were both terrible. Hopefully don’t see the first “DNP-Gonorrhea” sometime next week.

Portland – 92 at Phoenix – 102

Steve Blake had another hot shooting night, Brandon Roy scored well but did not excel in assists to the degree that the author of this piece would have appreciated, Aldridge had a mini D-West game (LOLZ because he is bigger than West IRL OMG!!!), Rudy had a rough shooting night, Oden had a rough foul trouble night, and Przybilla happily entered the “weirdest line of the night” contest with his 0-8-1-3-5 noted for its weirdness because of A) the 3 steals B) the zero shots on 6 offensive boards. Steve Nash has a great line until you notice that he had 8 TO’s (!!!), Amare had a quiet but decent night as Shaq ate all of his offense, Barnes and Bell each had nice performances in their own ways; Bell if you like 3ptm and terrible FG%, Barnes if you like 3ptm and a mix of peripherals. Hill and Diaw both made strong contributions off the bench.