Game Notes: 11/8

New Jersey – 80 at Indiana – 92

Keyon Dooling started for an injured Devin Harris (sprained ankle), and scored a lot but didn’t do much else, Vince Carter took this as an opportunity to do the same and put in 31 points and 3 threes with minimal peripheral stats. Yi collected 11 boards in 24 minutes, but coupled with his 1/11 from the field, his line wasn’t worth very much (although it was better in terms of volume than any of the other nets not named Keyon or Vince). TJ Ford was a rebound and an assist shy of a triple double, Marquis Daniels had a solid line, Danny Granger would have done great things had he done better than 1/9 from 3, and Jeff Foster finally stepped up in the starter’s role. Troy Murphy also turned in a nice performance with 17-10 and 4 threes.

Washington – 81 at Orlando – 106

None of the Wizards played particularly well. A case can be made for Nick Young, but his 20 points were extremely hollow as he only put in 1 three and didn’t offer a difference making number from the line (8/12 FG is nice, but the point is that this line was not that special). It looks like this one was over early though, judging by the PT of the Wizards studs. Dwight Howard’s line was pure monster (31-16-3-0-3, 11/13 FG, 9/14 FT, 2 TO’s, no threes) on a night where most of his supporting cast seemed to take the night off. Pietrus put up another quietly effective line, and Keith Bogans did some decent work off the bench, but Turk, Rashard and Nelson were all pretty bad.

Miami – 89 at New Orleans – 100

Chris Paul didn’t score very much in the first half, but had 21 points and 14 FT attempts by the end of the game. Tyson Chandler and David West bounced back from last night and were back up to all of their old tricks. Peja was cold for most of the night… but still hit 4 threes, so he wasn’t all bad. There were no other noteworthy contributions on the Hornet’s side. Dwyane Wade had a big game for Miami, but the remainder of the roster was unimpressive, save Chris Quinn who had another hot shooting night from the field as he canned 4 threes on his way to 14 points with a couple of steals.

Cleveland – 106 at Chicago – 97

Mo Williams and Anderson Varejao salvaged otherwise forgettable lines with hustle stats (4 steals for Mo, 3 blocks for Andy) in a rematch from a couple nights ago that once again saw Ben Gordon and LeBron getting into a scoring dual. LeBron won, once again, and blew the dust off of his 3pt shot in the process. Zydrunas lent a hand with another quietly effective center line. Ben Gordon maintained his heat from earlier in the week, tonight however he did so from the starting lineup (replacing Kirk Hincrich who could miss up to 12 weeks). Derrick Rose and Luol Deng each posted nice lines in extremely heavy minutes (44+ each). Tyrus Thomas returned to the starting lineup as Drew Gooden missed the game with an ankle injury, and Andres Nocioni was the primary benefactor of bench minutes as he was on the court for 38 minutes and came through with a nice line (disregarding TO’s).

Phoenix – 104 at Milwaukee – 96

Charlie Bell put together a nice scoring cat line, Ridnour turned in a nice A/TO ration and not much else, Bogut… appears to have been foul plagued yet again, Charlie V was pulled early in what one can only assume was a defensive move to put Mbama on Amare (ultimately pointless, as Amare went to the line 20 times. If you own Amare and lose FT% this week PLEASE tell me how), but Ramon Sessions posted the best Milwaukee line coming off the bench. It will definitely be interesting to see what happens with Sessions once Redd comes back. Shaq had what will surely be his best game of the season, with 29-11-4-1-0. Nash had a good, but very un-nash line, as he too benefited from Milwaukee’s meat grinder defense and took 9 shots from the line. Grant Hill turned in a double double in an ungodly serving of PT (Porter really doesn’t like using the bench in the same capacity that D’Antoni would. Barbosa and Diaw are just wasting away).

Minnesota – 93 at Portland – 97

It is nice to see Mike Miller stabilizing in Minnesota. Tonight’s line is what I would like to see from him on a regular basis (14-6-4, 2 threes, good FG%), and it was nice to see Al Jefferson complement his already strong line with 5 assists. Corey Brewer was hurt once again by the leaches on Minnesota’s bench. K-Love came back to Earth in his second game as a starter (he’s a rookie, the erratic stats should be expected). Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge sizzled for Portland, but the only other guy who is really worth mentioning is Joel Przybilla. Przy wasn’t spectacular, but if you need boards free of TO’s, bad %’s etc. he is a good short term pick up/streamer.