Mozgov gets his revenge on Blake Griffin

The highlight of the night once again involved Blake Griffin.

But it was not the type of Griffin highlight you are accustomed to seeing.

As friend and former colleague Beth Harris of the Associated Press described in four perfectly succinct words, Blake Griffin got Mozgov’d.

Or to put it in words that would never be seen on the AP wire, Timofey Mozgov knocked Blake Griffin on his ass.

It was one heck of a hard foul, and it came during one heck of a hard loss for the Los Angeles Clippers at home against the Denver Nuggets late Thursday night.

Griffin was attempting to throw down one of his signature slams during the third quarter when the beefy Russian whacked him to the ground. Griffin stayed down for nearly a minute, got up and missed both free throws, and the Nuggets took over from there in a 112-91 victory that elevated George Karl’s team into second place in the Western Conference standings, one game ahead of the Clippers.

“He had a lot of dunks on us in the first half, and Andre Miller said, `The next time he tries to dunk the ball, let’s try to put him on his behind,'” Al Harrington said. “He almost still made it, but it was a hard foul and he missed. It was a definitely a statement for us, defensively, and it set a precedent for how we were going to play the rest of the game. Teams try to bully us because we play so fast, so it was good to be on the other end of it for once.”

From Benjamin Hochman of the Denver Post: “Lob City was more like a library. In Thursday’s fourth quarter, with the Clippers trailing by 20, they tried to pull out all the stops during a timeout — the pump-up music, the T-shirt tosses, the dance team jumping up and down — and the residents of said city were quiet, as if they were studying for finals. How about those Nuggets? Denver had lost two straight, including the first one to these very Clippers on Sunday, but on Thursday they slapped around the home team, 112-91, defeating Chris Paul and Blake Griffin on the day both were named all-star starters. “I am getting old, so I might have forgotten one, but I think that is the best game we have played this season,” a happy Nuggets coach George Karl said. “What we wanted to get done, we got done. We covered the 3(-pointer) and controlled Chris Paul. We didn’t want him to orchestrate.” This win was huge. Here’s why. Thursday was the first game of the rare back-to-back-to-back — Denver (15-7) hosts the Lakers tonight and then travels to Portland to play Saturday against the Trail Blazers. So nabbing the first one was key, knowing fatigue could be a factor in the next 48 hours. Who played well for Denver? Everyone. Ty Lawson finished with a plus-23 plus-minus rating while scoring 18 points with six assists, a nice bounce from a tough game at Memphis, his first game back from an ankle injury. Danilo Gallinari, he was plus-24. Asked if he was seeking revenge after the loss on Sunday, Lawson said, “Oh, yeah, of course. I definitely wanted this one.”

It was a relatively quiet night in the NBA on the night when the All-Star starters were revealed.

Not that any of them were a surprise, as the vote totals were so lopsided after the first returns were released that everyone already knew that the East Starters would be Derrick Rose, Dwyane Wade, LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and Dwight Howard. For the West, it’ll be Kobe Bryant, Chris Paul, Andrew Bynum, Kevin Durant and Griffin. 

The debate now will concern who are the players most worthy of being named reserves, a topic Chris Bernucca weighed in on yesterday in his Thursday column. If you disagree, tweet him, not me.

The coaches will make the selections, and one player who likely will get the All-Star weekend off for the first time in more than a decade is Tim Duncan of the San Antonio Spurs.

This despite Duncan showing flashes of his old brilliance once again Thursday night in a 93-81 vicory over the New Orleans Hornets.

From Mike Monroe of the San Antonio Express-News: “When the Spurs played the Hornets in New Orleans on Jan. 23, a well-rested Tim Duncan turned back the clock and authored his best game of the season, a 28-point burst of energy punctuated by a game-winning hook shot. Facing the Hornets again Thursday, this time after a hard win over Houston the night before, Duncan proved he can still dominate a game while weary. In 22 minutes and 28 seconds, he produced an extraordinarily efficient 19 points and nine rebounds, helping the Spurs secure a 93-81 victory. When Duncan wasn’t torturing the shorthanded Hornets in the post, backup big man Tiago Splitter was doing the same, making 7 of 9 shots and scoring 16. The Spurs, now 15-9, ran their home-court record to 12-1. Before the game there was speculation aplenty that Duncan might not suit up for the Spurs’ fourth in five nights. Coach Gregg Popovich had vowed he wouldn’t let Duncan play all four games in such a compressed stretch. Even when Popovich an nounced Duncan would be in his starting lineup there was concern about how much the 13-time All-Star would have left in his legs. Duncan wasted no time proving he felt good. He scored seven points in a first quarter when his teammates made only 6 of 16 shots and had 11 by halftime. Teammate Matt Bonner knew Duncan was on his way to a standout game. “He was wicked spry out there,” Bonner said, flattening his vowels as only a New Englander can.”

Rose not only will be an All-Star, he’ll be in the MVP debate as well.

The highlight of the night not involving a foul is shown above, Rose slicing an dicing his way through New York’s defense for a twisting, tough-angle layup over the outstretched arm of Amare Stoudemire in The Bulls’ 105-102 victory at New York.

There is a dead-man walking dynamic in New York relating to Mike D’Antoni, who is coaching two (or one) games this weekend that do not matter to most fans in the Big Apple as much as Sunday’s Super Bowl showdown between the Giants and the New England Patriots.

From Brian Lewis of the New York Post: “The Knicks have been underwhelming and underachieving, and there have been reports coach Mike D’Antoni could be fired as soon as tomorrow if his team lost last night to Chicago and tonight in Boston. If so, he’s halfway there after a 105-102 defeat to the Bulls at the Garden in which the Knicks’ comeback against Derrick Rose and his teammates fell short just like late 3-point attempts by Amar’e Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony. In truth, the Knicks, who have lost 10 of their last 12 games, have showed signs of turning the corner: Anthony got back on the court, Stoudemire got back in a groove and they nearly rallied for the victory. But they were undone at the start by their own second-quarter turnovers, and in the end by Rose. The Knicks coughed up the ball 11 times in the second quarter, which the Bulls closed on a 22-11 run to take a 55-44 cushion into halftime. The Knicks spent the rest of the night trying to fight their way out of that hole, but Rose (32 points, 11 assists) was good enough to make sure they didn’t. “We lost the game in the first half . . . We turned it over six times in a row,” D’Antoni said. “We did a good job of hustling . . . If we can continue to do that we’ll be fine.” D’Antoni, however, may well be running out of time for moral victories, Pyrrhic victories and all the other faux victories that losing teams substitute for real wins. The Daily News reported Wednesday that Knicks owner James Dolan had gotten it in his head to fire D’Antoni if his team lost the first two of this three-games-in-three-nights stretch, and would pick tomorrow to do it to bury the news amid the hoopla of the Giants’ Super Bowl appearance. The Post has reported D’Antoni likely will survive past Sunday, but time is running short to save his job.”

Here’s a rundown of what else went down in the Association last night:

• The Sacramento Kings won a ballgame. No we’re serious — and it was actually a quality win. Marcus Thornton scored 20 points for the Kings, who snapped a five-game losing streak by beating Portland 95-92. The Blazers had beaten the Kings in 12 of the previous 13 games, but Sacramento ran off five straight points late in the game and held off Portland, which missed two 3-pointers in the final 10 seconds, including a nice look from Jamal Crawford just prior to the buzzer sounding. The Blazers have lost four straight on the road. Kings rookie Jimmer Fredette didn’t play for the first time in 22 games.
• Memphis clobbered the Hawks in Atlanta, 96-77, going ahead by 24 through three quarters and leading by as much as 30 in the fourth. As John Hollinger of ESPN.com wrote: A few will take it as proof that the Grizzlies, despite a modest 12-10 mark, are more than capable of making the West playoffs even without Zach Randolph. And still others will see a signal that Atlanta — which is 13-0 against sub-.500 teams and 3-7 against those above — doesn’t belong in the rarefied air its 16-6 start suggested.
• Golden State rattled off 40 points in the third quarter and 31 more in the fourth of a 119-101 victory over Utah. Monta Ellis scored 33 points, Stephen Curry added 29 points and a season-high 12 assists. David Lee added 23 points and 14 rebounds for the Warriors, who won two straight after losing the first four games of its six-game homestand.