My first job out of college was as a baseball dictationist at the AP. Being a know-it-all twentysomething, I would invariably do something stupid about once a week.
And when I did, an old salt of a newsman named Dick Joyce – who called everyone “Mersh” – would turn to me and say, “Uh, Mersh, where you workin’ next week?”
It might be time to ask Mike D’Antoni the same question.
The embattled coach of the New York Knicks watched his team lose for the 11th time in 13 games Friday as they missed three potential go-ahead shots in the final minute of a 91-89 loss at Boston.
On Wednesday, there was a report on the gossip website TheDaily.com that cited “sources” who said Knicks owner Jim Dolan decided to fire D’Antoni – who is in the final year of his contract – after last Saturday’s loss to Houston. The report said Dolan would ax D’Antoni on Saturday, one day before the Super Bowl so as to attract as little attention as possible.
In New York? Good luck with that.
Since then, the Knicks have blown out the woeful Pistons and lost teeth-gritters to Chicago and Boston, a pair of tough opponents. And one writer on the Knicks beat refuted the report.
From Steve Popper of The Bergen Record: “An NBA official said that there was nothing to a report in the gossip briefs of the website — The Daily — that claimed D’Antoni would be fired if the Knicks lost to the Bulls and Celtics.”
However, that has not stopped the beat writers from referencing the obvious – that with each loss, D’Antoni’s job is in more jeopardy.
From Howard Beck of the New York Times: “There is much more season to be played, but every loss now pushes the Knicks (8-15) further from playoff contention and nudges D’Antoni toward possible dismissal. The loss was the Knicks’ 11th in 13 games, dropping them a season-high seven games under .500. Yet they arguably have played some of their best basketball in the last week, pushing Miami, Chicago and Boston, three of the Eastern Conference’s best teams, to the final seconds before losing.”
This one was partuclarly galling. The Knicks led by 12 points in the third quarter and had three potential tying or go-ahead shots in the final minute. But none of those were taken by Carmelo Anthony, who was overplayed and denied by the Celtics – a sound strategy given the offensive imbalance of the Knicks.
From Al Iannazzone of Newsday: “Iman Shumpert, Landry Fields and Steve Novak misfired on shots in the final minute. Novak made his only appearance of the night on the final possession, and his long, contested corner three-pointer that could have tied the score hit nothing.”
The Knicks lost off the court, too. They supposedly were in the running for free agent forward Kenyon Martin, who is back from his brief tour of the Far East. It was unclear how the addition of Martin was going to help the Knicks, who desperately need a creator, not another power forward. But no matter.
From Marc Berman of the New York Post: “The Clippers agreed to terms with unrestricted free agent Kenyon Martin on Friday, according to NBA sources. Martin was recently cleared by FIBA after spending the start of the NBA season in China. The Knicks had mild interest in the former Nuggets forward and ex-teammate of Carmelo Anthony, whom The Post reported was interested in having Martin join the club. Martin, who broke his contract with his team in China, had not been permitted to sign with an NBA team until his Chinese team’s season ended. The 34-year-old power forward averaged a career-low 8.6 points per game last season with the Nuggets and has never played a full 82-game schedule in his 11 seasons.
The win was the seventh in eight games for the Celtics, who got back point guard Rajon Rondo and finally are starting to show some of their familiar grit, one-third of the way into the season.
From Mark Murphy of the Boston Herald: “A little rusty, yes. At times, Rajon Rondo appeared to be queasily taking corners on one wheel last night. But the point guard’s return to the Celtics after missing eight games with a sprained right wrist wasn’t expected to be seamless. The bonus was that his teammates, after three uneven quarters, needed something far different from precision. Thanks to perhaps their most hustle-oriented fourth quarter of the season, the Celtics beat the Knicks, 91-89 at the Garden, in a game that wasn’t safe until the buzzer.”
And from Chris Forsberg of ESPNBoston.com: “It was clear they simply wanted it more than the Knicks when it mattered most. During one sequence, Pierce won a footrace to a loose ball in the backcourt then, after a miss, Chris Wilcox pried the ball loose from a Knicks player before getting fouled going up with it under the basket. His free throws tied the game at 75. The next possession down, Wilcox got on the ground to force a jump ball.”
Don’t look now, but the Celtics (12-10) are creeping up on the first-place Philadelphia 76ers (16-7), who got a dose of reality from the Miami Heat.
The Sixers had won four straight games, including Wednesday’s convincing 16-point victory over the Chicago Bulls that began a stretch of six-game against quality opponents. They were looking for some revenge for a 113-92 loss in Miami two weeks ago and were positioned well, trailing by just four points entering the fourth quarter.
And then they ran into a buzzsaw.
From Joseph Goodman of the Miami Herald: “It was the Miami Heat Dwyane Wade and LeBron James envisioned when they came together in the summer of 2010. Finally, with eight minutes left against Philadelphia on Friday night, the long-awaited lineup of Wade, James, Chris Bosh, Mike Miller and Udonis Haslem was on the court and fully healthy. Man, was it magical. It only took five minutes for that lineup to blow open an otherwise competitive game and run off 15 straight points. The end result was a convincing 99-79 victory against the streaking Sixers, which celebrated an impressive win against the Bulls just two days earlier in the same building. “That’s the lineup that we all brought here to play,” Wade said. “That was the lineup everyone who decided to sacrifice to come back here, what we envisioned, so anytime we can get that lineup on the court, it’s a versatile lineup and we can run different things and do different things and it’s a good rebounding lineup as well.”
While understandable given the opponent, Friday’s loss continued a growing trend for the Sixers, who are 12-2 against teams below .500 and just 4-5 vs. teams above .500. That is worth noting as their schedule continues at Atlanta on Saturday before home games next week vs. the Lakers, Spurs and Clippers.
From John Mitchell of the Philadelphia Daily News: “The 76ers and their fans have been looking for a measuring stick, a competitor they might be able to use in order to tell just where they stand when they stack up their impressive record against the elite teams of the NBA. On Friday, in front of their first sellout crowd (20,694) at Wells Fargo Center this season, they ran into a healthy Miami Heat team and got an answer, loud and clear, absorbing their worst home setback of the season, 99-79, at the hands of the Heat.”
One last thing: At the bottom of the AP story was a note that said among the celebrities in attendance was actress Mary Carey. Did the writer mean this Mary Carey? Because calling her an actress is like saying I’m eligible for the Pulitzer Prize.
While the Sixers are having trouble with the elite teams, the Pacers – the East’s other surprise squad – appear to be having no such problems. Indiana inched ahead of Philadelphia in the conference standings with an impressive 98-87 win at Dallas.
The Pacers (16-6) are 7-4 against teams above .500 and now have wins at Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago and Dallas. On Friday, they got seven 3-pointers and 30 points from Paul George, who registered his second career high in less than a week and is emerging as the leading candidate for Most Improved Player.
From Mike Wells of the Indianapolis Star: “Brian Shaw deserves some credit for George’s play this season. Kobe Bryant was George’s favorite player growing up. And as everybody knows, Shaw played with Bryant and coached him while with the Lakers. Shaw will remind George about Kobe’s work ethic anytime George doesn’t want to put in extra work (that rarely happens, though). Shaw said Kobe would be in the gym at 6 a.m., well before the coaching staff, to work out. Then he’d practice with his teammates and then workout some more after practice. I’m not saying George will be another Kobe because there’s only one Kobe, but George thrives to be the best. George is on his way to being the best player on the Pacers.”
The loss capped a bad day for the Mavericks, who earlier were hit with $110,000 in fines by the NBA. But there was an encouraging sign for the Mavericks in the form of Dirk Nowitzki, who scored a season-high 30 points on 12-of-17 shooting. In three games since his return from a week-plus off for treatment for a sore knee and conditioning, Nowitzki scored 28 points on 11-of-39 shooting.
From Tim McMahon of ESPNDallas.com: “A day after basketball coroner Charles Barkley signed Dirk’s death certificate as an elite go-to guy, declaring the face of the Mavs’ franchise another victim of Father Time, the big German’s game came back to life. Nowitzki knocked down jumpers the midrange jumpers that have been the foundation of his Hall of Fame-caliber game for the previous 13 seasons. He hit a 3-pointer, which has been shockingly rare this season. Most encouraging of all, he had some success driving against rugged Indiana power forward David West’s in-your-face defense.”
Elsewhere …
- The Timberwolves, who won five road games each of the last two seasons, got their sixth road win this season with a 108-105 victory over the Nets. I’m still trying to figure out whose boxscore line was more unfathomable – Nikola Pekovic’s 27 points and 11 boards or Anthony Morrow’s eight 3-pointers and 42 points.
- The Lakers began their six-game Grammy road trip with a scrappy 93-89 win at Denver. LA is just 3-7 on the road but has won its last two and is headed to Utah, the site of its first home win. However, that is if the Lakers can get out of Denver, which was blanketed by a huge snowstorm that canceled hundreds of flights. The Nuggets lost “Griffinator” Timofey Mozgov to a sprained ankle.
- The league-leading Thunder (18-4) stormed back for a 101-94 win over the visiting Grizzlies. Kevin Durant scored 36 points, including the final seven of the game. These teams went seven games in a thrilling playoff series last year, but Oklahoma City has won all three meetings this season by a combined 15 points.
- The bipolar Magic defeated the Cavaliers, 102-94, as Dwight Howard collected 19 points, 16 rebounds and eight blocks. Hours after his first blog post, “Big Baby” Davis was suspended two games for a shouting match with coach Stan Van Gundy.
- The Rockets had seven players in double figures in a 99-81 home win over the Suns. Houston starts a six-game road trip Saturday at Minnesota.
- The Pistons ended a seven-game slide with an 88-80 win over Milwaukee. Rookie Brandon Knight, shut out against the Bucks on Monday, scored a season-high 26 points with seven assists.
- The Wizards absorbed a 106-89 loss at Toronto and are 4-48 on the road since the start of last season. The wins are against Cleveland, Utah and Charlotte twice.