Today, we will spare you the details of the Sunday afternoon blowouts that made for a fine laundry day.
The Heat were held to 72 points by Boston and lost. Miami is doggin’ it during the dog days, and to quote Ned Flanders: “That’s a D-D-D: Dig Diddly Doo.”
The Bulls didn’t have Derrick Rose again and got waxed by the Thunder, whose former in-house beat writer, now employed here, now says they appear to be championship worthy after knocking off the Clippers, Heat, Lakers and Bulls in building their current six-game winning streak.
We shall be talking about those teams well into June, and eventually we’ll get to July, when Steve Nash will be among the many free agents on the market. And if you’ve heard any of the talking heads on TV discussing Nash, they don’t want to focus on what he is bringing to the Phoenix Suns this year, but rather where he’ll end up next year — Miami? New York? Toronto?
Memo to the mainstream media: Y’all ought to be talking about whether he’ll be playing in May, because he just might be despite the Suns’ 13-20 record over the first half of the season that had everyone writing them off.
We just got through a month of March in which the Suns posted an 11-6 record to climb back into playoff contention, and April has begun with another victory by Phoenix that moved them to .500 (26-26) and within 1 1/2 games of eighth-place Houston, which lost in overtime to Indiana when Danny Granger capped a fantastic game by blocking Chandler Parsons’ potential game-tying 3-pointer just before the buzzer of a 104-102 Pacers’ victory.
Houston is now just a half-game ahead of ninth-place Utah, which will play host to the Suns on Tuesday night as Phoenix begins a three-game-in-four-nights road trip that could make or break their playoff chances.
“We had to come out and get the win,” said Jared Dudley, who scored 21 points to back Nash’s 14 assists as Phoenix defeated New Orleans 92-75. “We are at home, fighting for playoffs. We see that Houston has been losing, Utah has been losing, so we have to keep it going. It is going to come down to the road games, so the home games are must wins. It doesn’t matter who comes here.”
The Suns play seven of their next eight on the road, then five of their final six at home. If they keep winning two-thirds of their games the way they’ve been doing since Sadie Hawkins Day came and went, there’s going to be a 38-year-old point guard running circles around some young buck in the first round of the postseason.
“We are going to have games that we have to win and a lot of those games are going to be on the road,” Phoenix coach Alvin Gentry said. “For us, this is our first playoff game and we get on a plane and fly to Sacramento and that will be our next playoff game. I think that is how we have to approach it.”
From Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic: “New Orleans posted the second lowest Suns opponent scoring total of the season. Only Boston, a 79-71 loser to Phoenix on Jan. 20, scored fewer points in a game against the Suns this season. The Hornets shot 41.6 percent and had 19 turnovers while getting to the free-throw line once until there was 1:25 remaining in the third quarter. The Suns did not allow New Orleans, which blew a 10-point, fourth-quarter lead Saturday to the Lakers, to score on a fast-break field goal. The Hornets barely got into transition at all (three missed shots and one free-throw point). (Shannon) Brown again stepped in ably for (Grant) Hill, giving him five double-digit games in five starts this season. Brown scored 16 on Sunday, getting most of his scores when the Suns stretched their lead in the middle of the game. Brown had a six-point, 25-second stretch in the third quarter. Without Brown’s bench scoring, center Robin Lopez boosted the second unit with 10 first-half points. “He really beasted us,” said New Orleans coach Monty Williams, who ripped himself for underestimating Lopez on opening night when Lopez scored 21. “What’s nice is we’re able to jibe the units,” Lopez said. “JD (Dudley) can play with the second unit. Grant did that before he got hurt. Now Shannon is with the first unit so it gives us more consistency when we have to make that transition.” The Suns won despite their second consecutive poor 3-point shooting game, a 3-for-15 game that included Josh Childress’ first 3 since Feb. 4. After logging seven minutes in the previous 20 games, Childress grabbed six rebounds in 19 minutes.”
It now appears Denver, Houston, Utah and Phoenix, currently ranked 7th through 10th in the West, are going to compete for the final two playoff spots in the West.
Denver has only six home games remaining, Houston has five, and Utah seven.
The Rockets had a home victory within reach, but the Pacers overcame a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit to force overtime and then outrebounded Houston 9-0 in the extra period and got the key last-second block from Granger, who scored 32.
From Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle: “I was driving, and he (Granger) cut me off,” Parsons said. “The clock was running out, so I tried to shoot a step-back 3, and he got a piece of it.” It was the third time in the last four home games the Rockets went to overtime. The loss dropped them into eighth place in the Western Conference, just one game in front of Utah. But the Rockets lamented several turns along the way far more than coming up empty on the last shot. The toughest break came with 17.8 seconds remaining in overtime after they had rallied back from a six-point deficit to within one. Paul George had finished a three-point play, and Granger had put in his sixth 3-pointer of the game on his way to 32 points. But Goran Dragic hit a 3, and moments later, Parsons swiped a George pass and put in a layup to cut the margin to one. When Marcus Camby poked away a pass inside, Courtney Lee and George grabbed it and fought for control. But when Lee finally pulled it loose, he stumbled away and was called for traveling. “We were tangled up for about 10 seconds,” Lee said. “I was able to rip it away. I was trying to call timeout, but my feet didn’t stop moving, I guess.” Asked what he was told about why that was not a jump ball, Lee said: “I tried to talk to the refs. They told me they’re not talking.” The turnover proved costly two seconds later when Dragic was caught on Granger and fouled him to stop the clock with 15.7 seconds left for his sixth foul. “We were trying to switch everything,” Rockets coach Kevin McHale said. “He got switched off on the guy. We wanted Goran not to be on the guy, needless to say. But at that point, we should have substituted and tried to get him out.”
The Rockets now have to head into Chicago tonight to face a Bulls team that still has not lost consecutive games all season (no NBA team has ever accomplished that feat over an entire season), while the Jazz will be playing on the road in Portland against a Trail Blazers team that is making a last-gasp effort to climb back to.500 and get themselves back into the playoff contention mix.
It’s going to be a heck of an April for the teams fighting to make it to the playoffs, and no race will be more fun to follow than the one in the West where there are 10-11 good teams and only eight postseason slots available.
Here’s what else happened Sunday:
- As was explained here in great depth and detail yesterday morning, Kevin Love deserves MVP consideration if he leads his team into the playoffs. Well, that is looking less and less likely after Minnesota fell four games under .500 and into 12th place in the West with a 119-106 loss to the Trail Blazers. Minnesota had only nine healthy players.
- Rajon Rondo had 16 points, 14 assists and 11 rebounds, and Boston handed Miami its biggest loss of the season, 91-72, pulling away with a dominant third quarter. Rondo had eight assists in that period when the Celtics outscored the Heat 31-12, turning a 49-44 halftime lead into an 80-56 advantage. They stayed ahead by at least 19 the rest of the way for their fifth straight win.
- Russell Westbrook scored 27 points, Kevin Durant had 26 points and 10 rebounds and the Thunder used a dominant third quarter of their own (31-12) to beat Chicago 92-78 on Sunday and move within a game of the Bulls for the NBA’s best record. “It was disappointing, not that any game is more important than others. But obviously this was a game between the best team in the East and the best team in the West,” Chicago’s Joakim Noah said.
- Kobe Bryant scored 40 points — his fifth such game this season — one night after missing his first 15 shots in a win over New Orleans, and Pau Gasol added 26 as the Lakers rallied for the second consecutive game against one of the West’s worst teams to defeat Golden State 120-111. Los Angeles, 17th in the NBA in scoring, had its highest point total of the season.
- Dwight Howard (back spasms) missed only the fourth game of his eight-year career due to injury, and the Denver Nuggets took advantage with a 104-101 road victory despite this boxscore line from starting center JaVale McGee: Two points, five fouls and a minus-19 in 11 minutes. Magic coach Stan Van Gundy continued to contend Sunday that the injury is result of Howard being jabbed in the back in the post by Mavericks center Brendan Haywood during a loss to the Mavericks on Friday. Haywood has denied the accusation, but Magic officials have sent what they say is video proof of the plays in question to the NBA office for review.
- Nearly 17,000 Canadians had nothing better to do than attend the Raptors’ 99-92 victory over Washington. Jose Calderon finished with eight assists, ending a run of five straight games with at least 10.