BOS 101 @ CHI 95: We said Rajon Rondo would eat Nate Robinson‘s lunch yesterday and that he did with a near triple-double 20-9-10 on 10 for 16 from the field. Oh, and those 5 steals are pretty nice, too. Brandon Bass and Jason Terry got the starts and earned another with Bass going 5 for 6 and adding a perfect 6 from the line plus 5reb-3ast-1stl-2blk. Terry scored 13 even though he still hasn’t found his range from beyond the arc. Luol Deng and Joakim Noah kept the Bulls in it with 26 and 17 points respectively and 11 rebounds a piece.
MIA 113 @ HOU 110: In another close contest, LeBron James showed the world again why he is the best. He put the Heat on his shoulders in the second half scoring 32 of his 38 points. Chris Bosh, one of my pre-season sleepers, continued his stellar play going 10 for 14 from the field with 10 rebounds and a block. He is providing top 10 value. Dwyane Wade also chipped in with 19pts-6reb-7ast. And, shh but Udonis Haslem may be waking up scoring 10 with 7 boards.
For the Rockets, Chandler Parsons had the best game of career scoring 25 on 17 FGA. I doubted him heading into the season but his season line is solid though he could stand to raise his FG% a little. Omer Asik‘s breakout continues as he had his best game at the line going for 11-14 and is now shooting 72.4% of FT on 29 attempts, which is well above his sub-50% career mark. He is averaging 9.5 pts and 13.7 rebounds. One of Kent’s favorites, Patrick Patterson, also played well scoring 17 with 9 rebounds.
MIN 90 @ DAL 82: Does it matter who is going to get hurt next for the Timberwolves? They just keep rolling along. Despite missing 5 key players, the Wolves beat the Mavs inDallas with another solid team effort with 5 players scoring between 20 and 14 points. Andrei Kirilenko is fantasy gold right now chipping 11 boards, 2 steals and 2 blocks with his 16 points. Luke Ridnour playing 41 minutes tallied 15 points with 8 rebounds, 7 assists and 4 steals. Malcolm Lee got the start but Alexey Shved closed the game. He continued his rapid maturation by getting to the line and added 4 reb, 5 ast and a surprising 3 blk. All he needs is for his 3 point shot to start falling. For the Mavs, Darren Collison and O.J. Mayo continued their strong early season play but when Bernard James is your best big it is gonna be a bad night.
DEN 100 @ PHO 110: The Suns one-upped the Timberwolves with 7 players scoring between 12 and 21 points and not one real stand out performance. Shannon Brown is continuing to score off the bench with 19 and fellow reserve Markieff Morris had a fantasy friendly line of 13pts-6reb-5ast-3stl line. No new storylines for the Nuggets as Danilo Gallinari still can’t find his range and isn’t getting to the line, Ty Lawson still didn’t breakout and Wilson Chandler is still blah. It was a Javale McGee night though as he outplayed Kosta Koufos scoring 16 with 2 blocks.
ATL 95 @ POR 87: Josh Smith and Louis Williams did play despite their illnesess with Smith being particularly effective with 19pts-11reb-3ast. Anthony Morrow finally saw the floor but didn’t contribute like on Friday. The great DeShawn Stevenson mystery continued as he racked up 38 minutes while contributing zero to the fantasy scoresheet. For the Blazers, J.J. Hickson came out fired up and fell just shy of a 20-20 scoring 19 with 18 rebounds. Damian Lillard had his worst game as a pro hitting just 5 of 18 shots with twice as many TO’s as AST’s.
Three overtimes was three overtimes too many to be repelled and repulsed by the atrocious audio stylings of Craig Bolerjack and Matt Harpring. I hate having to watch NBA games with the volume on mute. But I guess those two don’t give a crap how bad they are, just so long as their bosses that pay them to be hollering homer shills are thrilled to death.
Failed to note Nikola Pekovic’s sprained ankle in Minnesota recap. Severity not yet known. Just another injury for the Wolves to overcome.