Living in a world without limits, SheridanHoops.com’s newest daily feature presents five interesting items from the previous night in the NBA.
Seven games were on the schedule on the last Sunday in January. The Lakers gave us a reminder of their glorious past, Carmelo Anthony tied a Knicks team record and the Celtics both won and lost at the same time.
Inspector Javert leads us past the bump…”`M’sieur le Mayor,’You’ll wear a different chain!…”
- The Celtics announced that Rajon Rondo will miss the rest of the season after tearing his ACL in Friday night’s loss to the Atlanta Hawks. Rondo is the league leader in triple-doubles (5) and assists per game (11.1), but the Celtics over the past four seasons actually have a better winning percentage without Rondo (.618, 21-13) than with him (.604, 145-95). Doc Rivers let his feelings be known about the Celtics chances without Rondo in his postgame press conference: “You can write the obituary. I’m not. You can go ahead, but I’m not. We won tonight, so, the way I look at is, we’re going to stay in there.”
- Paul Pierce’s seventh career triple-double (17 points, 13 rebounds, 10 assists) helped the Boston Celtics snap a season-worst 6-game losing streak, beating the Miami Heat in double overtime, 100-98. On a team with LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Ray Allen, it was Shane Battier who took the last shot for the Heat trailing by 2 points as time expired in double overtime. Battier is 1-of-9 on field goal attempts with less than a minute to play and the score within five points over the last two seasons, including the playoffs. As a team, the Heat hit only 2-of-10 such attempts in Sunday’s loss to the Celtics.
- Kobe Bryant dished out 14 assists (1 shy of a career high) for the second straight game as the Lakers beat the Thunder, 105-96. This was the Lakers’ first win of the season (1-8) against one of the top four teams in the Western Conference: Thunder, Spurs, Clippers, Grizzlies.
- Carmelo Anthony scored 42 points (his fourth 40-point game of the season) to lead the Knicks to a 106-104 win over the Atlanta Hawks at MSG. Anthony went 9-for-12 from 3-point range, tying a Knicks single game record while also tying a team record with his 29th consecutive game of at least 20 points. The Hawks shot 60 percent from the field and lost. They had not lost a game in which they made at least 60 percent of their field-goal attempts since March 10, 1981, when the Hawks shot 62 percent from the field in a 118–116 loss to the Bulls.
- Ryan Anderson made 7 of 13 field goals, all from 3-point range, tying the NBA record for 3-point attempts in a game without taking any 2-pointers in the New Orleans Hornets’ 91-83 win over the Memphis Grizzlies. That mark was set by Mookie Blaylock of the Hawks in 1995 and previously matched by Voshon Lenard of the Heat in 1997.
Stat Mann is the nom de guerre of our research statistician, who spends a lot of time watching basketball in central Connecticut. Someone would be angry if they discovered he was moonlighting here.