Last week’s edition of The Bernucca List produced a handful of wrong guesses until reader Dashiell broke through with the right answer – former scoring champions who played for the Celtics. Get this: Throughout their illustrious history, the Celtics have never had a scoring champion. Unlucky edition 13 is below. The idea is to correctly identify the list with the proper parameters. First correct answer gets a mention in next week’s list. You can answer via the comments or Tweet me. The Bernucca
Anybody want the Atlantic Division? The Nets don’t want it. They would much rather have Dwight Howard, who paid a visit to “The Rock” on Wednesday night and got the full recruiting pitch. In Orlando’s 108-91 road victory over New Jersey, Howard provided a complete showcase with 20 points, 17 rebounds and two blocks. He also made just 2-of-10 free throws and dropped below 50 percent (184-of-373) for the season. Nets fans couldn’t care less about the incessant clanging. They cheered Howard, chanted
Rajon Rondo is in; Joe Johnson is out. In a compressed season where the injuries have come one after another, it was nothing short of miraculous that all of the chosen 24 All-Stars were relatively healthy and would be in action Sunday. Until now. Johnson, a reserve on the Eastern Conference, will skip the weekend festivities to rest a sore left knee, the Atlanta Hawks announced Wednesday. The Hawks had already Johnson would sit out Wednesday’s game at New York and Thursday’s contest vs.
Utah Jazz forward Jeremy Evans will replace Iman Shumpert of the New York Knicks in Saturday’s Slam Dunk Contest at All-Star Weekend. The NBA announced the switch Wednesday. Shumpert has tendinitis in his left knee. The 6-9 Evans is in his second season. Of his 88 career baskets, 61 have been dunks, including 30 alley-oops. The four-player dunk field remains all first-time participants and exclusively forwards. Evans joins Houston’s Chase Budinger, Indiana’s Paul George and Minnesota’s Derrick Williams – not exactly name recognition. Believe
There aren’t many fringe benefits that come with a 66-game schedule, but one cool quirk is that All-Star Weekend is splitting the season almost exactly in half. When the Lakers and Thunder wrap things up late Thursday night, all but six teams will have played half their games as the league takes a four-day break in Orlando, where the forecast is less than ideal. Speaking of less than ideal forecasts, below are our midseason award winners, delivered with the complete understanding that “they
Amar’e Stoudemire is an afterthought, and Carmelo Anthony and Tyson Chandler are hurt. So meet the new “Big Three” of the New York Knicks – Jeremy Lin, J.R. Smith and Steve Novak. The trio combined to lead the Knicks to a nationally televised 104-97 victory over the defending champion Dallas Mavericks on Sunday, their eight win in nine games. Remember the calls for coach Mike D’Antoni’s job and the blind hope that Baron Davis and his balky back would be the season’s savior?
Did David Stern unintentionally direct Jeremy Lin to the New York Knicks? The commissioner vetoed the first Chris Paul trade, which would have sent Houston Rockets point guard Goran Dragic to the New Orleans Hornets. The Rockets had five point guards in training camp – Lin, Dragic, Kyle Lowry, Jonny Flynn and Bulgarian combo guard Ibrahim Jabeer, who did not play in either preseason game. Lin didn’t exactly burn, either, getting eight total minutes. Lowry, Dragic and Flynn had guaranteed contracts, so the
Jeremy Lin’s joy ride was going to end at some point. But who believed it would be the bottom-feeding Hornets that channeled their inner Susan Powter to stop the Linsanity? Yeah, sure, Lin had another big stat line with 26 points, five assists and four steals. But he also had a league season-high nine turnovers, which went a long way toward an 89-85 loss that ended the Knicks’ seven-game winning streak. Lin committed eight turnovers in the first half. Five came in