As the truncated season winds down, teams are jockeying for playoff positioning and home-court advantage. One of those teams should be the San Antonio Spurs. But coach Gregg Popovich is playing a different game. Popovich, the silver-haired, long-tenured guru who is among the frontrunners for Coach of the Year Award, decided to sit out three of his top three players – Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili – for the second time this season. The result was the same as the last time
Around The League WAS @ CHA: Jordan Crawford scored 20 and the Wizards’ bench had fun, especially James Singleton (18 PTS, 12 REB) and Cartier Martin (19) as the Bobcats made very little effort to defend their home court. Corey Maggette played just 19 minutes off the bench, but did score 23 points. TOR @ IND: Without Andrea Bargnani (calf) the Raptors started Amir Johnson, who had 16 points. James Johnson (4) is still coming off the bench behind Alan Anderson (17)
Tuesday was not a good day for the Dallas Mavericks, or their master plan. The defending champions opened the second half of the season with a 93-92 home loss to the New Jersey Nets. Dallas played without forward Lamar Odom, still away from the team as he tends to a personal issue. Despite their championship pedigree, the Mavs played with little urgency, trailing for most of the night and turning on the switch only when the game needed to be reeled in.
Nobody saw that coming. In L.A., the Timberwolves clipped the Clippers, behind a career night from rookie Derrick Williams: 9-10 (including 4-4 from deep) for 27 points. Almost as surprising was Michael Beasley getting 30 minutes and scoring 27 of his own. That’s the good news. The bad is, Kevin Love left the game with sore ribs. He says nothing is broken and will try to play tonight, but we’ll see. Tuesday Reflections BOS @ CLE: Despite an 0-6 shooting night from
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
What Happened on Monday? The Magic beat the Timberwolves, though not because Dwight Howard dominated Nikola Pekovic. Pek double-doubled (16-13) and stayed out of foul trouble, D-12 settled for 11 and 7 with no blocks while playing just 28 minutes due to five fouls. The Minny wings (Wes Johnson and Martell Webster, starting for absent Luke Ridnour) were outplayed by veterans Jason Richardson and Hedo Turkoglu. Philly had little trouble winning by nine in Charlotte. Run to the waiver wire for Corey
Highlight Performance: Kevin Martin, HOU– Martin provided a fantastic scoring night on Thursday, posting 32 points, and even threw in 8 rebounds. This was his first time scoring over 30 points this season, and the third time in the past 3 games he has gone over 25. The former Sacramento King seems to have found his groove, and heavy scoring totals seem to be in the near future. Performance to Forget: Devin Harris, UTA– The former New Jersey Nets struggled yet again Thursday
After consecutive 11-game nights and before another 11-game slate on the league’s unofficial holiday of Martin Luther King Day, the NBA adopts its customary strategy on Sundays in January of refusing to schedule heavily against the NFL. That leaves a just three-game board, with the Utah Jazz visiting the Denver Nuggets likely the best game. Hey, it can’t be Lakers-Clippers every night. And that Broncos-Patriots game was a real thriller, huh? This is Utah’s second visit to the Mile High City. Their