Jesus And The Truth Take The Knicks To Bible Study; Hawks And Lakers Take Control

The Knicks quit, getting blown out at home by 17 to fall behind 3-0 to Boston. They did; you can’t deny it. They were lazy with the ball, lazy on defense and gave no resistance to the Celtics at all. Some people saw their two close losses in Boston as a positive. They should’ve won at least one game. But in actuality, it seems like those two losses just took New York’s heart. And when you’re playing Bill Walker, Shawne Williams and Jared Jeffries big minutes, your heart better be huge …  Hey New York, you should probably guard Ray Allen. Son lit it up in the first half, cashing in nearly every time they left him open. There was one possession late in the half where Jesus actually missed a corner three, but Boston got it back to him and before he even set to take it, you already knew it was buckets. Someone was clearly talking smack to Ray. After knocking down the trey, he did John Cena‘s “You Can’t See Me” taunt. Spike Lee might’ve been threatening to stop Ray’s residual checks from He Got Game if he didn’t stop making threes. Allen and Paul Pierce were absolutely ripping everything. No matter where they were on the court, everything they threw up was splash. Corner fade threes? Splash. Pull-ups on the break? Splash. Turnarounds and curls? Splash and splash. In the second half, it was stupid. New York didn’t play them well on any possession the entire night and it showed. By the time they exited at around the three-minute mark, Pierce had 38 points and six threes while Allen had 32 points and eight threes. Together, they combined to shoot 25-37, including 14-19 from deep. You can’t even do that alone, playing in your living room on a Nerf hoop … Besides those two, Rajon Rondo slithered his way to another OBSCENE triple-double (15 points, 11 rebounds, 20 assists) … The Knicks’ starters had zero energy all night. Amar’e Stoudemire (seven points) played stiff (back issues) and everyone else just played tentative. Carmelo Anthony (15 points, 4-16 from the field) looked like a completely different player than the one who dominated Game 2 … The Hawks won a tight one over Orlando, 88-84, behind Jamal Crawford (23 points) and Joe Johnson (21 points). Crawford sealed the game as only he can. Dribbling back and forth in place about 25 feet from the hoop, Crawford pulled up, off-balance, and banked in a three to put the Hawks up four with just under 10 seconds left. Rich Bucher asked him, “Jamal, take us through that last shot. What were you looking for?” Jamal: “A treasure map at the bottom of the ocean, and I found it” … Atlanta tried to play Dwight Howard (21 points, 15 rebounds) straight up again, but they knew they had to change something. Superman might have his Kryptonite in Jason Collins, but in the first two games, nothing was going to stop Howard. Coming into Game 3, even though the series was tied, the Hawks knew they weren’t winning a damn thing if they didn’t at least slow down the Orlando big man. So they started sending extra defenders at him whenever he began to make his move. It worked in the first half; Howard only had nine points and seven rebounds at the break … Orlando just has a flawed offense. Nearly ever possession comes down to an isolation, with players who aren’t very skilled one-on-one, or a pick-n-roll where the whole focus is on Howard. Too many standstill jumpers and not enough ball movement … Late in the game, there was a wild altercation between Jason Richardson and (of course) Zaza Pachulia. It all started when Howard followed through on a foul call and racked Pachulia across the face. When the Hawks center started complaining, Richardson got in his face. Zaza headbutted Richardson multiple times before J-Rich slapped him. They both got ejected and could face some type of suspension … Earlier in the game, Crawford had yet another four-point play. He has the most in NBA history … Last night was great to watch. You had the New Orleans and Atlanta crowds both trying to act like they actually cared. How can you not show up all year and then expect to last past the first 10 minutes in a playoff game? The Lakers didn’t allow it, jumping out right away with Andrew Bynum (14 points, 11 rebounds) controlling the boards and Ron Artest scoring inside. Ultimately, they held off every Hornet push and won easily, 100-86 to go up 2-1 in their series. Chris Paul (22 points, eight assists) was working it again for the Hornets for much of the first three quarters, but he couldn’t sustain it as the New Orleans bench scored all of nine points. Carl Landry (23 points) had a monster dunk in the second half where he got so excited that he nearly freaked out and fell right on his back. But the energy in the building evaporated the longer L.A. held the lead … Kobe Bryant (30 points) had perhaps his best dunk in the past three years … Now it appears there might be a chance for the Kings to stay in Sacramento. In fact, some are saying they definitely will stay there, at least for next season. The Maloofs are facing resistance in their quest to move the team to Anaheim, and yesterday, the organization released this statement: “We await the results of the fact-finding visit that the NBA made to Sacramento the past two days. We have not made a decision with regards to relocation filing, and will not make that decision until we have more information from the NBA” … Funny tweet from Danny Granger yesterday: Guy at ths BBQ spot just told me I look like Danny granger! But I couldn’t Be bcuz he”s sure “Danny granger” is a lot bigger lmao … We’re out like calling slapping and head-butting “fighting.”

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