Can we speak on how Steve Blake dominated Tony Parker last night? Yes? That surprising turn of events was just a small part of a truly wacky game in Los Angeles. The Lakers beat the Spurs, 91-88, and are now just one win away (or one Jazz loss away) from making the playoffs. Dwight Howard looked like… well, someone who’d just been given his own team to control and lead. He was demonstrative, aggressive, and played loud in the post, finishing with 26 points and 17 rebounds. Blake stepped up too, scoring 18 in the first half and finishing with 23, while Parker didn’t make a shot from the field until a driving layup in the last minute of the third quarter. Yet the first three quarters felt like a pair of toddlers wrestling in the mud. It was grimy, dirty and after a few minutes, incredibly boring. Then Antawn Jamison (15 points) made three straight triples and Jodie Meeks followed them up with yet another deep bomb, and suddenly the Lakers were up nine halfway through the fourth. They rode that lead the rest of the way. … How about Tim Duncan (23 points, 10 boards) dunking on the Lakers not once, but twice in the fourth quarter? … We noted earlier how it sounds like Andrew Goudelock will be tasked with replacing Kobe Bryant in L.A. Well, ESPN’s Dave McMenamin tweeted that Goudelock has lost 15 pounds since last being with the Lakers, mostly because of dedicated training but also because he wasn’t making much money in the D-League. So he was having a lot of PB&J dinners, huh? Eating less is not exactly the best way to lose weight if you’re an athlete. Sounds like us in grad school. … Losing by 12 in South Beach probably wasn’t all that bad if you’re a Chicago fan. The loss leaves the Bulls at 43-37, a game back of Atlanta for the No. 5 seed. Yet this is one of those times everyone’s probably happy to finish with a lower seed. They wouldn’t have to face Miami until the Eastern Conference Finals, and the Pacers aren’t exactly rolling right now. … Yeah, LeBron James had 24 points, but this one was more about the other guys. Miami shot 63 percent in the first half, and then Mike Miller came out of his cage to drop a trio of enormous second half triples, the last one putting it away with less than two minutes to play. Plus, Chris Andersen (15 points) had his own little highlight show going on in the second quarter. He had a put-back dunk on the break and then a few possessions later, had a Jordan-esque reverse scooping layup that had everyone flipping out. … For the Bulls, Nate Robinson (14 points) was showing out in the second quarter as the offense basically turned into his own personal playground. Perfect timing too, as The Notorious J.V.G. had just spent the past six minutes fawning over him. Robinson also won cool points from us for rocking the “Playoff” Air Jordan 13s, while Jimmy Butler had on some TMAC 1s, ‘Bron had some of his own joints that were so shiny we thought Dada Supreme was making a comeback, and D-Wade was rocking some white-based lasered edition of the Way of Wades. … Meanwhile, we speculated on it during yesterday’s Smack, but now it’s official: Trey Burke is going to the NBA. No surprises there. There was a better chance of Chris Webber showing back up on campus than Burke after the point guard won basically every award possible this year and nearly single-handedly saved the Wolverines on a couple of occasions during the NCAAs. With the influx of incredible point guards in the NBA, there’s no way he doesn’t get picked in the lottery, and there’s no way he isn’t hit with at least 55 Damian Lillard comparisons before the draft process is over. … Keep reading to hear about why the Mavs finally get to shave their beards…
New York might have some trouble with the Celtics in the first round of the playoffs, and at this point with the way they’re backpedaling, Indiana would struggle against any team not GM’ed by Michael Jordan in the NBA’s second season. Still, you can probably book a Knicks/Pacers Eastern Conference Semifinal, and if it at all follows the blueprint set yesterday in MSG, it’ll be a short one. New York busted open a 36-19 lead about four minutes into the second quarter (a 21-4 run with Carmelo Anthony on the bench), and never looked back, beating Indiana soundly in a worse-than-the-score-looked 90-80 W. During the first half, Indiana brought less game than Jason Sudeikis in Hall Pass. They couldn’t do anything offensively, and really, the only one who had it going was Lance Stephenson. He had 13 of his 22 points in the first half, including a triple with two seconds left to cut what was once a 20-point deficit down to seven at the break, all while having a heated ongoing conversation with some courtside fans. On the other side, they actually had to try zone (the first time they’ve played it since they tried to trick Miami with it last season… that didn’t go over so well), and it worked to some degree: ‘Melo and J.R. Smith wound up scoring only a combined 40. For Anthony (25 points), that broke a streak of five straight games with at least 31 points and eight rebounds. He had been the first one to do that since Shaq. … Dallas was ready to lose the beards last night. They jumped on the Hornets quickly and never let up, getting to .500 for the first time since they were 11-11. What does that mean? They can finally pull out the razors, and Dirk can finally stop looking like Marty Stouffer. Nowitzki had 19 (and reached 25,000 career points), Shawn Marion had 21, and the Mavs ran away with this one, 107-89. … There were a couple of key ingrediants in Denver’s 118-109 smackdown of Portland: a 19-2 run near the end of the first half gave them a cushion, Anthony Randolph (18 points) showed up for the first time all season, and Andre Iguodala (28 points, seven rebounds, nine assists) and Evan Fournier (24 points) drove the knife in during the fourth quarter. Fournier has been getting some low-key hype for down the road, yet hasn’t gotten much of a chance this year. (That probably has to do with Denver’s swingman corps being more loaded than Kevin Hart was this weekend) But he was flowing against the Blazers. After he hit a corner triple to put Denver back up 111-102 with 2:40 left, they called him the “taco meister.” Fournier dropped another three-pointer from the other corner a few minutes later to put a lid on it. … The only bad news for the Nuggets last night? Kenneth Faried sprained his ankle and had to be helped off. … In other scores from last night: Kyrie Irving had one of his worst games of the season — four points in 18 foul-plagued minutes — during Philly’s 91-77 blitzing of Cleveland; DeMar DeRozan erupted for 36 points in Toronto’s spoiler-y six-point win over the Nets. The loss guarantees the No. 4 seed for Brooklyn — there was a chance they could’ve caught Indiana — and they’ll play either Chicago or Atlanta; while James Harden had 29 points and nine assists in a 21-point Houston blowout of the Kings. … We’re out like Dallas’ beards.
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