That wasn’t much of compelling first round playoff preview was it? The streaking New York Knicks went into Boston and smacked the Celtics, 100-85. (and it didn’t even feel that close). New York has now won five in a row, and last night’s W pushed them into second place in the Eastern Conference (percentage points ahead of the Indiana Pacers) … The Knicks cruised to their victory basically playing 2-v-5 on offense. J.R. Smith led the way with 32 points on some sort of I-forget-how-I-usually-play trip. Smith shot 13-24 from the field and didn’t take his first three until there were five minutes left in the third quarter … Carmelo Anthony [Check him out in the new Game of Thrones Commercial] provided the other half of the Knicks’ punch, but if you’re looking for the same type of offensive efficiency that Smith brought to the table, move it along. ‘Melo went 10-30, but still scored 29 points. The next highest scorer(s)? Kenyon Martin and Steve Novak each had nine … The Celtics are moving in the opposite direction, swiftly. They’ve now dropped five in a row and are floundering in that 7th slot in the Eastern Conference. The Celts were looking all mopey-pants from the jump – something confirmed by TNT’s sideline reporter who quoted Paul Pierce as saying that the team was lacking confidence and hanging their heads. They had a few moments where they showed a little life, but in general Boston was a mess (evidenced by their 20 turnovers). Jeff Green and had 19 and Paul Pierce had 16, but they clearly, desperately need Kevin Garnett back on the floor to give them some flicker of a pulse … Sadly, that’s not something that is going to happen any time in the near future. Here’s what the Celtics tweeted prior to the game: “Doc on the plan without KG for the next few weeks: ‘Shavlik and D.J. will play now.'” Yep, now we get it. We’d mope and play like the season was a wrap too … The only other game being played at the same time was actually somehow even worse. In a matchup of one of the NBA’s worst home team (Detroit) vs. one of the NBA’s worst road teams, (Minnesota), the visiting T-Wolves decimated Detroit, 105-82, after being up by only six at the half. Minnesota is also one of the league’s worst three-point shooting teams, but they racked up 14 of them last night, with five coming from J.J. Barea, who scored 21 in just 21 minutes of action … The best basketball being played in that time slot was easily the Elena Delle Donne Show in the Women’s NCAA Tournament. Her No. 6 seed Delaware squad knocked off No. 3 seed North Carolina for the right to go the Sweet Sixteen. Elena was a monster, going for her second consecutive 33-point game. She is just so, so, so much better at basketball than anyone else on the court at all times, it’s a joke. She’s 6-5 with a high-release jumper and a trove of moves to get herself looks even while all five players on the other team are trying to guard her at once. It’s ridiculous. Check out our feature story of Elena from Dime #69 … And just as we were about to declare her the clear best player in women’s college ball, we see that Brittney Griner had 33, 22 and four blocks in Baylor’s win over Florida State …
Chris Paul was a game-time decision heading into last night’s Clippers/Mavs game in Dallas, with swelling in his left knee from this past weekend’s game against the Nets. Not only did CP3 play, but he also dominated (33 points, five assist, six rebounds) in what ended up being an overtime win for Dallas. The game was a contest of streaks for most of the night, but turned into an intense back and forth in the final five minutes. The Mavs were killing themselves trying to deny Chris Paul the ball over the floor. And it worked, sort of – there were moments where L.A. was in disarray in the final two minutes (There was one sequence where O.J. Mayo came up with a turnover a blasted out past two Clipper defenders on the break. He looked like he was lining up a sure layup when Blake Griffin came flying in for an incredible block at the basket to save the deuce). If they let the ball get into CP3’s hands though, they were basically helpless, because he was scoring at will on any Maverick put in front of him … At one point, after Paul scored with his back to the basket, Chris Webber declared that CP “might be a Top 5 post player in this league.” He then repeated it for emphasis … Through the withering Chris Paul storm the Mavs hung tough, getting arguably the best game of the season from Dirk Nowitzki (33 points, nine boards). They now sit a game out of the final playoff seed in the West … The Lakers might as well just get all of the bad stuff out of the way this year – all of the injuries and the in-fighting – and just start fresh next season. Word came out last night that Metta World Peace has a meniscus tear in his left knee is out indefinitely, which means his regular season is almost certainly over. Metta’s been one of the few, consistent bright spots for the Lakers all season and is only of the only guys on the Lakers’ roster who can stop an opposing player from scoring at will. We’re trying to wrap our heads around how this team can possibly be worse on defense, but we will see tonight when they play the T-Wolves … Word also came out last night that the great Bobby Hurley is now officially a D1 head coach after agreeing to a five-year deal with the University of Buffalo. He was most recently associate head coach on his brother Danny’s staff at Rhode Island. It’s cool for us to see this – for a feature in the very first issue of Dime more than 10 years ago, Pat Cassidy went to spend a day with the Hurley Brothers when Danny was head coach at St. Benedict’s Prep in Newark, NJ. Bobby had just started helping out with the team in a loose coaching capacity and now he’s running his own college program … We’re out like World Peace.
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