If you were busy trying to breakdown Mike D’Antoni‘s gameplan, which consisted of the coach determining subs by using “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe,” you might’ve missed out on James Harden. He was only the best player on the floor by a mile in Houston’s 125-112 thrashing of the sinking Lakers, doing whatever he wanted on his way to 31 points, six rebounds and nine assists. He was everywhere in the second half, throwing bounce passes through legs, hitting deep jumpers, drawing fouls on the break and leading the 18-2 Rocket burst in the third that put this one away. His favorite pet play has to be the baseline backdoor cut. It almost always ends up with someone getting jammed on. He did it again last night near the end of the third quarter, crowning Robert Sacre and getting a foul in the process. The Houston broadcast serenaded it with the first “Yahtzee!” call we’ve heard since Stu Scott was hosting SportsCenter … The Lakers held the lead for most of the first half, as Sacre was playing like a crazed, drugged animal. Really, the whole team showed the benefits of actually playing hard. They just couldn’t keep the pace up. Kobe (20 points) can’t carry them anymore – back in the day, if you had used Jeremy Lin (19 points, four steals) as a primary defender on him – with virtually no help – the Mamba would’ve destroyed him … Last night, Steve Nash (10 assists) became just the fifth player ever to dish out 10,000 career assists. Where does he rank with Stockton, Kidd, Magic and Mark Jackson? … The Nets’ 20-point win in Philly quickly escalated into a game of “can you top this?” between Deron Williams (22 points) and Jrue Holiday (19 points, eight assists). The Nets point dropped eight early points, making a couple jumpers for like the first time since they moved to Brooklyn. On the other side, Holiday could’ve petitioned for a raise after the first 12 minutes. He scored or assisted on all 24 of his team’s first quarter points. Dude’s game is so smooth and under control. Holiday must have one of the top five pull-up jumpers in the league, at least in terms of watchability. Kobe owns that category, but we’d put Holiday up there along with Rudy Gay, Stephen Curry and Carmelo Anthony … As the half went on, Holiday continued to school everyone who stepped to him, but Williams slowed. In the final minutes of the first half, Williams had a brain fart and messed up the foul situation, giving one and putting Holiday on the line. Then just seconds later, he threw a behind-the-back pass that was so bad it nearly took out the usher in the 10th row. Sixers’ broadcaster Malik Rose was shellshocked, and desperately needed someone to tell him what is wrong with the former second-best point guard in the league. Don’t worry, Malik. You’re not alone. Williams did recover to make shots in the third quarter, and it was a wrap from there … Reggie Evans had a career-high 23 rebounds with three minutes still remaining in the third quarter. At the time, that was more than the Sixers’ entire team … Keep reading to hear about the next big star in the Eastern Conference …
It was pretty cool watching Paul George and Lance Stephenson do their thing against the ultimate wing combo – LeBron and D-Wade – in the Pacers’ surprising 87-77 takeout of Miami. We want to know what Lance (13 points) did this summer to turn himself into a real basketball player. He should bottle it up and sell it. He was making threes, bumping Wade in one of those “whatchu gon’ do?” moments. Take away some bad fouls and a few deep chucks that probably took him back to ABCD camp, and he finally has a reason to talk some junk to the Heat. Too bad Wade picked up where he left off in Game 6 of last season’s playoffs when he had 41. In the first 17 minutes, Wade had already put up 20 points, and finished the night with 30 (including four three-pointers). Meanwhile, we figured James (22 points, 10 boards) would bottle up George, and he did, at least for the first half. On one play, George (29 points, 11 rebounds, but only seven points in the first half) dribbled around in a circle for 15 seconds, went through like three screens, and then finally split a double-team and made a shot (how he figured that one out, we have no idea). His first half reminded us of high school when you’d have a kid from a bad school putting up big numbers against terrible competition who all of a sudden faces a bigger school with better athletes during a tournament, gets worked over, and we all realize, “Wow, you can now see the difference between this kid and the truly great players.” Outplaying Gay is one thing; LeBron is another animal. George stepped up to the challenge in the third quarter, spearheading a 23-6 Pacers run with a dozen points, and then hit a step-back triple that Joel Anthony took in the face … The fourth quarter was rather undramatic – Indiana was too far ahead to screw it up … Note to Mario Chalmers: if you’re shooting over Gerald Green, get it up above the box. During a fast break in the second quarter, Green damn near touched the sky when he came from the weakside and sent Chalmers’ floater into the crowd. Note No. 2 to Chalmers: stop trying to pick fights with David West … Minnesota barely held off Atlanta, 108-103, getting a huge steal from Dante Cunningham in a three-point game with under 20 seconds left. Nikola Pekovic won his wresting match with Zaza Pachulia, going for 25 points and 18 boards … During the first half, they were seriously discussing Andrei Kirilenko (21 points) as a possible Hall of Fame candidate. Yes, he broke all sorts of milestones last night, reaching 2,000 career assists while being only one steal away from 1,000 for his career. But the only thing Hall-worthy about the dude who has the best wife ever is his circa 1995 mushroom haircut … Heard on Minnesota’s broadcast: “Dominique (Wilkins) today, with his skill set, he’d make $250 million.” Whoa, bro. This ain’t baseball … And in the other game last night, Milwaukee beat Phoenix by nine as Brandon Jennings (15 shots, 29 points, nine dimes) played one of his best games of the season … We’re out like a return of Phil Jackson.
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