Why, KD? Why? Count on Kevin Durant and the Thunder to screw up a perfectly good story. With Philly leading OKC for almost the entire game, we were all set to officially jump on the Sixers’ bandwagon until Oklahoma City came back to send the game into overtime, where they ended up winning by five. Durant (34 points, 16 rebounds) was a force of nature and had five straight points to end regulation, including a curl three to tie it with three seconds left. There wasn’t a whole lot Andre Iguodala could do to handle Durant, even coming off his destruction of Danny Granger on Tuesday night. The Philly color guys crooned, “With all respect to Danny Granger, this is not Danny Granger. This is a guy on another planet.” Between Durant and Russell Westbrook (27 points, 12 rebounds), Philly could never get the momentum back in the extra session. It’s hard to beat a team that has two superheroes … No one is talking about this Sixers team. They jumped out 12-2 to start the game, the run highlighted by Iguodala cramming on Serge Ibaka. And Lou Williams (22 points) took it back to South Gwinnett High School with 13 fourth-quarter points. This guy is like a mini-KD. He seems to get every call (10 free throws last night) and actually leads the Sixers in free throw attempts despite not even starting … The Knicks must be having fun with Carmelo Anthony, who hit the game-winner in a two-point win over the Grizzlies. Amar’e Stoudemire (26 points) and Anthony (31 points) were playing “make it, take it.” One possession, they would iso Amar’e on the wing. Camelo, you want it? Okay, next time down come off a screen for an open J. It went like that the whole first half as the Knicks ran up 61 points on 62 percent shooting. ‘Melo and Amar’e dropped 36 of those. Before last night, the Grizzlies had been playing so well on defense. Yet, the Knicks had them looking hapless. In the second half, the ball stopped moving for New York and Memphis came crawling back. It got interesting after Darrell Arthur (21 points) lost his mind for a second and slammed all over Jared Jeffries for a three-point play in the final minute. After a Zach Randolph (20 points, 11 rebounds) three-point play tied it, it came down to that new guy. ‘Melo got an isolation on the wing against Tony Allen (22 points) and one-dribble-pull-up’d him into submission for the game-winning bucket. NBATV host Dennis Scott afterwards: “There’s a bully in the house!” … Throughout the night, Clyde Frazier was calling Randolph “Gazebo.” … Read More: The Clippers shock the Celtics in Boston, Michael Jordan names his MVP, and Kim Kardashian walks out of the Nets game …
The Clippers looked like another L.A. team during their five-point win in Boston. DeAndre Jordan (21 points, 9 rebounds) was a pogo stick inside as he picked up the slack from the first bad game from Blake Griffin (12 points, 7 rebounds) that we can remember. The Clippers answered every Celtics run run with big shots, including a couple of huge threes from Mo Williams (28 points) to quash the inevitable Boston rushes late in the game … At the start of the second quarter for the Celtics, Boston had a lineup on the floor of Sasha Pavlovic, Troy Murphy, Jeff Green, Nenad Krstic, and Carlos Arroyo – not one of them was on the roster two weeks ago … Chicago showed the Bobcats exactly what playoff-style defense is all about last night, wearing them down in a 17-point Bull win. You can tell D.J. Augustin (6 points) hates playing against Derrick Rose (20 points, 6 assists). It dates all the way back to college when Rose disrobed the little guy in the NCAA tournament. This is like one of those instances where there’s that one kid growing up who, now matter how ill your outfit is, he always one ups you at every party. It feels like he’s doing it on purpose. Next time they play, Augustin better come with the purple bowtie if he wants to hold his own … After the game Michael Jordan told reporters this about Rose: “MVP of the season. He deserves it. He’s playing that well. He deserves it. Without a doubt. And if he doesn’t get it, now he’ll see how I felt a lot of years.” … Some of the Dime Crew was at New Jersey’s four-point win over the Warriors: Brook Lopez (26 points, 10 rebounds), who still has Valentine’s gift-wrapping paper in his locker, was shooting a couple of game-ending free throws. Even though it was only a two-point game, Kim Kardashian started walking out. Right before she exited, a tanned crony tapped her on the shoulder, so she looked up at the scoreboard for a split second and continued on her way … Other headlines from around the league: Al Jefferson scored 34 points and had the game-winning layup at the buzzer as Utah beat Toronto by two; Minnesota was led by Kevin Love (16 points, 21 rebounds) for his 52nd consecutive double-double in a 26-point slapping of Indiana; Brandon Jennings (18 points) and the Bucks won by 20 against Cleveland; San Antonio beat Detroit by seven behind Tony Parker (23 points); Orlando snuck by the Kings by four as Jameer Nelson (26 points) went off; and the Hornets rode Jarrett Jack (21 points) in the fourth quarter during an unbelievable one-point comeback win over Dallas … If you thought NBA refs were bad, we hope you caught the Rutgers and St. John’s Big East Tournament game yesterday. St. John’s Justin Brownlee stole a pass with his team up two in the final seconds, but then traveled and stepped out of bounds while celebrating with almost two seconds left. Nothing was called and time ran out. The refs screwed up so bad, the Big East had to issue an apology. Rutgers wasn’t just robbed. It was like they got jumped in the middle of a foreign country, had all of their money, phones and passports stolen, and then had to watch as the assailant drove off with the car … As we told you yesterday, there was another big game in New Jersey last night. Number-two St. Anthony’s beat their inner-state rivals, number-one St. Patrick’s, by 17 in a de-facto National Championship … We’re out like apologies.
