LeBron James Pounds The Nets; Atlanta Destroys The Bulls

And we thought he was going for 50. LeBron James didn’t quite get 50, but he made every shot he took in the first quarter, scoring 22 points, and put Miami into a lead they would never relinquish. New Jersey lost 101-90 despite the most hated player in the NBA, Kris Humphries, somehow going for 25 points and 12 rebounds. In his first game back after missing some time with an ankle, James had 32 points and nine assists. In another big Eastern Conference matchup, who would’ve thought the Hawks would come out and put a beating on a team that has won six games in a row and beat them in the playoffs last season? Atlanta got big numbers from Josh Smith (25 points) and pretty much everyone else as they jumped out up 15 in the first quarter and ran away with a decisive win over Chicago. Derrick Rose scored only eight points, and Smith said, “”We did a good team job on him defensively in crowding him, trapping him and showing him different looks,” Smith said after the Hawks held Rose to just eight points. “We played sound defense on him.” The difference was a late second quarter run that had even the ATL crowd up out of their seat as the Hawks pushed a close game into a blowout at halftime … If the Bobcats want to be considered a good team – which we refuse to admit this year no matter their record – you can’t get outscored 56-28 after halftime. That’s what happened last night in their 22-point loss to Indiana. Roy Hibbert was a beast with 20 points … New York finally came alive in the second quarter of their blowout win over Detroit, outscoring the Pistons 39-18 in those 12 minutes. Amar’e Stoudemire had 22 points, but probably most surprising was Mike Bibby scoring 16 … New Orleans might be bad enough, but they finished off their 15-point loss to Dallas in an even worse state. Jason Kidd didn’t play. Their two leading scorers, with 13, were Vince Carter and Ian Mahinmi. And Dirk Nowitzki had a horrible shooting game (2-for-11, 10 points), and yet the struggling Mavs figured out a way to get it done … Someone tell Daniel Green to wake up. He dropped 24 in the Spurs unreal four-point win over Denver. Danilo Gallinari tied a career high with 31 points, and the Nuggets nearly came back from a terrible first quarter to win. By the way, when did he go from Danny to Daniel? … Kevin Durant came through late and scored 27 in OKC’s three-point win over Houston … Monta Ellis missed a runner at the buzzer and Utah came up with a huge one-point win over Golden State … Toronto scored just 62 points in their blowout loss to Philly … And when you get dropped on a move, it’s almost too embarrassing to keep playing. But getting dropped as you’re getting dunked on? We’re not sure we’ve ever had to deal with that. Luckily none of us have played ball with Blake Griffin (22 points, 14 rebounds as the Clips beat the Bucks) … We’re out like Ersan Ilyasova.