How hot was Stephen Curry last night in Madison Square Garden? He said afterward that his teammates were treating him like a pitcher in the middle of a no-hitter. No one would speak to him. It worked for most of the night. Curry was a savage, scoring 54 points and making 11 of 13 three-pointers. Yet in the end, the Knicks’ size and a career-night from Tyson Chandler did Golden State in, 109-105 … During the first half, Curry wasn’t even hitting the rim, and even started pulling up for triples on the fast break. He scored 15 in a row at one point for the Warriors, and had 23 total in the second quarter. With three minutes to go in the half, Curry jump stopped and then hit a half-floater/half-jumper that definitely gave Doris Burke an orgasm. Iman Shumpert was burning some serious calories trying to keep up with the man who wrote “I can do all things…” on his sneakers. A fitting proclamation … Yet New York controlled it down the stretch. After a J.R. Smith (26 points, six triples) pull-up, Golden State’s end-game plan went like this: turnover from Jarrett Jack out of a timeout, letting Carmelo Anthony (35 points, eight assists) go one-on-one against Draymond Green, then throwing the inbounds pass away, and then Klay Thompson missing two wide open three-pointers on the last possession … Chandler finished with 28 rebounds, and directly contributed to two of the biggest shots of the game with his tip-outs: triples for Anthony and Smith … OKC put a hurting on New Orleans, 119-74, and it started almost from the beginning. Russell Westbrook came out smelling blood in the water, putting in 18 points in the first quarter as the Thunder out-rebounded the visitors 15-3. Westbrook finished with 29 while Kevin Durant had another triple-double (18 points, 11 rebounds, 10 assists) … There was a play in the third quarter where Thabo Sefolosha layed out to keep a ball inbounds, and it ended in an angry Westbrook dunk to make it 74-49. The announcers soon started talking about how every possession meant so much to OKC. They must’ve missed Westbrook crooning like a peacock while Al-Farouq Aminu was busy catching a lob on the other end … Cleveland won their second game in a row without Kyrie Irving (103-92 over Toronto), in large part because Shaun Livingston had his second-straight 15-point game (!) and because Dion Waiters was beasting cats (23 points, six dimes). Why can’t Waiters get any love from Cleveland fans? Almost every one of them we know doesn’t like his game… even though he’s pretty similar to D-Wade in some respects and has been rapidly improving over the past few months … The Raptors lost despite getting huge nights from DeMar DeRozan (34 points) and Rudy Gay (24 points, eight boards) … We were cracking up over Cleveland’s announcer Austin Carr during the fourth quarter. He was going so crazy we thought he’d seen a butt naked Marilyn Monroe come down from outta the rafters riding a unicorn … In the last 10 seconds against UConn, Otto Porter Jr. (22 points) rescued No. 7 Georgetown with a bucket for a one-point win. No. 4 Michigan wasn’t so lucky. Penn State’s Jermaine Marshall gave them 25 in a six-point upset … And did you see this dunk last night from Chane Behanan (even if it doesn’t look like it counted)? That’s one of the best college dunks we’ve seen all year … Hit page 2 to hear about Monta Ellis’ incredible shot to beat Houston…
Houston’s announcers called it the best performance against the Rockets all season. In Milwaukee’s huge (at least to Lakers fans) win over Houston, 110-107, Monta Ellis not only put up video game numbers (27 points, six boards, 13 assists, six steals), he also hit the craziest buzzer-beater of the year. During an ugly final possession, Ellis took a pass from Brandon Jennings, and off one foot, made a 30-foot three-pointer at the buzzer … On a possession in the final two minutes, Mike Dunleavy missed an easy layup but then made a floating triple to tie it on the same possession. Yet it was Larry Sanders who had the biggest plays. He ran down James Harden (25 points, seven dimes) for a crazy chasedown block, and that led to Sanders tipping in an Ellis runner on the other end to put Milwaukee up with 45.3 seconds left … Worst hands in the NBA: Omer Asik. It’s not even close. So someone needs to explain how he keeps throwing up crazy rebound numbers (career-high 22 last night) … In the first quarter in Memphis last night, Dallas threw up 38 points. In the third quarter, they had five. Memphis beat them 90-84 as the Mavs blew what was a 25-point lead because their offense fell all the way off the map. In the first quarter, Dirk Nowitzki looked like a god sent to Earth to teach us all how to play basketball. But eventually, the defense tightened and Dirk had steam coming out of his nose — if he wasn’t a superstar, the refs would’ve thrown his ass out like nasty garbage a couple of times. You gotta feel for him though. Mark Cuban‘s whole plan was to get younger and more athletic, right? Then how do you explain surrounding Dirk with the History Channel down the stretch: Mike James, Elton Brand, Shawn Marion and Vince Carter? Memphis went about six minutes without a field goal (it didn’t matter because Dirk didn’t even score in the second half until two freebies with 24.7 seconds left), but when Z-Bo (22 points, 10 rebounds) had a tip-in with 53.8 seconds remaining, they had still opened up a seven-point lead … In other scores from last night: Jermaine O’Neal was hypnotized into 22 points and 13 rebounds during Phoenix’s overtime win against the Spurs, 105-101; Brandon Knight gave the Wizards 32 (and Jose Calderon had 18 assists) as Detroit held off Washington by one. John Wall finished with seven turnovers and four assists, and then in the postgame, sounded like he was blaming his teammates for not catching his passes; John Salmons finished with 21 in Sacramento’s 125-101 beatdown of the pathetic Magic; LaMarcus Aldridge (22 points) missed a jumper at the buzzer as Denver and Ty Lawson (30 points) slipped past Portland, 111-109, in a wild game; and without Paul Millsap in the lineup, Atlanta ran through the Jazz in an 11-point win. Al Horford (34 and 15) and Josh Smith (24 and 14) combined to throw up 58 points and 29 rebounds … We’re out like Asik’s WR potential.
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