Sans Hamilton
That went well! Without Rip, the Piston O was bad and their D was even worse! I guess he's 15th in the league in Roland Rating (+10.3) for a reason. Of course, Tayshaun is 4th in the league with a +14.7, so you'd think the affect of Rip being gone for the evening would be lesser. However, the affect can't be lesser when you have things like Tayshaun shooting 2-8, Rasheed shooting 6-18 and Delfino (starting in Rip's spot) shooting 1-9. Brutal. The team shot 28-74 (37.8%) as a whole, as opposed to Philly's shooting of 41-76 (53.9%). Iverson, the league leader in Usage Rate, was 15-26 for 39 points, 10 assists and 5 steals. Against the super, super defense of Delfino, Iguodala had 10 points, 10 boards, 10 assists and 4 steals. Even Chris Webber shot fairly well with 9-19 for 19 points, something he hasn't done in Philly so far (but his PPS still sucked at 1.00). Basically, the Piston backcourt did a bad job of defending... but at least Chauncey sort of made up for it by going 5-7 for 15 points, though he did have 6 turnovers. Bad effort all around for the boys in blue. They have Indiana at home on Friday, which ought to be a good place to turn things around off of this two game skid. The head coach and the shooting guard might both be back, so look for a W here... but more on that as it approaches. In other action...
Knicks 107, Celtics 82
Thwomp. The Celts fell flat on their faces after being so hot, a lot it due to Antoine Walker's 5-20 night and Ricky Davis's 2-10 night. Also, the Knicks shot 38-73 (52.1%). The Celtics shot 31-81 (38.3%) but without the mentioned two (with some simple math) they were 24-51 (47.0%), much better. Walker had 10 boards to sort of make up for it, but Davis little positive on the night. This is an odd one, as Ricky Davis is usually a good contributor... and I guess Walker has been too, since his return to Boston. Other things of interest were that Tony Allen managed to foul out in 19 minutes of play and Tim Thomas managed to have one less in the same amount of time. Bruno Sundov, the only real centre still on the Knicks' roster, had 2 minutes of play (adding to his season total of 67). Kurt Thomas didn't play, but the Knicks still outrebounded the Celts 46-36. I don't know whether the Boston tear is over or not, but this certainly is a dent in it.
Pacers 100, Spurs 93
A battle of two teams sans their MVP-esque power forwards... and one sans their dominant small forward. Rough times for these two.
As was in the news, Reggie Miller broke the 25,000 point barrier in this game. There's been a whole pile of debate this year on whether Reggie is a hall of famer... I'm kind of split on the subject. I'm not of the opinion that an athlete has to win a championship to be "great" or that winning championships makes a player great, so I didn't really factor that in when thinking about Reggie. He's the all time leader in triples made and has a career three point percentage of 39.5%. He's had the great individual games in the regular season and in the playoffs, naturally including the famous "9 points in 8 seconds" bit against the Knicks. He didn't board much and didn't assist much, his D was alright... it's really a tough call. I'm not for or against it and will be happy with whatever they pick, but apparently I'm in the minority for this. As the phrase goes, "It's all good".
As for the game itself, the Spurs shot badly (28-73, 38.4%) and made up for it at the line (30-36, 83.3%) but it wasn't enough. Tony Parker was 4-13 and Beno Udrih was 3-10, whereas Anthony Johnson was 6-9 for the Pacers. Steven Jackson was only 6-17 for the Pacers, but it was made up for with Jeff Foster's 8 points and 15 boards in 23 minutes off of the bench. Basically, the Pacers won the point guard battle by a large margin and it made the difference in the game's score.
Knicks 107, Celtics 82
Thwomp. The Celts fell flat on their faces after being so hot, a lot it due to Antoine Walker's 5-20 night and Ricky Davis's 2-10 night. Also, the Knicks shot 38-73 (52.1%). The Celtics shot 31-81 (38.3%) but without the mentioned two (with some simple math) they were 24-51 (47.0%), much better. Walker had 10 boards to sort of make up for it, but Davis little positive on the night. This is an odd one, as Ricky Davis is usually a good contributor... and I guess Walker has been too, since his return to Boston. Other things of interest were that Tony Allen managed to foul out in 19 minutes of play and Tim Thomas managed to have one less in the same amount of time. Bruno Sundov, the only real centre still on the Knicks' roster, had 2 minutes of play (adding to his season total of 67). Kurt Thomas didn't play, but the Knicks still outrebounded the Celts 46-36. I don't know whether the Boston tear is over or not, but this certainly is a dent in it.
Pacers 100, Spurs 93
A battle of two teams sans their MVP-esque power forwards... and one sans their dominant small forward. Rough times for these two.
As was in the news, Reggie Miller broke the 25,000 point barrier in this game. There's been a whole pile of debate this year on whether Reggie is a hall of famer... I'm kind of split on the subject. I'm not of the opinion that an athlete has to win a championship to be "great" or that winning championships makes a player great, so I didn't really factor that in when thinking about Reggie. He's the all time leader in triples made and has a career three point percentage of 39.5%. He's had the great individual games in the regular season and in the playoffs, naturally including the famous "9 points in 8 seconds" bit against the Knicks. He didn't board much and didn't assist much, his D was alright... it's really a tough call. I'm not for or against it and will be happy with whatever they pick, but apparently I'm in the minority for this. As the phrase goes, "It's all good".
As for the game itself, the Spurs shot badly (28-73, 38.4%) and made up for it at the line (30-36, 83.3%) but it wasn't enough. Tony Parker was 4-13 and Beno Udrih was 3-10, whereas Anthony Johnson was 6-9 for the Pacers. Steven Jackson was only 6-17 for the Pacers, but it was made up for with Jeff Foster's 8 points and 15 boards in 23 minutes off of the bench. Basically, the Pacers won the point guard battle by a large margin and it made the difference in the game's score.
posted by Corey at 3:00 a.m.
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