Lakers 101, Spurs 89

Every season, the Spurs get off to a semi slow start where they hang a couple games above .500 and hold a 6th or 7th seed in the conference standings. Every season, come February, they then start attacking teams full throttle looking like contenders, closing the season much higher in the standings. This year, the Spurs haven’t begun this attack, and tonight would have been a perfect night to start. The Spurs headed to L.A. where the Lakers were sitting Kobe and Bynum due to injuries and yet the Spurs could not capitalize. Pau Gasol showed his All-Star worth, clearly out-playing Tim Duncan, collecting 19 rebounds to go with his 21 points and 8 assists. The Spurs were uncharacteristically turning the ball over and allowing the Lakers role players to knock down open looks. I know practice is going to be hard tomorrow…and things don’t get better as the Spurs will head to Denver next to face a VERY hot team. Very good for the Lakers to win games without Kobe, and Bynum for that matter.

Magic 123, Hornets 117

The Hornets were up 17, looking great, but Vince Carter decided to shut all the haters up dropping 48 points. This was the third most amount of points he’s ever scored, and I gotta say he did a great job of driving to the basket. This is part of his game that he doesn’t do enough. I’m still impressed with the Hornets because they scored well without CP3 and got a big game from Peja who had 29 points and 9 rebounds. Peja could definitely be a solid fantasy pick up as his play has soared in the absence of CP3. The funny story of this game was that while not watching this game at Wild Wings with Shooter, JB, and Basher (yes he’s still alive), we turned from the college game we were watching to see highlights of Vince looking like Vince from Toronto. Crazy. Too bad LeBron does that every other game, right Shooter? haha (Shooter and I had a daily debate about LeBrons’ greatness on the way home).

Mavericks 127, Warriors 117

No one probably showed this game too much attention, but it actually wasn’t a bad game, as the Warriors were beating the Mavs the whole game, until they collapsed due to their typical lack of defense, and team play. Corey Maggette didn’t play but Anthony Morrow knocked in 33 points to go with Stephen Curry’s 25 points and 9 assists, and Monta’s 27 points and 5 turnovers. The Mavs got huge efforts from the Jet, who had 36 points, in addition to Josh Howard’s 25, and Drew Gooden’s 24 points. Gooden and Howard both came off the bench to contribute season highs. The Warriors were up by as much as 14 points until a Dirk the Jirk bucket tied the game with 6 minutes to go in the 4th quarter. The Jet then dropped a go ahead three, and it was all over.

-G