Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle: “As the Rockets completed their warm-ups and returned to the Toyota Center locker room Saturday, word spread that Tracy McGrady would not play. Teammates were stunned by the 11th-hour decision and spread the word like hot new gossip. The news brought shock and questions, even almost amusement at their season in which every gathering brings updates of who will and will not play. In the offices a few feet away, a day after McGrady had said his sore left knee had felt ‘pretty good’ only to be unable to play a day later, McGrady was in a long, pregame meeting with Rockets coach Rick Adelman and general manager Daryl Morey, discussing his decision and plans. Morey said Sunday that McGrady vowed in that pregame meeting to return fully committed to playing, likely beginning tonight against the Washington Wizards, and to playing with energy and intensity. But the Rockets’ season of uncertainty — as the news that McGrady could not play spread, Ron Artest changed his mind to say he could — had grown stranger and more unpredictable.”
Paul Coro of The Arizona Republic: “Phoenix is 5-9 against the West’s contenders, emphasizing a need for the Suns to capitalize on games against the 3-28 Thunder and 10-20 Grizzlies. The Suns start 2009 with visits from the Los Angeles Clippers (8-21) and Indiana Pacers (10-20). It will be Jan. 9 before the Suns see a winner (Dallas) again. ‘It’s all about which team gets on a run,’ Suns coach Terry Porter said. ‘We’ve got a chance here to string along some victories. If we come out and play with the same kind of energy and effort we have the last six games, we’re going to be fine. ‘There’s no doubt we’re getting better. J-Rich (Richardson) is finding out how to play with guys. Now we have to do a better job at being disciplined defensively.’ The West race is much like last season’s, but with Portland as a threat instead of Golden State. It took 50 wins to make last season’s playoffs in the West. The Suns are on pace for 47, but a four-win streak would bump that pace to 51.”
Britt Robson of Secrets of the City: “Under Wittman, the Wolves were 4-15, shot 43.1% (32.4% from 3) while scoring 95.2 ppg. They allowed 47% shooting (39.4% from three) and gave up 101.4 ppg. Under McHale, the club has been 1-9 against stiffer competition, with an offense that in terms of unproductivity has barely changed. They now average 95.3 ppg, and shoot 42.9% and 33.3% from long range (with a much needed spike from the past two games). On defense, the club is now yielding 47.4% shooting and 39.6% from beyond the arc, both very marginal upticks in opponents’ accuracy. While there does seem to be a little bit more direction out on the court, some of it is derived from things Wittman was already tinkering with (and being criticized for), such as more time for Foye at the off-guard and more time for Ollie at the point. In a nutshell, burying Jason Collins, demoting Kevin Love, promoting Craig Smith and giving Shaddy McCants enough rope to hang his Minnesota career all haven’t really made Wittman an acceptable scapegoat.”
Chris McCosky of The Detroit News: “Whether to go big or small might just become a game-by-game issue for the Pistons. ‘That’s a tough call,’ Tayshaun Prince said. ‘It’s a tough situation for a coach to try and figure out. There are so many teams that play the way the Indianas, New Yorks, the Phoenix Suns do — that fast-paced basketball, using smaller forwards to get up and down the floor. ‘When I am at the four (power forward), it does give us that ability. But with the bigger lineup, we are better defensively, we rebound better and it gives us a chance to block shots. It’s a pick-and-choose situation. Sometimes you need the offensive side of it more, but more important, you have to have that defensive side.’ With Hamilton and Allen Iverson, two dynamic scoring guards, Curry doesn’t believe he can completely abandon the smaller lineup. And the players are with him on that. ‘It’s like, we’ve done so many positive things offensively and defensively with the small lineup, and we’ve done so many positive things with the big lineup, we just have to put it together and execute with both,’ Iverson said. That’s what Curry is aiming for.”
Ailene Voisin of the Sacramento Bee: “Will they ever throw another pass? Will they ever score again? Will they defend? Will they win another game? Will they even get out of the bed in the morning? ‘I don’t want to show my face,’ Bobby Jackson said. ‘I have never been part of anything like this. I’m embarrassed, and I hope everyone else is embarrassed. That was just ridiculous the way we came out there and competed tonight. I wouldn’t even say competed.’ He’s right. They didn’t. This was the worst home loss in the Sacramento era in every sense imaginable. Historically, statistically, emotionally, athletically. We won’t even bring up the entertainment value. With eight-time Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps courtside, and all the non-celebrities in the house too numb to boo, the Boston Celtics lapped the Kings (72-36) midway into the third quarter Sunday night before finally, mercifully, finishing them off by the almost unfathomable score of 108-63. It was the worst. It was the type of night that makes you wonder whether the Kings would benefit more from another training camp or several sessions with a psychiatrist.”
Marcus Thompson II of the Contra Costa Times: “The Warriors came to Hollywood a day before Sunday’s game, so you can probably imagine how swingman Stephen Jackson spent his Saturday. That’s right, hanging with former teammate Baron Davis, one of Jackson’s best friends. What you might not imagine is what Jackson talked to the Los Angeles Clippers point guard about: Davis coming back to the Warriors. ‘That’s all we talked about,’ Jackson said. ‘I went to his house, spent some time with his mom and his grandmother. He wants to come back. And if he wants to come back, I want him back.’After talks about a contract extension with the Warriors stalled, Davis opted out of the final year of his contract in July and signed a five-year, $65 million contract with the Clippers. Davis has said he never wanted to leave the Warriors but chose the more secure option. Things haven’t gone so well with the Clippers. After losing to Dallas at the Staples Center hours before the Warriors took to the court, the Clippers are 8-21. Jackson said he’s going to be the president of the ‘Bring B.D. Back’ campaign. It is feasible that the Warriors and Clippers could pull off such a deal. It would have to involve swingman Corey Maggette (for salary cap reasons) and/or guard Jamal Crawford (to make room in the backcourt).”
Tim Kawakami of the San Jose Mercury News: “It’s pretty to see this is idle player-talk: Players get together, they almost always start talking about playing together. Especially if they’re former teammates who have had success together (and are NOT having success now). Plus, you can see the internal logic: BD and Mike Dunleavy don’t fit, Dunleavy isn’t getting fired, maybe BD can get himself traded back to the Warriors. Plus plus, Clipper owner Donald Sterling loves Corey Maggette–you could see a BD-Maggette swap as a central part of a Clipper-Warriors deal. However… There are major problems: Rowell would never go for it, mostly because it’d be a victory for Mullin, and we know Rowell will have none of that. Also, Dunleavy is even less of a Maggette fan than he is a BD fan. So Dunleavy might have to go, too, in this scenario. And I don’t think either Rowell or Dunleavy is getting fired soon.”
Fred Kerber of the New York Post: “It’s not as if the Nets have played the best teams in the league at home. The combined record of the Nets’ 16 home opponents, entering yesterday’s schedule, was 219-249, a .440 winning percentage. The opponents in 14 road games had a combined record of 185-227, a comparable .449 percentage. That doesn’t explain the baffling difference in records. After their 114-103 overtime win in Charlotte Saturday, the Nets are 10-4, six games over .500 on the road for the first time in their history. They’re 5-11 at home, on pace for 17 home wins, recalling the run from 1986 to 1990 when four seasons brought 65 home wins. The Nets want to figure it out as soon as possible: They’re back home tonight against Chicago. ‘It’s a learning experience,’ said point guard Devin Harris, averaging 21.3 points per game at home, 26.7 on the road. ‘It’s just vice versa of what we were going through last year.’ ‘Everyone asks the same question and we can’t quite figure it out,’ said center Josh Boone. The numbers support the discrepancy. The Nets shoot .432 and average 97.8 points at home compared to a .458 field goal percentage and an average of 104.5 points on the road.”
Dave D’Alessandro of The Star-Ledger: “Ask any Nets player where he prefers to play, and he invariably gets tongue-tied. He starts to stammer, then he looks around the immediate area for recording devices, and he summons all those convenient cliches of obfuscation. Or he’s as directly indirect as Keyon Dooling: ‘An honest question? Home or road? You mean on the record? Straight out?’ he asked Saturday night after another road win at Charlotte. ‘Oh, at home.’ Yes, he said that with a smile on his face. The problem is that they don’t want to insult their fans — at least not the ones who actually show up and make encouraging noises, whom they cherish — by suggesting that a team cannot summon the kind of quality performance required to win such games in half-empty arenas.”
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Steve Bulpett of the Boston Herald: “While most of the individual improvement talk around the Celtics has related to Rajon Rondo and Kendrick Perkins, it’s hard to ignore the strides made by Ray Allen in his second season with the club. Allen entered last night’s game against the Sacramento Kings shooting 49.4 percent from the field – 4.9 percentage points higher than last season. He scored 19 points on 7-of-8 shooting in the 108-63 rout. Beyond that, he appears to be more comfortable in the offense, and a lot of that has been attributed to greater familiarity and getting over ankle surgery performed prior to 2007-08. But it is also tied to the C’s emphasis on transition offense, which is getting Allen better looks at the hoop.”
X’s and O’s of Basketball: “Every great scorer must have a goto move. Tim Duncan has his turnaround bank shot. Dirk Nowitzki has his elbow drive or shot. Kobe has the up and under reverse jam. What makes B Roy special is that he neither possesses the size or athleticism, speed or pure shooting of the greats. But he has created a great goto move nonetheless that he can rely on time and time again to score. What’s great about B Roy’s mid-range dribble pullup is the unpredictability factor. He starts out with the dribble and at any point he can stop on a dime and pull-up and shoot. As a defender, it’s incredibly difficult to guard. If you give him any space, he’ll just pop it. If you crowd him, he’ll put it on the floor and blow by you, or draw the defense in and find the open man. Add in ball-screens, and it’s nearly unstoppable. In each case here, B Roy has a deceptively fast quick draw off the dribble. That’s his secret, it isn’t that his stroke is anything special, nor is he an exceptionally dribble drive guy, it’s just that he can stop and get into his shot very quickly.” [Video]
NESW Sports: LeBron James Amazing Reverse Layup [Video]
Brian Windhorst of The Plain Dealer: “The Cavaliers facing off against the Miami Heat Sunday was hardly the first time the two have gone head-to-head. Their wars go back 15 years to the West Coast Conference when Brown was at the University of San Diego and Spoelstra, now in his first season as coach of the Heat, was at the University of Portland. ‘He was a thug as a player,’ Spoelstra said. ‘He used to beat me up, he was like a power point guard. We used to be arch enemies,’ Brown said. ‘He’s still upset that I used to win all the time.’ In reality, the two are very much alike and consider themselves contemporaries. Neither played in the NBA yet both have worked their way up from the very bottom of the league.”
Sekou K Smith of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “After watching Johnson as closely as we all have the past three-plus years, I can’t for the life of me figure out how anyone thinks he’s anything but a legitimate All-Star (the term I’d use for players like Johnson, guys that are No. 1 options on legitimate teams). After his 41-point explosion to lead the Hawks over Chicago Saturday night an advance scout from an Eastern Conference power the Hawks have vanquished once already this season stopped me in the hallway to discuss this very subject. ‘I love this dude, man,’ my scout friend said. ‘He’s got so many different shots he can go with. He can put it on the floor. He can stroke it from deep. He can pass. He can play in the half court. He can go up and down the floor. I’m not saying he’s better than Carmelo [Anthony] or LeBron [James], but in a pure one-on-one situation, and I’m just saying purely him against another man with the ball and the basket between them, I might have to go with Joe because his game is so much more versatile right now.’”
Charley Rosen of FOXSports.com: “The X-factor in comparing these two guys is the quality of their teammates. Wade tries to do more simply because he has to do more — which is why he sometimes forces his penetrations and takes ill-advised shots. James, though, is surrounded by guys like West, Mo Williams, Boobie Gibson, Wally Szczerbiak, Sasha Pavlovic, and even Ilgauskas, who can routinely knock down any open shots that his drives-and-dishes can create for them. Also, James can cruise on defense because he has the bigs who can protect his back. In the final accounting, it’s still LeBron by a landslide — which has more to do with his overall brilliance than with any major flaws in D-Wade’s game. If only LBJ was a more polished shooter and had quicker feet on defense, he’d be as good as Kobe Bryant.”
Chris Tomasson of the Rocky Mountain News: “Nuggets coach George Karl doesn’t believe Nene will be stepping on the court in Phoenix on Feb. 15. ‘I’m sure he’s probably not going to make the All-Star team, but he’s close to an All-Star player,’ Karl said Sunday about his center. Karl probably is right. But if loose balloting wasn’t permitted in All-Star voting, he’d have more of a chance to be wrong. NBA coaches, who vote for All-Star reserves, are instructed to select two guards, two forwards, a center and two players at any position. They can’t vote for their own players. Coaches used to adhere to the letter of the law and vote for centers who actually started at center. The drawback was that, in some years, there were no true centers worthy of being All-Star backups. So some recent All-Star Games have featured the likes of Jamaal Magloire, Antonio Davis and Rik Smits making it as centers, and Brad Miller actually has earned two trips. The all-time head scratcher came in 1988, when Dallas’ James Donaldson made the All-Star team during a season in which he averaged 7 points and 9.3 rebounds.”
