The highlights from Monday night. Chicago beating Oklahoma City was our game of the night.
Hawks 80, Magic 74: Who is the best three point shooter in the NBA so far this season? Mike Bibby at 53 percent. Yes, that Mike Bibby. So with the Hawks up three and 30 seconds to go, who do you turn to for the win? Exactly. It looked like the usual old terrible isolation play for Josh Smith until Bibby popped out off a down screen for a straight-away three. Nails it. Ball game.
Not that this was a particularly fun game to watch — for the first three quarters neither team cleared 20 points for a quarter. Chew on these numbers — Atlanta’s back court was 0-10 and the Magic’s front court was 2-12 in the first half. The Hawks had the lead at that point with a sad 81.8 points per 100 possessions at the break. The Magic really missed the play creation of Jameer Nelson. Dwight Howard was back — 14 points 13 boards — but was clearly feeling the impact of the stomach bug that knocked him down for a few days.
Heat 88, Bucks 78: The Heat raced out to a 14-4 early lead, pulled away for good in the second quarter and won their fifth straight. Dwyane Wade was the guy attacking tonight, LeBron and Bosh coasted a little. Not the most impressive of wins, but it’s a double-digit win on the road so you take it no questions asked. Wade had a career best 14 rebounds.
Knicks 121, Timberworlves 114: Minnesota was up nine in the first quarter, and made another second quarter, with the Wolves up 68-61 at the break. But these Knicks are resilient. Stoudemire had 39 and the Knicks are the farthest they have been over .500 since 2001. Kevin Love had 33, Michael Beasley 25 in his first game back for the Wolves.
Pacers 124, Raptors 100: This one was all Pacers, they were up 31-18 at the end of the first quarter and really blew it open from there. They were 9 of 16 from three in the first half, 13 of 26 for the game and had an eFG% of 62.9 percent on the night. Shoot like that you win.
Jazz 94, Grizzlies 85: Mike Conley is playing some nice point guard. But he is no Deron Williams.
Clippers 98, Kings 91: The Clippers were less bad in this one. Eric Gordon, Eric Bledsoe and Blake Griffin can string together longer bits of competent play that the Kings. Tyreke Evans was 2-12 after the first quarter, he was attacking but not finishing. The Kings battled back from being down 17 led by Pooh Jeeter, only to lose in the final minutes.
