Gameday Dish: Wizards vs. Hawks on the Thanksgiving Menu

November 25 by Leave a Comment

The Atlanta Hawks host the Washington Wizards tonight at Philips Arena in the Peach State. As uncomfortable away from D.C. as a rafter of Turkeys trying to maneuver on any of the ATL’s busy highway interchanges, the Wiz are winless on the road this young season at 0-6. And they have a ten-game losing streak against the Hawks coming into this Thanksgiving night contest.  Washington was last victorious against Atlanta in a regular season game almost three full calendar years ago.

From most calculated perspectives, the Wizards would appear to be an easy takedown. But on this national holiday, hope arrives in a cornucopia of forms for the squad from our capital city.  The Hawks have lost three games in a row, most recently bested in New Jersey 107-101 in OT on Tuesday night. The Wizards, on the other hand, are coming off of a hard fought, 116-114 overtime victory against our once-upon-a-time (temporary) capital city team – the Philadelphia Sixers.

Third-year center, 7-footer JaVale McGee had his best game of the 2010-11 season in the win, with season-high’s of 24 points and 18 boards – 10 of those rebounds coming on the offensive glass. And first overall pick PG John Wall was back in the Wiz lineup against the Sixers after missing the previous four games with a sprained left foot. Wall finished with 25 points and 6 dimes coming off the bench.

The speedster caused problems for Atlanta in their first season matchup, contributing 28 points and nine assists. Wall is a tough assignment for veteran Mike Bibby, who is approaching the end of his career and no longer has the quickness to keep up with the spry rookie. So it will be interesting to see if Atlanta adjusts their lineup to have someone else defend Wall.

Joe Johnson suffered a preseason injury to his left hand, which may be contributing to his slow start. And the Hawks have been struggling of late, going 2-7 in the last nine games. They are trying to regain the chemistry that ignited their 6-0 run to start the season.

Most of the attention in the Eastern Conference’s Southeast Division this season has been on D-Wade, LeBron and the Miami Heat. But tonight at 8pm ET on TNT, the spotlight will be focused on the intra-division matchup between the Hawks and the Wizards.  Eat up, settle in and enjoy the NBA action while you recover. Dick Stockton, Chris Webber and I will be doing the same. Happy Thanksgiving 2010!

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Gameday Dish: Trail Blazers Host Nuggets

November 18 by Leave a Comment

Tonight the Denver Nuggets play the Portland Trailblazers at the Rose Garden in a matchup of Northwest Division rivals. This is the first of four scheduled meetings between these teams this season.

Last season, Denver went 3-1 against the Trailblazers, and Portland has not won a season series against the Nuggets since the 1998-99 campaign. But the Nuggets have lost their last three road games so perhaps the Blaze can capitalize on their home-court advantage.

Three big stories surround this game – one immediately relevant to this evening’s contest and two Phil Collins “In The Air Tonight” influences hovering in the background.

Top Blazer and three-time All-Star Brandon Roy will be out with a bum left knee. He is Portland’s best defender and will be especially missed against Denver’s high-powered offense, which at 105.8 ppg ranks fourth in the NBA.

In other injury-related news, the Blazers announced yesterday that Greg Oden, the former No. 1 draft pick whose short career has been marred by injuries, will have microfracture surgery on his left knee and will not play this season. Though this will not squarely impact the game tonight, it’s definitely a blow to the team’s morale and adds to the Blazers’ big picture concerns. They were hoping Oden would return this season to help them down low and finally start living up to his draft expectations.

Meanwhile the Nuggets are contending with their own big-pic matters as rumors surrounding Carmelo Anthony’s impending departure from the squad continue to loom. A Nugget for all of his eight years in the NBA and Denver’s top player for arguably that whole time, Melo continues to be badgered by media and fans as to his future plans and the growing possibility that his tenure as a Nugget is coming to an end.

Anthony refused to sign a 3-year $65million extension with Denver earlier this season. However, Melo has been a monster on the boards of late, with a total of 44 rebounds in the last 3 games – an average of almost 15 per clip. This fact should especially concern Portland because they have been one of the league’s worst teams on the glass this year and currently rank 27th in rebounding.

Both teams are coming off of Tuesday night victories – Portland over Memphis on the road and Denver over New York at home. I’ll join Marv Albert and Steve Kerr on the sidelines when Nuggets at Blazers tips off at 10:30 PM PST on TNT.

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Gameday Dish: Lakers at Nuggets

November 11 by Leave a Comment

Both the Nuggets and Lakers are looking to improve upon their latest performances. On Tuesday night, Denver lost 144 to 113 at Indiana, making them an even 4-4 for the season. The run-and-gunners got a taste of their own medicine when the Pacers fired 54 points in the third quarter – the most points scored by a team in one NBA quarter in 20 years. To put that in perspective, number one overall pick John Wall was barely two months old the last time a squad put up that many points in 12 NBA basketball minutes.

The Lakers along with the New Orleans Hornets are the only teams left in the NBA with unblemished records. At 8-0, the 2010 NBA Champs have come out of the blocks looking close-to-dominant. With eight wins against no losses, this version of the Lake Show is tied for second-best start ever for a Lakers team. And this is all being done without siixth-year center Andrew Bynum, who has not played so far this season due to a summer surgery on his right knee. Only the 1997-98 Purple & Gold, at 11-0, stand ahead of this year’s team when it comes to start of the season sizzle.

With Los Angeles’ on-target, long-range 3-bombing leading the league at 43.5%, the Nuggets team defense better pay special attention to their perimeter play, especially after allowing the Pacers to hit 16 threes in their last game. Denver bested the Lakers in 3 of 4 meetings last season and took them to six games in the 2009 Western Conference Finals, proving they are capable of derailing the champs. Denver will be looking for redemption tonight and hoping to capitalize on the vulnerability the Lakers displayed in their latest matchup.

In Tuesday’s victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves, LA played what can be fairly described as their weakest contest of this early season. The Wolves out-rebounded them 54-42 in their 99-94 loss. To continue their winning ways Los Angeles will have to improve on the boards against a tough, physical Denver front line led by superstar forward Carmelo Anthony.

Speaking of #15 on the Nuggets roster, Anthony’s extension-refusal, almost-traded, maybe-gone, still-here, stay-or-go mini drama still hangs over everything the Denver franchise does.  The subtitle to this season in the Rocky Mountain State could be called ‘Melo Movements?’ with emphasis on the question mark.

Marv Albert, Steve Kerr and I will team up tonight to bring you live coverage from the Pepsi Center on NBA on TNT at 10:30 PM EST following the Boston Celtics at Miami Heat.

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Gameday Dish: Charlotte Bobcats at New Jersey Nets

November 3 by Leave a Comment

Prokhorov’s Nets will host Jordan’s Bobcats in Newark this evening. It should be a competitive contest. Both the Bobcats and Nets are trying to establish winning habits early and carry them through the remainder of the season in order to have a shot at the playoffs.

This is a big game for the Nets as Coach Avery Johnson needs to convince his team that they are good enough to challenge for a playoff spot. The Nets stand at 2 and 1 after three games – a drastic improvement over last year’s 18 straight L’s to begin the season.

The Charlotte Bobcats on the other hand are 0 and 3, so Coach Larry Brown will be anxious to get a win under his belt. Last season the 2004 expansion team kept the Bulls and Raptors at bay to clinch the seventh spot in the East and their first playoff berth. Now that they’ve tasted the postseason, the Bobcats will be hungry to return for seconds and hopefully better their playoff record with some wins.

The Bobcats were only 13-28 away from home last year, and that included a loss at New Jersey on December 4th, 2009, to break the Nets’ 18-game-season-opening losing streak. However, the Bobcats later defeated the Nets on a return trip to the Garden State on their way to the postseason.

This is New Jersey’s fourth consecutive home game to begin the season, a true scheduling rarity and something the Nets must capitalize on because after tonight they begin a brutal stretch wherein they’ll play 7 of their next 9 games on the road. Last season they were a pitiable 4-37 road team.

Center Brook Lopez leads the Nets in scoring this season at close to 25 points per game. PG Devin Harris, now in his seventh year, has averaged almost 19 points and 8 assists over the first three contests. And third overall draft pick Derrick Favors continues to show signs of improvement as he gains NBA experience, averaging 10.0 rebounds and 10.3 points per game so far in his rookie career.

Coach Brown leads the Bobcats and is counting on top scorer F Gerald Wallace (league leader in minutes played) and 11th year veteran G Stephen Jackson (a 1997 second-round draft pick) to help the team gel early this campaign after the departure of long-time starting point guard Raymond Felton to the Knicks in the off-season. It remains to be seen whether the Bobcats will have as much of an impact without Felton and Tyson Chandler, who were both key pieces to last year’s success.

Third-year PG D.J. Augustin, out of the University of Texas, has replaced Felton in the lead guard role. In last game’s loss at Milwaukee he had 26 points and shot 5 of 6 from 3-point land.

Ian and I will cover the action tonight at 7:00 PM EST on YES.

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Gameday Dish: Kings at Nets

October 29 by Leave a Comment

While the old adage “everything happens for a reason” applies to all walks of life, it may resonate more loudly with sports fans. For example, baseball fans in Philadelphia and New York have no choice right now but to believe that the failure of the Phillies and the Yankees to reach the World Series simply means that the Eagles and Giants are going to have better years than expected. How quickly fans adopt this mode of thinking merely reflects how quickly they experience the four stages of denial. Similarly, fans of the World Series participants might well be thinking that their success is well-deserved given the miserable starts of the Cowboys and the 49ers.

This brings us to the start of the basketball season. Bitter baseball fans throughout the country can now turn their attention to the NBA, thinking something along the lines of, “Thank God baseball is over just in time for the start of the hoops season.” An outside observer may view this as an obvious rationalization, but others might say it further supports the notion that everything happens for a reason. Perhaps more than either the NFL or MLB, the NBA does not need to rely on fantasy teams to maintain fan interest in the broader league.

This is not to say that fans of a particular NBA team are not as fanatical as other sports fans; it is more an observation that the various story lines around the league (this year arguably more than any other) and the individual star-power pervading the league make the NBA Finals interesting to its viewers even if the home team is not playing (it’s hard to make that same argument for this year’s World Series).

Right now the biggest star of the revitalized Nets franchise may be their new majority owner Mikhail Prokhorov, a Russian billionaire who has been the central character in one of the NBA storylines generating headlines over the past year. Prokhorov has voiced his ambitious intentions to make the playoffs this season and win an NBA championship within five.

While it remains to be seen if the Nets season will have a fairytale ending, they have already improved upon last year’s start. Prokhorov made it to Wednesday’s season opener along with part-owner Jay-Z, his wife Beyoncé, NBA Commissioner David Stern, Newark Mayor Cory A. Booker, New Jersey Devils owner Jeff Vanderbeek and over 15,000 fans who were treated to an exciting come-from-behind 101-98 win over the Pistons. The Nets made shots, came up with defensive plays and showed determination.

The Nets will need to keep winning games in order to sustain our interest and keep fans returning to the spiffy Prudential Center. Tonight Proky’s footmen will battle the Kings, another team hungry for a turnaround. We’ll see the NBA’s 2010 Rookie of the Year Tyreke Evans make his first regular season appearance, having missed Sacramento’s opening night win due to a one-game suspension. Samuel Dalembert might also be reactivated tonight if the medical staff determines that his strained left adductor has healed. The Kings have added some new faces to their roster, including the fifth overall draft pick DeMarcus Cousins out of Kentucky and Carl Landry who returns from the Rockets. I’m anxious to see how far this young, talented team has come since Summer League.

Prokhorov is staying in town until Sunday afternoon so he’ll get to see the Nets in action against the Kings followed by LeBron and the Heat on Halloween. Ian Eagle and I have the call tonight at 7:30 PM EST on YES Network. I’m sure Marv will tune into tonight’s game from home to critique our performances and that I’ll hear all about it on Sunday when we’re back together for the Heat at Nets at 1:00 PM EST on YES.

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