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Warriors thrill bay area with comeback win over Miami
The Golden St. Warriors went toe to toe with the best the NBA has to offer and they have come out ok. The Warriors own one of two losses that Chicago has and now GSW can add the Miami Heat to that list after coming from 17 down late in the third quarter to beat the Heat 111-106 in overtime.
The win was a total team effort with different players stepping up to carry the load at different times during the game. Dorell Wright (20pts and nine rebounds) picked a great time to get his three point stroke back.
Nothing like having an old team come through to motivate someone. Wright won a ring with Miami back in the 2006 season and Heat guard Dwayne Wade is Wright's son's godfather.
So you know D-Wright was ready for this one. Wright led the NBA in three's made last year, but he was off to a slow 5 of 27 start in 2012. Dorell hit six three's against Miami.
None of those would have mattered if GSW did not step it up on D. Miami was held to 12pts in the fourth quarter and the Warriors held the Heat under there season average of 108.3pts a game.
That is what head coach Mark Jackson is talking about. You gotta play defense in the NBA to win. It can be easy to get up for a team like the Heat. If the Warriors can play like this against everybody they will be fine.
Back up point guard Nate Robinson led the Warriors with 24pts that included a 14 for 14 performance from the free throw line. 15 of Robinson's points came in the fourth quarter.
Monte Ellis finished with 22pts and he must have like the fact that somebody else on the team can take over a game like Nate did in the fourth quarter. A lot of people wondered why coach Jackson would pick up another small guard.
We see why after Nate torched the Heat in the fourth quarter.
Dwayne Wade finished with a game high 34pts, but 26 of those came in the first half. Miami as a team shot 2 of 17 in the fourth quarter and their head coach Eric Spoelstra could do nothing about it.
The game came down to what everybody wants to see when they play the Heat, A LeBron James fall away three to win the game. He missed and Golden St. took full advantage.
James finished the game with 26pts, 11-rebounds and 7-assists.
The Warriors had a chance to win the game after LeBron's miss with 14-sceonds left in the game. Monte Ellis dribbled into a double team as the clock ran out and did not get off a shot.
Wright gave the Warriors the lead with a three that he followed up with a dunk to put GSW up 107-104 with 1:06 left in overtime.
Keith Smart wins first game as Kings head coach
Story by Brendan Anderson
1/5/12 Sacramento, Calif. -- Keith Smart, the new Sacramento Kings Coach, won his first game as they came back from a 21-point half-time deficit to beat the Milwaukee Bucks 103-100. The Kings got 25 points in the second half from guard Marcus Thornton connecting on 9-of-15 shots. He was 1-of-8 in the first half.
 Photo by Eric Taylor |
Sacramento changed coaches before their home game against Milwaukee and maybe their attitude as well.
The Kings came from as much 21 down to shock the Bucks, winning 103-100.
New head coach Keith Smart was rewarded with a two year contract that is guaranteed through the 2012-13 season.
Smart coached the Golden St. Warriors to a ten game improvement during his one year stint in 2010-11.
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“I told him to keep his head up,” back-court mate Tyreke Evans said. “He seemed when he wasn’t scoring his head was down, like the game was over. It’s a long game... It’s about runs. We found away. That’s what you gotta do sometimes. You gotta find a way.”
The Kings found a way to fire Coach Paul Westphal today on the back of the DeMarcus Cousins drama and losing 5 of their first seven games. Cousins who had been asking for a trade, proved his value tonight finishing with 19 points and 15 rebounds before fouling out with 4:36 remaining, down 97-90.
Cousins fouled Bay Area native Drew Gooden who landed one of two free throws to give the bucks a 98-90 lead. The Kings went on a 13-2 run to close out the game and take the lead.
Jennings scored on a driving lay up with :58 seconds left. That was the last bucket for the Bucks as the Kings finished the game out with a jumper from John Salmons and four free throws from Evans who finished with 26 points, 10 rebounds and 5 assists.
“We did a good job getting a stop at a time,” 6-5 Tyreke Evans stated. “We buckled down and got stops. We took over to win the game.”
Brandon Jennings paced the Bucks with game-highs scoring 31 points and adding 7 assists. Jennings kept the Kings on their heels penetrating and hitting 6-of 10 from three. He shot 12-of-23 for the game. Center Drew Gooden finished with 18 points and 9 rebounds.
Sacramento chipped away at the lead going small deploying three and four guards on the floor. This is similar to “Nelly-ball”. That makes sense since Smart is a disciple of Coach Don Nelson. This gave Sacramento a chance to push the ball.
Keith Smart found a way to enter a two year contract as King’s head coach after being fired last spring by the Golden State Warriors. Now Smart is just an hour-and-a-half north from Oakland and a little breathing room to develop his players.
Nobody's perfect in the NBA
Miami and Oklahoma City became the last two teams to lose in the Association this year. Atlanta got 21pts from guard Joe Johnson and some big points from Tracy McGrady in the fourth quarter to hold off the Heat 100-92.
Miami is now 5-1 and looking like a title contender. Maybe Atlanta was serving notice. The Hawks are now 4-1 after beating Miami.
Dallas showed that they are not finished by ending Oklahoma City perfect run with a 100-87 victory. The Mav's were embarrassed in the season opener on national TV by Miami and they have gotten off to a slow, 2-4 start this year.
The win against a team that many predict will take the Mav's place in the NBA Finals is big for Dallas. A loss would have set them back into the basement of the Southwest division and they would have been in last place in the Western Division.
It is still early, but nobody wants to be in last place in the Conference. Especially the defending NBA Champions. It can be hard to over come a bad start like that. When you look at the fact that there are only 66-games in the season, each win and loss is more important then ever.
Dallas can thank the fact that they are in the Western Conference. Nobody is running away with anything out West. The Northwest division has three teams with more than two wins (Oklahoma City, Denver and Portland).
You can add San Antonio (3-1) to that list out of the Southwest. The Mav's will have some time to get things right and jump back into the playoff race. the Western Conference has had a better regular season power rating the past decade, but that appears to be coming to an end.
The Eastern Conference boosts what looks like the beat team in the land (Miami) they have the best center in the game (Orlando's Dwight Howard) plus four teams with only one loss (Chicago, Miami, Indiana, Atlanta).
Can we all just get along, trouble could be brewing in Sac Town
The Sacramento Kings have enough problems. Getting back into the playoffs, having somebody step up and fund a new stadium so the team can stay in Sacramento past this strike shortened season are at the top of their list.
Now comes news that talented, but disgruntled center Demarcus Cousins is unhappy about his situation with the team. The Kings do not want to lose the big man and would rather work things out and have Cousins develop into a force while on the Kings.
Everybody knows he has talent, but will that talent come out in Sacramento and help the Kings win games ? Cousins was sent home ahead of Sac's game against New Orleans Jan. 1st due to what head coach Paul Westphal called "inappropriate actions".
The Kings, losers of three in a row since a season opening over the Los Angeles Lakers, beat New Orleans without Cousins in the line up. Winning seems to cure a lot of ills and Cousins is back with the team.
A false report came out saying Cousins asked for a trade, but Demarcus refutes that saying he never wanted out of Sacramento and he is back with the team as they continue to try and improve on the court and make it back to the playoffs.
Nobody looks like they will run away with the Pacific Division this year, The Los Angeles Clippers lead the division with a 2-2 record and the Lakers (3-3) are not what they used to be so the Pacific could be up for grabs this year.
The NBA schedule did not do anybody any favors
Sending Miami out to Dallas to watch the Maverick's hoist up their first NBA Championship banner might not have been a good idea. Especially for the Mav's who fell behind early with the Heat playing scrooge on Christmas Day.
The Heat have a year under there belt and as far as the short off season due to the strike, Miami has the same nucleus as last year and have fewer players trying to get on the same page as the Big Three.
Dwayne Wade, :LeBron James and Chris Bosh and Co. stayed in the locker room while Dallas hoisted that banner during a pre game ceremony, won against the Heat in the 2011 NBA Finals.
The Heat came out for the game and took it to the defending champion Mav's. I do not know if Dallas has been living the good life in the off season or they are getting old and need a couple of games to get loose, but it was not what Dallas had in mind to open their defense of the title.
True everybody gets up to play the champ. The team you just beat really can't wait to see you again and add three of the best players in the game it was easy to see how Miami came out against the Mav's.
LeBron James scored 18pts helping Miami to a 62-41 lead at the half. People might not realize just how good Miami is going to be. The three superstars and still pretty young and they are getting better.
If you read the press Miami had a bad year in 2011 and they still went to the finals. Boston looked ok in their two point loss at New York to open the new season.
The first half against Dallas looked to easy. The Heat seemed to have figured out how to play off each other to open up the court and create scoring lanes. Or as LeBron said at the half.
"It all starts on the defensive end. We are playing good defense and it helps us get good shots." Yeah they were good shots as in lay ups and dunks.
It looks as if King James has work on his game. Several times during the first half james went down to the blocks and posted his man up. That created instant mismatch problems and easy buckets for Lebron.
Dallas, to their credit, made a late charge in the 4th quarter, cutting the lead to 18 with six minutes left. Miami gave up leads in last years NBA Finals and Dallas is good.
It took awhile for them to heat up.
You had better be ready because the NBA lockout has created a 66-game schedule that is like a old school barnstorming league. Three games in three nights.
That's a lot of travel and playing. Each team has four triple headers, if you will, on their schedules and most teams open the season with back to back games. You will not have much time to rest before the next game in 2011-12.
Depth will be a bigger issue this season then in most. If you are not in game shape to start this season you have a greater chance of getting hurt. Most game are at least two at home but still three games in three nights are a lot.
It is going to feel like the AAU tournaments to some, but at least there is a season to talk about.
Lakers not standing pat, looking to turn over roster
Now that the NBA is back open for business it is time for free agents and their agents to do there thing. Players have begun to move around as teams ready themselves for the 2011-12 NBA season.
The Los Angeles Lakers have been thinking big and they were very close to landing a big prize in the free agent shuffle.
A deal was struck to bring point guard Chris Paul from New Orleans and send Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol packing in a three team trade that also involved Houston.
New Orleans, owned by the NBA, has Paul under contract for one more season and they are looking to move him now and not lose Paul for nothing at the end of the season.
Hornets GM Dell Demps almost pulled off one of the best trades in recent memory, but the rest of the NBA 's owners stepped in a blocked the trade for "basketball reason's".
Maybe the rest of the league's owners did not want to see LA get any better, but the real reason why the trade was nix could have been because the owners wanted to make sure New Orleans had some star power on the squad.
New Orleans lost high scoring forward David West to Indiana after he opted out of his contract with New Orleans before signing with the Pacers on a two year contract.
The New York Knicks took a step towards returning to the playoffs by plucking Tyson Chandler from the NBA Champion Dallas Mavericks. That made Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony very, very happy.
Chandler, a very active rebounder and excellent defender, will help take a lot of pressure off the offensively minded Knicks. Chandler never needs any plays ran for him and he is as un selfless as they get.
Just throw him an alley oop every so often and he is happy. Tyson will be a big loss to the Mav's who lost there defensive soul. There are many offensive stars in the NBA, but it is the teams that can defend that win titles.
Just ask the Dallas Mavericks who have been winning for years but finally won a NBA title with a great effort on the defensive end of the court.
The Maverick's replaced Tyson with Lamar Odom, the NBA's reigning sixth man of the year. One Kobe Bryant was not pleased to learn that his friend is gone from the team.
Add the fact that Odom was dealt to Dallas, the team that ended LA's season last year has Kobe and many Lakers fans asking why Dallas. LA was going to move Odom no matter what.
Los Angeles tried to include Odom in a three way trade that would have brought in Chris Paul.
Paul almost made it to the Staples Center in LA. After the Lakers deal was nixed the Los Angeles Clippers came close to snagging the All Start guard, but this time the Clippers put a hold on the transaction.
The league wanted to gut the Clippers team in exchange for Paul. Instead of losing half there squad Los Angeles claimed Chauncey Billups off wavier's giving them veteran leadership at the point guard spot.
The Clips also matched a offer sheet signed by young center DeAndre Jordan with the Golden St. Warriors (four years, 42.7 million) while also signing Caron Butler for three years and 24-million dollars.
Now forward Blake Griffin has some tools to work with as the Clippers look to make it back to the NBA playoffs.
Labor peace in the Association
The NBA strike was not that bad, was it ?. I mean who watches the NBA in before Thanksgiving anyway's. Football is still king and the 82-game schedule is too long anyway's.
Now that most of the college football world gets shut down for a month (read no playoffs in D1 football) and many teams are falling out of the playoff race in the NFL fans need their pro sport that is in season.
That would be the NBA and come Christmas Day fans across the country will be able to get their NBA fix. Money, what else, was at the heart of the lockout. Owners wanted a bigger piece of the pie and they got it.
Players and owners will now split the revenue generated by the league on a sliding scale between a 50-50 and 47-53 split. How those numbers will be worked out is a mystery to me.
The NBA players disbanded their union in order to sue the league for peace, but now that a new agreement was in place the players had to reform the union in order to sign the deal.
240 players needed to sign and reform the union and that was not a problem now all that is left is the business of signing the 2011 draft picks and free agents while a schedule is put out.
There will be a 66-game schedule this year that will start on Christmas Day. There will be five games on X-Mas Day. A two game exhibition season is being planned and who knows what kind of shape the players will be in when they report to their teams.
Many have been working out and some have played in a couple of charity games, but there is nothing like being with your peers and having a coaching staff pushing you to get in shape.
In this day and age players rarely get too far out of shape anyway's so getting back up to game speed will not be hard for most.
The new agreement still has to be voted on by the rank and file members of the league, players and owners, but all seems to be headed in that direction and the league should re open for business Dec. 9th with training camps.
Owners and agents are already talking and with a few quality free agents out there you can expect some movement in the next few weeks.
While it is nothing like last season when some of the leagues biggest stars moved, players such as Nene' (Denver), Tyson Chandler (Dallas), Caron Butler (Washington), Tayshaun Price (Detroit) and Grant Hill (Phoenix) head this years class of free agents.
Most of the noise is coming from the situations involving next years free agents. Topping that list is New Orleans point guard Chris Paul and Orlando big man Dwight Howard.
Both can walk at the end of this season if they are not re signed by their clubs. Both New Orleans and Orlando are looking at trade options as they try to work out a solution to the problem.
Each player has a huge fan base in each city and losing them for nothing will not sit well with the fans. Paul has been linked to a move to the New York Knicks, Lakers, Clippers and Golden State Warriors.
Just about everybody wants Howard, a powerful rebounder who is starting to learn how to score. Players and teams can start signing new contracts Dec. 9th.
Kings improving in baby steps
It might be modest at best, but the Sacramento kings have won two out of their last three games and they have been playing better of late. Sure Sac's record is 7-25 and they have the fewest wins in the NBA, but a couple of close losses have been followed by a couple of wins and improved play by the team.
 One such player is first round pick Demarcus Cousins had his best game as a pro in the Kings 94-89 win over the Phoenix Suns at home Sunday night.
Cousins had 28pts, eight rebounds and six assists.
The points and assists were career highs for Cousins who scored 13-4th quarter points.
The Kings used a 19-2 run at the end of the game fueled by defense and the play of Cousins to come back and shock the Suns who got what looked like a great game from point guard Steve Nash.
Nash finished with 22pts and 12-assists but only one of those assists came in the fourth quarter.
Nash was a perfect 10 of 10 from the field with 20-first half points.
Francisco Garcia had a strong game with 20pts and 11-rebounds and Omar Casspi chipped in with 14pts and 10-rebounds. Four players had at least ten rebounds for Sacramento against the Suns and they out rebounded Phoenix 60-32.
Sure the Suns will never be confused with a good rebounding squad, but any time the Kings can almost double another teams rebounding total it is a good day for the Kings.
Sacramento's bench really came through against Phoenix. Pooh Jeter, Carl Landry and Casspi combined for 29pts, 23-rebounds and six assists. They picked up the starting guard tandem of Tyreke Evans and Beno Udrih who combined to shoot just 2 of 15 from the field. Evans continued his up and down play this year.
Evans scored six points and was 2 of 12 from the field with four rebounds and five assists against the Suns. sacramento has gone in the tank during fourth quarters of recent games.
The Kings scored four points over the final 9:09 of the game, shot 5 of 18 in the fourth quarter of a 102-93 loss to Houston Dec. 19th. that was followed by a miserable loss to the Golden St Warriors at home. Up by as much as 16pts in the 4th quarter, Sacramento committed 10-4th quarter turnovers and were outscored 32-18 in the 4th quarter before losing in overtime 117-109.
A 84-79 loss to Milwaukee was followed by a 100-99 loss to the Clippers were the Kings came from nine back late only to lose at the buzzer when Evans missed a little runner with seconds left that would have been his 33rd and 34th points of the night.
I guess Tyreke felt like he needed to move a little bit on his game winners. Against Memphis in the Kings next game Evan sank a buzzer beating shot from half court to help sac win 100-98.
Sacramento could have folded under the close losses they suffered through in the last few weeks. Instead they have come out and shown some spark.
They have games against Atlanta (Jan. 4th) and Denver (Jan. 6th) this week at home before they head out on a six game, east coast road trip that will take them through Toronto, Washington, New York, Detroit, Atlanta and Portland.
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