The New York Knicks: It's bad - but sort of expected - when the Madison Square Garden crowd starts chanting for James Dolan to finally put Isiah Thomas out of the Knicks' misery. But it goes from "sad" to "tragically sad" when the "Fire Isiah" chant picks up steam on the road. And that's what happened last night in Philadelphia during during the Sixers' 40-point drubbing of Team Dysfunction. Did New York just roll over and die on defense? Well, Philly shoots 45 percent from the field and averages about 94 PPG on the year. Last night, they shot 57 percent and had 102 points by the end of the third quarter. This is how badly things went for the Knicks: Human victory cigar Gordan Giricek played the entire fourth quarter.

Isiah Thomas: The Baby-faced Assassin sunk to a new low, even for him, placing the blame for last night's stink bomb directly on the broad and pudgy shoulders of twin towers Eddy Curry and Zach Randolph. Said Isiah: "My guy's minds were elsewhere."

Dwight Howard: The slam-dunk Superman scored 37 points (13-for-16) and grabbed 15 rebounds. So why's he being included in Worst of the Night? Because Chris Bosh freaking ate his lunch. Bosh made 11 of his first 12 shots, including a three-pointer - only his third of the season - on his way to hitting 14 of 16 shots and scoring 40 points. Magic coach Stan Van Gundy even said that Bosh "destroyed" Howard. I'm not a professional athlete, but when your coach tells the press your man destroyed you, well, I'm pretty sure that's not a good thing.

The Orlando Magic defense: In all fairness to Dwight, he wasn't the only defenseless magician. The Raptors scored a season-high 127 points on 58 percent shooting. In addition to Bosh's 14-for-16 line, Jose Calderon was 8-for-10 and Carlos Delfino was 7-for-11. By the way, that 127 points was only two off of the Raptor's all-time franchise high for points in a game.

Andrea Bargnani: The Magic might have surrendered a gob of points on an impossibly high shooting percentage, but at least they shut down Bargnani (4 points, 1-for-8 shooting). That's gotta count for something, right?

Travis Diener: I can't blame Dick Diener's nephew for all of the Pacers' woes, but I can bust on him for shooting 1-for-7 last night. Guards are supposed to be able to shoot, right?

The Chicago Bulls: According to the scouting report, the Nets have owned the Bulls over the last few years because the Bullies have trouble defending big guards like Jason Kidd. So why did Marcus Williams - Kidd's six-foot three-inch replacement - light them up for a season-high 25 points? Well, because the Bulls suck, of course! Ben "I'm their best player" Gordan and Luol "Why oh why didn't I sign that $50 million extension" Deng were both back in the Chicago lineup, but it didn't make much of a difference as the Bulls shot 38 percent from the field and dropped a 110-102 overtime decision to the Kidd-less Nets.

Yahoo box scores: According to Yahoo, Jason Kidd started for the Dallas Mavericks and came off the bench for the New Jersey Nets. I knew Kidd was amazing, but I had no idea he was that amazing. (Thanks to all the astute readers who picked up on this and emailed me about it.)

He's a Maverick...
...no, he's a Net. Wait, what?!
The Detroit Pistons: I certainly don't think it's time to hit the panic button or anything, but the Pistons followed up an embarrassing homecourt blowout at the hands of the Magic by getting beaten by a team that was, at the time, 15 games below .500. That's not a good sign when your goal is to compete for an NBA title. Detroit trailed by as many as 21 points in the third quarter and it took a flurry of three-pointers by Rasheed Wallace in the final two minutes of the fourth just to make a game of it.

The Dallas Mavericks: The team hasn't had good ball movement since Steve Nash left the team a few years ago, which is a big reason that Mark Cuban was willing to mortgage the team's future to rescue Jason Kidd from hell. Well, if last night's game against the Hornets was any indication, it's going to take more than a future Hall of Fame point guard to change the status quo. Dallas had only 13 assists and committed 17 turnovers, and, even worse, Chris Paul flayed Kidd and then ate him alive, going for 31 points, 11 assists, and a career-high 9 steals. Not coincidentally, Kidd had a game-high 6 turnovers.

The Phoenix Suns defense: Last night's game taught us a few things. First, Shaq can run and gun in the Suns offense (15 points, 6-for-9 shooting). He can still rebound (he had 9) and intimidate (2 blocked shots, lots of pushing and shoving, and he damn near killed Raja Bell with an inadvertent elbow). And he obviously didn't spend his early-season vacation practicing his touch from the line (3-for-8). We also learned that Shaq is tres motivated; the Big Road Runner was sprinting up and down the court and going after loose balls, including one crazy dive that took out referee David Guthrie. Now, Shaq had no chance of saving that ball, and he knew it. But he dove after it to show people 1. that he means business and 2. that he's still healthy enough to go all out in order to win. These are all very good signs for the Suns. Unfortunately, their team defense is still terrible. The Lakers scored 130 points on 57 percent shooting. Moreover, it seemed like they could get whatever shot they wanted, whenever they wanted, even when their second unit was on the floor. What kind of surprised me was that Phoenix didn't learn anything from their win in L.A. earlier this season. In that game, the Suns were the aggressors. They played physical defense and roughed the Lakers up at every opportunity. The Lakers, outside of Kobe, can still be rattled and intimidated by physical play. It happened both times they played the Celtics, and it happened in Atlanta a week or so ago. So my advice to the Suns, and anybody else playing against Team Supreme, is that you have to play mean.

Shaq: The big guy played really well, considering the facts that he hasn't played in a couple months and this was his first game in a new (and very different) offensive system. But...why, oh why did he shave his Fu-Manchu 'stache?! That's like Superman eating Kryptonite, or Pamela Anderson getting boob reduction surgery. Seeing The Big Cactus's naked upper lip sucked all the awesome out of me. I will be spending most of the rest of the day mourning the loss of that beautiful tuft of facial hair. (Hat tip to Ben Q. Rock from The Third Quarter Collapse for his sympathy and commiseration.)

Raja Bell: I know that he almost died after Shaq's elbow caved in his skull, but that happened late in the game. Bell still managed to play 36 minutes, but scored zero points on 0-for-3 shooting. Raja's scoring and - more importantly - outside shooting is a vital component of the Suns' offense, especially now that Shaq's in town.

Darko Milicic: In his continuing battle for the "Worst Draft Pick of All Time" crown, Darko scored 2 points (0-for-7) in 19 minutes). But since my therapist has suggested I try to be more positive, I'll go ahead and point out that Darko had 8 rebounds, 3 steals, and a winning smile. Still, it's pretty bad when you're in danger of losing your starting job to Jason Collins. Speaking of which...

Jason Collins: Due largely to Darko's offensive ineptitude, Collins played 24 minutes but totally failed to reward his team in any way whatsoever. The human telephone pole scored zero points (0-for-0) and had 1 lonely rebound. So Darko's starting job is safe. For now.

The Boston Celtics defense: Another shootout, another loss for the Green and White. It might be time for Doc Rivers to start coaching and remind his squad that they're a defensive team, not the second coming of the Phoenix Suns. One night after giving up 124 points to the Nuggets, the Celtics watched the Warriors drop in 119. Next stop: Phoenix. This could get ugly. Well, ugly-er.

Labels: Boston Celtics, Chicago Bulls, Dallas Mavericks, Detroit Pistons, Dwight Howard, Isiah Thomas, Jason Kidd, New York Knicks, Orlando Magic, Phoenix Suns, Shaq