Yeah, the Locksmith is still doing that hand thing

Randy Wittman's sanity: There are no moral victories in basketball, despite what our grade school teachers might've tried to instill in us about sportsmanship. There are only wins, losses, and losses that hurt worse because they were so close—losses like the Wizards falling to the Hawks in overtime and failing to get their 4th win of the season. After the game, Coach Wittman spoke with the officer being raised up on a crane to try to keep him from jumping off the ledge.

I look up every morning to make sure the sky is up there—that it's not falling in on me...I had fans heckling me. They're killing me. I had to turn around and say something to them today.

It's unclear whether Wittman addressing the spectators had any impact on their behavior. Let's hope that, unlike his players, the fans haven't completely tuned him out yet. 

Jordan Crawford had a triple-double but didn't receive much in the way of help. Nene had the 2nd best game for the Wizards, but his minutes are still being limited as he gets his health back, which is one of the several possible reasons to heckle Wittman that the fans were using in the first place.

Kenneth Faried:


I'm not sure, but I think Faried might have accidentally watched JaVale shooting free throws.  

Cleveland: Kyrie scored 23, and Varejao helped him out with a 20/10 performance. So what went wrong for the Cavs and allowed the Raptors to depart their city victoriously? You won't find an answer on the offensive end of the floor. This loss was actually, sadly enough, the best the Cavs have shot all year. Not only that, it was the only time they've made half of their shots. So how did they louse it up? By letting the other team shoot better than they did, of course. The Cavs must've exerted all the energy they had to look half-way decent on offense, because they let the Raptors hit most of their shots while blitzing them from downtown at an over 50% clip.

It's been smooth sailing for the Raptors ever since two of their top three scorers went down with injuries. The fact that they're playing well without Andrea Bargnani is not what I would classify as a mind-blowing development, but the team's improvement without Kyle Lowry is a bit of a conundrum for me. That is, it was a conundrum until I took a look at Jose Calderon's stats over this winning streak. In the three games since Lowry went down, Calderon is averaging over 18 points a game on about 60% shooting, with 7 assists and less than 2 turnovers per game. This shouldn't really come as a surprise. Jose had been providing these types of solid numbers since before Gilbert Arenas was disparaging his all-star credentials.

*Varejao left this game with an injury only to return later for at least the 4th time this season, although unlike the other three nobody felt the need to get negative X-Ray results.

Deron's pissed he can't just pass to Al or Millsap

The Nets: The Jazz had a nice little revenge game against the continuing existence of Deron Williams. The Brooklynites were playing at home and Utah threw the ball away on two separate attempts to inbound the ball in the final 31 seconds. Yet, the Nets responded with consecutive awkward misses, making some wonder if they still thought they played in the vicinity of Brick City.

The T-Pups: At first, I thought for some reason NBA TV was playing the 1966 NCAA Finals game between Don Haskins and his Texan Western squad and the Adolph Rupp coached Kentucky Wildcats; but it turned out just to be a 2012 regular season game between the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Miami Heat.

Before the game started, the starting line-ups for both teams were pictured, and it was impossible not to notice that every single player for one team was white, while every single player for the other team was black. Greg Anthony couldn't help himself and said that the upcoming game looked "colorful" causing his fellow broadcasters to burst into laughter.

With Strom Thurmond spinning around rapidly in his grave, the Heat took control of the game early in the 2nd quarter and didn't let up. LeBron ended up with 22 points and 11 assists, setting up his teammates for easy baskets on a plethora of passes, while blocking 4 shots and not once committing a turnover. It's a good thing for the Heat that LeBron played so efficiently, because the Timberwolves more that doubled Miami's rebounds, 53-24. Unfortunately for the visiting Minnesotans, they could rebound the ball but they couldn't score it afterwards, shooting only 43%, and experiencing an even more extreme disparity than they had on the glass, with 1 block for the Pups and 14 blocked attempts. Speaking of blocked attempts...



Chris Bosh: It's gotta suck to be the one guy on your team who gets his shot blocked. You know one of his teammates had to enjoy bringing that statistic to his attention after the game.

The Celtics: Boston dropped to within a game of a losing record at Chicago, having lost three straight. Generally speaking, opposing teams don't win too many games that cause Joakim Noah to jokingly refer to himself as a point center afterwards. The more awkward, 7 foot tall, and gap toothed version of Oscar Robertson had his 2nd career triple-double, and his second victory while accomplishing this feat. All of this was done with the league's leading passer at hand, but Rondo only ended up with 8 assists, his lowest total for the season in a game where Kris Humphries was not punched in the face.

*Scalabrine returned to the United Center as a broadcaster for the Celtics. Towards the end of the game the crowd broke into a scattered Scalabrine chant, reminiscent of all the times they needed a human victory cigar over the years.

The 76ers: Make that 0-3 without Jrue Holiday. And counting... (foreshadowing hint).

The Bobcats: Apparently the Bobcats don't know that it's almost Christmas time. Remember that thing I said about there being no moral victories in basketball? If an overtime loss to the Hawks is a kick to the nuts, then losing for the 12th straight time in a row, to the Lakers, by one fucking point, must be equivalent to getting those same pair of nuts caught in some sort of rusty hydraulic press.

Lacktion:

Mavericks-76ers: Rodrigue Beaubois experienced non-existence for 2 minutes and 27 seconds. While Royal Ivey left his mark in a minute and 9 seconds more with a +2 suck differential.   

Bucks-Pacers: Doron Lamb marinated in a +4 suck differential for 11 minutes and 40 seconds.

Raptors-Cavs: A +1 suck differential in a little over a minute caused Cleveland's Donald Sloan to be disowned by Jerry Sloan, despite not actually being related to him.

Jazz-Nets: Keith Bogans went for it against the Jazz, netting a +4 suck potential in 7 and a half minutes. 

Warriors-Hornets: No evidence was left that visitor Al-Farouq Aminu wandered around Oakland for 3 and a half minutes. Richard Jefferson made his triumphant return, to the lacktion section, spending 5 minutes and 28 seconds on the court without accumulating a single statistic. Kent Bazemore proved once again that he is a force to be reckoned with, providing a 5 second Supermario.

Well, that's all for now. I hope your reading this because that would mean the world hasn't ended, which is probably a good thing, though not really for the Bobcats or Randy Wittman. The wind is howling outside as I write this, and I'm pretty sure that I'm listening to the sounds of some sort of zombie creature trying to break into my domicile. If these are the last words you ever hear from me, then I want everyone to know that I've enjoyed writing this stuff and I hope you've enjoyed reading it. Hopefully you'll hear from me again soon, unless this really is the rapture, in which case, to quote from the late 20th century bard, somebody save me a couple bottles of gin in case I don't get in.