Friday:

Rubio dreams of becoming a nun

The Bobcats: The Cats from Carolina didn't even play on Friday, but when your as bad as they are that's not necessary for a WotN inclusion. The Wizards did play however, beating the Timberwolves. You know what that means? The Bobcats once again have the worst record in the NBA. It's been a long time coming, and I don't think that the news will come as a surprise to anybody.
 
The Timberwolves: A recent Supreme Court ruling determined that making the Timberwolves finish the season doesn't constitute a violation of the national ban on cruel and unusual punishment. And so they trudge on...

With Love, Pekovic, Shved, Roy, and Budinger all racking up DNPs, I don't think there's any doubt left that the Timberwolves have a more respectable starting 5 in street clothes than they do in uniforms. Still, you gotta give the Wolves one thing: they started the weekend with a better record than the Lakers.

Rubio got the playing time he'd been asking for and led Minnesota in minutes against the former Generals. The result must have had acting coach Terry Porter chuckling inside, as Rubio had more turnovers than points and only made 1 of his 8 shots. Mickael Gelabale may be playing on a 10 day contract, but that didn't stop him from tying Luke Ridnour for the most field goals on the team. Gelabale played two years for the Seattle Supersonics and hasn't been in the league since. I guess he figured it was a good time to return to the Northwest. Maybe if he's lucky he can play on the Supersonics next year.

The Celtics: It's not often that a team loses by a dozen points after two overtimes, but that's precisely what happens when you get outscored 16-4 in the 2nd overtime. Kyle Korver set a franchise record for the Hawks, hitting all 8 of his field goals from behind the arc in the 2nd half. Propelled by tickle me Korver's hot shooting, the Hawks made up a 27 point deficit, making it their biggest comeback since the '01 season.

It was the 6th straight loss for the Celtics—the worst stretch of the KG era. Rajon Rondo had his 5th triple-double of the season. Unfortunately for basketball lovers everywhere, there will be no more Rondo triple-doubles this year. Nobody knew it at the time, but Rondo suffered a season ending ACL injury late in the 4th quarter.

DeShawn Stevenson:

I am not DeShawn Stevenson

The only basketball player that Jay-Z has ever bothered to make a diss song for is now losing the battle of the beards on his own team. Ivan Johnson played 10 more minutes than Locksmith and scored 9 more points. Stevenson, who has been slowed down by knee issues this year, vowed revenge.

Observers close to the situation describe it as mere seconds from boiling over. Ivan resents Stevenson for having a cool nickname, and likewise Stevenson resents Ivan for having a cool actual name. In addition to the name issues, the two endlessly argue about who has the better beard.

The Pistons: Last time the Heat played the Pistons, the champs were dealt a 10 point loss. This time, they made the Pistons reimburse them those 10 points, adding 12 more points in interest; all together it was a grand total of 22 points of ass kicking. Greg Monroe found a loop hole in some of the paperwork that allowed him to score 31 points and grab 12 rebounds.

The game featured the return of the Birdman, who played 3 and a half minutes for the Heat. 

Dallas: The Spurs were without Tim Duncan, Gregg Popovich, and only played Manu Ginobli 8 minutes. Still, the Mavericks could not capitalize. Maybe that's somehow related to them being led in scoring by Rodrigue Beaubois, who only played 16 minutes. Parker got the win and led all scorers, but he also got smacked in the face without getting the call.


I've never seen an NBA player display such reckless behavior towards Tony Parker's left eye. Who does Elton Brand think he is? A member of Chris Brown's entourage?

After the game, the guy standing in for Gregg Popovich, Mike Budenholzer, addressed questions about Ginobli's health by stating, "we just decided to keep him out and keep him healthy". As Budenholzer was getting into his car later that evening, he was confronted by David Stern, who gripped him by the collar and seemed prepared to pummel him. Luckily for Budenholzer, a beat cop happened to stroll by whistling and twirling his billy club.

Stern smiled at the cop and brushed off the coach's collar. He then turned to a terrified Budenholzer and grimaced slightly before offering him the following warning:

I know you're new here, so I'm gonna cut you a break. But if I catch you resting Ginobli like that again, I'm gonna take it out of your ass. So why don't you make like the Alamo and...remember? Yeah, that works. Why don't you make like the Alamo and remember.

Don't bother trying to find any other accounts of this, online or elsewhere. The NBA has already gotten to Budenholzer, and he ain't talking.

The Pelicans: Harden had one of those games with 30 points on 15 shots. However, judging by his 8 turnovers and Lin's 6 steals, I think he got the ball stolen by his teammate a few times. If Lin scored after one of these steals, then I guess that would also count towards Harden's 8 assists.

The Rockets must've been traveling and throwing the ball directly out of bounds a lot, because their 21 turnovers can't be explained by 8 steals from New Orleans. 

The Nets: Mikhail Prokhorov can blame the Lakers for this 34 point demolition that his Nets suffered. The Grizzlies had only reached the century mark once in 24 games before Pringles came to town. Unfortunately for the Nets, now they have an offense to go along with their league leading defense.

It was a very ugly loss

The Grizzlies mauled the visitors in every statistical category but one. The Nets got to the line 17 more times. That's how immense this immolation was—all the refs in the world couldn't keep the game within 30.

The Warriors: Is anybody else surprised that the Bulls and the Warriors had matching records after this game? I was going to say that it was an upset initially, instead it was simply a victory for an evenly matched Bulls team.

Still, that doesn't let the Warriors off the hook for losing by 16. Stephen Curry had only 1 assist, his lowest total for the season. Further tainting the loss, is the fact that Loul Deng wasn't even in uniform. Jimmy Butler was. In typical Tom Thibodeau small forward fashion, he led the team by playing 43 and a half minutes. In this time, he procured himself a double-double, grabbing a career-high 12 rebounds. Kirk Hinrich matched a career-high with 6 threes.   

The Kings: The score was surprisingly close in the battle between the team that was the Sonics and the team that will be. And by that I mean, the Kings only lost by 10 points. Initially, the Thunder were caught sleeping, as the home team opened up the game with a 23-9 run. From that point on, reality slowly set in.

It's clear from DeMarcus Cousin's 7 turnovers that yelling at Keith Smart has lost its luster. I'm sure Coach Smart can think of some excuse to suspend Cousins for a few days, seeing that his forward's best games of the season were fueled by spite for him. It's essential for the Kings that Smart keeps finding new ways to keep that fire of destructive anger burning.

Unfortunately for the Kings, Cousins is being all mature about his recent struggles, "It's frustrating. I'm going to keep my mouth closed and stay positive". Damn it Demarcus, get mad. Do something unprofessional. Kick a chair or push over an old lady. You're not going to get out of this mess by being reasonable. The Zeke-Child is clearly trying to fill the void caused by Cousin's professionalism, and got a tech from the bench.

Thanks, Jazz

The Jazz: When June comes, and we're all staring aghast at the Lakers championship parade, few people will remember that this was the game that changed everything. Against the Utah defense, the Lakers finally found themselves. For a night, starting Earl Clark was a brilliant move; Pau Gasol was fired up and efficient from the bench; Dwight gobbled up the boards and was the defensive anchor the team needs him to be, while Meta bombed away from the outside with surprising accuracy. Strangest of all, Kobe Bean Bryant stared a 70% shooting night right in the face, and yet somehow he found a way to go against every twitching fiber of his being and only shoot 10 times. He must have been too busy dishing out 14 assists and grabbing 9 rebounds. Beware the 14 assist dishing, 9 rebound grabbing Kobe Bryant.

To put Kobe's stunning restraint in perspective, Jamaal Tinsley took two more shots than he did.

Lacktion:

Hawks-Celtics: Doc Rivers gave his starting spot back to Kevin Garnett, but Jason Collins still packs in plenty of lacktion off the bench. The scariest thing about Jason's +6 suck differential in 13 minutes is that his doppelganger is even worse. Leandro Barbosa ran very quickly on his way to a +1 suck differential in 3 minutes and 28 seconds.

Heat-Pistons: James Jones accrued no stats for the Heat in 2 minutes and 20 seconds. Jonas Jerebko's +2 suck differential in 3 and a half minutes, combined with the shellacking that Detroit took, must've given him flashbacks to Thomas Robinson's elbow.  

Spurs-Mavericks: San Antonio's Aron Baynes showed his resourcefulness by turning a 42 second Mario into a +1 suck differential with a turnover.

Rockets-Pelicans: Speaking about Marios, Houston's Patrick Beverley, Cole Aldrich, and James Anderson all played 57 seconds. Beverley collected 2 points in this time, and Cole grabbed a rebound. This left James Anderson as the only Rocket with a plain ol' Mario. 

Grizzlies-Nets: Mirza Teletovic and his awesome name had a +1 suck differential in 5:59. On the opposing team, Hamed Haddadi missed two shots in a minute and 8 seconds.

Bulls-Warriors: Andris Biedrins played 8 minutes and 24 seconds and all he got was this lousy +1 suck differential. Meanwhile, Marquis Teague packed a +3 suck differential into his minute and 23 seconds. 

Lakers-Jazz: Jeremy Evans had a +3 suck differential for the Jazz, while his teammate Kevin Murphy went for a 3 trillion. On the Lakers, Darius Morris may well have been on his way to a 3 trillion, but got cut-off after 1 minute and 28 seconds.

Saturday: 

Boozer reacts to the score

The Bulls: Wait a second, isn't this the same team that slapped the Golden States Warriors around the gym the night before? Evidently not, because I don't think that team would lose to the Wizards by 13. Although, Washington has been doing better of late, they've won 7 of their last 10, and they like to beat teams by 13 points. It must have been the same Bulls team that got obliterated by the Rockets on Christmas, or maybe it was the Bulls team that lost to the Suns by double-digits at home. Who can tell? Unfortunately for the organization, the Bulls have several groups of doppelgangers, who share the appearance and most of athletic abilities of their doubles but none of the basketball sense. These rogue groups of doppelganger Bulls occasionally sully the reputation of the real team, when they kidnap them for a few hours and try to compete with NBA teams.

This is a serious problem for the Bulls, one that Jerry Reinsdorf has been trying to combat for years. It should be noted that the Joakim Noah's doppelganger is still pretty good, 17 rebounds, 10 assists, 9 points, and that since there is only one Nate Robinson, the real Nate still played and scored a game-high 19 points on a game-high 19 attempts. After the game, Robinson said that he had considered using his freedom to get help for the real Bulls, who were tied up in a basement. However, upon consideration, he realized that would mean less shots for him.

The Raptors: I think the NBA has found its replacement starting point guard for the East, and as the title of this entry suggests, it isn't anybody who plays in Toronto. Kyrie Irving hit a 3 with .7 seconds left, which won the game and put him over 30 points for the 3rd straight night.

Return of the Bricks: The Knicks made a lot of Philadelphia fans very happy, and unlike the Bulls, they can't simply blame the 80 points they scored in this 17 point loss on roving groups of rogue doppelgangers. That didn't stop J.R. Smith from trying during a post-game interview.

Jrue Holiday said, "Hey, I'm an All-Star, bitches" with 35 points, 5 rebounds, and 6 assists. Those 35 points signify a career-high and make the starting point guard job for the East a little murkier.  

Raymond Felton underwhelmed in his first game since Christmas with 8 points on 8 shots. J.R. Smith, Iman Shumpert, and Jason Kidd missed all 17 of the shots they attempted, while Carmelo Anthony didn't need any help missing that many shots and missed 19 of them all by himself. He had a good excuse though, he needed every one of his 25 points to keep a streak going... More on that later.

Minnesota: I'd ask whether it can get any worse for the T-Pups, but I don't want a piano to fall from the sky and crush Andrei Kirilenko. As it is, he's already crying blood.



Only a day after letting the Wizards climb over their corpses to escape being the worst team in the NBA, Minnesota lost to....you guessed it—the Bobcats, AKA the newly crowned worst team in the NBA. I give the AP a lot of guff, but they really captured something in their opening paragraph.

For the first time in more than two months, there were smiles and laughter throughout the Charlotte Bobcats locker room following a home game.

Do you hear that Mickael Gelabale? You and your fellow impounded Puppies let the boot of the neck of your mortal enemies, the Cats, and now they don't even have a record for futility to chase anymore. The infamy of the 1993-94 Dallas Mavericks is safe, for now. Yet, who knows when or where the Bobcats will strike again? This time they came within 2 losses of the NBA record of 18 straight losses at home; last year they set all-time records for least wins and worst winning percentage. It's anybody's guess which record is up next, but if I was the 2009-10 Nets, I'd be keenly interested.

The Nets: Speaking of bad weekends and 13 point losses, the Nets kept both trends going at Houston. The Rockets have struggled lately, losing their status as the highest scoring team in the league, and even enduring a recent 7-game losing-streak, but a visit from the Nets was just what the Rockets needed in order to reach their 3rd win in 4 games.

Despite the loss, Deron Williams delivered maybe his best game of the season with 27 points and 11 assists. He shot the ball with efficiency, delivering an all around game with an unmistakable sense of urgency and purpose. In an unrelated note, the Eastern Conference All-Stars have a starting point-guard shaped hole in their roster. Somebody needs to tell Deron that getting ejected in the 4th and scoring the majority of his points in the 1st quarter isn't the way to do it.

The Suns: Jared Dudley made all but two of his dozen shots; Michael Beasley added a team-high 25 points; but it wasn't enough to win over the Gregg Popovich-less, Tim Duncan-less Spurs.

The Sub-Sonics: A day after losing to the Thunder by 10 points, the Kings found a way to suck less ambiguously, losing to the Nuggets by 28 points. DeMarcus Cousins was only 1 for 6, ending up with 3 points and 2 rebounds, yet Keith Smart still can't find an excuse to suspend him. To Smart's credit, he did resist the urge to give DC's usual minutes to Travis Outlaw, opting instead to play Thomas Robinson who had a double-double.

Gordon Hayward: Although the Jazz eventually beat the Pacers in overtime, Hayward earned the unique, yet dubious distinction of having the ball picked from his hands 3 times in his team's final 3 regulation possessions. When the debacle began, the Jazz were up by 4.   

Luckily for Gordon, the Pacers couldn't hold on. Things might've been different if Lance Stephenson, 0 points with 4 turnovers and 0 assists, could've kept up with the production of Jamaal Tinsley. The Silver Bullet cracked open a tall, cold can of 5 points and 9 assists.

OK, guys. Be Chris Paul.

The Clippers: The ball left Jamal Crawford's hand, spun through the air, and seconds later the Trailblazers were celebrating and the Clippers had lost 4 in a row. The real concern for the Clippers is not the 1 point loss, but the lingering nature of CP3's bone bruise and what it's exposed about the team. Simply put, a healthy CP3 is the difference between life and death for this team. 

As Charles Barkley has been wont to point out, without the genius of their general, the Clippers have a tendency to look as isolation heavy and directionless on offense as their bejeweled co-tenants. Outside of the generally cursed nature of their franchise, this factor more than anything else continues to keep Barkley from asking the Clippers bandwagon if they can widen their seats a little.

Adding insult to injury, the Blazers didn't just beat the Clippers, they broke Lawler's law. The Clippers got to 100 first, but the Blazers became one of the roughly 8% of teams to win despite this.


Sunday: 

%#@%$#!%!@

All of us: It takes some really shitty news to turn a double-overtime battle between the reigning champs and the team that almost knocked them out of the playoffs into an afterthought, but that's just what the basketball fans everywhere got, live and coast to coast on ABC, when Doris Burke stood before a brick wall and announced that Rajon Rondo had torn his ACL and was done for the season.

As shell-shocked viewers watched the game, a peculiar instance of dramatic irony began to unfold. For those readers who are murky on dramatic irony, it's what occurs when the audience knows something that the principals in a drama do not, or when some principals are aware of what others aren't. Initially, it was reported that the players were aware of Rondo's situation, but during a sidelines interview with Doc Rivers, it sounded like he didn't know yet. If that's true, then it's reasonable to think that most of his players were also unaware. Doc sort of mumbled his reply about Rondo, which led to some debate about what he had said and who was aware of the situation. Around that time, viewers were informed that Dwyane Wade knew for some reason. The dramatic irony also came with a 21st century twist, as the Boston home crowd was incrementally becoming aware of the situation through their smart phones. The crowd was still lively do to the highly contested nature of the game, but it wasn't hard to tell that something was missing.

Rondo's injury also brings up the subject of cosmic irony, which occurs when man is made to feel at the whim of fate, the universe, and/or the basketball gods who seem to just toy with our hopes and dreams for their own amusement. As basketball fans, we have spent much of this season waiting for players to return from ACL injuries. Yet it seems, whenever we get a player back another one goes down. Rubio finally returns but it's rendered meaningless by Love's absence; 2011's starting all-star point guard might be gearing up to play, but now 2013's starter is gone. Rondo and Rose will always be linked in my mind because of that epic 7 game series in 2009, where Rose looked like the future and Rondo basically averaged a triple-double.

Still, the show must go on. Rondo's artistry will be greatly missed by the whole basketball community, and I look forward to a time when I can see him compete again.

The Thunder: 

Wait, what the hell is going on?

Are you ready to laugh?!? ... ... I said are you ready to laugh?!? ...

OK, this probably isn't the best time or forum to try to make jokes about Lakers beating the Thunder. So instead, I'm gonna do the professional, responsible thing and run with something from the last time the Lakers lost. Enjoy! 

The Lakers: I was wrong. The Lakers weren't destined to go 1-1 all-time in games where Earl Clark leads them in minutes. They are now 1-2. The game played like a disaster check-list, as if the Lakers were driven to demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt just how fucked they are. First off, Steve Nash hadn't missed a free throw all season, so I guess he decided it was time. Then, Dwight hasn't been injured in a little while, so after about 15 minutes he was holding his shoulder and headed to the locker room for good. Even those 22 extra free-throws the Lakers were gifted, just seem like an ironic nail in the coffin when they're getting their asses kicked.

Kobe addressed what he had to do before the game, issuing one of his classic 'make my shots' proclamations. He made good on that initially, as he converted on 11 of his first 14 attempts. Having ostensibly solved the problem, the idea probably never occurred to him to shoot less once he cooled off. The game played out like a microcosm of the season, with Kobe's impressive efficiency fading as he missed shot after shot as the game wore on...

The Thunder: Now let us never speak of the game the Thunder played on Sunday again. All better.

The rest of the day: Since I no longer feel the need to report accurately within the parameters of space and time, I am pleased to report that the rest of the day was devouted to a thousand point one-on-one match between Wilt Chamberlain and the Norse God Thor. Needless to say, it was awesome. Unfortunately for you, since no bawful occured in this game, I have nothing left to report on. So see you next time amigos, I'm gonna go get some chili.