What a strange night in the National Basketball Association it was, January 27th, 2009.
Let’s try to recap slowly… because some of this stuff comes from the Bizarro Jerry episode of Seinfeld.
:: FANTASY BASKETBALL COMMEMORATION NIGHT ::
The numbers that guys were putting up were just crazy. There were definitely a bunch of kids sitting in their mothers’ basements cheering on as their fantasy NBA teams were pumped up by some of the massive performances on offer (whilst some others across town cried), such as:
SAC @ CLE
LeBron James: 23 points, 15 rebounds, 11 assists, 3 blocks (a usual night in the office for LBJ)
Mo Williams: 43 points, 11 assists, 8 rebounds, 7/12 from deep
Kevin Martin: 35 points, 7 rebounds, 7 assists, 4 steals, 15/17 at the free throw stripe
IND @ ORL
Mickael Pietrus: 27 points, 10 rebounds, 4 assists off the bench
Danny Granger: ONLY 10 points, 2 rebounds, 2 assists
Dwight Howard: ONLY 10 rebounds… that’s pretty much unheard of, right?
DEN @ MEM
Kenyon Martin: 5 steals, 3 blocks to go along with his 12 points, 10 rebounds, 4 assists
SAN @ UTA
Tim Duncan!: 24 points, 9 rebounds, 8 assists, 3 blocks, 2 steals
Mehmet Okur: 22 points, 17 rebounds
CHA @ LAL
Raymond Felton!!: 21 points, 11 rebounds, 9 assists
Boris Diaw: 23 points, 9 rebounds, 9 assists
Andrew Bynum: 6 blocks along with 24 and 14
Kobe Bryant: 38 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists (a ho-hum game for KB24)
:: THE CHARLOTTE BOBCATS: SURPRISING TOP TEAMS SINCE… WELL, 2009 ::
They knock off the Boston Celtics and now the Los Angeles Lakers — on their home court.
The Bobcats are 12-10 since the genius move of trading for Boris Diaw and Raja Bell from Phoenix. The Yahoo! recap says it best:
Boris Diaw had 23 points, nine rebounds and nine assists, reserve Shannon Brown scored five of his 14 points in the second overtime, and the Bobcats continued their surprising recent domination of the Lakers by beating them 117-110 on Tuesday night.
The win was the Bobcats’ fifth in their last six games against the Lakers, who got 38 points from Kobe Bryant before the Los Angeles star fouled out for the first time this season in the final minute of the first overtime.
“That was a heck of a win, it was a heck of a performance,” Bobcats coach Larry Brown said. “Shannon had to play when Gerald (Wallace) got hurt, and he played great.”
Wallace scored 15 points before leaving with 2:08 left in the fourth quarter after a flagrant foul by Andrew Bynum knocked him to the floor.
Phil Jackson, the Zen Master, was his usual relaxed, philosophical self about the loss:
Lakers coach Phil Jackson said he couldn’t explain why the Bobcats have had the Lakers’ number.
“You know, it’s the way the roll of the dice goes, and this was one of those games,” he said. “We were fortunate to get back in the game, they had to miss foul shots for us to get back in.”
The Bobcats missed five free throws in the final 2:08 of the fourth quarter.
“Sometimes justice prevails, and I think that happened tonight,” Jackson said.
A crazy night. High scores, a ridiculous double OT upset and some off-the-charts individual stat lines. No wonder we love this game…
Some Lakers-centric highlights follow below.
