Author: John Paulsen (Page 905 of 937)

Yep, you read that right. The NBA world was turned on its ear Tuesday night when the best team in the league lost to one of its cellar-dwellers, 99-98. But the upset is not as surprising as the team’s respective records would indicate – the Hawks have actually been playing pretty well of late, and their win against Detroit is their fourth win in the last five games.

Much of their success can be attributed to the play of Joe Johnson. Over the last 10 games, Johnson has averaged 24.1 points, 4.0 rebounds and 6.2 assists, while shooting a phenomenal .528 from the field. But the trade that brought Johnson to the Hawks this offseason still doesn’t look like all that good of a deal. The Hawks traded away Boris Diaw, who is having a breakout season with the Suns (11.6 ppg, 6.8 rpg, 5.5 apg), along with two conditional future first round picks.

One also wonders where the Hawks would be had they not passed on Chris Paul with the #2 overall pick in last year’s draft. Paul is having an outstanding year and is literally running away with Rookie of the Year honors at this point in the season. The thought of a Paul/Johnson backcourt has to have Hawks GM Billy Knight working furiously in his garage, trying to build a time machine.

As evidenced by the Kings’ 96-78 win over the Utah Jazz on Sunday, the team is suddenly playing much better defense. The catalyst in this transformation has been Ron Artest, who played in the game despite a nasty injury.

Even hobbled with a hip pointer that was so tender he could hardly walk Saturday, Artest made a difference, not so much in hawking ballhandlers, but just being out there.

Artest looked like a man trying to play ball while weighted down with a backpack loaded with bricks. It was painful to cut, to run, to crash the boards, and he grimaced and winced through most of his nearly 36 minutes on his way to nine points, four rebounds, two blocked shots and a steal.

But if Kings coach Rick Adelman wanted an example of guts and guile, of taking a season personally, he got it, wearing No. 93. “I don’t know how he played and fought through that,” Adelman said. “That’s the one thing I really like about him. He doesn’t care that he had nine points, but he had a real presence on the floor defensively, and he had a presence with the way he played. I was amazed.”

Artest, always good for an interesting quote, compared the Kings’ defensive habits to nicotine.

“It’s like when you smoke cigarettes, you got to take that nicotine patch and break that habit,” Artest explained. “We’ve got a habit of losing right now, (and) it can become a real bad habit. It wasn’t hard for Snoop Dogg to stop smoking marijuana.”

There is very litte evidence that marijuana is addictive, but I get Ron’s point. In the span of a few games, the Kings are already tougher and more stubborn on defense, and this will translate to wins. This is the good that comes from trading for Artest. The downside is that you just don’t know how long the fuse is on his tempermental personality. He is going to explode again – it’s just a matter of when.

Since they were going to lose Peja Stojakovic at the end of the year, it was a good move by Sacramento to bring Artest in. Being mired in last place in the Pacific Division, they had little to lose. With the win on Sunday, they are now only four games behind the Lakers for the 8th spot in the West. If they can get Brad Miller and Bonzi Wells back from injury, and can keep up this newfound defensive intensity, they just might make a run at the playoffs.