There were 10 NBA games on Sunday, and they were all pretty competitive. In fact, eight were decided by five points or less.
The Boston/Orlando game went down to the wire. The Celtics were without KG, but they kept it close behind some clutch shooting by Ray Allen and terrific defense by Rajon Rondo (who looks like he’s going to be a player). With the game tied, the Magic had the ball, and whom did they go to for the final shot? Dwight Howard? No. Rashard Lewis? Nope.
They isolated Hedo Turkoglu, who is playing some great ball this season. He went off a ball screen and hit the game winner as time expired. Check out the highlights here.
Meanwhile, in L.A., it was Kobe vs. LeBron. The Lakers had a nine-point lead with 8:09 to play, but a 15-2 Cavs run was capped by a Larry Hughes jump shot with 4:27 to play. Kobe missed a good bit of the fourth quarter because he got into some ill advised one-on-one with LeBron. Phil Jackson tried to send his superstar a message and it looked like it got through. With 0:09 to play, Kobe passed on a game-tying three-point attempt, throwing the ball to Luke Walton, who failed to get a shot off. Walton elected to pass the ball back to Kobe as time expired. The announcers were lauding Walton’s “high basketball IQ” in the fourth quarter, but he looked pretty dumb on that play. LeBron had 41 while Kobe had 33. (See the fourth quarter highlights here.)
Lastly, my beloved, yet Michael Redd-less Bucks had an 11-point lead against the Wizards with 1:40 to play in the fourth quarter and the game went to overtime. Yes, you read that right. The Wizards went on a 11-0 run in the final 1:40, jumpstarted by back-to-back three-pointers by Deshawn Stevenson. In overtime, the Wizards led by four with 2:18 to play, but this time it was Mo Williams who hit back-to-back shots from long range to give the Bucks the win. Caron Butler scored a career-high 40 points, grabbed eight boards and had five steals, cementing him as my fifth All-Star starter in the East. Mo Williams had 25 points, five rebounds and five assists. (See the mislabeled highlights here.)
