Happy New Year!! Hope you are alive and well (oh! and sober…) after the festivities of the holidays and sticking to your resolutions like you promised yourself.
However, not everyone had the luxury of taking a breather like you did. Halfway through the 2015/2016 Regular Season, the 30 teams of NBA hardly had any time to celebrate the New Year, having to prepare for game after game. Each team will have to focus on improvement and consistency in the 2016 half of the season if they are to secure a spot in the Playoffs.
Raptors comeback in 4Q to beat the Hornets
DeMar Rozan and the Toronto Raptors found their groove just in time to make on the Charlotte Hornets. DeRozan had 23 points while Kyle Lowry added 18 points and a season high 11 assists as they pulled out a 104-94 victory on the Hornets on Friday night. Toronto entered the final quarter trailing by eight points and took the lead for the first time since the second quarter on a 3-pointer from Lowry with 8:30 to go. With the score tied at 94 about four minutes later, the Raptors ran off the final 10 points of the game — back-to-back 3-pointers from Lowry and DeMarre Carroll helped seal the win.
O.J. Mayo, Marcus Morris and Paul George fined for Saturday outbursts
Milwaukee Bucks guard O.J. Mayo has been fined $25,000 for “aggressively pursuing a game official and failing to leave the court in a timely manner” after being ejected for receiving two technical fouls with just over four minutes remaining in the first quarter of Saturday’s visit to Target Center to take on the Minnesota Timberwolves.
O.J. wasn’t the only little teapot who boiled over on Saturday. Forwards Marcus Morris and Paul George got into a brief but spirited kerfuffle at the close of the Indiana Pacers’ 94-82 win over the Detroit Pistons, during which George scored 21 of his 32 points in the fourth quarter to seal the deal in a physical game. Morris received a $15,000 fine for shoving Paul George, while George got dinged $10,000 “for contributing to the altercation.”
Butler’s 2nd half 40 breaks MJ’s record, pushes Bulls past Raptors.
With a little over 4 1/2 minutes remaining in the first half of the Chicago Bulls’ Sunday visit to Canada to take on the Toronto Raptors, Bulls shooting guard Jimmy Butler caught a shot in the chops from Raptors forward DeMarre Carroll on a drive to the basket that ended with a layup to put Toronto up 10. The ward-off elbow busted Butler’s lip, spilling blood on the Air Canada Centre court and forcing the All-Star to head back to the locker room to get stitched up. The Raptors sure wish he’d stayed back there. After scoring just two points on 1-for-4 shooting in the first half, Butler absolutely exploded after halftime, pouring in 40 points in the third and fourth quarters to lead the Bulls to a 115-113 comeback win. That 40-point second half stands as a new Bulls franchise record for the highest-scoring half in team history, when you remember who used to line up at the two in Chicago, and whose name now slots in below Butler’s on this particular line in the team record book: Michael Jordan(1989): 39 points
Williams beats the buzzer in second overtime, Mavericks vs. Kings.
After playing the host Dallas Mavericks to a 104-104 tie through regulation and the first overtime on Tuesday night, the Sacramento Kings took control of the second extra period with nine points from DeMarcus Cousins in the opening 2:30. A Rudy Gay three-pointer with 1:20 remaining gave the visitors a 116-107 lead, and it looked as if the Kings were set to pick up a solid road win. Naturally, the NBA’s most unpredictable outfit ended up going scoreless over the rest of the contest .Deron Williams made a lay-up for the Mavs soon after Gay’s triple, and Dirk Nowitzki nailed a three-pointer with 26 seconds on the clock to make it a two-point contest. Rick Carlisle took a risk in instructing his team not to foul on the Kings’ final possession, but the gamble paid off with Darren Collison shooting an airball to trigger a shot clock violation and hand the Mavericks a chance at forcing another overtime or grabbing a win in 2.3 seconds. Williams, not a certainty to play Tuesday after leaving Saturday’s loss to the New Orleans Pelicans with a hamstring strain, gave the American Airlines Center crowd exactly what it wanted. He was exactly the right amount of patient and drained the shot for the dramatic 117-116 win.
Green and Thompson stand out for Golden State; Record three straight wins with Curry in and out.
Stephen Curry’s nagging left leg contusion has made the MVP favorite a slightly less overwhelming figure for opposing defenses, but that doesn’t mean the Golden State Warriors offense looks especially vulnerable. With Curry out or hobbled, the Warriors other two likely All-Stars have stepped up to take on more of the offensive burden. Draymond Green recently drew plaudits for becoming the first Warrior to log three consecutive triple-doubles since 1960, a mark of his maturation into one of the most valuable players in the league. While that streak ended in Tuesday’s road game against the Los Angeles Lakers, Klay Thompson more than picked up the slack. Thompson finished with 36 points (12-of-22 FG, 6-of-12 3FG, 6-of-6 FT) in 34 minutes to end the Warriors romp, 109-88. Yet Curry managed to garner attention even in a relatively nondescript 17-point, six-assist performance. Finishing a lay-in several minutes into the third quarter, Curry was challenged by Roy HIbbert and sustained inadvertent contact to his left leg, aggravating the injury that kept him out of two games and cut short another last week.
Durant returns with double-double against Grizzlies after one game absence
Oklahoma City’s star forward had 26 points and a season-high 17 rebounds after missing the previous game with a sprained right big toe, and the Thunder beat the Memphis Grizzlies 112-94 on Wednesday night.
Spurs bench combine for 70 points, drub Jazz
The San Antonio Spurs, meanwhile, played without two starters in Tony Parker and LaMarcus Aldridge, yet coaxed that type of production — 70 points — from their bench alone in steamrolling the depleted Utah Jazz 123-98. The victory marked the club’s ninth by 25 points or more, which is three times as many such wins as any other team in the NBA. This win at home extended their perfect home record to 21-0, and their winning streak to six game
