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Around the Rim: A pair of easy wins for the home teams



Suddenly Nelly’s Band-Aid is looking a lot
cooler.

1. Happy 56th birthday Coach D’Antoni, we’re got you a win!
The Suns did a much better job of getting into the paint against the Spurs in Game 2 and as a result Phoenix evened the series at a game a piece with a 101-81 victory. Steve Nash hooked up with Amare Stoudemire a whole bunch of times during the game but it was their second quarter contributions that helped Phoenix put together a 30-17 effort that opened up a solid halftime lead. The Spurs had won five consecutive playoff games in the Suns’ gym but nobody can put the blame on Tim Duncan who had a stellar game for SA. However, their will be lots of fingers pointing at the other Spurs’ stars. Tony Parker was just 5-of-14 from the field and Manu Ginobili went 3-for-9 for just six points. But the Suns still have to win a game in San Antonio in order to advance and that’s just where this series is heading next, Saturday to be exact. However, if Stoudemire gets another 27 points while Nash is dishing out 16 assists and scoring 20 then Phoenix could very easily leave from deep in the heart of Texas with 3-1 strangle hold on the series.

2. The Cavs and the have nots

LeBron James had a head cold before Game 1 and he managed to hit the game winner. In Game 2 he was feeling even better and it showed as the Cavaliers took a 2-0 lead in the series with a 102-92 victory. King James put up 25 points in the second half to finish with 36 and 12 assists as he is now poised in prime position to take his team to the Eastern Conference finals for the first time in a long time. For the second game in a row, Cleveland has obliterated New Jersey on the glass as the Nets got outrebounded by 17 (49-32) but James had virtually nothing to do with that stat as he only pulled down ONE board. What’s worse is that Jersey could only muster up three offensive rebounds compared to the 19 that Cleveland pulled down. Wait; you don’t thing those extra 16 offensive possessions might have had something to do with the Cavs 10 point win, do ya? Guess Lawrence Frank never got to the chapter about boxing out in the NBA 101 textbook.

3. The Captain and the King
In more Lebron James news…with his 36 point outing last night, LBJ scored at least 20 points in each of his 19th consecutive playoff games. That puts the King just eight games behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (27) for the record for 20+ point games to start a playoff career. It looks like the Cavs will advance past the Nets which will give him an opportunity to break the record in a long series against the Pistons most likely. The Detroit defense will probably focus in on James during the series, but holding LeBron under 20 points is like trying to keep Charles Barkley down to just two dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts during TNT’s double-header action. Either way you look at it, 19 just ain’t gonna be enough for these guys.

Tuesday’s Player of the Day: Tim Duncan @ Phoenix 35 min, 29 pts (FG: 12-20, FT: 5-7), 11 reb, 1 ast, 2 blk

Buzzer Beater: The NBA All-Rookie Team was released on Tuesday and, yawn, oh who cares? Wake us up when any of these guys actually become ballers. We’re sure that some of these guys will eventually pan out, Brandon Roy appears to have the most potential, but this has got to be one of the most boring draft classes in the history of the league. It’s pretty bad when you rookie class highlights are, uh, highlighted by Jorge Garbajosa’s broken leg and Tyrus Thomas’ stupid comments before All-Star weekend. We can almost guarantee that Kevin Durant and Greg Oden will provide more memorable moments as rooks next year than this entire sorry class did this year. Never thought we’d say this, but Joakim Noah could have really improved last year’s draft!

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