Scoreboard: The Knicks and Lakers Roll and the Bobcats Upset the Cavs
A quick take on what happened last night in NBA hoops.
Can the Bobcats win a playoff series?: Sure, it's just a January regular season game, but the Charlotte Bobcats' victory over Cleveland showed one thing: the Bobs, perennial NBA doormats, can play playoff-caliber basketball.
LeBron James got his, the Cavs shot a respectable 47 percent and only turned it over 12 times. On most nights, this adds up to a win for Cleveland. Sunday, Charlotte just simply played better. Right now, Charlotte is the eight seed in the East. They have no superstar or elite scorer, but they have rugged defenders at every position as well as several streaky shooters who can carry an offense when hot. Not only should they get in the playoffs, they have a chance for an upset.
Chris Bosh's farewell tour?: As noted earlier, Bosh became the Raptors' all-time leading scorer in a win over the Spurs. Still, the Raps are up and down — they just lost to a very depleted Boston team prior to beating the Spurs. Keeping Bosh happy and willing to re-sign would seem to be predicated on fixing that inconsistency.
The Knicks are rolling: Kind of. Nate Robinson followed up his 41-point effort with six on just 2-of-11 shooting against the Pacers Sunday, but the Knicks still won by 43. They've won 6-of-10 games and are hanging around (along with the rest of the terrible East), competing for that eighth playoff spot.
So ... how did Philly win?: Looking at the boxscore without peaking at the final, it would appear the Sixers got beat. No player scored more than 17 points. No Sixer had more than seven rebounds. Denver out-shot them 53 percent to 50 percent, yet Philly found a way to win despite monster games from Ty Lawson (24 points/9 assists) and Nene (24 points/15 rebounds). Denver played without injured stars Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billups.
The League has nothing for the Lakers: Kobe Bryant only scored 15, the Lakers played without Ron Artest and they still beat one of the top teams in the league, Dallas, by 35 last night. If LA is getting 24 points off the bench from Jordan Farmar, they aren't going to lose much.
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