- The almost 37-year old Steve Nash has been revitalized in the early season. Nash tallied 21 points and 20 assists in a Phoenix win against the the Sixers last night. Without Shaq holding down the offense, Nash is averaging 12.9 assists through 8 games and has had games of 14, 17, 20, and 20 assists, all wins. The Suns are off to a 7-1 start.
- Tony Parker rolled his ankle during a drive to the basket in the second quarter against Portland and missed last night’s game against Toronto. Parker is listed as as day-to-day and will likely play in Wednesday’s matchup against the Dallas Mavericks.
It took a little longer than I expected, but Manu Ginóbili has finally showed how dynamic a player he can be. With Tony Parker nursing an injury and Tim Duncan out, Manu scored 36 points in 32 bench minutes in a uncharacteristic high-scoring 131-124 Spurs win over Toronto. The 6-6 small forward from Argentina shot 8-15 from the field, 6-8 from three, and 14-15 from the free-throw line. He also added 8 assists, 4 rebounds, and 4 blocks.
- Toronto Raptors guard José Calderón had 9 assists vs. San Antonio and passed the 2,000-assist mark in his 298th NBA game. The Spanish guard is Toronto’s all-time assist leader.
- In the Mav’s 114-107 loss to the Hornets, French rookie Rodrigue Beaubois made his only start of the season and scored Dallas’ first 9 points, but the 21-year old, 6-0 speedster would end the game with those 9 points in 13 minutes of play – both career highs thus far.
- Maybe it’s the 10 pounds of extra muscle, but we just don’t see Andrei Kirilenko flying around and swatting shots from the weakside anymore. I checked his career stats and the last few seasons has seen AK-47′s block totals significantly decrease, from six straight seasons of roughly 2-3 blocks a game, to about 1.5 the last few seasons. What gives?
- Jonas Jerebko, the first Swedish NBA player, has started the last four games for the Detroit Pistons, and has increasingly shown improvement in averaging roughly 22 minutes, 6 points, 5 rebounds, and 1.3 blocks during that span.
- After coming out blazing, Danilo Gallinari has slowed his long distance roll. Gallinari had started the season by hoisting 36 three-pointers in his first three games on his way of easily shattering the record for attempts AND makes, but the last five games has seen Gallinari shoot just 25 threes, and converting at a lower percentage; hitting 40% or 10-25. Gallinari is on pace to set the NBA record for most threes made in an NBA season with 287 , which would break Ray Allen’s record of 269 made threes in a season.
- Omri Casspi is looking like the steal of the draft thus far. Though he has been inconsistent, the 6-8 Israeli has shown flashes of brilliance; most recently in a win over Golden State. Casspi put up 12 points, 10 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 steals in career-high 36 minutes of play. For the season he is shooting 57.1% from the field, 53.3% from distance, but just 16.7% or 2-12 from the free throw line?
- Speaking of Casspi, last week we reported on the first meeting of an Israeli player and an Iranian player, Hamed Haddadi, in an NBA game. It never happened as Haddadi was deactivated before the game. There was speculation that the Iranian center was kept out because of politics, but the 7-2 center hasn’t played in the last 4 games for Memphis, squashing any likelihood of international drama.
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Entry Posted on Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 at 7:30 am
and is filed under Dallas Mavericks, Detroit Pistons, New York Knicks, Phoenix Suns, Sacramento Kings, San Antonio Spurs, Utah Jazz, memphis grizzlies.
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[...] proof that Danilo Gallinari can do more than just shoot three-pointers. Case in point against the Atlanta Hawks, Gallinari picked off a cross-court pass, motored up court [...]
November 12th, 2009 at 12:17 pm