Weekend Wake Up: Rockets’ Grit, Paul’s Excellence, ‘Nova’s Title, McKnight’s Rover?

Reality Bites for Mavs. Carl Landry’s mouth continues to take punishment: The collision above knocked him and Dirk Nowitzki out of Friday’s game, but while Nowitzki only had teeth embedded in his elbow, Landry lost a tooth --actually, a few -- in a game for the second time in three years and headed to an emergency room, not the locker room. The Rockets capitalized, and won in overtime, though Mark Cuban said he would protest the game for “multiple misapplications of the rules” in overtime.

He’s Baaack. It had been an underwhelming year for Chris Paul: He started strong, but could not get his team going, got hurt, and has been struggling to return to full speed since. Friday night sure looked like full speed: Paul poured in 30 points, had 19 assists, and snagged nine rebounds against the Nuggets. But, more importantly, the Hornets got the win, avenging first-round embarrassment from this spring.

Valiant Villanova. Hey, look, college football playoffs can be fun! Villanova won their first FCS Championship ever, and the school’s first men’s title in any sport since the basketball team’s magical 1985 NCAA final behind Matt Szczur’s 227 total yards and two touchdowns.

Land Rover, Land Rover, Call USC Over. Stop me if you’ve heard this before: A USC player’s luxe lifestyle might draw the interest of compliance officials or more. That’s the scenario produced by Joe McKnight driving a Land Rover that belongs to a Los Angeles businessman whose company owns a website promoting McKnight. Best detail of this story so far: McKnight told the Los Angeles Times that the Rover is his “baby mama’s boss’” vehicle. The school is looking into this now, but expect McKnight to leave L.A. if this situation generates even a threat of an NCAA investigation.

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