The New Jersey Nets, perhaps emboldened by the team's abandonment of the Carmelo Anthony trade talks, or more likely fearful of their lives with Mikhail Prokhorov in town, knocked off the Utah Jazz in Newark by the score of 103-95. Brook Lopez played like a man with a gun barrel in his back, scoring 20 points as New Jersey held Utah to 42 percent shooting.
Jazz Vs. Nets: New Jersey Wins One For Mikhail Prokhorov, Fells Jazz
Turnovers nearly undid the Nets' good work. NJ had 18 turnovers in the game, a whopping six by Devin Harris, who delivered eight assists and 14 points. But Utah wasn't ever able to shoot well enough to make Jersey pay, despite 20-plus points from each of Al Jefferson and Deron Williams.
Andrei Kirilenko, a guest of honors of sorts given that the Nets held Russian Heritage Night for this game, shot just 2-9, but racked up 14 free throw attempts on his way to 17 points. The Nets have no players of Russian heritage, except perhaps Travis Outlaw, who could probably handle himself in a dark alley in Moscow. Outlaw scored 13.
While Prokhorov's pre-game press conference announcing the end of the Nets' Melo-drama certainly overshadowed the game, it's a nice win for the Nets. But more importantly, it's an awful loss for the Jazz, who dropped a Monday game at the Wizards. If you have five-game road trip that reads Washington-New Jersey-Boston-Philadelphia-L.A. Lakers, you'd better grab wins in D.C. and NJ. Utah didn't, and disaster awaits.
In other action:
Suns 106, Cavaliers 98: Phoenix needed 27 points from Grant Hill to put away Cleveland, the absolute worst team in the league. You might think to yourself, "Wow, congratulations to the Suns for their eight-point victory over the Cavs!" But then some jerk blogger tells out that Cleveland's last three losses were by 55, 22 and 28 points, and now that eight-point win doesn't seem like such a big deal.
Rockets 104, Knicks 89: Houston doesn't need help blowing up on offense, thank you, but they'll take it if the Knicks are just going to offer it. The Knicks, meanwhile, are struggling on offense. Just 14 assists on 35 makes as New York's starting five was outscored by about 15 points. The Knicks are just three games over .500.
Spurs 104, Raptors 95: DeMar DeRozan scored 28 points, but the Spurs' defense held just about everyone else down en route to a comeback home win. San Antonio trailed by 11 at halftime, which shows that the universe has some kinda sense of humor. Manu Ginobili shot just 4-13, but scored 23 points thank to 14 free throws. He also had seven assists.
Bucks 100, Wizards 87: The 'Zards are now 0-20 on the road. Flip Saunders wants you to know that it's because his team is really young. The NBA.com recap reports that 83 of the Bucks' 100 points were scored by players not on Milwaukee's roster last year. Injuries!
Warriors 110, Pacers 108: Monta Ellis is bad, bad man.
That shot had both power and balance. Nice bracelets, bro! Ellis scored 36 points in the win.
Clippers 126, Wolves 111: NEWSFLASH, neither of these teams can defend anyone, anywhere. The Clippers won the war, but Kevin Love may very well have won the battle with Blake Griffin over most awesomely weird but exciting power forward in the game. How? Love had 26 and 11, while Griffin had 29 and eight. That's right: Griffin's double-double streak is over! Griffin's streak ended at 27 games. Love's is still cranking, having now reached 29 games. After those two bros, the next longest streak this season is eight (Dwight Howard and Zach Randolph).
Blazers 94, Kings 90: It will be difficult to accurately explain how poorly the Kings played in crunch time. Sacramento led by eight with four minutes left in regulation, and Portland didn't even have to play out of its mind to win. The Kings just giftwrapped the game, and presented it with a smile. The Kings are just really bad at winning.
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