NBA Friday: Rockets crush Warriors; Celtics start winning streak

The Charlotte Bobcats, at 9-11, are a legitimate Eastern Conference playoff team. This is a sentence that is not an exaggeration or overstatement. They are playing tight defense and are squeezing out just enough offense to hover around .500. Plus, the East is pretty awful.

That right there is an angry Wall doing angry things to an innocent rookie. It is illegal in 23 states.

Both the Warriors and Rockets came into the game as two of the best three-point shooting teams in the NBA, but they combined to shoot just 8-of-44 (18.2 percent) from downtown. The Warriors, as a team, shot just 35.5 percent from the field and committed 22 turnovers -- a recipe for disaster.

Stephen Curry led the Warriors with 22 points but committed eight turnovers and received little help from his teammates. Harrison Barnes was the next highest scorer with 14 points and Klay Thompson, who came in averaging 21.3 points per game, scored just five points.

The Denver Nuggets’ valiant rally efforts fell short as the Boston Celtics closed out the fourth quarter to beat the visitors, 106-98. Denver trailed by as much as 27 and cut the lead to three in the third quarter but was never able to get over the hump against the scrappy Celtics.

Ty Lawson led the Nuggets’ comeback efforts but tweaked his hamstring early in the fourth quarter and didn’t return to the game. He finished with 20 points. Denver’s offense was unable to maintain its pace in his absence.