NBA schedule: Hawks beat Warriors, Pelicans stun Thunder

Kendrick Perkins quite literally butted heads with Tyreke Evans during the Thunder’s last-second 116-113 loss to the Pelicans Friday night, and the NBA has come down with a penalty. Perkins will serve a one-game suspension for this play:

Evans and Perkins received mere technicals during the game, but upon review, the league decided face-smashing -- “initiating and making head-to-head contact” -- warranted further punishment. Perkins will miss Oklahoma City’s nationally televised match-up with the Clippers on Sunday.

Mason Plumlee is in the Slam Dunk contest. Miles Plumlee just had one of the dunks of the year thrown directly through his face:

Gordon can slam, man! Look what he did to Joel Freeland in preseason!

Okay, AD: You have a fraction of a second to catch up to a Tyreke Evans lob thrown a bit too far ahead of you and slam it down with one hand on the fly. Sound good?

Good.

But Golden State couldn’t rally from there and was soon hit by a finale barrage of threes, a fitting end of a game between two of the best shooting teams in recent NBA history. Scott hit his third three of the game after darting to the top of the key at the end of the shot clock, and Korver nailed his fifth of the contest in a similar situation to give the Hawks a nine-point lead.

As the Hawks kept racking up victories, a school of thought developed on how to stop them. Rather then try to fight through every screen in a fruitless attempt to keep up with Korver off the ball or contain Teague in the pick and roll, some argued it made more sense to switch assignments and bait the Hawks into going at mismatches. At least this strategy prevents the Hawks from kicking their legendary flow into high gear.

Oh, just your run-of-the-mill off-balance 26-foot hurl with one arm while being fouled:

Football teams subbing in and out play by play get called for 12 men on the field all the time. Hockey teams subbing during live play get called for 6 men on the ice all the time. In hoops, where you’re only allowed to substitute at certain stoppages in play, teams tend to know how many guys are supposed to be on the court. The Magic forgot that for a second Friday:

That’s a technical foul, and an easy one. The game ended up going to OT, so the point they relinquished by forgetting how many guys are supposed to play was critical, but the Magic did win in OT.