Friday Night In The NBA

The race for the playoffs is heating up and Friday was a great of night of basketball featuring marquee matches-up of playoff contenders. The race is close in the West with only 3 games separating 1st place in the West and 5th place. Its going to go down to the wire and if any team falls asleep they could mess around and find themselves go for 1st or 2nd to 6th in a heartbeat and lose (the pivotal) home court advantage in the playoffs.

The first game we'll examine is The Lakers and The Hornets. The Lakers have played well against the Hornets all season, but yesterday was a different story. Laker Center Paul Gasol went down early in the first after rolling his ankle on teammate Radmanovic's foot. Gasol was helped off the court and diagnosed with an ankle sprain and would miss the rest of the game. Teammate Lamar Odom picked up the slack in the first half and the game was close going into half. But when the 3rd quarter rolled around the Lakers had trouble keeping the momentum rolling and MVP candidate Chris Paul took over! Paul ended the game with 27 points and 17 assists, Chandler grabbed 20 board and Kobe was his usual unstoppable self with 37 points. The Hornets are just coming off a Big win against the defending Champs the Spurs the other night (a beat down) and with this victory over the Lakers they look like a dangerous team going to playoffs.
LAKERS (45-20) 98 , HORNETS (44-20) 108

Another great match-up was The Detroit Pistons and The San Antonio Spurs, a rematch of the NBA finals a few years back (record low rating that year). 2 defensive teams slugging it out, The Spurs are coming of a 25 point beat down by The Hornets and were looking to bounce back against Detroit. But Detroit looking to prove they are still the team to beat in the East had their own plans for the defending Champs. In a defensive knock down drag it out game the Pistons were victorious and are just 3 wins a way from another 50 win season.

SPURS (44-21) 80, PISTONS (47-18) 84

The amazing Rockets, yeah I said it the Amazing record-setting Rockets went into Friday looking to do what only one other NBA team has ever done, win 21-straight games. And lucky for them they were going up against the struggling Bobcats. The Bobcasts have shown signs of life this season but at this point the red hot rockets were too much for them.
Tracy McGrady has 30 points as the Rockets rolled. This win ties them with Los Angeles at 45-20 and sets up a great match-up Sunday in Houston.
BOBCATS (24-41) 80, ROCKETS (45-20) 89

The Utah Jazz, a surprise team last year, who made it all the way to the Western Conference Finals are right in the thick of things in the tight West Playoff races this year. Friday they had a match up the Celtics. The Eastern Conference leading Celtic have already clinched a playoff birth by racking up an NBA best 51 wins and dropping only 13 games this season. The Celtics have dominated the west for most of the season but not tonight. A Utah team just a game or so out of first place in their division stepped into the TD Banknorth Garden Arena focused and with a game plan and they executed. You could just see it from tip off that this Utah team had something to prove in this game and Deron William, Carlos Boozer and company took it to the Owners of NBA's Best Record, ALL Night Long. Williams finished with 32 points and 8 assists and Boozer had a double double scoring 17 points and grabbing 12 rebounds. Garnett did his numbers but Allen and Pierce really struggled both scoring under double digits, Allen left the game early after a fall in the 1st quarter resulting in a bruised heal.

UTAH (44-23) 110, CELTICS (51-13) 92