Baseline to Baseline recaps: Night of the offensive outbursts

Welcome to PBT’s roundup of yesterday’s NBA games. Or, what you missed while thinking about what a jump to hyperspace in the Millennium Falcon would really be like…

Lakers 104, Bucks 88: Kobe Bryant and Dwight Howard each had 31 points, but the real key for Los Angles was their defense — Kobe was on Brandon Jennings, Earl Clark on Monta Ellis most of the way, and the Bucks backcourt shot 10-of-30 on the night. We broke it all down just for you.

Nuggets 115, Trail Blazers 111 (OT): This was hands down the most fun game of the night. Ty Lawson had 24 points and 12 assists for Denver, LaMarcus Aldridge looked like an All-Star again with 25.

Denver led 97-90 with 2:30 left in the game but six of it back quickly and we had a 1-point game with a minute to go. Lawson drove then hit a quick pull up elbow jumper to make it 99-96. The Blazers got to Aldridge at the elbow extended, he drove into paint 12 feet from the rim and drew three defenders, one of whom was Andre Miller helping off Wes Mathews — kick out pass and a clean-look three for Mathews and it was tied. After that Iguuodala tried pretty much the same elbow pull up that Lawson hit and missed it. Portland had the last shot and it was a Lillard difficult 12-foot, fade-away, fading left contested shot that missed. And we had OT.

Which had its own drama and was back and forth at the end. A Danilo Gallinari three up against the shot clock had Denver up two with 1:08 left. A sweet back-down then fade-away by Aldridge tied it. A ridiculous JaVale McGee catch then reverse dunk alley-oop (it’s hard to describe) put Denver up two. Aldridge drove the lane, drew the foul and hits two free throws to tie it 111-111 with 32 seconds left. Then drive-and-kick by Iguodala gave Wilson Chandler a decent look at a corner three. He drained it. Portland tried to get three but Nuggets did a good job defending, took away the easy looks, and it was a miss. Lawson fouled and with free throws that was the ball game.

Clippers 117, Rockets 109: Houston puts a lot teams in a precarious position by playing at the league’s fastest pace, but the chameleon Clippers showed once again that they can adapt to any style. Although the Rockets were passable offensively, their perimeter defense left an awful lot to be desired. With Jeremy Lin unable to stay in front of anyone and James Harden doing an awful lot of standing around, both Willie Green (15 points) and Jamal Crawford (30 points) recorded season-highs in points.

Getting out and running is great, but it’s a whole lot harder to do when you’re constantly taking the ball out of your own net.
—D.J. Foster

Nets 113, Raptors 106: This makes seven wins in a row for Brooklyn, or what we like to call the “P.J. Carlesimo wants to keep this job” run. Toronto has been playing well of late also and this one was relatively close for two-and-a-half quarters before an 11-3 Brooklyn run gave them control of the game they would not let go of. The Nets got a balanced attack with Brook Lopez, Deron Williams and Joe Johnson combining for 64 points. Plus they got a nice boost from Mirza Teletovic off the bench.

Kyle Lowry, who left the game in the second quarter after spraining an ankle, came back in the fourth with a vengeance scoring 19, but it wasn’t enough.

Pacers 103, Bobcats 76: This was another vintage Pacers win — their suffocating defense locked the other team down while they scored enough points to win. The Bobcats shot 37.4 percent for the game against Indy. Meanwhile, Roy Hibbert woke up to the tune of 18 points as the Pacers one getting the ball inside to the tone of 52 points in the paint. Paul George hit two key threes when the Pacers started to pull away at the end of the first.

Hornets 111, 76ers 99: The Sixers have lost eight of 10 now. What’s the problem? Well, a few things, but it starts with they don’t have a lot of talent of the roster. Philly got 29 points from Jrue Holiday and after that the drop off is pretty steep.

Greivis Vasquez led the Hornets with 23 points and nine assists, meanwhile Eric Gordon dropped 19. One fun stretch was when the Sixers Nick Young scored all of his 14 points in the first six minutes of the fourth quarter. Not that it mattered, the Hornets remained in control.