Every night there are some stupendous, silly, stupid, or downright outlandish individual lines from around the lig. Doing Lines lets you know which one tops the list.
It's not every day that we get to see a player hit for 40 points or more in an NBA game. So on Sunday, when we had three different players meet or surpass the mark, it's definitely something worth discussing.
Especially when two of them did it in the same game.
Joe Johnson wants to believe that his Atlanta Hawks are on the verge of being contenders in the Eastern Conference. They should be getting close.
But going into the start of the NBA's regular season next week, Johnson isn't so sure anymore.
"Sometimes, I can't tell if we really want it,'' Johnson told FanHouse after his Hawks were embarrassed by a 37-point loss Friday night in their final exhibition game by the Orlando Magic. "It's discouraging. Sometimes, you never know what you're going to get from this team. And that won't work.''
Since arriving in Atlanta in 2005, Joe Johnson has been the resident star of the Hawks. Josh Smith draws the oohs and aahs with the highlight reel dunks and eye-popping stat lines, but Johnson has been the only player to really approach greatness, his finest moment coming in the 2007 playoffs, which we mentioned a few days ago.
It's long been expected that Johnson would sign an extension within the last few weeks, to lock him up with the Hawks for the forseeable future, without any question of him going elsewhere in the summer of 2010.
Every Tuesday this offseason, two of our NBA experts will go at it with a Debate in the Paint. This week, the topic is LeBron James and what he should do next summer when he becomes an unrestricted free agent.
LeBron James is no fool. Starting this season with uncertainty over his pending free agency would doom the Cleveland Cavaliers, bury them under a sea of unhealthy rumors.
Accentuated by Shaquille O'Neal playing alongside him, basketball would become more circus than serious in Cleveland this season.
All your oases are mirages. Word spread this afternoon that a ruling in the interminable fight within the ownership group of the NBA's Hawks and NHL's Thrashers had been handed down from the glorious mountaintop (or Maryland's Court of Special Appeals, at least). Sekou Smith of the Atlanta Journal-Constitutiontranslated the opinion, and came up with this:
"The partners are now placed back in the same position they were in before August 2005."
The judge in the case tossed out the ownership group's 2005 agreement on how to proceed with a buy-out of lightning rod Steve Belkin's share as "too vague." Belkin, you may remember, fought with the other seven owners of the teams over such vital issues as team plane access, arena tickets and public speaking engagements. Oh, also, the Joe Johnson trade.
The Atlanta Hawks are considered one of the NBA's rising teams, as evidenced by consecutive playoff appearances for the first time in 10 years. The Hawks, however, were easily swept in the Eastern Conference semifinals by the Cleveland Cavaliers, who spent four games exposing Atlanta's numerous flaws and weaknesses. The Hawks are approaching a critical time for their franchise, with Mike Bibby a free agent and third-year forward and former lottery pick Marvin Williams seemingly without a role.
Hawks legend Dominique Wilkins, the team's vice president of basketball, said the Hawks need two key components to challenge, Boston, Orlando and Cleveland for Eastern Conference supremacy.
Cherry Picking recaps the previous day's NBA playoff action.
Progress looks like this. Atlanta, long a laughingstock of the NBA, made the playoffs last season. This year, the Hawks advanced to the second round. Progress, right?
Well, from my seat it doesn't look like a whole lot of progress. More than offering new hope for tomorrow, the struggle against Miami followed by obliteration at the hands of Cleveland has pointed out Atlanta's specific deficiencies. The shortcomings are intrinsic to this roster, the problems part-and-parcel with the strengths. I fail to see how the Hawks can get much better from here.
Facing an 0-3 series deficit, the Hawks knew they had to come out swinging against the Cavaliers on Monday night, and to their credit, they actually did ... for a quarter or so.
Eventually the Cavs caught up, and even though this was by far the most competitive game of the series, the Cavs still cruised to an 84-74 victory, the eighth time in eight playoff games the Cavs won by double digits.
Cherry Picking recaps the previous day's NBA playoff action.
The Cavaliers are making a solid case for the NBA to institute a mercy rule. Not only have they won all six of their playoff games by double-digits, they've done so without allowing an opponent to score more than 85 points even once. They led the Hawks by 30 heading into the final quarter before finally taking their foot off the gas -- Cleveland's reserves gave back 10 points in the final quarter before the Cavs won by "only" 20.
Had Mike Brown allowed his starters to play the final quarter, it's possible the Cavs could have challenged Denver's 58-point margin in Game 4 of their first-round series with the Hornets, especially considering the Hawks lost Joe Johnson to a severely sprained ankle in the third quarter.
It's been five months since the Hawks last beat the Cavaliers -- their lone win in four tries in the regular season was on Dec. 13, 2008 -- but after watching the Cavs absolutely destroy the visitors from Atlanta in the first two games of the second round, it may as well be five years.
Cleveland won Thursday's game 105-85, but that doesn't even begin to convey how much they dominated the Hawks. The Cavs had a 30-point lead entering the fourth quarter, at which point Mike Brown pulled all of his starters. The Cavs improved to 6-0 in the postseason, winning every game by double-digits while holding their opponent to 90 points or fewer each time.
Cavaliers 105, Hawks 85: Recap | Box Score Cavs Lead 2-0 | Next Game: Saturday @ Atlanta, 8 PM ET
Every night there are some stupendous, silly, stupid, or downright outlandish individual lines from around the lig. Doing Lines lets you know which one tops the list.
Joe Johnson wants to believe that his Atlanta Hawks are on the verge of being contenders in the Eastern Conference. They should be getting close.
Since arriving in Atlanta in 2005, Joe Johnson has been the resident star of the Hawks. Josh Smith draws the oohs and aahs with the highlight reel dunks and eye-popping stat lines, but Johnson has been the only player to really approach greatness, his finest moment coming in the 2007 playoffs, which we mentioned a few days ago.
Every Tuesday this offseason, two of our NBA experts will go at it with a Debate in the Paint. This week, the topic is LeBron James and what he should do next summer when he becomes an unrestricted free agent.
All your oases are mirages. Word spread this afternoon that a ruling in the interminable fight within the ownership group of the NBA's Hawks and NHL's Thrashers had been handed down from the glorious mountaintop (or Maryland's Court of Special Appeals, at least). Sekou Smith of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution translated the opinion, and came up with this:
The Atlanta Hawks are considered one of the NBA's rising teams, as evidenced by consecutive playoff appearances for the first time in 10 years. The Hawks, however, were easily swept in the Eastern Conference semifinals by the Cleveland Cavaliers, who spent four games exposing Atlanta's numerous flaws and weaknesses. The Hawks are approaching a critical time for their franchise, with Mike Bibby a free agent and third-year forward and former lottery pick Marvin Williams seemingly without a role.
Cherry Picking recaps the previous day's NBA playoff action.
Facing an 0-3 series deficit, the Hawks knew they had to come out swinging against the Cavaliers on Monday night, and to their credit, they actually did ... for a quarter or so. 
Cherry Picking recaps the previous day's NBA playoff action.
It's been five months since the Hawks last beat the Cavaliers -- their lone win in four tries in the regular season was on Dec. 13, 2008 -- but after watching the Cavs absolutely destroy the visitors from Atlanta in the first two games of the second round, it may as well be five years.
