In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Tuesday.
Kobe Bryant scored 38 points and Andrew Bynum contributed 27 points and nine boards as the Lakers took a 2-0 lead on the Nuggets, winning 104-100. In downtown Los Angeles, things turned a bit ugly during the second quarter when suspended forward Metta World Peace was found in a city dumpster viciously elbowing a pile of old chicken nuggets. Eyewitnesses described the act as "almost definitely intentional."
For the remainder of the NBA season, The Triangle will be breaking down the biggest games of the week. Up first: Knicks-Mavs, a game in which Tyson Chandler returned to Dallas and faced the team he won a championship ring with last season. In Dallas's 96-85 victory, Dirk Nowitzki resumed his single-footed heroics and Carmelo Anthony gave more fuel to his growing army of critics.
What Was at Stake
Since the Knicks had amassed their full arsenal of weapons — Carmelo Anthony, Amar’e Stoudemire, Baron Davis, and Iman Shumpert returned from injury, and J.R. Smith came back from joyriding junkets down the Yangtze River — they’d gone 2-3, with losses to Boston, Miami, and New Jersey going into Tuesday's game. The two wins were in games that presented challenges as daunting as spotting someone in Los Angeles wearing a fedora: One was a trouncing of a depleted Atlanta team, the other a rout of the Cavs. (Even then, the Knicks trailed at the half by 12.)
The headlines say the Linsanity beat went on Tuesday night. New York’s final two possessions in its 90-87 win over the Raptors — in which Lin tied the game on a driving and-one and won it with a fearless 3-pointer with half a second remaining — will dominate the highlights for the next day or so, and conversations about Lin’s improbable run will accompany them.
The focus will again be on those gaudy final numbers, this time 27 points (for a record total of 136 through five starts) and 11 assists. But for Knicks fans, it should all pale in comparison to the real excitement of Tuesday night’s win. With Lin’s emergence, Amar’e Stoudemire’s return, and Carmelo Anthony still on the way, it was a partial glimpse of a Knicks team they could never have imagined before the season began.
In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Tuesday.
A source reported that the Detroit Tigers have agreed to a nine-year, $214 million deal with former Brewers slugger Prince Fielder. The hefty contract was a bitter pill to swallow for Tigers third baseman Brandon Inge, who is currently being paid in worthless foreclosed Detroit homes.
By Ben Detrick at
Kirby Lee/US Presswire Kirby Lee/US Presswire
Poor Toney Douglas. In the middle of last season, the Knicks were looking to acquire a backup point guard to ensure the diminutive reserve wouldn’t ever have any distribution duties. Six months later, he was asked to orchestrate the offense for a team with championship aspirations. To the surprise of far too many people, Douglas has failed spectacularly in a role he has repeatedly proven unfit to hold. Shocking.
Hey, remember that defunct professional basketball league we once called the "NBA?" Once upon a time, they had a playoffs and a Finals in which a champion was crowned. During the last season before the league disappeared, a team called the Dallas Mavericks beat another team called the Miami Heat to win the NBA's last title.
