- My favorite read of the day is easily Ben Polk on Ricky Rubio at the Classical. It’s almost as fun to read Polk describe Rubio’s passes as it is to watch them. I’ve read a lot on Rubio in the past month and no one else has attempted to explain Minnesota’s relationship with him in the way that Polk does here.
- One of my favorite stories last season was this Deadspin piece about Kendrick Perkins and the guys from Perkisabeast. Those two were at the Garden last night for an emotional homecoming. Bonus: Via ESPN Boston, a video of the Celtics’ tribute for Perk and the crowd’s standing ovation.
- Darnell Mayberry’s notebook from that game alerted me to a James Harden trend: he’s much worse in away games. Check the splits — he’s averaging 19.1 PPG at home, 13.9 on the road. He plays about the same amount of minutes and takes about the same amount of shots, but he is shooting 52.8% at home and 37.7% on the road. His assists go down from 4.3 to 2.4 when away from home, too. Harden is having a tremendous year; imagine if he becomes a more consistent road performer.
- You absolutely need to read the Jermaine O’Neal quote at the bottom of Eric Koreen’s Thunder story.
- There is so much in Britt Robson’s weekly power rankings. Did you realize Kevin Garnett had played more reglular season minutes than Larry Bird and Kevin McHale before arriving in Boston?
- Ethan will be happy about this: check out how well Kyrie Irving is playing, as well as the other reasons the Cavs are winning games. Also, here’s a story on his education on and off the court. A quote from Antawn Jamison, who used the word “unbelievable” to describe Irving’s early-season performance: “I sit there and think about my rookie year and feeling lost. Let’s be honest, this is a lockout season, too, so a lot of the things he would have learned and gotten comfortable with with more preseason games, it wasn’t there for him.”
- Via Beckley, NBA Playbook’s Brett Koremenos examines how Ryan Anderson killed the Knicks.
- More x’s and o’s: looking at the Lakers at Analyze the Offense.
- Fair warning, I’m going to link to lots of things written about Ivan Johnson if I keep finding them. Here’s a quote from Vince Thomas’s piece, which also includes the stuff you’ve likely already heard about him not watching basketball: “I hate losing. If I see another player not playing like me, I’m going to try to talk to them. And some players can’t handle how I talk to them. When I do talk to people, it’s an aggressive way on the court and some people can’t handle that.”
- Frank Vogel on Roy Hibbert: “There’s no softness to his game whatsoever.”
- If you don’t know who Gustavo Ayon is yet, I don’t blame you. But read up.
- We’ll end this with Lamar Odom’s emotional return to L.A.:
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