Basketball Daily

Lebron and company headed into Atlanta to face off against the Hawks, and a pure and unadulterated battle took place.  The Cleveland Cavaliers looked to have a stranglehold for the majority of the game, but very late in the third quarter and all of the fourth it was Atlanta most of the way until the final few minutes of the game, where the Cavaliers pulled out a victory on the road with the final score ending at 88-87.

The leading scorer for the Cavaliers was of course “The King” himself, Lebron James with 26 points on 8 for 20 field goal shooting.  Right behind him was Moe Williams with 20 points and Zydrunas Ilgauskas with 17 points.  The only player to score off the bench was J.J. Hickson who contributed 6 points to the tally.  Cleveland improves their record to 46 wins and 12 losses on the season.

The Los Angeles Clippers met up with the Atlanta Hawks and played outstanding distributing the ball and controlling the game through all four quarters.  They actually played the best I have seen them play all year.  On the other hand, the Hawks had no air in their wings and played completely lethargic with a lack of enthusiasm and energy.  L.A. picks up a nice road win with a final score of 121-97 committing only 6 turnovers throughout the entire game.

The top 3 scorers for the Clippers were Al Thornton with 31 points, Zach Randolph with 25 points and Marcus Camby with 16 points.  All of the starters were in double figures.  Off the bench, Ricky Davis finally heated it up with 12 points on 4 for 6 shooting from three point range.  The Clippers record on the season is a disappointing 12 wins and 39 losses.

The Phoenix Suns once again squeaked out a very close game down the wire.  Lately, the Suns have been getting off to monster leads but as the games roll on they start to falter.  In this game they were up 19 points and many other times had double digit leads, but the Atlanta Hawks stormed back only to come up just a little short in the last few minutes of play.  The Suns took the win with a final score of 107-102.

The high scorer for the Suns was Shaq with 26 points.  Steve Nash had 23 points and Amare Stoudemire had 17 points.  Off the bench Leandro Barbosa came up huge with 22 points in only 23 minutes of play time.  Matt Barnes also helped out the the team with two key 3 pointers in the fourth quarter.  The Suns record now is 22 and 13.