Basketball Daily

The Dallas Mavericks met up against the home town Hornets team, where New Orleans put on a clinic in the third quarter and busted the game wide open and literally cruised to the finish line with a very easy win.  The Hornets have now won 6 straight games and are 8 for 10 since the All-Star break.  The final score ended at 104-88.

Chris Paul had 27 points on 10 for 18 field goal shooting along with 15 assists.  David West, Tyson Chandler and Rasual Butler scored a combined 47 points to help spark the team to victory.  The team as a whole shot 56% and only committed 10 turnovers.  The Hornets improved their record to 38 wins and 22 losses on the season.

The Dallas Mavericks faced off against the McGrady-less Houston Rockets on Friday night.  Tracy supposedly will miss the remainder of the season due to his knee.  This is really a big blow to the Houston team who had high hopes coming into the season with the pickup of Ron Artest.

A few days back Rafer Austin was sent to the Orlando Magic and the young Aaron Brooks picked up the starting role at the PG position.  He really showcased his talents in this game scoring 19 points with 8 assists, and knocking down two crucial 3’s in the final minutes of the game that propelled the Rockets to victory with the final score ending at 93-86.

The top three scorers for the Rockets were Yao Ming with 22 points, Aaron Brooks with 19 points and Ron Artest with 17 points.  It is unknown how well the Rockets will fair without McGrady and Austin.  Either way they looked very good in this game and improved their record this season to 34 wins and 21 losses.

The ailing Utah Jazz franchise this year has had a myriad of injuries all season long, but they are hanging in there and in their latest game with the Dallas Mavericks, the Jazz took it too them and literally crushed them by almost 30 points.  The whole 4th quarter was garbage time as their was no hope for the Mavs.  The final score ended up at 115-87.

Leading the way for the Jazz was Deron Williams with 34 points on 11 for 20 shooting.  All of the Jazz starters were in double figures as everyone got off against the defensive-less Dallas team.  Utah now improves their record to 28 wins and 22 losses.  The Jazz, Mavericks and Suns will be fighting all year for that #8 Playoff spot in the West.  Hopefully, Carlos Boozer will come back from his injury soon to give the Jazz team a fighting chance to make it.