Basketball Daily

In the recent meeting between the visiting Houston Rockets and Los Angeles Lakers, backup center DJ Mbenga who rarely gets any playing time really showed off his talents.  DJ played only 9 minutes of game time and put up 8 points on 4 for 7 shooting, plus he had 2 key blocks and pulled down 1 board.  The game was tied at halftime with 44 a piece, but like most other nights, the dominant Lakers pulled away and grabbed a pretty easy victory with the final score ending at 93-81.  With this win, the Lakers hit the 60 mark on the year, putting them only one game behind Cleveland for the best record in the NBA.

The leading scorers for L.A. were Pau Gasol with 23 points, Kobe Bryant with 20 points and Derek Fisher with 15 points.  There were no other Lakers in double figures this night.  As a team, they handled the ball extremely well committing only 10 turnovers.  L.A. has clinched the number one spot in the Western Conference already, it’s just a race with the Cavaliers to see who will end up with the best record at the end of the regular season.

The Houston Rockets met up with the Phoenix Suns who are fighting by a thin thread to have a chance at getting in the Playoff birth that starts in a few short weeks.  This was an exciting game that had many runs throughout, but it was the Suns who came away with a victory putting on a nice show in the fourth quarter.  The two big men, Yao and Shaq battled each other all night, and they really showcased both of their abilities.  This time around O’Neal got the better of Ming by playing some tight defense and popping in some alley-oop dunks over the huge 7+ footer.  The final score of the game was 114-109.

The top scorers for the Suns were Steve Nash with 25 points and Grant Hill with 23 points.  All of the Phoenix starters were in double figures distributing the ball quite well to each other.  The high scorer off the bench with 7 points was Jared Dudley who brought energy and tenacity to the team.  Phoenix improves their year long record to 41 wins and 34 losses.

In a game where the Houston Rockets competed against the Utah Jazz, Charles Barkley’s pre-game analysis on TNT rang true when he stated that the Jazz would defeat the visiting Rockets by double digits.  Kenny “The Jet” Smith disagreed adamantly with him saying that Houston wouldn’t lose anymore games by 10 or more.  So the Round Mound of Rebound gets props as the Utah Jazz team played extremely well defeating the Rockets by 13 points with the final score ending at 99-86.

The top scorers for the Jazz were Deron Williams with 19 points and Ronnie Brewer with 17 points.  The high man off the bench was Paul Millsap with 15 points on 6 for 12 field goal shooting.  Utah really handled the ball well committing only 8 turnovers the entire game.  There season long record is now 44 wins and 26 losses.