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It took quite some time for Amare Stoudemire to regain his form as a dominant force on the basketball court since suffering a back injury two postseasons ago.
The power forward was never quite right last season, and missed a good chunk of this season due to a knee issue that still has him playing on a minutes restriction – recommended by the team’s doctors.
When Kevin Garnett came into the NBA as the fourth preps-to-pros phenom, he was a gangly, 6-11, 220 pound player with unmistakable skills and a burning passion and insatiable appetite for the game of basketball.
He entered the league when Patrick Ewing was a dominant player, and last night his 15 points against New Orleans moved him past Patrick Ewing for 16th on the all-time scoring list.
It’s a harsh way of making comparisons (although Shaquille O’Neal would be proud), but former player and current MSG Network analyst Wally Szczerbiak was quite frank about Dwight Howard, whose free throw shooting has been comically bad in his first season with the Los Angeles Lakers.
It’s no secret that the big man’s biggest struggle comes from the stripe, but over the past couple of seasons, he has become a true liability. Howard leads the league in free throw attempts with 11.3 per game, but has converted on a paltry 46.8 percent of those tries. Although this doesn’t quite tell the whole story of a game, there is no question that all those misses have cost the Lakers a number of games. Lets take a look at some of his worst performances of the season:
LeBron James had a solid game with 30 points, nine rebounds and four steals, but Dwyane Wade had yet another off-night, needing 19 shots to score 19 points and often settled for jumpers rather than attacking the basket relentlessly, the way Russell Westbrook did in the second half of the game. Wade is now shooting 40.2 percent over his last six games, and the Heat have gone 2-4 in that stretch. Simply put, he will have to find a way to be much more assertive offensively in order for Miami to have a better shot in this series.
For Chris Kaman’s Tweet of the Night, click here.
James Park is a regular contributor and blogger for SheridanHoops.com. You can follow him on twitter @nbatupark.
Wally Szczerbiak, a teammate of Kevin Garnett for seven seasons with the Minnesota Timberwolves, had a surprising take on the performance of the Big Ticket, who has been scorching hot in these playoffs but had a rare off-game in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals against the Heat, needing 18 shots to score 18 points.
The man they call Wally World is certainly entitled to his opinion, but it’s safe to say, not many could have seen this one coming from him. Does he have some unknown animosity towards Garnett to get off his chest, or was he simply speaking the truth? He certainly couldn’t have been referring to what Garnett has done this season, because the center has averaged 19.5 points and 10 rebounds in his last 14 playoff games and has hit a countless number of clutch shots during that stretch.
Interesting to note is the fact that Szczerbiak was also a teammate of LeBron James for two seasons, but no shots were fired at the King, who had some key misses down stretch, including the game-winning shot attempt over Rajon Rondo at the end of regulation.
After taking a beating for that tweet, Szczerbiak followed up his thoughts with this:
For yesterday’s blog, click here.
For Tuesday’s blog, click here.
James Park is a regular contributor and blogger for SheridanHoops.com. You can find him on twitter @nbatupark.
