Every morning, we will give you five things from the night before in the NBA to start your day.
1: History made
There was plenty of anticipation entering Wednesday's game in Oakland. It was the only time the Heat came to town to play the surprisingly strong Golden State Warriors.
It had all the makings of a great matchup — a national television audience, two strong teams, plenty of superstars and a chance for history. The Warriors even defeated the Heat earlier this season and had just two losses to Eastern Conference teams. Well, really just one team — the Orlando Magic.
The Warriors were without Stephen Curry, who sprained his ankle in a morning shootaround. And that probably led to Miami running away either to a 92-75 victory. The score got extremely ugly for Golden State.
The fans in the Bay Area still got a show. LeBron James usually does that. But Wednesday was a special night.
James recorded his 5,000th assist early in the first quarter. He then became the youngest player to reach 30,000 points with a floating jumper in the second quarter. James scored 25 points, grabbed seven rebounds and dished out 10 assists in another complete and dominant performance from the world's best player.
Just makes you curious: What is next for the King?
2: Prodigal son arrives
Doc Rivers admitted before the game that Wednesday would be a bit weird. It would be, after all, the first time he hoped his son would lose a game he was playing in. It was something he had to prepare for by talking to coaches like George Karl who had the experience of coaching against their son.
Rivers might have bigger problems to worry about than what his son Austin is going through.
Austin Rivers scored eight points, making three of his six shots in 23 minutes. The Hornets had a balanced scoring attack to defeat the Celtics 90-78.
Rivers, Doc, that is, had some problems to solve after this game. Boston shot better than New Orleans, but gave up 11 offensive rebounds and committed 15 turnovers. That does not sound like classic Celtics basketball. Paul Pierce shot 5 for 16 and Rajon Rondo failed to reach 10 points.
The Celtics, who we thought had figured some things out about their team, took a bit of a step back in this game. Maybe the son's return was too much of a distraction for Doc.
3: HIGHLIGHTS!!!
Tony Parker plays past the whistle
Cousins deep to Evans
LeBron makes history
4: Line of the Night: Carlos Boozer — 36 points, 12 rebounds, 16/24 FGs
Carlos Boozer is often the subject of ire for Bulls fans for failing to live up to expectations. Is his performance against the Raptors in an overtime victory enough to ingratiate him a bit? Boozer dominated Toronto's thin front line and kept Chicago from falling to this spunky Toronto team. Of course, the fans might remember Luol Deng's game-winning shot at the end of overtime more.
5: You can quote me on that
This was a very big win for us. More mentally for the psyche after what we’ve gone through the last couple of weeks. . . . Early you could see that the energy was there. They took the attack to Brooklyn. You have to play that way when you’ve been struggling.
–Hawks coach Larry Drew after his team defeated the Nets 109-95 without a suspended Josh Smith.
They're a team that has a championship determination. Right now, they're playing on a mission.
–Nuggets coach George Karl before the Thunder defeated the Nuggets 117-97.
