Posts Tagged ‘Chauncey Billups’

Kevin Love, how do you rate on the Horry scale?

January 21, 2012  ·  1:52AM

by Micah Hart

The Horry Scale has been quiet since Kevin Durant beat the Mavs in the season’s first week. But with Kevin Love and Blake Griffin staging a battle between the game’s top two young power forwards (and U.S. Olympic hopefuls), it was only fitting that the game would come down to a single play by one of them. In this case, that one was Love.

For those that are new around these parts, the Horry scale examines a game-winning buzzer-beater (GWBB) in the categories of difficulty, game situation (was the team tied or behind at the time), importance (playoff game or garden-variety Clippers-Nets game), and celebration, and give it an overall grade on a scale of 1-5 Robert Horrys.

This is our first Horry entry of the new calendar year, so let’s see how Love rates:

Difficulty

All in all not a particularly difficult shot, although he was a couple feet behind the 3-point line. Give Minnesota credit, they did a terrific job screening for Love so he could get a free look at the rim. Love, who shoots pretty well from deep (36.1 percent this season), calmly drained the trey before any Clipper got near him and the ballgame was over.

Game Situation

Ricky Rubio was 0-10 from the field up until the last 20 seconds, at which point he hit a 3-pointer from the corner to tie the game at 98. After Chauncey Billups missed a layup and chance to be the hero for a second straight game for the Clippers, Love got the rebound and called timeout with 1.5 seconds to play. Plenty of time as it turned out for him to square his body for the easy 3-pointer and the win.

Importance

This was actually a pretty big win for the Timberwolves (how often do you see that written about a game against the Clippers?). Minnesota began the season 3-7, but have rallied with four wins in its last five to get to 7-8, a game below .500. We thought they might have enough talent to compete for a playoff spot, and a win in a close game like this will help their cause immensely, both in the standings and in the confidence department.

Celebration

I love Love’s reaction to hitting this shot — very Maximus-esque. Any time a young team hits a shot like this, you know they are going to go bananas. Good stuff all around.

Grade

3 Horrys. This one happened in a tie game, and the shot itself was pretty easy, but given the battle between Love and Griffin, plus the late-game redemption for Rubio that led to the game-winner, I have to bump it up a notch. May all of their future battles end in similar fashion.

What do you think?

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Three for all: L.A. Clippers

January 20, 2012  ·  8:19PM

by Micah Hart

As everyone knows by now, the compressed NBA schedule will force every team to play three games in three nights at least one this season (42 times in total). With only 66 games to stake a claim to a playoff spot or seed, how teams perform during these killer slates could have a large impact on how their seasons turn out.

With that in mind, we’re going to keep track of each of the 42 three-plays to see which teams take advantage and which teams fall apart. Up next, the L.A. Clippers, who played three straight from Jan. 16-18.

The Clippers have been the biggest story of this young season what with their acquisition of Chris Paul. So isn’t it ironic that as they enter their toughest stretch of the season to date that they’d have to do so without CP3, who strained his hamstring against the Lakers this past Saturday?

Game 1: Clippers 101, Nets 91 - No Paul no problem when your opponent is the Nets. Chauncey Billups slid nicely into the starting PG role and scored 20 points. Also, Blake Griffin did this to Kris Humphries, easily the most embarrassing thing to happen to Humphries in the last few months. Cough. 2 points (1 for win, 1 for +10 margin)

Game 2: Jazz 108, Clippers 79 - No real surprise here, as the Clippers have lost 16 straight in Salt Lake City. No Clip scored more than Caron Butler‘s 14 points. -1 point

Game 3: Clippers 91, Mavericks 89 - This is why the Clippers picked up Mr. Big Shot when the Knicks put him on waivers, to take and make shots like the game-winner against the Mavericks. Tough week for Dallas in the City of Angels; they lost both games at Staples on a last-second three-pointer. 5 points

A final total of 6 total points for LAC, which isn’t too shabby considering they were playing without Mr. Paul. Oh, and they were also without my fellow Murrah HS alum Mo Williams, which I expected to hurt them way worse. But I’m a homer like that.

Up next: The New Jersey Nets play three straight Jan. 21-23 when they host Oklahoma City and Charlotte, then hit the road to face the Bulls in Chicago.

Three for all Scoreboard:
– Chicago Bulls (13 points)
– OKC Thunder (12 points)
– Atlanta Hawks (8 points)
– Houston Rockets (7 points)
– L.A. Clippers (6 points)
– Philadelphia 76ers (6 points)
– Denver Nuggets (6 points)
– Orlando Magic (5 points)
– L.A. Lakers (3 points)
– Charlotte Bobcats (3 points)
– Sacramento Kings (2 points)
– Minnesota Timberwolves (2 points)
– Toronto Raptors (1 point)

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Arron Afflalo, how do you rate on the Horry Scale?

February 11, 2011  ·  11:16AM

by Micah Hart

Give it up to TNT’s schedulers.  Two straight weeks with GWBBs on a Thursday night game — one more and people are going to start thinking we’re the WWE or something.

When I woke up this morning and heard the Nuggets had won on a last-second shot, I assumed Carmelo Anthony had the honors. Or Chauncey Billups. Or J.R. Smith. But no, the Nuggets snapped the Mavericks’ 10-game winning streak courtesy of Arron Afflalo, which may seem surprising. But given that he scored 19 of his 24 points in the fourth quarter last night, it makes sense that Denver would consider feeding the hot hand. Afflalo’s quietly become quite an impact player in Denver this season, hasn’t he?

Before we get to the breakdown, it gives me great pleasure to introduce a new addition the Horry Scale breakdown — a comment from Big Shot Bob himself, as he was nice enough to give his take on Afflalo’s game-winner.

Horry’s take: “First and foremost I have to give it up to Afflalo for having the guts to take the shot. Chauncey was covered pretty well on the play so he had to give it up, and Arron made himself available. The shot itself wasn’t that difficult, I give it like a 3 — he makes a nice move on the defender and goes left, which is the way most shooters like to go if you’re right-handed.

It’s the first game-winner of Afflalo’s career, so I give him credit for that.”

* * *

How awesome is that? We hope to get Horry’s thoughts on each GWBB from here on out. Now let’s get onto the breakdown.

Once again, the Horry scale examines a shot  in the categories of difficulty, game situation (was the team tied or behind at the time), importance (playoff game or garden-variety Clippers-Nets game), and celebration, and give it an overall grade on a scale of 1-5 Robert Horrys.

The full investigation after the jump:

(more…)

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Good, but no good

November 17, 2010  ·  3:48PM

by Micah Hart

This shot didn’t count, but it doesn’t mean it’s not worth seeing.

Sorry Chauncey — the rules are the rules.

H/T TBJ

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