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Los Angeles Lakers forward/center Pau Gasol, who injured his right foot in Tuesday’s game against the Nets in Brooklyn, returned to Los Angeles from Boston this morning where he was examined by foot specialist Dr. Kenneth Jung.
Jung’s diagnosis confirmed that Gasol has a tear of the plantar fascia in his right foot. Gasol is expected to be out a minimum of 6-8 weeks.
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He still hopes to return in mid to late March. But he’s not going to rush himself. Love was asked, again, if he came back too soon from his broken hand the first time. And while he said no, he at least suggested that maybe the breaks didn’t heal properly the first time. “Because, at the time I broke it, I was 10 weeks out (from the initial fractures),” Love said. “So I gave it enough time to heal. … But now that it’s fixed it feels great, and I can continue to progress.”
Love said the season has been frustrating, given his high expectations coming off the Olympics and the team’s high hopes entering the season. When asked what there was left in the season to salvage, here’s what he said: “I think coach (Rick Adelman) mentioned it today,” he said. “That we can’t look at making the playoffs right now. We can just look at our next game and our next practice and what we can do to get better every single day. Even though myself, and Chase (Budinger) and Brandon (Roy) and (Andrei Kirilenko) are out right now, we can still look at getting back on the court and getting better.”
— Reported by Kent Youngblood of the Minneapolis Star Tribune (Blog)
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James Harden of the Rockets and Russell Westbrook of the Oklahoma City Thunder will be the coaches of the Sprint NBA All-Star Celebrity Game. The event will be at 7 p.m. Feb. 15 at the George R. Brown Convention Center. Assistant coaches will be singer/actress Queen Latifah and TV personality Samantha Harris.
The celebrity game is a highlight of the NBA All-Star Weekend, which kicks off Feb. 14 and culminates with the 62nd NBA All-Star Game on Feb. 17.
The celebrity teams will include Kevin Hart and Nick Cannon of “Real Husbands of Hollywood” Grammy winning singer Ne-Yo, singer/actor Trey Songz, Olympic gold medalist Usain Bolt, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, rapper Common, ABC News correspondent John Schriffen EPNS host Ryen Russillo and Terrence Jenkins of “E! News.”
— Reported by Syd Kearney of the Houston Chronicle (Blog)
The slogan goes, “In 49 states, it’s just basketball. But this is Indiana.” That must be a reference to the Indiana Hoosiers rather than the Pacers, who continue to be among the NBA bottom feeders in attendance. They are currently 26th in the NBA, averaging 14,592 fans in a building that seats 18,165.
The Pacers have had just four sellouts this season; opening night, both Miami games and against Chicago earlier this week.
While they have increased attendance by 1,320 fans a game from last season, that’s still not enough.
“It’s very disappointing,” Pacers guard and Indianapolis-native George Hill said. “The fans show up when we play the marquee teams, but they show up wearing the marquee team’s clothes. We feed off them. As much as we can get people there, the better off we’re going to be.”
— Reported by Mike Wells of the Indianapolis Star
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Chicago Bulls center Joakim Noah said he will play Thursday against the Denver Nuggets after missing the past three games because of plantar fasciitis in his right foot.
A first-time All-Star, Noah dealt went through all of the Bulls’ practice on Wednesday.
“I felt pretty good,” he said before Thursday morning’s shootaround. “I’ll be all right.”
— Reported by Nick Friedell of ESPN Chicago
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The newest Lakers firestorm arrived Thursday after Kobe Bryant apparently told ESPN.com the night before that Dwight Howard needed to come back from his injured shoulder. Quickly.
But Bryant said Thursday he wasn’t prodding Howard to return.
“Not even a little bit,” Bryant said in a quiet moment after the team’s morning shoot-around, adding that he was surprised at the tone of the ESPN story. “In this case, it’s not legitimate. I was shocked.”
Bryant has a high threshold for pain, as evidenced plenty of times in the past. Howard has missed six games and left two others because of a torn labrum in his right shoulder.
Bryant understood that his own pain tolerance was through the charts.
“I’m crazy, though, so I don’t put that on other people,” he said.
— Reported by Mike Bresnahan and T.J. Simers of the Los Angeles Times
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Danny Green entered his second season as a Spurs starter with the goal of establishing more consistency in his shooting stroke. But even now, well past the halfway mark, Green still has no idea what to expect on a nightly basis.
Such was the case Wednesday in frigid Minneapolis, when he torched the Target Center nets for a career-high eight 3-pointers on 12 attempts en route to 28 points.
“It came out of nowhere,” Green told the Express-News’ Jeff McDonald. “Sometimes it happens that way.”
And sometimes it doesn’t. For just as often as Green will have stretches where he seemingly can’t miss, he’ll struggle through slumps where even the most wide-open of looks carom off the rim.
— Reported by Dan McCarney of the San Antonio Express-News (Blog)
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The Philadelphia 76ers announced today that they have signed guard Jeremy Pargo to a 10-day contract. Additionally, the second 10-day contract guard Shelvin Mack signed on January 28 has expired. Pargo will wear #0.
Pargo (6-2, 219) was not selected in the 2009 NBA Draft and played overseas until signing as a free agent with Memphis prior to the start of last season. He appeared in 44 games with five starts for the Grizzlies in 2011-12 and was traded to Cleveland on July 25, 2012.
The Gonzaga product saw action in 25 games with 11 starts for Cleveland this season, averaging 7.8 points, 2.6 assists and 1.3 rebounds in 17.9 minutes per game. He was waived by the Cavaliers on January 22 in conjunction with Cleveland’s trade with Memphis.
Pargo took advantage of an injury to Cleveland’s All-Star guard Kyrie Irving earlier this season and averaged 14.5 points and 4.4 assists over an 11-game span from November 21 through December 8. Pargo scored 20-plus points three times during that stretch, including a career-high 28 points against Philadelphia on November 21.
In 69 career games with 16 starts, Pargo is averaging 4.7 points, 1.7 assists and 1.0 rebounds in 12.6 minutes per game. His older brother, Jannero, is currently playing for the Atlanta Hawks.
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A fog-delayed arrival in Oklahoma City made Golden State’s task tough enough.
Then the Warriors made the mistake of getting on Kevin Martin’s bad side.
Kevin Durant scored 25 points and Martin roared to life with 10 points during a fourth-quarter run that put away the Thunder’s 119-98 win on Wednesday night.
Martin hit a pair of 3-pointers, a runner and slammed home a two-handed dunk during a 16-4 fourth-quarter spurt that pushed the lead to 106-83 and coaxed coach Scott Brooks into emptying his bench instead of going back to All-Stars Russell Westbrook and Durant down the stretch. Warriors coach Mark Jackson soon followed suit.
”Coach Jackson should talk to a couple of his bench players and make sure they get wet behind the ears before they come barking at a couple of our players,” said Martin, who went 4 for 5 in the final period and ended up with 21 points.
Playing on the second night of a back-to-back, the Warriors didn’t get settled in Oklahoma City until almost daybreak and it showed as they fell behind by 20 early…
Harrison Barnes and Klay Thompson had 19 points apiece for the Warriors. Golden State played without Andrew Bogut, who is still easing his way back from a left ankle injury, and Jarrett Jack was sidelined by a right shoulder contusion.
— Reported by Jeff Latzke of the Associated Press
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Jason Terry scored only two points. Still, he made a big contribution to Boston’s latest win with a pep talk before the fourth quarter.
Kevin Garnett scored a season-high 27 points with 10 rebounds, Paul Pierce had 12 points and 11 rebounds, and the Celtics won their fifth straight game by beating the Toronto Raptors 99-95 on Wednesday night.
Courtney Lee added 15 points, Leandro Barbosa had 14, Avery Bradley 11 and Brandon Bass 10 as the Celtics remained unbeaten since losing guard Rajon Rondo to a season-ending knee injury.
Garnett scored 11 points in the fourth quarter as the Celtics rallied from a 10-point deficit to snap a two-game skid in Toronto. Boston had lost three of its last four in Canada.
”We’re fighters,” Garnett said. ”We’re a team that’s going to compete for 48 minutes. It’s not always pretty. We’re not perfect, we’re human beings. But we play hard, we do our best to go out and try to perfect the game plan.”
Boston’s turnaround came after Terry harangued his teammates for their sloppy play through three quarters.
— Reported by Ian Harrison of the Associated Press