VINCE Carter breezed through the Rockets’ defense Sunday on his game-winning dunk as if Shandon Anderson was back in Utah and Charles Barkley was still there.
Immediately afterward, Rod Thorn issued a statement on behalf of the Olympic Committee, apologizing profusely to Carter for not naming him to the team the day he was drafted.
The Raptors, only one game behind the Knicks for the third best Eastern Conference record, have won 11 of 12. Yesterday, David Stern fined NBC 100G for not miking Toronto prior to the All-Star game.
Pat (And God Created) Riley is thinking about making nice with Isaiah (now we know what J.R. stands for; Just Released) Rider.
The Heat-seeking monarch, in his infinite wisdom and minus surveillance cameras (whose use was banned from hotel rooms by the coach’s association) has determined all Rider needs to be fully effective is some direction.
Take that, Lenny (Wilkens), Mike (Dunleavy), Bill (Blair) and Sidney (Lowe).
Just call Riley “Panacea Pat.”
Or, as comedian T. (to the expletive deleted) K. Kirkland noted at Sunday’s Cash Money Millionaires/Ruff Ryders concert, “Riley better hurry and pick up J.R. before the police do.”
In other words, despite being deported by the Hawks, Rider still has a dark future.
ALLEN Iverson remains upset he was suspended one game (costing him 109G) for missing a shoot-around. Management refused to accept his excuse (headache) as legitimate. At a nearby press conference, Larry Brown was quick to take the blame for failing to discipline Iverson for repeated indiscretions this season.
“They [management] say my suspension was an accumulation of things, because it makes them look good,” he told me last Friday. “Yeah, I’ve missed other practices and been late, too. But I always had a good excuse. They may not have liked my excuse, but I did what I was supposed to do, I called to tell ’em I wouldn’t be there.
“Not once was I ever told, ‘If you ever do this again, you’re going to be fined or suspended.’ If I was told that, I would accept this punishment without a whimper. But they didn’t. I don’t want to disrupt the team by carrying this any further, but I don’t like the way it was handled.”
Naturally, Brown hopes this matter is a dead issue. Yet, according to unconfirmed reports out of Philadelphia, Iverson is telling confidants (and I thought we were boys), “It’s Larry Brown or me. One of us has to go.”
It must be true. Sources tell me Iverson’s posse has inquired about his chances for the coaching job at North Carolina.
Meanwhile, the Hawks tell me what finally influenced them to cut Rider: When he showed up late for last Friday’s shoot-around, he claimed he had an Allen Iverson sympathy headache.
THE Blazers nipped the Sonics by one point Saturday night, in what was billed as the Western Conference’s runner-up bracket. Equally exhilarating was the fact that Boom-Box Gary Payton made his 300th consecutive start, the NBA’s longest active trash talking streak.
As the game clock dwindled down to a precious few seconds, Payton drove to daylight as Blazers scrambled to converge. But instead of shooting against onrushing coverage and looking to draw a foul as Scottie Pippen had done against Payton on the previous play, the future Hall-of-Famer kicked it out to Brent Barry on the right baseline. His 3-point launch broke a window in Tacoma.
Before the game, Steve Smith had this to say about his opponent: “Seattle is a team, where if we’re clicking, we can make it an easy game.”
Retorted Payton: “Portland is a team, where if we’re clicking, we know we can get Rasheed Wallace into technical [foul] difficulty.”
Actually, column collaborator Geoffrey Gilbert made that up.
Eddie Jones on the Hornets’ slump: “We don’t have any rhythm at all. We have lost all our chemistry out there.”
Worse yet, Charlotte has lost more fans than an appliance store during the LA riots.
Attendance is way down and the free agent-in-waiting Jones insists on playing next season in front of a packed house. Which, apparently, disqualifies the Magic, as well.
Jeff Van Gundy says the Hornets still have the most talent in the Southeastern Conference.
Doc Rivers was fined 7.5G yesterday for ripping the refs after Orlando’s loss to Toronto. Among other things, the leading candidate (along with Paul Westphal) for coaching honors said his team “got screwed” by the 3-man team of David Jones, Ken Mauer and Tim Donaghy and the officials “may as well have been wearing Raptors’ jerseys and cheering for Vince Carter.”
Rod Thorn also fined Rivers 100G for allowing his outburst to be miked.
HOW bad did it get for the Pistons in their home loss to the Lakers? In seven minutes, third string center/NBC hand-me-down John Salley (seven points) outscored Detroit starters Lindsey Hunter and Terry Mills, who combined for six points and 48 minutes.
In the past seven games, Mark Bryant and Andrew DeClerq, who time-share the Cavalier middle, have averaged a combined 1.9 points and 2.6 rebounds. Bryant went 28 games without scoring in double figures. DeClerq is working on a 29-game streak. The Cavs don’t miss Zydrunas Ilgauskas, they miss Steve Patterson.
Going into last night’s outing in Phoenix, Antoine Walker had averaged 28 points, eight rebounds and six assists, as well as shooting 54 percent from the field over the last five games. “He’s playing like one of the premier players in the game,” applauded Rick Pitino.
In other words, “Too bad it’s too late to trade him now that we finally have some leverage.”
The Mavericks wish they had new defensive coordinator Dell Harris from the beginning of the season. The Lakers wish the Mavs had him from the beginning of last season.
