welcome back to your regular season programing

checking in with 4:30 to go in the first half of season opener, oden-less blazers at san antonio with a new championship banner up.

spurs up 55 -39.

blazers have some great young talent. lamarcus aldridge is a certified low post threat and a great touch from 18 feet. brandon roy is simply an athletic do-everything cerebral player. martel webster has a good touch.

lead is cut to 55 - 47.

spurs fast break ginobili steal that led to a elson dunk. their 3rd time connecting this half. manu is playing fantastic tonight. well he just charged into brandon roy.

parker's been killing early. 10 of spurs first 16 points. basically all layups. and a long jump shot. duncan ended the half with 13 points a piece with tony.

tnt studio is back! with magic on the set too. this is what i miss the most about basketball season. they are tackling the kobe trade speculation, and basically, he's not going anywhere.

this young blazers are just as feisty as their coach. 74-71. good thing barry saved them with a 3 to stretch it back out to 6. brandon roy comes back with a 3 after a failed steal attempt by spurs.
roy another smart play to stop the pass. on the other end of the floor he drove to the hoop to drew in defense and kicked it to a wide open pocket 3 by webster.

darius washington is all hustle and defense. shots arent bad too. first field goal of his nba career is a 3 pointer. already an upgrade over the disappointing beno udrih.

ginobili driving left hand dunk, next trip down he grab an offensive rebound with one arm and back up for 2 more points. back to an 8 point lead. blazers time out.

steve blake is playing well for the blazers, controlling the tempo, passing and making shots. martell webster is playing great. 8 for 13 with 19 points. high point man for blazers is lamarcus with 23 points, who surprisingly only has 3 boards.

ginobili with another quick pass to a streaking matt bonner, who adjusted his short layup for 2 points. next trip down, ginobili another 3. webster came back with a jumper on top right inside 3 point line.

2:30 to go and blazers are only down 5 points. the kids are hanging tough with the champ. if webster can shoot like how he's shooting tonight, and alridge doing his damage from everywhere. speaking of which, another jumper by him to bring it to 3. parker stretch it back to 5 with a jumper of his own. after the defensive sequence, parker exploded to the basket and forced a goaltending on aldridge who was too late. back to 7 points deficit, with a minute to go. tony parker, Finals MVP.


warriors are starting their season at home against utah, and monta got the first bucket of the season for warriors. after a foul by baron and one by biedris, monta got a steal and a speeding layup. almost a third layup but rimmed out. warriors continued to play a speed game but utah is just as athletic but much stronger. GSW is down 11 points going into the half.

2nd part of the TNT double header is the rockets lakers game. the first score of the game came with 9 minutes to go, appropriately with a kobe layup. first quarter ended with kobe dominating for 13 points, and lakers up 25-16. but with kobe not on the floor, rockets came right back. there simply is no second option for the lakers when odom isn't playing.

mutombo is back on the rockets. perfect. mike james is back too. a 3 pointer to tie up the score at 29. the rockets were down 11 early on (16-5). houston's depth is showing, and i still haven't seen luis scola and steve francis on the floor yet.

about 2 minutes left. mike james a drop off the ball for a yao streaking dunk. next time down another 3. if he can keep playing like this, steve francis is not gonna get off the bench.

kawme brown looks much thicker, i thought he was bynum at first. lakers had a few drop off dunk for him and he's at least some sort of post presence for the lakers. in any case it's 43-43 going into the half.

on the other game, AK47 has 7 points, 6 boards, 5 assists, and 4 steals half way through 3rd quarter. safe to say he's not bitchy about his role on the team now?

yao posted up, spin baseline and then a dunk. next time a fast break down, alston led the break, then dropped off the pass for a lefty dunk by mcgrady. then the ball some how miraculously flew up and dropped in to the net when kwame and luke went after a defensive board. then 2-3 offensive board with yao finally sticking a hookshot. rockets now up 10.

luis scola check in for yao, bynum overpowered chuck hayes, rebound his own miss and got a layup. mutombo is subbed in. bynum and mihm, 2 seven footers are in for the lakers. battle of big men? in any case the rockets' offense is clicking (with mostly mcgrady being on fire), they take an 8 point lead into 4th quarter.

in the other game. jazz is up 22 points, and bellineli came in with 2 huge 3 pointers. couple more baskets and warriors are down "only" 15 points. and bellinelli forced a turnover. too bad baron couldn't draw a foul. well it's back to 20 points. only few fans are still around at the 2 minute mark. warriors may just be too small to really compete this year. boozer abused them for 32 and 15 boards and deron had 24 and 8 assists. utah is a force to be reckon with.

back to the rockets/lakers game, rockets are now up 12 points, and kobe is playing 1 on 5. he's just trying to force it in every single trip down. he's killing the lakers. team chemistry is off the chart bad right now for lakers. he's unbelievably sloppy too.

with a minute to go, 2 forced turnovers turned into a kobe 3 and a farmar layup. 4 points game with 35 seconds to go. mike james then missed 2 free throws, and kobe took advantage and hit a layup to cut it to 2. 10-0 run lakers. time out houston.

fisher made a long 2 on the right after they forced yet another turnover. shane battier drilled a 3 with 2 seconds to go. WOW! he then immediately fouled kobe after the half court inbound pass, which negated kobe's chance at taking a 3. rockets escaped with a 95-93 win.

what a night later all!