NBA New Year’s Day feats

THE year 2019 ends today and the year 2020 unwraps tomorrow, that is according to the Gregorian calendar.
It is a solar calendar that is named after Pope Gregory XIII and is used in most parts of the world since October 1582. It consists of 12 months and there are 28 to 31 days in each month, with the exception of a leap year, which happens every four even-numbered years, such as 2020, and contains 29 days instead of 28.
For the Chinese, theirs is a lunar calendar. And the Year of White Metal Rat (lunar year 2020) only starts on Saturday, January 25 (ahem, a special non-working holiday in the Philippine) and lasts up to February 11, 2021.
According to my favorite astrologers from 168, 888, 999, City Place and Lucky Chinatown, the Rat is the first animal in the 12-year Chinese zodiac.
I believe in them.
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New Year’s Day 2020 (January 2 Manila time) in the National Basketball Association (NBA) will feature four games: Orlando at Washington, Portland at New York, Minnesota at Milwaukee, and Phoenix at Los Angeles Lakers.
In NBA history, there has been just one instance where a player reached the 50-point plateau on New Year’s Day.
On January 1, 2018, DeMar DeRozan, then with Toronto but now with San Antonio, scored a career-high and franchise-record 52 points in the Raptors’ 131-127 overtime victory over the Milwaukee Bucks at the Air Canada Centre. (The reigning NBA champion Raptors now called Scotiabank Arena “home.”)
Only two other players have tallied 50 points or more in a regular-season game in Raptors history – Vince Carter (51 in a 103-102 win over visiting Phoenix on February 27, 2000) and Terrence Ross (51 in a 126-118 home loss to the LA Clippers on January 25, 2014).
Carter, who also owns the only 50-point playoff game in Toronto history (50 vs. Philadelphia on May 11, 2001), is now in his second season with the Atlanta Hawks while Ross is in his fourth year with the Orlando Magic.
Among the notable performances during the NBA’s five-game slate on New Year’s Day 2019 were those of Kawhi Leonard, then of Toronto, and Denver’s Nikola Jokic.
Leonard, who along with Danny Green was acquired from San Antonio by Toronto on July 18, 2018 in exchange for DeRozan, scored a career-high 45 points in the Raptors’ 122-116 home victory over the Utah Jazz.
Jokic, the Nuggets’ Serbian center, posted a triple-double of 19 points, 14 rebounds and 15 assists in the club’s 115-108 home decision over the New York Knicks.
Leonard and Green, of course, went on to power Toronto to the first-ever NBA title finish in Canada last June with a 4-2 Finals triumph against Golden State but have since gone separate ways. In the summer free agency, Leonard hooked up with the LA Clippers while Green latched on with the Clippers’ crosstown rival LA Lakers.
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Christmas Day 2019 in the NBA was not exactly a memorable day for the host team in the five-game bill as three of them – defending league titlist Toronto Raptors, the championship-contending Los Angeles Lakers and the win-streaking Denver Nuggets – fell by the wayside. Only the Philadelphia 76ers and once-dominant-but-now-powderpuff Golden State Warriors have something to salivate over home cooking.
Jaylen Brown netted 30 points on 10-for-13 floor shooing, including 5-for-7 from three-point range, and summer free-agent acquisition Kemba Walker contributed 22 as the Boston Celtics blasted a Raptors squad without reigning NBA Most Improved Player Pascal Siakam (groin) and center Marc Gasol (left hamstring strain) in the first Christmas Day NBA game played in Canada.
A 6-foot-6 wingman, the 23-year-old Brown became the youngest Celtics player to score 30 or more points on the holiday – surpassing Hall of Famer Bill Russell’s record that stood for more than 60 years. Before this year, Brown only had tallied a combined 12 points in three career Christmas Day games.
Seven-foot Cameroon native Joel Embiid, one of a few traditional post-up centers left in the league, showed up for the holiday with 31 points (11-21 FGA) and 11 rebounds as the Philadelphia 76ers crushed the Milwaukee Bucks, 121-109.
Bucks meal ticket Giannis Antetokuonmpo, the reigning NBA MVP, struggled mightily on offense, going 8-for-27 from the field, including 0-for-7 from deep, to get 18 points. The Greek Freak had 14 boards and seven assists, though.
Golden State, without Splash Brothers Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson due to injuries, surprised Houston with a 116-104 victory in the team’s first Christmas game at the newly-built Chase Center.
Three Golden State players logged at least 20 points – Curry brother-in-law Damion Lee, chalked up 22 and plucked down a career-high 15 rebounds), do-everything Draymond Green scored 16 of his 20 points in the second half and corralled 11 boards and summer sign-and-trade acquisition D’Angelo Russell tallied 20 markers and four assists. A year ago on the holiday, the team dropped a 127-101 decision to the LA Lakers at its old home, Oracle Arena.
The Rockets’ stellar starting backcourt of one-time NBA Most Valuable Player awardees James Harden and Russell Westbrook struggled offensively.
Westbrook made only 11 of his 32 field-goal attempts, and none from beyond the arc in eight tries, to get 30 points, along with 12 reebies and five assists. Harden went 9-for-18 from the field, including 6-for-10 from three-point range, to tally 24 points while collecting 11 dimes and six reebies. The Dubs, though, defended The Beard pretty well as he was limited to just one free throw attempt and missed it. The NBA’s scoring leader, Harden came into the game averaging 12.8 attempts from the foul line and norming 38.6 points an outing – the highest since Wilt Chamberlain normed 44.8 ppg with the San Francisco (now Golden State) Warriors in 1962-63.
Golden State, which upped its record to 8-24, was one of only two teams with a losing record to play on Christmas. (The Lakers, by the way, owned a frigid 5-24 record when they played in the 2014 Christmas Day game.)
Cool and calm Kawhi Leonard put together 35 points, 12 rebounds and five assists as the Los Angeles Clippers closed their marquee matchup with their intra-city rival and Staples Center cohabitant Los Angeles Lakers on a 17-5 run for a 111-106 victory that sent the “home-designated” Lakers to their fourth straight loss.
The tough-nut-to-crack Clippers, who improved to 23-10, repeated with Leonard back from another one-game “load management” absence (no back-to-backs for the two-time NBA Finals MVP) and his sidekick Paul George suiting up after missing the season-opening 112-102 victory over the Lakers last October 22. The Clips were 11-3 in games where both Leonard and George started. George finished with 17 points, five rebounds, three assists and three blocked shots in this one.
The Lakers, who slipped to 24-7, had one-two punch LeBron James and Anthony Davis back from injuries and led by as much 15 points (68-53) early in the second half and were ahead, 101-94, with 6:39 left on the game clock before the roof caved in. Kyle Kuzma came off the pines to score 25 points, Davis tallied 24 points and had six boards and a pair of blocks. James struggled to get his 23 points, shooting just 9-of-24 from the field (including blanks in his first seven shots), but nearly recorded a triple-double with 10 assists and nine rebounds. The NBA assist leader’s mobility, including the ability to drive to the lane to fish for fouls (he only had four free-throw attempts) was hampered after being kneed by pesky guard Patrick Beverley in the right side of his groin early in the first canto while taking a charge. (A year ago on Christmas Day, too, James suffered a torn left groin that cost The King to miss 17 straight games and scuttle the Lakers’ playoff chances.)
James, who turns 35 on December 30, played in his 14th Christmas Day game, second in NBA history to Hall of Fame-bound and all-time Lakers great Kobe Bryant’s 16.
The Lakers, who are 0-2 against their crosstown rival Clippers this season, are one of two teams with a pair of 25 points-or-more producers in James and Davis. The other duo is currently-injured Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins with the Minnesota Timberwolves.
In the finale of the NBA’s Christmas Day quintuple-header, the sad-sack New Orleans Pelicans, broke the red-hot Denver Nuggets’ seven-game winning streak (the longest active streak in the league at the time) with a 112-100 road upset at the Pepsi Center behind ex-LA Laker Brandon Ingram’s 31 points (including a career-high seven triples in nine attempts) and seven rebounds.
The Pelicans, still at 9-23 following the victory and probably out of West playoff contention this early, have played without rookie Zion Williamson, the NBA’s No. 1 overall draft selection last June, since the exciting, one-and-done Duke University product underwent right knee surgery last October 21.
New Orleans, one of two losing teams to see action on the holiday, is 2-0 against Denver this season. The Nuggets, who dropped to a 21-9 in playing at home on Christmas for the first time in 25 years, remained in second place in the West standings behind the Lakers.
Of the five 2019 Christmas Day games, only one – Clippers over Lakers – was decided by fewer than 12 points. Of the 37 Christmases with at least four games, this marked just the second time with only one game within a dozen markers. The first came in 1950. Back then, the Tri-Cities Blackhawks (the predecessors of the Atlanta Hawks) beat the Baltimore Bullets (now the Washington Wizards) by 15 points, the Minneapolis (now Los Angeles) Lakers whipped the Washington Capitols by 14, and the Rochester Royals (the forerunners of the Sacramento Kings) downed the Boston Celtics by 13, and the Syracuse Nationals (now the Philadelphia 76ers) pummeled the Fort Wayne (now Detroit) Pistons by 12.