Kings' Evans named top rookie for 2009-10

Tyreke Evans has won hundreds of trophies in his young basketball career and many of them seem to have lost an arm, a basketball or some other piece in his mother's care.

Bonita Evans will have to wait to get the NBA Rookie of the Year trophy Evans won Thursday until some safeguards are in place in the home he is building her in Delaware.

"She's broken too many," Evans said. "I probably have 400 trophies and about a hundred of them broke. I'd come downstairs and she'd try to glue them back together but it was too late. I didn't care about it. But the main important trophies, we're going to put them in a glass case for her."

Evans capped his fabulous rookie year for the Sacramento Kings by beating out Golden State's Stephen Curry and Milwaukee's Brandon Jennings for the coveted award.

Evans became the fourth rookie ever to average at least 20 points, five rebounds and five assists per game, joining Oscar Robertson, Michael Jordan and LeBron James in an exclusive club.

"This is one of the awards I had a goal of since I came into the NBA, being rookie of the year," Evans said. "I'm proud it came true. It was one of my dreams since I was little. I finally had a chance for my dream to come true."

Evans was the fourth pick in last year's NBA draft after spending one season at Memphis. Like Chicago's Derrick Rose a year ago, that one year at Memphis was enough to make him Rookie of the Year.

He led all rookies in scoring at 20.1 points per game, was second in assists at 5.8 per game and fifth in rebounds at 5.3.

"After maybe the first week or two in the regular season, the level of consistency that he settled into was just remarkable given his age and one year of experience in college," Kings president of basketball operations Geoff Petrie said. "It was just fun to watch it all unfold."

Evans was the only rookie to appear on all 123 ballots from a media panel, getting 67 first-place votes and 491 total points. Curry was second with 43 first-place votes and 391 points, with Jennings getting 12 first-place votes and 204 points. Players were awarded five points for a first-place vote, three for a second and one for a third.

"Congrats to Tyreke for winning Rookie of the Year," Curry said in a statement released by the Warriors. "There's no doubt he deserves it. For me to have been in the conversation all year and to finish second means a lot and is a great start to hopefully a successful career."

While Jennings got off to a fast start, scoring 55 points in his seventh career game, and Curry finished the season with a flourish, Evans was consistently strong all season long.

Evans drew praise from around the league, with Kobe Bryant calling him a "grown man" when asked to assess the rookie race after playing Curry and Evans in successive nights in March.

Evans' performance this season brought life back to Arco Arena, where fans had grown disinterested in recent years as the Kings struggled. There was even a rally planned at a Sacramento mall on Thursday night in Evans' honor.

Evans erased any disappointment from last year's lottery, when the Kings ended up with the fourth pick in the draft despite having the league's worst record.

With top pick Blake Griffin sidelined for the season for the Los Angeles Clippers with a knee injury, second pick Hasheem Thabeet spending part of the season for Memphis in the NBA Development League and fifth pick Ricky Rubio staying in Europe instead of signing with Minnesota, there were no regrets in Sacramento with how the draft played out.

"I know there was a lot of real disappointment at that moment," Petrie said. "It just shows that life is real uncertain and good things can come out of what appear to be not so good things sometimes. It all worked out."

After a disappointing home opener when he scored only three points and didn't make a shot from the field, Evans took over the Kings after leading scorer Kevin Martin went down with an early injury. He scored at least 20 points in seven consecutive games.

Evans was remarkably consistent, averaging between 19.4 points and 22.1 points per game in every full month of the season.

"He's the most consistent rookie I've ever seen," coach Paul Westphal said. "There's nothing but a great career in Tyreke's future. Knowing him, I know he doesn't view this as an achievement. It's just a start to his career."

Curry, the son of former NBA player Dell Curry, might have been playing better than any rookie by the end of the season. He averaged 17.5 points, a rookie-best 5.9 assists, 4.5 rebounds and 1.9 steals per game for the Warriors.

But he was much better in the final three months, averaging 21.9 points, 5.1 rebounds and 7.5 assists per game after Feb. 1. That vaulted him right into the rookie race, giving Northern California NBA fans something worthwhile to follow while the Warriors and Kings struggled through another difficult season.

Jennings entered the league with plenty of scrutiny after bypassing college to play last season in Italy. He immediately quieted the skeptics with the highest-scoring game for a rookie in 41 years against Golden State in November.

He averaged 15.5 points, 5.7 assists and 3.4 rebounds for the season, but shot just 37 percent from the floor. The one major advantage Jennings had over Evans and Curry was that he helped lead Milwaukee to the playoffs, while Sacramento and Golden State are back in the lottery again.
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Celtics quiet doubts with series-clinching win over Heat

Those are the words of Dwyane Wade following his team's 96-86 season-ending defeat at the hands of the Boston Celtics. And after the Celtics were able to double-team Wade into oblivion as the Miami Heat floundered during a second-half comeback, it became abundantly clear that Wade is right.

But to Miami's credit, the team fought through two Boston runs and never folded.

"We just talked about not letting it go. We just had so much fight in us that we just continued to fight even when they went on a run," said longtime Heat player Udonis Haslem.

"I love each and every one of these guys for how we came together and how we played this season, when the chips were stacked against us and when people never gave us a chance. "

The first round was the extent of the expectations for a Heat team full of free agents, but the Celtics were built for this season. They were supposed to advance in the playoffs, and the question is, after struggling with inconsistencies for most of the regular season, did Boston's five-game performance against Miami quiet any doubts?

For the most part, yes.

"We are playing as good of basketball as we have been playing all season long, and we are ready," Paul Pierce said.

"They are coming together at a very opportune time," Miami coach Erik Spoelstra said.

Lacking a better term, the Celtics managed to be consistently consistent in this series, with only a couple bumps in the road such as a turnover-prone first quarter in Game 4. While quarter-to-quarter slippage plagued Boston during the regular season, its focus was tested and proven against a Heat squad that overcame a 21-point, third-quarter deficit.

"So much of it is overstated," Spoelstra said of the concerns surrounding Boston. "They understand what the moment is. That's probably the most mentally tough team of any team we played all year."

The contradiction is that Miami came back, using a 19-4 run to claw within three early in the fourth quarter. You could sense the anxiety growing in a TD Garden crowd that had, time after time, seen the Celtics implode in the second half.

"I was a little disappointed at the end of the third because I thought it was our focus," Celtics coach Doc Rivers said. "It's very dangerous."

But this run felt different. Miami was testing the limits of the law of averages, using another barrage of 3-pointers -- just as in Game 4 -- to come back. It was not only an unsustainable offense, but the Celtics weren't being outworked, only weathering the final blow from a team on its last gasp.

"We pushed the lead, we just didn't step on them like we wanted to," Pierce said.

Not only did the Celtics avoid past mistakes -- though still allowing 16 second-chance points -- they were a better team than before, assisting on 28 of their 35 field goals and getting late contributions off the bench from Glen Davis (seven points). They executed their offense, getting Ray Allen the sets he needed to score 10 assisted points in the fourth, and they backed up their frequent trash talk, with Kevin Garnett briefly showing off the now-rare one-man press during a momentum swing.

The asterisk on all of this is that it was against a Miami team that lacked the ability to consistently test Boston outside of Wade. The Celtics now have to face a vastly superior Cleveland Cavaliers team without home-court advantage and, in essence, prove everything all over again.
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Phoenix Suns vs Portland Trailblazers

The NBA Playoffs is in heat tonight as an important game is set to happen between the Phoenix Suns vs Portland Trailblazers. This is the Game 5 of the best-of-seven series which will happen tonight, April 26, 2010 at exactly 10:30 pm ET.

Whereas, LaMarcus Aldridge gave a great performance in Game 4 with a considerable best career playoff performance. He finished with 31 points (11-for-19) and collected 11 boards. On the other hand, Roy scored only 10 (4-for10) points in 27 minutes but two of that field goals was big time shots in the final quarter.

Meanwhile, the Blazers should really be called the Portland Brandon Roys given how Roy is like the spiritual core of their team. Apparently his return pumped up LeMarcus Alderidge so much he actually looked more like Dwight Howard than Juwan Howard-lite

What are you waiting for? Grab this chance now to watch NBA Playoffs: Phoenix Suns vs Portland Trailblazers live stream online on the following channels: KGW, FSA, and TSN2 channels in your TV. Grab a live streaming video link also in your favorite live streaming sites like Justin TV, Sopcast and Ustream now. Updates and score results will be provided in just a short while. Enjoy watching the game now!!!



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March Madness Wrap Up

he 2010 NCAA national championship trophy will wiggle its way into the trophy case somewhere at Cameron Indoor Stadium in Durham, N.C.

For the Duke Blue Devils, good things don't come in threes. They come in fours.

Celebrating its first title since 2001, No. 1 seed Duke is on top of college basketball's infinity, yet again.

Well, kinda.

Duke has the title. But its counterpart in the NCAA championship game has the heart strings. And the lifelong recollections.

Butler captivated. Those pesky Bulldogs from Indianapolis lost. By two points.

Two measly, contemptuous points.

At the end of the evening, Jon Scheyer, Kyle Singler, Nolan Smith, and Brian Zoubek raised the hardware, while the hometown boys from Butler U. had the short drive home to contemplate "what if?" scenarios for the rest of their lives.

Therein lies the beauty of the NCAA tournament.

Sometimes, the loser is the winner. Sometimes, the winner is the loser.

Ask any Butler player, coach or fan, they'd much rather take the most unforeseeable national title run in collegiate history than the pity party.

Nobody likes a pity party, let alone a team a-few-inches-too-high-off-the-backboard.

What if, right?

If that's the way you proceed to view the world you live in. Those who watched the 2010 NCAA tournament saw a small liberal arts school from Indianapolis take each and every opponent that came along and provide a 40-minute noogie.

The trendy double-digit seed in the first round? UTEP was supposed to have too much athleticism and power down low for Butler.

All Butler did was sink 13 three-pointers and leave the Miners headed back to El Paso, Texas with all that burnt orange as its only solemn company.

Butler barely survived Murray State, thanks to Gordon Hayward's heady and treacherous gamble to strip a Racer with the game under 10 ticks left.

Syracuse. Yada.

Kansas State. Yada.

Michigan State. Yada.

Coming into Monday's national title game, the Bulldogs had won 25 straight games. Twenty-five straight Ws. Not even Wes Johnson, Andy Rautins, and Scoop Jardine had an answer for Butler's kryptonite defense.

Jacob Pullen and Denis Clemente were forced into early retirement for the time being.

And for all the screaming, clawing, pissing, moaning, hugging, and loving Tom Izzo could do, Sparta had no answer for Butler.

Perfection set in motion, right? Wasn't this the way things are supposed to play out?

Butler knocking off the much-scorned national powerhouse Duke to top the improbable mountain on high.

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