NBA Daily Results

vs(From the Associated Press) - Since Antawn Jamison and Caron Butler were traded, the leading scorer for the Washington Wizards is none other than Andray Blatche. Yes, the same guy who was suspended for a game last month for complaining he didn’t have enough plays drawn up for him. The 23-year-old Blatche is now what passes for a grizzled veteran—and go-to guy—on the Wizards. Blatche scored 25 points and had 11 rebounds to lead the Wizards to a 101-95 victory over the Chicago Bulls on Monday night...“I feel like a leader. I feel like I’m leading my team in the right direction,” Blatche said...Blatche’s contributions were needed because Washington played most of the game without Josh Howard. Howard collided with Chicago’s Flip Murray with 4:23 to play in the first quarter. Howard was helped off the court and suffered a strained left knee. He’ll be reevaluated Tuesday...Early in the third quarter, the Wizards scored 14 straight to take a 62-58 lead, holding Chicago scoreless for 6 minutes, 10 seconds. Blatche, Al Thornton and James Singleton each scored four points in the run. Derrick Rose scored 22 points to lead the Bulls, whose four-game winning streak was snapped. Blatche had nine points in the third quarter when Washington outscored Chicago 31-16 as the Bulls missed 15 of their 21 shots. Washington led 77-72 after three. “Third quarter was terrible,” Chicago coach Vinny Del Negro said...Rose led a late rally that cut Washington’s lead to 96-95 with 1:55 left. He scored nine points in the run, including a three-point play that featured a beautiful scoop shot. Flip Murray added 16 for the Bulls. “No way we should have lost this game tonight,” Rose said. “I tried, just trying to attack the hole, doing whatever it takes to win.” Thornton and Randy Foye hit late jumpers to give the Wizards a 100-95 lead with 1:01 to play. Thornton had 17 points, Foye had 16 and nine assists, and Singleton had a season-high 12 rebounds.

vs(From the Associated Press) - So this is what Andrew Bogut can do in a full game in New York. It’s a whole lot better than what the inept Knicks did. Bogut had 24 points and 20 rebounds in his third career 20-20 game, and the Milwaukee Bucks forced the Knicks into their worst offensive performance in more than two years in an 83-67 victory Monday night...Bogut had only two fewer points in the game than the Knicks managed in a woeful second half. New York hadn’t scored fewer points since a 104-59 nationally televised embarrassment in Boston on Nov. 29, 2007. And the Knicks looked so promising Saturday night in their first game since acquiring Tracy McGrady as the centerpiece of their two trade deadline moves..Making matters worse, McGrady said he banged knees a couple of times and wasn’t sure he would play Tuesday in Boston. This was only his eighth game this season after returning from knee surgery...John Salmons scored 15 points for the Bucks, who outrebounded the Knicks 61-35, won their third straight game and completed a three-game sweep of the series. McGrady scored 15 points, but shot only 5 of 14. He wasn’t alone in struggling, as the team hit just 33.8 percent from the field in its season-high seventh straight loss. Newcomer Sergio Rodriguez replaced Chris Duhon in the lineup, but Duhon couldn’t have done any worse than the Spanish point guard, who had four points and one assist and shot 2 for 8 in 30 minutes. He did have a career-high eight steals but the Knicks didn’t do much with them, finishing with just 10 assists.
David Lee had 12 points and 13 rebounds, but he was the only Knick who could shoot. Newcomer Eddie House was 4 of 16 and Danilo Gallinari was 2 of 8.



vs(From the Associated Press) - Brendan Haywood came to Dallas to ease the burden on Erick Dampier’s balky left knee. Turns out a dislocated finger is giving the newest Mavericks player in the middle a chance to shine. Haywood tied his career high with 20 rebounds—most of them uncontested while he controlled the lane on defense—and the Mavericks improved to 4-0 with him as their starting center in a 91-82 victory against the Indiana Pacers on Monday night. The 7-footer became a starter when Dampier injured his finger the first game after Haywood, Caron Butler and DeShawn Stevenson were acquired from Washington on Feb. 13. He scored 13 points for his second straight double-double and added three blocks to anchor a defense that was struggling before the deal...Dirk Nowitzki led Dallas with 23 points. Playing his second straight game in his native Texas, T.J. Ford led the Pacers with 14 points. Indiana played without Danny Granger, making it consecutive games that the Dallas opponent was missing its leading scorer. Granger didn’t play for unspecified personal reasons after Dwyane Wade sat out Miami’s loss in Dallas on Saturday night...Dallas wasn’t much better from the field, though. The Mavericks shot 39 percent, winning for just the fifth time this season when shooting less than 40 percent. “We played a sloppy game,” said Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle, whose team faces the Los Angeles Lakers on Wednesday night. “The ball movement wasn’t crisp, and we had questionable shot selection. Defensively, we had too many breakdowns. We have to get better.”

vs(From the Associated Press) - The last time the Atlanta Hawks celebrated a victory in Salt Lake City, Joe Johnson was a star player in an Arkansas Boys Club grade-school league. Yep, it’s been a while. Now an NBA All-Star, Johnson scored 11 of his 28 points in the fourth quarter to help the Hawks win in Utah for the first time in 17 years, beating the short-handed Jazz 105-100 on Monday night...Johnson made a 3-pointer with 2:28 left that gave the Hawks a lead they wouldn’t relinquish. “Joe hit a big shot in one of our isolations, which we needed,” Atlanta coach Mike Woodson said. “Other than that, it was pick and rolls down the stretch for us and we really executed well.” Josh Smith added 18 points and Jamal Crawford, who had 17, followed Johnson’s long jumper with a steal and two free throws as the Jazz lost for just the third time in 20 games...Playing without Deron Williams and Andrei Kirilenko, the Jazz stayed close until the final minute, but allowed the Hawks to shoot 54 percent. “We can’t make excuses,” said Paul Millsap, who led the Jazz with 14 points. “Losing Deron and Andrei just gives other guys the opportunity to step up. We just have to do a better job down the stretch.” Ronnie Price and Kyle Korver each had 13 points for the Jazz, who missed a chance to catch the Denver Nuggets for a share of the Northwest Division lead and the second position in the Western Conference standings. A night after a 22-point, 23-rebound effort, Carlos Boozer had 12 points, 10 rebounds and a season-high eight assists but missed a couple of late shots and dropped a rebound out of bounds when the Jazz had a chance to tie it in the final minute...“We were really committed tonight,” Woodson said. “Instead of playing 36 minutes, we competed for the entire 48 minutes. Tonight, we bounced back and played well against a great team, probably the hottest team in the league.” Beyond snapping a 15-game road losing streak in Utah, the win clinched Atlanta’s first season series sweep of the Jazz since the 1992-93 season.


vs(From the Associated Press) - The Clippers became the latest in a series of teams the Charlotte Bobcats thought they should have beaten and didn’t. Rasual Butler scored 20 points and Chris Kaman had 18 points and 13 rebounds for Los Angeles on Monday night in a 98-94 victory that ended their four-game losing streak against the Bobcats. “Our biggest problem now is sometimes we don’t realize that every game’s a big game,” Charlotte coach Larry Brown said. “We get up for certain games and not others. When you look at these teams that are winning a lot of games, they don’t take nights off because their opponent is always bringing their A game."...The Clippers, coming off a 99-89 win over Sacramento on Saturday, improved to 2-5 under interim coach Kim Hughes. Baron Davis was back in uniform, getting 10 points and 10 assists after missing two games because of a sore lower back. Drew Gooden and Travis Outlaw both made their debuts for the Clippers after joining them in separate trades with Washington and Houston before last Thursday’s deadline. Gooden, the first player off the bench, had 10 points and nine rebounds...Gerald Wallace had 32 points and 12 rebounds for the Bobcats, and Boris Diaw had 20 points. But Stephen Jackson missed his first eight shots and was 1 for 16 overall with seven points in 39 minutes before fouling out with 2:08 remaining and the score tied at 87...Center Theo Ratliff made his first start in three games since joining the Bobcats last Thursday in a trade with San Antonio, and his fourth start in 24 games this season overall, scoring 10 points in 31 minutes.