The Basketball Diaries

Chicago Bulls 94 Washington Wizards 84

Well, well, the Bulls actually finished a game for once. Washington's Caron Butler, who finished the game with a triple double, gave the Wizards an 80-79 lead with four minutes left in the 4th quarter, so naturally I assumed that was where the Bulls would fall apart. Instead they outscored the Wizards 15-4 over the final four minutes. Luol Deng had 20 points for the Bulls, and Ben Gordon had 22, but it was Aaron Gray who had the career night. A day after Gray played the most minutes of his career in the loss to the Lakers, Aaron played 29 minutes on Wednesday in the place of Ben Wallace, and he scored 10 points, grabbed 10 boards, and handed out 5 assists. While I have to mention that Gray is a huge hole defensively, the rookie really is already the Bulls best low-post scorer. He's the only big on the team that seems to know how to play around the basket on offense.

Detroit Pistons 87 Boston Celtics 85

While we may have been watching the Bulls, the rest of the basketball world was watching this game. Most people will tell you that the Celtics 20-2 start to the season is nice, but then they'll tell you they haven't played anyone yet. Well, on Wednesday they played somebody. You can't tell anybody you're the best team in the East until you beat the Pistons, and the Celtics still can't tell anybody they're the best team in the East. Chauncey Billups won the game with two free throws with .1 second left on the clock after he was able to get Tony Allen to bite on a pump fake late. Apparently Allen didn't know what Doc Rivers meant when he said "STAY ON YOUR FEET!" It was Boston's first home loss of the season.

Dallas Mavericks 108 Phoenix Suns 105

This was easily the best I've seen Dallas look this season. The score may make the game seem closer than it actually was. Sure, Steve Nash airballed a three late in the game that could have tied it, but Dallas still controlled this game all night. The Suns would make a few runs, but the Mavs would put out the fire each time. Dirk Nowitzki led Dallas with 31 points as the Mavs won their fourth straight game. "It's starting to click," swingman Jerry Stackhouse said. "When we knew it was time to get serious, we've gotten serious. Quite frankly, in those early games, we didn't get serious. We thought we were going to kick it in gear and we didn't. Since we got focused and lit a fire under guys, we've been pretty good."

Elsewhere...

• Hawks 117 Heat 111 OT
• Pacers 102 Sixers 85
• Bobcats 98 Jazz 92
• Knicks 108 Cavs 90
• Kings 102 Bucks 89
• Warriors 111 TWolves 98
• Grizzlies 88 Spurs 85
• Magic 97 Rockets 92
• Blazers 101 Raptors 96
• Hornets 107 Sonics 96