Mustaches Amplify Sadness

When you see Stan Van Gundy all pissed off on the TV, you have to go through a lot of mental logic to remember which team he coaches right now. Miami? Yeah, they're bad so that would make sense, but ... wait, no. Houston? I think so... oh, wrong Van Gundy. Cleveland? Does he coach Cleveland? Well, no, not at all, but now that the idea is in my head, boy that would sure be fun to watch.

Orlando? Really? But I thought Orlando was one of the best teams in the East? Sure enough, the Magic really bit it against the Utah Jazz, 113-94. You'll have that when Paul Millsap scored 13 straight points for Utah in the third quarter en route to his best darned game ever in the pros: 28 points. "We had a teamwide effort of guys gettin' their ass kicked, and we have a lot of guys right now that are OK with that as long as they get their numbers. So it's probably gonna continue until we get some guys who wanna win." I'm with ya, Stan. It's a team game, not about all this selfish ... wow, Hedo Turkoglu, you scored 27 points? By yourself? Would you sign my boobs?

But The Man On The TV Said Explicitly That There Were Three Players On The Team! — I guess there are other players on the Boston Celtics, turns out. Having not watched a game of theirs on TV, I would have imagined they were literally playing only three people on the court at a time, which would have made that 21-3 start all the more impressive. But there are others. Kendrick Perkins, James Posey, and Tony Allen all scored in double figures in their 107-82 rout of the Chicago Bulls. So knowing this makes a lot more sense. They're playing six guys at once. That is against the rules and should be looked into.

Connecting Distant Dots — ESPN ran a graphic last night of teams who picked first in the NBA draft and how long a winning streak they went on that following year. Apparently no team ever drafted first and went on to win more than nine games in a row until this year, when Portland made it to 10 with an exciting 99-96 win over Denver. Clearly it's a coincidental stat, because the Wizards won nine straight games after drafting Kwame Brown. So there. Top draft pick Greg Oden hasn't even played for them this year. But I hear he keeps having to change physical therapists after picking up two quick fouls.

Elias Knows This One Without Peeking — ESPN is still working on the correlation between teams who traded for Nazr Mohammed and went on to beat the New York Knicks by double digits. So far we know of one team: the Charlotte Bobcats, who won 105-95. Mohammed scored 20 points and got 14 rebounds.