Daily Lies & Statistics: Matt Bonner’s Night

I know that I’m supposed to lead off this morning’s post with an assessment of Allen Iverson’s re-debut with the 76ers, but I got Bonner’d last night! For the first time in his career Mehmet Okur was not the best 6’10” white center in a game, as Matt Bonner did his best Okur impression with 28 points on 10-of-14 shooting, 4 treys and 9 rebounds. You have to give it to Okur, though, as he was touched enough to pay homage to Bonner by scoring 14 points on 5-of-9 shooting, 2 treys and 9 rebounds. Dude, where’s my car!

Okur: Hey Bonner, I can nail threes too. But can you nail this?

OK, so Allen Iverson did return. And in his honor, Carmelo Anthony shot 5-of-21 from the floor. Mad respect. With his 14 points it was the first time all season that Anthony failed to hit the 20-point mark. Iverson was touched.

In his re-debut, Iverson scored 11 points on 4-of-11 shooting, deferring to his teammates by notching a game-high 6 assists. The “other” AI, Andre Iguodala, dropped 31 points on 11-of-21 shooting, 4 threes, 4 rebounds and 3 steals. The real story of the night, though, might have been the fact that the Philly starters scored 81 of the team’s 83 points. I think it’s safe to say that there are no bench players worth owning in Philadelphia.

The 76ers are on a 10 game losing streak, while the Knicks are…on…a…three…game…winning?…streak? Yeah. They beat the Oden-less Trail Blazers by a score of 93-84. Once again, Nate Robinson managed to post a DNP-CD. Time to drop Nate, no? He is now as valuable as Spike Lee is to the Knicks. Larry Hughes, on the other hand, continues to shine — 21 points on 8-of-18 shooting, 4 treys, 6 rebounds and a steal.

Other performances of note:

Joel Przybilla: Made his first start of the season last night, with Greg Oden out for the season. He scored just 4 points with 8 rebounds and zero blocks. I’m not giving up on Przybilla. He’s a nice source of rebounds, blocks and FG%. He’ll have better games going forward.

Andre Miller: He played 26 minutes off the bench, scoring just 4 points and dishing 2 dimes to 4 turnovers. I would continue to sit Miller, though if you started him this week — we’re cool. The Blazers play four times, so it’s tough to sit a guy on a four-game week.

James Harden: Scored a career-high 26 points on 13-of-14 shooting from the line. He also notched 9 rebounds, 5 assists and 2 blocks. He’s inching close to being a 12-team must-add. I think he has the ability to be this season’s Eric Gordon. I’m actually making the move in a 12-team league. But you should only do so if you have a movable feast piece.

C.J. Watson: He played all 48 minutes last night against the Thunder, though he only managed to score 10 points and pull down 5 rebounds. A few things to note: Anthony Morrow was unable to make the flight, so he missed last night’s game — leaving extra minutes. Plus, Corey Maggette got ejected in the third quarter. Altooouuuggghhhh, Devean George did play (5 minutes!). I still think Watson is a nice deep league value guy.

C.J. Miles: It was a night of 1,000 C.J.’s. Miles hit the 10-point mark for the first time this season last night. It will be interesting to see what happens once Andrei Kirilenko returns this week. The two wing position will be filled by Ronnie Brewer (17 points, 10 rebounds, 2 steals), Wes Matthews (11 points in 34 minutes), Miles and AK-47. FIGHT!

Tonight there are 8 games on the schedule. Josh Howard might return, so too could Andrea Bargnani. I don’t however, expect to see Michael Redd in uniform against the Celtics. Enjoy!