Around the NBA: Injury takes Ross out of action for Magic
Terrence Ross, the one-time Raptor dealt away in the Serge Ibaka transaction last February, won’t be helping the Orlando Magic for the foreseeable future.
Ross sprained the medial collateral ligament in his right knee and suffered a non-displaced fracture in his right leg in a gruesome accident during a game against Oklahoma City on Wednesday and will miss “a significant amount of time,” the team said.
Ross started 20 of Orlando’s first 22 games and was averaging nine points per game.
A family affair:
When the San Antonio Spurs and Pau Gasol beat the Memphis Grizzlies and Marc Gasol on Wednesday night, it marked the 25th time the brothers had played against each other.
That’s a lot but it’s not the most in NBA history; that mark is held by Tom and Dick Van Arsdale, who faced each other 56 times. Dominique and Gerald Wilkins played against each other 43 times, George and Ed Mikan met 30 times, and Horace and Harvey Grant were foes 28 times.
The Gasols should get to 26 on Friday when the Spurs and Grizzlies meet again.
Speaking of …:
There was a bit of a kerfuffle around these parts earlier this week when some connect-the-dots-speculation had the Raptors interested in trading for Marc Gasol.
Sure, if the centre was available he’d been an attractive addition and, sure, the Raptors might make a call that would be sure to be rebuffed.
How do we know that? This, from Memphis general manager Chris Wallace in the wake of the David Fizdale firing and Gasol rumourmongering: “We have no intention to trade Marc,” Wallace told ESPN.com. “We never seriously considered that at all. We never placed any calls to any teams in that regard. So that’s not happening.”
A couple of firsts:
Cleveland’s LeBron James and New Orleans’ Anthony Davis made dubious firsts this week: Each was ejected from a game for the first time in his career.
James was playing in regular season game No. 1,082 when he was tossed in the third quarter of Cleveland’s eventual win over Miami. The Cavs were 93-70 at the time.
“”I’m trying to win every possession. I don’t care if we’re up 23 or we’re down 23. I want to win every possession.”
Davis was in game No. 355 of his career when he got two technicals in about 15 seconds of a game against Minnesota. Noted pacifist and teammate DeMarcus Cousins came to his defence.
Not making them count:
The Process, apparently, does not include efficiency from the free-throw line.
Philadelphia rookie guard Ben Simmons, one of the most promising young players in the league, set an NBA record by shooting 24 free throws in the fourth quarter of the Sixers’ eventual 118-113 win over the Washington Wizards.
Hacked intentionally for the ma- jority of the quarter — the NBA has to do something to stop that but guys making free throws would be the most obvious solution — Simmons missed as many as he made and ended up 14-for-29 from the line overall in the game. The Wizards got within three points three different times in the final 31⁄ minutes of the 2 quarter by employing the Hack-A-Ben strategy.
Simmons’ 29 attempts in the game was also an all-time NBA record for rookies.
On the other hand …:
Portland’s C.J. McCollum doesn’t need to attempt any free throws to load up on the points.
In a win over Washington on Saturday night, the Trail Blazers guard scored 26 points despite not getting to the free throw line once in the 32 1⁄ 2 minutes he played. It’s not all that unusual, either. McCollum now has five games in his career in which he’s scored 25 or more points without shooting a single free throw. Doug Smith