Hooped Up

For the second consecutive night — and on the road no less — the Lakers were forced into playing an overtime game. And they escaped again, winning 103-102 over the Rockets on Wednesday night. It took a big defensive stop for the Lakers to walk away with the victory.

Andrew Bynum had given the Lakers a one-point lead by making one of two free throws withh 24.7 seconds left. Trevor Ariza, the former Laker who signed with the Rockets this summer, tried to drive the lane, but Derek Fisher stripped the ball away. The ball rolled down court as the last few seconds ticked away. The Lakers defeated the Oklahoma Thunder in overtime on Tuesday night, giving them a 2-0 record on the two-game trip.

Kobe Bryant had 41 points, the second time this week he has broken the 40-point barrier. He also had 41 points Sunday against the Atlanta Hawks.
LA Times

Former NBA referee Tim Donaghy was released yesterday from a Florida prison, having completed a 15-month jail term for wire-fraud and gambling charges, minus about 2 months for good behavior.

Now the hard part begins, as the 42-year-old ex-con seeks to rebuild his life, find a new job and begin paying restitution to the NBA for calling in betting tips to two Philadelphia-area gambling buddies while he was working as a referee.
Philly.com

Scoring and shooting are historically at their lowest in the first month of the NBA season and then steadily climb. But that’s not the way this season has started. To greet the new type of rims rolled in by the league last month, league-wide scoring has risen by nearly five points through the first seven days of the regular season compared to last season. Teams are averaging a hearty 99.96 points per game, up from 95.17 during the same span in 2008-09.

So what gives?

Conclusions are difficult to draw just a week into a regular season that spans some six months, but teams are undeniably taking more 3-pointers with each passing year. A few new teams every season tend to decide they want to play at a faster pace and the general trend throughout the league finds coaches working 3s into their offenses and practice routines more than ever.
ESPN