NBA Playoffs Rundown

Toronto 108 Orlando 94: Toronto jumped all over Orlando early in this game and was leading 61-40 at halftime. Dwight Howard was not as dominant in this game as he was in the first two but he did manage 19 points and 12 rebounds. However, he also had 6 turnovers.

The difference in this game was that Toronto's jump shots were falling from the outside and Orlando's weren't. Toronto nailed 12 three's while Orlando only managed 6 on 27 attempts.

With Toronto's win in this game, they were able to make it a series again at 2 games to 1, and will look to even things up in the next game.

Washington 108 Cleveland 72: This is the Cavs team I thought we would see more of in the first two games. Lebron shot 10 of 19 from the floor but the rest of the team shot only 19 of 54, which is less than 40%. The Cavs also had 23 turnovers and only shot 2 of 16 from deep and 12 of 23 from the free throw line.

The Wizards played much better at home and the key to this game was that Roger Mason Jr actually saw more minutes than Gilbert Arenas. Arenas played less minutes mostly due to injury concerns, but for some reason this team does not play as well when Arenas is out there because they play more of a team game when he is not on the floor. Mason came up big in this game, scoring 18 points on 8 of 14 shooting. It will be interesting to see what kind of minutes Arenas gets the rest of this series.

Houston 94 Utah 92: Another close game between these two teams but this time the Rockets were able to come out on top. The strange thing about this win is that Houston dropped the first two games at home and then traveled to Utah and beat a team that was 37 and 4 at home this season. If you combine the fact that Utah's home record is so good and that Houston was down 2-0 in this series, than this was definitely a huge performance for the Rockets and you have to give them alot of credit.

The difference in this game was that Rafer Alston was able to come back and play last night and he played great. He scored 20 points and shot 4 of 8 from deep. Alston has really turned out to be a quality player in the NBA. He was mostly known for his PG abilities and ball handling from being one of the original And1 performers but he has remade himself as an excellent 3-Point shooter. Houston was awful from the outside in the first two games only knocking down 10 shots from deep, so Alston's outside shooting was a big boost in this game.

Despite Alston's strong play, Utah pretty much lost this game at the free throw line because they missed 13 free throws, shooting only 20 of 33 from the line. If Alston continues to play and play well, this series could be stretched to 7 games but I suspect it will be tough for Houston to steal another game in Utah.