Vegas Summer League Recap: Day 5

Okay, what gives?  I know it's just the Japanese national team, and that it's just a "scrimmage," but no box score?  Again?  Was this some deal worked out with the good people of Japan to prevent being housed by the D-Leaguers?  Anyway, the D-League Select team played the Japanese national team again, and won big again, 92-64.  Here's the D-League's game write-up.  Coleman Collins was getting some mentions on Twitter, and he finished the game with...well who knows.  All we know about this game is that Jasper Johnson scored 15 points and Othyus Jeffers had 14.  The only play that's described is a Collins dunk.  Whee.  I also read that Kurt Looby was playing well, but all evidence of that seems to have been erased.  This is really annoying.  Hey D-League, if you're going to bother writing a game summary, just go ahead and post the box score as well.  The D-League is playing Sacramento tonight, so there will be some stats from that, but is it too much to ask to find out how well people are playing, you know, every night?

Games that were deemed worthy of paying attention to after the jump.

Washington Wizards 96, Cleveland Cavaliers 93

Yes, these two teams continued their simmering rivalry as LeBron James and Gilbert Arenas went at it...oh right, it's just Summer League.  Washington actually has a fair amount of its regular roster here, including new Vegas addition Andray Blatche.  This is Blatche's fourth season in the league, but he's still just 23 and still a bit erratic, so another round of Summer League couldn't hurt.  He admitted to being nervous in the beginning, and he finished with seven turnovers, but he also had 21 points on 13 shots, 10 rebounds and a pair of blocks.  Nick Young started his transition to a new offense which requires him to come off of more screens, and he had a decent day (though he took about 30 percent of his team's shots) with 36 points on 19 shots, and he made five of his eight three-pointers.  Christian Eyenga has had an up-and-down start to Summer League, but he was solid yesterday with 17 points on 13 shots in almost 23 minutes.

Jawad Williams has been relatively quiet so far, but he had a nice game off the bench for Cleveland with 14 points on eight shots, including making two of his three shots from behind the arc, and he contributed a pair of rebounds and a steal.  Tyrese Rice had a decent shooting night for Washington, going 4-9, though he dribbles the ball too much.  Maureece Rice didn't get much playing time, just under four and a half minutes, but he made both of his field goals and added a rebound

San Antonio Spurs 78, Denver Nuggets 76

Ian Mahinmi is still a work in progress (due partially to development time lost to injury), and while he had ten fouls yesterday he also had 12 points on nine shots and 16 rebounds along with two blocks.  Jack McClinton finished with a game-high four assists in 11 minutes, though he also missed both of his shots.

Coby Karl had a nice all-around game, shooting 6-7 (including 3-4 on threes), three rebounds and a steal, and he also had three turnovers, he generally looked pretty good.  We knew Romel Beck can score, and he's been pretty efficient for San Antonio so far.  He had 14 points on 11 shots yesterday, though he hasn't been doing much else.  Malik Hairston has been about the same, with nice, efficient scoring (7-11 yesterday) but contributing less in other areas than he's capable of.  CJ Giles had a nice six rebounds in 13 minutes, though he missed both of his free throws.  Squeaky Johnson finally got on the court but not for very long, less than four minutes, but he had two turnovers in that time which is completely uncharacteristic for him

Memphis Grizzlies 90, New York Knicks 86

I can spend a lot of time focusing on the non-NBA guys with this game, so I think I will (unless you want to hear about Sam Young's 3-10 shooting or Toney Douglas going 2-13).  Nikolosz Tskitishvili had a good game.  Yeah, it's Summer League, but it's still nice to be able to say it.  12 points on 4-8 shooting, four rebounds and three blocks.  It's the blocked shots that jump out at me, because I don't remember that being part of his game before.  Then again, because these boxscores don't keep track of blocks against, I don't know who Skita blocked.  For all I know it could be Daniel Ewing.  Ron Howard also played well, with 11 points on nine shots, eight rebounds, three assists and two steals.  Hamed Haddadi had a decent game off the bench, with six rebounds and two blocks in less than 12 minutes, though he also needed six shots to get four points.  Trey Gilder became an RU favorite over the course of last season (as did about half of Colorado's roster, come to think of it), and he had a nice all-around game yesterday with nine points on 4-5 shooting, five rebounds, a steal and a block.  I know I keep saying I don't want to do this (and I know I keep saying that I know I keep saying that I don't want to do this), but Blake Ahearn has had a really rough few weeks.  He was inconsistent in Orlando (to put it charitably), and yesterday he shot 1-8, though he also made all six of his free throws and had three assists.  Ahearn's a much better shooter than he's been demonstrating, but he needs to start showing it.

Los Angeles Clippers 88, New Orleans Hornets 86

DeAndre Jordan continued his solid play in Vegas with 21 points on 10 shots, 12 rebounds and three blocks.  TrueHoop's David Thorpe said on Twitter that out of all of the players here, Jordan may have improved the most in the last year.  Eric Gordon's also been playing solidly, and he had 22 points on 14 shots, helped along by going 10-10 from the free-throw line.  Darren Collison and Marcus Thornton had played well together, and they combined for 42 points on 31 shots, while Thornton shot 3-6 on three-pointers and Collison had four assists.

Kevinn Pinkney (who preceded/played with Nick Fazekas at Nevada-Reno and spent some time with the Bakersfield Jam) didn't have a great shooting night, though five rebounds in less than 13 minutes is solid.  Earl Barron had six points and five rebounds in 15 and a half minutes, which is decent enough.

Los Angeles Lakers 74, Oklahoma City Thunder 68

James Harden's been really solid all-around, both here and in Orlando.  He's been shooting the ball efficiently and picking up a fair number of rebounds, assists and steals.  Case in point: he had 23 points on 14 shots yesterday, five assists, five rebounds and two steals.  Kyle Weaver had eight rebounds, three blocks and two steals to go with his ten points.  DJ White had a nice shooting day, going 4-5, though he didn't rebound as well as he has/can.

David Monds had another decent game with 11 points, five rebounds and two steals.  Dominique Coleman only played four minutes (he's on the Lakers squad), but he had a pair of assists in that time.  Forget Adam Morrison, play Dominique Coleman!

Golden State Warriors 95, Chicago Bulls 83

Congratulations to Anthony Randolph on matching the Summer League single-game scoring record with 42 points (and he also had four steals and three blocks).  A lot of people are (maybe) going to talk about how remarkable it is (so go read Golden State of Mind or FreeDarko for that), but I'm a pretty cynical guy, so I'll just temper everyone else's enthusiasm with the fact that he managed only three rebounds in over 34 minutes.  You're the next generation or power forward and Stephen Curry can out-rebound you?  Speaking of whom, remember when everyone said that Curry would have a smooth transition to the pros because he was such a good shooter (did they say that)?  Well he probably should start making those shots.  He went 3-15 yesterday, and has shot the ball pretty terribly in every game.  He's doing all the other things well, though, with eight assists, five rebounds and a block.  James Johnson played well with 21 points on 13 shots, eight rebounds, three assists and a block.  Taj Gibson had a decent performance with 5-11 shooting and 12 rebounds, though he also had nine fouls. James Augustine mostly played well, going 10-11 with seven rebounds and three blocks, though he also had seven fouls.  TorosGirl would probably hurt me if I didn't mention DeMarcus Nelson.  He played okay, shooting 4-12 with five turnovers but sinking all five of his free throws, grabbing five rebounds and picking up six assists (you thought I was going to say five again, didn't you?)