Give and Go

This is the first of many blog posting to cure your NBA fix and mine. Sometimes I'll just rant. Other times, just post some stories from around the league that interest me.
Today, just going to hit you with a little bit of both.

Let's get our NBA fix people.

The Cleveland Cavaliers have the league's longest winning streak going right now at seven victories in a row. Now five of those seven wins came against teams that don't have winning records right now, but the Cavaliers' last two victories against Denver and Utah were respectable ones.

The jury is still out on the Detroit Pistons trading away Chauncey Billups for Allen Iverson. The Pistons will be up and down early on with Iverson.

They showed it in their loss to the defending world champions last night.

The Boston Celtics have put it on the Pistons twice since the trade with the latest coming in a 98-80 victory at Boston. In those games against the Celtics, Iverson has shot a combined 9-of-24 from the field, going 1-of-4 from 3-point range, in scoring 26 total points.

Losing to Boston doesn’t mean this is a failed experiment.

LeBron James or Kobe Bryant?

Who's better?

Well, Kobe is older, wiser, plays more efficient and is more skilled but LeBron is bigger, stronger, faster and can do more with the ball than Bryant.

Kobe has three rings. LeBron has none, but Kobe played with Shaquille O'Neal when he won three straight NBA titles with the Los Angeles Lakers.

LeBron took a Cleveland Cavalier team that didn't nearly have the same talent that the Lakers did back then to the NBA Finals in 2007.

Those are just a few of the variables to consider, but what about Dwyane Wade?

He's leading the NBA in scoring this season and unlike LeBron, D-Wade has a ring with the Miami Heat that he won playing along side, uh, Shaq-a-licious.

Wonder how many rings LeBron could win with a dominant big man in the paint? No disrespect to Big Z in Cleveland, but Shaq changed how the game is played.

So considering what he's done under those circumstances, I'm going to say LeBron is the best right now, but I'd take Kobe or D-Wade over him.

Why?

Ya'll know I'm part of the Stephen Curry fan club. Just watched Davidson's game against No. 2 Duke in Durham.

Of course Davidson lost, but Curry finished with 29 points. He got better as the game went on.

What was interesting about the game was ESPN switched commentators and had its pro crew of Mike Tirico, Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson do the college game while Dick Vitale is doing an NBA for the first time in over 20 years.

Van Gundy and Jackson were debating how well Curry will play in the NBA. Jackson thinks higher of Curry than Van Gundy, but this is what I think.

Is this a case of the Boston Celtics just getting old all the sudden or are the Cleveland Cavaliers really that good?

Right now, I'm going to go with the latter.

On Friday night, the Cavaliers took it to the Celtics, 98-83, to improve to 19-0 and home and secure the top record in the NBA right now at 29-6.

You know LeBron James did his thing.

He dropped 38 on the Celtics, who have lost seven of their last nine games and their eighth straight game at Cleveland counting last season's playoffs.

The question I have is will Cleveland finish the year with the NBA's best record? Boston needed it last season to win it all and if Cleveland's going to do the same this season, having home court advantage in the playoffs would be huge for the Cavaliers.

So what ya'll think?

Has Boston, with having veterans Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce being the core of the team, applied for social security or is Cleveland just that much better than a team that started the season 27-2 and had people comparing them to the the Chicago Bulls team that won 72 games with Michael Jordan leading the way?

I, for one, was not one of those people just so ya'll know that.

">

With the Los Angeles Lakers coming to Cleveland to take on the Cavaliers on Sunday, we all know the MVP debate between LeBron James and Kobe Bryant will intensify.

Right now, to me, James is the leading candidate, but what do ya'll think?

Hard to say? Let me help.

Take a look at highlights from James, Bryant and Miami's Dwyane Wade from this season and let's talk about this. James and Bryant are clearly the front runners, but Wade is playing with a younger team and has the Heat breathing above water.

By the way, Kobe goes for a ridiculous 61 points against the New York Knicks in Madison Square Garden so LeBron follows that monster performance up with triple double - 52 points, 11 assists and 10 rebounds.

Can't tell me those two aren't competing against each other on this. Can't wait till Sunday.

LeBron

Kobe

D-Wade

Yo D, Shaq headed to Cleveland, boy. Shaq and LeBron James about to do the dang dang. Win that title baby.

Didn't happen dude.

WHAT! Why not. Could you imagine? The Diesel and LeBron playing together?

It would have been crazy, but it didn't go down. Now it appears Cleveland offered Ben Wallace and Sasha Pavlovic for O'Neal.

That's not enough for the Diesel.

">

I keep watching last week's NBA Slam Dunk contest and I keep asking myself, how does a player get three perfect scores and still lose the contest?

That's what happened to Orlando magic center Dwight Howard last week.

Now you've got to give 5-foot 9-inch Nate Robinson of the New York Knicks credit for the show he put on, but had Howard not dawned the Superman cap and Nate hadn't catapulted off his shoulders to dunk it when jumping over him, Nate would have had no chance of winning it.

Plus Howard didn't help himself by trying to take off from the free-throw line on his last dunk. He's a two-footed jumper. Couldn't figure that out, but back to my original point.

">