Penny Hardaway: A perfect game

November 15, 2007

That's exactly what Anfernee "Penny" Hardaway, the Miami Heat's free agent acquisition, did the other day against the New Jersey Nets wherein he and former Orlando Magic teammate Shaquille O'Neal sealed the Heat's victory (91-87) with "strong fourth quarter play" in East Rutherford, N.J.

AP Basketball Writer Brian Mahoney wrote:

"The Heat were up five with less than 9 minutes left when Hardaway made a 3-pointer. He knocked down another one about 1 1/2 minutes later, giving Miami a 75-66 cushion with 7:22 remaining.

Sean Williams' bucket cut it to four with 4 1/2 minutes left, but Hardaway answered with another 3 with 4:09 to go. Hardaway hadn't scored more than eight points in a game this season, when he returned to the league after not playing since the 2005-06 season because of leg injuries."

Sun-Sentinel and Miami Heat beat writer added:

"And Hardaway finally made shots, going 6 for 6 (4 for 4 from downtown and 3 of the 4 in the 4th quarter), the first time he played without a miss in his career."

Even with D.Wade back, Penny Hardaway's stellar play (as of late as there have been a number of occasions this year wherein the Heat have had to beg him just to shoot the basketball) might actually score some more points with stern taskmaster and Heat coach Pat Riley.

Ricky Davis, watch your back!

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Employee #8 takes his game over to the Twin Cities

Yahoo! Sports reported that the Miami Heat and the Minnesota Timberwolves have consummated a five-player deal highlighted by Antoine Walker leaving his conditioning problems and moving out West in exchange for one-time Heat player Ricky Davis and center Mark Blount (who both came from the Boston Celtics in a trade deadline deal almost two years ago).

The Boston Globe wrote:

"The Celtics sent Ricky Davis, Mark Blount, Marcus Banks, Justin Reed, and two conditional second-round picks to the Timberwolves on January 27, 2006 in exchange for Michael Olowokandi, Wally Szczerbiak, Dwayne Jones of the development league, and a conditional first-round pick likely to be exercised in 2008."

While for these same two players (Davis and Blount), the Heat got the aforementioned Antoine Walker, third-string center Michael Doleac, forward Wayne Simien (who I know is there, but never really seen play) and a conditional first-round draft pick.

Gosh, it's either the Mutt and Jeff combo of Ricky Davis and Mark Blount isn't worth that much anymore (Davis is projected to be the Heat's third scoring option, while Blount should provide help to the trio of Shaquille O'Neal, Alonzo Mourning, and Udonis Haslem) or this is just another fine move by Timberwolves General Manager (Wikipedia.org lists him as Assistant GM) Kevin McHale to dump salary because I don't think the T-Wolves fans would love the idea of trouping to the Target Center to watch the "spectacular" veteran tandem of Antoine Walker and Juwan Howard fill up the box scores every night.

Certainly, the University of Florida's Corey Wayne Brewer, who the Timberwolves drafted this year, would be more entertaining to watch in their frontcourt.

I mean, come on! They did, once-upon-a-time have the talented Kevin Garnett...

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