Was laying there on the couch back on Sunday night, and I was drifting in-and-out of a steady sleep mode, and then I woke up to a bang, and before I knew it, there was another bang, and then another, and I realized the bangs were Three-Point Shots going in for Aaron Wiggins, of the Oklahoma City Thunder…(Aaron on NBC TV, with Noah Eagle and Grant Hill calling the game, on Suday night. Thought I was hearing Brendan Haywood, from Dudley HS, calling that game, but it WAS Grant Hill.)
Aaron Wiggins, from Greensboro’s Grimsley HS, and from Wesleyan Christian Academy, in High Point, was going B-A-N-G, B-A-N-G, B-A-N-G for the OKC Thunder with his Three Big 3s, coming off the bench red-hot for the Thunder…
Aaron finished the game with 14 points, coming off of his Three 3s, while going totally 5-9 from the field, and he hit one of his two free throw attempts, and he grabbed Six Rebounds for good measure…All of this Wiggins’ Work coming in the Thunder’s 121-111 victory over the Denver Nuggets, in Denver, on Sunday night…
(Reigning league MVP, SGA/Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, led the Thunder with his game-high 34 points. SGA also dished out a whopping 13 assists.)
Not too bad for the kid from Greensboro, N.C.(Aaron Wiggins), and he was with us last Summer, back home, and back at the Forest Valley Court, right next door to where he grew up…Aaron Wiggins lived on that court as a kid…He would spend up to 10 hours a day down there…Check out our interview with Aaron, from last Summer….
BIG Win for the Charlotte Hornets on Monday afternoon, with their 102-95 victory over the New Orleans Pelicans…For the Hornets, it was their Seventh(7th) win in a-row, and at one time Charlotte was down by 22 points, in this game, but there was no quit in these kids, and they came back and prospered….Hornets win it, but there was HUGE head-to-head collision with the Hornets head coach Charles Lee, and the Bugs top-scorer for the game, LaMelo Ball….Here is the “heads-up”, on the head-to-head collision with Lee and Ball…
from www.espn.com:
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Hornets coach Charles Lee sheepishly walked into the press room after his team’s 102-95 victory over the New Orleans Pelicans and immediately threw himself under the proverbial bus.
“Stupid … coach,” an embarrassed Lee said, shaking his head before sitting down to take questions from reporters.
Lee and LaMelo Ball were involved in a head-to-head collision in the first quarter near the Charlotte bench, briefly sending the star point guard to the locker room to be checked out by trainers. Ball returned after having a 1-inch laceration above his eye glued shut by trainers. He scored 24 points and grabbed eight rebounds to lead Charlotte to its seventh straight win.
The bizarre incident occurred when Ball was attempting to save an errant pass from Miles Bridges near the Hornets’ bench. Lee, who was pacing the sideline at the time, never saw Ball coming and instinctively bent over to retrieve the ball.
As Lee lowered his head to retrieve the ball, the Hornets’ star guard came racing into him, sending the second-year coach into the scorer’s table.
Ball wound up on the floor for several minutes, and both men grabbed their heads. When Ball got up, he grabbed a towel and put it over his right eye as he was escorted to the locker room.
He returned to the bench a few minutes later.
“I took a play off, and you’re not supposed to take any plays off,” Lee said, taking full blame for the collision.
“I thought the ball was going out of bounds and I was going to save it from going into the stands, and he was going to save the ball. We went head to head. Credit to him he didn’t yell at me too bad.”
Ball laughed off the collision while speaking to The Associated Press in the locker room after the game.
“He went for the ball and I went for the ball, and obviously, we bumped heads,” Ball said. “It was unfortunate, but hey, I’m still alive and breathing, so who cares? We got the win, so that’s what most important.”
Lee, who never left the sideline and continued to coach, said he loved how Ball was quick to return to the game.
“I love his spirit of, ‘Hey, let me get to the back, get cleaned up and get back out there,'” Lee said. “It just shows the growth that he continues to have to take a bump or a bruise like that and shake it off. He really helped our team.”
Ball turned in one of his better games this season, scoring 18 points in the first half to keep the game from getting out of hand after the Hornets fell behind by 22 points.
In the second half, Ball made several big shots, including a rare two-handed dunk after blowing by a defender in traffic. He added five assists and finished with just two turnovers.
“It was a great job by him of responding to a foolish coach,” Lee said.
**********Just a footnote on thinking I was hearing those Bangs on Sunday night, but was really hearing basketball shots instead….Well, I was laying in bed there at home about two Summers ago, and it was late night Thursday, real early morning Friday, and I did hear the B-A-N-G-S for real…Laying there in bed, and from outside my window in the parking lot out front, I heard B-A-N-G, B-A-N-G, B-A-N-G, B-A-N-G, B-A-N-G, B-A-N-G, B-A-N-G, B-A-N-G, B-A-N-G….The sequence of B-A-N-G, was nine gun shots, and they came from my Condo parking lot…
So, all I am saying is, sometimes the shots are real, they are coming from a gun, and you hear B-A-N-G, B-A-N-G, B-A-N-G, B-A-N-G, B-A-N-G, B-A-N-G, B-A-N-G, B-A-N-G, B-A-N-G, and there is NO Place to Run…Next thing you hear in that moment are sirens…Gun shots, then some yelling and crying, then SILENCE, and then the sirens…
You just never know what card will come up when those cards hit the table….**********