Good morning! Here are the plays everybody will be talking about Friday.
James Harden with the shake-drive-and-dunk. James Harden can shoot threes and he can get to the basket, two things that make him perfect for the Houston Rockets and two things that tend to feed off each other. Because of the threat of the three-pointer, the defense has to stretch out to the line. But that just makes it easier to fly right by, but that's when the magic happens on this play. Harden goes up for a 2-handed dunk and in mid-air, switches to his left hand, deftly fending off Pau Gasol with his right and drawing the foul. The Bulls did come back to win 103-100 (via TNT).
What did the pancake do to deserve this? In a college slam dunk contest, Mississippi State's Craig Sword tried to go over a pancake mascot. The look of fear on the pancake's face was justified as it gets flattened (via The Cauldron).
Russell Westbrook had some mercy for once. Westbrook has been on a triple-double run recently and just missed another one on Thursday when he scored 28 points with 8 rebounds and 11 assists. He also had 4 steals, including this one, leading to a fastbreak, reverse jam. The dunk itself is notable because Westbrook normally has a tendency to try and hurt the rim with his thunderous dunks, so the basket must have been breathing a sigh of relief on this one. The Thunder went on to win 119-117.