Best of the NBA: January 3rd - 9th

With more drama and excitement than a soap opera set on a roller coaster, this is the best of the NBA for its first full week in January.

One of the week's most dramatic encounters was when the Oklahoma City Thunder travelled to Los Angeles to take on the Clippers. Tight throughout and often a single-possession game, it was hard to call going into the stretch. In the fourth quarter, though, the Thunder took control, and thanks to superior play from their stars - Russell Westbrook had yet another triple-double (29 points, 12 rebounds, 11 assists) and Paul George added 31 of his own - they put the game to bed. The Thunder continue to maintain the status quo, while the Clippers' struggles continue.

The Utah Jazz headed to warmer climes this week, travelling to Miami for a matchup with the Heat. Great ball movement and inside play from both teams meant there was little to choose between them, and as the game moved to its business end the game got all the more tense. The Jazz had an eight-point lead midway through the fourth, which Goran Dragic and Josh Richardson ate into and made it a one-point game with a minute to go. Utah's top scorer Donovan Mitchell (27 points) gave his team a bigger buffer moments later, but with seconds left Richardson found an open lane in Utah's defence and went straight to the basket and put the Heat up by one. Utah turned to Mitchell to save the day, but was double-teamed and his shot fell far short of the basket, leaving Miami victorious at the end of this terrific game.

For the most dramatic ending to an equally dramatic game, we turn to Monday, where the San Antonio Spurs and Portland Trail Blazers found themselves evenly matched at the Moda Centre. Portland's superior inside play was matched by San Antonio's long-distance shooting: there really was nothing between these teams here. LaMarcus Aldridge had 30 points for the Spurs, who were up by one on the final play of the game, where CJ McCollum - who had 25 points on the night - wrong-footed every Spurs player on the floor and made a final tip-in in the dying seconds to win the game for Portland, 111 to 110.

In that game, San Antonio's Manu Ginobili had 26 points, making him only the sixth player over the age of forty to score as many in a single game. He is quite clearly not letting his birth date get in the way of his play, and is having a stand-out year in this, his fifteenth NBA season. His performance against Portland was not even his best this week, check out highlights of Manu as he scored 21 points to help the Spurs to victory over the Suns:

There have been plenty of other exceptional performances this week, including LeBron James, Gary Harris and Bradley Beal, plus more from CJ McCollum against the Bulls and the Thunder. In the eastern conference, however, the player of the week award went to DeMar DeRozan, who put up 35 points on two separate occasions against the Bulls and Nets. This guy just keeps getting better.

Steph Curry was named player of the week in the western conference, and it has been an exceptional week's play from him. A close game against the Mavericks in Dallas was decided by a three-pointer made by him the final seconds. Having put this tense affair to bed, it would only be the start of a shimmering week for the so-far uneven team from Oakland...

Their Texas road trip continued with a visit to the Rockets in Houston, where Curry and Klay Thompson teamed up to score 57 points between them and lead their team to a ten-point victory. Curry was not done yet, though, as he would go onto drop 45 points against the Clippers and 32 against the Denver Nuggets, capping off a sensational week in which Golden State went unbeaten. There's not enough room on this one post to put in all his highlights from just this week.

As dramatic as play has been this past week, no team has had experienced more drama than the Brooklyn Nets, who first beating the Timberwolves by a single point at the start of the week: