NBA does a lot of things well, but I think it's getting out of control these days with some things. Today it suspended Kobe Bryant for a game for an "unnatural basketball move" in the game against the Spurs where he hit Manu Ginobli's face. I thought it was a totally unintentional contact when Manu blocked him from behind. Kobe's follow through put his hand in Manu's face. The motion looked weird probably because he had no idea somebody was behind him and was surprised somebody blocked his shot out of nowhere. In any case, the NBA suspended him and the Lakers lost in New York. I like it when the Lakers lose, but this suspension was totally uncalled for. The Lakers should probably still beat these teams, but I guess Eddie Curry and Jamal Crawford are playing pretty good these days.
Washington took care of Detroit even as Jamison got injured and missed most of the game. Washington has now beat Detorit twice in 5 days. This could be the official changing of the guards in the L-Eastern conference.
Lebron James missed another game because of the bad toe, but the Warriors still lost to the Cavs on the road. The Cavs have a surprisingly good record (8-2) when Lebron is out. Bad loss for the Warriors who are embarking on a 6 game road trip. They lose to a Lebron-less Cavs team and are in Atlanta for a back-to-back tomorrow. This trip can have a huge impact on the 8-th spot in the West.
No Lebron, no Kobe today and apparently no AI Tomorrow.
Detroit @ Washington - 99-104
Interesting games on the board for Jan 31-th (Wednesday)
San Antonio @ Utah - Should be a good one. Spurs go from the Lakers to the Jazz to the Suns. This is step 2.
Detroit @ NJ - NJ come back home after a tough west coast trip to welcome the Pistons on a back-to-back night for the pistons.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Monday, January 29, 2007
NBA notes - 1/29/2007
The Suns couldn't win their 18-th straight in-spite of 18 assists from Steve Nash. By the way, how do you get 18 assists? Anyways, I am disappointed today! It's normal in the NBA to lose games on the road, especially on back-to-back nights. But the Suns have been winning so many games, it's almost a shock to see them lose. Actually I thought they would win today and lose against the Spurs. Jazz or the Nuggets. But Garnett was too good. He shot 18-29 for 44 points and 11 boards. Some amazing numbers for KG. He dominated the entire game and the Suns went cold in the 4-th quarter like they used to in the first week of the season. The Suns actually had a great game except for Amare. Not sure what happened to him, but he took just 5 shots for 10 points. Raja Bell had 26 and Marion had 24. Nash was great with 20 and 18 assists. Still the T-Wolves stayed with them and KG just put the Suns away when they got cold in the 4-th quarter. He hit an array of his trademark turnaround, fade-away jumpers. Once again, it took a enormous individual effort to beat the Suns, but they got beat by a mediocre team on the road in-spite of scoring 112 points. Hope it doesn't start a losing streak given the tough schedule ahead. Hope the Suns come out with extra motivation and deal with the Spurs on Thursday. Not that they need any extra motivation to play the Spurs.
In other games, Denver lost again, this time to the Bobcats. They need to stop the bleeding soon. Pau Gasol had 34 on 14/17 shooting. Looks like he is getting ready for the trade. Vinsanity hit a buzzer beater to beat the Jazz by a point. The Nets have probably had one of the most eventful road-trips ever. A tonne of one-point games and impressive defeats and victories! Vince had 33 on 10-15 shooting. A very funny thing happened in this game. Matt Harping was in the low post and he threw the ball out to Deron Williams on the baseline. One problem. Deron was out-of-bounds actually walking to the bench after being just pulled out of the game! He was walking slowly with another guy who was also replaced from the game. I have no idea why Harping thought these two guys where in the game! I have never seen anything like this before.
Phoenix @ Minnesota - 112-121
Interesting games on the board for Jan 30-th (Tuesday)
Detroit @ Washington - The old V the New in the L-Eastern conference. Jamison is on fire right now.
In other games, Denver lost again, this time to the Bobcats. They need to stop the bleeding soon. Pau Gasol had 34 on 14/17 shooting. Looks like he is getting ready for the trade. Vinsanity hit a buzzer beater to beat the Jazz by a point. The Nets have probably had one of the most eventful road-trips ever. A tonne of one-point games and impressive defeats and victories! Vince had 33 on 10-15 shooting. A very funny thing happened in this game. Matt Harping was in the low post and he threw the ball out to Deron Williams on the baseline. One problem. Deron was out-of-bounds actually walking to the bench after being just pulled out of the game! He was walking slowly with another guy who was also replaced from the game. I have no idea why Harping thought these two guys where in the game! I have never seen anything like this before.
Phoenix @ Minnesota - 112-121
Interesting games on the board for Jan 30-th (Tuesday)
Detroit @ Washington - The old V the New in the L-Eastern conference. Jamison is on fire right now.
NBA notes - 1/28/2007
Suns won easily on the road at Cleveland today. The game was close for a while, but it seemed like the outcome was never in doubt. They are so good right now and Nash is just getting them whatever they want on offense, it does feel like they can blow the opponent away any minute now. They are still streaky and go on wild runs, but the cold streaks on becoming rarer and rarer. Nash is just too good. He had 23 and 15 assists and Lebron says they look unbeatable. Lebron had a 30-9-5 game, but thats not enough to beat the Suns offense these days. Lets see how long it goes. Everybody is now looking ahead and are talking about when they would lose another game again. They wrap up the road trip tomorrow at Minnesota, but after that they have 3 big games. Spurs and Jazz at home and then they travel to Denver. I think they win against the T-Wolves, but lose at least one of those next 3.
Spurs and the Lakers played a classic game today. It almost put me in the playoff mode. The Spurs were struggling all game long and were playing catchup, but they closed the gap in the final minutes and pushed the game to overtime. Then they won on Finley's game winning 3 in response to a Kobe jumper which would have been the game-winner if Finn had missed. This was a big win for the Spurs. They have been struggling a bit this season and they had problems in this game too. Lakers were aggressively doubling Timmy and Ginobli and Parker couldn't hit the side of the back-board for 3 quarters. Timmy had a great game, but it got to a point where nobody except Finley would even take the open jump shot out of Duncan's double-teams and Finley wasn't shooting a good percentage either! They were down by 10 with a few mins to go and they came back and tied it up. It reminded me of the playoff games during the Shaq-Kobe era where the Spurs would always lead by 10 only to lose at the end. The roles were reversed now. The Spurs still play great defense and thats what helped them in this one. As good as Kobe was, as difficult as it was for Bowen to defend him, I think the Spurs D still showed up big time at crucial moments. In regulation, Kobe shook off Bowen with a fake and thought he had a wide open jumper, but Ginobli blind-sided him and blocked the shot clean. That was great work by Ginobli, who also got hot on offense in the 4-th quarter during a key stretch. All in all, the Spurs impressed me. They are still a dangerous contender and this was a good win for them. Apparently they always get hot on this "rodeo road trip" when there's a Rodeo on their home court in San Antonio.
Indiana lost to Detroit today. Not a great game for Indiana. Chris Weber had 17-13 and he seems to be helping them a lot. I am mildly surprised.
Phoenix @ Cleveland - 115-110
San Antonio @ LA Lakers - 96-94
Indiana @ Detroit - 87-95
Interesting games on the board for Jan 29-th (Monday)
Phoenix @ Minnesota - Going for 18 straight!
Spurs and the Lakers played a classic game today. It almost put me in the playoff mode. The Spurs were struggling all game long and were playing catchup, but they closed the gap in the final minutes and pushed the game to overtime. Then they won on Finley's game winning 3 in response to a Kobe jumper which would have been the game-winner if Finn had missed. This was a big win for the Spurs. They have been struggling a bit this season and they had problems in this game too. Lakers were aggressively doubling Timmy and Ginobli and Parker couldn't hit the side of the back-board for 3 quarters. Timmy had a great game, but it got to a point where nobody except Finley would even take the open jump shot out of Duncan's double-teams and Finley wasn't shooting a good percentage either! They were down by 10 with a few mins to go and they came back and tied it up. It reminded me of the playoff games during the Shaq-Kobe era where the Spurs would always lead by 10 only to lose at the end. The roles were reversed now. The Spurs still play great defense and thats what helped them in this one. As good as Kobe was, as difficult as it was for Bowen to defend him, I think the Spurs D still showed up big time at crucial moments. In regulation, Kobe shook off Bowen with a fake and thought he had a wide open jumper, but Ginobli blind-sided him and blocked the shot clean. That was great work by Ginobli, who also got hot on offense in the 4-th quarter during a key stretch. All in all, the Spurs impressed me. They are still a dangerous contender and this was a good win for them. Apparently they always get hot on this "rodeo road trip" when there's a Rodeo on their home court in San Antonio.
Indiana lost to Detroit today. Not a great game for Indiana. Chris Weber had 17-13 and he seems to be helping them a lot. I am mildly surprised.
Phoenix @ Cleveland - 115-110
San Antonio @ LA Lakers - 96-94
Indiana @ Detroit - 87-95
Interesting games on the board for Jan 29-th (Monday)
Phoenix @ Minnesota - Going for 18 straight!
Saturday, January 27, 2007
NBA notes - 1/27/2007
Nowitzki proved once again that he is a true superstar by hitting a clutch jumper to put the Suck-to Kings away. The game was too close for comfort and the Mavs won by just 2 points. New Jersey finally stopped it's 3-game 1-point losing streak by beating the Nuggets in Denver by 10 points. Great win for the Nets and a bad home loss for the Nuggets. AI shot 6-19 and Melo shot 5-14 and were clearly no match for Vinsanity's 14-23 and 40 points! Vinsanity is a lot of fun to watch. The guy just seems to hang in the air a little longer than the other NBA'ers.
Shaq sat out as Miami lost to Chicago on the road. They don't want the daddy to play on back-to-back night. Ben Gordon had 34 and Kirk Hinrich got 26. Thats a killer back-court they got there in Chicago. Hinrich also played great D on D-Wade and slowed him down. Wade shot only 8-24. Hinrich is having an amazing career for a white guy out of Kansas who was considered too slow to be a point guard and too small to be a shooting guard. He is not a great athlete, not a great shooter nor is he a natural point like a Steve Nash. But he is tough, always plays hard, makes good decisions, is quick on his feet, stays in front of athletic guards and defends real well. He is an important part of what they do there in Chi-town. There are also rumors about them trading Ben Gordon in a package for Pau Gasol. I think the Bulls now have some talent to pull trades like this.
Speaking of Pau, the Grizzlies lost a double overtime thriller to Portland 132-135. It's becoming commonplace for the Grizzlies to score 130+ these days. Pau had 24-14 but Zach Randolph scored 42 points on 40 shots, 24 of which he missed! How do you take 40 shots in a NBA game? I guess you do it if your fellow starters are named Ime Udoka, Joel Przybilla, Jarrett Jack and Brandon Roy :-) All kidding aside, I do like Brandon Roy though. He is a smooth operator who should win the Rookie Of the Year (R-O-Y) award easily.
Jazz lost to New Orleans on the road and Jerry Sloan was not too happy with the effort. Both AK-47 and Boozer were injured and Sloan thought the others just gave up. I would love to visit one of Sloan's practices and see what he does with his players. It's almost like he is in a time-capsule. A coach from the 50's in todays NBA who is somehow getting it done against all conventional wisdom about today's ballers and how they want to be treated etc.
Two great games tomorrow on ABC. Suns @ Cavs and Spurs @ Lakers.
Miami @ Chicago - 97-100
New Jersey @ Denver - 112-102
Interesting games on the board for Jan 28-th (Sunday)
Phoenix @ Cleveland - This game has been on national TV for 2 years now and each time the Suns have lost big leads. They would like to blow the Cavs away this time around.
San Antonio @ LA Lakers - Great match-up. Spurs will have a tough time on the road.
Indiana @ Detroit - This is always a heated rivalry, but Indiana is also trying to get their game going a little bit in the central division and challenge Detroit and the Cavs.
Shaq sat out as Miami lost to Chicago on the road. They don't want the daddy to play on back-to-back night. Ben Gordon had 34 and Kirk Hinrich got 26. Thats a killer back-court they got there in Chicago. Hinrich also played great D on D-Wade and slowed him down. Wade shot only 8-24. Hinrich is having an amazing career for a white guy out of Kansas who was considered too slow to be a point guard and too small to be a shooting guard. He is not a great athlete, not a great shooter nor is he a natural point like a Steve Nash. But he is tough, always plays hard, makes good decisions, is quick on his feet, stays in front of athletic guards and defends real well. He is an important part of what they do there in Chi-town. There are also rumors about them trading Ben Gordon in a package for Pau Gasol. I think the Bulls now have some talent to pull trades like this.
Speaking of Pau, the Grizzlies lost a double overtime thriller to Portland 132-135. It's becoming commonplace for the Grizzlies to score 130+ these days. Pau had 24-14 but Zach Randolph scored 42 points on 40 shots, 24 of which he missed! How do you take 40 shots in a NBA game? I guess you do it if your fellow starters are named Ime Udoka, Joel Przybilla, Jarrett Jack and Brandon Roy :-) All kidding aside, I do like Brandon Roy though. He is a smooth operator who should win the Rookie Of the Year (R-O-Y) award easily.
Jazz lost to New Orleans on the road and Jerry Sloan was not too happy with the effort. Both AK-47 and Boozer were injured and Sloan thought the others just gave up. I would love to visit one of Sloan's practices and see what he does with his players. It's almost like he is in a time-capsule. A coach from the 50's in todays NBA who is somehow getting it done against all conventional wisdom about today's ballers and how they want to be treated etc.
Two great games tomorrow on ABC. Suns @ Cavs and Spurs @ Lakers.
Miami @ Chicago - 97-100
New Jersey @ Denver - 112-102
Interesting games on the board for Jan 28-th (Sunday)
Phoenix @ Cleveland - This game has been on national TV for 2 years now and each time the Suns have lost big leads. They would like to blow the Cavs away this time around.
San Antonio @ LA Lakers - Great match-up. Spurs will have a tough time on the road.
Indiana @ Detroit - This is always a heated rivalry, but Indiana is also trying to get their game going a little bit in the central division and challenge Detroit and the Cavs.
Friday, January 26, 2007
NBA notes - 1/26/2007
The Suns won again for their 16-straight, but it was ugly by their standards. They scored just 98 points and didn't put the Bucks away until late. Nash had a great game with 18-6-16. He is just pouring in the assists lately. Raja hit 7 of 11 3-pointers and had 27 points. But the most impressive stat of the day for the Suns might be Marion's 23 boards! This is the second time in less than a week he has had 20+ rebounds. Things are good in the Suns-land right now, but Nash feels it could be a lot better.
AI and Melo both had great numbers, but they lost to Utah on the road. Boozer was just too much for them with 25-19. I think Denver has a lot of Suns in them in the sense that they score so much that they can keep multiple players happy. There might be just enough points and shots for both Melo and AI. Like today, AI had 33 and Melo 37. And they still had enough room for Camby to get 21! Numbers are good for now, but the Nuggets lost a big one today.
Washington went into Detroit and put them in their place. Jamison had 35 points and Agent-0 had 25 and 10 assists. Washington is probably a better team than Detroit this season and they showed it tonight. In New York, Jamal Crawford pumped in 52 points to beat Heat and Wade's 37. He actually hit 16 of his shots in a row without missing one. That included a whole bunch of threes against pretty decent D. Amazing game for JC. Shaq Daddy had 11 points in this one on 4-6 shooting. Cleveland went into Phily and beat them without Lebron.
In LA, the Lakers welcomed Lamar Odom back but unfortunately, they were even more welcoming of the Charlotte Bobcats! The Lakers lost to them in OT. These 2 teams are the perfect match for each other. The Bobcats always play up to the level of their competition and the Lakers play down to theirs. Even Tex Winters was complaining on the Jim Rome show last week about the Lakers tendency to do that. The Bobcats have few wins this season, but a lot of those are big wins and they just swept the Lakers, needing OTs on both occasion.
Washington @ Detroit - 99-96
Phoenix @ Milwaukee - 98-90
Denver @ Utah - 111-116
Interesting games on the board for the Jan 27-th (Saturday)
Miami @ Chicago - These teams met in the playoffs last year. Chicago might want this game big game.
New Jersey @ Denver - I don't care what happens in this game. I just hope God doesn't subject the Nets to another buzzer beating, one point loss.
AI and Melo both had great numbers, but they lost to Utah on the road. Boozer was just too much for them with 25-19. I think Denver has a lot of Suns in them in the sense that they score so much that they can keep multiple players happy. There might be just enough points and shots for both Melo and AI. Like today, AI had 33 and Melo 37. And they still had enough room for Camby to get 21! Numbers are good for now, but the Nuggets lost a big one today.
Washington went into Detroit and put them in their place. Jamison had 35 points and Agent-0 had 25 and 10 assists. Washington is probably a better team than Detroit this season and they showed it tonight. In New York, Jamal Crawford pumped in 52 points to beat Heat and Wade's 37. He actually hit 16 of his shots in a row without missing one. That included a whole bunch of threes against pretty decent D. Amazing game for JC. Shaq Daddy had 11 points in this one on 4-6 shooting. Cleveland went into Phily and beat them without Lebron.
In LA, the Lakers welcomed Lamar Odom back but unfortunately, they were even more welcoming of the Charlotte Bobcats! The Lakers lost to them in OT. These 2 teams are the perfect match for each other. The Bobcats always play up to the level of their competition and the Lakers play down to theirs. Even Tex Winters was complaining on the Jim Rome show last week about the Lakers tendency to do that. The Bobcats have few wins this season, but a lot of those are big wins and they just swept the Lakers, needing OTs on both occasion.
Washington @ Detroit - 99-96
Phoenix @ Milwaukee - 98-90
Denver @ Utah - 111-116
Interesting games on the board for the Jan 27-th (Saturday)
Miami @ Chicago - These teams met in the playoffs last year. Chicago might want this game big game.
New Jersey @ Denver - I don't care what happens in this game. I just hope God doesn't subject the Nets to another buzzer beating, one point loss.
NFL notes - 1/25/2007 - Super Bowl matchup.
I was 50% right with the Conf championship games. Peyton came through in style to erase all the criticisms against him. His mom and wife could have sat together and scripted a game for him and it wouldn't have been better than what we saw last weekend. It's one thing to win a big game, but the way he did that coming back from 21-3, passing for 349 yards and winning the game on a 2 minute drive at the end was just perfect for him. Of course the doubters will all be back if he loses the Super Bowl. He still needs to win the big game. Beating Tom Brady is great for now, but the Super Bowl is what will cement your legacy. I think the Colts win this one and Peyton and Dungy silence the critics once and for all.
The "Hoody" Bill Bellichick looked real bad after this game. He brushed Peyton aside and didn't really talk to him or congratulate him. Then in the customary post-game interview, he said nothing and refused to answer the reporter's questions. He said something like "they played hard" which reminded me of Rasheed Wallace a few years back showing up for the post-game interview and just answering "both teams played hard" to every question. I thought that was at least funny and Sheed exhibited a weird sense of humor that day. But Hoody was downright rude and offensive. Losing coaches always come out and congratulate the other team and get appreciated for being a "class act in defeat". Nobody could even say that about Hoody this time. He is proving LT's assertion right that he is classless. I like Hoody making a fool of himself and also making LT look good. LT is usually all class and I was surprised he said what he said about an opposing coach. But now I am happy he said it. He is so right.
The Saints lost and lost badly to the Bears. I thought the Saints just turned the ball over too many times and didn't play to their potential. Obviously the home court was big and the Bears won this game easily. This is exactly why you need the home court in the NFL.
The other big story is that the Super Bowl features 2 black coaches and one of them is going to be the first ever black coach to win a Super Bowl. I understand the symbolism of this, but it's really idiotic that this is even a news in the year 2007. That tells you how much racism there is in our society. Black coaches have just not gotten the opportunity until recently and it should be no surprise to anybody that they are in the Super Bowl now that there were 7 teams in 2006 with Black head coaches. I almost feel "dirty" talking about this. It's almost like Boomer and all these talking-heads on TV are celebrating the racism that has prevented this event from happening all these years.
The "Hoody" Bill Bellichick looked real bad after this game. He brushed Peyton aside and didn't really talk to him or congratulate him. Then in the customary post-game interview, he said nothing and refused to answer the reporter's questions. He said something like "they played hard" which reminded me of Rasheed Wallace a few years back showing up for the post-game interview and just answering "both teams played hard" to every question. I thought that was at least funny and Sheed exhibited a weird sense of humor that day. But Hoody was downright rude and offensive. Losing coaches always come out and congratulate the other team and get appreciated for being a "class act in defeat". Nobody could even say that about Hoody this time. He is proving LT's assertion right that he is classless. I like Hoody making a fool of himself and also making LT look good. LT is usually all class and I was surprised he said what he said about an opposing coach. But now I am happy he said it. He is so right.
The Saints lost and lost badly to the Bears. I thought the Saints just turned the ball over too many times and didn't play to their potential. Obviously the home court was big and the Bears won this game easily. This is exactly why you need the home court in the NFL.
The other big story is that the Super Bowl features 2 black coaches and one of them is going to be the first ever black coach to win a Super Bowl. I understand the symbolism of this, but it's really idiotic that this is even a news in the year 2007. That tells you how much racism there is in our society. Black coaches have just not gotten the opportunity until recently and it should be no surprise to anybody that they are in the Super Bowl now that there were 7 teams in 2006 with Black head coaches. I almost feel "dirty" talking about this. It's almost like Boomer and all these talking-heads on TV are celebrating the racism that has prevented this event from happening all these years.
NBA notes - 1/25/2007
I have been busy for a few days but still watching a lot of NBA. The Suns keep on keepin' on. Other than that, the big news is that Shaq is back and Pau wants out. I hope he goes to the L-Eastern conference and not a Western contender to make it even stronger! Unless of course he goes to the Suns :-) I don't think that'll happen anyways.
The other interesting news is that the Nets have lost 3 straight games by 1 point. They have given up 3 buzzer beaters (or near buzzer beaters) against the Kings, Warriors and the Clips with Bibby, Monta and Mobley doing the honors. It has been a crushing road-trip for them so far.
The Monta Ellis play yesterday is an interesting study in coaching strategies at the end of games. If you have a good floor general like Baron Davis or Steve Nash or Kobe Bryant, you are better off not taking the timeout before the last shot, but just letting them go up-court and make a play. The thinking being, the offense can be set up better with a timeout, but the defense also sets up and you are forced to run a half-court set out of the TO. But teams that prefer the fast-break style and have talented decision makers are better off just running without a TO. The defense is discombobulated and you can get a quality shot. This is exactly what the Warriors did. Nelly explained after the game how if they have 5 secs or more, they are always asked to go and if it's less than 5 secs, then you need a timeout to advance the ball. This was right on the border with 5.6 secs or so left. So you could see in the replay that Baron started pushing, but was eyeing Nelly all the way to see if he wants a TO. He got to the 3 point line and passed it to Monta on the wing who nailed it. Thats good coaching and good play-making all around. I wish more coaches trust their players like that.
Today, Dallas lost on the road to Chicago. Thats a good win for Chicago and a streak breaker for Dallas. They are now percentage points behind Phoenix in the Western conference standings. This home court could be HUGE, especially for the Suns since they'll bee perceived as the under-dog.
Dallas @ Chicago - 85-96
New Jersey @ LA Clippers - 101-102
Interesting games on the board for the Jan 26-th (Friday)
Washington @ Detroit - Gil takes his show to Detroit. Should be a good game.
Phoenix @ Milwaukee - Phoenix go for 16-th straight here. Their last streak ended at 15. Let's see where this one goes.
Denver @ Utah - First big test for AI-Melo combo.
The other interesting news is that the Nets have lost 3 straight games by 1 point. They have given up 3 buzzer beaters (or near buzzer beaters) against the Kings, Warriors and the Clips with Bibby, Monta and Mobley doing the honors. It has been a crushing road-trip for them so far.
The Monta Ellis play yesterday is an interesting study in coaching strategies at the end of games. If you have a good floor general like Baron Davis or Steve Nash or Kobe Bryant, you are better off not taking the timeout before the last shot, but just letting them go up-court and make a play. The thinking being, the offense can be set up better with a timeout, but the defense also sets up and you are forced to run a half-court set out of the TO. But teams that prefer the fast-break style and have talented decision makers are better off just running without a TO. The defense is discombobulated and you can get a quality shot. This is exactly what the Warriors did. Nelly explained after the game how if they have 5 secs or more, they are always asked to go and if it's less than 5 secs, then you need a timeout to advance the ball. This was right on the border with 5.6 secs or so left. So you could see in the replay that Baron started pushing, but was eyeing Nelly all the way to see if he wants a TO. He got to the 3 point line and passed it to Monta on the wing who nailed it. Thats good coaching and good play-making all around. I wish more coaches trust their players like that.
Today, Dallas lost on the road to Chicago. Thats a good win for Chicago and a streak breaker for Dallas. They are now percentage points behind Phoenix in the Western conference standings. This home court could be HUGE, especially for the Suns since they'll bee perceived as the under-dog.
Dallas @ Chicago - 85-96
New Jersey @ LA Clippers - 101-102
Interesting games on the board for the Jan 26-th (Friday)
Washington @ Detroit - Gil takes his show to Detroit. Should be a good game.
Phoenix @ Milwaukee - Phoenix go for 16-th straight here. Their last streak ended at 15. Let's see where this one goes.
Denver @ Utah - First big test for AI-Melo combo.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Phoenix Suns notes - 1/23/2007
Great win today on the road for the Phoenix Suns. They beat the Wizards 125-105. This was a sweet one because the Suns had their 15 game winning streak broken by the Wizards at home back in Dec. They were stuck in Denver after a snowstorm and got back to Phoenix just a couple of hours before the game and lost to the Wizards in a overtime thriller with Agent-0 Gilbert getting 54 points. This game today was important to avenge that defeat and also to avoid losing another streak at the hand of the same Wizards. Also Gilbert had a lot of good-natured junk about D'Antoni leaving him off the Olympic team and him punishing them by scoring 50+ points. So the Suns and D'Antoni wanted to shut him up and show him that he can't have his way with the Phioenix Suns. They achieved all that and more today. The Suns scored scored 41 points in the first quarter and pretty much put the game away. Gil and Wizards had no answers for them at any level.
Speaking of the Suns, Bill Simmons on ESPN has written a great article on them. I agree with about 20 or 30 things he says in this article. This article is so good, I decided to reproduce it in full here. Just posting the link doesn't do justice to this article :-)
Thank you for the Suns
By Bill Simmons
Page 2
Since I haven't written an NBA column in five weeks, thousands of frustrated basketball fans have been flooding me with e-mails and demanding their hoops fix. All right, maybe it hasn't been thousands, more like hundreds. Or maybe it was just six readers, my buddy House and Marc Stein. But still, it FELT like thousands of readers. That's the important thing.
Just know that I haven't been ignoring the NBA. I'm just a little depressed because the Celtics stink again. Fortunately, we stink to the point that we're now the leading contenders for the Kevin Durant-Greg Oden Sweepstakes. (Yeah, I know I put Durant first even though Oden is the consensus No. 1. Just know that I factored in the upcoming March Madness tournament when Durant averages a 35-13 for two straight weeks and nearly wins the national title by himself, followed by three straight months of, "Wait, this guy is a rich man's KG, he might be better than Oden!" stories and features. If you don't believe me, watch Durant for a few games. He's going to be very, VERY famous some day. You can say you knew him when.) Now I'm openly rooting against the Celtics and TiVo-ing every game involving everyone on Chad Ford's top 350.
Anyway, since I'm trapped in Celtics Hell, I needed something to carry me through the dregs of the NBA regular season. And you know what's kept me going?
The Phoenix Suns.
I watch all of their games. I rewind plays to see what they're doing and how they're doing it. I learn about basketball from them. I revel in their splendidry, and I don't even think splendidry is a word. They're the most consistently entertaining basketball team in 20 years. They have a chance to be historically good. You could be bouncing your grandkids on your lap someday and telling them that you watched the 2007 Suns.
Naturally, nobody's talking about them. Everyone's tired of hearing about Nash at this point, and since they don't have the best record in the league, there isn't any urgency to make a fuss about them. But if you care about basketball at all, if the sport has ever meant anything to you, if you remember the Magic-Bird Era fondly in any way, if you're remotely interested in watching a professional sports team peak ... then you need to follow the Suns. They're sniffing at true greatness. I'm not saying it will happen, just that it could. You never imagined that an NBA team could score 111 points a game, shoot 51 percent from the field, shoot 81 percent from the line, make 40 percent of its 3s, double as the best transition team since the Showtime Lakers and still manage to be half-decent defensively, right?
Well, it's happening. And it's an exceedingly relevant development for two reasons:
1. We're in a weird time in sports right now. There isn't a dominant football, baseball, basketball or hockey player. There isn't a dominant boxer. Our two transcendent athletes are a tennis player (Roger Federer) and a golfer (Tiger Woods). We haven't seen a dominant team since the Patriots rolled off 31 of 33 victories during their last two Super Bowl seasons ... and as much I loved that team, there was never a point where you could have definitively said, "That team is playing on a higher plane than everyone else." Ever since MJ retired (the second time) and the Yankees got old, there's been a greatness drought with team sports.
2. The last great basketball teams were the Lakers and Celtics from the mid-'80s. Both were blessed with selfless superduperstars (Bird and Magic), genuine Hall of Famers (McHale and Parish for Boston; Worthy and Kareem for the Lakers) and valuable role players (DJ, Ainge and Walton for Boston; Cooper, Scott and Green for the Lakers). And both teams reached heights that haven't been approached since. They were the last two teams that dominated in a competitive league and routinely submitted those occasional "not only are we winning this game by 25 points, just send the tape to Springfield after it's over" games.
In a related story, the Suns are 26-2 in their last 28 games. Here were their two losses:
Dec. 22: They lose to the Wizards in OT (144-139) in a game that Arenas tied with a 3-point play in regulation, then Nash missed a wide-open 3 that could have ended it.
Dec. 28: They lose in Dallas by two (101-99) when Nowitzki made a jumper with 0.1 seconds left.
With two reasonable breaks (Nash making the 3-pointer, Nowitzki missing the jumper), the Suns could be working on a 28-game winning streak right now. I've mentioned that to three people over the last 48 hours and all of them said the same thing: "Wait a second ... whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat??????"
It's true. You can look it up.
I didn't see this one coming. When the Suns were limping along to a 1-5 mark in early November, I wrote that Amare Stoudemire's up-and-down comeback was screwing them up. Seeing them in person against the Clippers that week, they looked about as happy as the family from "Little Miss Sunshine." How can you not have fun when you're playing with Steve Nash???? It's almost un-American. Umm, un-North American.
Just when things were looking bleak enough that a major trade seemed possible, four things happened that turned Phoenix's season around. First, the Suns stopped bringing Stoudemire off the bench, started him at center and rolled the dice with his "sore" knee. And guess what? He stopped sulking and started busting his butt on both ends. (Note: Stoudemire even admitted as much in Jack McCallum's story in Sports Illustrated a few weeks ago.) Second, they won a memorable triple-OT game in Jersey that kicked them into another gear. Every season has a defining game that gets a great team going -- for the '86 Celtics, it was the Christmas Day game when they blew a 25-point lead to the Knicks on national TV, spent two days sulking about it, then went on the NBA version of a cross-country killing spree (winning 20 of their next 22, including both Lakers games). The 161-157 game did that for the Suns. Third, Mike D'Antoni buried Marcus Banks (an indefensibly bad free-agent signing) and made Barbosa the backup point, which enabled the Suns to play quality guards at all times. And fourth, Diaw and Marion conceded the high post (and all those high screens with Nash) to Stoudemire and figured out other ways to get their stats.
If there's a potential land mine, it's the Marion-Stoudemire rivalry, an ongoing problem (as McCallum described in his book about the Suns) because of Stoudemire's enormous ego and Marion's insecurities about his underappreciated career (even though his talents are indisputably essential to everything the Suns do). If this were a rock band, Marion would be the drummer -- the guy who's killing himself every night and resigning himself to a couple of solos per concert. In fact, one of the reasons I couldn't endorse Nash's previous MVP candidacies was because no Phoenix star could be more "valuable" than any other Phoenix star; such a premise belittled the contributions of Stoudemire two years ago and Marion last season. Without Marion, the Suns wouldn't be the Suns.
STATS DON'T LIE
According to STATS INC, the Suns rank in the top-3 in the following offensive categories:
Field Goals made (1st)
Three-pointers made (1st)
Free throw percentage (1st)
True shooting percentage (1st)
Two-point field goal percentage (1st)
Three-point percentage (2nd)
Assists (1st)
Assists/turnover ratio (1st)
Points per game (1st)
Fast break points (3rd)
Anyway, the Stoudemire-Marion issue could have killed this team -- hell, it still might -- but something funny happened while they were sorting everything out: Phoenix couldn't stop winning. After the 3-6 start, the Suns won an astonishing 15 straight, dropped two of three, then won another 10 straight (and counting). Once they started rolling over everybody, Marion accepted his new role as the drummer. For now. Let's see how he feels in five months. But as long as he's happy, Phoenix's top six players surpass anything we've seen since Magic-Kareem-Worthy-Cooper-Scott-Thompson/Green or Bird-Parish-McHale-Johnson-Ainge-Walton. Just look at these guys. It's insane.
Barbosa: He'd be the best guard on more than half the teams in the league right now ... unstoppable off the dribble and a first-team member of the Streak Scorer All-Stars ... learned to run the offense just competently enough that they could bury Banks ... they'll even run plays for him in crunch time (like the 3 that beat the Bulls) ... I think he's one of the best 40 players in the league, a slightly more efficient version of Ben Gordon ... by the way, he's their sixth man.
Diaw: Killed them in the first few weeks by showing up out of shape, now he's fine ... plays three positions and guards the best opposing low-post player, doubles as the second-best passer on the team (5.5 assists a game!), doesn't care about shots, moved to the wing for Stoudemire's sake and remained just as effective ... one of the most underrated back-to-the-basket guys in either conference, although the Suns rarely go to him in the low post ... also one of the only people I've ever liked from France ... shooting an eye-opening 54 percent this season ... I think he's one of the best 45-50 players in the league ... somewhere, Steve Belkin is reading this and saying to himself, "See, I told you Diaw and two No. 1s was too much!"
Bell: Doesn't care about shots, nails open 3s (42 percent) and covers the best opposing scorer every game (although his defense is slightly overrated -- quicker guys like Gordon give him problems) ... he's also their fiercest competitor ... if they don't need his defense in crunch time, they'll play Barbosa over him and he won't complain about it ... I once wrote that he played like Bruce Bowen after four drinks -- I'd like to revise that to "Bowen after two shots of tequila and a slap to the face" ... and if that's not enough, he clearly aggravates Kobe, which counts for something.
Marion: If you had to pick one forward in the NBA to run the floor with Nash, this would be the guy ... as long as he's happy, playing hard and feeling even mildly appreciated, the 2007 Suns are unstoppable ... I think he's one of the best 20 players in the league ... by the way, did you ever think that Shawn Marion would go down as the greatest UNLV player in NBA history?
Stoudemire: I'd say he's about 87 percent back, which makes him the second-best center alive (behind Yao and tied with Dwight Howard) and a top-20 player ... totally attuned with Nash on those pick-and-rolls ... improved his team defense and became an asset as a shot-blocker ... averaging a 20-10 over the past six weeks and starting to show "force of nature" signs again ... living proof that you CAN come back from microfracture surgery (although I still wouldn't recommend it).
Nash: I wouldn't have voted him MVP the past two years (when he did win), but I'd absolutely vote for him this year (when he won't win because nobody's prepared for a world where Steve Nash is a three-time NBA MVP). Here's the case for Nash in three parts:
A. When the Suns were threatening to implode early in the season, by all accounts, he kept them together almost singlehandedly (on and off the court). There isn't a more authentic leader in the league. He's the anti-Zach Randolph.
B. The more he plays with the same teammates, the better he gets. Now he's starting to resemble Gretzky during his Edmonton days -- not only does he keep finding guys for layups, dunks and wide-open 3s, he's finding them at consistently impossible angles. I have never, ever, EVER seen anyone run the point guard position like this on a day-to-day basis. Not even Magic and Isiah. If we ever kept track of assists that directly created a layup or dunk for a teammate, he'd be heading toward an all-time record.
C. Two months ago, I joked that Deron Williams looked like he went to John Stockton Summer Camp ... then it turned out that he actually DID spend the summer being tutored by Stockton. Now I'm wondering if Nash went as well. He rarely smiles and he barks at the refs more than he ever did. He gets testy with opposing players and teammates. Just like Stockton, he sets moving picks and trips defenders coming off screens (most famously to set up Barbosa's 3 that won the Chicago game). I don't want to say he's going to the dark side like Danny LaRusso during the Terry Silva Era, but there's definitely a nasty edge to his game that I can't remember seeing before.
Here's what happened: When Dallas eliminated Phoenix last spring, Nash probably spent a few weeks mulling over his career and everything that happened. He thought about the two MVP awards, realized he couldn't accomplish anything more other than winning a title, then thought long and hard about how to do it, ultimately cutting off his hair (feel the symbolism, baby!) and getting in the best shape of his life (remember, he wore down the last two springs). Then he showed up for training camp, realized the Marion-Stoudemire soap opera would be an ongoing problem, realized Diaw was woefully out of shape, realized Banks wasn't going to help at all ... and something snapped inside him. Exit, nice Steve Nash. Enter, icy Steve Nash. And he's been playing pissed off ever since. Eventually, everyone else fell in line.
Well, guess what? THAT'S AN MVP! That's what I'm looking for! Finally!
Losing to the Mavs last year did make Nash sad, it got him angry.
It's been a virtuoso season for him. Borrowing the same tactic that once worked so well for Magic, Isiah and Stockton, Nash uses the first 40-42 minutes to get everyone else going, then takes over in crunch time and looks for his own offense if the Suns need it. Sometimes he'll defer to a scorching-hot Barbosa, sometimes he'll feed Amare on those high screens, sometimes he'll post Diaw if there's a mismatch to be exploited, sometimes he'll slash-and-kick to Bell or Marion, but if he can get his own shot, and it's a good one, he's taking it. Over anything else, that subtle change in Nash's mind-set -- basically, a complete refusal to accept anything less than a championship, even if it means some occasional selfishness -- kicked this Phoenix team into another gear. Remember when Nash scored 48 in the playoff loss to Dallas two years ago? He was horrified and even a little embarrassed afterward, right?
Now, he'd probably be pissed that he didn't get 50.
That's the biggest difference between the 2006 Suns and the 2007 Suns, with Nash's haircut symbolizing everything -- they play with a chip on their shoulder. They want to run teams off the floor. They want to break their will. For instance, Cleveland came to Phoenix last Thursday for a nationally televised game, and since the Cavs had been playing well and showing signs of running away with the East, it looked like a good test for the cruising Suns. Instead, it turned into a nonstop layup line. By the end of the first half, Phoenix was winning by 26. And I learned three things from that game:
1. The Suns dismantled Cleveland effortlessly, like they were plucking wings off a butterfly or something. I don't even think they shifted past third gear the entire game. That was truly scary -- not for me but for everyone else in the league.
2. The Cavs were demolished to the degree that they can't be taken seriously for the rest of the season. This game was more one-sided than the Awvee Storey-Martynas Andriuskevicius fight.
3. There was one moment when everything kicked into a higher gear for the Suns and they started rolling off easy basket after easy basket -- really, it was breathtaking to watch -- and eventually, their fans stood up and just kept cheering and cheering, even during a break in the action, just to profusely thank the players for what was happening. And I was sitting on my sofa thinking, "During the Bird Era, this happened ALL THE TIME. They'd get it going, great things would happen, and we'd stand up and cheer and cheer because we couldn't think of another way to adequately express how fortunate we were other than to just start throwing money on the court. And now, it's happening in Phoenix and I'm jealous as hell."
Which brings me to my main point ...
It's nearly impossible to compare players and teams from different eras because the game continues to evolve in ways that nobody ever imagined. Tuesday night, I watched a triple-OT game between Texas and Oklahoma State where a 6-foot-11, 190-pound forward (the outrageously talented Durant, my current basketball obsession other than the Suns) scored 37 points on an eclectic mix of 25-footers, spin moves, jump hooks and drives to either side. He did everything facing the basket. He looked like a 6-foot-11 Tracy McGrady. Trust me when I tell you this: We've never seen anyone remotely resembling Kevin Durant on a basketball court before. If you stuck him in a time machine and transported him back to the Russell-Chamberlain Era, he'd probably average 55 points a game. Just the mere thought of his putting on a Celtics jersey makes me want to start sobbing with joy.
Anyway, because the game keeps evolving and improving, you can only compare the impact of players and teams relative to the time in which they played. Would the '86 Celtics have beaten the '96 Bulls in a seven-game series? Too difficult to say. For instance, Pippen would have guarded Bird in that series, and there wasn't anyone remotely resembling Scottie Pippen in 1986. So how could you know? Compare their relative impacts and it's a different story. The '86 Celtics were greater than the '96 Bulls because they excelled against tougher competition, they were invincible at home (50-1 at home if you include playoff games) and their top-six was better than Chicago's top-six. You will never convince me otherwise. But the one thing that separated those mid-'80s Celtics and Lakers teams from everyone after them was that sixth gear: You never knew when they would throw together one of those four-minute stretches, turn the game into a layup line and blow somebody off the court.
(In fact, that Celtics team was so loaded that they screwed around during games, almost like musicians jamming near the end of a song. During a recent NBA TV interview with Bird for the Legend's 50th birthday, Bill Walton and Bird reminisced about the time Bird set goals for their West Coast trip, decided he would average 42 points a game for the trip, then got bored midway through and decided to shoot all left-handed shots in Portland. And he did just that. This actually happened.)
Now the Suns are approaching that hallowed level and I never thought we'd see something like that again -- not with 30 teams, not with a salary cap, not with the lottery system, not when teams are so much smarter about not giving away future lottery picks for the likes of Don Ford and Gerald Henderson. If the Suns stay healthy, they should win 67-70 games and nobody should touch them in the playoffs except for Dallas, the one contender that can dictate a specific tempo and force its opponents to abide by it. Still, I can't imagine the Suns blowing a seven-game series -- not with their style of play (impossible to stop), not with the way they shoot free throws (everyone in the top six is over 80 percent except for Diaw), not with everyone they can throw at Nowitzki, not with Nash's new and improved killer instinct. Even their team defense has improved to the point that Barkley doesn't dismiss them anymore. They're a juggernaut with a terrific coach and no real holes other than a thin bench.
Of course, the Suns can guarantee immortality with one move: Thanks to the Diaw-Johnson trade, they own Atlanta's 2007 No. 1 pick unless it falls in the top three. Say they packaged that pick with Kurt Thomas' expiring contract and/or Banks' contract for one more blue-chipper. What would happen if they added Rashard Lewis or Mike Miller, gave one of them James Jones' minutes (20-25 a game), then went seven-deep the rest of the way? Starting Nash, Stoudemire, Diaw, Bell and Marion, with Miller/Lewis and Barbosa coming off the bench, nobody would play more than 38 minutes or less than 25, and there wouldn't be a bad shooter or a bad all-around player in the bunch. Five of the seven players would be shooting over 40 percent from 3-pointers. They could go small, they could go big, they could play fast or slow, they could do anything they wanted. They'd be the Dirk Diggler of NBA teams.
Look, my NBA life is in complete shambles. My beloved Celtics might be the worst team in the league and I spend far too much time thinking about an 18-year-old kid in Austin who could save them some day. The Clippers are playing such uninspired, mediocre basketball that it's not even fun to attend their games, even as an unbiased observer. My favorite commissioner has endured some rare misfires and was recently pulled over for being drunk with power. The whole season has been a disaster. Other than Gilbert Arenas screaming "Hibachi!" and Isiah making one last boneheaded trade, all I have to look forward until next June's draft are the Suns and their quest for greatness.
So for my sake, make one more move, Phoenix. You owe it to Nash, you owe it to D'Antoni and the Suns fans, you owe it to me, and you owe it to every other diehard basketball fan who loves this game and never imagined we would see another invincible team. All 19 of us.
Speaking of the Suns, Bill Simmons on ESPN has written a great article on them. I agree with about 20 or 30 things he says in this article. This article is so good, I decided to reproduce it in full here. Just posting the link doesn't do justice to this article :-)
Thank you for the Suns
By Bill Simmons
Page 2
Since I haven't written an NBA column in five weeks, thousands of frustrated basketball fans have been flooding me with e-mails and demanding their hoops fix. All right, maybe it hasn't been thousands, more like hundreds. Or maybe it was just six readers, my buddy House and Marc Stein. But still, it FELT like thousands of readers. That's the important thing.
Just know that I haven't been ignoring the NBA. I'm just a little depressed because the Celtics stink again. Fortunately, we stink to the point that we're now the leading contenders for the Kevin Durant-Greg Oden Sweepstakes. (Yeah, I know I put Durant first even though Oden is the consensus No. 1. Just know that I factored in the upcoming March Madness tournament when Durant averages a 35-13 for two straight weeks and nearly wins the national title by himself, followed by three straight months of, "Wait, this guy is a rich man's KG, he might be better than Oden!" stories and features. If you don't believe me, watch Durant for a few games. He's going to be very, VERY famous some day. You can say you knew him when.) Now I'm openly rooting against the Celtics and TiVo-ing every game involving everyone on Chad Ford's top 350.
Anyway, since I'm trapped in Celtics Hell, I needed something to carry me through the dregs of the NBA regular season. And you know what's kept me going?
The Phoenix Suns.
I watch all of their games. I rewind plays to see what they're doing and how they're doing it. I learn about basketball from them. I revel in their splendidry, and I don't even think splendidry is a word. They're the most consistently entertaining basketball team in 20 years. They have a chance to be historically good. You could be bouncing your grandkids on your lap someday and telling them that you watched the 2007 Suns.
Naturally, nobody's talking about them. Everyone's tired of hearing about Nash at this point, and since they don't have the best record in the league, there isn't any urgency to make a fuss about them. But if you care about basketball at all, if the sport has ever meant anything to you, if you remember the Magic-Bird Era fondly in any way, if you're remotely interested in watching a professional sports team peak ... then you need to follow the Suns. They're sniffing at true greatness. I'm not saying it will happen, just that it could. You never imagined that an NBA team could score 111 points a game, shoot 51 percent from the field, shoot 81 percent from the line, make 40 percent of its 3s, double as the best transition team since the Showtime Lakers and still manage to be half-decent defensively, right?
Well, it's happening. And it's an exceedingly relevant development for two reasons:
1. We're in a weird time in sports right now. There isn't a dominant football, baseball, basketball or hockey player. There isn't a dominant boxer. Our two transcendent athletes are a tennis player (Roger Federer) and a golfer (Tiger Woods). We haven't seen a dominant team since the Patriots rolled off 31 of 33 victories during their last two Super Bowl seasons ... and as much I loved that team, there was never a point where you could have definitively said, "That team is playing on a higher plane than everyone else." Ever since MJ retired (the second time) and the Yankees got old, there's been a greatness drought with team sports.
2. The last great basketball teams were the Lakers and Celtics from the mid-'80s. Both were blessed with selfless superduperstars (Bird and Magic), genuine Hall of Famers (McHale and Parish for Boston; Worthy and Kareem for the Lakers) and valuable role players (DJ, Ainge and Walton for Boston; Cooper, Scott and Green for the Lakers). And both teams reached heights that haven't been approached since. They were the last two teams that dominated in a competitive league and routinely submitted those occasional "not only are we winning this game by 25 points, just send the tape to Springfield after it's over" games.
In a related story, the Suns are 26-2 in their last 28 games. Here were their two losses:
Dec. 22: They lose to the Wizards in OT (144-139) in a game that Arenas tied with a 3-point play in regulation, then Nash missed a wide-open 3 that could have ended it.
Dec. 28: They lose in Dallas by two (101-99) when Nowitzki made a jumper with 0.1 seconds left.
With two reasonable breaks (Nash making the 3-pointer, Nowitzki missing the jumper), the Suns could be working on a 28-game winning streak right now. I've mentioned that to three people over the last 48 hours and all of them said the same thing: "Wait a second ... whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat??????"
It's true. You can look it up.
I didn't see this one coming. When the Suns were limping along to a 1-5 mark in early November, I wrote that Amare Stoudemire's up-and-down comeback was screwing them up. Seeing them in person against the Clippers that week, they looked about as happy as the family from "Little Miss Sunshine." How can you not have fun when you're playing with Steve Nash???? It's almost un-American. Umm, un-North American.
Just when things were looking bleak enough that a major trade seemed possible, four things happened that turned Phoenix's season around. First, the Suns stopped bringing Stoudemire off the bench, started him at center and rolled the dice with his "sore" knee. And guess what? He stopped sulking and started busting his butt on both ends. (Note: Stoudemire even admitted as much in Jack McCallum's story in Sports Illustrated a few weeks ago.) Second, they won a memorable triple-OT game in Jersey that kicked them into another gear. Every season has a defining game that gets a great team going -- for the '86 Celtics, it was the Christmas Day game when they blew a 25-point lead to the Knicks on national TV, spent two days sulking about it, then went on the NBA version of a cross-country killing spree (winning 20 of their next 22, including both Lakers games). The 161-157 game did that for the Suns. Third, Mike D'Antoni buried Marcus Banks (an indefensibly bad free-agent signing) and made Barbosa the backup point, which enabled the Suns to play quality guards at all times. And fourth, Diaw and Marion conceded the high post (and all those high screens with Nash) to Stoudemire and figured out other ways to get their stats.
If there's a potential land mine, it's the Marion-Stoudemire rivalry, an ongoing problem (as McCallum described in his book about the Suns) because of Stoudemire's enormous ego and Marion's insecurities about his underappreciated career (even though his talents are indisputably essential to everything the Suns do). If this were a rock band, Marion would be the drummer -- the guy who's killing himself every night and resigning himself to a couple of solos per concert. In fact, one of the reasons I couldn't endorse Nash's previous MVP candidacies was because no Phoenix star could be more "valuable" than any other Phoenix star; such a premise belittled the contributions of Stoudemire two years ago and Marion last season. Without Marion, the Suns wouldn't be the Suns.
STATS DON'T LIE
According to STATS INC, the Suns rank in the top-3 in the following offensive categories:
Field Goals made (1st)
Three-pointers made (1st)
Free throw percentage (1st)
True shooting percentage (1st)
Two-point field goal percentage (1st)
Three-point percentage (2nd)
Assists (1st)
Assists/turnover ratio (1st)
Points per game (1st)
Fast break points (3rd)
Anyway, the Stoudemire-Marion issue could have killed this team -- hell, it still might -- but something funny happened while they were sorting everything out: Phoenix couldn't stop winning. After the 3-6 start, the Suns won an astonishing 15 straight, dropped two of three, then won another 10 straight (and counting). Once they started rolling over everybody, Marion accepted his new role as the drummer. For now. Let's see how he feels in five months. But as long as he's happy, Phoenix's top six players surpass anything we've seen since Magic-Kareem-Worthy-Cooper-Scott-Thompson/Green or Bird-Parish-McHale-Johnson-Ainge-Walton. Just look at these guys. It's insane.
Barbosa: He'd be the best guard on more than half the teams in the league right now ... unstoppable off the dribble and a first-team member of the Streak Scorer All-Stars ... learned to run the offense just competently enough that they could bury Banks ... they'll even run plays for him in crunch time (like the 3 that beat the Bulls) ... I think he's one of the best 40 players in the league, a slightly more efficient version of Ben Gordon ... by the way, he's their sixth man.
Diaw: Killed them in the first few weeks by showing up out of shape, now he's fine ... plays three positions and guards the best opposing low-post player, doubles as the second-best passer on the team (5.5 assists a game!), doesn't care about shots, moved to the wing for Stoudemire's sake and remained just as effective ... one of the most underrated back-to-the-basket guys in either conference, although the Suns rarely go to him in the low post ... also one of the only people I've ever liked from France ... shooting an eye-opening 54 percent this season ... I think he's one of the best 45-50 players in the league ... somewhere, Steve Belkin is reading this and saying to himself, "See, I told you Diaw and two No. 1s was too much!"
Bell: Doesn't care about shots, nails open 3s (42 percent) and covers the best opposing scorer every game (although his defense is slightly overrated -- quicker guys like Gordon give him problems) ... he's also their fiercest competitor ... if they don't need his defense in crunch time, they'll play Barbosa over him and he won't complain about it ... I once wrote that he played like Bruce Bowen after four drinks -- I'd like to revise that to "Bowen after two shots of tequila and a slap to the face" ... and if that's not enough, he clearly aggravates Kobe, which counts for something.
Marion: If you had to pick one forward in the NBA to run the floor with Nash, this would be the guy ... as long as he's happy, playing hard and feeling even mildly appreciated, the 2007 Suns are unstoppable ... I think he's one of the best 20 players in the league ... by the way, did you ever think that Shawn Marion would go down as the greatest UNLV player in NBA history?
Stoudemire: I'd say he's about 87 percent back, which makes him the second-best center alive (behind Yao and tied with Dwight Howard) and a top-20 player ... totally attuned with Nash on those pick-and-rolls ... improved his team defense and became an asset as a shot-blocker ... averaging a 20-10 over the past six weeks and starting to show "force of nature" signs again ... living proof that you CAN come back from microfracture surgery (although I still wouldn't recommend it).
Nash: I wouldn't have voted him MVP the past two years (when he did win), but I'd absolutely vote for him this year (when he won't win because nobody's prepared for a world where Steve Nash is a three-time NBA MVP). Here's the case for Nash in three parts:
A. When the Suns were threatening to implode early in the season, by all accounts, he kept them together almost singlehandedly (on and off the court). There isn't a more authentic leader in the league. He's the anti-Zach Randolph.
B. The more he plays with the same teammates, the better he gets. Now he's starting to resemble Gretzky during his Edmonton days -- not only does he keep finding guys for layups, dunks and wide-open 3s, he's finding them at consistently impossible angles. I have never, ever, EVER seen anyone run the point guard position like this on a day-to-day basis. Not even Magic and Isiah. If we ever kept track of assists that directly created a layup or dunk for a teammate, he'd be heading toward an all-time record.
C. Two months ago, I joked that Deron Williams looked like he went to John Stockton Summer Camp ... then it turned out that he actually DID spend the summer being tutored by Stockton. Now I'm wondering if Nash went as well. He rarely smiles and he barks at the refs more than he ever did. He gets testy with opposing players and teammates. Just like Stockton, he sets moving picks and trips defenders coming off screens (most famously to set up Barbosa's 3 that won the Chicago game). I don't want to say he's going to the dark side like Danny LaRusso during the Terry Silva Era, but there's definitely a nasty edge to his game that I can't remember seeing before.
Here's what happened: When Dallas eliminated Phoenix last spring, Nash probably spent a few weeks mulling over his career and everything that happened. He thought about the two MVP awards, realized he couldn't accomplish anything more other than winning a title, then thought long and hard about how to do it, ultimately cutting off his hair (feel the symbolism, baby!) and getting in the best shape of his life (remember, he wore down the last two springs). Then he showed up for training camp, realized the Marion-Stoudemire soap opera would be an ongoing problem, realized Diaw was woefully out of shape, realized Banks wasn't going to help at all ... and something snapped inside him. Exit, nice Steve Nash. Enter, icy Steve Nash. And he's been playing pissed off ever since. Eventually, everyone else fell in line.
Well, guess what? THAT'S AN MVP! That's what I'm looking for! Finally!
Losing to the Mavs last year did make Nash sad, it got him angry.
It's been a virtuoso season for him. Borrowing the same tactic that once worked so well for Magic, Isiah and Stockton, Nash uses the first 40-42 minutes to get everyone else going, then takes over in crunch time and looks for his own offense if the Suns need it. Sometimes he'll defer to a scorching-hot Barbosa, sometimes he'll feed Amare on those high screens, sometimes he'll post Diaw if there's a mismatch to be exploited, sometimes he'll slash-and-kick to Bell or Marion, but if he can get his own shot, and it's a good one, he's taking it. Over anything else, that subtle change in Nash's mind-set -- basically, a complete refusal to accept anything less than a championship, even if it means some occasional selfishness -- kicked this Phoenix team into another gear. Remember when Nash scored 48 in the playoff loss to Dallas two years ago? He was horrified and even a little embarrassed afterward, right?
Now, he'd probably be pissed that he didn't get 50.
That's the biggest difference between the 2006 Suns and the 2007 Suns, with Nash's haircut symbolizing everything -- they play with a chip on their shoulder. They want to run teams off the floor. They want to break their will. For instance, Cleveland came to Phoenix last Thursday for a nationally televised game, and since the Cavs had been playing well and showing signs of running away with the East, it looked like a good test for the cruising Suns. Instead, it turned into a nonstop layup line. By the end of the first half, Phoenix was winning by 26. And I learned three things from that game:
1. The Suns dismantled Cleveland effortlessly, like they were plucking wings off a butterfly or something. I don't even think they shifted past third gear the entire game. That was truly scary -- not for me but for everyone else in the league.
2. The Cavs were demolished to the degree that they can't be taken seriously for the rest of the season. This game was more one-sided than the Awvee Storey-Martynas Andriuskevicius fight.
3. There was one moment when everything kicked into a higher gear for the Suns and they started rolling off easy basket after easy basket -- really, it was breathtaking to watch -- and eventually, their fans stood up and just kept cheering and cheering, even during a break in the action, just to profusely thank the players for what was happening. And I was sitting on my sofa thinking, "During the Bird Era, this happened ALL THE TIME. They'd get it going, great things would happen, and we'd stand up and cheer and cheer because we couldn't think of another way to adequately express how fortunate we were other than to just start throwing money on the court. And now, it's happening in Phoenix and I'm jealous as hell."
Which brings me to my main point ...
It's nearly impossible to compare players and teams from different eras because the game continues to evolve in ways that nobody ever imagined. Tuesday night, I watched a triple-OT game between Texas and Oklahoma State where a 6-foot-11, 190-pound forward (the outrageously talented Durant, my current basketball obsession other than the Suns) scored 37 points on an eclectic mix of 25-footers, spin moves, jump hooks and drives to either side. He did everything facing the basket. He looked like a 6-foot-11 Tracy McGrady. Trust me when I tell you this: We've never seen anyone remotely resembling Kevin Durant on a basketball court before. If you stuck him in a time machine and transported him back to the Russell-Chamberlain Era, he'd probably average 55 points a game. Just the mere thought of his putting on a Celtics jersey makes me want to start sobbing with joy.
Anyway, because the game keeps evolving and improving, you can only compare the impact of players and teams relative to the time in which they played. Would the '86 Celtics have beaten the '96 Bulls in a seven-game series? Too difficult to say. For instance, Pippen would have guarded Bird in that series, and there wasn't anyone remotely resembling Scottie Pippen in 1986. So how could you know? Compare their relative impacts and it's a different story. The '86 Celtics were greater than the '96 Bulls because they excelled against tougher competition, they were invincible at home (50-1 at home if you include playoff games) and their top-six was better than Chicago's top-six. You will never convince me otherwise. But the one thing that separated those mid-'80s Celtics and Lakers teams from everyone after them was that sixth gear: You never knew when they would throw together one of those four-minute stretches, turn the game into a layup line and blow somebody off the court.
(In fact, that Celtics team was so loaded that they screwed around during games, almost like musicians jamming near the end of a song. During a recent NBA TV interview with Bird for the Legend's 50th birthday, Bill Walton and Bird reminisced about the time Bird set goals for their West Coast trip, decided he would average 42 points a game for the trip, then got bored midway through and decided to shoot all left-handed shots in Portland. And he did just that. This actually happened.)
Now the Suns are approaching that hallowed level and I never thought we'd see something like that again -- not with 30 teams, not with a salary cap, not with the lottery system, not when teams are so much smarter about not giving away future lottery picks for the likes of Don Ford and Gerald Henderson. If the Suns stay healthy, they should win 67-70 games and nobody should touch them in the playoffs except for Dallas, the one contender that can dictate a specific tempo and force its opponents to abide by it. Still, I can't imagine the Suns blowing a seven-game series -- not with their style of play (impossible to stop), not with the way they shoot free throws (everyone in the top six is over 80 percent except for Diaw), not with everyone they can throw at Nowitzki, not with Nash's new and improved killer instinct. Even their team defense has improved to the point that Barkley doesn't dismiss them anymore. They're a juggernaut with a terrific coach and no real holes other than a thin bench.
Of course, the Suns can guarantee immortality with one move: Thanks to the Diaw-Johnson trade, they own Atlanta's 2007 No. 1 pick unless it falls in the top three. Say they packaged that pick with Kurt Thomas' expiring contract and/or Banks' contract for one more blue-chipper. What would happen if they added Rashard Lewis or Mike Miller, gave one of them James Jones' minutes (20-25 a game), then went seven-deep the rest of the way? Starting Nash, Stoudemire, Diaw, Bell and Marion, with Miller/Lewis and Barbosa coming off the bench, nobody would play more than 38 minutes or less than 25, and there wouldn't be a bad shooter or a bad all-around player in the bunch. Five of the seven players would be shooting over 40 percent from 3-pointers. They could go small, they could go big, they could play fast or slow, they could do anything they wanted. They'd be the Dirk Diggler of NBA teams.
Look, my NBA life is in complete shambles. My beloved Celtics might be the worst team in the league and I spend far too much time thinking about an 18-year-old kid in Austin who could save them some day. The Clippers are playing such uninspired, mediocre basketball that it's not even fun to attend their games, even as an unbiased observer. My favorite commissioner has endured some rare misfires and was recently pulled over for being drunk with power. The whole season has been a disaster. Other than Gilbert Arenas screaming "Hibachi!" and Isiah making one last boneheaded trade, all I have to look forward until next June's draft are the Suns and their quest for greatness.
So for my sake, make one more move, Phoenix. You owe it to Nash, you owe it to D'Antoni and the Suns fans, you owe it to me, and you owe it to every other diehard basketball fan who loves this game and never imagined we would see another invincible team. All 19 of us.
Friday, January 19, 2007
NFL notes - 1/19/2007 - Conference Championships.
The Conference Championships are here and I think it's time for some bold predictions. I think the Colts and Saints win this weekend. I am sick of all the hype for Brady and Belichick and Brady is garnering more and more of the hype than even Belichick these days. I understand they are both good and have won a lot of big games together, but still I don't think Brady is all that. I have always had a problem with the NFL quarterbacks being rated purely on winning the big one. Actually it's an American thing more than anything else where we just love winners and champions. I understand thats one of the beauty of sports and may be even the reason for watching for most people. You have a winner and a loser after every game and there's a finality to it thats missing in real life. Most of our real life unfolds in the "grey area" with no winners or losers, no clear right or wrong. I agree with the cliche "winning isn't everything but the only thing"! With all that said, America loves team sports and I thinks it's unfair to evaluate individual athletes purely based on winning. It happens to all athletes, but the QBs in the NFL get the worst of it. Not only are they playing the ultimate team-sports, a sport I consider the ultimate metaphor for life (sorry Baseball), they also get evaluated purely based on winning the Super Bowl.
Now Peyton Manning is in that spot where he is blamed for not winning the big one. He has had great seasons in the past, but has lost in the playoff to either Brady or some other team. Mostly the Colts defense has been the culprit. The defense got so bad earlier this season that the experts already let Peyton off the hook for the eventual playoff loss! But now suddenly the Colts defense looks world-class and the Colts get a home game against the hated Brady and the Patriots. That after Brady won the previous week on a 4-th quarter drive and Peyton having thrown 5 interceptions in 2 playoff games. Given all this, I would say this is a must-win game for the Colts. To quote Boomer Esiason, if Peyton loses this game, he might as well buy a house and move in next door to A-Rod, another alleged "choker"! Peyton will be out of excuses if he loses this one. But I think the Colts don't need any excuses this time around.
The Colts should win because they are at home and they are going up against a good, but not a a great defense. The Patriot defense is not as good as it had been in the past. I can't see how they stop Peyton and that running attack with Addai and Rhodes. On the other side, I think the Colts defense has been more than decent the last 2 weeks and they should benefit the most from playing at home. Again, the Patriots rushing attack is good, but not great and the they should not have a whole lot of success this Sunday. I can't see the Colts losing unless they completely self-destruct. But then again, thats exactly what the Chargers did last week. They gave the game away to the Patriots on a platter and if the Colts don't do that, they should win. We know the Pats will play mistake-free for the most part.
In the NFC game, I think Drew Brees and the Saints will get it done on the road. I think they just have more talent and the Bears can't go blow for blow with them with Sexy-Rexy at QB. Bears D has to win this game for them, but I didn't like what I saw with that D last week against the Seahawks. They were not all that they are cracked up to be. I think Saints take this one.
Now Peyton Manning is in that spot where he is blamed for not winning the big one. He has had great seasons in the past, but has lost in the playoff to either Brady or some other team. Mostly the Colts defense has been the culprit. The defense got so bad earlier this season that the experts already let Peyton off the hook for the eventual playoff loss! But now suddenly the Colts defense looks world-class and the Colts get a home game against the hated Brady and the Patriots. That after Brady won the previous week on a 4-th quarter drive and Peyton having thrown 5 interceptions in 2 playoff games. Given all this, I would say this is a must-win game for the Colts. To quote Boomer Esiason, if Peyton loses this game, he might as well buy a house and move in next door to A-Rod, another alleged "choker"! Peyton will be out of excuses if he loses this one. But I think the Colts don't need any excuses this time around.
The Colts should win because they are at home and they are going up against a good, but not a a great defense. The Patriot defense is not as good as it had been in the past. I can't see how they stop Peyton and that running attack with Addai and Rhodes. On the other side, I think the Colts defense has been more than decent the last 2 weeks and they should benefit the most from playing at home. Again, the Patriots rushing attack is good, but not great and the they should not have a whole lot of success this Sunday. I can't see the Colts losing unless they completely self-destruct. But then again, thats exactly what the Chargers did last week. They gave the game away to the Patriots on a platter and if the Colts don't do that, they should win. We know the Pats will play mistake-free for the most part.
In the NFC game, I think Drew Brees and the Saints will get it done on the road. I think they just have more talent and the Bears can't go blow for blow with them with Sexy-Rexy at QB. Bears D has to win this game for them, but I didn't like what I saw with that D last week against the Seahawks. They were not all that they are cracked up to be. I think Saints take this one.
NBA notes - 1/19/2007
Cleveland lost another one on this long Western road trip. They have now lost 3 straight. They were blown out of this game, but they got back in the fourth quarter and cut it to 5 with a few minutes too. But Denver woke up and put the game away at the end. Cavs helped them with a few missed free throws. Lebron had a scary fall in the 4-th quarter. His leg got caught under a falling Denver player and it looked like he either twisted his ankle or the knee or both. Luckily for the Cavs and the fans, he came back and looked OK. Lebron got his first triple double of the season with 30-10-10. Camby was too good with 26-17. The Cavs goto Golden State tomorrow to face a team and a fan-base that would be welcoming Al Harrington and Stephen Jackson. Could be another blowout loss for Cavs.
Washington blew out Orlando. I guess Washington is for real at least in the West. Arenas had a 30-7-6 night and if he plays like that every night, the Wizards will be tough to stop. New Jersey scored a close win in New York. New York erased a 10 point lead or so in the last couple of minutes and went ahead on a David Lee put-back. But the Nets came right back with Uncle Cliffy's put-back of a Vinsanity miss. Apparently Isiah burnt all the timeouts before the last possession for the second straight game. I am sure he is getting roasted over the coal by the New Yorkers for that.
Suns won their 12-th straight behind Nash's clutch, long jumpers and 15 assists. He was not too happy that they had so much difficulty against the lowly Blazers. Miami won again in OT against Phily. Heat might be back even before Shaq gets back. There was also an ugly brawl between KG and McDyess in the Det-Minn game. Dice knocked Mark Madsen down and KG retaliated by throwing the ball at Dice. KG looked good until this point, but then he started retreating as Dice approached him with a clenched fist. Both players got ejected and no real punches were thrown. Detroit won the game in double overtime as C-Webb started and had 16 points to go with Chauncey's 25 and Rip's 26.
Cleveland @ Denver - 99-110
Washington @ Orlando - 114-93
New Jersey @ New York - 101-100
Interesting games on the board for the Jan 20-th (Saturday)
Denver @ Houston - AI V T-Mac. Should be a good one.
Utah @ Chicago - Utah will try to beat a good team on the road. Mehmet Okur is on fire right now.
Cleveland @ Golden State - New players (and a lot of ebergy) for the Warriors and a losing streak for the Cavs at the end of a long road trip. Could be a tough one for the Cavs.
Washington blew out Orlando. I guess Washington is for real at least in the West. Arenas had a 30-7-6 night and if he plays like that every night, the Wizards will be tough to stop. New Jersey scored a close win in New York. New York erased a 10 point lead or so in the last couple of minutes and went ahead on a David Lee put-back. But the Nets came right back with Uncle Cliffy's put-back of a Vinsanity miss. Apparently Isiah burnt all the timeouts before the last possession for the second straight game. I am sure he is getting roasted over the coal by the New Yorkers for that.
Suns won their 12-th straight behind Nash's clutch, long jumpers and 15 assists. He was not too happy that they had so much difficulty against the lowly Blazers. Miami won again in OT against Phily. Heat might be back even before Shaq gets back. There was also an ugly brawl between KG and McDyess in the Det-Minn game. Dice knocked Mark Madsen down and KG retaliated by throwing the ball at Dice. KG looked good until this point, but then he started retreating as Dice approached him with a clenched fist. Both players got ejected and no real punches were thrown. Detroit won the game in double overtime as C-Webb started and had 16 points to go with Chauncey's 25 and Rip's 26.
Cleveland @ Denver - 99-110
Washington @ Orlando - 114-93
New Jersey @ New York - 101-100
Interesting games on the board for the Jan 20-th (Saturday)
Denver @ Houston - AI V T-Mac. Should be a good one.
Utah @ Chicago - Utah will try to beat a good team on the road. Mehmet Okur is on fire right now.
Cleveland @ Golden State - New players (and a lot of ebergy) for the Warriors and a losing streak for the Cavs at the end of a long road trip. Could be a tough one for the Cavs.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
NBA notes - 1/18/2007
Dallas blew out the Lakers today and showed them they are probably not in the same league, at least not yet. Kobe was not enough today. He had 26 points, but 6 turnovers and a badly missed dunk at the end. Fans had fun with that one when the ball bounced off the rim and Anthony Johnson took it the other way and dunked it himself. Kobe had to come back and pull off a reverse dunk the very next play to restore some credibility! All these distractions apart, Lakers could not handle the forward combo of Howard and Nowitzki. Howard took more shots than Nowitzki and ended up with a 29-11 night. Nowitzki had 27-10 night himself. Not entirely the fault of the Lakers because this combo has been a nightmare all season long for most of the teams.
Heat beat the Pacers after leading big. They let them back in to the game, but finally held on. Wade had 33-6-8 and another circus highlight shot. Pacers had a depleted roster because of the trade and they had a few second-tier guys step up and score big. Granger had 28, Marquis Daniel had 23 and Jeff Foster had 14. You wonder why MArquis Daniel is not having a better NBA career. I guess Avery didn't like him in Dallas and he is not getting minutes in Indiana either. Anyways, I was surprised that the TNT gang, Chuck and Jet, think Indiana got the better end of the trade. They say they are surprised the fans think Golden State did well! They are basically saying what I said yesterday about Murphy and Dunleavy playing with a talented big man like Jermaine O'Neal. That will open things up for them, but still I think the Warriors upgraded their talent more than the Pacers did and Warriors got some cap relief too. Apparently they need it for signing Monta and Biedrins in a couple of years.
Talking of the TNT show, it's funny they are trying to get the Chuckster race 67 year old ref Dick Bavetta! Chuck claims that there is no way a 67 year old guy outruns him. Lets see.
LA Lakers @ Dallas - 95-114
Indiana @ Miami - 101-104
Interesting games on the board for the Jan 19-th (Friday)
Cleveland @ Denver - It's not Lebron V Carmelo, but Lebron V AI is still VERY good.
Washington @ Orlando - Two Eastern teams with near identical records hoping to go some place this season. Lets see who's better.
New Jersey @ New York - Believe it or not, New York might actually be in the playoff race. Thats how bad the Atlantic division is and this game is big for New York.
Heat beat the Pacers after leading big. They let them back in to the game, but finally held on. Wade had 33-6-8 and another circus highlight shot. Pacers had a depleted roster because of the trade and they had a few second-tier guys step up and score big. Granger had 28, Marquis Daniel had 23 and Jeff Foster had 14. You wonder why MArquis Daniel is not having a better NBA career. I guess Avery didn't like him in Dallas and he is not getting minutes in Indiana either. Anyways, I was surprised that the TNT gang, Chuck and Jet, think Indiana got the better end of the trade. They say they are surprised the fans think Golden State did well! They are basically saying what I said yesterday about Murphy and Dunleavy playing with a talented big man like Jermaine O'Neal. That will open things up for them, but still I think the Warriors upgraded their talent more than the Pacers did and Warriors got some cap relief too. Apparently they need it for signing Monta and Biedrins in a couple of years.
Talking of the TNT show, it's funny they are trying to get the Chuckster race 67 year old ref Dick Bavetta! Chuck claims that there is no way a 67 year old guy outruns him. Lets see.
LA Lakers @ Dallas - 95-114
Indiana @ Miami - 101-104
Interesting games on the board for the Jan 19-th (Friday)
Cleveland @ Denver - It's not Lebron V Carmelo, but Lebron V AI is still VERY good.
Washington @ Orlando - Two Eastern teams with near identical records hoping to go some place this season. Lets see who's better.
New Jersey @ New York - Believe it or not, New York might actually be in the playoff race. Thats how bad the Atlantic division is and this game is big for New York.
NBA notes - 1/17/2007
Lakers got a great win against the Spurs at San Antonio. The Spurs are still VERY good, but they just look vulnerable these days. They always had problem with Kobe and the Lakers, but this years Spurs are having trouble with a lot of good teams. Timmy is probably starting to slow down just a bit and they just don't seem to go to him that often these days until the playoffs. The rest of the supporting cast might need an upgrade. Parker is a stud, but Ginobli is inconsistent, though he had a good game tonight. The Spurs can still win it all, but they need to play mistake-free to do it. They had too many turnovers today and they don't have that kind of margin of error anymore. They need another piece and Elson is not that piece though he looked like one earlier in the season. Timmy was great today shooting 10-18 for 26 points, but Kobe was just better with 34-6-8. This kid is beginning to scare me! He is truly becoming a mature leader and a special player. He shot 12-19 against a tough defense today and rarely forced any bad shots. He was very patient, composed and really trusted his teammates. He looked for them even in the clutch when he got double teamed. He is averaging 8 points less than last year on 8 less shots and is shooting a career high 47% from the field. It's almost like some "maturity switch" has been flipped since last years playoffs against the Suns. Philip has shown him that letting his teammates help him is a good thing and he has bought in.
T-Mac sat out the game today and the Suns won, though they struggled all night. Nash had ungodly numbers again, but the victory was a hard fought one. Now they have won 11 n a row. Deron Williams had a great game (31-3-10) for the Jazz to beat Detroit. Chauncey Billups returned from injury and had a 26 point game. C-Webb played 16 mins and shot 1-5. Bad loss for the Pistons.
The big news of the day was the trade between the Warriors and the Pacers. the Pacers traded scorers Al Harrington and Stephen Jackson to the Golden State Warriors on Wednesday for forwards Troy Murphy and Mike Dunleavy Jr. The deal also sent guard Sarunas Jasikevicius and forward Josh Powell to the Warriors, with forward Ike Diogu and guard Keith McLeod coming to the Pacers. Great trade for the Warriors. I am surprised Larry Bird went for it. Not only did the Warriors get more talented players, they also off-loaded some cap space because Dunleavy and Murphy are signed for more years than Harrington and Jackson. They also got some much needed outside and free-throw shooting in Sarunas. The only downside for the Warriors is that Jackson is kind of a head-case. Hopefully Nelly can keep him straight. At last the Warrior fan would not have Dunleavy to boo and Murphy has been equally bad this year. Hopefully the new scenery will help them too. This could actually work for Pacers too since their style fits these 2 players better. And Murphy has always been a good rebounder and a tough player until this year. With Jermaine O'Neal in the paint, he can actually play from the perimeter on offense and thats not as bad as it was with the Warrriors who had nobody in the paint. Apparently Bird also liked Ike Diogu and the pride of Arizona State is now going to Indiana. Not sure what kind of role he gets to play for them, but I hope he gets to shine in this league.
Due to this trade and injuries, the Warriors did not even have 8 players to suit up today. So they had to sign a NBDL player to a 10 day contract, bring up Patrick O'Bryant from the NBDL and suit up the injured Foyle just so that they didn't forfeit the game! Clippers won 115-109, but the Warriors put up a good fight. They just could not stop Elton Brand who had 27 points on 11-13 shooting.
LA Lakers @ San Antonio - 100-96
Utah @ Detroit - 100-99
Phoenix @ Houston - 100-91
Golden State @ LA CLippers - 109-115
Interesting games on the board for the Jan 18-th (Thursday)
LA Lakers @ Dallas - Another good one. Probably difficult for the Lakers to win since they ended Mavs streak last week and Dallas will be ready for this one.
Indiana @ Miami - Pacers wont have the new players available. Shaq will not suit up for Miami. So what's the point?
T-Mac sat out the game today and the Suns won, though they struggled all night. Nash had ungodly numbers again, but the victory was a hard fought one. Now they have won 11 n a row. Deron Williams had a great game (31-3-10) for the Jazz to beat Detroit. Chauncey Billups returned from injury and had a 26 point game. C-Webb played 16 mins and shot 1-5. Bad loss for the Pistons.
The big news of the day was the trade between the Warriors and the Pacers. the Pacers traded scorers Al Harrington and Stephen Jackson to the Golden State Warriors on Wednesday for forwards Troy Murphy and Mike Dunleavy Jr. The deal also sent guard Sarunas Jasikevicius and forward Josh Powell to the Warriors, with forward Ike Diogu and guard Keith McLeod coming to the Pacers. Great trade for the Warriors. I am surprised Larry Bird went for it. Not only did the Warriors get more talented players, they also off-loaded some cap space because Dunleavy and Murphy are signed for more years than Harrington and Jackson. They also got some much needed outside and free-throw shooting in Sarunas. The only downside for the Warriors is that Jackson is kind of a head-case. Hopefully Nelly can keep him straight. At last the Warrior fan would not have Dunleavy to boo and Murphy has been equally bad this year. Hopefully the new scenery will help them too. This could actually work for Pacers too since their style fits these 2 players better. And Murphy has always been a good rebounder and a tough player until this year. With Jermaine O'Neal in the paint, he can actually play from the perimeter on offense and thats not as bad as it was with the Warrriors who had nobody in the paint. Apparently Bird also liked Ike Diogu and the pride of Arizona State is now going to Indiana. Not sure what kind of role he gets to play for them, but I hope he gets to shine in this league.
Due to this trade and injuries, the Warriors did not even have 8 players to suit up today. So they had to sign a NBDL player to a 10 day contract, bring up Patrick O'Bryant from the NBDL and suit up the injured Foyle just so that they didn't forfeit the game! Clippers won 115-109, but the Warriors put up a good fight. They just could not stop Elton Brand who had 27 points on 11-13 shooting.
LA Lakers @ San Antonio - 100-96
Utah @ Detroit - 100-99
Phoenix @ Houston - 100-91
Golden State @ LA CLippers - 109-115
Interesting games on the board for the Jan 18-th (Thursday)
LA Lakers @ Dallas - Another good one. Probably difficult for the Lakers to win since they ended Mavs streak last week and Dallas will be ready for this one.
Indiana @ Miami - Pacers wont have the new players available. Shaq will not suit up for Miami. So what's the point?
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
NBA notes - 1/16/2007
T-Mac had some game today. But still was not enough to beat the Nowitzki-Howard combo. T-mac had 45-5-7. But Dirk had 30-10-6 and Josh had 28-7. It's that simple with the Mavs these days. Josh Howard is fast becoming a star and when he has a good game, they usually win because you know Dirk is having a good game almost every night. T-Mac shot real well (17-29) in-spite of Avery trying 4 different defenders on him. But the Mavs got it done in the 4-th quarter. Looks like the Mavs are starting a new streak. In Seattle, the Sonics upset the Cavs behind a big 3 by the little known rookie from France Mickael Gelabale. King's 30-7-8 night was not enough for the Cavs.
Houston @ Dallas - 96-109
Interesting games on the board for the Jan 17-th (Wednesday)
LA Lakers @ San Antonio - Big game for the Spurs. They need to show they can beat LA at home. Spurs have lost 6 games at home already.
Phoenix @ Houston - Suns have lost Kurt Thomas for 4-6 weeks. Tough road game here against T-Mac.
Utah @ Detroit - C-Webb will make his Detroit debut. They'll try to beat a good Western conference team.
Golden State @ LA Clippers - The fight for the 8-th will continue in LA this time.
Houston @ Dallas - 96-109
Interesting games on the board for the Jan 17-th (Wednesday)
LA Lakers @ San Antonio - Big game for the Spurs. They need to show they can beat LA at home. Spurs have lost 6 games at home already.
Phoenix @ Houston - Suns have lost Kurt Thomas for 4-6 weeks. Tough road game here against T-Mac.
Utah @ Detroit - C-Webb will make his Detroit debut. They'll try to beat a good Western conference team.
Golden State @ LA Clippers - The fight for the 8-th will continue in LA this time.
Monday, January 15, 2007
NFL Playoffs - Divisional round
Great playoffs so far in the NFL. The Romo play dominated the headline last weekend when Dallas and the Giants lost to Seattle and Phily respectively in the NFC. AFC sent the Patriots and the Colts to the Divisional round. This past weekend, the headliner was the Patriots at the Chargers. Another heart-breaking loss for Marty. I think he is really unlucky. The play where the Chargers intercepted Brady only to lose it on a fumble is what you might call "unlucky". But, from the Patriots perspective, that was a great play by Troy Brown. That guy is just awesome and the Hooded sweat-shirt is lucky to have him. Unlucky or not, Marty did screw up a few things. My main beef on this one were the timeouts. The Chargers had no business using all 3 before that last drive. Marty should have never challenged that interception-fumble play as big as that play was, and I don't even know what happened with the other 2 timeouts. One more timeout, and Rivers could have gotten another 5 or 10 yards closer for Nate Keading. Now Marty is 5-13 in the playoffs and they say his job is in danger. The Patriots are moving on again. Their defense looks suspect. Brady actually had a bad game. But still they just win. May be they are just better prepared and coached. I think you need to give the Devil it's due and say it's Brady and Belichick's greatness that win these games for the Patriots. Now they are going to Indy for the AFC championship.
I think the Colts win this home AFC championship game against the Pats. The Pats are just not that good defensively and I don't know how they are going to stop Manning and the boys. Peyton is having a horrible playoffs himself with 5 INTs and that might have to continue for the Pats to win. The Colts have played 2 great defensive games and the Pats may not be able to run against them either. This might be the year, Peyton makes the Super Bowl. I would love that for him and Tony Dungy too. But then again, would any of us be surprised if the Pats make it again? Colts beat the Ravens in a defensive struggle and ran the ball effectively on the Ravens D. Dominic Rhodes came through for them big-time in the second half after Addai was up-and-down in the first half. Steve McNair had a critical interception at the goal-line and couldn't move the ball with any effectiveness at all. For all the talk of Brian Billick's offensive genius back in the day, his offense has been a complete failure in Baltimore since the day he took over.
On the NFC side, the games were real close. Chicago beat Seattle in OT. Both teams had several chances to win this game and Seattle couldn't get it done. Rex was decent and made a couple of key plays to win the game. In the other game, New Orleans played well to put Phily away. Duece McAllister, the forgotten man, came through big for the Saints. The Eagles just could not stop him and the Jeff Garcia world tour came to an end.
In other news, LT threw a tantrum at the end of the Chargers game and even called Belichick classless! Shocking to hear that coming from LT. Not sure what happened, but LT seemed to over-react to the Pats dancing on the Chargers midfield.
Indianapolis @ Baltimore - 15-6
Philadelphia @ New Orleans - 24-27
Seattle @ Chicago - 24-27
New England @ San Diego - 24-21
I think the Colts win this home AFC championship game against the Pats. The Pats are just not that good defensively and I don't know how they are going to stop Manning and the boys. Peyton is having a horrible playoffs himself with 5 INTs and that might have to continue for the Pats to win. The Colts have played 2 great defensive games and the Pats may not be able to run against them either. This might be the year, Peyton makes the Super Bowl. I would love that for him and Tony Dungy too. But then again, would any of us be surprised if the Pats make it again? Colts beat the Ravens in a defensive struggle and ran the ball effectively on the Ravens D. Dominic Rhodes came through for them big-time in the second half after Addai was up-and-down in the first half. Steve McNair had a critical interception at the goal-line and couldn't move the ball with any effectiveness at all. For all the talk of Brian Billick's offensive genius back in the day, his offense has been a complete failure in Baltimore since the day he took over.
On the NFC side, the games were real close. Chicago beat Seattle in OT. Both teams had several chances to win this game and Seattle couldn't get it done. Rex was decent and made a couple of key plays to win the game. In the other game, New Orleans played well to put Phily away. Duece McAllister, the forgotten man, came through big for the Saints. The Eagles just could not stop him and the Jeff Garcia world tour came to an end.
In other news, LT threw a tantrum at the end of the Chargers game and even called Belichick classless! Shocking to hear that coming from LT. Not sure what happened, but LT seemed to over-react to the Pats dancing on the Chargers midfield.
Indianapolis @ Baltimore - 15-6
Philadelphia @ New Orleans - 24-27
Seattle @ Chicago - 24-27
New England @ San Diego - 24-21
NFL Playoffs - Divisional round
Great playoffs so far in the NFL. The Romo play dominated the headline last weekend when Dallas and the Giants lost to Seattle and Phily respectively in the NFC. AFC sent the Patriots and the Colts to the Divisional round. This past weekend, the headliner was the Patriots at the Chargers. Another heart-breaking loss for Marty. I think he is really unlucky. The play where the Chargers intercepted Brady only to lose it on a fumble is what you might call "unlucky". But, from the Patriots perspective, that was a great play by Troy Brown. That guy is just awesome and the Hooded sweat-shirt is lucky to have him. Unlucky or not, Marty did screw up a few things. My main beef on this one were the timeouts. The Chargers had no business using all 3 before that last drive. Marty should have never challenged that interception-fumble play as big as that play was, and I don't even know what happened with the other 2 timeouts. One more timeout, and Rivers could have gotten another 5 or 10 yards closer for Nate Keading. Now Marty is 5-13 in the playoffs and they say his job is in danger. The Patriots are moving on again. Their defense looks suspect. Brady actually had a bad game. But still they just win. May be they are just better prepared and coached. I think you need to give the Devil it's due and say it's Brady and Belichick's greatness that win these games for the Patriots. Now they are going to Indy for the AFC championship.
I think the Colts win this home AFC championship game against the Pats. The Pats are just not that good defensively and I don't know how they are going to stop Manning and the boys. Peyton is having a horrible playoffs himself with 5 INTs and that might have to continue for the Pats to win. The Colts have played 2 great defensive games and the Pats may not be able to run against them either. This might be the year, Peyton makes the Super Bowl. I would love that for him and Tony Dungy too. But then again, would any of us be surprised if the Pats make it again? Colts beat the Ravens in a defensive struggle and ran the ball effectively on the Ravens D. Dominic Rhodes came through for them big-time in the second half after Addai was up-and-down in the first half. Steve McNair had a critical interception at the goal-line and couldn't move the ball with any effectiveness at all. For all the talk of Brian Billick's offensive genius back in the day, his offense has been a complete failure in Baltimore since the day he took over.
On the NFC side, the games were real close. Chicago beat Seattle in OT. Both teams had several chances to win this game and Seattle couldn't get it done. Rex was decent and made a couple of key plays to win the game. In the other game, New Orleans played well to put Phily away. Duece McAllister, the forgotten man, came through big for the Saints. The Eagles just could not stop him and the Jeff Garcia world tour came to an end.
In other news, LT threw a tantrum at the end of the Chargers game and even called Belichick classless! Shocking to hear that coming from LT. Not sure what happened, but LT seemed to over-react to the Pats dancing on the Chargers midfield.
Indianapolis @ Baltimore - 15-6
Philadelphia @ New Orleans - 24-27
Seattle @ Chicago - 24-27
New England @ San Diego - 24-21
I think the Colts win this home AFC championship game against the Pats. The Pats are just not that good defensively and I don't know how they are going to stop Manning and the boys. Peyton is having a horrible playoffs himself with 5 INTs and that might have to continue for the Pats to win. The Colts have played 2 great defensive games and the Pats may not be able to run against them either. This might be the year, Peyton makes the Super Bowl. I would love that for him and Tony Dungy too. But then again, would any of us be surprised if the Pats make it again? Colts beat the Ravens in a defensive struggle and ran the ball effectively on the Ravens D. Dominic Rhodes came through for them big-time in the second half after Addai was up-and-down in the first half. Steve McNair had a critical interception at the goal-line and couldn't move the ball with any effectiveness at all. For all the talk of Brian Billick's offensive genius back in the day, his offense has been a complete failure in Baltimore since the day he took over.
On the NFC side, the games were real close. Chicago beat Seattle in OT. Both teams had several chances to win this game and Seattle couldn't get it done. Rex was decent and made a couple of key plays to win the game. In the other game, New Orleans played well to put Phily away. Duece McAllister, the forgotten man, came through big for the Saints. The Eagles just could not stop him and the Jeff Garcia world tour came to an end.
In other news, LT threw a tantrum at the end of the Chargers game and even called Belichick classless! Shocking to hear that coming from LT. Not sure what happened, but LT seemed to over-react to the Pats dancing on the Chargers midfield.
Indianapolis @ Baltimore - 15-6
Philadelphia @ New Orleans - 24-27
Seattle @ Chicago - 24-27
New England @ San Diego - 24-21
NBA notes - 1/15/2007
Great day of NBA ball on MLK day. Kobe and Wade went at each other and put on a good show. Looked like Wade outplayed Kobe again, but the Lakers role players were better and they won the game. I was amazed at the number of 3's the Lakers hit. This game followed the Memphis-Phoenix game and it looked like a seamless transition given the number of 3's the Lakers took and made. The game was pretty fast-paced and both teams scored a lot of points. The Lakers got some shooters now and with Kobe willing to share the ball more, they can do some damage in the West. Wade was awesome again and the Heat are playing well now. They can do some damage in the East themselves when the Diesel returns. Wade had a couple of key turnovers that cost them in the end. But this guy is awesome. He is so quick and nobody can stay in front of him. He gets a LOT of calls too. Even Kobe had to complain to the refs about the preferential treatment to D-Wade!
As expected, the Suns and Grizzlies played a fun one. Memphis ran with the Suns and stayed close at the half. It was 76-72 at the half! But even then you could see that the Suns had way too much firepower! It's amazing the array of athletes and shooters and play-makers they have. Amare, Marion and Barbosa are the athletes. Barbosa, Raja Bell, James Jones and Nash are the shooters. Nash and Diaw are the play-makers and all these guys are top-notch at what they do. They space out, they find the open man, they shoot the open 3 (without any conscience) and they make it more often than not. Now they have won 10 straight again.
Agent-0 Gil Arenas was on again today. He scored 51, but more importantly, hit the game winning 3 again at the buzzer again. I think Sloan should have doubled him since he is the kind of guy who may not give up the ball and force something up even if a team-mate is open. He is kind of weird and childish, but as a pure basketball talent, he is just awesome. Washington should be real glad they got him for 65 mill or whatever they had to pay to get him away from the Warriors. Good choice indeed!
Speaking of the Warriors, they got back on track and beat the Clippers at home. The Clips are still struggling on the road and it's hard to tell what the problem is. Looks like they may have too many weapons and the ball doesn't make it to the paint to Elton Brand. When you got Mobley, Cassell, Livingston and Maggette on the perimeter, Brand (and Kaman) can go for long stretches without seeing the ball. Another problem could be the outside shooting of Livingston and Maggette. Whatever it is, they are clearly under-achieving. Apparently Maggette also wants to start or wants out. Magic Johnson on TNT was even suggesting a Dunleavy for Maggette trade. I think the Warriors would love that though Dunleavy had a good game today with 18-13 after being thrown under the bus by Nellie. Monta Ellis was back with a 24 point game and thats a good sign for the Warriors.
San Antonio lost to Chicago. I kind of saw this coming. San Antonio is losing a lot of tough match-ups these days. They have never looked this vulnerable over the last few years. In other games, Kidd (19-9-10) almost had a triple double again and Chris Bosh had a 27 point night.
In other news, Detroit is apparently signing C-Webb for the rest of the year. Not sure what the impact is going to be. I doubt if this will be significant. What's C-Webb going to give them that they can't get out of Sheed or Dice?
Miami @ LA Lakers - 118-124
Utah @ Washington - 111-114
San Antonio @ Chicago - 87-99
LA Clippers @ Golden State - 93-108
Phoenix @ Memphis - 137-122
Interesting games on the board for the Jan 16-th (Tuesday)
Houston @ Dallas - Can T-Mac raise up and challenge the Mavs in Dallas?
As expected, the Suns and Grizzlies played a fun one. Memphis ran with the Suns and stayed close at the half. It was 76-72 at the half! But even then you could see that the Suns had way too much firepower! It's amazing the array of athletes and shooters and play-makers they have. Amare, Marion and Barbosa are the athletes. Barbosa, Raja Bell, James Jones and Nash are the shooters. Nash and Diaw are the play-makers and all these guys are top-notch at what they do. They space out, they find the open man, they shoot the open 3 (without any conscience) and they make it more often than not. Now they have won 10 straight again.
Agent-0 Gil Arenas was on again today. He scored 51, but more importantly, hit the game winning 3 again at the buzzer again. I think Sloan should have doubled him since he is the kind of guy who may not give up the ball and force something up even if a team-mate is open. He is kind of weird and childish, but as a pure basketball talent, he is just awesome. Washington should be real glad they got him for 65 mill or whatever they had to pay to get him away from the Warriors. Good choice indeed!
Speaking of the Warriors, they got back on track and beat the Clippers at home. The Clips are still struggling on the road and it's hard to tell what the problem is. Looks like they may have too many weapons and the ball doesn't make it to the paint to Elton Brand. When you got Mobley, Cassell, Livingston and Maggette on the perimeter, Brand (and Kaman) can go for long stretches without seeing the ball. Another problem could be the outside shooting of Livingston and Maggette. Whatever it is, they are clearly under-achieving. Apparently Maggette also wants to start or wants out. Magic Johnson on TNT was even suggesting a Dunleavy for Maggette trade. I think the Warriors would love that though Dunleavy had a good game today with 18-13 after being thrown under the bus by Nellie. Monta Ellis was back with a 24 point game and thats a good sign for the Warriors.
San Antonio lost to Chicago. I kind of saw this coming. San Antonio is losing a lot of tough match-ups these days. They have never looked this vulnerable over the last few years. In other games, Kidd (19-9-10) almost had a triple double again and Chris Bosh had a 27 point night.
In other news, Detroit is apparently signing C-Webb for the rest of the year. Not sure what the impact is going to be. I doubt if this will be significant. What's C-Webb going to give them that they can't get out of Sheed or Dice?
Miami @ LA Lakers - 118-124
Utah @ Washington - 111-114
San Antonio @ Chicago - 87-99
LA Clippers @ Golden State - 93-108
Phoenix @ Memphis - 137-122
Interesting games on the board for the Jan 16-th (Tuesday)
Houston @ Dallas - Can T-Mac raise up and challenge the Mavs in Dallas?
Sunday, January 14, 2007
NBA notes - 1/14/2007
Nowitzki put on a show again. He had 38 points and 11 boards to lead the Mavs past the Raptors in a close one. Mavs started slow and won 97-96 at the end behind some work by Nowitzki. He is averaging 30+ in January and is definitely a MVP candidate now. There was an awesome block by Chris Bosh in this game against Dirk. Bosh also had 24-15 in defeat. Nowitzki says Andrea Bargnani is better and more athletic than he ever was at that age. Thats high praise, but Bargnani is doing real well and Bryan Collangello might have hit another home run with that pick.
AI had a good game against Portland with 32-3-9. Zach Randolph shot 1-12 in this game and thats not what Portland is looking for. Denver traded away Earl Boykins to Milwaukee for Steve Blake. This could be a good trade for Denver and Blake since he can play some PG to AI's off-G. He had 25 points in this game. Not sure if he'll still start when Melo returns, but he might with AI playing 2-guard with JR coming off the bench. Apparently Denver wanted to off-load Big Earl's salary.
Interesting games on the board for the Jan 15-th (Monday)
Miami @ LA Lakers - Wade V Kobe. 2 teams on a roll meeting in LA. Wade dominated the Christmas day match-up. It might be Kobe's turn now. Shaq might return too.
Utah @ Washington - Washington is tough at home and the Jazz are tough anywhere!
San Antonio @ Chicago - Could be a tough test on the road for San Antonio.
LA Clippers @ Golden State - Important match-up at the bottom of the Western conf playoff standings here. First of a home and home for these 2 teams and this might decide the 8-th spot in the west.
Phoenix @ Memphis - Interesting one here. Memphis might want to push the ball even more than the Suns if you can believe that. What will the score be at the end?
AI had a good game against Portland with 32-3-9. Zach Randolph shot 1-12 in this game and thats not what Portland is looking for. Denver traded away Earl Boykins to Milwaukee for Steve Blake. This could be a good trade for Denver and Blake since he can play some PG to AI's off-G. He had 25 points in this game. Not sure if he'll still start when Melo returns, but he might with AI playing 2-guard with JR coming off the bench. Apparently Denver wanted to off-load Big Earl's salary.
Interesting games on the board for the Jan 15-th (Monday)
Miami @ LA Lakers - Wade V Kobe. 2 teams on a roll meeting in LA. Wade dominated the Christmas day match-up. It might be Kobe's turn now. Shaq might return too.
Utah @ Washington - Washington is tough at home and the Jazz are tough anywhere!
San Antonio @ Chicago - Could be a tough test on the road for San Antonio.
LA Clippers @ Golden State - Important match-up at the bottom of the Western conf playoff standings here. First of a home and home for these 2 teams and this might decide the 8-th spot in the west.
Phoenix @ Memphis - Interesting one here. Memphis might want to push the ball even more than the Suns if you can believe that. What will the score be at the end?
NBA notes - 1/13/2007
Suns played a close one today against the Magic. It was one of those usual Suns game where they are up by 15 in the third, but the game is almost tied up late in the fourth. The Magic could have actually tied it up a couple of times, but the Suns dodged the bullet and put them away at the end. Apparently Dwight Howard has problems playing against the Suns and he had another bad game today. Suns were led by Boris Diaw who had a near triple-double with 19-9-11. Jameer Nelson had a great third quarter, but was not enough. Suns have now won 9 in a row now.
T-Mac had 37 to offset Ron-Ron's 34 and Houston won a interesting 115-111 game in Sacto. Corliss Williamson had a flashback night with 30-12. T-Mac also had 9 assists and is carrying the team now. They are getting great contributions from everybody like Battier, Juwan Howard, Mutombo, Rafer Alston and even Luther Head. It's amazing how the game is so easy for everybody when they play around a stud like T-Mac.
Washington was no match for San Antonio proving they still have a long way to go before being considered to be any kind of contenders. Cleveland had a good road win at the Clips. The King had 28-10-10. Miami won again at Utah on a back-to-back. Wade had a ridiculous assist to Zo and another circus shot on a 3-point play tonight. He has a couple of those circus shots every night. He had an amazing 360 spin in the air and basket yesterday against the Warriors. He scored 32 points on 5 made baskets because he had 23 free throws! Thats way too much. Nobody "uglifies" the game quite like the Jazz. The teams combined for 99 foul shots. Booze was strong once again with 29-14, but the Jazz have lost 3 straight and 5 of 10. The ship is a little unstable right now though they still have a 4 game lead in the division.
Wasington @ San Antonio -80-93
Orlando @ Phoenix - 101-107
Miami @ Utah - 119-110
Cleveland @ LA Clippers - 104-92
Houston @ Sacramento - 115-111
Interesting games on the board for the Jan 14-th (Sunday)
Nowitzki and AI are on display, but no great games.
T-Mac had 37 to offset Ron-Ron's 34 and Houston won a interesting 115-111 game in Sacto. Corliss Williamson had a flashback night with 30-12. T-Mac also had 9 assists and is carrying the team now. They are getting great contributions from everybody like Battier, Juwan Howard, Mutombo, Rafer Alston and even Luther Head. It's amazing how the game is so easy for everybody when they play around a stud like T-Mac.
Washington was no match for San Antonio proving they still have a long way to go before being considered to be any kind of contenders. Cleveland had a good road win at the Clips. The King had 28-10-10. Miami won again at Utah on a back-to-back. Wade had a ridiculous assist to Zo and another circus shot on a 3-point play tonight. He has a couple of those circus shots every night. He had an amazing 360 spin in the air and basket yesterday against the Warriors. He scored 32 points on 5 made baskets because he had 23 free throws! Thats way too much. Nobody "uglifies" the game quite like the Jazz. The teams combined for 99 foul shots. Booze was strong once again with 29-14, but the Jazz have lost 3 straight and 5 of 10. The ship is a little unstable right now though they still have a 4 game lead in the division.
Wasington @ San Antonio -80-93
Orlando @ Phoenix - 101-107
Miami @ Utah - 119-110
Cleveland @ LA Clippers - 104-92
Houston @ Sacramento - 115-111
Interesting games on the board for the Jan 14-th (Sunday)
Nowitzki and AI are on display, but no great games.
NBA notes - 1/12/2007
It's official folks. The Mavs are the best team in the league and they might even have the best player in the league in Dirk Nowitzki. He sored 43 pts. and had 15 boards for the Mavs against the Pacers and it took each one of those points to beat them by 2 in OT. Pacers tried, but they just could not put away the Mavs. They are just too good.
Dwight Howard had another good game (25-10), but that was not enough against Kobe's 28-8-7. Smush Parker had a nice 26 point game for the Lakers. Shane Battier scored 25 for the Rockets to take care of the Nuggets. They didn't need much from T-Mac in this one. Wade had 22-10-9 as Miami crushed the Warriors who seem to be in a big slump now. They lost 2 more guys to ankle injuries in the game - Mickael Pietrus and Adonal Foyle.
Orlando @ LA Lakers - 106-109
Houston @ Denver - 90-86
Dallas @ Indiana - 115-113
Interesting games on the board for the Jan 13-th (Saturday)
Wasington @ San Antonio - Can Gil go into the Lion's den and steal a victory? I doubt it.
Orlando @ Phoenix - Dwight, Grant and gang continue their Western swing at Phoenix. I am sorry for them.
Miami @ Utah - Wade against the good, physical Jazz team. Heat are on a roll since Wade returned.
Cleveland @ LA Clippers - Cavs have to beat the Clips to establish some consistency.
Houston @ Sacramento - T-Mac takes Houston to Sacramento, which is not as difficult a place to play as it used to be. But this could still be a good match-up.
Dwight Howard had another good game (25-10), but that was not enough against Kobe's 28-8-7. Smush Parker had a nice 26 point game for the Lakers. Shane Battier scored 25 for the Rockets to take care of the Nuggets. They didn't need much from T-Mac in this one. Wade had 22-10-9 as Miami crushed the Warriors who seem to be in a big slump now. They lost 2 more guys to ankle injuries in the game - Mickael Pietrus and Adonal Foyle.
Orlando @ LA Lakers - 106-109
Houston @ Denver - 90-86
Dallas @ Indiana - 115-113
Interesting games on the board for the Jan 13-th (Saturday)
Wasington @ San Antonio - Can Gil go into the Lion's den and steal a victory? I doubt it.
Orlando @ Phoenix - Dwight, Grant and gang continue their Western swing at Phoenix. I am sorry for them.
Miami @ Utah - Wade against the good, physical Jazz team. Heat are on a roll since Wade returned.
Cleveland @ LA Clippers - Cavs have to beat the Clips to establish some consistency.
Houston @ Sacramento - T-Mac takes Houston to Sacramento, which is not as difficult a place to play as it used to be. But this could still be a good match-up.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
NBA notes - 1/11/2007
Cavs were over-matched at Phoenix tonight. The King had 34 points, but the Suns were still leading by 32 at the end of the 3-rd quarter! The Suns have lost just a game against the East all season. I don't think the East can keep up with this team. When the Suns are rolling, it's a no contest. Nash had 21 assists in 30 minutes of play. He dominated this game and distributed the ball to everyone. He might have set some records if the game was close enough for him to play his regular minutes.
Jason Kidd had a great game and another triple double (23-14-11). Kidd is just awesome and, as good as Nash is, he might still find a lot of competition from Kidd for the "Best PG in the league" award. Because Kidd can drop these triple doubles and play good D on the other end too. Kidd seems to be back all the way from his micro-fracture knee surgery. It took more than a year, but Kidd is looking good now. Kidd is also in the news for a well publicised divorce proceedings. He is accusing Joumana of spying on him and being cruel to him. Go figure! Nets beat Chicago on the road. Good win for the Nets.
Cleveland @ Phoenix - 90-109
Interesting games on the board for the Jan 12-th (Friday)
Orlando @ LA Lakers - Can Dwight Howard do to LA what he did to Golden State?
Houston @ Denver - TMac V AI. Can Denver win any game before Melo comes back?
Dallas @ Indiana - Can Indiana step up and stop the Dallas juggernaut?
Jason Kidd had a great game and another triple double (23-14-11). Kidd is just awesome and, as good as Nash is, he might still find a lot of competition from Kidd for the "Best PG in the league" award. Because Kidd can drop these triple doubles and play good D on the other end too. Kidd seems to be back all the way from his micro-fracture knee surgery. It took more than a year, but Kidd is looking good now. Kidd is also in the news for a well publicised divorce proceedings. He is accusing Joumana of spying on him and being cruel to him. Go figure! Nets beat Chicago on the road. Good win for the Nets.
Cleveland @ Phoenix - 90-109
Interesting games on the board for the Jan 12-th (Friday)
Orlando @ LA Lakers - Can Dwight Howard do to LA what he did to Golden State?
Houston @ Denver - TMac V AI. Can Denver win any game before Melo comes back?
Dallas @ Indiana - Can Indiana step up and stop the Dallas juggernaut?
Thursday, January 11, 2007
NBA notes - 1/10/2007
Some dogs on the schedule today. The Lakers were no match for the Rockets even with T-Mac scoring just 8 points. Whats up with all these super-stars scoring exactly 8 pts the last couple of weeks? Kobe didn't have a great game either and a good win for the Rockets. Warriors put on a pathetic show at home against the Magic. The Man-Child was ON today. 30 points and 25 boards for Dwight Howard ! This guy is truly the next big thing. He is the new (pre-injury) Amare in terms of raw power. If Amare gets back to his peak, they should be the premier big men (along with Yao) over the next decade. Amare is probably a little quicker on his feet, but Howard is a little bigger. When Howard nails down a few more low-post moves, he'll also be the next Tim Duncan in terms of carrying a franchise and winning championships. The Magic knew the Warriors had a thin front-line and they went to Howard almost every time and it worked like a charm.
Chicago lost to Washington in-spite of Arenas having a sub-par game. Hinrich had 33 points and I am sure the Bulls were glad to see that. Detroit lost another one at home and Sheed was "demoted" to the bench. Looks like they are missing Chauncey big-time. Wade had 29-5-13 to help Heat win another one on the road. Denver welcomed back J.R.Smith, but couldn't stop the Spurs. Tony Parker was too good and AI's 33 was not enough. JR had 12, but was 0-4 from 3.
Chicago @ Washington - 103-113
LA Lakers @ Houston - 77-102
Orlando @ Golden State - 92-83
Interesting games on the board for the Jan 11-th (Thursday)
Cleveland @ Phoenix - The King's only visit to the valley of the Sun. Cavs and Suns have been playing some great games the last couple of years. The Cavs are hot right now.
Chicago lost to Washington in-spite of Arenas having a sub-par game. Hinrich had 33 points and I am sure the Bulls were glad to see that. Detroit lost another one at home and Sheed was "demoted" to the bench. Looks like they are missing Chauncey big-time. Wade had 29-5-13 to help Heat win another one on the road. Denver welcomed back J.R.Smith, but couldn't stop the Spurs. Tony Parker was too good and AI's 33 was not enough. JR had 12, but was 0-4 from 3.
Chicago @ Washington - 103-113
LA Lakers @ Houston - 77-102
Orlando @ Golden State - 92-83
Interesting games on the board for the Jan 11-th (Thursday)
Cleveland @ Phoenix - The King's only visit to the valley of the Sun. Cavs and Suns have been playing some great games the last couple of years. The Cavs are hot right now.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
NBA notes - 1/09/2007
Dallas is beginning to scare me. They won another big game today to start a new streak. They won at Utah behind Nowitzki's 38-7 and overcame a brilliant 13-19 shooting by Boozer who had 29 points. Nowitzki is doing things that true superstars do. Score, rebound, play inside on both ends of the floor and clutch-up. This Dallas team is championship good. Stack had a run-in with coach Sloan after being called for a flagrant foul. He got ejected after his second flagrant foul and also questioned Utah's dirty play.
Cavs beat the Kings on the road rather easily. King James was on fire. He had 34 points and Ron Artest's defense seemed to have no effect. His jumper was on today and when it's on, it's going to be hard for anybody to defend him. Also I think Ron Artest is not as good as he used to be. May be he is just not playing hard enough anymore.
Suns won easily again. Nashty had 27 and 11 with Marion having a monster game with 29-14. James Jones had another strong shooting night (4/5) and ended up with 10 points. It's interesting to see Amare in this offense. He doesn't seem to get a whole lot of touches. Nash seems to be scoring a lot more (and he should) than people expected at the start of the season. Hopefully Amare is happy with his role with the wins piling up. He is still averaging 17-9 and it'll only go up as we go deeper into the season. He averaged 26-9 in 04-05. It would be interesting to see if he makes the all-star team. Marion and Nash should be locks though.
Lakers lost 118-128 to the Grizzlies. Kobe had a great spin move and dunk, but they couldn't outscore the Grizz. This is the new development in the league. There's another team running and gunning like the Phoenix Suns and thats Memphis! Ever since they fired Mike Fratello, the new coach is re-shaping the team and is playing the fun style. Actually they are averaging even more than the Suns in the last 4 or 5 games. It's good to see more converts to this style. Now we got the Suns, Denver, Warriors, Washington, Nets and Memphis. I might be missing some teams too.
Dallas @ Utah - 108-105
Cleveland @ Sacramento - 108-98
Interesting games on the board for the Jan 10-th (Wednesday)
Chicago @ Washington - Should be a good Eastern conference match-up.
LA Lakers @ Houston - Kobe VS T-Mac. Lets see who comes out on top.
Orlando @ Golden State - Dwight Howard and gang on the road here against the Warriors.
Cavs beat the Kings on the road rather easily. King James was on fire. He had 34 points and Ron Artest's defense seemed to have no effect. His jumper was on today and when it's on, it's going to be hard for anybody to defend him. Also I think Ron Artest is not as good as he used to be. May be he is just not playing hard enough anymore.
Suns won easily again. Nashty had 27 and 11 with Marion having a monster game with 29-14. James Jones had another strong shooting night (4/5) and ended up with 10 points. It's interesting to see Amare in this offense. He doesn't seem to get a whole lot of touches. Nash seems to be scoring a lot more (and he should) than people expected at the start of the season. Hopefully Amare is happy with his role with the wins piling up. He is still averaging 17-9 and it'll only go up as we go deeper into the season. He averaged 26-9 in 04-05. It would be interesting to see if he makes the all-star team. Marion and Nash should be locks though.
Lakers lost 118-128 to the Grizzlies. Kobe had a great spin move and dunk, but they couldn't outscore the Grizz. This is the new development in the league. There's another team running and gunning like the Phoenix Suns and thats Memphis! Ever since they fired Mike Fratello, the new coach is re-shaping the team and is playing the fun style. Actually they are averaging even more than the Suns in the last 4 or 5 games. It's good to see more converts to this style. Now we got the Suns, Denver, Warriors, Washington, Nets and Memphis. I might be missing some teams too.
Dallas @ Utah - 108-105
Cleveland @ Sacramento - 108-98
Interesting games on the board for the Jan 10-th (Wednesday)
Chicago @ Washington - Should be a good Eastern conference match-up.
LA Lakers @ Houston - Kobe VS T-Mac. Lets see who comes out on top.
Orlando @ Golden State - Dwight Howard and gang on the road here against the Warriors.
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
BCS
Florida crushed Ohio state to shock the World today once again proving how hard it is to predict College football. The so-called experts spend hours and hours discussing this stuff for months and the reality is, they have no idea what they are talking about. The sample of games each team plays is just not large enough for determining who's better. Also they play these games in silos with very few common opponents. The SEC and Big 10 teams have nothing in common to make any kind of comparisons. At least in NCAA basketball, the teams play a large set of games. This means, the experts (and the fans) have a sufficiently large sample of games to rank these teams on. This also means, each team has faced a lot of good, mediocre and bad teams for us all to see and analyze. Also, when the teams play more games, they also play more common opponents and it makes it easier to compare and contrast. And in some of these games they play, the top basketball schools actually play each other in a variety of pre-season tournaments. All of this lends a little bit more credibility to the basketball ranking during the season. Of course they do have the NCAA tournament in March which makes all of this moot, but I am just comparing the two ranking systems.
So in football, we have to completely depend on these so-called expert opinions on who's better and they are often proven wrong like today. Ohio State scored a TD on the games first play and still lost 41-14! Are you kidding me? It's pretty obvious that we need a playoffs. I am not one of those BCS bashers because I still remember the pre-BCS days and BCS is a definite upgrade. Nobody seems to give them any credit for that. BCS is trying it's best to achieve some level of fairness in an inherently unfair and stupid environment. Without the BCS, we don't even have a Ohio State-Florida match-up. Lets not forget that. As bad as the BCS is, we are totally at the mercy of these so-called experts without the BCS. And a game like tonight's shows you how stupid that is. Thank God to the BCS, we at least have some of these teams playing each other. Otherwise, we would be going to bed tonight convinced Ohio State is better than Florida because thats what a bunch of fat experts told us. Also in an odd way, I think all this BCS controversy will eventually push us to a playoffs. I always looked at the BCS as a stepping stone to a playoffs and this years new additional Bowl game gives me even more hope. We might be further away from a playoff without the BCS and thats another reason I don't mind the BCS.
The best game this BCS season was obviously Boise State-Oklahama. What a game! I thought that was one of the best football game - pro or college, that I have ever seen. The trick plays that Boise State pulled in that game were amazing. I would recommend that every football fan catch this game on ESPN classic or wherever they can. It's a must see. But if you really want to know the politics behind these Bowl games, here's an interesting fact. This great game drew 3 or 4 points lower in TV ratings compared to last year's Fiesta bowl because Notre Dame was in last year's game! Of course they lost comfortably, but who cares.
So in football, we have to completely depend on these so-called expert opinions on who's better and they are often proven wrong like today. Ohio State scored a TD on the games first play and still lost 41-14! Are you kidding me? It's pretty obvious that we need a playoffs. I am not one of those BCS bashers because I still remember the pre-BCS days and BCS is a definite upgrade. Nobody seems to give them any credit for that. BCS is trying it's best to achieve some level of fairness in an inherently unfair and stupid environment. Without the BCS, we don't even have a Ohio State-Florida match-up. Lets not forget that. As bad as the BCS is, we are totally at the mercy of these so-called experts without the BCS. And a game like tonight's shows you how stupid that is. Thank God to the BCS, we at least have some of these teams playing each other. Otherwise, we would be going to bed tonight convinced Ohio State is better than Florida because thats what a bunch of fat experts told us. Also in an odd way, I think all this BCS controversy will eventually push us to a playoffs. I always looked at the BCS as a stepping stone to a playoffs and this years new additional Bowl game gives me even more hope. We might be further away from a playoff without the BCS and thats another reason I don't mind the BCS.
The best game this BCS season was obviously Boise State-Oklahama. What a game! I thought that was one of the best football game - pro or college, that I have ever seen. The trick plays that Boise State pulled in that game were amazing. I would recommend that every football fan catch this game on ESPN classic or wherever they can. It's a must see. But if you really want to know the politics behind these Bowl games, here's an interesting fact. This great game drew 3 or 4 points lower in TV ratings compared to last year's Fiesta bowl because Notre Dame was in last year's game! Of course they lost comfortably, but who cares.
Monday, January 08, 2007
NBA notes - 1/08/2007
Not many games on this NCAA bowl championship day. McGrady carried the Rockets again with a 31-6-8 night and they won a tough game on the road. He is amazing right now and the Rockets are happy to have him back healthy. Denver beat the Bucks who were without Michael Redd. Apparently he is out injured for 4 to 6 weeks. Thats too bad. Sam Cassell scored 31 points and the Clips won against the Hornets. Seems like Casses has not had such a game in a long time. Or may be they have not been good enough for me to follow them that close this season.
Houston @ Chicago - 84-77
Milwaukee @ Denver - 92-104
Interesting games on the board for the Jan 9-th (Tuesday)
Dallas @ Utah - Another tough one for Dallas.
Cleveland @ Sacramento - King James at Sacramento vs Ron Artest.
Houston @ Chicago - 84-77
Milwaukee @ Denver - 92-104
Interesting games on the board for the Jan 9-th (Tuesday)
Dallas @ Utah - Another tough one for Dallas.
Cleveland @ Sacramento - King James at Sacramento vs Ron Artest.
NBA notes - 1/07/2007
Good day for me with the Suns beating the Warriors (and I could watch the entire game) and the Lakers beating the Mavs thus ending their 13 game winning streak. Kobe had a good game (26-8-6), but Sasha Vujacic was the guy hitting the big shots. Kobe seems to be playing more and more like Lebron these days with the way he is sharing the ball. Lets see how long this lasts. Suns on the other hand dismissed the Warriors quite easily. The game was close in the first half as Suns had problem hitting the 3's in the first quarter. It's amazing how they still scored 29 points anyways! Part of it was that the Warriors also play up and down, but the real reason is that they just don't stop running or gunning. They are never going to stop shooting those 3's and they have so many good shooters like Nash, Raja, Barbosa, James Jones etc., that someone will eventually find the touch on the long ball. They got no other choice anyways. Running, spacing and shooting the open 3 is their game plan and they can't stop shooting the 3 just because it's not going in. Barbosa came off the bench at the end of the first quarter and was on fire immediately. Things turned around for the Suns right there and they never looked back in the second half. James Jones had 25 points and apparently he loves the "new" old ball. Mike has been talking about how he would like to give more minutes to his bench to protect the starters and James Jones might be coming into his own at the right time for that to happen. Suns are deep and that depth has to be exploited and be productive for them to go deep.
Dwayne Wade returned for the Miami Heat and boy are they glad to have him back! The T-Wolves are slowly putting together a nice streak. Garnett is playing real well and today they beat the Rockets in OT. Second straight OT win for Garnett and the T-Wolves. Ginobli had 34 point for the Spurs. I think Ginobli is the key to the Spurs. He needs to be consistent and get back to his form of 2 years ago. He was injured most of last season and is not playing very consistent this season. He had to step up his game today since Tony Parker was injured. But in general, he needs to play well and help the Spurs get past the Mavs who seem to have overtaken the Spurs after all these years. Gil probably had too much to drink in his birthday party. The Wizards lost to the Raptors despite his 33.
Dallas @ LA Lakers - 98-101
Golden State @ Phoenix - 105-128
Interesting games on the board for the Jan 8-th (Monday)
Houston @ Chicago - Good match-up with McGrady on fire.
Milwaukee @ Denver - Should be fun. Can Denver beat anybody?
Dwayne Wade returned for the Miami Heat and boy are they glad to have him back! The T-Wolves are slowly putting together a nice streak. Garnett is playing real well and today they beat the Rockets in OT. Second straight OT win for Garnett and the T-Wolves. Ginobli had 34 point for the Spurs. I think Ginobli is the key to the Spurs. He needs to be consistent and get back to his form of 2 years ago. He was injured most of last season and is not playing very consistent this season. He had to step up his game today since Tony Parker was injured. But in general, he needs to play well and help the Spurs get past the Mavs who seem to have overtaken the Spurs after all these years. Gil probably had too much to drink in his birthday party. The Wizards lost to the Raptors despite his 33.
Dallas @ LA Lakers - 98-101
Golden State @ Phoenix - 105-128
Interesting games on the board for the Jan 8-th (Monday)
Houston @ Chicago - Good match-up with McGrady on fire.
Milwaukee @ Denver - Should be fun. Can Denver beat anybody?
NBA notes - 1/06/2007
Cleveland beat NJ today. Looks like the Cavs are finally beginning to settle down into a groove. King James is awesome. He has not been scoring too much lately, but he is always making key plays and involving his teammates. He had 19-14-4 in this game, though the best dunk of the night still belonged to Vince. This is a league of great athletes and there are hundreds of guys who can dunk. But there's still something about Vince Carter's dunks. He is just at a slightly higher level than even guys like Kobe or Lebron when it comes to pure jumping ability. It looks like he is just effortlessly jumping off a trampoline when he takes off.
Utah took care of Denver and looks like AI and the Nuggets are struggling to win with all that suspensions. Golden State beat Seattle 108-104. Monta Ellis returned to the lineup for the Warriors and they are happy about it. Ray Allen had 38 points in a loss. He is so much fun to watch. I don't think there's a smoother looking player in the league. He just flows on the court like water. I thought Alan Houston was a little like that 4 or 5 years back, but I can't think of anybody else who's that smooth.
Big Ben and the Bulls crushed Detroit as expected. I don't think the Pistons were going to walk into Chicago without Chauncey Billups and beat Big Ben. Bulls played with a lot of energy and dominated the game. Luol Deng scored 30 points and seems to be coming into his own. He is a great weapon to have with his height, length and athleticism. Suns traded that pick to the Bulls and you wonder how good he would have been running and gunning with Steve Nash.
New Jersey @ Cleveland - 91-96
Detroit @ Chicago - 89-106
Interesting games on the board for the Jan 7-th (Sunday)
Dallas @ LA Lakers - Dallas going into LA with a 13 game winning streak. One of the few times I actually want to pull for LA since I don't want Dallas to get any better than Phoenix.
Golden State @ Phoenix - Should be a fun, high scoring win for the Suns.
Utah took care of Denver and looks like AI and the Nuggets are struggling to win with all that suspensions. Golden State beat Seattle 108-104. Monta Ellis returned to the lineup for the Warriors and they are happy about it. Ray Allen had 38 points in a loss. He is so much fun to watch. I don't think there's a smoother looking player in the league. He just flows on the court like water. I thought Alan Houston was a little like that 4 or 5 years back, but I can't think of anybody else who's that smooth.
Big Ben and the Bulls crushed Detroit as expected. I don't think the Pistons were going to walk into Chicago without Chauncey Billups and beat Big Ben. Bulls played with a lot of energy and dominated the game. Luol Deng scored 30 points and seems to be coming into his own. He is a great weapon to have with his height, length and athleticism. Suns traded that pick to the Bulls and you wonder how good he would have been running and gunning with Steve Nash.
New Jersey @ Cleveland - 91-96
Detroit @ Chicago - 89-106
Interesting games on the board for the Jan 7-th (Sunday)
Dallas @ LA Lakers - Dallas going into LA with a 13 game winning streak. One of the few times I actually want to pull for LA since I don't want Dallas to get any better than Phoenix.
Golden State @ Phoenix - Should be a fun, high scoring win for the Suns.
Saturday, January 06, 2007
NFL Wild Card weekend - 01/05/2007
NFL playoffs are here and it's a great time of the year. There seems to be a lot of potential for upsets this season. Part of this is due to the fact that the NFC is a dump. Nobody knows who's better – Dallas or Seattle? Phily or the Giants? Nobody knows. Chicago and the Saints should make it to the NFC conference game easily. I think the Saints take that game and get to the Super Bowl. As for the wild card games, I think Seattle and Phily behind Jeff Garcia should make it through. Somebody has to win these NFC games :-)
The AFC is where it's at. Better teams, great games and some upset potential there as well. Both the games are pretty intriguing. KC @ the Colts. Couple of years back, these 2 teams played a phenomenal playoff game where nobody punted and the Colts won because they had the ball last. This one should be a little different, but equally good. KC's offense may not be that potent now, but they got LJ and the Colts cant stop the run. The recipe to beat the Colts is to run the ball, milk the clock, score some points and more importantly, keep Peyton off the field. So a lot of experts are picking the Chiefs to upset the Colts because they can run the ball. But here's the catch. The ebb-and-flow of a game is lot more of a factor in football than in other sports. So all the theories on the Colts run defense notwithstanding, the Colts can still win it easily if the Chiefs don't establish the run early and often. It's not like the bad run defense is the only thing the Colts have. They also have a potent offense and the World's best quarterback. So if the Chiefs have a couple of 3-and-outs early and turn the ball over to Peyton, he will drop 14 or 21 points on you before you blink. Then LJ and the rushing attack becomes a moot point. So if you really want to beat the Colts, you got to establish the run early and also play some decent defense to stop Peyton at least a couple of times. This upset is not a guarantee, but the Chiefs have a shot at it. Colts are definitely in trouble. So much so that they couldn't even secure a bye week after that great start. But they still got Peyton Manning.
That bye week belongs to San Diego and Baltimore. New England is playing the Jets in the other game. I hate the Patriots, but it looks like they might quietly score another Super Bowl here. I don't trust Marty and San Diego or Baltimore and their offense all that much, though I would love to see LT win it all. With the Colts in all this trouble, I am afraid the Patriots can win it all again. The goos news is, people think Eric Mangini has something going for him against Bellichick and they expect an upset by the Jets this weekend. I like Chad Pennington and would love for this to happens, but I don't think it will. Lets enjoy the games and see what happens.
The AFC is where it's at. Better teams, great games and some upset potential there as well. Both the games are pretty intriguing. KC @ the Colts. Couple of years back, these 2 teams played a phenomenal playoff game where nobody punted and the Colts won because they had the ball last. This one should be a little different, but equally good. KC's offense may not be that potent now, but they got LJ and the Colts cant stop the run. The recipe to beat the Colts is to run the ball, milk the clock, score some points and more importantly, keep Peyton off the field. So a lot of experts are picking the Chiefs to upset the Colts because they can run the ball. But here's the catch. The ebb-and-flow of a game is lot more of a factor in football than in other sports. So all the theories on the Colts run defense notwithstanding, the Colts can still win it easily if the Chiefs don't establish the run early and often. It's not like the bad run defense is the only thing the Colts have. They also have a potent offense and the World's best quarterback. So if the Chiefs have a couple of 3-and-outs early and turn the ball over to Peyton, he will drop 14 or 21 points on you before you blink. Then LJ and the rushing attack becomes a moot point. So if you really want to beat the Colts, you got to establish the run early and also play some decent defense to stop Peyton at least a couple of times. This upset is not a guarantee, but the Chiefs have a shot at it. Colts are definitely in trouble. So much so that they couldn't even secure a bye week after that great start. But they still got Peyton Manning.
That bye week belongs to San Diego and Baltimore. New England is playing the Jets in the other game. I hate the Patriots, but it looks like they might quietly score another Super Bowl here. I don't trust Marty and San Diego or Baltimore and their offense all that much, though I would love to see LT win it all. With the Colts in all this trouble, I am afraid the Patriots can win it all again. The goos news is, people think Eric Mangini has something going for him against Bellichick and they expect an upset by the Jets this weekend. I like Chad Pennington and would love for this to happens, but I don't think it will. Lets enjoy the games and see what happens.
Phoenix Suns notes - 01/05/2007
Suns had a December to remember. After a 1-5 start, they have now gone 23-3 in the last 26 games. They have the second best record in the league. Business is very good for the Suns right now. The team is firing on all cylinders. Diaw has gotten out of his early season funk. Amare is back to being dominant again. I am still waiting for those ferocious dunks, but he seems to be back to 80% or so. Barbosa has taken another step forward in his career this season and Marion is doing his thing as always. They are deep too with Marcus Banks, Jalen Rose, James Jones, Kurt Thomas and Jurmaine Jones, though Mike D'Antoni doesn't really use all of them. Sometimes, he doesn't use any of them!
But the story for the Suns is again Steve Nash. This guy is becoming a truly dominant super-star in the league. He is even better than the last 2 years when he was the MVP. His stock has risen steadily and is now getting all the credit he deserves. 3 coaches including Mike D'Antoni have recently said that he is the best player in the league, period. Thats high praise in this league coming from Scott Skiles and Pat Riley. He is averaging 20 points and 11.3 assists on 52.5% shooting and 50.7 % from beyond the arc. Thats better numbers than last year across the board and he carried the team last year without Amare. He is doing even better this year playing for a better, deeper team. He is the front runner for the MVP award again though he'll face some great challenge from some great guys. Right now, Nowitzki, Kobe and Gilbert Arenas are very much deserving of consideration. I am sure LeBron will join them soon and Carlos Boozer is in the vicinity too. But as of today, I think Nash wins it again easily. Lets see how the season evolves.
The best record in the league belongs to the Mavs. They have had 2 streaks of 12 and 13 games (and counting) to Suns 15 games. They have also beat the Suns twice, once early in the season during the bad stretch. I hate to admit it, they might be a tough matchup for the Suns. Josh Howard is becoming a huge pest and Nowitzki is Nowitzki. Looks like the Western Championship might come down to the Suns-Mavs again. I think both these teams are better than the Spurs. Last year, we got a Mavs-Spurs semis due to the weird ranking scheme for NBA playoffs. Most people thought that should have been the Western finals. That has been fixed this year, but we might end up with a legitimate Mavs-Spurs semis this year with the Mavs winning again. Too early for all this talk, but I think it looks like a Mavs-Suns Western finals with the Howard-Marion match-up deciding the winner. Hows that for some early season predictions :-)
But the story for the Suns is again Steve Nash. This guy is becoming a truly dominant super-star in the league. He is even better than the last 2 years when he was the MVP. His stock has risen steadily and is now getting all the credit he deserves. 3 coaches including Mike D'Antoni have recently said that he is the best player in the league, period. Thats high praise in this league coming from Scott Skiles and Pat Riley. He is averaging 20 points and 11.3 assists on 52.5% shooting and 50.7 % from beyond the arc. Thats better numbers than last year across the board and he carried the team last year without Amare. He is doing even better this year playing for a better, deeper team. He is the front runner for the MVP award again though he'll face some great challenge from some great guys. Right now, Nowitzki, Kobe and Gilbert Arenas are very much deserving of consideration. I am sure LeBron will join them soon and Carlos Boozer is in the vicinity too. But as of today, I think Nash wins it again easily. Lets see how the season evolves.
The best record in the league belongs to the Mavs. They have had 2 streaks of 12 and 13 games (and counting) to Suns 15 games. They have also beat the Suns twice, once early in the season during the bad stretch. I hate to admit it, they might be a tough matchup for the Suns. Josh Howard is becoming a huge pest and Nowitzki is Nowitzki. Looks like the Western Championship might come down to the Suns-Mavs again. I think both these teams are better than the Spurs. Last year, we got a Mavs-Spurs semis due to the weird ranking scheme for NBA playoffs. Most people thought that should have been the Western finals. That has been fixed this year, but we might end up with a legitimate Mavs-Spurs semis this year with the Mavs winning again. Too early for all this talk, but I think it looks like a Mavs-Suns Western finals with the Howard-Marion match-up deciding the winner. Hows that for some early season predictions :-)
NBA notes - 1/05/2007
Suns won easily. So did the Lakers against AI and the Nuggets. Surprisingly, both Lebron and Kobe had just 8 points today. I don't think that'll happen again anytime soon. AI scored only 16 himself. Bryant is consistently having high assists numbers now. Looks like he is really trying to be a team player. Bynum might become a great running-mate for Kobe in the future. He had a 19-10 night. Vinsanity had a monster dunk in the Nets game against the Bulls where they started the game trailing 18-0, but they came back to beat the Bulls. Kidd had a sweet no-look behind the head basket too. The stars of the night were McGrady with 44 and Gilbert Arenas with 35-7-12. It's kind of nice to see McGrady dominate again with Yao being out. Makes him look good. It looks like he is deferring to Yao, but can take over when they need him to.
The game of the night was played in San Antonio with the Mavs visiting the Spurs. Mavs once again proved they are the best team in the NBA. They are deep, talented and are playing great as a team. Josh Howard is slowly becoming an absolute stud and Nowitzki is just getting better and better at both ends of the floor year after year. He is as close to being a complete player as he has ever been and is a legitimate MVP candidate this year. He had 36-8 today and also defended Tim Duncan at times. I have to add him and Gilbert Arenas to the list of contenders for Nash's MVP crown this season. The Spurs are looking vulnerable for the first time in a loooong time and Dallas looks clearly better than them. It's early, but it looks like we might be headed to another Suns-Mavs Western conference finals. I think Dallas will beat the Spurs if they meet in the playoffs and I sure hope Suns do the same if they run into them. The Mavs might be another story for the Suns though.
Dallas @ San Antonio – 90-85
Miami @ Phoenix – 80-108
Denver @ LA – 104-123
Cleveland @ Milwaukee – 95-86
Interesting games on the board for the Jan 6-th (Saturday)
New Jersey @ Cleveland – Can Vince outshine The King?
Detroit @ Chicago – Big game in the central. Big Ben will be ready for this one.
The game of the night was played in San Antonio with the Mavs visiting the Spurs. Mavs once again proved they are the best team in the NBA. They are deep, talented and are playing great as a team. Josh Howard is slowly becoming an absolute stud and Nowitzki is just getting better and better at both ends of the floor year after year. He is as close to being a complete player as he has ever been and is a legitimate MVP candidate this year. He had 36-8 today and also defended Tim Duncan at times. I have to add him and Gilbert Arenas to the list of contenders for Nash's MVP crown this season. The Spurs are looking vulnerable for the first time in a loooong time and Dallas looks clearly better than them. It's early, but it looks like we might be headed to another Suns-Mavs Western conference finals. I think Dallas will beat the Spurs if they meet in the playoffs and I sure hope Suns do the same if they run into them. The Mavs might be another story for the Suns though.
Dallas @ San Antonio – 90-85
Miami @ Phoenix – 80-108
Denver @ LA – 104-123
Cleveland @ Milwaukee – 95-86
Interesting games on the board for the Jan 6-th (Saturday)
New Jersey @ Cleveland – Can Vince outshine The King?
Detroit @ Chicago – Big game in the central. Big Ben will be ready for this one.
Friday, January 05, 2007
NBA notes - 1/04/2007
Happy New Year. I had taken a week or so off for the holidays. Some interesting developments during that time. Dallas is rolling again. They have won 12 straight for the second time this year including a close win against the Suns. Suns are doing great themselves. Tough, close road wins for the Suns at Chicago and Toronto. Pat Riley is on a leave of absence for medical reasons. Gilbert Arenas had a great month of December. Gil won a game yesterday against the Bucks on an amazingly long three pointer! He just dribbled up-court, pulled up and shot a long 3 from way beyond the top of the key and didn't even see it go in. Just turned around and walked away knowing fully well it's going in. He is now throwing a wild birthday party which has also become a big news.
Kobe is having a great season again. With Lamar and Kwame injured, number 24 is carrying a bigger load in addition to playing better team ball this season. This means he is almost going for 40, 10 and 10 every night. He might be challenging Nash for the MVP honors by the end of the season a(long with Lebron probably). Right now, Nash looks every bit like the 3-time MVP. He is even better than the last 2 years if you can believe that!
LA Lakers @ Sacramento – 132-128
Interesting games on the board for the Jan 5-th (Friday)
Dallas @ San Antonio – Dallas is on a roll and San Antonio looks like it's a notch below. This might be a bigger game for San Antonio than Dallas. Thats saying something because it's usually the other way around when the Spurs are involved.
Miami @ Phoenix – Could be a good one if Wade suits up. Phoenix should win anyways.
Denver @ LA – Kobe VS AI is always worth the price of admission.
Cleveland @ Milwaukee – Consistency is what we are looking for here from the Cavs.
Kobe is having a great season again. With Lamar and Kwame injured, number 24 is carrying a bigger load in addition to playing better team ball this season. This means he is almost going for 40, 10 and 10 every night. He might be challenging Nash for the MVP honors by the end of the season a(long with Lebron probably). Right now, Nash looks every bit like the 3-time MVP. He is even better than the last 2 years if you can believe that!
LA Lakers @ Sacramento – 132-128
Interesting games on the board for the Jan 5-th (Friday)
Dallas @ San Antonio – Dallas is on a roll and San Antonio looks like it's a notch below. This might be a bigger game for San Antonio than Dallas. Thats saying something because it's usually the other way around when the Spurs are involved.
Miami @ Phoenix – Could be a good one if Wade suits up. Phoenix should win anyways.
Denver @ LA – Kobe VS AI is always worth the price of admission.
Cleveland @ Milwaukee – Consistency is what we are looking for here from the Cavs.
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