Holiday season is supposed to be rough on single people sometimes. I have not really felt this pain though I can see how some single people, especially chicks can feel lonely and depressed this time of the year. To me, Christmas pretty much means the NBA kick-off on ABC. Considering that the Lakers play every year, my mood is directly linked to them in some ways. I am happier if they lose and am a little sadder if they win! So you can imagine how I feel this Christmas day given that not only did the Lakers win, they actually beat my beloved Suns today fairly convincingly.
VERY, VERY disturbing loss for the Suns. They have now lost 10 games this season. I wrote a while back that their loss against the Warriors was disturbing because the Warriors might be the one team that might play the Suns style better and match-up very well with the Suns. This Lakers loss is even worse. First of all, this is not a fluke because the Lakers are now 2-0 against the Suns this season. They embarrassed the Suns at Phoenix in their home opener. At the end of that game, there was even some jawing between Mike D'Antoni and Phillip where D'Antoni said "we will see you again. we are good". Unfortunately, the Suns saw the Lakers again and they didn't see what wanted to see.
The Lakers are actually very good as well. Record wise, the Lakers were even better last year and then they faded away. This trend has been going on for a few years now. I hope it's similar this year, but this Lakers team is different. The reason they are different is their young guys Andrew Bynum and Jordan Farmar. These guys have taken a HUGE step forward this season and are taking the Lakers team with them. The scary part for the Suns is, this is a team on the up and up and they still have Kobe Bryant in his prime. The Suns on the other hand are supposed to win it all this season, but seem inadequate defensively as always and now they can't even handle the up and coming Lakers team. This is the scary part.
This game might have been a changing of the guard moment in some sense. Is it possible that the Suns window is closing shut and now even for the Pacific division crown, they have to fight with the Lakers? The Suns are not getting any younger and the D'Antoni's style can't withstand another non-finals season. There's huge pressure on him and this game exposed the same set of problems - defense, rebounding, lack of size etc. The Lakers look deeper, bigger, better defensively and more complete as a team. Sooner or later, you got to ask the question, "why can't the Suns be a complete team?" and back it up with the question "is this style impeding that?".
I love this style as much as the other guy and I want this style to succeed for the better of the league. NBA has become un-watchable before D'Antoni showed up. Even today, I couldn't watch the Heat-Cavs game despite wanting to watch the Wade-LeBron match-up. The style just sucks. So I want the Suns and D'Antoni to win desperately. Trust me, we will all be better for it. But is this a championship caliber style? Dan Bickley in the AZ republic referenced something I have been amazed by for a long time. Every day I look at the Suns box-score and am amazed that Leandro Barbosa routinely out-shoots Amare Stoudemire. Bickley has been raising a lot of "chemistry questions" and keeps saying that Amare is unhappy with the style. He recently said there's something wrong with it if LB shoots more for the season than Amare. Kind of my point. I don't know how Amare thinks or feels. May be Bickley knows more than me or may be he is just a pessimistic, negative kinda guy who is afraid something bad will happen with this team. But it is weird that this system doesn't really use Amare all that much. He gets killed for his defense, but to me, that only means you got to maximize his potential on offense even more.
I am still not giving up on this season or the style. But I have always been critical of D'Antoni on one thing - not using his bench enough. I think thats is still valid. He has to learn to use his bench -PERIOD. I don't know if he can go to a coaching school at ASU or something, he needs to learn to trust his bench. I have always felt like the Suns in the past have had good talent on the bench, but Mike doesn't use them. Now they may not have that good a bench, but he got to do something anyways. Secondly, he can't just play Diaw like he is some kind of a god. Diaw is not as good as D'Antoni wants him to be. Raja Bell is not what he used to be either. I am almost tempted to say put Raja on the bench and start Brian Skinner. But then again, with this offensive system, thats just not enough 3 point shooting.
Both Van Gundy and Mark Jackson made some interesting comments about these 2 teams towards the end of the game. Van Gundy says that the Lakers will beat the Suns if they play a 7 game series right now. Huge difference from the last 2 years when the Suns won in the playoffs. Mark Jackson also said how the Lakers are deeper and more talented top to bottom than the Suns. Amazing how far the dysfunctional Laker team have come in just 8 weeks since Kobe was rumored to be on the trading block.
As for the Suns, many questions and not too many answers right now. I would say D'Antoni should start with the 3 recommendations I made. 1) Use Amare more. 2) Use Diaw less 3) Use your bench. Infuse new talent.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Air Ball!
Suns lost today at Dallas. It was a fascinating game as always, but the Suns dug too deep a hole to dig themselves out of. They were down by 17 early and fell behind 10, 12, 13 points many times in the game. Still it was impressive how they kept crawling their way back. They were down double digits even late in the 4-Th, but they came back from nowhere and the next thing you know, they are down 3 with 8 seconds to go. This offense is impressive for sure. It can score in bunches. But the Suns couldn't get that tying 3 pointer which would have sent the game to overtime under almost similar circumstances to the game last year which the Suns won in double OT. I would have loved to see the long faces of the Mavs and their fans if that had happened. Speaking of faces, I didn't see Cubes today. But unfortunately none of that happened and the Suns lost the game. In fact, Nash threw up an air-ball despite getting a decent look at a 3 off a good fake. That never happens for Nash especially against the Mavs.
The MP3 did have a great game with 21-18 and setup Amare for some monster dunks. Speaking of dunks, Grant Hill's flush on Diop was beyond awesome though he didn't have a great game. Blur and 3-D didn't have good games either and I thought these two guys killed the Suns today with critical, stupid mistakes. I am getting sick and tired of Diaw turning the ball over. He can't make this many mistakes for a guy with such a high basketball IQ. And Blur seems to have slowed down a bit lately after a great November. Amare and Marion had great games. Marion was all over the place and was awesome defending Nowitzki though the German was unstoppable today. Matrix's effort level was off the charts.
The problem with the Suns is consistency. As good as their offense is, it's really painful to watch their defense. There are stretches when you feel like not a single guy on the floor for the Suns can stop the guy he is guarding and this happens a lot when they play good teams. They are too soft inside and it's just frustrating to see their lack of D and also seeing them get killed on the boards. The Mavs got 19 offensive rebounds today. Pretty ugly numbers for a Suns fan and it's been the same story year after year for this team with respect to defense and rebounding. The only way the Suns can overcome all these deficiencies is through consistent effort on the defensive side. For some reason they can do that in spurts and not consistently. That has to change.
The Suns defense and their rebounding still is not at championship level, not even close. Unless they show the consistency, commitment and high effort levels at that end of the floor, they can't win the championship. The offense is fun to watch, but thats about it.
The MP3 did have a great game with 21-18 and setup Amare for some monster dunks. Speaking of dunks, Grant Hill's flush on Diop was beyond awesome though he didn't have a great game. Blur and 3-D didn't have good games either and I thought these two guys killed the Suns today with critical, stupid mistakes. I am getting sick and tired of Diaw turning the ball over. He can't make this many mistakes for a guy with such a high basketball IQ. And Blur seems to have slowed down a bit lately after a great November. Amare and Marion had great games. Marion was all over the place and was awesome defending Nowitzki though the German was unstoppable today. Matrix's effort level was off the charts.
The problem with the Suns is consistency. As good as their offense is, it's really painful to watch their defense. There are stretches when you feel like not a single guy on the floor for the Suns can stop the guy he is guarding and this happens a lot when they play good teams. They are too soft inside and it's just frustrating to see their lack of D and also seeing them get killed on the boards. The Mavs got 19 offensive rebounds today. Pretty ugly numbers for a Suns fan and it's been the same story year after year for this team with respect to defense and rebounding. The only way the Suns can overcome all these deficiencies is through consistent effort on the defensive side. For some reason they can do that in spurts and not consistently. That has to change.
The Suns defense and their rebounding still is not at championship level, not even close. Unless they show the consistency, commitment and high effort levels at that end of the floor, they can't win the championship. The offense is fun to watch, but thats about it.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
First big NBA game of the season.
The first big game of the young NBA season happened tonight in San Antonio. Suns were visiting the Spurs and the game was as good as advertised. It was much more important for the Suns to win because they are always looking up at the Spurs plus the Spurs were without Tony Parker. But the Suns had their own handicap since this was a road game for them and they were in the midst of a surprising losing stretch having lost 3 of 4. I should have jinxed them because they had lost 2 of 3 before today since the day I wrote about them having only 5 losses.
They lost at home to Miami and then on the road to the Hornets. That match-up was billed as CP3-V-MP3, but Chris Paul got the better of Nash. There is one weakness of Nash which is getting harder and harder to miss as the Suns try to become a championship team and thats his defense. In any of these great point guard match-ups, he never defends the other star because he just can't. He can't stay in front of Chris Paul or Tony Parker or Baron Davis while those guys can guard Nash. They are not going to stop Nash either, but they can at least guard him as well or as bad as anybody else on their respective teams. The only exception are the Spurs where they put their defensive specialist Bowen on Nash instead of Tony Parker. Whereas with the Suns, we have to hide Nash and use Marion or someone else to guard these PGs. This is one weakness in his game that is big.
Back to the game today. The Suns fought their way through it and toughed it out. It was not easy. It never is with the Spurs. The Spurs were very good and it's just too easy for Duncan against the Suns. He had 36-17 on 15/25 shooting to totally dominate the paint. But the Suns did a decent job defending the rest of the guys and the game was really close the entire 4-Th quarter. Finally, Grant Hill and good free throw shooting took us home. How good has Grant Hill been for this team? He was huge today and he is doing everything. I saw him guard Chris Paul the other day and if he can add to the perimeter defense and free up Raja and Marion in that department, it's a huge bonus. I was not expecting that. His offense has been as good as I had expected but he means more to this team than his numbers suggest. He had 22-7-3 today and hit some big free throws. With Nash having just a mediocre game thanks to Bowen, LB, Diaw and Grant carried the day for the Suns.
Speaking of talented veterans, how good has Finley been for the spurs the last few years? Apparently he is getting 19 million this year from the Mavs and 3 mill from the Spurs. Thats nice. He seems to kill the Suns every-time we play and has just been a huge part of that team since he came in. He has been averaging 25 mins and 10 points the last 3 years. The Suns handled Ginobli, Finley and Barry fairly well today and their D carried the day because they just can't run and gun against this team. The blur had a couple of run-outs, but thats about it in the open court. So they had to dig in defensively to have any shot at winning. I wish the Suns play this kind of defense against every team. If they do, they may beat every other team in the league by 20 points! In any case, it was a big win for the Suns as the Spurs lost their first home game this season. Now on to the second big game of the season as the Suns play the Mavs on Wed. Should be another dandy. To be fair, it will be the third big game this season (and this week) because the Celtics play the Pistons just before the Suns game on Wed and thats a legit big game as well.
They lost at home to Miami and then on the road to the Hornets. That match-up was billed as CP3-V-MP3, but Chris Paul got the better of Nash. There is one weakness of Nash which is getting harder and harder to miss as the Suns try to become a championship team and thats his defense. In any of these great point guard match-ups, he never defends the other star because he just can't. He can't stay in front of Chris Paul or Tony Parker or Baron Davis while those guys can guard Nash. They are not going to stop Nash either, but they can at least guard him as well or as bad as anybody else on their respective teams. The only exception are the Spurs where they put their defensive specialist Bowen on Nash instead of Tony Parker. Whereas with the Suns, we have to hide Nash and use Marion or someone else to guard these PGs. This is one weakness in his game that is big.
Back to the game today. The Suns fought their way through it and toughed it out. It was not easy. It never is with the Spurs. The Spurs were very good and it's just too easy for Duncan against the Suns. He had 36-17 on 15/25 shooting to totally dominate the paint. But the Suns did a decent job defending the rest of the guys and the game was really close the entire 4-Th quarter. Finally, Grant Hill and good free throw shooting took us home. How good has Grant Hill been for this team? He was huge today and he is doing everything. I saw him guard Chris Paul the other day and if he can add to the perimeter defense and free up Raja and Marion in that department, it's a huge bonus. I was not expecting that. His offense has been as good as I had expected but he means more to this team than his numbers suggest. He had 22-7-3 today and hit some big free throws. With Nash having just a mediocre game thanks to Bowen, LB, Diaw and Grant carried the day for the Suns.
Speaking of talented veterans, how good has Finley been for the spurs the last few years? Apparently he is getting 19 million this year from the Mavs and 3 mill from the Spurs. Thats nice. He seems to kill the Suns every-time we play and has just been a huge part of that team since he came in. He has been averaging 25 mins and 10 points the last 3 years. The Suns handled Ginobli, Finley and Barry fairly well today and their D carried the day because they just can't run and gun against this team. The blur had a couple of run-outs, but thats about it in the open court. So they had to dig in defensively to have any shot at winning. I wish the Suns play this kind of defense against every team. If they do, they may beat every other team in the league by 20 points! In any case, it was a big win for the Suns as the Spurs lost their first home game this season. Now on to the second big game of the season as the Suns play the Mavs on Wed. Should be another dandy. To be fair, it will be the third big game this season (and this week) because the Celtics play the Pistons just before the Suns game on Wed and thats a legit big game as well.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
NFL week's highlights and low-lights
The real big news of the NFL week happened early in the week with the whole Bobby Petrino fiasco. I can't help but laugh every time I think or read about this. It's a pretty serious issue especially if you are associated with the Atlanta Falcons in any way, shape or form. But I laugh because I am amazed at how weird and strange people can be. They can also be incredibly selfish, utterly tactless and plain stupid. The guy packed up his bags and just disappeared in the middle of the night mid-season in year 1 of his NFL coaching career. I never thought I'll see something like this especially in this day and age with 24 hour news channels and eyes following every move of every sports figure.
Apparently he told Falcons owner Arthur Blank that his heart is still in college and would like to return to college. Blank probably thought he was just thinking aloud and told him we can turn this thing with the Falcons around and he would not give him permission to look at college jobs. Bobby still went ahead and interviewed and got a job and resigned, all within a matter of hours though I am sure he had already spoken to Arkansas before he broached the subject with Blank. It's all a big scam and Bobby just flat-out quit on his team. He got killed by his players in the media the next day. All they got was a note from him in their lockers and he didn't even talk to anybody personally. Weird dude. You have done something real bad when Joey Harrington is ripping you for not doing your job right!
Sen. George Mitchell saved Bobby's ass because by mid week people forgot Bobby and it was all about Georgie and his roid report. One thing that I don't agree with though is how the media over-dramatizes everything by saying things like "oh, how will parents entrust their 18 year old kids with a man line Petrino?". I am sure this is a valid question and there are enough decent families that look at things like that. But lets keep it real. College recruiting is all about cash and strippers. NCAA recruiting is so corrupt, even a man like Bobby Petrino cannot pull it's collective integrity any lower than the depths it has already reached.
On the field, my dream season ended today. I am talking about the Dolphins winning their game against the Ravens and making sure they won't go 0-16. The good news is, Brian Billick should be done in Baltimore after this year. The Pats won against the Jets, but the 50-0 drubbing everybody was expecting never happened. It was probably the weather, but they just squeaked past the Jets 20-10 with Brady throwing for 0 TDs. There were some wild winter weather across the league as teams won games with scores like 8-0. In San Francisco, some guy named Shaun Hill played real well at QB and might end up replacing Alex Smith. New hope for the wine-sipping Niner fans. While in Dallas, Romo actually played like Alex Smith in his rookie season. Don't know why he got so rattled just because Jessica Simpson was in the stands.
The real highlight of the weekend was Brian Westbrook taking a knee at the goal-line instead of going in for a sure TD. This guy is one of the most under-rated players in the league and today he showed he is also smart and unselfish. He broke through for a long run with the Eagles leading 10-6 and less than 2 minutes to go. Right at the edge of the end-zone, he gave up a TD for himself and just fell down and took a knee. Dallas had no timeouts and this sealed the win for the Eagles. He could have scored a TD and gone up 17-6, but then Dallas gets the ball and theoritically anything can happen. Dallas probably would have still lost because it was a 2-score game, but what Brian did was much smarter and surer deal. I wish more players think like this. The other feel good news is, Buffalo's Kevin Everett is recovering surprisingly well from the spinal injury he suffered earlier this season. Thats awesome.
Apparently he told Falcons owner Arthur Blank that his heart is still in college and would like to return to college. Blank probably thought he was just thinking aloud and told him we can turn this thing with the Falcons around and he would not give him permission to look at college jobs. Bobby still went ahead and interviewed and got a job and resigned, all within a matter of hours though I am sure he had already spoken to Arkansas before he broached the subject with Blank. It's all a big scam and Bobby just flat-out quit on his team. He got killed by his players in the media the next day. All they got was a note from him in their lockers and he didn't even talk to anybody personally. Weird dude. You have done something real bad when Joey Harrington is ripping you for not doing your job right!
Sen. George Mitchell saved Bobby's ass because by mid week people forgot Bobby and it was all about Georgie and his roid report. One thing that I don't agree with though is how the media over-dramatizes everything by saying things like "oh, how will parents entrust their 18 year old kids with a man line Petrino?". I am sure this is a valid question and there are enough decent families that look at things like that. But lets keep it real. College recruiting is all about cash and strippers. NCAA recruiting is so corrupt, even a man like Bobby Petrino cannot pull it's collective integrity any lower than the depths it has already reached.
On the field, my dream season ended today. I am talking about the Dolphins winning their game against the Ravens and making sure they won't go 0-16. The good news is, Brian Billick should be done in Baltimore after this year. The Pats won against the Jets, but the 50-0 drubbing everybody was expecting never happened. It was probably the weather, but they just squeaked past the Jets 20-10 with Brady throwing for 0 TDs. There were some wild winter weather across the league as teams won games with scores like 8-0. In San Francisco, some guy named Shaun Hill played real well at QB and might end up replacing Alex Smith. New hope for the wine-sipping Niner fans. While in Dallas, Romo actually played like Alex Smith in his rookie season. Don't know why he got so rattled just because Jessica Simpson was in the stands.
The real highlight of the weekend was Brian Westbrook taking a knee at the goal-line instead of going in for a sure TD. This guy is one of the most under-rated players in the league and today he showed he is also smart and unselfish. He broke through for a long run with the Eagles leading 10-6 and less than 2 minutes to go. Right at the edge of the end-zone, he gave up a TD for himself and just fell down and took a knee. Dallas had no timeouts and this sealed the win for the Eagles. He could have scored a TD and gone up 17-6, but then Dallas gets the ball and theoritically anything can happen. Dallas probably would have still lost because it was a 2-score game, but what Brian did was much smarter and surer deal. I wish more players think like this. The other feel good news is, Buffalo's Kevin Everett is recovering surprisingly well from the spinal injury he suffered earlier this season. Thats awesome.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Mitchell Reports
Sen. George Mitchell finally released his roid report on baseball. I didn't read it or get too too deep into it. I am sure it has some solid information and valuable recommendations, but I get the gist of it. MLB, the owners, the commissioner, players and their union did nothing to stop this abuse and they all need to do more, way more to stop the extensive drug use and cheating. What next? The senator is going to spend another 40 million and tell us the sky is blue or the fire is hot? Tell me something I don't know and thats where the names of the players come in! The most interesting part of this whole report for me are the names and I am sure it's that way for most people.
Anybody with a reasonable intelligence shouldn't find the rest of the report too surprising. Call me a sensationalist, but it's just fun to see the names, especially one Mr. Roger Clemens. In fact some people might even accuse Mitchell of releasing all these names just to grab some attention for his report, but who can blame him? He has nothing else to offer in his report that we don't already know. In fact, even Roid-ger Clemens was no surprise to me personally. I am happy this cheater finally got exposed. He is a arrogant bully and I was sick and tired of the media deifying him as a true American hero. I agree with a lot of black callers to radio shows who are saying this is a litmus test for the white media because we get to see how they treat Clemens V Bonds.
Anyways, here's the complete list of tainted players in the report. Mitchell had access only to 3 sources that are under federal investigation including Balco. This only means that the 89 names are just a small percentage of all the roid-heads in the entire game of baseball. It's ironic that at the end of the day, Jose Canseco is the only credible guy in this whole steroid saga.
The following players were connected to steroids, either use or possession, in the report:
Chad Allen
Mike Bell
Gary Bennett
Larry Bigbie
Ricky Bones
Kevin Brown
Ken Caminiti
Mark Carreon
Jason Christiansen
Howie Clark
Roger Clemens
Paxton Crawford
Jack Cust
Brendan Donnelly
Chris Donnels
Lenny Dykstra
Matt Franco
Ryan Franklin
Eric Gagne
Jason Grimsley
Jerry Hairston
Phil Hiatt
Matt Herges
Glenallen Hill
Todd Hundley
Ryan Jorgensen
Wally Joyner
Mike Judd
David Justice
Chuck Knoblauch
Tim Laker
Mike Lansing
Paul Lo Duca
Exavier “Nook” Logan
Josias Manzanillo
Cody McKay
Kent Mercker
Bart Miadich
Hal Morris
Daniel Naulty
Denny Neagle
Rafael Palmeiro
Jim Parque
Luis Perez
Andy Pettitte
Adam Piatt
Todd Pratt
Stephen Randolph
Adam Riggs
Brian Roberts
F.P. Santangelo
David Segui
Mike Stanton
Ricky Stone
Miguel Tejada
Derrick Turnbow
Mo Vaughn
Ron Villone
Fernando Vina
Rondell White
Jeff Williams
Todd Williams
Kevin Young
Gregg Zaun
The following players were cited under “Alleged Internet Purchases of Performance Enhancing Substances By Players in Major League Baseball” in the report:
Rick Ankiel
David Bell
Paul Byrd
Jose Canseco
Jay Gibbons
Troy Glaus
Jose Guillen
Darren Holmes
Gary Matthews Jr.
John Rocker
Scott Schoeneweis
Ismael Valdez
Matt Williams
Steve Woodard
The following players were linked through BALCO in the report:
Marvin Benard
Barry Bonds
Bobby Estalella
Jason Giambi
Jeremy Giambi
Benito Santiago
Gary Sheffield
Randy Velarde
Anybody with a reasonable intelligence shouldn't find the rest of the report too surprising. Call me a sensationalist, but it's just fun to see the names, especially one Mr. Roger Clemens. In fact some people might even accuse Mitchell of releasing all these names just to grab some attention for his report, but who can blame him? He has nothing else to offer in his report that we don't already know. In fact, even Roid-ger Clemens was no surprise to me personally. I am happy this cheater finally got exposed. He is a arrogant bully and I was sick and tired of the media deifying him as a true American hero. I agree with a lot of black callers to radio shows who are saying this is a litmus test for the white media because we get to see how they treat Clemens V Bonds.
Anyways, here's the complete list of tainted players in the report. Mitchell had access only to 3 sources that are under federal investigation including Balco. This only means that the 89 names are just a small percentage of all the roid-heads in the entire game of baseball. It's ironic that at the end of the day, Jose Canseco is the only credible guy in this whole steroid saga.
The following players were connected to steroids, either use or possession, in the report:
Chad Allen
Mike Bell
Gary Bennett
Larry Bigbie
Ricky Bones
Kevin Brown
Ken Caminiti
Mark Carreon
Jason Christiansen
Howie Clark
Roger Clemens
Paxton Crawford
Jack Cust
Brendan Donnelly
Chris Donnels
Lenny Dykstra
Matt Franco
Ryan Franklin
Eric Gagne
Jason Grimsley
Jerry Hairston
Phil Hiatt
Matt Herges
Glenallen Hill
Todd Hundley
Ryan Jorgensen
Wally Joyner
Mike Judd
David Justice
Chuck Knoblauch
Tim Laker
Mike Lansing
Paul Lo Duca
Exavier “Nook” Logan
Josias Manzanillo
Cody McKay
Kent Mercker
Bart Miadich
Hal Morris
Daniel Naulty
Denny Neagle
Rafael Palmeiro
Jim Parque
Luis Perez
Andy Pettitte
Adam Piatt
Todd Pratt
Stephen Randolph
Adam Riggs
Brian Roberts
F.P. Santangelo
David Segui
Mike Stanton
Ricky Stone
Miguel Tejada
Derrick Turnbow
Mo Vaughn
Ron Villone
Fernando Vina
Rondell White
Jeff Williams
Todd Williams
Kevin Young
Gregg Zaun
The following players were cited under “Alleged Internet Purchases of Performance Enhancing Substances By Players in Major League Baseball” in the report:
Rick Ankiel
David Bell
Paul Byrd
Jose Canseco
Jay Gibbons
Troy Glaus
Jose Guillen
Darren Holmes
Gary Matthews Jr.
John Rocker
Scott Schoeneweis
Ismael Valdez
Matt Williams
Steve Woodard
The following players were linked through BALCO in the report:
Marvin Benard
Barry Bonds
Bobby Estalella
Jason Giambi
Jeremy Giambi
Benito Santiago
Gary Sheffield
Randy Velarde
Sunday, December 09, 2007
Suns playing 762 ball, but could be better
Suns are 16-5 which translates to a .762 winning percentage. Thats pretty good by any standards, but a true Suns fan will tell you it could be better. They have lost so far to Lakers (home opener), Atlanta on the road, Golden State and Houston for a 2-game losing streak and the latest defeat at Minnesota. The last one was against a bad team, but it was one of those last game of a 5 game road trip on a back-to-back night against a bad team. Ultimate trap game. A true championship team should close the deal on such games, and thats where there is a slight concern about this Suns team. But any time you can remember all the losses a month in to a NBA season, your team is doing real good. It means they have not lost a whole lot of games.
The 2-game losing streak in the middle against the Warriors on the road and Houston was a little scary. Especially against the Warriors. The Suns have been blown out of Oakland the last 2 times. The Warriors have scored 45 points in the first quarter in both these games and have given Phoenix a bad taste of their own medicine. This is what is disturbing for me when you talk about the Warriors. They may be the only team that plays the Suns style better than them. It takes a lot out of me to say that some other team plays the run-and-gun better than us, but that could be the case with the W's in some sense.
Actually the Warriors don't necessarily play it better than the Suns, but they do play it better against the Suns. In fact lot of people call them "Suns-lite". They also don't shoot quite as well as the Suns. But they match-up very well against the Suns and are very athletic. I will take Amare and Marion's athleticism against anybody, but the Warriors are more athletic at every other position up and down the lineup. They score at ease against the Suns D and they are very active defensively. Their defense is nothing great, but if they put their mind to it, they can be better than the Suns on D. They are quick, athletic, they dig in and are just disruptive. Plus Nellie seems to be having the scoreboard on his ex-stars. After undressing Nowitzki in last year's playoffs, he killed Nash by making him play D. Baron Davis is too big for Nash and Monta Ellis is too athletic for most of the league. Nellie ran pick and rolls with Baron and Monta and just killed Nash on the defensive end. This is not a good match-up for the Suns or the MP3.
Speaking of the MP3, he has been in MVP form the last couple of weeks. His assists totals in the recent road trip were 15, 17, 18, 19 and 15. Thats amazing! He is now averaging 12.3 assists per game and I don't how he does it. Grant Hill has been an awesome fit as expected and Amare is coming into his own. His dunks are getting better and Dwight Howard is the only guy who has made him look a little weak! That will happen against Dwight. 35-20 easy for D12 against the Suns. The Brazilian blur has been good and Marion has been his usual Matrix-self. Diaw is up and down as usual, but Skinner has been a real revelation.
Overall the Suns are doing alright. Lets see how they do against the Spurs and the somewhat struggling Mavs. Until then, the following AD featuring Nash and Amare might be the highlight of this young season.
The 2-game losing streak in the middle against the Warriors on the road and Houston was a little scary. Especially against the Warriors. The Suns have been blown out of Oakland the last 2 times. The Warriors have scored 45 points in the first quarter in both these games and have given Phoenix a bad taste of their own medicine. This is what is disturbing for me when you talk about the Warriors. They may be the only team that plays the Suns style better than them. It takes a lot out of me to say that some other team plays the run-and-gun better than us, but that could be the case with the W's in some sense.
Actually the Warriors don't necessarily play it better than the Suns, but they do play it better against the Suns. In fact lot of people call them "Suns-lite". They also don't shoot quite as well as the Suns. But they match-up very well against the Suns and are very athletic. I will take Amare and Marion's athleticism against anybody, but the Warriors are more athletic at every other position up and down the lineup. They score at ease against the Suns D and they are very active defensively. Their defense is nothing great, but if they put their mind to it, they can be better than the Suns on D. They are quick, athletic, they dig in and are just disruptive. Plus Nellie seems to be having the scoreboard on his ex-stars. After undressing Nowitzki in last year's playoffs, he killed Nash by making him play D. Baron Davis is too big for Nash and Monta Ellis is too athletic for most of the league. Nellie ran pick and rolls with Baron and Monta and just killed Nash on the defensive end. This is not a good match-up for the Suns or the MP3.
Speaking of the MP3, he has been in MVP form the last couple of weeks. His assists totals in the recent road trip were 15, 17, 18, 19 and 15. Thats amazing! He is now averaging 12.3 assists per game and I don't how he does it. Grant Hill has been an awesome fit as expected and Amare is coming into his own. His dunks are getting better and Dwight Howard is the only guy who has made him look a little weak! That will happen against Dwight. 35-20 easy for D12 against the Suns. The Brazilian blur has been good and Marion has been his usual Matrix-self. Diaw is up and down as usual, but Skinner has been a real revelation.
Overall the Suns are doing alright. Lets see how they do against the Spurs and the somewhat struggling Mavs. Until then, the following AD featuring Nash and Amare might be the highlight of this young season.
Monday, December 03, 2007
Close Call!
The Pats had another close call. They lost the game against the Ravens like 3 times before winning it at the end. They got stuffed on 4-Th and 1 only to see the play get erased by a Baltimore time-out. They got stuffed again, but the play was void because of a Pats false start. This might have been the best false start ever for an offense! They got a third shot at 4-Th down and now Brady converted on a QB run. They faced a 4-Th and change again a few plays later and Brady's pass fell incomplete. But wait. Holding penalty on the defense. First down Pats. This penalty was a killer. Sometimes you got to let the kids play when the game is on the line like that. I hate it when refs do more than their job. Just an hour after this game, I was watching the end of the Magic-Warriors game and they called a T on Dwight Howard for punching the hoop-support with just a few seconds to go. I had to make sure D-Stern had not let Tim Donaghy back in to ref this game. That was a ridiculous call since Howard was not even protesting against a call. He was just frustrated with himself. What are these refs thinking with just a few ticks to go in the game? This holding call was not quite that bad, but still a game-changing one. Since it was on a TE and not a WR I would say let the extra contact go.
Pats scored soon after and the game was over. Even the TD looked suspect with the receiver kinda bobbling the ball though both his feet were inbounds. To make matters even worse for the Ravens, they threw a hail-marry at the end that the receiver actually caught, but he was 2 yards short of the end zone. That should have been a fun game for the Ravens fan. I wish I had tuned into those calls on their post-game show. As for the Pats, the cheaters are still undefeated. They almost seem destined to go undefeated, but they have looked VERY shaky the last 2 weeks. Both Phily and Baltimore have made them look shaky and interestingly, those 2 teams have not made too many other teams look bad this season. I was watching this game in a gym and it was interesting how many people were rooting against the Pats! Not sure if it was an underdog thing or a spy-gate thing or just guys being jealous of Brady, but people outside of New England don't dig this unbeaten Pats team and I like it that way. I don't like Pittsburgh either, but I would be their biggest fan for 3 hours next week when they play the Pats.
Speaking of the Steelers, they were very lucky this weekend as well. It appeared like Willie Parker was fumbling the ball every other carry, but just like the Pats and their 4-Th downs, each fumble was reviewed or erased by something or the other. Either his knee was down a milli-second before he fumbled or his butt hit the ground before the ball popped out or something like that. Grandpa Madden was pining for the good old days when a fumble was a fumble and nobody cared about whether the butt hit the heel before the tongue licked your nose while the ball was rolling out! I guess good teams make their own break.
In other news, the McCown brothers were good on Sunday with Luke winning a game for Tamba Bay and Josh guiding the lowly Raiders against the hated Broncos. I think the Mike Shanahan era in Denver is winding to an end. Not sure what's up with that team. The Raiders used their rookie QB JaMarcus Russell for a few plays though it's running back Justin Fargas who gashed the Broncos. In Washington, Joe Gibbs got a penalty for back-to-back timeouts and pretty much gave the game away to the Bills. They went from a difficult 51 yard field goal to a friendly 36 yarder to win the game. That wraps up an interesting week for the Skins to say the least. The best clips from the NFL weekend was the moves that Adrian Peterson put on a couple of hapless defenders on his way to pay-dirt. This guy is an awesome running back.
Pats scored soon after and the game was over. Even the TD looked suspect with the receiver kinda bobbling the ball though both his feet were inbounds. To make matters even worse for the Ravens, they threw a hail-marry at the end that the receiver actually caught, but he was 2 yards short of the end zone. That should have been a fun game for the Ravens fan. I wish I had tuned into those calls on their post-game show. As for the Pats, the cheaters are still undefeated. They almost seem destined to go undefeated, but they have looked VERY shaky the last 2 weeks. Both Phily and Baltimore have made them look shaky and interestingly, those 2 teams have not made too many other teams look bad this season. I was watching this game in a gym and it was interesting how many people were rooting against the Pats! Not sure if it was an underdog thing or a spy-gate thing or just guys being jealous of Brady, but people outside of New England don't dig this unbeaten Pats team and I like it that way. I don't like Pittsburgh either, but I would be their biggest fan for 3 hours next week when they play the Pats.
Speaking of the Steelers, they were very lucky this weekend as well. It appeared like Willie Parker was fumbling the ball every other carry, but just like the Pats and their 4-Th downs, each fumble was reviewed or erased by something or the other. Either his knee was down a milli-second before he fumbled or his butt hit the ground before the ball popped out or something like that. Grandpa Madden was pining for the good old days when a fumble was a fumble and nobody cared about whether the butt hit the heel before the tongue licked your nose while the ball was rolling out! I guess good teams make their own break.
In other news, the McCown brothers were good on Sunday with Luke winning a game for Tamba Bay and Josh guiding the lowly Raiders against the hated Broncos. I think the Mike Shanahan era in Denver is winding to an end. Not sure what's up with that team. The Raiders used their rookie QB JaMarcus Russell for a few plays though it's running back Justin Fargas who gashed the Broncos. In Washington, Joe Gibbs got a penalty for back-to-back timeouts and pretty much gave the game away to the Bills. They went from a difficult 51 yard field goal to a friendly 36 yarder to win the game. That wraps up an interesting week for the Skins to say the least. The best clips from the NFL weekend was the moves that Adrian Peterson put on a couple of hapless defenders on his way to pay-dirt. This guy is an awesome running back.
Saturday, December 01, 2007
Greatness in action
Greatness in action
I have not had the time to blog for a few days. The entire Thanksgiving weekend and since, I thought I have been seeing some tremendous performances on the football field and basketball courts. I am talking really impressive, out of the world type game here. The following guys have impressed me a lot over the last 2 weeks.
Tim Tebow - Florida. This guy is just awesome. A unique (white) double-threat QB. Dude has 29 touchdowns throwing and another 22 rushing this season. It's scary how good the Gators can be the next few years with this guy calling the shots. He is a top Heisman candidate though he is just a Soph.
Run DMC, Darren McFadden - Arkansas. As good as Tebow has been, I would say my Heisman is DMC. I couldn't believe what I saw him do against LSU last weekend. 206 yards rushing against the nation's number 1 team and guiding his team to a win single-handedly. It's amazing to watch the Razorbacks routinely line him up at QB and just directly snap to him without even pretending to have a passing game. I don't remember ever seeing the ball snapped to the RB so often. Thats how good Run DMC is.
The guy in the NFL who is dominating right now is Devin Hester. He scored 2 TDs last week on returns, both is the 3-Rd quarter, to single-handedly rip the hearts out of the Denver Broncos. They deserved every bit of their troubles because they brought it upon themselves. Why would anybody kick to this guy? I would give the ball to Rex Grossman and his offense at the 50 yard line every time rather than kicking it to Hester at the 20 or even in the end-zone. This guy is even more exciting than Dante Hall a few years back because at least that Chiefs team had an offense. The Bears have very little going on either side of the ball outside this guy.
D12, Dwight Howard. If you have not been following the NBA closely, you might have missed the growth of a new beast in the East. He is so good I might start calling the conference East again instead of LEast. Howard is a monster. The guy is so big and so athletic, it's a joke. This guy is almost unstoppable in the paint and he plays exclusively above the rim. He has more dunks this season than entire teams and his guards can just throw the ball anywhere near the hoop and he'll catch and crush the ball through the hoop. Double double is considered a good game and 20-10 is usually superstar numbers. But this guy routinely goes for 30-15 and 20-10 is actually a bad game for him.
Howard kind of reminds me of Amare from a couple of years back when he used to lead the league in dunks. Amare is still dominant, but the knee surgeries have definitely taken some juice out of Amare. Howard is now the vicious dunker and bigs like Amare have no shot against him in head-to-head match-ups. He is an inch or two taller than Amare, plus has a great wingspan for his height. He has never missed a game due to injury and can play defense as well. So that next great big man to follow Tim Duncan is D12. He is a cross between Tim Duncan, Shaq and Amare and in a year or two, he will make Timmy look bad. D12's offensive skills are still a work in progress and is nowhere near Timmy's but he has already started winning their individual match-ups. Imagine what happens in 09 or 2010. Scary!
King James. The other true stud of this young NBA season is Lebron James. This guy has become a triple-double machine and is the MP3 front runner. The Cavs didn't do anything this off-season to improve the team, but why should they if this guy keeps improving like this year over year! He just makes everybody around him so much better and his teammates are just growing in confidence playing with this guy everyday. Again, I think his offensive skills are nowhere near where it can be and it's scary to think how complete a player he will be when he gets there. He may never score like Kobe, but he is going to be a much better player if not already.
I have not had the time to blog for a few days. The entire Thanksgiving weekend and since, I thought I have been seeing some tremendous performances on the football field and basketball courts. I am talking really impressive, out of the world type game here. The following guys have impressed me a lot over the last 2 weeks.
Tim Tebow - Florida. This guy is just awesome. A unique (white) double-threat QB. Dude has 29 touchdowns throwing and another 22 rushing this season. It's scary how good the Gators can be the next few years with this guy calling the shots. He is a top Heisman candidate though he is just a Soph.
Run DMC, Darren McFadden - Arkansas. As good as Tebow has been, I would say my Heisman is DMC. I couldn't believe what I saw him do against LSU last weekend. 206 yards rushing against the nation's number 1 team and guiding his team to a win single-handedly. It's amazing to watch the Razorbacks routinely line him up at QB and just directly snap to him without even pretending to have a passing game. I don't remember ever seeing the ball snapped to the RB so often. Thats how good Run DMC is.
The guy in the NFL who is dominating right now is Devin Hester. He scored 2 TDs last week on returns, both is the 3-Rd quarter, to single-handedly rip the hearts out of the Denver Broncos. They deserved every bit of their troubles because they brought it upon themselves. Why would anybody kick to this guy? I would give the ball to Rex Grossman and his offense at the 50 yard line every time rather than kicking it to Hester at the 20 or even in the end-zone. This guy is even more exciting than Dante Hall a few years back because at least that Chiefs team had an offense. The Bears have very little going on either side of the ball outside this guy.
D12, Dwight Howard. If you have not been following the NBA closely, you might have missed the growth of a new beast in the East. He is so good I might start calling the conference East again instead of LEast. Howard is a monster. The guy is so big and so athletic, it's a joke. This guy is almost unstoppable in the paint and he plays exclusively above the rim. He has more dunks this season than entire teams and his guards can just throw the ball anywhere near the hoop and he'll catch and crush the ball through the hoop. Double double is considered a good game and 20-10 is usually superstar numbers. But this guy routinely goes for 30-15 and 20-10 is actually a bad game for him.
Howard kind of reminds me of Amare from a couple of years back when he used to lead the league in dunks. Amare is still dominant, but the knee surgeries have definitely taken some juice out of Amare. Howard is now the vicious dunker and bigs like Amare have no shot against him in head-to-head match-ups. He is an inch or two taller than Amare, plus has a great wingspan for his height. He has never missed a game due to injury and can play defense as well. So that next great big man to follow Tim Duncan is D12. He is a cross between Tim Duncan, Shaq and Amare and in a year or two, he will make Timmy look bad. D12's offensive skills are still a work in progress and is nowhere near Timmy's but he has already started winning their individual match-ups. Imagine what happens in 09 or 2010. Scary!
King James. The other true stud of this young NBA season is Lebron James. This guy has become a triple-double machine and is the MP3 front runner. The Cavs didn't do anything this off-season to improve the team, but why should they if this guy keeps improving like this year over year! He just makes everybody around him so much better and his teammates are just growing in confidence playing with this guy everyday. Again, I think his offensive skills are nowhere near where it can be and it's scary to think how complete a player he will be when he gets there. He may never score like Kobe, but he is going to be a much better player if not already.
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