Nash was back today for the Suns and boy what a difference that makes. The Suns offense was flowing and they won easily to stop the losing streak. Doug Collins made the point that nobody means more to their team than Nash and I totally agree. Every team will struggle without it's star player and Barkley also made the point about how everybody talks about Nash, but it's the same with Milwaukee and Redd and Boston lost all those games without Paul Pierce. But there's something about this offense and the style of play and how integral Nash is to what they try to do almost every possession. Without him it's an entirely different offense. Mike D'Antoni says he calls about 30% of the plays with Nash and 80% of the play without Nash. So Nash is the most indispensable player for his team in the entire league. Redd and Pierce play for bad teams and they make a huge difference. But good teams usually have more talent, multiple stars and they don't go into the tank like the Suns if the team MVP goes out. Spurs won't win the championship without Timmy, but I am sure they will be in the playoffs. Same with Mavs and Nowitzki. Even the Lakers do surprisingly well without Kobe. Cavs without LeBron may be the closest to the Suns without Nash and that too only because the Cavs are not that good a team and they don't have much talent around Bron-Bron. They had a ridiculous stat today about how 16 players or so have had career years the last 3 seasons with the Suns and Nash!
Marion had a great game today with 31-9. Good to see the Matrix come out of the mini-funk he had been in. Amare had 22-9 and Kurt Thomas was back playing meaningful minutes. Nash had a 13-2-12 night. He tripped and fell on the floor in the 3-rd quarter and got up holding his hurt shoulder. Not a pretty sight for Suns fans. But he went back the very next play and took a violent charge on Elton Brand barreling down the floor! Nash is a tough son of a gun! The coaches jumped up from their seat and took him out of the game for good after that play since the Suns were already up 20 or so.
Looks like D'Antoni is suddenly in love with Pat Burke. It's very interesting sometimes how this guy uses his bench. He tries somebody for 2 games and then gives up on them. Barkely was criticizing him for not using his bench enough. I totally agree on this one with Chuck. I never agreed with these experts who say the Suns have a thin bench. That was the case 2 years back, not anymore. Charles echoes my sentiment when he says the Suns are probably the deepest team in the league. Amen to that brother! They really are VERY deep. It's just that D'Anoni doesn't use all of them or sometime any of them! He sticks with his 7 guys and doesn't play the rest. I am not even being critical of him, it's just the way he coaches this team. Also, the TNT gang spoke about how they need to develop a backup point and Nash breaks down at the end of every season. Well, I am sure Nash hates the notion that he breaks down and I think he doesn't have that problem the last couple of years. That used to happen to him in Dallas, but he has worked very hard to improve his conditioning etc. The reason Suns lost last year to the Mavs or to the Spurs the year before was because the other team was better and not because Nash broke down. These are myths that the experts just hold on to forever. But I agree with Barkely that Mike has to develop a backup point. Nash has some chronic back issues and is getting old. It's definitely good to save him for the playoffs. Marcus Banks should be allowed to run the point. You can't expect him or the team to be as good as they are with Nash . There's a reason why Nash is the 2-time MVP and is being paid 65 mill as opposed to whatever Marcus Banks makes. Of course he is not going to be as good as Nash at his job and it's the coaching staff's job to find a way to work with that for 15-18 minutes a game. Draw up new plays, run him with Amare and Marion, use him with Barboso, play him with Diaw or do something to use him effectively. The guy is decent and can help you.
In other games, Spurs took care off the Nuggets rather easily. AI played and it didn't matter. I think it's officially time to give up on that trade. Like many astute observers had pointed out, thats just too much offense and one-dimensional talent with very little defense, rebounding etc. to compete against teams like the Spurs. Agent-0 scored 38 points and KG lost on the road. Utah lost a close game at Portland without Deron Williams. Okur had 25 and R-O-Y (Rookie of the Year) had 27. Boston lost a close one on the road at Sacramento 101-104.
The trade deadline is coming up on Thursday. It would be interesting to see if Bibby, Gason, Vinsanoty or Kidd get moved.
Phoenix @ LA Clippers - 115-90
Denver @ San Antonio - 80-95
Minnesota @ Washington - 100-112
Interesting games on the board for Feb 21-th (Wedneday)
Miami @ Houston - It's not Shaq-V-Yao, but still a good game with the resurgent Miami.
Cleveland @ Toronto - Toronto will be up for this one. Bosh and LeBron are from the same draft too.
Boston @ Phoenix - How does Nash handle back-to-back after his injury break?
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
NBA All Star Weekend - 02/19/2007
All star weekend is over with the West crushing the L-East 153-132 as Kobe won the MVP with a 31-5-6 night. He had some monstrous dunks and was cheered wildly. But as usual, the All-Star game was a sloppy, no defense, no chemistry, sometimes ugly affair. This had me thinking about the whole All-Star weekend. How good is it? How to make it better? I actually like the NBA All-Star weekend. I think it's a nice change-of-pace during a long season and it's good to see the skills competition, the 3 point shootout and even the slam dunk contest. The dunk contest is probably the most over-rated event of the Saturday. Gerald Green won it this year on what's now becoming an annual ritual. Somebody goes retro and pays homage to a legend from his team, wears his jersey and does their dunk from the 80's or whatever. 2 years back, Josh Smith started it by wearing Dominique Wikins jersey. Last year it was Nate Robinson jumping over Spud Webb. This year, Gerald Green pulled out Dee Brown's jersey and did his hand over the eyes dunk. He also jumped over Nate Robinson and finally a table to win the contest. Dwight Howard had an awesome dunk where he put a sticker at the top of the back-board. For some reason, this didn't get the high-score it deserved.
Some dunks are still awesome, but overall it's just not the show it used to be. In a league where probably 95% of the players can dunk these days, how big can the event really be? They had a stellar panel of judges this year with MJ, Nique, Dr.J, Vince and Kobe. Thats the other problem. I think Kobe and Vince along with D-Wade, LeBron and Josh Smith should be in the contest instead of in the judge's table. All the big names are missing the last several years and it has become an event for the rookie and second-year leapers. NBA seems to get top guys for the 3 point and the skills contest, but not sure why they don't do it with the dunk contest. You had LeBron, D-Wade, Kobe, Nowitzki, Gil etc. in the other 2 contests, but Dwight Howard was the lone All-Star in the dunk contest. Also they should something about missed dunks. Too many missed dunks suck the energy out of the event.
The race between Dick Baveta and Charles Barkley was the highlight of the Saturday night events. Chuck backed up his talk with an easy win. I thought he would lose for sure, but I guess once a great athlete, always a decent athlete. The slimmer, fitter-looking Baveta just could not get it done though he dove at the end as Barkely started showing off by running backwards. Seeing Baveta dive was awesome!
But at the end of the day, the biggest problem with the weekend is the All-Star game itself. Also the Rookie-Sophomore game. These games are pretty badly played, with no defense anywhere in sight, no chemistry between the players and guys trying to do too much. You see balls flying all over the place and but for the occasional dunk, there's no electricity in the game. Guys don't play hard and it shows. There were a lot of talk about how to improve the All-Star game on the day after, but the good thing was, some of it came from the players themselves. Chauncey Billups talked about it and I am glad he did. It's better than the media being the only one caring about it. A lot of these stars still talk about it like it's a great show and it's actually a good thing they don't play defense. Some guys in the media talked about making it a World-V-US game like they do it in hockey. There are a lot of international players in the NBA today, but it's still an American sport. The World would have a lot fewer deserving all-stars than the US team and it would take a lot of good all-star spots away from US players. I am not a hockey fan, but I would guess it's a lot more even in the NHL since hockey is essentially a Canadian sport with a lot of European stars as well.
So the US-V-World is a good idea, but that may not work. My idea to fix the game is simple. Throw money at it. Get 2 or 3 sponsors, make them pay 5 or 6 million each, call it the Verizon All-Star game, and the winner takes 12 million dollars with each player getting 1 mill. The losing team just gets the appearance fee. I don't care how rich you are, you want the million and that might make these players try harder.
So thats my solution for the All-Star weekend. In a nut-shell, more money for the winners and put the top super-star athletes in the dunk contest.
There were also other interesting stuff from the weekend. I loved the whole Shaq dance form the East practice session. That cat can move for a big, actually huge guy. It was funny to watch him dance, but he is good. Also, Kobe got a lot of love. Looks like Kobe's image has come a full-circle and is back on top again. They were comparing this to how he was relentlessly booed in Phily the last time he won the All-Star MVP. To be fair to Kobe, I think he is also genuinely a changed person these days. He is extremely nice with people and is rarely cocky or arrogant with a mike on his face. Now all he needs to do is win a championship and he'll be on top the Sports World. He is pretty close to top already. I also heard that Vegas looked like a zoo this weekend. Apparently it was bigger than the Super Bowl crowds in Vegas and big fight weekends. That surprised me. I thought this wouldn't be such a big event except for the celebrities. Super Bowl for instance brings 300,000 average fans to Vegas. I guess some people call the NBA all-star game the black Super-Bowl for a reason! You add up the celebrities, their entourages and the fans, it becomes huge. Apparently the traffic was really bad and Nowitzki almost missed the 3 point shootout!
Of course there was the obligatory police trouble with 2 shooting incidents, one in the MGM Grand parking lot and the other at a strip club. Apparently the Titans problem-child Pacman Jones was involved in the strip-club incident. He and rapper Nelly were at the joint and Pacman started throwing thousands of dollar bills at the stage. woman started fighting over the bills and eventually somebody shot at somebody. Now they are saying Vegas may not even want the all-star event anymore!
Interesting games on the board for Feb 20-th (Tuesday)
Phoenix @ LA Clippers - Will Nash play? Can the Suns start the second half on a winning note?
Denver @ San Antonio - Spurs are back at home and Denver would love to beat them to start this stretch.
Minnesota @ Washington - Minnesota needs to beat good teams on the road if they are to become a real playoff team.
Some dunks are still awesome, but overall it's just not the show it used to be. In a league where probably 95% of the players can dunk these days, how big can the event really be? They had a stellar panel of judges this year with MJ, Nique, Dr.J, Vince and Kobe. Thats the other problem. I think Kobe and Vince along with D-Wade, LeBron and Josh Smith should be in the contest instead of in the judge's table. All the big names are missing the last several years and it has become an event for the rookie and second-year leapers. NBA seems to get top guys for the 3 point and the skills contest, but not sure why they don't do it with the dunk contest. You had LeBron, D-Wade, Kobe, Nowitzki, Gil etc. in the other 2 contests, but Dwight Howard was the lone All-Star in the dunk contest. Also they should something about missed dunks. Too many missed dunks suck the energy out of the event.
The race between Dick Baveta and Charles Barkley was the highlight of the Saturday night events. Chuck backed up his talk with an easy win. I thought he would lose for sure, but I guess once a great athlete, always a decent athlete. The slimmer, fitter-looking Baveta just could not get it done though he dove at the end as Barkely started showing off by running backwards. Seeing Baveta dive was awesome!
But at the end of the day, the biggest problem with the weekend is the All-Star game itself. Also the Rookie-Sophomore game. These games are pretty badly played, with no defense anywhere in sight, no chemistry between the players and guys trying to do too much. You see balls flying all over the place and but for the occasional dunk, there's no electricity in the game. Guys don't play hard and it shows. There were a lot of talk about how to improve the All-Star game on the day after, but the good thing was, some of it came from the players themselves. Chauncey Billups talked about it and I am glad he did. It's better than the media being the only one caring about it. A lot of these stars still talk about it like it's a great show and it's actually a good thing they don't play defense. Some guys in the media talked about making it a World-V-US game like they do it in hockey. There are a lot of international players in the NBA today, but it's still an American sport. The World would have a lot fewer deserving all-stars than the US team and it would take a lot of good all-star spots away from US players. I am not a hockey fan, but I would guess it's a lot more even in the NHL since hockey is essentially a Canadian sport with a lot of European stars as well.
So the US-V-World is a good idea, but that may not work. My idea to fix the game is simple. Throw money at it. Get 2 or 3 sponsors, make them pay 5 or 6 million each, call it the Verizon All-Star game, and the winner takes 12 million dollars with each player getting 1 mill. The losing team just gets the appearance fee. I don't care how rich you are, you want the million and that might make these players try harder.
So thats my solution for the All-Star weekend. In a nut-shell, more money for the winners and put the top super-star athletes in the dunk contest.
There were also other interesting stuff from the weekend. I loved the whole Shaq dance form the East practice session. That cat can move for a big, actually huge guy. It was funny to watch him dance, but he is good. Also, Kobe got a lot of love. Looks like Kobe's image has come a full-circle and is back on top again. They were comparing this to how he was relentlessly booed in Phily the last time he won the All-Star MVP. To be fair to Kobe, I think he is also genuinely a changed person these days. He is extremely nice with people and is rarely cocky or arrogant with a mike on his face. Now all he needs to do is win a championship and he'll be on top the Sports World. He is pretty close to top already. I also heard that Vegas looked like a zoo this weekend. Apparently it was bigger than the Super Bowl crowds in Vegas and big fight weekends. That surprised me. I thought this wouldn't be such a big event except for the celebrities. Super Bowl for instance brings 300,000 average fans to Vegas. I guess some people call the NBA all-star game the black Super-Bowl for a reason! You add up the celebrities, their entourages and the fans, it becomes huge. Apparently the traffic was really bad and Nowitzki almost missed the 3 point shootout!
Of course there was the obligatory police trouble with 2 shooting incidents, one in the MGM Grand parking lot and the other at a strip club. Apparently the Titans problem-child Pacman Jones was involved in the strip-club incident. He and rapper Nelly were at the joint and Pacman started throwing thousands of dollar bills at the stage. woman started fighting over the bills and eventually somebody shot at somebody. Now they are saying Vegas may not even want the all-star event anymore!
Interesting games on the board for Feb 20-th (Tuesday)
Phoenix @ LA Clippers - Will Nash play? Can the Suns start the second half on a winning note?
Denver @ San Antonio - Spurs are back at home and Denver would love to beat them to start this stretch.
Minnesota @ Washington - Minnesota needs to beat good teams on the road if they are to become a real playoff team.
Friday, February 16, 2007
NBA notes - 02/15/2007
Cleveland got a big win at LA today with King james scoring 38 on 10-16 shooting to beat Kobe's 34 and the Lakers. This was a great win for the Cavs. Not only dod they win, they won a close game with playoff intensity on the road against a clutch player called Kobe. They also seem to have started the process of tweaking their offense. It looked like they were losing this game early in the third, but they ran and went on a few fast-breaks for easy scores and eventually took the lead. It seemed like they have started running a lot more. Thats probably why they scored 114. The Lakers shut their fast-break down in the 4-th, but they still held on to win this one. They ran even without the young Daniel Gibson, though Eric Snow is no joke. He had a great game, dished out a few good assists on the break and knocked down clutch free-throws. But the most amazing thing is how the Cavs have him defending Kobe. He is 6-3 and 33 years old, but actually does a good job on Kobe, definitely better than the other Cavs. Thats a tough, talented sun of a gun! As for the Lakers, they seem to be on a a long funk having lost 5 straight now. Not a good way to go into the All-Star break.
Dallas Mavericks, Nowitzki and the gang did what they always do. They beat another quality team on the road. They have now won 9 straight (again) and it looks like the Suns can kiss the home-court goodbye. Suns are now 4.5 games back of the Mavs. Nowitzki had a 26-8 night to take care of T-Mac's 27-10. The Mavs are scary good right now.
In other news, Timmy Hardaway was "fired" by the Commish from all NBA duties. He came out and apologized, but the damage was done. Apparently Scottie Pippen wants to comeback at 41 years old! Shocking how all these guys never learn from their friends and keep making the same mistake. Like Charles says, you were not good when he retired, why would you be good now after sitting on the couch for 2 years? You may feel better, but you can't play better. Good call by Chuck.
Dallas @ Houston - 80-77
Cleveland @ LA Lakers - 114-108
Interesting games on the board for Feb 16-th (Friday)
All-star break - Rookie-Sophomore game.
Dallas Mavericks, Nowitzki and the gang did what they always do. They beat another quality team on the road. They have now won 9 straight (again) and it looks like the Suns can kiss the home-court goodbye. Suns are now 4.5 games back of the Mavs. Nowitzki had a 26-8 night to take care of T-Mac's 27-10. The Mavs are scary good right now.
In other news, Timmy Hardaway was "fired" by the Commish from all NBA duties. He came out and apologized, but the damage was done. Apparently Scottie Pippen wants to comeback at 41 years old! Shocking how all these guys never learn from their friends and keep making the same mistake. Like Charles says, you were not good when he retired, why would you be good now after sitting on the couch for 2 years? You may feel better, but you can't play better. Good call by Chuck.
Dallas @ Houston - 80-77
Cleveland @ LA Lakers - 114-108
Interesting games on the board for Feb 16-th (Friday)
All-star break - Rookie-Sophomore game.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
NBA notes - 02/14/2007
Big news of the day was Tim Hardaway saying flat out "I hate gays. I am a homophobe." It's amazing how mainstream bigotry towards Gays is and how ignorant people are. The only reason he is able to say something like this is because of how acceptable he thinks his opinion is. He later apologized, but the damage was done and he helped us realize how far away we are as a society from accepting gays in American sports. Thats indeed sad.
In other news, San Antonio had a big win at Detroit behind some good D and balanced scoring. Timmy had 23-8. Minnesota beat Denver for a big win. KG had 17-19, but Mark Blount had 24 points. Melo's 28 points were not enough for the Nuggets. Deron Williams had 33-6-12 to beat the Cavs in a close one. Larry Hughes had 33 and the King just shot 9-25 for 23. King is in a slump lately and I hope the all-star break does him good though he will be Vegas. Suns lost at Seattle without Nash and Diaw. Aside from how key Nash is to the Suns, this stretch also exposes their lack of depth. Is it a lack of depth or Mike D'Antoni is just refusing to use players like Jalen Rose? One good news for the Suns is that Marcus Banks has been good in this stretch. He had 21 pts again today on 9-15 shooting on a day when his teammates combined to shoot 39 % Yes, the Phoenix Suns shot 39 %. If that doesn't tell you how good Nash is, nothing ever will!
The Nets went in to Toronto and got a close-up look at the best team in their division. Toronto got 25 points from Bosh against 17 for their ex-homeboy Vinsanity. The Nets aren't any good without Kidd either, however they are not too good with him either :-) New York got blown out at Golden State after beating the Lakers yesterday. Thats life in the NBA for you. Stephen Jackson had 36 points for the Warriors. Chicago lost at Charlotte. Boston finally got a win behind some great 3 point shooting. Pierce had 32 points to stop the bleeding for the Celts. It would have gotten real ugly if they had lost this one since they are going on an extended West coast trip pretty soon. Glad the Celtics stopped the streak before the trip. But then again, the streak at least kept the Celtics in the news after several years of being totally irrelevant in the NBA.
San Antonio @ Detroit - 90-81
Denver @ Minnesota - 94-99
Cleveland @ Utah - 98-99
Milwaukee @ Boston - 97-117
Phoenix @ Seattle - 90-114
New Jersey @ Toronto - 109-120
Interesting games on the board for Feb 15-th (Thursday)
Dallas @ Houston - Big game for Houston to show their rival how good and how real they are.
Cleveland @ LA Lakers - Kobe V LeBron again, this time in LA. Should be a tough one for the Cavs.
In other news, San Antonio had a big win at Detroit behind some good D and balanced scoring. Timmy had 23-8. Minnesota beat Denver for a big win. KG had 17-19, but Mark Blount had 24 points. Melo's 28 points were not enough for the Nuggets. Deron Williams had 33-6-12 to beat the Cavs in a close one. Larry Hughes had 33 and the King just shot 9-25 for 23. King is in a slump lately and I hope the all-star break does him good though he will be Vegas. Suns lost at Seattle without Nash and Diaw. Aside from how key Nash is to the Suns, this stretch also exposes their lack of depth. Is it a lack of depth or Mike D'Antoni is just refusing to use players like Jalen Rose? One good news for the Suns is that Marcus Banks has been good in this stretch. He had 21 pts again today on 9-15 shooting on a day when his teammates combined to shoot 39 % Yes, the Phoenix Suns shot 39 %. If that doesn't tell you how good Nash is, nothing ever will!
The Nets went in to Toronto and got a close-up look at the best team in their division. Toronto got 25 points from Bosh against 17 for their ex-homeboy Vinsanity. The Nets aren't any good without Kidd either, however they are not too good with him either :-) New York got blown out at Golden State after beating the Lakers yesterday. Thats life in the NBA for you. Stephen Jackson had 36 points for the Warriors. Chicago lost at Charlotte. Boston finally got a win behind some great 3 point shooting. Pierce had 32 points to stop the bleeding for the Celts. It would have gotten real ugly if they had lost this one since they are going on an extended West coast trip pretty soon. Glad the Celtics stopped the streak before the trip. But then again, the streak at least kept the Celtics in the news after several years of being totally irrelevant in the NBA.
San Antonio @ Detroit - 90-81
Denver @ Minnesota - 94-99
Cleveland @ Utah - 98-99
Milwaukee @ Boston - 97-117
Phoenix @ Seattle - 90-114
New Jersey @ Toronto - 109-120
Interesting games on the board for Feb 15-th (Thursday)
Dallas @ Houston - Big game for Houston to show their rival how good and how real they are.
Cleveland @ LA Lakers - Kobe V LeBron again, this time in LA. Should be a tough one for the Cavs.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
NBA notes - 02/13/2007
Great road win for Toronto. They won a close one at Chicago behind a 25-14 night for Bosh. The Raptors are for real and have won 8 of 10. They got Bosh playing at a very high level, T.J.Ford is back from injury and Bargnani is very good (he had 22 today). They are clearly the best team in the Atlantic and Bosh might be becoming a superstar, a double-double machine. As for the Bulls, Deng had 30 pts again on 15-23 shooting. San Antonio took care of New Jersey today rather easily. They went on a 20-0 run at the start of the second quarter to put this game away. Nets had no shot in this one without Jason Kidd. Apparently Kidd and AI are going to miss the all-star games as well. Thats 5 injuries counting Nash, Boozer and Yao Ming. The all-star rosters look really diluted right now!
New York went in to LA and beat the Lakers again. They beat them at home when Kobe was suspended and now on the road on a dunk by Eddie Curry with 7 secs to go. Curiously enough, Kobe did not even touch the ball in the Lakers final possession which ended with a Lamar Odom air-ball! Sometimes you wonder what's going on in Big-Cheif-Triangle's head. Phil can't get the ball in to Kobe's hands? Kobe had 31 points in defeat. In Milwaukee, Dallas trailed big, but Nowitzki scored 38 points to bring them back and win the game in the final minute. Andrew Bogut had a 16-17 night.
D-Wade had 35 points today after he looked to be hurt on a hard fall. Luckily for the Heat fans, he came back and as usual dominated the fourth quarter with 16 points to end up with 35 points. What's up with this guy and the fourth quarter? Portland had no answers to him. T-Mac had 28 and 12 assists to beat Sacto in OT. Ron Artest had 39 points for the Kings. Apparently he is hoping for another trade and is playing hard for it.
Toronto @ Chicago - 112-111
San Antonio @ New Jersey - 107-85
Interesting games on the board for Feb 14-th (Wednesday)
San Antonio @ Detroit - Should be a good one here with playoff intensity.
Denver @ Minnesota - Who's the second best team in the Northwest division?
Cleveland @ Utah - Crucial road test for the King before the All-star break.
Milwaukee @ Boston - Interesting only because the Celtics are riding a 18-game losing streak.
Phoenix @ Seattle - Can the Suns win on the road without Nash? A loss here might just wrap up the MVP trophy for Nash :-)
New Jersey @ Toronto - Vinsanity goes back to Toronto, possibly alone without Kidd or Jefferson, to face a red-hot Raptors team.
New York went in to LA and beat the Lakers again. They beat them at home when Kobe was suspended and now on the road on a dunk by Eddie Curry with 7 secs to go. Curiously enough, Kobe did not even touch the ball in the Lakers final possession which ended with a Lamar Odom air-ball! Sometimes you wonder what's going on in Big-Cheif-Triangle's head. Phil can't get the ball in to Kobe's hands? Kobe had 31 points in defeat. In Milwaukee, Dallas trailed big, but Nowitzki scored 38 points to bring them back and win the game in the final minute. Andrew Bogut had a 16-17 night.
D-Wade had 35 points today after he looked to be hurt on a hard fall. Luckily for the Heat fans, he came back and as usual dominated the fourth quarter with 16 points to end up with 35 points. What's up with this guy and the fourth quarter? Portland had no answers to him. T-Mac had 28 and 12 assists to beat Sacto in OT. Ron Artest had 39 points for the Kings. Apparently he is hoping for another trade and is playing hard for it.
Toronto @ Chicago - 112-111
San Antonio @ New Jersey - 107-85
Interesting games on the board for Feb 14-th (Wednesday)
San Antonio @ Detroit - Should be a good one here with playoff intensity.
Denver @ Minnesota - Who's the second best team in the Northwest division?
Cleveland @ Utah - Crucial road test for the King before the All-star break.
Milwaukee @ Boston - Interesting only because the Celtics are riding a 18-game losing streak.
Phoenix @ Seattle - Can the Suns win on the road without Nash? A loss here might just wrap up the MVP trophy for Nash :-)
New Jersey @ Toronto - Vinsanity goes back to Toronto, possibly alone without Kidd or Jefferson, to face a red-hot Raptors team.
NBA notes - 02/12/2007
Not a very busy (or interesting) day in the NBA. The paper-Clips got blown out at Detroit without Elton Brand. Another string game for C-Webb. He had 19-9-2 in just 28 mins. This deal is working out really well for Detroit. Warriors lost at Denver and also got the bad news that Baron Davis is going to have another knee surgery. Baron Davis is killing them every game he doesn't play. I mean they have very little talent outside of him and it seems like they never have a full team for more than a few straight games because he is so fragile. This guy is one of the best guards in the league when healthy, but he rarely is healthy. This injury pretty much wraps up another lottery season for the Warriors unless Mullin pulls another shocker by getting Pau Gasol or something. Atlanta went in to Utah and lost as expected. Their road-luck finally dried up. Deron Williams had a 7-9-6 night. He is quietly shaping up as one of the top point guards in the league. Apparently he was upset that Sports Illustrated didn't list him as one of their point guards of the future in their NBA season preview edition. I don't blame him. I was surprised to not see him in that article either. They even had his backup Dee Brown in that list.
Golden State @ Denver - 111-123
Atlanta @ Utah - 76-102
Interesting games on the board for Feb 13-th (Tuesday)
Toronto @ Chicago - 2 good L-Eastern conference teams meet up.
San Antonio @ New Jersey - Spurs road trip continues. Lets see if they can win @ NJ.
Golden State @ Denver - 111-123
Atlanta @ Utah - 76-102
Interesting games on the board for Feb 13-th (Tuesday)
Toronto @ Chicago - 2 good L-Eastern conference teams meet up.
San Antonio @ New Jersey - Spurs road trip continues. Lets see if they can win @ NJ.
Monday, February 12, 2007
NBA notes - 02/11/2007
Another "DNP" for Nash and another "L" for the Suns. One of the reasons Nash won the MVP 2 years back was because of how bad the Suns played when he was out for a few games. Sometimes you appreciate things only when you don't have it and realize how much you miss it. That might be happening to Nash again now. The Suns are 2-2 without him the last 4 games. On top of that, Boris Diaw also missed this game. Chicago won this one with a great run in the money quarter. They outscored the Suns 37-19 in the 4-th. The "young 3" of the Bulls were great today. Hinrich had 29, Gordon 27 and Deng had 29. I am really impressed with the Bulls and Hinrich. They are well-coached (Scott Skiles is a hard-nosed, defensive minded task-master), fundamentally sound and they move the ball real well. Hinrich in particular runs the offense real well. He is not a great point guard or a phenomenal shooter, but he plays under control and just seem to knows what's going on all the time. But I am hurt whenever I see Deng knowing that he could have been a Sun! The Suns traded that pick away to save some money. He could have been a perfect fit for this offense with his athleticism and length. Imagine Deng backing up Marion !
Shaq and D-Wade did strut their stuff today against the Spurs. D-Wade is something else in the fourth quarter. It's amazing how he steps up in the money quarter almost on a whim. He just pulls up and starts shooting those long jumpers from the center of the court and they always seem to go in in the 4-th even if the same shots are off target in the other 3 quarters. The guy had 20 of his 26 points in the fourth and controlled this game. Shaq had a strong 16-7 night as well. The Heat have also gotten Eddie Jones back now and he is contributing on both ends of the floor as always. I thought the Heat were done this year, but looks like they might have a deep playoff run in them again. As for the Spurs, another bad loss with Timmy having a bad day. Manu had 26.
Kobe and the Lakers lost again though Kobe put on a show on national TV just like Wade. He had 36 points on a variety of jaw-dropping plays, and even though LeBron had a mediocre game, the Lakers couldn't close it out. Good win for the Cavs. They have major issues on offense. LeBron is not yet a complete offensive player like Kobe. He is still young and improving. So they get stagnant on offense sometimes and they don't have enough dependable shooters around him. Larry Hughes is good, but can't shoot. Same with Eric Snow. So when they double LeBron, he doesn't know what to do and the offense just stalls. This is the problem with defensive-minded coaches. They just don't cut the offense loose. They have some talented offensive players, but they don't play them because they are not good defensively or whatever. Today, they were saved by Sasha Pavlovic. He is the only guy who was willing to take the initiative and create some plays on offense instead of just standing there and watching LeBron. He had 21 points and I hope coach Brown use him more. There's some talk by LeBron about running more and I think they need to do it. LeBron is unstoppable in the open-court and he is still a couple of years away from being the same in the half-court. Daniel Gibson started today and hopefully thats a good sign for the offense.
Clippers got crushed at Indiana. Indiana seems to be doing well with the new lineup. More well defined roles and mature play seems to be paying off. Gilbert Arenas claimed he will score 50 points against the Blazers on Feb 11-th. He came out today and shot 3-15 for 9 points! Thats shocking to see Gil not drop 50. The Wizards lost and coach Eddie Jordan ripped his team for a lack of leadership outside of Antawn Jamsion. I guess he didnt' like Gil calling his shot like that and I don't blame him. Also, we all forgot about Jamison this year and they have now lost a bunch of games without him. Atlanta has now won 5 straight road games with a close 106-105 win at Golden State. Josh Smith had 29-10 and had some ridiculous dunks! The Hawks have a good young nucleus with a lot of lanky, wiry thin, young athletes. The arms on Marvin Williams seem to extend from Atlanta to Miami or something! What's the wingspan on that dude? Speaking of ridiculous dunks, the dunk of the day was by Andre Iguodala against Dallas.
San Antonio @ Miami - 85-100
LA Lakers @ Cleveland - 90-99
Chicago @ Phoenix - 116-103
LA Clippers @ Indiana - 80-94
Interesting games on the board for Feb 12-th (Monday)
Golden State @ Denver - Could be relevant for the 8-th spot on the West though the Warriors usually stink on the road.
Atlanta @ Utah - Atlanta has won 5 straight on the road. Can they keep it going at Utah? Me think not!
Shaq and D-Wade did strut their stuff today against the Spurs. D-Wade is something else in the fourth quarter. It's amazing how he steps up in the money quarter almost on a whim. He just pulls up and starts shooting those long jumpers from the center of the court and they always seem to go in in the 4-th even if the same shots are off target in the other 3 quarters. The guy had 20 of his 26 points in the fourth and controlled this game. Shaq had a strong 16-7 night as well. The Heat have also gotten Eddie Jones back now and he is contributing on both ends of the floor as always. I thought the Heat were done this year, but looks like they might have a deep playoff run in them again. As for the Spurs, another bad loss with Timmy having a bad day. Manu had 26.
Kobe and the Lakers lost again though Kobe put on a show on national TV just like Wade. He had 36 points on a variety of jaw-dropping plays, and even though LeBron had a mediocre game, the Lakers couldn't close it out. Good win for the Cavs. They have major issues on offense. LeBron is not yet a complete offensive player like Kobe. He is still young and improving. So they get stagnant on offense sometimes and they don't have enough dependable shooters around him. Larry Hughes is good, but can't shoot. Same with Eric Snow. So when they double LeBron, he doesn't know what to do and the offense just stalls. This is the problem with defensive-minded coaches. They just don't cut the offense loose. They have some talented offensive players, but they don't play them because they are not good defensively or whatever. Today, they were saved by Sasha Pavlovic. He is the only guy who was willing to take the initiative and create some plays on offense instead of just standing there and watching LeBron. He had 21 points and I hope coach Brown use him more. There's some talk by LeBron about running more and I think they need to do it. LeBron is unstoppable in the open-court and he is still a couple of years away from being the same in the half-court. Daniel Gibson started today and hopefully thats a good sign for the offense.
Clippers got crushed at Indiana. Indiana seems to be doing well with the new lineup. More well defined roles and mature play seems to be paying off. Gilbert Arenas claimed he will score 50 points against the Blazers on Feb 11-th. He came out today and shot 3-15 for 9 points! Thats shocking to see Gil not drop 50. The Wizards lost and coach Eddie Jordan ripped his team for a lack of leadership outside of Antawn Jamsion. I guess he didnt' like Gil calling his shot like that and I don't blame him. Also, we all forgot about Jamison this year and they have now lost a bunch of games without him. Atlanta has now won 5 straight road games with a close 106-105 win at Golden State. Josh Smith had 29-10 and had some ridiculous dunks! The Hawks have a good young nucleus with a lot of lanky, wiry thin, young athletes. The arms on Marvin Williams seem to extend from Atlanta to Miami or something! What's the wingspan on that dude? Speaking of ridiculous dunks, the dunk of the day was by Andre Iguodala against Dallas.
San Antonio @ Miami - 85-100
LA Lakers @ Cleveland - 90-99
Chicago @ Phoenix - 116-103
LA Clippers @ Indiana - 80-94
Interesting games on the board for Feb 12-th (Monday)
Golden State @ Denver - Could be relevant for the 8-th spot on the West though the Warriors usually stink on the road.
Atlanta @ Utah - Atlanta has won 5 straight on the road. Can they keep it going at Utah? Me think not!
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Phoenix Suns notes - 02/10/2007
Suns are still doing well. Their record is 39-11 and are 2 games behind the Mavs. They have lost 3 of the last 6 since their 17 game winning streak. One of those losses was the last game of a long road trip at Minnesota with KG scoring 40+. The other loss was yesterday without Nash against our archenemy Joe Johnson and the Atlanta Hawks. They also won at Denver when Nash left the game early and beat Portland in OT on the road without Nash. They beat Spurs in this 6 game stretch in a close one where the Spurs looked every bit the contender they have been the last few years. That was a good win for the Suns.
The one bad loss was against the Jazz at home. This was shocking to see the Jazz kind of dominate the Suns at home! The Suns probably wanted to win this game badly since they have already lost twice to the Jazz. Now it's 0-3. Mehmet Okur looked like a freaking cross between Wilt Chamberlain and Steve Kerr! He absolutely dominated the inside and as always nailed those 3's and other perimeter shots. The Jazz are a big team and the Suns were over-matched size-wise as always. And all this without Boozer! AK-47, Boozer and Okur may be the best front-line we have seen in a long time. There's not a single thing these 3 guys combined can't do. They are big, talented, athletic and versatile. And Deron Williams is one of the better PGs in this league and sky is the limit for the Jazz if Deron keeps improving. The Suns still came back and made a game out of it and they might have even won it if Marion and Barbosa were not in foul trouble. With all that said, the discouraging part was how easily the Jazz scored throughout this game and how much trouble the Suns had defending them. The Suns have not shown us yet that they can handle the Jazz in a 7 game playoff series.
The good news for the the Suns is that Amare Stoudemire is having a great stretch right now. He is truly STAT right now - standing tall and talented. He had 28 against the Jazz, 36 against Denver, 36 against the Blazers and 29 against the Hawks. He has taken even more of a scoring load with Nash out. By the way, his field goal percentage is still a whopping 60%. The only issue for the Suns here could be that Marion I think is kind of losing his touches to Amare. His numbers are down the last couple of games. Hopefully he doesn't sulk and go into the tank. He even made it to the "HOT-NOT" list for NBA fantasy players on the "NOT" side! His FG% is down as well which means he is still getting some shots, just not converting enough of them. Hopefully he turns it around and becomes the MATRIX we know again. After all, he will be at the all-star game for the Suns along with Nash and Amare for a reason and he sure can get back to that all-star level soon.
The one bad loss was against the Jazz at home. This was shocking to see the Jazz kind of dominate the Suns at home! The Suns probably wanted to win this game badly since they have already lost twice to the Jazz. Now it's 0-3. Mehmet Okur looked like a freaking cross between Wilt Chamberlain and Steve Kerr! He absolutely dominated the inside and as always nailed those 3's and other perimeter shots. The Jazz are a big team and the Suns were over-matched size-wise as always. And all this without Boozer! AK-47, Boozer and Okur may be the best front-line we have seen in a long time. There's not a single thing these 3 guys combined can't do. They are big, talented, athletic and versatile. And Deron Williams is one of the better PGs in this league and sky is the limit for the Jazz if Deron keeps improving. The Suns still came back and made a game out of it and they might have even won it if Marion and Barbosa were not in foul trouble. With all that said, the discouraging part was how easily the Jazz scored throughout this game and how much trouble the Suns had defending them. The Suns have not shown us yet that they can handle the Jazz in a 7 game playoff series.
The good news for the the Suns is that Amare Stoudemire is having a great stretch right now. He is truly STAT right now - standing tall and talented. He had 28 against the Jazz, 36 against Denver, 36 against the Blazers and 29 against the Hawks. He has taken even more of a scoring load with Nash out. By the way, his field goal percentage is still a whopping 60%. The only issue for the Suns here could be that Marion I think is kind of losing his touches to Amare. His numbers are down the last couple of games. Hopefully he doesn't sulk and go into the tank. He even made it to the "HOT-NOT" list for NBA fantasy players on the "NOT" side! His FG% is down as well which means he is still getting some shots, just not converting enough of them. Hopefully he turns it around and becomes the MATRIX we know again. After all, he will be at the all-star game for the Suns along with Nash and Amare for a reason and he sure can get back to that all-star level soon.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
NBA notes - 02/10/2007
Rasheed Wallace came to play today against an all-star forward Chris Bosh and the Raptors. The Raptors are making news now behind Bosh. He is a true all-star in-spite of some people thinking he made it purely based on the Canadian fan votes. It's one of my philosophies in life that quite often 2 things that sound contradictory can both be equally true on careful analysis. This is one of those situations. Bosh is a deserving all-star and he probably did get a lot of Canadian votes being the star of the only Canadian NBA team. In any case, Sheed outplayed him today with a 28-7 night. Bosh had a bad night and just shot 5-15 for 14 points. Detroit is doing real well right now with Webber in the middle. That dude can really pass the ball!
Orlando lost to NJ after a big win yesterday. The Magic have actually been struggling since a great Nov. Not sure what's happening there. They should be good enough right now to be a major player in the L-Eastern conference. As for the Nets, looks like they can beat anybody when the good Vinsanoty shows up and lose to anybody when the bad Vinsanity is in the house. Today it was the good with 32 points. Talking about being good, Mehmet Okur is right now balling out of his mind. Today he scored 29 points to lead the Jazz over the Knicks. He is carrying them without Boozer. The Jazz have a lot of talent with AK-47, Deron Williams, Boozer and Okur with D-Fish and Harping to back them up. They are going to be real good if Deron keeps getting better and better. Apparently he trained with John Stockton this off-season!
There are couple of other things happening in the NBA. John Amaechi, a journeyman center is coming out of the closet. Apparently he grew up in UK and is currently writing a book where he says he is gay. My response is "whatever". He may be the first NBA guy to come out, but it's just not that interesting to me. I just don't have any problems with Gays or anybody for that matter. The other news is D-Wade V Cuban. Apparently Wade questioned Nowitzki's leadership and Cuban jumped to defend his boy. I am surprised Wade spoke like that. May be his head is getting too big finally. But Cubes line about the buffet-line is classic. It's all reproduced below.
Wade - At the end of the day, you're remembered for what you did at the end. . . . I think that's the reason - Dirk says they gave us the championship last year, but he's the reason they lost the championship, because he wasn't the leader that he's supposed to be in the closing moments. That's because of great defense by us, but also he wasn't assertive enough as a leader's supposed to be.
Cuban - Say what ? Is this the DWade of some of the lamest, boring commercials known to man ? Commercials that are singlehandedly responsible for selling more commercial skipping TIVOs than anything else on TV ? I guess you have earned the right to criticize Dirk with an obvious display of your own leadership skills. I know Shaq appreciates your leadership as well. He called out your team a few weeks ago saying it was "embarrassing". Great leadership DWade. Your coach sat players for being fat. I guess you couldn't lead them away from the buffet. You are an amazing player Dwayne. I love watching you shoot free throws. What you know about Dirk's leadership skills is non existent. You don't have a clue. Your ability to evaluate leadership skills .... well you obviously have an overinflated value of your own. Did you take business classes at Marquette ? Now we know why Charles won't put you in his 5.
Orlando @ New Jersey - 78-93
Interesting games on the board for Feb 11-th (Sunday)
Expanded Sunday schedule since NFL is over!
San Antonio @ Miami - ABC game. D-Wade and Shaq get to strut their stuff on national TV against the Spurs.
LA Lakers @ Cleveland - Kobe-V-LeBron. Must see TV.
Chicago @ Phoenix - The Suns welcome back Nash against a decent opponent.
LA Clippers @ Indiana - Which is the better mediocre team that can make the playoffs in it's conference?
Orlando lost to NJ after a big win yesterday. The Magic have actually been struggling since a great Nov. Not sure what's happening there. They should be good enough right now to be a major player in the L-Eastern conference. As for the Nets, looks like they can beat anybody when the good Vinsanoty shows up and lose to anybody when the bad Vinsanity is in the house. Today it was the good with 32 points. Talking about being good, Mehmet Okur is right now balling out of his mind. Today he scored 29 points to lead the Jazz over the Knicks. He is carrying them without Boozer. The Jazz have a lot of talent with AK-47, Deron Williams, Boozer and Okur with D-Fish and Harping to back them up. They are going to be real good if Deron keeps getting better and better. Apparently he trained with John Stockton this off-season!
There are couple of other things happening in the NBA. John Amaechi, a journeyman center is coming out of the closet. Apparently he grew up in UK and is currently writing a book where he says he is gay. My response is "whatever". He may be the first NBA guy to come out, but it's just not that interesting to me. I just don't have any problems with Gays or anybody for that matter. The other news is D-Wade V Cuban. Apparently Wade questioned Nowitzki's leadership and Cuban jumped to defend his boy. I am surprised Wade spoke like that. May be his head is getting too big finally. But Cubes line about the buffet-line is classic. It's all reproduced below.
Wade - At the end of the day, you're remembered for what you did at the end. . . . I think that's the reason - Dirk says they gave us the championship last year, but he's the reason they lost the championship, because he wasn't the leader that he's supposed to be in the closing moments. That's because of great defense by us, but also he wasn't assertive enough as a leader's supposed to be.
Cuban - Say what ? Is this the DWade of some of the lamest, boring commercials known to man ? Commercials that are singlehandedly responsible for selling more commercial skipping TIVOs than anything else on TV ? I guess you have earned the right to criticize Dirk with an obvious display of your own leadership skills. I know Shaq appreciates your leadership as well. He called out your team a few weeks ago saying it was "embarrassing". Great leadership DWade. Your coach sat players for being fat. I guess you couldn't lead them away from the buffet. You are an amazing player Dwayne. I love watching you shoot free throws. What you know about Dirk's leadership skills is non existent. You don't have a clue. Your ability to evaluate leadership skills .... well you obviously have an overinflated value of your own. Did you take business classes at Marquette ? Now we know why Charles won't put you in his 5.
Orlando @ New Jersey - 78-93
Interesting games on the board for Feb 11-th (Sunday)
Expanded Sunday schedule since NFL is over!
San Antonio @ Miami - ABC game. D-Wade and Shaq get to strut their stuff on national TV against the Spurs.
LA Lakers @ Cleveland - Kobe-V-LeBron. Must see TV.
Chicago @ Phoenix - The Suns welcome back Nash against a decent opponent.
LA Clippers @ Indiana - Which is the better mediocre team that can make the playoffs in it's conference?
NBA notes - 02/09/2007
Kind of a shameful loss for the Suns today against their ex-compadre Joe Johnson and the Hawks. They were missing Nash and such defeats are expected when he is not playing. But the hopes were up because they won at Denver when Nash missed most of the game and also at Portland though the Blazers took them to overtime. Also of all the teams to lose to at home, the Hawks are one of the worst choices. They have Joe and they are a horrible team. The fans should be pissed at this. This is the first time Joe has won in 4 tries, but this is a big one for him. He had 32-8-5 in this one. Amare continued his great streak with 29-13. He has been on a tear lately and his scoring is even better with Nash out. He has had 2 30+ games and 29 in this one. Finally he is getting more touches and Marion's role on offense seems to be shrinking a bit. Hope he is fine with it.
Dwight Howard won the game for Orlando against the Spurs on an alley-hoop dunk off an inbounds pass at the end of the game. He is awesome! He also had a stunning block on Parker just before that. This game was kind of a passing of the torch in some sense as Howard might very well be the next Duncan - a franchise altering big man. He had 30-8 against Timmy's 24-16. The Lakers lost at Toronto. The Lakers are struggling on this road trip and Kobe is not able to pull them out of it. They have lost 6 of 10 now. The Clippers won a close one 90-89 at Phily. Boston lost their 17-th straight! This is becoming a story now. Paul Pierce returned to play 20 minutes in this one.
King James scored 29 points to crush the Heat despite 27 from Wade. Dallas dominated the Rockets on the day Josh Howard get picked to the all-star team by the Commish. The Bulls lost a close game at Golden State in OT. This was a fun one as the Warriors came back from 14 down at the start of the fourth to push the game into OT and then won it 123-121 when Ben Gordon missed a wide-open 3 at the buzzer.
San Antonio @ Orlando - 104-106
LA Clippers @ Philadelphia - 90-89
Miami @ Cleveland - 79-103
Houston @ Dallas - 74-95
Atlanta @ Phoenix - 120-111
Chicago @ Golden State - 121-123
Interesting games on the board for Feb 10-th (Saturday)
Orlando @ New Jersey - Can the Magic follow up that great win against the Spurs with another one on the road here?
Dwight Howard won the game for Orlando against the Spurs on an alley-hoop dunk off an inbounds pass at the end of the game. He is awesome! He also had a stunning block on Parker just before that. This game was kind of a passing of the torch in some sense as Howard might very well be the next Duncan - a franchise altering big man. He had 30-8 against Timmy's 24-16. The Lakers lost at Toronto. The Lakers are struggling on this road trip and Kobe is not able to pull them out of it. They have lost 6 of 10 now. The Clippers won a close one 90-89 at Phily. Boston lost their 17-th straight! This is becoming a story now. Paul Pierce returned to play 20 minutes in this one.
King James scored 29 points to crush the Heat despite 27 from Wade. Dallas dominated the Rockets on the day Josh Howard get picked to the all-star team by the Commish. The Bulls lost a close game at Golden State in OT. This was a fun one as the Warriors came back from 14 down at the start of the fourth to push the game into OT and then won it 123-121 when Ben Gordon missed a wide-open 3 at the buzzer.
San Antonio @ Orlando - 104-106
LA Clippers @ Philadelphia - 90-89
Miami @ Cleveland - 79-103
Houston @ Dallas - 74-95
Atlanta @ Phoenix - 120-111
Chicago @ Golden State - 121-123
Interesting games on the board for Feb 10-th (Saturday)
Orlando @ New Jersey - Can the Magic follow up that great win against the Spurs with another one on the road here?
Friday, February 09, 2007
NFL notes - 2/1/2007 - Super Bowl is over.
Super Bowl is finally over and I am glad Peyton and Dungy are the Champions. One of the few times nice guys seem to have won in life. Though Peyton's humility does seem a little fake sometimes, I still think he is genuinely a nice and clean-cut guy. But the guy I am really happy for is coach Tony Dungy. He seems like a true gentleman and he is the best guy to hold the honor of being the first ever black coach to win the Super Bowl.
But before I talk about the game itself, I need to get something off my chest. You really can't spell hypocrisy without the words N-F-L! I was in Vegas for the Super Bowl. Vegas is just a great place to be in general, but it's really fun to be there for the Super Bowl. With their 30+ HD television sets, huge screens, comfortable seats, free drinks and hot waitresses in sexy costumes, sports books may be the closest thing to heaven on Earth! Apparently the casinos used to have hugely popular public parties for the Super Bowl until the NFL sent them a letter few years back threatening to sue them if they continue to show the Super Bowl at their parties. NFL doesn't want their name to be associated with the casinos and the sports books are the only place where the casinos can legally show the game. Even in their betting sheets, some casinos call it the "pro football championship game" and not the "Super Bowl" because NFL doesn't like them using the term Super Bowl. What a load of garbage! I know football is king in this country, but if you pull gambling (including fantasy football) out of football, it just might end up being the next NHL. For the league to pretend like it's too good for Vegas is laughable. Don't tell me your 35 minute half-time show has nothing to do with the fact that the sports books have to come up with second half prop bets! I understand the sports leagues need to stay far away from the gambling dens, but this is NFL going way too far for no sensible reason.
As for the game itself, it was kind of a letdown. It started really well for the Bears with Devin Hester taking the opening kickoff to the house! It was an electric play to kick-off the game after everybody spent 2 weeks talking about how the Colts need to stop Devin Hester. Peyton also threw an early interception. It all went downhill from there for the Bears. The Colts dominated the game from that point on though the score stayed close and held our attention well in to the third quarter. But the Colts clearly took control of this game at some point in the second quarter. There were a lot of turnovers because of the rain and I think I saw 2 back-to-back turnovers on consecutive plays for the first time.
Rex Grossman was truly horrible in this game! This guy couldn't do anything right in the second half. Though the Colts were the better team, the weather, turnovers and the quick start kept the Bears in this game for a long time. If only Rex had even made a couple of big plays in the second half, this could have been a much better game. Rex fumbled the snap a couple of times, threw horrible interceptions a couple other times and just refused to keep the Bears in the game! It was not all his fault because the defense couldn't stop the run, but he didn't help even a bit. He got excellent field position every time because the Colts didn't want to kick off to Hester anymore. In fact, Rex predicts this correctly after the first TD. HBO's Inside the NFL shows "sexy Rexy" running around on the sidelines after Hester's TD saying "we got excellent field position the rest of the game because they wont kick to him anymore". Unfortunately that was Rex's first and last good call of the game. I wouldn't blame the Bears if they look elsewhere for a QB next year. The problem with Rex now is, if you play bad against the Lions in Oct, nobody is watching. But the whole World is watching on a Super Bowl Sunday and his every mistake is just magnified. It's going to be tough for him to erase this unless he improves by leaps and bound.
As for the Colts, the rushing attack was on and Addai and Rhodes carved up the Bears. Peyton managed the game well and didn't have to be spectacular. The Colts D was good too and Bob Sanders seems to be getting all the credit for their sudden turnaround in the playoffs. A deserving champ indeed. It's been 5, 6 years coming for Peyton. A true franchise player. This makes him one of the biggest names in Sports. Michael Irvin says he is now the MJ of the NFL. There might be some truth to it. He is the best player in the league and now he has a ring to prove it.
All in all a good season and it's time to wave goodbye to football.
But before I talk about the game itself, I need to get something off my chest. You really can't spell hypocrisy without the words N-F-L! I was in Vegas for the Super Bowl. Vegas is just a great place to be in general, but it's really fun to be there for the Super Bowl. With their 30+ HD television sets, huge screens, comfortable seats, free drinks and hot waitresses in sexy costumes, sports books may be the closest thing to heaven on Earth! Apparently the casinos used to have hugely popular public parties for the Super Bowl until the NFL sent them a letter few years back threatening to sue them if they continue to show the Super Bowl at their parties. NFL doesn't want their name to be associated with the casinos and the sports books are the only place where the casinos can legally show the game. Even in their betting sheets, some casinos call it the "pro football championship game" and not the "Super Bowl" because NFL doesn't like them using the term Super Bowl. What a load of garbage! I know football is king in this country, but if you pull gambling (including fantasy football) out of football, it just might end up being the next NHL. For the league to pretend like it's too good for Vegas is laughable. Don't tell me your 35 minute half-time show has nothing to do with the fact that the sports books have to come up with second half prop bets! I understand the sports leagues need to stay far away from the gambling dens, but this is NFL going way too far for no sensible reason.
As for the game itself, it was kind of a letdown. It started really well for the Bears with Devin Hester taking the opening kickoff to the house! It was an electric play to kick-off the game after everybody spent 2 weeks talking about how the Colts need to stop Devin Hester. Peyton also threw an early interception. It all went downhill from there for the Bears. The Colts dominated the game from that point on though the score stayed close and held our attention well in to the third quarter. But the Colts clearly took control of this game at some point in the second quarter. There were a lot of turnovers because of the rain and I think I saw 2 back-to-back turnovers on consecutive plays for the first time.
Rex Grossman was truly horrible in this game! This guy couldn't do anything right in the second half. Though the Colts were the better team, the weather, turnovers and the quick start kept the Bears in this game for a long time. If only Rex had even made a couple of big plays in the second half, this could have been a much better game. Rex fumbled the snap a couple of times, threw horrible interceptions a couple other times and just refused to keep the Bears in the game! It was not all his fault because the defense couldn't stop the run, but he didn't help even a bit. He got excellent field position every time because the Colts didn't want to kick off to Hester anymore. In fact, Rex predicts this correctly after the first TD. HBO's Inside the NFL shows "sexy Rexy" running around on the sidelines after Hester's TD saying "we got excellent field position the rest of the game because they wont kick to him anymore". Unfortunately that was Rex's first and last good call of the game. I wouldn't blame the Bears if they look elsewhere for a QB next year. The problem with Rex now is, if you play bad against the Lions in Oct, nobody is watching. But the whole World is watching on a Super Bowl Sunday and his every mistake is just magnified. It's going to be tough for him to erase this unless he improves by leaps and bound.
As for the Colts, the rushing attack was on and Addai and Rhodes carved up the Bears. Peyton managed the game well and didn't have to be spectacular. The Colts D was good too and Bob Sanders seems to be getting all the credit for their sudden turnaround in the playoffs. A deserving champ indeed. It's been 5, 6 years coming for Peyton. A true franchise player. This makes him one of the biggest names in Sports. Michael Irvin says he is now the MJ of the NFL. There might be some truth to it. He is the best player in the league and now he has a ring to prove it.
All in all a good season and it's time to wave goodbye to football.
Friday, February 02, 2007
NFL notes - 2/1/2007 - Super Bowl Predictions
The Super Bowl is almost here. All the hype and all the hours and hours of analysis on ESPN and it's getting old already. There's not much of a story-line, there are no great "characters" in either team and there's nothing much to analyze either. Still the radio and TV shows have been covering this for 2 weeks because they have to. Here's this Super Bowl in a nut-shell.
1) Colts are the better team on paper and are a 7 point favorite.
2) Peyton Manning is the best quarterback in the league. Bears probably can't stop him. He is in several ads and deservedly so.
3) Rex Grossman is not that good. He is up-and-down on a weekly basis.
4) Devin Hester is a great Kick and Punt returner. Colts special teams are not that good and this is an area of strength for the Bears.
5) The Super Bowl features 2 black coaches for the first time ever and both these guys are classy, mild-mannered gentlemen.
6) The Bears have a good linebacker in Brian Urlacher. Some might say he is a little over-rated and I might agree.
7) The Bears RB is Thomas Jones whose parents did a wonderful job of raising multiple kids working day and night at the mines. His younger brother is Julius Jones, the RB for the Cowboys.
There's nothing more to know here and only 7 is even a marginally interesting story. As for the game, I think the Colts win. The Bears might keep it close (or get blown out!), but they probably can't win. They stay close if Sexy Rexy plays well and Devin Hester gets them in good field position. The Bears offense and Hester have to be as good as they can be for them to compete in this one. They definitely have a shot, but not a great shot.
As for who do I want to win, I like Peyton Manning and I love Tony Dungy. I think Dungy is one of the classiest guys in the NFL and I have always liked him. I like Peyton Manning too as a QB and as a person. So I definitely want the Colts to win ... I think. But there's an evil part of my mind that wants Peyton to lose and I am not too proud of that. I have always been a big fan of Dan Marino. It's a travesty that Dan couldn't win the Super Bowl with his talent. Peyton is often compared to Dan because of how good he is as a QB, but also because he has not won the Super Bowl. Part of me feels like he should not win one so that he doesn't surpass Marino in the eyes of the so-called "experts". I feel like Dan needs company and Peyton is the best company he can have! It was Elway for all those years before Terrell Davis helped Elway change that. I wonder what Marino thinks about Manning winning one. I am sure he is a little jealous. After all, we are all human beings.
1) Colts are the better team on paper and are a 7 point favorite.
2) Peyton Manning is the best quarterback in the league. Bears probably can't stop him. He is in several ads and deservedly so.
3) Rex Grossman is not that good. He is up-and-down on a weekly basis.
4) Devin Hester is a great Kick and Punt returner. Colts special teams are not that good and this is an area of strength for the Bears.
5) The Super Bowl features 2 black coaches for the first time ever and both these guys are classy, mild-mannered gentlemen.
6) The Bears have a good linebacker in Brian Urlacher. Some might say he is a little over-rated and I might agree.
7) The Bears RB is Thomas Jones whose parents did a wonderful job of raising multiple kids working day and night at the mines. His younger brother is Julius Jones, the RB for the Cowboys.
There's nothing more to know here and only 7 is even a marginally interesting story. As for the game, I think the Colts win. The Bears might keep it close (or get blown out!), but they probably can't win. They stay close if Sexy Rexy plays well and Devin Hester gets them in good field position. The Bears offense and Hester have to be as good as they can be for them to compete in this one. They definitely have a shot, but not a great shot.
As for who do I want to win, I like Peyton Manning and I love Tony Dungy. I think Dungy is one of the classiest guys in the NFL and I have always liked him. I like Peyton Manning too as a QB and as a person. So I definitely want the Colts to win ... I think. But there's an evil part of my mind that wants Peyton to lose and I am not too proud of that. I have always been a big fan of Dan Marino. It's a travesty that Dan couldn't win the Super Bowl with his talent. Peyton is often compared to Dan because of how good he is as a QB, but also because he has not won the Super Bowl. Part of me feels like he should not win one so that he doesn't surpass Marino in the eyes of the so-called "experts". I feel like Dan needs company and Peyton is the best company he can have! It was Elway for all those years before Terrell Davis helped Elway change that. I wonder what Marino thinks about Manning winning one. I am sure he is a little jealous. After all, we are all human beings.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
NBA notes - 02/01/2007
Great win today for the Suns against the hated Spurs. This game reminded me of the Spurs win against the Lakers on Sunday where they won in-spite of not playing too well. Suns did the same thing today. They didn't play too well. They scored just 16 points in the first quarter! They did get it going in the second quarter. But won despite not being on top of their game and put the game away in the fourth quarter. The game was a lot closer than what the final score suggests and the Spurs probably faded in the fourth quarter because they were playing on back-to-back nights. Also, Ginobli kneed Amare in his "unmentionables" and Amare got up to fight him for a bit before the pain kicked in and he had to curl up for a while. It kind of looked dirty though everybody have their knees extended when they go for the lay-up or dunk. I think they do it more as a protection mechanism to save themselves, may be to protect their "unmentionables"! But in this case, it looked like Ginobli had it extended a little bit too much. The crowd booed Ginobli every time he touched the ball after that. This incident might have also sparked the Suns in the fourth.
All in all a great victory for the Suns on a day they didn't have Bell for most of the day and they couldn't stop Ginobli or Parker who had 32 and 20 respectively. They also couldn't hit the 3 at their usual clip without Raja. They hit 6/16. Of course the Spurs D had a lot to do with the Suns off-night too. As always their D was top notch. They choked off Nash for the most part by switching on all pick-and-rolls and putting Timmy on him. But this also put Tony Parker on Amare and Nash used Amare effectively a few times. But then the Spurs also sent another man if Nash tried to drive on Timmy. When the Suns went to Amare on Parker, Timmy immediately switched back to double him and actually got a couple of blocks on him at the rim. Spurs are so fundamentally strong and play such good team D, it's a treat to watch. But the Suns played good D in this one too especially in the fourth. Amare dominated the boards. He had a magnificent game with 24 points and 23 boards. This is the type of game Amare was born to play! If the Suns get this from him every night, they may be darn near unbeatable! This victory was pretty much Amare's.
The Cavs went in to Miami and got busted up by D-Wade. He had 41-4-5 with 12 turnovers. Thats too many turnovers, but he won the game single-handedly for them at the end. LeBron was not that good in this one with 17-6-9 but he came back from injury and played in this one just like Shaq. Shaq had a good game with 16-8 in this one.
San Antonio @ Phoenix - 87-103
Cleveland @ Miami - 89-92
Interesting games on the board for Feb 2-nd (Friday)
LA Lakers @ Indiana - Another test on the road for the Lakers against a team thats good at home.
New Jersey @ Orlando - Two mediocre L-Eastern teams facing off on a day with very few good games on the board.
All in all a great victory for the Suns on a day they didn't have Bell for most of the day and they couldn't stop Ginobli or Parker who had 32 and 20 respectively. They also couldn't hit the 3 at their usual clip without Raja. They hit 6/16. Of course the Spurs D had a lot to do with the Suns off-night too. As always their D was top notch. They choked off Nash for the most part by switching on all pick-and-rolls and putting Timmy on him. But this also put Tony Parker on Amare and Nash used Amare effectively a few times. But then the Spurs also sent another man if Nash tried to drive on Timmy. When the Suns went to Amare on Parker, Timmy immediately switched back to double him and actually got a couple of blocks on him at the rim. Spurs are so fundamentally strong and play such good team D, it's a treat to watch. But the Suns played good D in this one too especially in the fourth. Amare dominated the boards. He had a magnificent game with 24 points and 23 boards. This is the type of game Amare was born to play! If the Suns get this from him every night, they may be darn near unbeatable! This victory was pretty much Amare's.
The Cavs went in to Miami and got busted up by D-Wade. He had 41-4-5 with 12 turnovers. Thats too many turnovers, but he won the game single-handedly for them at the end. LeBron was not that good in this one with 17-6-9 but he came back from injury and played in this one just like Shaq. Shaq had a good game with 16-8 in this one.
San Antonio @ Phoenix - 87-103
Cleveland @ Miami - 89-92
Interesting games on the board for Feb 2-nd (Friday)
LA Lakers @ Indiana - Another test on the road for the Lakers against a team thats good at home.
New Jersey @ Orlando - Two mediocre L-Eastern teams facing off on a day with very few good games on the board.
NBA notes - 1/31/2007
Kobe was back today and unfortunately for Boston, they were on his way. He put on a show and you knew he was going to try and do that since he came back from a suspension. He had 43-8-8 against a Celtics team that has now lost 13 straight. With Paul Pierce hurt and Szczerbiak coming off the bench, the Celtics are starting Delonte West, Gerald Green, Ryan Gomes, Al Jefferson and Kendrick Perkins. What's this, the All-Star rookie Saturday? That lineup looks like a bad "sophomore" team in the rookie challenge. I think this is a "subtle" message to the Celtics fan that they might be rebuilding!
Spurs played a good one at Utah. Timmy had himself a game, but the Jazz won even without C-Booze. Okur controlled the game with 31-11. Looks like he is finally in Jerry Sloan's good books after a couple of tough years. He is a very talented, versatile, "euro-type" player whose range extends all the way to the 3-point line. He hit a big 3 in this one and both teams shot a lot of clutch threes in the final 4 minutes. But Horry missed one at the end that wrapped it up for the Jazz. Spurs are now going to Phoenix tomorrow for a big one. Tony Parker had a good game with 27 and 2 clutch threes in the 4-th. He rarely takes threes. It's interesting how the ball still goes through Ginobli in the final minutes. As good as Parker is, the Ginobli-Duncan pick-and-roll is still Pop's "2-minute drill" of choice.
Detroit went into New Jersey and took care of the Nets rather easily. A disappointing one for the Nets. Few more surprises today. The Wizards lost at Toronto as Bosh poured in 34 on 15/19 shooting. New York lost at Charlotte with Gerald Wallace scoring 42. This guy can do a lot of damage if given the opportunity. He plays hard, hustles all the time, is VERY athletic and has a decent offensive game. Denver lost at Portland. Denver might be in deep trouble. AI didn't play in this one, but thats no excuse to lose to Western "sophomore" team. Dallas won a tough one in Memphis 95-94. I would have expected higher scores out of this game, but I guess Dallas slowed Memphis down and won a close one without Josh Howard.
San Antonio @ Utah - 93-97
Detroit @ NJ - 113-89
Interesting games on the board for Feb 1-st (Thursday)
San Antonio @ Phoenix - Big one on TNT. But the Spurs are playing on a back-to-back.
Cleveland @ Miami - It would be a shame if LeBron is missing. Lebron and Wade put on a terrific show last year in one of these games.
Spurs played a good one at Utah. Timmy had himself a game, but the Jazz won even without C-Booze. Okur controlled the game with 31-11. Looks like he is finally in Jerry Sloan's good books after a couple of tough years. He is a very talented, versatile, "euro-type" player whose range extends all the way to the 3-point line. He hit a big 3 in this one and both teams shot a lot of clutch threes in the final 4 minutes. But Horry missed one at the end that wrapped it up for the Jazz. Spurs are now going to Phoenix tomorrow for a big one. Tony Parker had a good game with 27 and 2 clutch threes in the 4-th. He rarely takes threes. It's interesting how the ball still goes through Ginobli in the final minutes. As good as Parker is, the Ginobli-Duncan pick-and-roll is still Pop's "2-minute drill" of choice.
Detroit went into New Jersey and took care of the Nets rather easily. A disappointing one for the Nets. Few more surprises today. The Wizards lost at Toronto as Bosh poured in 34 on 15/19 shooting. New York lost at Charlotte with Gerald Wallace scoring 42. This guy can do a lot of damage if given the opportunity. He plays hard, hustles all the time, is VERY athletic and has a decent offensive game. Denver lost at Portland. Denver might be in deep trouble. AI didn't play in this one, but thats no excuse to lose to Western "sophomore" team. Dallas won a tough one in Memphis 95-94. I would have expected higher scores out of this game, but I guess Dallas slowed Memphis down and won a close one without Josh Howard.
San Antonio @ Utah - 93-97
Detroit @ NJ - 113-89
Interesting games on the board for Feb 1-st (Thursday)
San Antonio @ Phoenix - Big one on TNT. But the Spurs are playing on a back-to-back.
Cleveland @ Miami - It would be a shame if LeBron is missing. Lebron and Wade put on a terrific show last year in one of these games.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
NBA notes - 1/30/2007
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.
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.
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.
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