Basketbawful

Monday, April 24, 2006

2006 NBA Playoffs: The weekend's worst

The first weekend of the playoffs went pretty much according to seeding, with only my Indiana Pacers pulling off an upset. But win or lose, you can always count on someone, or some team, to be the rat feces in their fans' hot dog of life. Here are the top five crapapaloozas of the weekend.

Number 5 - The Vince Carter Shoot-A-Rama: A line of 31 points and 13 rebounds sounds pretty good, but shooting 12-for-33 (including 1-for-8 from three-point range) sounds decidedly less good. But it wasn't just the poor shooting, it was the kind of shots he was taking. He reverted to his late-Toronto form and started taking the sort of bailout, long-distance shots that make Lawrence Frank want to gouge out his own eyes. Even worse, his errant shot selection prevented the Nets from building any sort of cushion, and thereby allowed the Pacers to steal Game 1. On the upside, Carter did fall on his head, so the afternoon wasn't a complete waste.

Vince Carter falls on his face, proving thatGod watches basketball, and He is Canadian.
Number 4 - Kobe Bryant Comes Up Shooting Blanks: Kobe was an unstoppable scoring machine all season, especially against the Suns. But after averaging over 40 points per game against them during the regular season, in Game 1 he scored only 22 points on 7-for-22 shooting. It seems as though Kobe was trying out a new strategy: get my teammates involved early, lay low, and then assert myself only in crunch time. The problem was, by the time he did try to assert himself, he couldn't find a rythmn and the Lakers fell short in the end.

The Lakers' "Mr. Clutch" hides his face afterfailing to come through in the 4th quarter.
Number 3 - The Continuing Struggles of Larry Hughes: Larry Hughes hasn't exactly taken the town of Cleveland by storm, a fact that is due mostly to a nagging finger injury that has plagued him most of the season. Still, the brilliance of Lebron James has been more than enough to offset Hughes lack of contributions. Such was the case on Saturday, when Lebron's triple double -- and the Cavalier's subsequent easy victory -- overshadowed another disappointing outing for Hughes: 2 points on 1-for-9 shooting to go along with 5 fouls. This pill was made all the more bitter as it was administered by the team he left in the offseason.

He may look like an idiot, but this Cavs fan scoredonly two fewer points than Larry Hughes did.
Number 2 - The Same Old Clips: Yes, I know. The Clippers won Game 1. But I'll be damned if they didn't try their hardest to give it away. After building up a nice, comfortable, double-digit lead, the Clips reverted to their classic form by only scoring 13 points in the fourth quarter and almost giving the game away. Clippers fans, who are used to the team's historic failures, were actively praying on the sidelines. Either God took mercy on them, or he's just setting them up for a bigger, more painful disappointment later. I'm guessing that's it.

"Oy vey! They're going to blow it again!"
Number 1 - Don't Crown The Kings Just Yet: A few hours Ron Artest boldy predicted that the Kings were going to win the title this year, the Kings fell flat against the Spurs, losing by 34 points. The Kings' defense "held" the Spurs to 57 percent shooting and then tried to counter it with a brickfest (39 percent shooting). The primary culprit was Artest, who laid a 7-for-21 stink bomb. And the fact that Artest had his own words crammed back into his mouth couldn't have made me any happier.

The Spurs react to Ron Artest's playoff predictions.

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