umm, we didn't want the Lakers to feel bad about themselves after going 17-29 from the free-throw line?

9.) "KG fouled out. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to not have your best big man on the floor?"
(Laker response: uhm, yeah. We do.)

Wait, Gasol didn't play last night?

I think you just suggested Bynum is/was the Laker's best big man... possibly the stupidest thing I've ever read on this blog.

Plonden, thanks for the polite criticism. Charlie, take a lesson from Plonden about how to make a point without being a jag.

I've modified the wording.

ET

ladies and gentlemen, the difference between good and bad writing.

bring back basketbawful. this was an awful read.

somebody call the Wha-mbulance

It's a good day to be a laker fan

Speaking of big men, Gasol was money in that game. If he can play like that consistently, they'll be OK without Bynum.

Oh, and Chris Mihm's 2 points in 2.5min proved to be the difference in the game. Can we credit him personally with the win? I say: yes we can!

"I think you just suggested Bynum is/was the Laker's best big man... possibly the stupidest thing I've ever read on this blog."

I get your point, but...

The Spanish Marshmellow is a skilled player who happens to be tall. Not really a "big" man.

Wow, I tough Celtics would be able to beat a team that had Josh Powell as their 6th man... Oh and Garnett's 6 fould 4TO and Glen Davis 1-8 killed them. At least House and Pierce were there to keep the game close. The best team won the game, it's that simple.

Wow, Charlie actually created a profile called "EvilTed = bad" to manufacture the appearance of some enormous groundswell of hatred over an innocuous post. That's pure awesomeness. I'm going to go create a profile called "EvilTed = Good" and the two can duke it out.

Brizzle = It IS a good day to be a Laker fan. They won shorthanded and looked like the best team in the league. Don't know why you've turned a post with absolutely no animosity into something worthy of a "Wha-mbulance", though. Seriously, do some of you people just like picking fights to fill your day?

Frankly, I can't wait til bawful gets back either, Charlie.

This is AnacondaHL. Anyone can use any plain text title if they want to comment without making an ID.

Brizzle: You did it wrong. It's WAAAAMBULANCE, always with no less than 4 A's.

AK Dave: Although hilarious, Mihm also had a +/- of -5 in those 2 minutes. Play-by-play in OT seems to further make plonden's comment spot on.

Thanks Any Plain Text Title.

@ Any Plain Text Title/AnacondaHL

Not to get all Cortez on you, and not to seriously defend what you correctly observed to be a not-serious comment but....

I'm not so sure I REAAAALY like the +/- stat in Basketball; or even Hockey for that matter. I mean, even if you totally lock-down your man, and score on all of YOUR shots, your +/- can be in the negatives if you are playing with scrubs. Likewise, it can be inflated if you are playing AGAINST scrubs.

While it's kinda fun to look at, I feel like the +/- is pretty much a meaningless stat in and of itself.

So, you know, Chris Mihm FTW, bitches!! MVP! MVP!

:))

you forgot the obvious one: "Ray Allen was fouled"

My immediate thought after such a close overtime game was that it simply wasn't that exciting. Is the dosage of my meds too high? Does anyone else feel the same?

I'd argue that, when he was healthy, right before Black Snake Moan reverse chop-blocked his MCL, Bynum was the Lakers' best big man.

BostonBiased: Great point. Think if the Lake Show hadn't been bawful from the line.

Charlie: You can have my extra dosage.

Chris: Is Any Plain Text Title suggesting that Mihm's lacktivity actually won a game? If he's right, this changes everything. He'd then become the Lacktator who laid the Golden (and purple) Egg.

Posey, as predicted, is a huge loss.

And everyone ease up on Evil Ted. Jesus. Maybe the heated nature of the game is reflected in this reaction on Bawful.

Is anyone else sick of Mamba pointing his finger in people's faces? I dislike Kobe intensely, but somehow found myself rooting for the Lakes. I think it's just a case of March Madness-esque rooting for the underdog/away team. I have no interest in either team. Any way you cut it though, the Lakers are the best team in the league right now. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go expel the vomit that just crept into my mouth.

"We beat you in the finals. Who cares" also works.

How does it feel to have your Evil countered by Douche-ness Evil Ted? Mwahahaha! Mwahaha! I can't say I enjoy hearing about a tough Celtics loss, but if Paul Pierce would have made both free throws, and Big Baby wouldn't have been blocked on what should have been the final shot, then this game would have been different. Note to the Celtics: Play better in the playoffs than the other team. It's when it really counts, now that you don't have homecourt. I'm off to go write an angry letter about the Suns to Bawful.

I need to find an antidote for all this venom....

I can only imagine how nasty people would get if I wrote an inflammatory post (no pun intended, Buck Nasty).

Sorry. Bynum = Laker's best big man still retarded. Glad the hyperbole was removed though. Still not a very funny post, but it has its moments. (Like the thing about Lucky was't bad...)

I think it's cause I hold the blog to high standards. Sorry I hurt your feelings, teddy bb. I was just bitter 'cause KG shouldn't have fouled out (lottaaa questionable calls). Then again, Bynum really shouldn't keep getting struck down by freak accidents. Oh and whoever said RayRay got fouled is a silly goose.

I post nicer after a nap.

Way to make fun of the celtics. I don't know why everyone is so raged, it was a close game between two good teams. Sure, I miss basketnawful, but I appreciate the stand-in by Evil Ted. Wait, where is basketbawful?! Oh no, I hope this doesn't have something to do with the game last night....

And I'm sorry, the celtics had every reason to win this game-Bynum's out, Home court, and L.A. shot free throws poorly. I really expected Boston to expose L.A.'s lack of interior Defense and toughness the way they did in the finals. Apparently, I've been reading too many John Hollinger articles. BTW, he totally stat-cursed the celtics yesterday.

"but if Paul Pierce would have made both free throws, and Big Baby wouldn't have been blocked on what should have been the final shot, then this game would have been different."

I mean no offense, but isn't saying that essentially the same as saying: "if the Celtics wouldn't have lost, they would have won."

Loved this post but you have got to write a post about how the league rejected Lebrons triple double

Charlie, thanks for cleaning it up -
I too felt like KG shouldn't have fouled out - Gasol slapped hard at his forearm twice just before they called KG's ticky-tack sixth. But I'll take two regular season losses over post-season losses any day. As a Patriots fan, I can say from first hand experience the regular season don't mean diddly...It's about the playoffs, baby.

And Charlie - Enough with the "high standards" talk. Bawful lives and breathes basketball, as he should, and I help him out when needed. Your opinion of my ability is best kept to yourself, unless you love me, in which case you can type away...

lordhenry - thanks for the positive vibe. I need it. It's depressing to me how many borderline illiterates are out there just chomping at the bit to make nasty comments - I can just imagine them pounding their Cro-Magnon fists onto their keyboards.

To those readers who are silent but entertained, feel free to post comments. It gives me warm and fuzzies, and adds more to the dialogue than the misspelled hostility.

Anon = You are correct: BN is stating the blatantly obvious, and playing it off as cutting-edge analysis.

Evil Ted = Funny - Not a rejection, just an adjustment, albeit an adjustment that "denied James the honor of being the first player to have a triple-double in a 50-point game since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar accomplished the feat in 1975." It reminds me of playing Yahoo fantasy football, winning a tight game by a half-point, and waiting nervously for the inevitable "Yahoo point modification" that gives me a loss instead of a win. So if post-game adjustments can be made to the rebounding stats, why not post-game adjustments to the score as well? I'll just hold out hope that the NBA "rejects" one of the Laker baskets from last night, and the C's get the win. Something tells me I'll be waiting a long time.

I don't know why anyone is ripping into ET for this post. Yeah, he's a Celtics fan who hates the Lakers, but his post was the direct opposite of bitter (check out Celticsblog if you want to see bitter), so if you're giving him crap you're just taunting and being an asshole.

Regarding the whole Bynum/Gasol thing and who is the better big man (Gasol is 7'1, btw - he's a big man), I think currently it's Gasol, but eventually it's gonna be Bynum (if he can stay healthy, that is). The glimpses Bynum shows sometimes are downright scary, but he's still incredibly young, green, and inconsistent. Prior to his injury though he really had been outplaying Gasol for a couple weeks, and Pau had legitimately moved into the role of 3rd option on offense. People have pointed to his game against the Clips, the player of the week award and then the game against Duncan and the Spurs; but Bynum's performance against Al Jefferson in the game before he got hurt was equally dominant, maybe moreso. The stat sheet shows Jefferson finished with more points, but anyone who watched that game saw that matched up against Bynum, Jefferson was pretty badly overmatched, and only was able to score on perimeter jumpers. However, when Bynum sat, Jefferson destroyed Gasol inside, and that's where he did most of his damage. Bynum really got inside Jefferson's head with a couple big blocks, and on offense Bynum was scoring like Jefferson wasn't even there. As I've said in previous comment threads, Bynum is definitely missed, but the Lakers do have a deep enough team to do a pretty good job of covering for him till he gets back.

As for the Celtics, I've said it before many, many times this year: they need more help. They've got a top 3 team right now, but I don't think they can get past Cleveland with the roster the way it is. They needed Posey badly this year and were completely stupid to let him walk the way they did. If they don't get some kind of help before the playoffs, then I really have serious doubts about them making it to The Finals again. This is especially true if the Crabs make the expected Wally Sczerbiak trade for some kind of significant upgrade. Pierce is a great defender, but you can't expect him to D up LeBron all game for a 7 game series. Same goes for D'ing up Kobe. He can't do that and still be the clutch scorer Boston can lean on the way they need to to win. That's where Posey is most missed, cause it is crucial to be able to tag team LeBron and Kobe on D.

haha well I thought it was funny. If you think this is bad ET you should see the hole Matt dug himself over at bulls by the horns. I just think you managed to ostracise two of the biggest and stupidest fanbases on the net, Lakers and Celtics over the course of a few weeks...

Except maybe for Matt (I seem to like Granger heaps more than he does) and Wild Yams we're all homers at heart so even the brightest of us get narky especially after such a massive loss as last night.

Charlie's apology was the most piss poor apology I've ever heard by the way. Just awful. Basically it boiled down to "Sorry BUT you are retarded and not funny. Actually some bits were funny. Not as funny as I expect though (I'm not sorry)." I'd still be stinging from that so kudos if you can laugh about it.

To end I liked it but who cares if noone does? You obviously have talent. I played like shit in two games today and I don't feel great right now but I've played well before so I won't get too down. Blogging is a rough world.

Having Glen Davis shoot long jumpers is really not a recipe for success. The last 5 minutes of regulation should have been Pierce attacking the basket on every play, but for some reason he was either unwilling or unable to do that. My worry is that Pierce is trying to play through an injury right now that could get worse if he doesn't get a rest before the playoffs.

JV's use of "rest" just triggered something in my head: Pop resting SA's big 3 the other night, to everyone's befuddlement. Is it possible that this was the biggest piece of trash talk (non-verbal) ever spoken?

Spurs win the whole thing. Watch. Especially if they make a solid move before the deadline. Don't sleep on the Spurs, especially in the Playoffs.

chris: I just remembered, I really, really want to see both of the Waltons at the All-Lacktion Weekend. Can we have a father/son three on three game where the Dunleavys, the Waltons and the Karls go at it?

I'm surprised no one has ripped Doc about the loss. Don't see how Davis warranted playing the game after Garnett fouled out, when Powe was playing so much better. Powe was +2 while Davis was -13 for the game.

WotW nomination for Brian Scalabrine: on Sunday, he missed his chance for a showdown with Matt "The Red Rocket" Bonner. Now, we'll never know who's the best [pasty white redheaded] player in the NBA.

Please tell me there is a write-up in the works over the douchebag known as Robert Sarver. This guy continues to destroy the Suns with the help of his evil side-kick, Steve Kerr. Their latest nugget of inspiration on how to fix Phoenix is by trading Amare a year and a half too late.. Go back to the summer before last and we could have had KG, now were probably going to wind up with a second round pick, the corpse of Drazen Petrovich and Wayman Tisdale's amputated leg in return for STAT.

The answer is simple folks... UofA produces morons. This is not just the Arizona State fan in me saying this. It's science. There are certain facts in this world that are indisputable:
-Lakers/Kings rigged playoffs? No doubt.
-San Diego = Whales Vagina? Of course....
-UofA produces idiots? Oh yes.

Teddy Bruschi? Career ending concussion and he still isn't going to quit football until he is able to do a good impersonation of Ali.

Amanda Beard? Naked butter-face...

Kate Walsh? Good job leaving Grey's Anatomy to do Private Practice. I cant believe the network still hasn't canned that show yet.

Lance Briggs? Dude, where's my car?

Sean Elliot? Dude, where's my kidney. (ok... that ones not his fault...)

Bob Dole? Stage diving is not a good election strategy...

Chuck Cecil? The guy had to wear a special retard-proofing helmet cause he kept giving himself concussions (I wish I was making this up).

Nicole Ritchie. No explanation needed.

I can go on an on, but the fact remains that at the very top of this list sits Robert Sarver with Kerr perched on his lap, getting his Amaechi on.

Thanks for nothing Robby... You are systematically destroying the one constant in my life as a Phoenix area fan. Cardinals? 19 years of suck, 2 years of over-achieving. ASU? Up and down too much. Suns? Constant mediocrity to excellence with sparse terrible years. If I didn't want to drown myself like Kristen Johnson after Santonio Holmes caught that pass, I do now...

I'm out.

flohtingPoint

http://d.yimg.com/a/p/sp/getty/d7/fullj.c35de6ca4f29719efba68a4a7ca42558/c35de6ca4f29719efba68a4a7ca42558-getty-83008025_dlk017_cavs_v_lake.jpg

tony-bluntana: it is not a coincidence that the previous two NBA championship teams both had defensively-sound, 3-point-shooting redheads.

Hint to NBA GMs: Hire me! Rings will ensue!

Doc Rivers definitely deserves a lot of the blame for that Celtics loss to the Lakers. Not only did he have Big Baby in there instead of Powe, but where was Eddie House in the last 10 minutes or so after KG fouled out? The guy was shredding the Lakers all night, but I guess Doc thought he'd be better off with Eddie waving a towel from the bench. One more thing on that Lakers-Celtics game: since ET really hates flopping on offense when a player is untouched, I'm sure he was none too thrilled with Ray Allen's game winning shot attempt the other night. The fact that he fell down and then complained after the game that he was fouled when you can clearly see there was no one within 3 feet of him is pretty embarrassing.

flohtingPoint is 100% correct in his assessment of Kerr, Sarver and the Amare debacle. They could have had Nash, KG, Marion, Bell, Diaw, Grant Hill & Barbosa two years ago, but instead they have what they have now: a mess on their hands. ESPN is reporting that the Suns are set to hold a firesale for everyone on the team not named Steve Nash (here's a tip though, it's probably not a bad idea to move him now either, rather than wait till he's clearly way over the hill or bolts as a FA in another 18 months). The Suns are supposedly not only shopping around Amare, but are really hoping someone will take Shaq off their hands; and if that's not enough, they're inquiring about moving Jason Richardson already. Mike D'Antoni must be laughing his ass off right now.

Hey, what was that quote of Kerr's from last year after the Shaq trade? Something about how if it didn't work out he's a moron? Well Steve, you said it.

This video might be worth using for tomorrow's WOTW: it's about the lamest excuse for a touch shooting foul I've ever seen. In the first part at full speed watch how late the call comes, then in slo-mo on the replay watch what Kobe actually does to warrant the foul.

@Junior -- thats one of the funniest pics I've seen.

@Yams -- thats one of the funniest calls I've seen. I think everyone was pretty confused. There must have been some kind of gambling line involved.

Yams,

Agreed - that flop was lame, and the only reason I didn't say anything about it was because I didn't get to see it. A word of advice: when you are DVR'ing a game on Comcast, always go with between 60 and 90 minutes of "extended time" to account for prolonged games and the possibility of overtime.

My DVR took me to 4 minutes left in OT, and I was not pleased. On the other hand, when I heard the Celts lost, I never made much of an effort to pay attention after that.

That said, Allen's flop is just as pathetic as Kobe's Bynum-injuring hit the deck was. Just because nobody got injured doesn't make it any less lame. In fact, the energy Allen expended to make the play look like a foul could have gone into, say, just trying to make the shot? Novel idea. Anyway, thanks for calling it to my attention. It was sad and embarrassing (and poorly executed to boot), and I readily admit it (though I'm sure as soon as I have one single solitary negative thing to say about the Lakers or Kobe, I'll go back to being a closed-minded hater, right?;)

Allen needs to concentrate on what he does best - hitting smooth threes. Not trying to win a trip to the free throw line with an abysmal acting job.