Cleveland Cavalier's D: Just like you expected, The Crab's 13-game win streak came to an end against the Wizards Generals. On the season, Crab opponents average 90.9 PPG and 42.8% on FGs (1st and 2nd best in the league). But you would have never known that by watching them allow 109 points and 51% shooting.

Caron Butler was the Wizards General's leading scorer with 25 and, by no coincidence, LeBron and Delonte West had the two lowest plus-minuses on the night (-13 and -15). LeBron frequently left Butler open on help defense, and Delonte West made the mistake of being undersized and inattentive. For some reason, they also didn't have an answer for the drifter Darius Songaila, who dropped 17 points in 24 minutes.

ESPN said this was the biggest regular season upset since the 17-win Clippers ended the Lakers 15 game win streak back in 1988. Wait..the Showtime Lakers couldn't stop Michael Cage?!?

Mike James and Javaris Crittendon: Both missed Thursday's win over the Crabaliers. The result? Their rusty, injured replacement (that Gilbert Arenas guy) led the Wizards Generals to the biggest regular season upset in 20 years.

LeBron James, diss machine: When commenting on the boos laid on him Thursday, King Crustacean said, "I'm hated in all 30 cities. Uh, 29. They love me in Cleveland. They hate me everyplace else. Uh, I forgot about New York. They love me there, too." Never forget where you came from. Unless you wish you were from somewhere else.

Unintentional motivation: Jay Cutler's departure from the Broncos has energized the entire city, including the Nuggets. There were several "Jay who?" signs spotted in the crowd. As a result, the Jazz were on the receiving end of a JR Smith god-mode night against the Nuggets Thursday. JR had 21 points in 15 minutes in the first half, and finished 8 for 13 behind the stripe. And this was no fault of the Jazz D. JR Smith was draining threes in transition, off the dribble, off the floor, off the scoreboard, off the backboard, no rim.



Chris Andersen: Had a career-high 8 blocks against the Jazz, but he will forever have to live with the pain of being the the other Birdman, ie. the one that's not in the WWE Hall of Fame. Oh, it hurts. It must feel just like a piledriver. Chris...8 blocks is fine by some, but have you ever brought an Amazonian gold-breasted macaw to courtside with you? I think you know what to do.

The Utah Jazz frontcourt: In a completely unrelated story, Boozer, Okur and Kirilenko shot a combined 10 for 45 against the Nuggets, including Boozer having 6 of his shots blocked. Insert gratuitous "Paul Millsap was playing awesome until Boozer came back. Will Boozer be back next year?" comment here.

The NBA "Going Green": I have nothing against environmental awareness, but green jerseys for everyone? On the greenization of the Nuggets, George Karl said, "The only thing I don't like about that is they remind me of the Celtics." Just a shameless scheme to trick channel surfers into thinking the Celtics are on TV every day. I only say that because it totally worked on me at least twice yesterday.

The Milwaukee Bucks: Cheesed away a 13-point lead and lost to the Sixers by 10. These things tend to happen when you score 36 points in the second half and get outrebounded by 16.

Reggie Evans, unintentionally dirty quote machine: When commenting on a limp first half against the Bucks, "The second half was almost like a wake-up call, 'Let's tighten up a little bit. Let's focus in even more and get into it.' We slowly grinded it out." It becomes much more worster when you remember that Reggie Evans is the guy that did this.

Pittsburgh Pirates, epic fail: Their preseason squad lost a game to Manatee Community College. The folks at bwe.tv summed it up better than I could ever hope to: "Granted, the Pirates started a split-squad assortment of minor leaguers, but they’re still professional baseball players and they not only lost to a college, and not only lost to a community college, they lost to a community college that shares its name with a docile sea cow." Season tickets are still available.

Lacktion report: We now return to Chris and his regularly scheduled lacktion report:

Bucks-Sixers: Keith Bogans hunted down lacktion successfully with a +2 suck differential in 3:11 via giveaway and foul.

For the home team, Theo Ratliff's contract got nearer to expiration with a 5:3 Voskuhl (three fouls and two turnovers against a field goal and a rebound) in 8:24.

Cavs-Wizards: In bizarro night at the Phone Booth, the Crabs were boiled by the Washington Generals. So it was no surprise that JJ Hickson and Tarence Kinsey rested their pincers in favor of Sasha Pavlovic, who nefariously crawled his way to a +2 via fouls in 4:13.

Jazz-Nuggets: Matt Harpring plucked a turnover and a foul each en route to a +2 in 5:08.
Update! Kobe Bryant: Paid the $165 million in AIG bonuses out of his own checkbook, just to see the employees lambasted and threatened by the rest of the country. Then the checks bounced.

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14 Comments:
Blogger Junior said...
I think the Generals had some Home Cooking yesterday, they had 30 FT(Butler had 11 of theese) almost twice than the Crabs(17 for the night)


And no comments on NBA.Com using a photo in the headlines for the Rockets-Lakers game whith Kobe and Knee-Mac?
someone should tell NBA that Knee-Mac is done for the season

Anonymous Axel Foley said...
I was just wondering if Bawful came up with the whole Washington Generals thing himself because its used in the book When Nothing Else Matters about the awful Mitch Richmond/Rod Strickland/Juwan Howard Wizards. If you havent read it yet, it pretty much trashes Jordan as a person not as a player. The entire beginning is reserved for this purpose if not the entire book(I just started reading it).

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Is it worse than not being able to control Michale Cage if you're at the same time unable to control Benoit Benjamin?

And Kobe is mean.

Blogger AnacondaHL said...
This is belated a day, but damn this was the stupidest April Fools I can remember. I blame the Internet for desensitizing people's sense of humor. Did you read what the Orlando Magic did during their 4/1 game?

First prank: Blindfolded guy, crowd reacts like he made shot, laugh when truth is revealed, rofl.

This prank: Blindfolded guy, crowd reacts like he made shot, guy says he just got laid off, truth is revealed and crowd sad, guy is actor in on the "joke", rofl?

Next year's lame prank: Blindfolded guy, crowd reacts like he made shot, guy says he just got laid off, truth is revealed and crowd ACTS sad, guy is actor in on the joke but crowd reveals they knew he was an actor and convinces him he actually made the shot, actor is happy admitting he can now pay for his wife's chemotherapy/AIDS treatment/funeral, crowd sad when they reveal it was again a joke.

Really, every single joke this year was complete suck, except maybe the IE 8.1 announcement.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
I told my fantasy baseball head to head league I'd shut it down as a commish because I was playing to much. Like lock teams and cancel the league just before the season starts. Some bought it. Do I qualify for suck?

Blogger Andy said...
6 of the Wizards FTA came by Cavs intentional foul at the end of the game, and 24-17 is not really that big of a difference. It might have been closer if James had been driving more instead of chucking up ridiculous long-range 3's (several of which he made...it was like watching NBA Jam with the cheats on).

Also : Gilbert Arenas, in his time back, is 6-23 from the field, but has 20 assists to 1 turnover. I guess you could cough it up to better decision making, but from watching him it's like he knows he has no choice, he can't beat people that well off the dribble and he can't finish from anywhere right now. To me, it looks like his current injured state has made him a better teammate, for the time being at least. As a very tired Wizards fan, I can only hope and pray.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
I was very excited about the Wizards victory too, but the always unbiased AP could barely contain themselves: James "had a 3-pointer stuffed in his face... in the final half-minute"

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Charlie Villanueva deserves some mention here. With Thaddeus Young out for the night, Charlie V matched up with Reggie Evans... and proceeded to lose. Charlie had 11 on 4-9 (1-4 from downtown!) with 2 boards vs. Evans' 13 on 4-6 shooting with 7 boards. When you're getting scored on basically at will be Reggie Evans, it's an epic fail.

Blogger Will said...
While the clips beating showtime is a big upset, a bigger one would be the 96 raptors beating the bulls in march. Keep in mind that this was the raptors first season and that bulls team went 72-10.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
queen james flopping vajayjay part 1001: asked for an official's timeout between arena's free throws because he had blood on his jersey... poor thing must have been that time of the month

Anonymous Karc said...
So the Not Answer has been benched, errr, placed on injured reserve for the rest of the year to rest his injured back. This according to ESPN, who probably stole it from Yahoo or Fox. Why don't they just say flu-like symptons and make it easier? Yeah, it's contagious, like his selfish attitude that leaves him to proclaim that he'd rather retire than play off the bench, then having to reside to said bench during the playoffs. Maybe he needs a little more "practice" with this team to get back into the starting lineup. Or cut. Probably the latter.

Blogger Wild Yams said...
Allen Iverson is maybe the most spoiled athlete I've ever seen. After just saying the other day that not only could he play 18 minutes with a 100 pound truck on his back, and that he'd rather retire than come off the bench next year, Joe Dumars has now announced that Iverson's done for the season (playoffs included). Supposedly it's his back, but I think we all know better. Obviously either he refused to play anymore in a substitute role, or he became such a distraction and cancer over being sent to the bench that Detroit just cut their losses and told him to beat it. Either way, it doesn't speak well at all of Iverson.

What a spoiled bitch.

Blogger lordhenry said...
What a spoiled bitch.

I know awesome when I see it, to quote another fellow......

This is sad, this could've been Iverson's swan song, instead, it's going to color how we look back on his career forever. I saw today that someone posted on espn.com that he would be a "first ballot hall of famer." Really? Still think so now? He has missed a huge oppurtunity to change his image and become a team player, and there is no better team to do this with than the pistons, where the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Joe D. just doesn't want Iverson mucking up what remains of the Pistons' season.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Can we get a worst of the night for Darryl Morey and maybe Michael Lewis?

Artest didn’t say much to Bryant on Friday, but he also only guarded him for a few possessions. That assignment went to Battier, who unwittingly provided his own source of motivation for the Lakers. Last month, the New York Times Magazine ran a story by “Moneyball” author Michael Lewis detailing how Rockets GM Daryl Morey has innovatively used statistics when making player assessments.

“The Lakers’ offense should obviously be better with Kobe in,” Morey said in the story. “But if Shane is on him, it isn’t.”

Shane Battier: "My job is to keep him as inefficent as possible."

The article came out before the March 11 Game. Kobe's stats that night: 14-23 FG for 37 points, 2-3 from 3 with 6 assists. And last night: 7-11 FG for 20 points, 4-6 from 3 with 7 assists.

So, post "Moneyball" Kobe is 21-34 vs. the Rox, including 6-9 from 3.