That was low on bloopers and high on half-court/lucky shots. I prefer blown dunks and comical pratfalls, set to 1920s silent piano film music. Or Yackety Sax.

Man, I want to arbitrarily hand out a Damon Jones Award winner for the 2009 playoffs, but...Tony Battie REALLY melted down in the non-clutch (as did, for that matter, the rest of the Magic...along with Stan Van Gundy's arteries).

This has to be one of the least lacktive Finals in a while, due to the lack of genuine drama, unless there was drama in "How is Orlando going to screw up late in the game this time?"

My favorite blooper was how the guys who made those videos consistently misspelled "blooper". Well done.

Buck Nasty: I suspect for great bloopers, we gotta wait until Clutch The Bear comes out with his yearly compilation...

Not enough mascot hijinx

This year was pretty low on the bloopers anyway, as Shaq had the most comdedic showing, with his multiple crowd dives.

Nothing can ever top the legendary M.J. blooper real of blown dunks. It just goes to show that even the greatest had moments of Fail.

Buck Nasty: Speaking of His Airness, didn't Bawful mention that he pulled a Dwight Howard in that '89 series against the Crabs?

@Chris - We'll have to go to the source on that one, as my memory cannot serve me for that which I have not viewed. Bawful?

Yeah. MJ bricked two FTs that could have won Game 4. Instead, it went to OT and Cleveland won it. That set up "The Shot," which has always been overrated, since all it did was get the Bulls out of the first round.

Bawful: Speaking of critical non-clutch free throw shooting, didn't Paul Pierce cost the C's game 1 against the Bulls this year - which, BTW, was Chicago's FIRST ever game win in the playoffs against Boston?

I really think "Dwight Howard" is the obvious term for that type of fail, especially since he did it in the biggest stage possible (and potentially led to some nice paychecks for Stan Van Gundy's personal care physician).

Hooray for worsties! Looking forward to it.

@Chris -

There have been many to choke. Hedo choked in the very same game as Dwight, he just made up for it with a three later.

Today's best example (from the biggest stage) would probably be D-How, but I feel bad about singling him out. Oh wait, no I don't.

LeBron is my only hope for basketball happiness, and Dwight crushed him. Nash has no hope, the Clippers...come on. Down with Dwight, let him be labeled a choker.

@Chris

it was called a nick anderson way before dwight did it

Buck Nasty: I think there's a massive diference between bricking free throws mid-game and in that final minute, though...sure, those baskets are the same exact value as they were earlier in the match, but the pressure is consequently much greater.

And I have to point it out again: while Shaq was notorious for his awful free throw shooting, the failure of "Hack-a-Shaq" due to his ability to get into a rhythm once repeatedly fouled stands in stark contrast to pulling a Dwight Howard.

Though a "Popovich" might describe an irrelevant, season-beginning intentional foul for the lulz.

You can't do maskot bloopers without mentioning the Hornet and the fire extinguishers that delayed a game for what felt like eons. Epic fail.

@Chris -

Word. Throw up the picture of him double thumbs-upping the opposition.

Anonymous: Speaking of epic fail, we have to mention that stunt-gone-wrong at the Thunder game midway through the season...

Anonymous: Wasn't Nick Anderson in the house to "pump up the home crowd" for Game 4? Talk about eerie.

With all this talk about bricking charity stripe shots in the clutch, I think we need to have a list of the top ten least clutch free throw shooters ever, or at least the top 10 examples of game-losing meltdowns from the line.

Speaking of bloopers, lebronze James, the choken one had his dunk blocked by superman a couple of times. That has to be worth something.

Some random Worsties nominations:
Allen Iverson's entire season.
Gilbert "no big deal" Arenas.
Garnett's superdickery all season.
Twitter.

I know. The Popovich thumbs up was probably the greatest thing to happen this season, egregious error by the video makers.

Nice article in the onion, how Kobe won a championship with Luke walton

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/kobe_bryant_proves_he_can_win

"Blogger chris said...

And I have to point it out again: while Shaq was notorious for his awful free throw shooting, the failure of "Hack-a-Shaq" due to his ability to get into a rhythm once repeatedly fouled stands in stark contrast to pulling a Dwight Howard."

You must be joking, as a Laker fan let me tell you that Dwight Howard is a much much better free throw shooter than Shaq ever was, even with the memory of those two fatal bricks fresh in our minds from Game 4. There was a reason Shaq was often riding the bench during the three peat years in crunch time, and Shaq rarely found any sort of rhythm regardless of how many times he shot due to his messed up wrist. In any case they are both bad free throw shooters, but its just revisionist history to actually believe what Shaq says about "making them when it counts."

Who was that old man with the Blazers t-shirt on that made the full-court shot? Kind of looks like he could be Calvin Booth's father. The kids seemed to know who he is, so maybe he's a local celeb.

That Walton story was very cruel. Should have been vujacic. Most of lukes points came from posting up which was weird

Jason:

Wikipedia says...

To quote:

"During the 2000 NBA Playoffs, there were two games in particular, one involving the Portland Trail Blazers and one involving the Indiana Pacers, in which the Hack-a-Shaq defense was employed by those two teams against the Lakers so relentlessly as to render the games virtually unwatchable with their incessant stoppages for foul shots. As a result, there was some discussion of expanding the off-the-ball foul rule to encompass more than just the final two minutes of the game, or instituting some other rule change which would discourage the use of Hack-a-Shaq.[11][12]

Ultimately, though, the NBA decided at that time not to adopt any new rules designed specifically to discourage the Hack-a-Shaq strategy. One factor cited in that decision was that the Lakers won both of the aforementioned games. Since the strategy had not worked well enough to provide a win for either of the teams that had used it, there seemed to be reason to hope that its use would not become widespread.[13]"


However, in the last Suns' playoff run...Wikipedia lists this as the only successful implementation of the strategery:

"Coach Gregg Popovich of the San Antonio Spurs used the Hack-a-Shaq strategy successfully in Game 5 of the Spurs' first round series against O'Neal and the Phoenix Suns. ESPN.com reported, "Spurs coach Gregg Popovich had his players intentionally foul O'Neal, a 52 percent career free-throw shooter, throughout the game. He finished 9-of-20 from the line, dropping the Suns to 20-of-37 total on free throws."[17] The Suns were eliminated from the playoffs in a 92-87 Spurs win."

So is it more effective now, or do we really know these days with the "Shaqovich" era still upon us for the moment?