20100331-marc-gasol-brendan-haywood
Karate chop!

I'm not going to pull any pranks on you today. There's been enough good ones (and bad ones) to go around. My favorites? The fake police report for AJ Dauliero on Deadspin, and @notmikedunleavy faking retweets that Don Nelson was going to be fired and replaced by Mike Dunleavy. Those are high quality pranks. Believable enough to startle you at first, but ultimately obviously fake. And better yet, they aren't sponsored by Nike. Sigh.

Want to be entertained for a few silly minutes? Check out the ESPN.com NBA Playoff Simulator! It's only slighly less ridiculous than their awesome Trade Machine. You can choose to seed the first round of the playoffs through three pre-selected methods, or do custom seeding. Then it simulates each game and tells you who wins the NBA championship. I have tried using it once so far -- I let it seed the first round based on John Hollinger's predictions for maximum comedic value. According to this simulation, the Lakers will get upset by the 8th seeded Spurs in the first round, and the Atlanta Hawks will win the Larry O'Brien trophy. Yeah. Good luck with that.

This is most decidedly awesome, and makes Zaza Pachulia even more likeable than his fun-to-say-out-loud name already did.

Worst of the Night in Pictures:

20100331-sad-hornets
Hey guys, why the moping? Aren't you making millions of dollars to play ball?
Oh, you let the Bullets get their only win in the entire month of March against you? Carry on.


20100331-fabricio-oberto
Yes, the Bullets won in spite of Fabricio Oberto starting


20100331-andray-blatche-darius-songalia
Andray Blatche demonstrates how to do the Heimlich Maneuver
(What? You thought I was going to do a man love joke here?)


20100331-cp3_shaun
Submitted by Basketbawful reader Zaldy with the caption:
"Yes... they say it should hurt during your first time."


20100331-johnny-flynn-tyreke-evans
Nice "O-face," Johnny


20100331-louis-amundson
Damn. Louis Amundson's "O-face" is even worse than I expected


20100331-paul-pierce-kevin-durant
Paul Pierce says "Stop watching! This is private!"


20100331-doc-rivers
Doc Rivers must be getting tired of doing this


20100331-kobe
So must Kobe

Nationally Televised Games:
Magic at Mavericks: Dallas just got done playing an overtime game in Memphis last night. Just sayin'... In the meantime, hey, we get to see Ron Jeremy Stan Van Gundy on national TV again, so that's always a good thing.

Frail Blazers at Nuggets: Technically this is the second night of a back-to-back for Portland, but does running layup drills against the Bricks really wear you out that badly?

Labels: ,

10 Comments:
Blogger Breaker said...
What's with all of the gay references as captions to these pictures? Do people find this funny?

Is this the same guy who has a site that is part of the truehoop network?

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Both the lakers and cavs get upset in the first round and we have a hawks vs nuggets finals with the nuggets pulling the "upset" (seriously?) to win in the worst finals ever

Anonymous Anonymous said...
I just ran a basketbawful lottery team playoff, where the number one seeds were New Jersey and the Timberpoops.

The Nyets played the Craptors and even against a 18% chance of winning, they persevered to make it to the next round. There they joined the Sixers who also won an upset beating the Knicks (against 37% odds!). The Pacers Detroit game was apparently a coinflip which the Pacers won. And finally the Bulls rightfully beat the Wizards.

In the West, the only upset was the Warriors victory over the Grizzlies. Go figure. Interestingly enough, the page wouldn't even let me put the Clippers on the board. I guess it thought that was a little too outrageous. Instead the Lakers were put in to dominate the bracket.

In the second round, the Sixers smashed the Nets in chance (88% chance of a Sixers victory?), then the Pacers upset the Bulls after only a 30% chance of victory. What is it about even odds and the Pacers?

The biggest news of the second round was where the Spurs upset the Lakers with only a 27% chance to win. Also, the Warriors upset the Rockets with only a 40% chance of victory. Sadly, the good luck didn't last as, Golden State, with only a 11% chance to win, lost to the Western Lottery Conference Champs, the Spurs.

On the other side, the Pacers were just edged out in percentage to win (51% to 49%) and ended up falling to the Sixers. As a life long Pacers fan, it is sad that the most playoff excitement I'll see this year is this bracket.

Unfortunately, the Sixers weren't able to keep their luck going and were unable to upset the Spurs, who came away with the big win. However, I think we may have all seen that coming.

Blogger Dan B. said...
Breaker -- Yes. Basketball has infinitely more unintentionally homoerotic moments than any other sport. And people apparently find it funny since we keep getting these pictures forwarded to us.

And yes, this site is headed up by the same Matt McHale who runs By The Horns. But this is just a fun side project, and I am just one of a few contributing writers who (along with Matt) write this for no money or anything, but just because it's fun to make fun of bad basketball.

Anonymous Sorbo said...
I was having trouble putting the Clips intot the (Consolation) Playoffs, until these pairings of non/barely-playoff teams seemed to work:
WEST:
1. Houston vs. 8. Clippers
4. Warriors vs. 5. Grizzlies
2. Portland vs 7. Timberpoops
3. Hornets vs. 6. Kings

EAST:
1/8 Raptors/Pistons
4/5 = Bobcats/Pacers
2/7 = Bulls/Nets
3/6 = Knicks/Wizzes

The Grizz won it all, topping Warriors, Houston and Portland (who beat the Hornets). In the East, the Knicks made it the Finals after defeating the the B-teams: Bullets, Bulls and Bobcats (who topped the Raptors).

Anonymous ibanezz said...
breaker- i find it funny...dont u?

Anonymous Anonymous said...
yeah its hilarious matching up the worst teams in the playoffs and having the clippers win it all (not in a bajillion years)

Blogger AnacondaHL said...
Holy cow, the Mavs are getting fucked by the refs tonight.

Anonymous kazam92 said...
They got me with the sextuple double thing. bastards

Anonymous Sorbo said...
Bawful - Can we get a basketbawful post about the NCAA tournament expanding to 96 teams. Worst. Idea. Ever. That's like taking gold and dipping it in shit.

Also, eagerly anticipating the West's "why I hate this season" post.