cardinal
Brian Cardinal...doin' what he do...

Dwight Howard: Pumaman dominated the Knicks with 24 points and 18 rebounds. Of course, he went 8-for-19 from the field -- which included seven misses at the rim against New York's awesome interior defense -- bricked 5 free throws and committed a team-high 5 turnovers. But those reasons aren't why he's getting WotN treatment.

Dwight got tagged with his 12th technical foul of the season. Not only does that number lead the league, but Howard will be suspended for one game if -- sorry, make that when -- he reaches 16. Then he'll miss an additional game for every two technical fouls after that. Mind you, the Magic have played only 33 games so far...and there are 49 to go.

Of course, Dwight's coach thinks his player is getting the 'Sheed treatment.

Said Stan Van Gundy: "I don't think he's any harder on officials than anybody else in the league. I don't think even think he's one of the hardest guys on officials, quite honestly. I could probably give you 20 guys who are a lot harder on officials than he is. Why he's been the guy to get all the technicals, I don't know. But there are a lot of guys around the league who are a lot harder on officials, yell at them, swear and everything else and get away with it."

Whaaaat? Swear at an official? Who would do something like tha...


Huh. Never mind.

Amar'''''e Stoudemire, excuse machine: Chris Broussard's choice for early season MVP was limited to only 32 minutes due to foul trouble. He was productive during his PT, scoring 30 points on 12-for-22 shooting and blocking 4 shots. Sure, he finished with three fewer rebounds than Orlando shooting guard Jason Richardson, but STAT's job is to score...not rebound. Not to suggest that the Magic's 51-35 rebounding advantge -- which included 17 offensive boards -- had any impact on the game or anything. I was just sayin'.

At any rate, Stoudemire said: "If I didn't get in foul trouble, it would have been a different game for sure."

I love the "what if" games that get played by players on a losing team. If I was Amar''''''e, though, I might say something like, "If I could pull down contested rebounds against talented big men, it would have been a different game for sure."

By the way, Sun Tzu also had a shot blocked...by the rim.


Raymond Felton: You know what else would have made it a different game? If Felton hadn't been playing with a dolphin flipper for a shooting hand. Ray Boom Boom went 6-for-22 from the field, including 1-for-7 from downtown, and committed a game-high 6 turnovers.

The San Antonio Spurs: Yeah, they won, and sure, they have the best record in the league. But the the Mavs had to start Brian Cardinal in place of the injured Dirk Nowitzki. I dunno. Seems like the Spurs should have won by more than just six points, you know?

Said San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich: "We don't take too much out of the win. We didn't show very much. We didn't improve as a team, that's for sure."

Pretty much.

The Utah Jazz: Damn. I guess the Frail Blazers just have Utah's number.

I kinda figured this game would be a gimme for the Jazz, considering that, before the game, Portland shut down Brandon Roy indefinitely because the dude has an incurable case of Oden's knees. Instead, Wesley Matthews -- who played for the Jazz last season -- matched his career-high by scoring 30 points on 9-for-16 shooting. Matthews dropped 16 of those points in the third quarter. This kid just owned the Jazz. About the only thing missing was a Byron Russell for Matthews to push out of the way.

Mind you, the Jazz didn't help themselves by missing 10 foul shots. Or by giving up 26 points off 18 turnovers. Or by coming out totally flat. Which does tend to happen on the second night of back-to-backs, especially on the road.

Said Raja Bell: "It was poor effort, all the way around. You can talk it up all you want, but I thought we have to be tougher than that. That's just my personal opinion."

Bell then clotheslined Ronnie Price.

Oh well. At least Deron Williams gave us a nice highlight...


...even if some people think he traveled.

Rudy Fernandez: Uh...no.

rudy

NBA-related shotgun tragedies: Oh no. Not again.

Chris's Lacktion Report:

Knicks-Magic: Despite two assists in exactly 6 minutes, Ronny Turiaf fouled twice for a 2:0 Voskuhl.

Spurs-Mavs: For San Antonio, Ime Udoka and Chris Quinn spent 10 seconds arguing over which Game Genie codes were allowed on the hardwood tonight - resulting in their status as Mario Brothers!

Also joining the Mario party, albeit in a non-lacktive fashion, was the spectacular Steve Novak of Dallas, who managed 100% from one shot along the Stemmons Freeway...but also ran into King Koopa once for a foul in 51 seconds.

Jazz-Frail Blazers: Sean Marks notched a board in 6:35, but also earned a brick, three fouls, and a giveaway for a 4:1 Voskuhl. Fellow financier of fraility Armon Johnson collected 1.15 trillion (1:10), and in that same timespan, Luke Babbitt earned a +4 via a trio of bricks (twice from the charity stripe) and a rejection.

Labels:

35 Comments:
Blogger zyth said...
funny thing, at 0:18 of the Stoudemire rimdunk vid you can see the papal, innocent Dwight hitting Gallinari on the face with his elbow. OH JOY.
also, I know that Nash is a great guy, but a dude that made kid faces to the refs, swearing at them? I really hope that Pietrus, VC and Gortat help phx

Blogger zyth said...
oh, also, happy new year. to Bawful!

Blogger Dan B. said...

Anonymous Czernobog said...
Wait, aren't you allowed to lift your pivot foot for the shot?

Blogger Dan B. said...
This has nothing in any way, shape, or form to do with basketball, but I have to share anyway: What is this I don't even...

(Technically there's no nudity, but I still wouldn't necessarily call it safe for work)

Blogger BJ said...
Rips a hole in my heart to do this, but for Worst Player Of The Night, I nominate Jason Terry. 3-16? 1-14 until a couple of totally meaningless threes after the game was more or less over? One of the better jump shooters in the game? Really? Really, Captain Airplane? Really?

And that come-alive-in-the-fourth schtick -- to sum up his playing style and why it's a problem, if it please the court call to mind a scene from '80's children's sci-fi classic Spaced Invaders:

Enforcer Drone: I have not yet begun to fight!!!
Fleet Commander: Now would be a great time to start!
(ship explodes)

Blogger Dan B. said...
Just before halftime, the commentators said something to the effect of "Jason Terry's 1-for-8 so far, but he usually starts slow and comes on in the fourth quarter." All I could do was laugh.

Speaking of laughing, check this out. Rajon Rondo FTW.

Anonymous broken_teacup said...
@Czernobog - YUP! As long as you get rid of the ball before that pivot foot touches the ground again, you're good, according to the rules. Maybe Lebron made that video, considering he doesn't know what a travel is...


Which brings to mind the question, is it just me, or do basketball fans generally have the worst knowledge of the rules of the game out of all the major sports and their fans in the US?

Anonymous Czernobog said...
I haven't watched the game, but I was kind of expecting Terry to have a poor outing. George Hill is a defensive stud.

Blogger Dan B. said...
Sorry guys, don't really have the time or energy to put together a BAD weekend post. However, I do have these pictures to share:

DaniLOL Gallinari

After watching Black Swan, Tony Parker is inspired to take up ballet

Stan Van Gundy and Mike D'Antoni: Okay, who's copying whom?

Blogger AnacondaHL said...
Dan B - Old news. There have been articles for a long time ago on the shortage of C and D cup bras in China, such as this one from 2006. I guess now it all makes sense; Ancient Chinese Boob Jiggle Secret.

Blogger AnacondaHL said...
"Fun Fact: @mrvincecarter15 may have been a drum leader in high school, but his instrument of choice is the saxophone." 29 minutes ago via web.

Damn you Phoenix Suns. Don't try and trick me into liking this guy!

Blogger BJ said...
Head up! Chin out! You call that en pointe, Mr. Parker?!?

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Spurs woulda won by 9 had Novak not hit a meaningless 3 pointer at the end.

Basketbawful can refuse to give the Spurs credit like they have all season but with Boston's injuries and Dirk being out, the Spurs continue to widen the gap between them being the best team in the NBA.

Blogger chris said...
AnacondaHL: Don't try and trick me into liking this guy!

No worries...

Just watch this playoff classic clip and you'll be back to disdain in NO time.

Anonymous Stockton said...
Jazz were missing Miles (aka Utah's bench), Okur and Kirilenko (anual injury)

Blogger Cortez said...
"...even if some people think he traveled."

Here we go again.

That's not a fucking travel.

You would think that someone who has a site dedicated to basketball, takes the time to edit, transcribe, and post basketball videos dedicated to travelling would take the time to actually know what a travel is.

What Williams should have done is rolled the ball between the defenders legs, picked it up, and dunked from half court.

I hear that's hot in the streets in some areas.

"...do basketball fans generally have the worst knowledge of the rules of the game out of all the major sports and their fans in the US?"

Actecdotally, I agree.

Blogger Wormboy said...
@chris:

to be fair, that's not a reason to hate Carter. Some guys are wired to be clutch and some guys aren't. You can downgrade their skills in your mind if they aren't clutch (or upgrade the guys who are), but it's not really worthy is dislike, because it's sort of like their height: they're born with it or not.

And there are so many legitimate reasons to dislike Carter. Like his being a wimp. Like his quitting and lack of effort. Those are character issues the reflect choices the man has made, and thus fair game for disdain.

Blogger Cortez said...
"You would think that someone who has a site dedicated to basketball."

In case it wasn't clear, (and I'm certain it wasn't) my comment was toward whoever runs the [Hardwood] site, not this one.

Anonymous Czernobog said...
@Cortez: It seemed pretty clear to me, based on "post basketball videos dedicated to travelling" Which isn't exactly Basketbawful's mission statement.

I'm sure someone would've managed to misconstrue it though.

As for the average fan's understanding - I think an average basketball game just has a lot of calls. I know I don't understand all the varietions of the soccer offside rule, and seeing as I know of a newspaper column which posts a weekly riddle based on those very niceties, I'm sure most soccer fans aren't entirely fluent in those as well.

But they're esoteric, often entirely hypothetical. In any given basketball game you're likely to see a number of calls that can be questioned by the informed and uninformed alike. And I think Football rules are mostly considerably simpler than Basketball rules.

As for hockey - if I ever figure that shit out, I'll be able to make a comparison.

Blogger Dan B. said...
Czernobog -- Hockey's rules are actually pretty straightforward most of the time. I picked up the offsides and icing rules within my first week of watching hockey games. I have been watching basketball for 20 years or so and still don't understand the traveling rules.

Anonymous Karc said...
Bynum's is scheduled to play tomorrow against the Grizzlies. Not wishing injury upon the guy. But this is Bynum, in January, against Memphis. You'd think after three years of his legs giving out against this team in the first month of the calendar year, the Lakers would complain to the front office and beg them to move the game to March or something.

Blogger Wild Yams said...
Karc - Come on, Bynum proved last year he could get through January healthy and could play against Memphis without injury. He then proved he could also get injured much later in the year, and that he can miss the beginning of a season with an injury rather than only missing the end of the year. But hey, at least he got to go to the World Cup last summer. At his advanced age of 22, you never know when he'd have gotten that kind of an opportunity again.

Anonymous diana said...
Any chance we can get more than 2 sentences about the Spurs in one of these posts? If its cause you're not interested then you should be, think they're boring? They're not. Watch a game. The offense is completely different. They have a great mix of veteran and young talent, have the best record even though they have the shortest center in the league, (one which also happens to not have ACL's) and are the only team to start the same 5 all season. This is not a fluke, they have never been this healthy and they are a real threat. Show them some respect, throw in more than a couple sentences once in a while.

Anonymous AnBe said...
How is that not a travel? he lifted his pivot foot(right) and jumped of his left.. so didn't he technically changed pivots?

I know what the rules say, but then he could just hop on his left? :)

Anonymous Czernobog said...
@Diana: Did you not get what this blog is about? We celebrate bad basketball here. And yeah, I think the Spurs are legit, if they can stay healthy and get production of Splitter by May.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
dude, you must have a serious hangover, I need my WOTN fix for the 31st.

Blogger Wormboy said...
Re: rules. There are a couple of extenuating circumstances. First, hoops has more influence by officials than any other major sport. There are simply tons of call in any game, many of which are subjective. Second, the NBA actually has different rules than the rest of basketball, and they frequently change.

But I will say that the hardest to explain is baseball. Other sports are pretty self-evident, though football is second in weirdness. But I was once at a STL Cardinals game trying to explain the rules to my German cousin. A nightmare in and of itself. But what should appear but a freakin balk. Ack.

Anyway, basketball is easy to understand, but the details are hard to get straight, especially since the NBA has its own ratings-garnering rules. To any normal fan, NBA players travel ALL THE TIME. Though true that the disconnect with NCAA is not as great at it used to be. not a god thing, IMO, but they wants their dunks.

Blogger DC said...
Baseball has a lot of funny rules, but it's mostly straightforward. Football, on the other hand, is a complete clusterfuck in terms of rules. I think the league makes up half of them as they go along. I don't even think average football fans can tell you what a lot of the rules mean, or whether they know the rule even exists.

I'm not a big football fan by any stretch. So I go to Tuesday Morning Quarterback and let Gregg Easterbrook explain much of it to me (even if it's in a superlong weekly column written in blowhard-heavy prose). For example, you'd think that anybody on offense can catch a pass, but you're wrong. Did you know that you have to report "eligible" as an offensive player in order to catch a pass legally? That's how you get those "ineligible receiver" penalties. It mostly pertains to offensive linemen, which is why the defense has to somehow figure out whether a offensive lineman who has checked into the game has reported "eligible" to the officials.

As I said, a complete clusterfuck of rules.

Blogger Wormboy said...
Yeah, but they're pretty much the same rules I learned as a kid. NBA has changed a lot since then.

Blogger Nick said...
The Suns new "focus" on defense has removed their ability to score. It's like when baseball cracked down on steroids and got rid of all those pesky home runs.

Anonymous AK Dave said...
RE: Lakers

"You are what your record says you are."

-Big Tuna

That is all.

Blogger Fishy said...
Umm.. Lakers? Where art thou?

Blogger Will said...
Drake- my favorite rule is that no one is allowed to kick the football (outside of punts, field goals, and kicking off) even though it's, you know, football

Anonymous caseta said...
Dwight Howard bla bla bla bla

Those who actually took time to watch the game instead of reading a recap and the boxscore saw the Knicks mauling Dwight under the basket. Dude is big and strong, the ball doesn't just slip out of his hand 10 times in 3-4 minutes.

I don't buy the crap Donaghy was trying to sell, but his stories about refs' bets sound plausible. Plausible enough for me to suspect that in that evening they had a little bet running: who calls the 1st foul on Dwight pays dinner. That would explain them allowing Dwight to be mugged but being quick with the whistle as soon as another Magic player got the ball - as if to show they are not whistling against the Magic.

The fouls were pretty obvious on the replays for everyone to see. Everyone except Steve Kerr. But then again he traded FOR Shaq, so I wouldn't necessarily trust his sight, vision or judgement.