Sometimes being a coach means having to demonstrate to your players how to escape from a Chinese finger trap
Sorry I got this posted a little later than usual. My Clark Kent job was a little stressful this week and I haven't gotten enough sleep because I am an idiot and am good at misjudging priorities and...
Oh, okay. Sorry.
Worst of the Night in Pictures
Wladimir Klitschko's promoter is on the phone right now with Burnie the Mascot's people for a PPV card
Invisible upright bass
"So... hungry... Must avoid... temptation... to eat... this basketball..."
Nationally Televised Friday Games:
Lakers at Magic, ESPN, 8:00pm: The Lakers are 1-5 on the road this season. Where have you gone, Phil Jackson? Laker nation turns its lonely eyes to you.
Timberwolves at Clippers, 10:30pm: The Clippers are looking to win their eight consecutive home game. Did Biff steal the DeLorean again and we are in some crazy alternate timeline like Back to the Future 2?
All The Other Friday Games:
Hawks at 76ers, 7:00pm: The Al Horford-les Hawks' wounded tiger phenomenon gets put to the test. But it's still the Hawks so I can't get too excited or interested even if they are a good team.
Nuggets at
Trail Blazers at Craptors, 7:00pm: No Bargnani again for the Craptors. Prepare the rollerskating fail video!
Suns at Celtics, 7:30pm: Rondo is day-to-day with a sore wrist. Please please please let him play just so we are treated to a Rajon Rondo/Steve Nash matchup. That's all I ask as a fan of the point guard position.
Bulls at Cavaliers, 7:30pm: Speaking of injuries, Derrick Rose is still plagued with a case of turf toe. ARGH. Is ANYONE in this league healthy?
Grizzlies at Pistons, 7:30pm: You know, the Grizzlies have gone 6-3 since losing Z-Bo a couple weeks ago. Wasn't he responsible for a lot of their quality play last year, much to our genuine surprise? So what's going on now? Any Grizz fans out there who can fill us in?
Bucks at Knicks, 7:30pm: The Deer in Headlights have suspended Stephen Jackson one game for what they are describing as an “unexcused absence” from the team's morning shootaround. I dunno about that. Not being around the rest of the team's bad offense might be a good thing for him.
Kings at Spurs, 8:30pm: The Purple Paupers are a dreadful road team and are starting a 4-game-in-6-nights stretch. Abandon all hope for an entertaining game.
Pacers at Warriors, 10:30pm: Just to point out something from the Pacers' loss to the aforementioned Excremento: they were shut down in the 4th quarter by a zone defense. Why did it take so long for anyone to figure this out? The Pacers' shooting percentage has been pretty dreadful all season, and they're currently 27th in the league in that stat (though they are 7th in 3 point shooting percentage). Wouldn't it stand to reason that going zone and forcing Indiana to take more jumpers would likely be effective? I am far from a good basketball mind, so please correct me if I'm wrong in this line of thinking.
Nationally Televised Saturday Games:
Nuggets at Knicks, NBA TV, 7:30pm: To recap: the Knicks are coached by offensive-minded Mike D'Antoni and their roster includes Melo, Amar'e, and Tyson Chandler. Why can't they score any points??
All The Other Saturday Games:
Cavaliers at Hawks, 7:00pm: Cleveland gets to play the Hawks right after playing the Bulls, then they get to go Tuesday and play a game in Miami and Wednesday in New York. That's it. The lockout shortened schedule is officially bawful.
Trail Blazers at Pistons, 7:30pm: You know, you have to give the Pissed-Ons credit. They are dead last in points per game AND rebounds per game. It takes a certain kind of ineptitude to pull that one off.
76ers at Heat, 7:30pm: I know, small sample size and everything, but just an interesting stat. As of right now, the Sixers' SRS stat according to basketball-reference.com (rating that takes into account average point differential and strength of schedule) is even higher than their '67 and '83 championship teams. Their Defensive Rating is 93.3 -- the lowest in team history. That's pretty impressive, even if it's only over a 14 game span.
Mavericks at Hornets, 8:00pm: The Mavs will be playing without Vince Carter for a third straight game. Addition by subtraction?
Bobcraps at Bulls, 8:00pm: Want to see tons and tons of mediocre to sad statistics? Take some time to read through the Bobkittens' page on Basketball Reference. And remember that the best player in NBA history runs this team.
Spurs at Rockets, 8:00pm: A random stat I enjoyed: the Spurs' worst win/loss percentage under Gregg Popovich is .610 -- no wonder there's talk about him being in consideration for the Olympic team by people like LeBron James. He's like the anti
Thunder at Nyets, 8:00pm: The Thunder are fresh off a loss to the Generals. The GENERALS. If the don't come out looking for blood in this game, I will have lost all faith in humanity.
Kings at Grizzlies, 8:00pm: I saw this on Twitter earlier today (I THINK JE Skeets retweeted it, can't remember for certain unfortunately). One of the worst basketball cards of all time, featuring Big Country Bryant Reeves.
Timberwolves at Jazz, 9:00pm: The Timberwolves are 27th in the league in assists per game despite having Ricky Rubio on their roster averaging 8 dimes a game. So what happens to the ball when it's not in his hands? (looks at roster) Oh. Yeah, I forgot. They're still the Timberwolves. A new and improved Timberwolves, but still the Timberwolves.
Nationally Televised Sunday Games:
Celtics at
Yeah, this would definitely make Generals games more watchable
All The Other Sunday Games:
Craptors at Clippers, 3:30pm: Basketbawful reader Cznerobog chimed in with the following zinger I have to share: "The Clippers will be in the finals. Source: Maian Calendar."
Bucks at Heat, 6:00pm: This year's Milwaukee squad has the 7th worst SRS rating in team history. Just thought you might like to know that.
Bobcraps at Nyets, 6:00pm: Well, I can pretty safely say this game won't be worth watching. So to spare you the pain, I'll recommend a Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode to watch instead. How about the classic The Pumaman? It features Aztecs, sensible slacks, and Donald Pleasance. Here's a couple minutes of highlight if you aren't familiar with it.
"A Post-It note can sense danger better than this guy"
Pacers at Lakers, 9:30pm: Okay, this might actually be a good way to end the hoops weekend.
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Anyway, Rajon Rondo is out. And it happens just when Steve Nash is in town. I smell C's are going to be stump over by Suns tonight.
Not because of Suns, but cause Celtics are being held hostages by KG and PP. Those two are trying to prove they're still capable to carry team. Er, wrong. Self-deception at very least. Whenever C's are playing through Rondo and Allen it is visible better and result is better too.
Of course, team can't win a lot playing only through guards, so they should trade PP, then let KG walks in free agency next summer.
But with Danny Ainge in charge ... he'll let Allen walks and trade away Rondo. He's not stupid, he understands something is wrong, but he's clueless about what's wrong ... so let's do random and stupid trades, like sending Perk to Thunder for nothing.
Blazers: They let Z-Bo walks, their all-star Roy retired at age when people usually graduate, their #1 draft pick Oden appears in games less frequently than Winter Olympics, through trades they lost Andre Miller and got Marcus Camby. Despite all those disasters, Portland is in playoffs each season. On the West.
Meanwhile, Craptors ... maybe Colangelo Jr is not so smart as we used to think.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbVKWCpNFhY
Just for the reference, New Orleans is 3-12 and Spurs ... wait, they're San Antonio, I can't believe it ... all this years I thought they're New Mexico.
Anyway, New-something : 13-32 W-L. It's not good to be New this season.
There was little hiccup: C's opened Q3 with 18-6 for 3 points lead ... but otherwise Suns routinely solved Celtics (sans their by far best player). Throw away that Suns' bawful period and for rest of game you have: 73-53 for Suns.
Steve Nash schooled Bradley and Gortat did same to JON.
Out of C's, I liked Pierce's flopping the most. Actress was near her best tonight.
Look, I get that you can't teach size, but Bynum just isn't that great. Good, but not great.
But yes. Dwight is the top C in the league. Shaqqy Doo is still full of shit.
Sixers killed birds to a magnitude of 51-27 in 2nd half. Would be even bigger difference if not for garbage time.
Iguodala had 1000th career steal.
Bulls-sans-Rose @ Cadavers 114-75
no comment
Lakers @ Magic
In most interesting matchup Turkoglu outplayed Metabolism-Piece.
Metabolism: 0 points (0-4 FG), 0 rebounds, 0 assists
Turk: DNP - back spasms
BTW, Lakers lost on the road again. Like there was any doubt, it was road game. Staples Center is something completely different: 16-2 for home team. Clippers 9-1, Lakers 7-1.
Ricky Rubio 0-7 FG after 3 quarters. That's 1-15 over last 7 quarters.
His FG% was suspiciously high and it was to expect it evens out, but this is unacceptable.
He's losing ground in battle with Irving for RoY. Besides those two I can see only Marshon Brooks as candidate, and I think Marshon's going to fade out sooner or later.
Why Moped had the ball in his hands? Isn't he like the worst crunch player of a decade? Ego, someone?
Clippers lost, universe is feeling better.
Rubio rounded it to 0-10 FG. Then scored 3-pointer to tie score at 98 with 20 seconds to go. Then he stopped Billups not to win it for Clippers. Then Love won it for Wolves. Kind of flukish that Wolves hit all the shots late in the game ... but it's warm and fluffy feeling when unlucky and/or most bizzare things happens to Clippers ... things are getting normal.
Mo Williams ejected. OK. Who cares. But what I noticed about Wolves shooting department is: it happened that Love was on the bench at the moment, so Anthony freaking Tolliver was called to shoot technical foul free throw (and missed it, of course). That he shot it speaks volumes about coaches' trust in other players' shooting abilities.
Matchup: Darko Milicic 22 pts (10-15 FG), Andre Jordan 2 pts (1-3 FG). Dre is kind of overhyped?
Same opinion here. I keep waiting for him to say something crazy bawful, but it just ain't happening. But it's still 'Toine, so I'll keep following him anyway.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BY5VbKtgH4
Earl Watson +/- of +11.9
http://www.82games.com/1112/1112UTA.HTM
It seems Watson isn't playing extra well, but entire Jazz 2nd unit doing good.
But what happened to Devin? He didn't use to be so bawful.
Hollinger has him as 207th of 325 players he has as qualified
BasketballMonster as 210th ranked
BasketballValues as 48th of "top 50" they list
What if they find out everything is OK with his brain? I don't know, really didn't thought about it. Probably because it seems so unlikely.
Nowadays so many people choose career not fitting their personality at all. It's so sad. Damn corporativism.
Cadavers minus 27 at Hawks. In two days -66 with 235 received. And counting.
Watch the highlight where Scalabrine drives and then passes to Korver for lay up. The announcer calls Scalabrine "White Mamba" and then goes nuts when he makes the wrap-around pass. ROFL!
You know what? He's just The Cock now. Gallinari has earned it.
Check the boxscore, he doesn't have a single assist. How can they do that to him? The Breenster got robbed!
Melo - 20 mil per year. 25 points on 30 shots, 10 rebounds, and 5 assists with 6 turnovers.
Amare - 20 mil per year. 12 points, 11 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals, 1 block.
Chandler - 14 mil per year. 8 points, 10 rebounds, 3 blocks, fouled out.
That's a total of about 54 mil per year. Now let's look at 3 former Knicks (Nene was part of a draft-day trade for Antonio McDyess.)
Gallinari - making 4 mil on his rookie deal. 37 points on 19 shots, 11 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 turnover.
Nene - 13 mil per year. 12 points, 13 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 steals, 1 block.
Mozgov - 3 mil per year. 16 points, 7 rebounds, 3 blocks, an assist and a steal, and only 2 fouls.
Those 3 guys combined make about as much as Melo. Yet they each matched or exceeded their Knicks counterpart in production. When your "big 3" gets outperformed by guys you considered expendable, that's pretty sad.
It's fun to watch, Rudy Gay getting a block on Noah, then clearing off everyone so he could take Noah to the rim and dunk on his face was about as good as it gets.
White Mamba for the ages.
About Gallinari, since he plays for the Nuggets, I just call him "Chicken" or "Chickenari", with or without revenge game.
I was really looking forward to that Lakers-Heat matchup, and I felt disappointed.
Morris lost the rookie challenge against Cole (and whoever he was facing too).
Bryant was awful at the first half, and good but not great at the second, though his defense was bad during all the game (like all Lakers defense itself letting open threes).
Lebron was really good, Battier also doing his things.
And Gasol was the best Laker, Bynum didn't do bad, and Murphy scored a few shots, but Bosh, Anthony and Haslem made that even.
More than a fair win for the Heat, they controlled the game.
OK, then I have some more for Saturday games, but not much. As yesterday NBA schedulers put 9 out of 10 games to start between 7PM and 8PM. Let's overlap. What a great idea.
Cadavers 94-121 loss at Hawks. In two days that's -66 with 235 received. And counting. Caws 13 fast break points, Hawks season high 30 and some 17 more than their average. If hawksy Hawks run over you, then your future looks bleak.
Sixers 92-113 loss at Heat. Boring - Sixers looked afraid. Not like really afraid, more like convinced they can't win this one. So I lost interest early.
Quite opposite, Bricks game was exciting this time, but again Bricks lost, of course. Sixth loss in a row. 6 x "L" = LLLLLL. Nice. We want Isiah.
Galinari 37+11+2 (and Mozgov 16+7+1 with 3 blocks) / Melo 25+10+5. Exactly who got better in that trade? Points in the paint 62-42 for DEN.
Mavs-Sans-Dirk won at Hornets 83-81. Fir Horribles that's 7th loss in a row and counting. Still in a search for basketball plays, even trying some unorthodox.
Can't find clip, so I'll try to explain move Jarrett Jack made with 10 seconds and Hornets down 3. We could call it "falling from the moped" move - he was
so confused about his own dribbling that he had fell on his hip and glided until Delonte West picked the ball (but stupid refs called it jump ball, they ruined nice and funny fumble in a crucial moment).
Jack led Horribles' "offense" to 2 fast break points in 48 minutes.
Oklahoma won easily at Nyets and Bulls versus Bobcraps, final scores of only +10 / +6 are deceptive.
Bulls had injury problems (Rose, Noah, Hamilton, Lucas), so they started Asik and Watson, and played Scalabrine for real (before Q4). And same goes for 46-years old Mike James (17 minutes) that they just signed from some Deconstruction League. Or it is Decomposition League? Never mind. Still, turrible Craps were helpless. Says more about them.
Grizzlies killed Cockramento.
While Jazz had problems with Wolves, but won by 10. I watched most of the game, both teams are surprisingly not-bawful, but Kevin Love looks drained already.
In two close games Pistons won perhaps tired Blazers, and Rockets won Spurs that rested Duncan. Really had no time for those two , only saw Spurs airballing buzzer 3-pointer for 2nd game in a row (Danny Green for win vs SAC and I think Gary Neal for overtime yesterday). No Manu = no clutch player, Parker hiding in the corner as usual. Manu=Machete, Parker=that vampire-lights guy from Twilight. Parkinson or whatever his name is.
John Salmons, who missed Saturday's game due to a stomach virus, has been released from the hospital and is questionable for Monday night's game against the Trail Blazers.
No sense for dramatic at all, couldn't PR people put "brain surgery" instead of "stomach virus".
Even simply saying the truth is better - After stomach pumping because of heavy drinking all night Friday, John Salmons has been released from the hospital and is questionable to silver soon enough for Monday night's game.
Today's games overlapped with NFC and AFC championship games. Evil NBA schedulers. Yeah, I know it was unavoidable. But whom to blame? Myself?
Stupid schedulers.
LeBron pulled a Kobe, scored 14 points in Q2, but Heat lost that period by 28-20. Scored 28, but bawful-road-team Bucks handled Heaters 91-82.
Craptors lost at Clippers (still without Paul) 91-103
Crappy Canadian Crappies opened game with 4-19 shooting, and were down by 18 points already in Q1, game pretty much over already then.
Their starters combined for most bawful in recent history 9-40 shooting, and in garbage time reserves (20-41 FG) made score looks better than turrible Raptors presentation was.
Celtics @ Generals 100-94
Celtics were without best player (Rondo) and in Q2 they lost their 2nd best player Ray Allen to injury. Still, Generals lost. It was close game, so I forced myself to watch more Generals than it's good for own health.
John Wall can play, but he can't shoot. Other Generals ... I don't see what is their strong suit, who and why drafted them. Maybe they look good at annual photo for team calendar?
Celtics are stumbling through worse season since KG/Allen arrival ... yet without 2 best players they're tad better than Generals.
Nyets routed Bobcraps easily, 97-87
Bobcraps are unbelievable bad, Generals' kind of bad - if not worse. They're so bad that Adam "Mustache Kid" Morrison would easily make their roster. Kwame Brown, if still in Bobcraps, would be franchise player.
I know you want believe me, but things might get even worse. DJ Augustin got injured in first quarter, and he's one of rare Bobcraps' players that would make roster of a serious NBA team.
still to come
Pacers at Lakers
Won't watch it, as I know what happens.
Kobe is going to shoot zillion times, and if shots fall in, he'll score 40 and be a self-declared hero. If shots won't fall in, he'll say gameplan sucked. In either case, Mike Brown is going to agree, 100% agree.
On the other hand, if Kobe misses a lot, Pacers are gonna say Granger did good job on him. If Kobe scores 40, they'll declare George in fact was guarding him.
I see close game in which Kobe will try hard to lose ... but it is near impossible to outstink Granger, so I see Lakers winning thanks to yet another Granger's epic fail.
Good god in heaven... A blind folded Kwame Brown could shoot better than 1 for 10...This bawful shooting has to be some kind of record
LA got Mike Brown'd. Gasol has been reduced to hoisting up threes and being a playermaker while Kobe gets 30 points on 30 shots. They're a lottery team right now!
I completely agree on the suckness of the Bobcats. I previewed them to be at the bottom of the East, their roster can make anyone cry. Surprisingly (or not), the Wizards are even doing worse, and that was something I didn't expect at all. I thought one godawful team was enough. And then the Hornets decided to join the party.
I'm sorry if it sounds sad or gratuitous, but I miss seeing teams that can win the NBA this year.
I don't like to say that but I don't see any other team than the Heat winning the title this year.
And it's even sadder compared to last year, that it was a really open competition.
I still think the Bulls are not winning, simply because those teams where the main scorer is the point guard don't have a good chance at a title (and don't recall Isaiah Thomas, Magic, or even Walt Frazier bullshit, I said a good chance, not not a chance at all).
The Thunder have a similar problem, because Westbrook acts like he's the main scorer, and because all their points come from outside.
Dallas must redo itself to make Odom fit and that demands a time that could me too much in a normal season. So, a shortened season is not gonna help.
The Clippers made a new team out of the blue, and they are not consistent. They have really good point guards, but how many of them are going to play at the same time?
And I'm not going further into another teams because I don't see them good enough compared to these ones, or getting any better than they are right now (Jazz, Nuggets, Grizzlies, Lakers, Hawks, Pacers, Sixers, Magic).
I don't think Bulls can win the championship without a legit low-post scoring threat to support Rose. I know Boozer was the best available option at the time, but he isn't helping much.
Pacers won at Lakers 98-96
Lakers are no better than Clippers. I mean current Clippers w/o injured Chris Paul.
Wasn't watching, I'm no robot, with 2 NFL games, and before it Generals vs crippled Celtics (injuries Rondo, Allen, Dooling + they have JON on roster, it's much better when he's actually injured and DNP) and some more NBA action at NFL halftimes ... enough is enough. And I knew what would happen ... almost.
But I checked boxscore from time to time during NFL overtime and checked boxscore and play-by-play at the end.
Lakers were up 77-84 early in Q4 and it was 98-94 for visiting team before meaningless Gasol's layup in last second (his only points since Q1 for total 8) . That's 21-10 Pacers 4th quarter run if I'm not wrong.
Kobe checked in at 7 minutes to go with Lakers up by 5. He shot 1-6 FG rest the way and ruined his OK stats from 1st half (17 pts on 7-13 FG, but only 1 assist). As usual, he gave other team chance to win. Only thing that surprised me here is Pacers actually being smart enough to use that opportunity. They made better job than Lakers keeping ball mostly out of Granger's hands and playing through Roy Hibbert (+/- of whopping +18) whom scored 18 points on 9-13 shooting despite broking nose during game (Granger 16 pts, but 7 more minutes and 4-14 FG).
You know what's crazy? This sentence makes perfect sense in the Bawful NBA. Why? Because there are so many bawfully untalented veterans out there, and you most definitely don't want the kind of leadership that some of them would provide (I'm looking at you, Vince Carter and Gilbert Arenas).
I have a great conspiracy theory re: the Lakers. Kobe knew that his game was going to fall off a cliff this season, so he pushed management to saddle them with Mike Brown. Now Kobe has a scapegoat for a couple of twilight seasons, and then he'll retire. Thus he rides into the sunset being able to blame others.
That said, probably not a lottery team until Kobe gets the season-ending injury. "What!?!?" you say? "The iron man?!?!" Yes, this is the season where Kobe packs it in down the stretch. He can get at least an extra season to his career by getting a long off-season this summer. The Mike Brown scapegoat covers him for that, too.
Man, barring injuries I'm going to call Heat vs. Zombies in the Finals this year, with the Heat nudging the Bullies in the Eastern finals (I just had to take a short afk to sob a little). I only see three teams executing well with good D and the youth to win it. Some of the older teams may prove me wrong, but I doubt it. Orlando on paper looks good, but we know they have insurmountable flaws as currently formulated. The Pacers and Denver (did I just type that?) both are great scrappy teams playing ball the way we like to see it, but both lack legitimate big time players that will put them over the top against their respective conference giants. The Clips are probably still too shallow and may run into the Clippers curse. Plus, they need a couple of those contender role players that they'll pick up next year.