Author: clay

Categories
General Sports

Jackie Moon is both the past and the future of basketball

When it comes to movies, we really only have two criteria: 1) it must star Will Ferrell and 2) it must be about sports. Hey, we have a winner. Semi-Pro is Ferrell’s latest endeavor and we are thrilled that it’s almost time for it to hit the big screen. We’ve been staring at Ferrell’s naked, swamp sweaty body for the past couple of months now and we really, really want some more. Wait, that came out all wrong.

Are you watching this David Stern? Do you realize the kinds of ratings you’d pull down if instead of putting microphones on coaches, you invested in a halftime wrestling match between Joakim Noah and a bear? That’s money son.

Categories
Portland Trailblazers

Around the Rim: Blazers grab another victory


1. Future Roy-alty
If Portland could ever get a healthy roster, they’d be pretty darn good, but, in the meantime, they’re pretty darn good. Led by the continually improving Brandon Roy’s 26 points and 11 assists, the Blazers won their seventh consecutive game on Sunday, downing Denver 116-105. In addition to playing without this year’s top draft pick for the entire season, Portland was missing their second overall pick from a year back as LaMarcus Aldridge sat out for the fourth straight game with a case of plantar fasciitis. Points in the paint are going to extremely hard to come by once Aldridge and Oden team up to become the Pacific Northwest’s version of the Twin Towers. Until then, it’s up to Roy to carry this squad to the playoffs and with a win tonight over the Hornets, Portland will improve to 13-12, putting them on the cusp of moving into the eighth and final postseason slot.

2. Big Three Two

What a difference a year makes. Last season Boston was enduring one of the worst seasons in the history of the NBA and this year they match their longest winning streak since the early `90s. Go figure. 1993 was the last time the Celtics won nine consecutive games until Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce led the mean green to a 90-77 win in Toronto on Sunday. The duo combined for 34 points, 14 rebounds and 10 assists in the contest, using a 27-17 first quarter advantage to propel Boston to victory. Ray Allen missed his second game with a right ankle injury, but he is expected to be in the lineup when the Pistons come to Beantown on Wednesday.

3. Shelden Williams got jacked up!
Being rich ain’t what it used to be. In fact, the curse of money is at an all-time high right now for athletes with Shelden Williams becoming the latest victim of greedy goons. Williams was carjacked at gunpoint near Atlanta on Saturday by two suspects. Both were arrested in Williams’ car later that night during an attempted robbery. This could have been a lot worse for Williams, who should be thanking his lucky stars he’s not dead over a freakin’ 2008 Chrysler. Williams played two minutes in Atlanta’s Saturday night game against Charlotte, logging zeros across the board. Next up for the baby birds is a home game tonight against Carlos Boozer, Deron Williams and the rest of the Jazz.

Sunday’s Player of the Day: Allen Iverson vs. Portland 46 min, 38 pts (FG: 11-22, 3FG: 3-6, FT: 13-15), 2 reb, 6 ast, 3 stl

Monday’s Games to Watch: Phoenix (17-7) @ San Antonio (18-5) AND Orlando (17-8) @ Dallas (16-9)
You’re going to have to do some serious channel flipping tonight because both of these games are must see TV. You can’t go wrong with one of the most intense rivalries currently going in the NBA. Phoenix is still fuming after getting bounced from last year’s playoffs by the Spurs. San Antonio is hoping to have a full compliment of players, but Tony Parker’s sprained ankle is keeping his status up in the air. With a win, Phoenix can move within half a game of the conference leading Spurs.

Just up the road you’ll find the Magic looking to extend their two game win streak with a victory in Dallas. Dwight Howard is giving opponents sweat-inducing nightmares with his play of late. Howard is fresh off a 31-point, 20-rebound performance against Memphis and is averaging 25.6 points, 16.8 rebounds, 1.4 steals and 1.6 blocks per game over the team’s last five contests (4-1). In case Dirk Nowitzki needed any more reason to stay out of the paint, there it is. But regardless of style, Nowitzki is averaging 20.8 points to go with 8.2 boards and 4.1 assists and the Mavs have won four of their last five outings.

Buzzer Beater: More sobering news from the NBA, sorta. A judge tossed out former baller Keon Clark’s two-and-a-half year prison sentence, citing that Clark deserves a new hearing. Afterwards, Clark let loose with some surprisingly honest and bewildering comments.

Clark, 32, of Danville, said in Vermilion County Circuit Court on Friday that he is an alcoholic and was drinking a half pint to a pint of gin daily when he was playing pro basketball.

“I never played a game sober, unfortunately,” said Clark, who last played for the Utah Jazz and Phoenix Suns.

Clark said in court that he started drinking in high school and, after he was drafted in the NBA by the Orlando Magic in 1998, he drank at games during halftime.

“It just never stopped,” he said.

Categories
College Football

Frustration or celebration? Either way, a cop got beaned with a football

Appalachian State won their third NCAA Division I Championship over the weekend and kudos to them for doing so, but what we’re going to remember from the game wasn’t the accomplishment or the premature rushing the field by the crowd or their eventual celebration. Nope, what’s going to stick with us about this blowout is when Delaware returned a punt all the way to the house in the waning minutes of the fourth, capping off the touchdown by pelting a cop with the ball!

Oh, man; we almost saw a physical altercation between the two. It couldn’t have topped the Donald vs. Shasta battle we saw earlier in the year, but it would have been entertaining.

Categories
Green Bay Packers

Deanna, is there something you need to tell us?


We were watching Sunday’s game between Green Bay and St. Louis and we felt honored and privileged to watch the fourth quarter pass gently float from the rugged fingers of the NFL’s ironman and fall into Donald Driver’s hands seven yards away. At that moment, Favre became a football god, passing Dan Marino’s all-time passing record of 61,361 yards with the pass.

However, leave it to FOX to go off and ruin a perfectly memorable, feel-good moment. Heading into a commercial break following Favre’s career accomplishment, the knuckleheads in the control room started playing Pearl Jam’s “Better Man.” Sure, if you just listen to the lyrics – “Can’t find a better man” – then you’d probably think it’s a fitting tribute. But that’s why we do research people!

When the song was performed on VH1 Storytellers Eddie Vedder introduced it as a song about “abusive relationships.” It is often thought that Vedder had written it from a woman’s perspective about an abusive relationship. Before a performance of the song at Pearl Jam’s show in Atlanta, Georgia on April 3, 1994 Vedder clearly said “it’s dedicated to the bastard that married my Momma.

What, was Eminem’s “Kim” already being used for another highlight package?

Links:

[Canada.com]: Favre passes Marino

Categories
All Other Sports

Frat boys rejoice over the creation of a table

Christmas is right around the corner and there are a bunch of entrepreneurial opportunists out there flooding the market with a whole lotta horrible products in hopes of grabbing a fat, green slice of this year’s yuletide pie. One of the absolute worst is Pong-A-Long, a portable table made exclusively for beer pong aficionados across the world.

We’re figuring that they are basically catering to frats and guys like Dirk Nowitzki, Steve Nash, Jeremy Shockey, Greg Olsen and virtually every other goofy white guy in professional or collegiate sports. As we all know, goofy white professional athletes just love to get together for “Beer Pong Tuesdays”. And, of course, as with all officially sanctioned goofy white guy activities, Joakim Noah is invited to participate.

Links:

[Best Week Ever]: Do You Throw Ping-Pong Balls At Cups Whilst Drunk Often Enough To Require A Table Exclusively For That?

Categories
LA Lakers

Around the Rim: Kobe takes over, downs the champs


1. L.A. K.O.’s S.A.
San Antonio didn’t have Tim Duncan or Tony Parker in the lineup on Thursday and Kobe Bryant didn’t care. Bean racked up 30 points and seven rebounds in the Lakers 102-97 win over the injury ravaged Spurs. Bruce Bowen, yes the offensively challenged Bruce Bowen, finished with a team-high 22 for the Spurs after scoring a season-high 23 against L.A. in a victory last month. The Lakers have now won four consecutive games, giving them a whole new outlook on the Pacific Division standings as they sit just three games behind the first-place Phoenix Suns. Los Angeles must quickly turn around for a track meet against the Warriors tonight, a team they defeated by 10 points last Sunday. Golden State has slipped in the standings a bit after putting together a nice run following their 0-6 start and should be desperate for a win over their division rivals. Being victorious would give the Lakers only a half game lead for second place in the Pacific.

2. Three wasn’t to be

Just when it was starting to look like Miami was on the rebound, the Gilbert Arenasless Wizards come to South Beach and win by 13, 104-91, snapping the Heat’s only win streak of the year at two games. DeShawn Stevenson led the way for Washington, scoring 26 points while Caron Butler, Antawn Jamison and Brendan Haywood all finished with double-doubles in points and rebounds. The Heat’s starters were stone cold once again as the bench scored over half (46) of the teams points. Shaquille O’Neal’s begging for the ball was completely ineffective as the Diesel put up just six shots in the game for seven points to go with six boards. After the game, Pat Riley sounded like a broken record, publicly blasting his guys for their weak efforts.

There’s no excuses,” Riley said. “There are none. I have none. The players should have none. … Tonight, we didn’t hardly even try

3. Iguodala-dala bill, ya’ll!
Since Gilbert Arenas isn’t on the court at the moment, he’s decided to put on his GM hat and started blabbering about player’s contracts and who’s worth what on his blog. Now, Arenas has a lot to say on the matter, a lot; however, what really jumped out at us was Agent 0’s opinion concerning Philadelphia’s Andre Iguodala.

I know after A.I. left, you were supposed to be that No. 1 guy, but, the way he plays the game, he doesn’t have that. He’s not that type of player. He’s a second guy. An assistant coach told me a great story about him. When he was in Arizona, he said he was like 9-for-11 from the field and he apologized to the team for shooting 11 shots. From that day on, I just called him Scottie Pippen. He’s a Scottie Pippen type of player. A great, overall player. He’s your glue player. You need a superstar and then you need him. So $12 million is good for you. Nothing more and nothing less. Be happy with the $12 million.

Thursday’s Player of the Day: Kobe Bryant vs. San Antonio 38 min, 30 pts (FG: 10-24, 3FG: 1-4, FT: 9-10), 7 reb, 3 ast, 4 stl

Friday’s Game to Watch: New Orleans (14-8) @ Dallas (14-9)
New Orleans is one of the biggest surprises in the West, rushing out to a 14-8 record behind the play of Chris Paul who is averaging 21.5 points, 10.0 assists, 2.8 steals and 4.0 rebounds per game. As of now, only half a game separates these two in the Southwest Division with the NOLA sitting in second place followed the Mavs in third. Big D has gone flat after winning nine of their first 11 games, losing seven games in the last three weeks, including a 112-108 overtime contest with `Nawlins. CP3 was just shy of a triple-double with 33 points, 12 assists and nine boards. While Dallas still has one of the better records in the league, a big time win over their sudden division rival would be huge for the Mavericks’ collective psyche. Of course, the same thing can be said for the Hornets who appear to be legit for the first time since Zo and Grandmama were patrolling the paint.

Buzzer Beater: By now we’re sure that you’ve seen the new NBA self promotion commercials. You know, `NBA: Where amazing happens‘. Well, in case you were getting bored of the original commercials, here’s the league’s latest go-round with the concept.

Of course, the NBA is also `Where some really bad dancing happens‘.

Categories
General Sports

ESPN just loves being a wisenheimer


You might think that the NBA has a flawless relationship with “The Worldwide Leader in Sports,” but you’d be wrong. Even though the pair have a strong partnership together pumping hoops, as you’d expect, ESPN is basically the wild, bratty little sibling that the big brother NBA must keep in check from time to time. Especially when ESPN is backhandedly trying to promote a season-ending injury to one of the league’s greatest superstars.

The NBA, late last week, was moved to make a phone call to ESPN, one strongly suggesting that “ESPN Attitude” had again gone too far in the pursuit of the young and desensitized.

On Dec. 7, an ESPN.com poll asked what Boston-specific event one would most like to see happen, over the weekend: 1) “Steelers beat the Patriots.” 2) “Johan Santana traded to any team besides the Red Sox.” 3) “Kevin Garnett blow out his knee.”

Following the NBA’s complaint, ESPN removed the question.

In return the NBA has agreed to remove a poll from NBA.com that asked which SportsCenter anchor would most like to see hung by his toes and beaten like a piñata by a class of fourth-graders: 1) “Stuart Scott.” 2) “Stuart Scott.” 3) “Stuart Scott.”

Links:

[NYPost.com]: NBA raps ESPN.com

Categories
Phoenix Suns

Around the Rim: Toothless aggression



Say cheese! Uh, nevermind.

1. For once, Steve Nash didn’t bleed
Remember a few years back when Karl Malone delivered one of his patented elbows to the mug of a pre-MVP, Maverick’s jersey clad Steve Nash? Well, it was déjà vu all over again for Nashty last night when the Mailman 2.0, Carlos Boozer, delivered one of his man-sized elbows to Nash’s choppers, chipping the point guard’s front tooth right before halftime. Hey, at least Nash is capable of transforming his pain into our pleasure. Looking like a true Canadian, Nash went on to score 29 points and dish out 11 assists in the Suns 103-98 home victory. The win snapped a two-game losing streak for the Suns while extending the Jazz’s skid to a whopping five games. Boozer did all he could, including inadvertently making Nash’s smile as repulsive as his floppy hair, scoring 24 and grabbing 13 boards, but it wasn’t to be for Utah. The Jazz’s next opportunity to get a win comes on Friday when they travel to Portland and play against a team that won in Salt Lake City by eight points on Tuesday.

2. Ming’s motivation

Yao Ming stepped up and called out his club the other day, saying they were a bunch of softies. It turned out to be a good move because the Rockets ended up showing a little heart and won a grind-it-out game against a tough Detroit team, 80-77. Anytime someone calls out their teammates, that person has to produce and Yao did just that, scoring 21 points and grabbing 13 rebounds. And it always helps when your amigos buy in, which is what Tracy McGrady did, finishing with a game-high 29 points. Even though it was a gutsy victory, it wasn’t exactly pretty. Houston shot a pathetic 6-of-22 from the charity stripe that was spearheaded by McGrady’s 0-for-5 performance.

3. No point guard, no problem
T.J. Ford couldn’t play in Wednesday night’s game after he took a nasty, head-cracking fall on Tuesday, but the Raptors didn’t need their little big man as they spanked Dallas 92-76. Yup, the Mavericks could only muster up 76 measly points as they shot just .385. The reigning MVP continues to struggle with his consistency and just one game after dropping a season-high 36 on the Knicks, Dirk Nowitzki shot 6-15 for 13 points. Dallas has now lost three of their last five games with contests against New Orleans, Houston, Orlando and Phoenix looming on the schedule.

As far as Ford is concerned, he was released from the hospital and was even in attendance at Wednesday’s game. Luckily, it turns out he should fully recover and is expected to only miss about a week of action.

Wednesday’s Player of the Day: Steve Nash vs. Utah 36 min, 29 pts (FG: 10-12, 3FG: 3-4, FT: 6-6), 6 reb, 11 ast, 1 stl

Thursday’s Game to Watch: San Antonio (17-4) @ Los Angeles Lakers (12-8)
Could tonight be the night for the triumphant return of Tim Duncan to the Spurs lineup? We’ll have to wait until game time to be certain, but probably not. Duncan has missed three consecutive games with an ankle sprain, but it didn’t even phase San Antonio until the Warriors came along and snapped the Spurs five-game win streak on Tuesday. Trying to avoid back-to-back loses for the first time this season, SA heads to LA where Kobe Bryant is averaging 27.2 points for the season. The Lakers have struggled at home, dropping four of the 11 games in the Staples Center, but are riding a nice three game win streak in which they defeated Minny, Denver and Golden State. Should Duncan sit this contest out, we could be looking at a Bryant/Manu Ginobili highlight reel tomorrow morning which would be just fine by us.

Buzzer Beater: Glen “Big Baby” Davis got the first start of his career on Wednesday as the Celtics routed the Kings by 12, 90-78. Davis just missed out on a double-double in his debut, finishing with 16 points and nine rebounds in 27 minutes of work. And according to his coach, 28 might have killed the kid.

Baby was good after hyperventilating through the first half. He was terrific,” coach Doc Rivers said

Categories
Carolina Hurricanes

NHL butt-head delivers a head-butt

If you thought that head-butts were exclusive to WWE murdering psychopaths, idiotic foreign kids, Zinedine Zidane and tiny jockeys then you are sorely mistaken. Of course, you’re not as sore as Mike Fisher is after he took a few fists and a forehead to the face from the Hurricanes Scott Walker.

Nice technique. Walker must have been taking lessons from this guy.

Links:

[SLAM! Sports]: Canes’ head-butt `cheap’
[James Mirtle]: Walker’s headbutt

Categories
Dallas Cowboys

T.O. and Keyshawn are just a couple of skunks in a pissing match

After having the Bill Belichick/Eric Mangini rivalry shoved down our throats for close to a week now and with no apparent end in sight until we witness another frigid handshake between the two following Sunday’s Pats/Jets showdown, we’re ready for some new blood. Make that some new bad blood.

On ESPN‘s Sunday NFL Countdown last, errr, Sunday, Keyshawn Johnson made a comment about how Bill Parcells is responsible for building the current 12-1 Cowboys squad and should the `Boys win the Super Bowl it would be because of the foundation laid by Parcells. Johnson also said that Owens needs to chill out on his old coach. Well, in case you’ve been under a rock for the past couple of years, Terrell Owens hates Bill Parcells. In fact, Terrell Owens hates even having his name associated with Bill Parcells. So, of course, as you would expect, T.O. fired back.

Oh yea, this has the potential to be a tit-for-tat for weeks to come as neither one of these loudmouths is going to let the other get the final word in. As T.O. would say, “Get your popcorn ready.”

Links:

[MSNBC]: T.O. blasts Keyshawn for Tuna comments