iggymcfly

I haven't watched a basketball game since Dallas got eliminated, but I've kinda been following the Suns/Spurs series anyway, and just looking at the box score/recap, I think the blame for this loss has to go to D'Antoni. I mean if you've got Steve Nash who's got a bad back, is generally in rough physical shape and you play him 46 minutes, play Marion 46 minutes, and play Bell 47 minutes, it shouldn't be a big surprise when the team wears out and collapses down the stretch. Yes, I know they're just going to blame the suspensions, but that doesn't say anything about why Jalen Rose was left to rot on the bench. He's only 34, just last year, he was averaging double digits for the Raptors, and he's got all the playoff experience in the world. How could you think it's a better idea to run a 6-man rotation than to give him some minutes? I was saying at the end of the season that D'Antoni should get coach of the year, because I knew Avery wasn't that good, and I hate the idea of making Coach of the Year a "most improved team" award, but f*ck that. I'd like to make an official retraction. You're new coach of the year: Gregg Popovich!

I don't know how my team's so bad this year. Pujols is absolutely sleepwalking through the season as his OPS is 200 points below his career low and 350 points below where it was last year. Based on this season's stats, he's not even a Top 200 ballplayer. Dontrelle Willis who was supposed to be my ace has an ERA of over 5.00 and a WHIP of over 1.50. Harang who was the best pitcher on my league-leading squad last year also has an ERA of over 5.00 this year. Felipe Lopez and Alfonso Soriano are also both having much worse seasons than usual at ages when they should be peaking. Basically, all my big players are just underperforming for no reason right now. I've got tons of talent, the vast majority of it between the ages of 23 and 33, but I'm still getting no production. Nothing to do but just wait and hope it turns around I guess.

Grrrrr. Had to set the hockey game to record again tonight. Watched all of regulation, and then realizing I'd only set the timer to extend 90 minutes, figured I'd better record some more in case the game went long. While I do that, I accidentally end up switching to one of the ESPN networks and see Barry Melrose with a "Senators 4 Sabres 3" in front of him. So I watched 90 minutes and then spoiled the outcome of overtime. Oh well, at least the Senators look to be moving by Buffalo to the Stanley Cup Finals. I don't mind so much spoiling the outcome of one game in the conference finals, knowing there's likely a whole nother series to look forward to. Go Ottawa!

Had to record the game and just finished it now, but I just want to say that the Sens are playing some tremendous hockey right now. The Alfredsson/Heatley/Spezza line is just a thing of beauty to watch and the whole team's playing very good defense. I don't know if they can beat Detroit or Anaheim, but I feel really, really good about their chances of beating the Sabres.

Daniel Alfredsson >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> You

Ottawa may not have a great seed this year, but since about the middle of December, they've been playing better hockey than anyone in the NHL. They finished the season 39-9-8 and destroyed teams in Pitt and NJ that were significantly better than the Rangers squad that Buffalo was scrapping to get by. If you really think that Buffalo is better than a coin-flip to make the Finals, I think you're deluding yourself.

Milo was likeable? Really? I must have missed that one. Between asking everyone about their feelings every 10 seconds when they're supposed to be working on a national crisis, his childish fighting with Morris, and his incessant brooding over his schoolboy crush, I was glad to see him go. If you're point's just that the writing's gone to hell on 24 though, I'll certainly agree with that.

Ray Emery's season stats GAA: 2.47 SV%: .918 Ryan Miller's season stats GAA: 2.73 SV%: .911 OMG! The horror! How will Ottawa survive this terrible mismatch!

Saying Ottawa only has "one line" is ridiculous. They're 4th and 5th lines were the whole reason they beat New Jersey. They outscored the Devils' scrubs something like 6-0. Trust me, the Senators are at least as deep as Buffalo is. And Emery's been playing pretty decent in the playoffs. I think Ottawa will beat the Sabres in 6. Red Wings probably win in 5. It just kind of feels like they've been on cruise control so far as they played way better late in their series than they have in the early games. I think they pull it together to get by Anaheim decisively.

I predict Baron Davis breaks his leg flopping and never plays basketball again. Other than that I don't care.

Don't be that person. The one who's cheering for a team that's winning a ways into the playoffs and still finds reasons to bitch about how they should be playing better. I guess all that fawning over A-Rod infected you with you Yankeefanitis?

I'm starting to feel like I dreamed that whole Spurs series last year where Dirk was aggressive, went to the basket constantly, got 10+ FTA a game, and then scored 37 on the road in Game 7. All I'm reading everywhere is how Dirk's such a choker, and really that idea didn't even exist until about Game 5 of the Finals last year. But he really did play terrible basketball this series. He was completely uninvolved in the offense, (as was Jason Terry actually), and Devin Harris going 1-on-4 was pretty much the only penetration we got the whole series. Again, I feel like I was watching a foreign team all through this series. Really disappointing. Thank God I've got the Senators. I haven't been posting about them, but I've watched almost every playoff game of theirs this year, and I've been following them for several years. I'll watch a little bit of Suns/Spurs, but mostly, I'm going to be ignoring the NBA and focusing on hockey for as long as the Sens are still in.

Wow, I don't even know what you can do here from the Mavericks' perspective. At least in LA, they can say "oh if we get this piece for Kobe or that piece for Kobe", we can win a title. But for Dallas tonight, the problem was the superstar. It was Dirk. You can have a great coach and all the role players in the world, but if your leader scores 8 points of 2/13 shooting, you're going home. Not that I'd mind if they fired Avery, but the Mavs are looking pretty lost right now.

Agreed. I'm only watching it because I'm anxious for the Dallas/Golden State game to start and it seems like basketball's a good lead-in.

What the Lakers really need is a point guard who can shoot the three. While Farmar will be better than Parker next year, he's still not quite ready to be a starter in the NBA and LA needs another shooter in their rotation anyway. Every year, I keep thinking Kwame Brown's going to improve and have a breakout season and he never does, so maybe that's a lost cause, but he's still a serviceable post player, and I think he's good enough to keep the spot warm for Bynum until he matures. If the Lakers trade Bynum though, then they'll definitely need an upgrade at C. Still though, I can't emphasize enough that what the Lakers really need is another consistent 3-point shooter. A lot of the reason Kobe falls into relying on the jumper is that when he's driving the lane, he either has to try to score it 1-on-3 or pass out to the perimeter to a wide open shooter who's going to miss 70% of the time or so. Maybe Smush would do better on a team that's not going to make the playoffs since he seems to play about 100x worse when there's postseason pressure.

I agree that the "We are all Nowtiznesses" thing sounds better. But this picture just looked so fucking cool that I had to post it. Anyway, great win for the Mavs tonight, but they are going to have to play a little better to get the win in Oakland. They need to stop leaving the shooters every time someone penetrates because Golden State's hitting everything from the outside, and they need Dirk to attack the whole game instead of just the first 10 minutes and the last three. If that happens, they should have no trouble dispatching of Golden State.

Clutch, clutch finish by the MVP of the league. I'm telling you, Dallas is taking this series.

... Seriously. They have beaten 8 out of the last 9 times that they have played. When will people just admit that Golden State, in this matchup, is the better team. If they win one more, I'll be glad to do just that. Don't think it's going to happen though. Dirk's clutch when his back's against the wall.

This is the real Dirk Nowitzki and these are the real Dallas Mavericks. Golden State doesn't have the talent to match up with them when they're on their A game.

I bet on the Rangers, so I'd be biased their way if anything, but that was the worst call I've ever seen. That was clearly across the line and Buffalo should be getting ready for overtime right now.

Just finally saw this quote today and it's making me crazy: I think Avery Johnson needs to sit Dirk down and just make him watch some tape of himself winning playoff games. Show him Game 5 against Utah in 2001 when Dallas came back from a 2-0 series deficit and being down 14 in the 4th quarter of game 5 to win the series 3-2. Show him Game 7 against San Antonio last year when he scored 37 points to lead the Mavs to the road victory. Show him the game where he went off for 50 against Phoenix. The fact is that Dirk's capable of being one of the top two scorers in the league and he just needs to get rid of this stupid mental block so he can get the job done and lead the Mavericks past Golden State. If he sticks with this bitchy attitude of "there's nothing I can do to score on Golden State", the Mavericks are done.

Yeah, I'm really happy with how the Senators have played thus far. They've been controlling the puck much better than New Jersey throughout the series and getting a lot more chances. Brodeur's the only reason that the Devils have been so tight every game. I think Ottawa's got a great shot to win the Cup this year.

Actually, I've got to retract some of what I said earlier. Just going off of memory, I thought Jordan played 30-35 games, but looking at some actual stats, it looks like he only played in 17 regular season games. The point does he remain that he performed quite well in the playoffs though and that that Chicago team had no answer for Shaq on the defensive end or on the boards. I still don't think the Bulls would have won the title that year even if MJ played 82 games.

For real. People forget how huge that Orlando/Chicago series was at the time. It was to a typical playoff series what Mayweather/De La Hoya is to a typical title fight. As in, among people that weren't interested in the sport, everyone was still on the edge of their seat as to how it would turn out. Jordan played pretty well, but he and Pippen got outplayed by Shaq and Penny and that was that. Then, the Magic fell apart in the Finals, the Rockets' nucleus fell apart the next year and the Bulls added Rodman and went back to winning championships. Honestly though, MJ played half the season and had a warmup playoff series, and he'd been playing baseball prior to that so he wasn't exactly out of shape to begin with. By the time he faced the Magic, he was ready. His Bulls just weren't good enough to win the series.

Dirk's been playing undeniably terrible. I've never seen him this bad for an entire series, even when the Mavs were getting crushed by San Antonio 6 or 7 years ago. He's just not looking for his own shot ever. He stands in the corner most of the time and the only time he shoots is when the shot clock's running down, when he gets a rebound or to take that stupid little 20-footer from just inside the three-point line. He needs to drive to the basket, post up, or even jack up threes, but he can't be a non-factor in the offense if the Mavericks are going to win the series. Devin Harris and Josh Howard slashing to the basket every play just isn't a good enough offense to beat anyone.