Even if there are six teams in the West playing plus-.600 ball right now, it’s really just a two-horse race. You’ve got the 32-8 Lakers who have obviously put together the best first half of anyone in their conference bar none. And you’ve got the one team capable of knocking off L.A.: the Spurs.
That’s step one in the Beat L.A. Blueprint. ESPN Analyst/Kevin Martin’s basketball guru/IMG Academy basketball genius David Thorpe and the guys at Forum Blue & Gold point out a couple key moves to beating the Lakers:
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LockerNerd has this clip of Jarret Johnson of Division II Anderson University (Anderson, Ind.) giving a kid a face full of his garbage. This is like those controversial Nike Hyperdunk ads come to life. Is there any way this thing is fake?
Sometimes you gotta look beyond the scoreboard. Throughout the first quarter of Celtics/Heat, the Miami announcers kept gushing about how great the C’s were playing, when in reality, it wasn’t so much how good they were but how bad Miami was. Both teams missed like 35 layups and dunks in the first quarter: Ray Allen made a beautiful backdoor cut only to have his layup blocked by the bottom of the backboard, Shawn Marion missed a clear-path dunk on one of Boston’s few defensive breakdowns, Kendrick Perkins air-balled a reverse dunk, and Kevin Garnett had one sequence where he missed back-to-back Mikan Drill shots … Where the Celtics couldn’t miss, however, was from the perimeter. Ray (27 pts, 5 threes) and Paul Pierce knocked down a few to give them the early lead, and in the second quarter it turned into The Eddie House Show on the way to a Boston blowout. House dropped 20 points in the quarter, hitting six threes and shooting pretty much every time he touched the ball (and within 0.4 seconds of touching the ball). He ended up with 27 points on 7-of-11 beyond the arc … Read More »
I’m probably not the only person who thinks they could be program director for NBA TV. While I have to give credit where it’s due and applaud the network for striking gold with Gary Payton, Chris Webber and Cousin Ahmad on Tuesday night’s “NBA Gametime,” there are lots of other areas where I’d want to tweak the formula and get some more entertaining stuff on what should be one of the best sports channels on TV.
On the heels of this story, I got my latest of many ideas for an NBA TV show: “The Daily Curmudgeon” hosted by Rick Barry, where he and a guest — maybe Kareem Abdul-Jabbar one day, or Oscar Robertson the next, or Hubie Brown the day after — sit down and bitch for half-an-hour about everything they don’t like with today’s game. In a special hour-long edition every few months, Rick and Charley Rosen rifle through a “PTI”-style list of topics and just rip everything and everyone to shreds. Read More »
During the fourth quarter of the Lakers’ Monday night victory over the Cavaliers, LeBron James drove the baseline and left his feet to attack the rim. Anyone who’s seen LeBron in that situation before knows he has one thing on his mind, and that’s finishing the play with a powerful slam dunk.
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No matter what Vinny Del Negro says about the Rookie of the Year race, O.J. Mayo‘s candidacy is alive and well. At 19.1 points per game, O.J.’s undoubtedly lived up to the hype, and furthermore, he’s answered a lot of the questions about the viability of a 6-4 combo guard having a lasting impact on the League.
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As a bunch of basketball freaks, we’re always looking for the best places to play and the best leagues to join. We’re all in the NRF, Jed has a run in Brooklyn on Sundays, Burke has one on Tuesday and Thursday mornings in the Village, Cass plays in a weekend league and there are multiple other runs frequented by Dime members all week long. Read More »
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