don't know who came up with it but 'LeBronkey Kong' is still my favorite

** SPOILER ALERT ** if you haven't seen ECFinals game 5, and planned on it, don't read any further ***


I've got to start by saying that was probably the greatest individual performance I've seen live (I missed a lot of the biggest MJ games though I've seen most since). LeBron was fantastic.

I don't even know what else to say about his performance. He took upmost advantage of every opporunity they handed to him. Nothing said should ever be taken as intended to take away anything from his performance tonight. King James, LeBronkey Kong.

That said, let me reiterate... He took upmost advantage of every opportunity they HANDED TO HIM . Without researching, I'll go out on a limb and say that Flip Saunders is the worst defensive coach to ever reach a conference finals series. It's no wonder he could never help KG out of the first round. It's no wonder Miami handed them their a$$es last year after they put up a crazy reg. season. The only defense they play must be legacy from Larry Brown's days.

They played ZONE-D for the entire 4th quarter and both OTs. Never doubled LeBron unless it was to 'press' which is meant to cause pressure & turnovers as the ball is advanced(rather than defend the basket). This was one of the absolute best one-on-one defensive teams I've ever witnessed over the past few years (granted, minus their anchor BWallace this year) and they played zone in all crunch times when LeBron was putting on a clinic on how to break the zone down... ridiculous.

I'd still love to see CLE in the finals but it's far from over. It's not going to be easy. So far it a Deja Vu of last year and all of their games (with the exception of game 7 last year) were won by 2-4 points. I hope CLE can pull it out though.


Wow... LeBron was insane.

who has what it takes?

who could even offer LA enough for him?

and who would have enough left afterwards to be a contender?

is there any real place he can go?

any thoughts? i was talking to patrick and HOU DAL CHI came up...

whaddya think?

ps - i thought that picture would be a lot bigger. if you can't tell by the halfro, its kobe

NBA is hard to watch

I don't know if anyone besides Tom watched the game last night and I'm sure he'll disagree with me but I really think the Cavs got worked over by the refs. There's no doubt in my mind that LeBron got fouled on the last shot of the game. And what's worse is the game before he got lambasted for not taking the last shot when he passed to a WIDE OPEN 3 point shooter for the win (which by the way every analyst says if you're on the road you should play to win, don't play for overtime.) The added that if he takes the last shot he would have at least been shooting two free throws. So what does LeBron do last night? He takes the last shot and doesn't get fouled. The guy can't win. He'll probably get asked why he didn't dish.

I'm tired of refs just not calling fouls on the last play of the game because they don't want to decide a game. What the hell?! They decide every other play in the game. If there's a foul, call it! That's what you're there for. Does a guy have to get flagrant fouled for a call at the end of a game?

Anyways, two things:
1. The terrible, horrible, atrocious officiating makes it really hard to watch the NBA. There's no doubt in my mind that the NBA has the worst officiating system of any sport. You can tell because there is no other sport that people talk about the refs THIS MUCH. I'm not sure what the solution should be, but I guarantee that if you watched replays of every sport, the NBA games would have by far the most missed calls. I suggested having 5 refs. One to watch each matchup. Perhaps that would improve things. I just don't want to see games that are decided by the refs. To me that is not entertaining.

2. If I was Detroit I would be a little worried. The Cavs could be up (and maybe should be up) 2-0. Those games were a little too close for home games. I keep saying how this series went 7 games last year and no one seems to care. The Cavs COULD win this series still. I don't know why everyone is dismissing them like it's obvious that Detroit is moving on. I'm not saying that I think Cleveland will win the series but I wouldn't be that surprised if it happened. Hell, GSW beat the team with the best record in the NBA and the MVP in the first round. :)

Stupid Dirk. He'll probably become a ref after he retires.

Playoffs, Lotto and Blazers

So the wounds are finally starting to heal for me. I'm begining to get over the Rockets loss. now don't get me wrong, it still stings. But at least I can look at the sports web-sites now. I was avoiding them because I didn't want to accidentally read anything about the Rockets and just get depressed.

Well, anyways, the playoffs are chugging along and it pretty much goes without saying that it's SA v DET for the title. Unfortunately, I'm just not really feeling that series again. From the beginning of the playoffs it was the most likely result, and now that we are on the cusp of it happening, I kind of feel bored with the idea. I'm probably just bitter.

Yet, all is not lost for my love of the NBA. I'm kind of getting excited about another potential team to root for. Years ago I used to love the Kings. It had a lot to do with living in the bay-area, since it was the closest NBA franchise. (I think most people in the bay area tried to ignore the existance of GSW). Plus, the great rivalry that Sactown had with those bastard lakers. Then the Kings started to suck. made bad trades. made even worse contract extensions. So I was back to just rooting for the Rockets. It's funny how Addelman ties into all this too.

But man that will all change if Portland drafts Durant. having 2 UT alums is kind of big for me. I don't know why. I didn't even go to school in Austin. Plus, that Brandon Roy kid is pretty cool. I might not agree with his politics, but at least he has opinions that have some thought behind them. So, suffice to say, if Portland takes Durant, I'm going to be intrigued, and really go out of my to try and watch as many games of theirs as possible.

upon further examination...

am i the only one (besides patrick) that thinks dirk didn't deserve the MVP?

i'm looking at the stats and it just doesn't add up. they just picked the guy with the most ppg on the team with the best record, right?

is that what MVP means? i think it is clear he had a good/great year on a good/great team, but come on... there's unarguably(sp?) guys with better stats and judging from the first round, there's better teams. so...

did he deserve it? if so, why do you think so?

if not, who did? why?

The Business of Basketball

Ranks all clubs by there monetary value. Pretty interesting.

I always hear SA has a "pea-sized" market. But there value is not far behind the rest of the pack (not counting NY and LA, cause thier markets are leet. Forbes says this club is "one of the leagues most valuable teams"

Houston has gone up the most this season.

Only Portland made less this year than last year. Only one team (Wizards) stayed the same. Guess that means nba is very healthy.

pop quiz

how is this SA PHX series going to end up?

is DET going to beat NJ/CLE (or CHI)?

who is the playoff MVP so far?

who is going to be finals MVP?

what team will get rings?



let's hear it

Horry, Amare, Diaw Suspended

...suspended

Suspending players for leaving the bench is a craptastic rule if you ask me. They couldn't not suspend amare, diaw. The rule is there so you gotta follow it no matter how lame it is. They can't jsut let it slide or change the rule.

That being said, I hope they look at this rule in the off season and change it to a fine. Afterwards, the NBA can make it a suspension if they think that is fitting. I think if amare and diaw weren't stopped by the Suns ass. coaches, etc., they should have been suspended. But, as it was, the punishment don't fit the crime.

Chuck said same thing happend to him and he just took two steps. They should have fixed this rule back then.

Agree? disagree? Keep rule or change it? Change it to what?

Carter Dunks (old)

olympic dunk

I never seen this dunk b4, it is pretty rad. Carter over 7+ footer.
I know the defender is french, but it's still impressive (just play'n).

Sorry for the whatever the hell that is during first few seconds of clip.

goooooooo playoffs!

Racist Refs

I'm sure you've heard about the study that some dumbass did that showed that the refs in the NBA are racist. I think this guy summed it up pretty well.

"You can, if you choose to believe the study's statistics, notice a difference. But to see it, you need to look at and accept small fractions and bring absolutely no understanding of how those numbers apply to basketball. "

Lies, damn lies, and statistics.

Wow did Chicago get handled

95-69. That is a whoopin! And Chicago had 21 turnovers. Maybe Detroit will be someone to contend with this year.

*SPOILERS BELOW FROM ROCKETS GAME 7*

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Poor Rockets. Boozer was just too much for them. I really thought they would pull it out in the 4th quarter when they were up by four.

Can anyone else believe the shots that Utah was making in the first half? Everything was falling. They'd put up shots that bounced on the rim four or five times before falling in. And it seemed like everything Yao and Tracy shot would rim out. I almost thought something was wrong with the Rockets goal.

Utah shot 51% for the game but I remember them showing that they shot 68% for the first quarter. Sixty-Eight percent! Are you kidding me? I really do believe that Tracy might be cursed. What else would explain his inability to win a playoff series? His line for the series was basically identical to his regular season stats:

25 Pts, 5.8 Rbs, 7 Asts

The only things that were worse were his shooting percentages:

39% FG, 25% 3Pt, 74% FT

What Houston really lacks is a true point guard, like what most other borderline teams need. Maybe they could trade Alston and some draft picks for Jason Kidd or something. :)

Oh well, now I can root for the Warriors to win it all. I certainly hope they beat the crap out of Utah. I was never much for the philosophy that you should root for the team that beat your team because they deserve it for some reason. That sounds like a load of bull. I want the team that beat my team to be humilated by some other team that up until a few weeks ago I could have cared less about. That's the American way, dammit!

Here are my picks for round two:
Detroit in 5
Cleveland in 6
Spurs in 7
Warriors in 6

NBA Playoffs - long post

There has only been one post since the playoffs started. What's the deal with that? This is when we should be posting the most.

I'd like to start off with the Warriors-Mavs. What a glorious game on Thursday. I enjoyed every last minute of Dallas losing. Boo-hoo.

What's funny is that all five ESPN analysts picked Dallas to win and 4/5 of them picked the Heat to win. Idiots. What's scary about that is that all of them picked the Rockets to win. Can you say "jinx"? At least these guys were smart enough to all pick SA and PHX to win their series.

I'd just like to go on record by saying that here were my picks before the playoffs started (I know I never posted them but I promise this is what I had before the playoffs started):

Detroit in 5
Cleveland in 4
New Jersey in 7
Chicago in 5 (this one was obvious to me, I still can't believe 4/5 of the ESPN analysts that get paid to talk about basketball picked this wrong)
Golden State in 7 (I kind of thought Dallas would still win but I just can't pick Dallas)
Phoenix in 5
San Antonio in 6
Houston in 6

So if Houston can win tonight I will have picked all of the first round winners which none of the fancy pants ESPN analysts can say.

As for the game tonight. I was looking at the Box Scores for the first six games trying to figure out what the differences were between the Rockets wins and losses.

I thought maybe it was three point shooting. But the Rockets shot 16.7% threes in game two and won by eight. Then I thought it was maybe how well Yao does. But he was only 6-18 with 21 pts in one win and 6-14 with 26 points in one loss. So then I decided it must be how well the rest of the team (not Yao and Tracy) does. But the rest of the team had 47 pts in one loss.

Then I noticed that of the eight first round matchups the Rockets and Jazz had the closest regular season records. They were only one game apart. I think what makes these games so hard to analyze is that these teams are so closely matched.

The only thing that makes me want to pick Houston is that like Patrick pointed out, Utah was 31-10 at home and 20-21 on the road. The Jazz had the same home record as the Spurs (good company) and the same road record as the Cavs (no chumps but certainly not the Spurs).

Speaking of the Spurs, here's what Simmons had to say yesterday:

There isn't a happier team than the Spurs right now. Not only are they peaking at the perfect time, but Dallas was the one contender that matched up perfectly against them. Now they get the Suns (as much as I love watching the Suns, the Spurs are a terrible matchup for them), then the winner of Houston/Utah-Golden State, then whatever flawed team comes out of the East. Are you kidding me? During Thursday night's game, TNT should have had cameras at Tim Duncan's house, like how CBS has cameras at various colleges during the NCAA Tournament selection show. We needed to see the Spurs celebrating and pouring champagne on one another. Might as well start early. For all intents and purposes, you can put a fork in the 2007 NBA playoffs.

The whole story was pretty good:

Simmons Story