At Least I Bought Some Marginally Healthy Snacks, The Nuggets Should Have Just Quit; And Riley’s Gone Again, Brown’s Back…What Else is New?
This blog was supposed to be posted last night, but in typical UngsungBlog fashion, I misremembered :P.
(Because of that, I went ahead and added a few thoughts, if that’s OK with my loyal readers.)
Quick-hitters:
- So I got my Columbia sunglasses yesterday from Campmor.com, and after trying them on for a bit, I really like them. I haven’t tried them out in sunlight yet, to see if I could tell the difference between polarized and non-polarized lenses, but I’m most likely going to keep them. They feel a heck of a lot more comfortable than my Oakleys, even though the wire frames bend at a pretty severe angle, no thanks to my big head.
- Boy was it HOT the last two days! Real-Feel temps in the low-100s on Sunday in MPK, followed by a much more bearable mid-90s here in the Valley on Monday. I think I drank about ten gallons of iced tea these last few days alone.
- Current rebate-o-meter: $1900, and that includes the $250 in checks I received since my last update.
- Armed with a $25 Amazon.com GC (courtesy of my Amazon.com VISA), and a half-off coupon on select chocolate snacks (CHAWCLAT), I decided to purchase some snacks.
I think I went a bit overboard with what I bought:
- 8 8oz. tubs of Good Sense Dark Chocolate Pretzels
- 12 8.5oz. bags of Harmony Foods Yogurt Raisins
- 24 3.5oz. bags of Harmony Foods Yogurt Pretzels
I just hope the heat doesn’t ruin my snacks.
Total cost, after the GC: < $10. Now let’s hope I have the willpower to not polish off the entire order in a few days :P.
- After watching the conclusion of the Nuggets-Lakers series last night, one thing was evident to me: if the two teams played ten times, the Lakers would win nine, and Denver would win the 10th on a couple of bad calls, lucky bounces, and Laker rim-outs. Anyone watching the game could have sensed that Kobe was going to explode in that fourth quarter, so I wasn’t surprised when he did. Look at the sequence that ESPN’s John Hollinger so eloquently described:
Not that he can’t do it — the final six minutes Monday were a tour de force at both ends. In that time he scored 14 points, blocked a shot, stole a pass and drew two offensive fouls.
He made a 3-pointer and a driving layup basket to break open a tie game, then hit a jumper over Kenyon Martin when the Nuggets briefly took a one-point lead. He turned his attention to defense and drew the fifth and sixth fouls on Martin by charging out hard and drawing illegal screens, knocking his primary defender out of the game.
Back on offense, he drew the fifth and sixth fouls on his next defender, Carmelo Anthony, by attacking off the dribble to draw blocking fouls — removing the Nuggets’ best scoring threat. His runner in the lane with 40.7 seconds left sucked the air out of Denver’s final charge, and his physical D on J.R. Smith and subsequent steal with 18.2 seconds left sealed it. And just for good measure, he rejected Linas Kleiza’s 3-point attempt at the buzzer.
Personally, I thought that one or two of those fouls were ticky-tack at best, but you know what they say about superstars and fouls in the playoffs.
So did the Lakers steamroll Denver, or did Denver roll over? I’m going to cop out and say it’s a little of both. The Lakers were just playing way too well to lose the series, but Denver had their chances to win Game 4. At least they didn’t commit any absurd technical fouls.
(Tangent: Why is it that when one is confronted with a “Is it A or B [that caused something to happen] question, 99.9% of the time, the person will say it’s a little bit of both?)
A couple other quick playoff thoughts:
1) Is it just me, or is Mavs F Josh Howard playing like he’s high? I was watching parts of Game 5 of the Mavs-Hornets series, and I saw him miss a few jumpers BADLY.
(Note to any player who is going to come out and admit marijuana use: you might want to play well in the game(s) following the admission.)
2) I expect the rest of the Western Conference first round to end tonight (NO over DAL, SA over PHX, UTA over HOU), and after tonight, we can officially declare the two big “panic” trades in the West—Shaq to PHX; Kidd to DAL—failures, leading to the firing of both coaches. I do hear Pat Riley is available, though (more on that later).
(As far as Shaq is concerned, note that his teams have never done well in Year One of his stay at each stop. I actually expect the Suns to be pretty damn good next year. Now if they could only avoid SA or LAL next year…)
3) Is Boston doing a little looking ahead to Cleveland, or is Atlanta really that talented? I’ll say a little of both :P. But seriously, I thought Boston was going to mow over everyone en route to the NBA Finals. Now, Doc Rivers might not get his team out of the first round. Joe Johnson looked like freaking Michael Jordan in the fourth quarter of Game 4; why did Rivers not make a defensive switch?
And finally,
4) Is Washington really trying to prove that they are the dumbest team in the history of the world? First, DeShawn Stevenson ran his mouth, then Arenas, and now Brendan Haywood??? Apparently, Haywood and the rest of the Wizards are sick and tired of LeBron’s whining:
“Awww,” Haywood said, in a whiny, high-pitched voice to mock James. “They are trying to hurt me.”
“I mean, come on, man, this is the playoffs,” Haywood said following yesterday’s practice. “He wears 23, he wants to be Michael Jordan, I can respect that, he’s a great player. You saw what Mike went through. Mike got fouled way worse than this. No one is trying to hurt him, everybody is trying to play basketball, trying to play tough. Play basketball and leave it alone.”
Look, I understand that playoff intensity translates into harder fouls, but that does not give you the right to hammer LeBron with flagrant-2s! I’m not saying this as a LeBron fan; personally, I turn off the TV when I see him on SportsCenter (I can’t stand the hype for the guy!), but even LeBron doesn’t deserve to be treated as a punching bag.
By the way, Haywood, why don’t you heed your own advice and play basketball? Last I checked, you guys are trailing 3-1.
- So Pat Riley doesn’t want to coach anymore? Larry Brown wants to coach again, and so he took a job with Charlotte?
In other news, water is wet.
Riles, I’m pretty sure ANYONE would be tired of coaching after tanking games to earn extra ping-pong balls enduring a 15-67 season. Then again, should the NBA freeze some envelopes to give Miami the #2 pick (behind New York’s #1, of course) which they would use to draft Derrick Rose, and then somehow trade for an impact big, who would be surprised to see Riley abruptly end his retirement yet again?
I will neither confirm nor deny that I suggested that the NBA has fixed the lottery in the past.
I wonder if Riles would be willing to move to Phoenix; I hear they may need a coach. And who wouldn’t want to coach a pair of MVPs and one of the most dominant power forwards in the league?
As for Larry Brown…bored again, eh? I’m about ready to dub Brown the Paris Hilton of coaches. Is he just trying to coach every team in the league? Charlotte? What is so enticing about Charlotte, other than its proximity to Chapel Hill?
If (when?) the Bobcats stink up the joint next year, how much do you want to bet that Brown will take some “recruiting trips” down to Chapel Hill?
Until next time (later tonight?).