These were the Atlantic Division standings as of day the last.
If you haven’t guessed, this was something we were gonna get into yesterday afternoon, but didn’t. We’ve slyly transported the picture into an all-new post, and that’s the experience you’re having now.
Alas, the Atlantic Division is worse than ever, but after last night’s Nets victory over the Celtics, New Jersey has at least taken sole control of the group.
As they say, that’s all we have to say about that, although you might go read Bill Simmons’ latest for a full breakdown of the sadness that is the Eastern Conference.
Moving on to one other NBA-specific note before we go forward with the YAY-centric notes…
After the uninspired Cavaliers lost to the Knicks at home last night, we’re doing something we haven’t done since LeBron arrived on the scene: we’re voluntarily boycotting the game against the Hawks Friday night.
We refuse to watch Malaise LeBron and his merry band of Whatever Men play down to another team they should slaughter.
LeBron – we love ya, but if you don’t care, we don’t, either. Losing is fine, and we can deal with it. What we can’t deal with is losing because you didn’t try. You guys are making us sick – it might be Mike Brown, but it’s also you, LBJ. You’re the King – act like it.
F’ING TRY – even Damon Jones, of all people, got in your face about (repeatedly) not closing out on Quentin Richardson last night.
Okay, moving on, which is a sick transition. UNGH!
We’re switching server companies, so we no longer get raped on bandwidth costs, and also so we can transfer everything over to Wordpress blogging software. (From Movable Type.)
What that means is thus – our content output this month is going to be down – there’s no way around it.
This isn’t really a change from the last three months actually, but between switching over to WP, doing a complete and total redesign of the site (possibly with a different name), finishing up work on WSM?, travelling to see family in various places, some other non-blog professional things that have developed, and our vast charity works, we’re swamped.
Of course, if we’re forced to completely boycott the Cavs altogether, this frees some time up, yes?
Anyway, this starts soon – don’t be surprised if the whole deal looks different one day, and it’ll probably start on a generic design and stay there for several weeks. We don’t think we can even get to the new graphics and such until we’re home with Mom and Dad in mid-December. (Who beat us!)
Thanks for your patience – things will get back to somewhat normal in January – promise.
We submit the accompanied picture of Clippers guard Cuttino Mobley without comment, except for the following:
Professional basketball player consistently tagged with certain rumors: CHECK
Scarf: CHECK
No shirt: CHECK
Strangely over-exposed underwear: CHECK
Possibly wearing make-up: CHECK
A bunch of you awkwardly going “Umm…yeah. Thought so.”: CHECK
(Thanks to Leave the Man Alone for the pic.)
Everything which was new but old is now old and no longer new, yet the same, once again.
For the first time!
The Clippers lost to the Kings last night, and the most unstoried franchise in Los Angeles is on a journey back to its true destiny. Step one is complete, as they’re now below .500.
How did this all come to pass? Were the Clips of last year just a fluke? Some say Elton Brand is playing on tired, Olympic Teamish legs. Others blame the lack of players named Shaun Livingston who aren’t busts. Still others will tell you center Chris Kaman is relaxing on his $50M extention.
Newly extended (4 mo’ years!) Head Coach Mike Dunleavy…weighs in.
“They’ve been tough on us,” said Dunleavy, 0-13 against the Kings as Clippers coach, before the game.
“Last year they weren’t in the playoffs and I made the comment, ‘If I could drop two teams out, one in the East and one in the West, I would drop out this team and Miami.’
“As far as anybody else was concerned, I felt pretty good about us having a chance to beat those teams. I mean, we’ll give all those teams a real good series.”
Well, there you have it – the Clips’ problems are all because the Heat and the Kings are still in the NBA.
We’d say their problem is as follows:
1) Elton Brand is tired.
2) They don’t have any players named Shaun Livingston who aren’t busts.
3) Chris Kaman loves money and girls.
Ah. It seems all the other people we mentioned above were correct, leaving us sitting here, completely irrelevant, once again.
NOTE: The LA Times has a new Clippers blog, if you’re into Clippers blogs that are associated with the LA Times.
NOTE 2: Ron Artest!
The drama of Ben Wallace’s headwear continues tonight in Chicago, as the Bulls return home to play the Knicks.
Ben himself hasn’t spoken as of yet, and nobody knows what he’ll do/wear tonight, but yesterday GM John Paxson got his say in on the matter.
He’s obviously taking the Skiles side of things, which isn’t a huge surprise – word is there may be a fine coming.
When a coach comes out and makes an important declaration like “no headbands”, people listen.
“We have to address this now, and we’ve started that process,” Paxson said. “Our relationship is fairly new. But Ben doesn’t strike me as a guy that wants to disrupt what a team is all about. He’s been a part of too many good teams that have played together.
“We have to be a little careful in terms of changing something for one player at this time. If I knew this was going to be an issue a month or two ago and Ben had expressed that to us, that might’ve been a way to handle it. Right now, we’re in a tough position. We have the rule for the right reasons.”
“He’s still a guy that we are totally counting on. We want him to get acclimated and comfortable and playing at a high level. Obviously, we still think he can do that.”
That last few sentences implies that at some point, the Bulls might not think Ben can still do that.
But what happens then? With what’s happened, the way he’s played, and that contract, it’s gonna be hard to move him, unless maybe DET wants him back.
Speaking of the Pistons, Ben’s first trip back to the Palace isn’t until January. Should be interesting to see what happens – we expect lots of boos and even more signs about grass being greener, etc.
Of course, by then Ben could be playing in Europe or permanently suspended, or even playing in South America. Japan has a basketball league, and he could play there. Or in the National Madagascar Basketball Thing.
Wherever he ends up, he’s sure to not be getting rebounds.
NOTE: Amazing – the lack of any emphasis (from us) on the Stabury-Zeke thing, who NYC writers are calling pointless.
NOTE 2: CHI home crowd will not know how to react to anything regarding this, and thus…complete zero decibel silence.
While the Mavs were winning their tenth straight last night, we were busy concentrating on the biggest game on the schedule.
Yep, it was the matchup of “teams who were everyone’s darkhorses to be pretty good but in actuality have the best records in their respective conferences.”
Utah v Orlando. Jazz v Magic. Dwight v Carlos. Nelson v Williams. Darko v Memet. Hill/Hill v Sloan/AK47. Mickey Mouse v Mormons.
However you want to put it, it was a large game, and the Orlando Magic came out ahead, winning on the road. Jameer Nelson is…self-assured.
“We know what type of team we are. We’re no fluke,” point guard Jameer Nelson said. “We’ve showed we have matured. Last year we might have kicked it away.”
True statement, and Jameer has really turned himself into quite the solid little point guard, just the kind that the Cavaliers could use and could’ve easily had, just like we wanted to have happen.
(This is an unverifiable but true part of our pre-blog life story.)
Anyway, interesting matchup – the Magic are on one of them West Coast road swigie deals, so we’ll see what they kick away and don’t kick away in the five games they have left on it. We’re cautiously optimistic for them.
That said, let’s go back to our first statement, wherein we said we were “concentrating” on this game.
What we actually meant is we were watching Heroes (on NBC!) and didn’t even know these teams were playing until this morning when we went to that hot new website NBA.com.
We blame our lack of NBA-centric attentions on, of course, the ongoing server issues that plague us day and night.
NOTE: Nothing!
NOTE 2: Anyone else totally, 100% sure that’s JJ Redick’s nailed-to-the-bench hand?
After a scary few weeks wherein it looked like this entire season may be played in some kind of upside-down parallel universe, things are starting to settle down and get back to normal.
Case in point, the PHX Suns have gone 6-1 in their last seven, and are now above .500 after their win over Portland last night.
Suns are winning, Trailblazers losing. All is right with the world.
Key in the win were both Amare Stoudemire, who we’re not a fan of at all, and Raja Bell, who we’re a fan of in a way in the same fashion we’re fans of things like this Peter Cetera video.
Raja first – he put in 30 on 7-12 from three-three land. Break it down, Face.
“That’s definitely a byproduct of the way we played as a team for four quarters,” he said.
Great analysis – play as team = win. Give us something more, will you? Is this why your ESPN diaries have dried up?
As for Amare…it may surprise you that we’re not fans, since he’s allegedly one of the most dynamic young players around, despite the microfracture surgery.
Thing is, the surgery is a problem for us. There have been way too many tales of lax rehab habits and a sour atttude. These are the things that bother us – it means his comeback (20/11 last night) is a byproduct (yeah!) of luck and natural gifts rather than hard work.
Screw that – we love hard work, which is why we’re probably gonna use the impending server move as a reason to take like a week off, even though it’ll probably only take a couple hours.
See, we can make up all kinds of great stories about “server problems” and “technical difficulties”, while sitting back and wondering how everyone is falling for it. We’ll write like eight posts per day going on and on about the server problems – it’ll be a well-non-deserved break, and we can’t wait.
NOTE: Also back to normal is, of course, Raja’s Bell’s non-website, which for the 8th time has reset it’s launch timer.
NOTE 2: Darius Miles!
This whole thing where Ben Wallace signed with the Bulls has been pretty nice for us so far.
First of all, it obviously hurt the Pistons, although they’ve nicely recovered from their questionable start.
Secondly, CHI itself is a bonafide mess, even after their blowout victory over the NYK last night.
Here’s your scenario: Ben Wallace wears a headband and rebounds basketballs. Head Coach Scott Skiles wants Ben to do the rebounding basketballs thing, but has a rule against the wearing headbands thing.
And thus was born the funnest addition to the most disastrous free agent signing of 2006.
One night after Wallace played a season-low 19 minutes, 38 seconds, Skiles removed Wallace just 2:02 after tipoff for breaking the team rule [of headband wearing].
Is Skiles’ worried Wallace’ insubordination will become an issue? “No,” he said after the game. “I don’t know why. I’m just not.”
Asked if he understood why he was benched, Wallace looked downward. “Ask [Skiles],” he said. “Coach makes the decisions. I just play.”
Actually…you don’t, Ben.
You’re averaging like 5 points and nine boards. The game before this game, you put up zeroes across the board in 19 minutes. That sucks, and it’s certainly not worth the max contract you’re sitting on. (Not that we really need to say that.)
Who’s in the wrong here, though? The overbearing coach or the disgruntled PF/C?
We’ll go with…you guys are both retarded. Ben, does it really matter if you’ve got a headband on or not? Scott, same question.
Our big regret here is that “Stephon Marbury gets benched for entire second half, scores 0 points on 0-0 shooting” isn’t even all that interesting anymore. Has Knicks Turmoil been overshadowed by Bulls Turmoil? Do the Lakers ever have their own Turmoil anymore?
What’s happened to the NBA? Is Chris Webber still really good? That wouldn’t change, right?
NOTE: If we were Ben, we’d do an Al Harrington mohawk. Surely not outlawed by Skiles, yet surely makes him angrier than the headband.
NOTE 2: We wore a headband once for [an unnnamed movie about a snake] and it was uncomfortable as hell. Best described as “squeezy”, it gave us that feeling you get when you sleep on one side of your face too long and you start to worry you’ve caused your head to get all mis-shapen. You all get like that, right?
Oh, man…we love Mark Cuban.
We’re keeping this short and sweet. He posted an ode to Tim Duncan on his blog just a bit ago. It was nice, friendly, and complimentary to the game and the player.
To conclude his piece, Mark shows you a video of Tim that he himself has uploaded to YouTube.
By pure coincidence, David Stern has ordered all NBA videos to be taken off the video sharing site this very week.
Gee, wonder where Mark stands on that issue…we’re watching the work of pure, wily genius.
Love it. Love it.
That may not be entirely accurate, but if we ran the Cavaliers, that’s exactly where he’d be.
After building a big lead in the first half, Cleveland scored a massive total of nine points in the third quarter and ended up losing by like eleven or something at Indiana.
(No, we can’t be bothered to check the exact numbers – it’s too disturbing to have to relive in any such detailed form.)
Same old story – lack of motivation and energy. This has to be the worst 8-5 start in NBA history – the team can play absolutely great when they want to, and they’ve done that for a complete 48-minute game exactly once this season.
We refuse to even look at the recap and yank a quote – instead, let’s go to ABJ columnist Terry Pluto, who wrote yesterday morning (before last night’s game obviously) all about the problems this team is having.
(He’s been asking and answering questions of himself for years btw- we quite enjoy it.)
Q: Doesn’t Brown usually mention a lack of defense when the team loses?
A: Yes, there are breakdowns. But the Cavs are allowing only 93 points per game, third lowest in the NBA. The real trouble spot is offense, which ranks 21st at 96 per game. That’s low for a team with LeBron James and some other scorers. They have a bigger problem on offense.
Q: Why say that?
A: In the past three games, in the fourth quarter they scored 12 points against the Raptors, 17 against the Grizzlies and 41 points in the second half against the Wizards. In Toronto, they went 0-for-10 on 3-pointers in the fourth quarter, but didn’t shoot a single free throw. They just heaved up long jumpers. It was the same against the Grizzlies.
Again, we can’t check the numbers, but it was the same thing last night, in addition to a pathetic effort (in the second half).
And what does Brown do? Stand there with his hands in his pockets doing that thing with his lip. (It’s like a half lick/half bite.)
Honestly, he looks like he can’t wait to get off the court and into the office to watch film so he can “work”. Our conclusion is thus:
* Great x-and-o guy. When they’re doing things right, it’s smooth as hell on both ends. The “when they’re doing things right” part is where the red flags start going up all over our house. Why can’t they do things right like at least 80% of the time?
* Great friend to the players – he’s undoubtedly a nice man and treats everyone with respect.
* Horrible, terrible, awful motivator. This might work two years from now when LeBron will fully embrace the leadership position, but right now this team needs someone to lay into them, “execute or sit next to me on the bench while I seethe” style.
What we’ve described above? Those three qualities? It’s a perfect description for…an assistant coach. Sorry, Dan (Gilbert). We love ya, but Mike doesn’t have it. When he was like this last year, we chalked it up to being a rookie head coach.
That’s no longer valid, and we aren’t in possession of the “he’s a second year head coach” card.
Not with this team, with this talent, in this conference, with that Lebron James.
NOTE: We love Daniel Gibson. Sure, he makes mistakes, but dude can score and has no fear. The next time we see the David Wesley/Eric Snow backcourt we may become a cutter.
NOTE 2: We keep saying this and nobody else has picked up on because apparently the national media is only able to fixate on box scores. His head is officially elsewhere: THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH LEBRON.
(Comments are temporarily off – we’re getting spammed like nuts the past 48 hours.)
Well, as has been the way of things so far, the Cavaliers lost to a crap team (the Raptors) last night.
They’ve got four losses on the year – all against losing teams; two of which are arguably the worst in the entire NBA.
Sorry to have our sole Thanksgiving post be somewhat of an angry rant, but enough is enough. They didn’t show up for four quarters (again) last night, and we pin it on Head Coach Mike Brown.
Credit him for playing rookie Daniel Gibson decent minutes – as we suspected, the kid can play, and he was very active in getting the Cavaliers back in during a second quarter rally.
Execution down the stretch was pitiful – no fourth quarter free throws. Zero. Just a bunch of three-point attempts and the allowance of greasy foreign guards to get layups.
Coach Brown weighs in.
“[As a coaching staff] we just have to present the facts because I don’t have a magic potion,” said Brown. “We have to watch tape and see what we did on tape and see if we gave it our all on both ends of the floor and go from there.”
Umm…yes and no.
Your job is to present the facts, and then to pair the application of those facts alongside motivation.
That means that when they’re doing the thing where they come out flat and not trying, and go down by 18 to the freaking Raptors in the first quarter, you yank your starters.
It also means that when they’re doing that thing where they’re taking endless 3-pointers for no reason, you call a time-out and say something like, “The next one of you a-holes who takes a three-pointer is sitting down for the rest of the game!!” and then you follow through on that.
It means you take LeBron, sit him down, and figure out why the hell he’s been so distracted all season. Hard to argue with his stats, but anyone who’s watched him enough to know when he’s “there” and “not there” can tell you he’s been on the latter setting for 11 out of the 12 games so far.
Yeah, they’re 8-4, but they could and possibly should be 11-1. The good thing is they have yet to lose to an actual good team – they seem to execute against them.
NOTE: Andrea Bargnani looks like he’ll be a player one day for sure, but the double chin has gotta go. Unacceptable.
HOLIDAY NOTE: We love nearly 87% of you and thank you for continuing to read. JOY to thee!
