Last night, the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Washington Wizards played a basketball game.
The final score was 121-120, with the Cavaliers winning the match in overtime. LeBron James, who is a Cleveland basketball player, had 45 points. He was able to make a basket that secured the win with under 1 second on the official game clock. It induced cheering among the patrons who attended the basketball game.
Gilbert Arenas, who is a basketball player for the opposing team from Washington, scored 44 points. Both the 45 points and the 44 points are considered good point totals.
The NBA Playoff basketball series will continue on Friday, which is dated May 5th.
To read a poem inspired by the basketball game referenced above, please click below.
[click to continue…]
Before we get into Kobe Bryant, here’s a little contest. The Photoshop work done on the accompanying picture is maybe the most subtle we’ve ever done. First one to spot what we did, wins the prize.
Anyway, yesterday’s Laker finish, which you’ve surely read or seen the details of elsewhere a hundred times over, was one that will go down in history. Instant classic, etc, etc.
There are so many storylines running through this (2 vs 7 upset, Kobe-not-the-MVP vs Nash-the-MVP, impending Lakers vs Clippers) that it’s hard to pick one. Considering our long history of love/hate with the man, we’re going with the now-complete rehabilitation of Kobe Bryant.
He’s been around so long, it’s easy to forget the guy’s only 27. Could it be as simple as he’s finally all grown up? Whatever the case, it’s fun to watch, and we can’t believe we were jumping around and cheering for the Lakers yesterday.
“This is the most fun I’ve ever had,” Bryant said. “Because this is us. This is us, the entire team, enjoying the moment with the entire city of Los Angeles.”
“This game is so much more fun, so much more enjoyable. It’s a blast. I’ve been in a lot of playoff battles, but I’ve never had one quite like this,” Bryant said, adding, “To see those smiles on my teammates’ faces …”
As much fun as it is to watch the Kobe Show, which is amazingly not the Kobe Show at all, but the Lakers Show, there are two other figures here that merit a mention.
One is Shaq, who we’ll get to in a bit.
The other is the Wheaties exec who put Steve Nash on the box this week. This person is probably wondering what their boss was thinkig while Steve Nash kept dribbling into double-teams yesterday. It was probably something like “Don’t dribble into that double-team!”
Also, we hate getting sensationalistic, and we don’t want to be crude or ignorant, but we didn’t even know they still made Wheaties.
While some may say TNT excessively showed MJ’s reactions to everything last night in Chicago, we’d actually be into an Jordan-cam that did just that.
Yes, Michael, his kids, his wife, and Charles Oakley were there in his private United Center suite, and his influence should never, ever, be disregarded.
We’re about as speechless as Dan Patrick and Mark Jackson were in the postgame show.
That was something more than a single game in a single series.
That was more than one good performance.
You either understand what that was or you don’t.
(Call us gay all you want – it’s not melodramatic if the drama’s real.)
If you didn’t see Mark Jackson’s selective memory declare that Kobe Bryant is better than Michael Jordan last week, you can go check it out here.
Before we get into our playoff preview, let’s remind everyone how good MJ was with this clip from (we think) the old NBA Jams video, which we watched like 500 times in our youth. Along with the Charles Barkley “Warrior” one, this was our favorite. That said, we had no memory of how gay it was until rewatching it this morning.
Lest we forget the other greats of our youth, here’s a good Barkley video, as well. With the great job he does on TNT, it’s easy to forget how fun it was when he played. Dude is only 6-foot-4; remember that as you watch.
One more – it’s not like he wasn’t great or anything, but there’s something funny about this being the only Patrick Ewing clip on all of YouTube:
Now that we’ve remembered where we came from, it’s time to look forward to the playoffs, with a very special guest host and some other special guest hosts.
That punk-ass lawsuit happy punk Carlos Boozer got a good look at his idol last night, as the Utah Jazz unveiled Karl Malone’s statue and retired his number before losing to the Washington Wizards.
Way to make sure nothing went wrong with Karl’s night, Carlos.
John Stockton returned to Utah to help his old teammate do the whole ceremony thing, and Karl seemed ready to finally put all his strange old wars with Jazz owner Larry Miller to rest at last.
“I’m here today to say thanks,” Malone told reporters.
“It’s not just my day. It’s an NBA day, it’s a Jazz day, it’s a Utah day and it’s an NBA fan day and I’m proud to be a part of it,” Malone said.
He failed to mention it was also Thursday, but maybe he figured everyone knew that. Boozer helped the Wizards make a team-record 16 three-pointers.
Players around the league have tons to say about Karl’s legacy, and nothing to say about Boozer blowing the game for the fans, the city, the state, and literally tens of thousands of children from the area, all of whom had their special day ruined.
Carlos may have had 30 points on 12-16 shooting, plus 9 rebounds, but make no mistake, this loss is all on him. Gilbert Arenas had 31, thirty of them being Boozer’s fault. The other one was because of Cece.
You’re no Karl Malone, Carlos Boozer. He always won the big one. Always, always, always.
Except all those times he didn’t, but that’s your fault, too, “pal”.
Well, the new USA Basketball has leaked the names of the group who’s going be allowed to try-out for Shanghai 08, and Allen Iverson, the one guy who wants to be there the most, isn’t getting the call.
He’s not the only snub however.
We’ve been saying this since 1992 – the Olympics don’t mean anything without Christian Laettner.
We’re not even sure how to read those results, but we’re pretty sure that’s not correct. Maybe we should ask that Deer for help.
Although the NBA reportedly won’t do it until 75, this weekend TNT is speculating on which ten players would get added to the league’s official list of the 50 greatest.
We’re anxiously awaiting this, as we got to go the All-Star Game in 1997 when they announced the initial 50. Very cool ceremony – we helped boo Shaq for not coming. MJ also had the only triple-double in the history of the All-Star Game, plus our dad let us get drunk.
Here’s our first seven guys, which we feel are the obvious ones.
Kevin Garnett
Kobe Bryant
Allen Iverson
Tim Duncan
Jason Kidd
Gary Payton
Reggie Miller
Reggie would probably be the one who would inspire the most debate among those. In our mind, he’s an easy and obvious pick, despite his image degenerating every time he tries to be funny and stuff on TNT.
With four spots to fill, the question becomes what to do? Fill them with guys who were supposed snubs the first time? Put in some questionable players? What about the Shaq route – guys who will surely be on it one day but are simply too young?
For the record, LeBron fits that last category, and we hope they don’t put him on their list this weekend. Since this is all too hard, we’re completing our list by putting in guys who don’t deserve it, don’t play in the NBA, or don’t actually exist at all.
Antoine Walker
Jerry Stackhouse
Trent Green
The Casual Baby
Obviously, this is the only way to go, and if we worked for TNT, we’d surely have been fired by our third day on the job.
There’s not much to say here – the pics speak for themselves. To us, this is a return to the old-school Jordans – very clean lines, not too many add-ons and thingys and flaps. It does come with that little bag – we don’t know what’s in there, but it’s probably magic.
If you haven’t caught the commercial yet, it is quite the kick-ass production. A series of kids playing in youth games reenact MJ’s most iconic moments. Terrific work, for reals – you can watch it right here. Call us a girl, but we got teary-eyed. Here’s the press release on the new shoes.
“With last year’s Air Jordan XX, we looked back and celebrated the past twenty years,” says Michael Jordan, “The Air Jordan XXI is a look toward the future. We’re making the shoe more luxurious and more advanced in terms of technology, which sets the stage for the brand going into the next twenty years.”
The Jordan V will always be our absolute favorite, but these look mighty nice. There was a day when we would’ve been in line on their release date of the 18th to get a pair, but this time we’re waiting until the 19th.
Sorry about the non-jokes, but we rarely make jokes when it comes to Michael Jordan. In fact, we just read this thing over – maybe we should go Photoshop ourselves into a Brokeback Jordan poster. What are we, 14?
(If anyone from Nike & Brand Jordan is reading, we’re a size 12 and very easily persuaded. YAYjordanxx1! is doable by the am.)
It’s surprising and exciting, but Michael Jordan has weighed in on Kobe’s 81-point game from a few weeks back.
We wouldn’t have expected this, being that MJ does have a small ego, and maybe wouldn’t like the whole Kobe-did-something-I-didn’t angle to the whole thing.
“If I was on the other side, there’s no way I would have been in at the end of that game without six fouls,” Jordan said Tuesday. “I don’t know if I could have given up 81 points and not fouled out of the game.”
He stopped himself before declaring the Los Angeles Lakers star the top player in the league, but came close.
“If I had to pick the best player in the game, he certainly is up there right now,” Jordan said. “It seems as though he’s got the edge over anybody in that position, if not in the league right now.”
That wasn’t very exciting at all. We don’t know what it is we wanted him to say, but it was something more than that. He took the time to make a veiled dig at Kwame Brown, so that was cool.
Now this whole post is boring. Michael’s our favorite player ever, but he’s really ruined this post for us. Maybe it can be saved with a strong dose of Photoshopping:
Oh, yeah – that did it! That is fucking awesome! Woot-woot!!!!
