Said win brings their series to 2-2, re-establishing Phoenix’s home court advantage, and alleviates the possiblity of a ratings-challenged Spurs-Jazz Western Conference Finals, at least for today. Aw, hell. Let’s just do it this way, just for old times sake.

Suspensions? Leaving the benches? Fines? All to come! (Or is it?)

You’d think the 2 years of tests they’ve already done would’ve been plenty, but maybe an intensive 3 weeks of dribbling drills through puddles will do the trick. (We think what this really says is nobody practices over the summer, since all these dudes had a new roundie shipped to them back in June or July.)

Chilling, yet not nearly as chilling as the Tony Parker wax statue.

Also of note this afternoon is that Amare Stoudemire could now be out up to 2-3 more months. After hearing that on the PHX-Spanglonia Eurosocks broadcast, we went out in search of Amare news, and came away with this report of a radio report from Lakersground.

The media guy said that even D’Antoni is starting to grumble about the situation. They didn’t mention any direct quotes but said he isn’t that type of coach to hang a player out like that and if he’s saying stuff, that it shows how much of an issue it is.

They just said that the team is suspicious of Amare, kind of rolling their eyes when they are asked about him. They are saying that he is isolated from the rest of the team…Amare just sits on the sideline and sulks, that he is very moody, ‘has dark moods’, etc.

Not being one to ever, ever, ever, ever try to tie two things together that may or may not fit, we’re gonna go ahead and do it. Just this once.

Also, in case you were wondering, Mark Madsen is going to do everything in his power to vanquish the new roundie. Via his blog, he doesn’t like it either.

(The EXPLOSIONS return, as there should be regular news and crap from here on…might be sporadic for the next few weeks, but here you go.)

Apologies go out to all for this feature being missing all summer – it means we didn’t always send you to stuff like this 80s Lakers anti-drug music vid.

Well, we give up. Four phone calls and six emails later, there’s still no response from the RajaBell.com people. We give – we’ll sit and wait patiently with everyone else for the launch.

Kobe headed down to New Orleans to make fun of Raja Bell (we hope) and run some hoops clinics.

The blogosphere gets incestuous by having TrueHoop preview the Blazers for Slam Online. (And yeah, we’ll be getting dirty on the Cavs in a couple weeks over there.)

Odds on Vince Carter still being in NJ next season? Not good, if you ask us after reading about him not wanting to talk extension.

Eddie Jordan wants the Wizards in the East Finals this season, and all without playing defense.

We aren’t too fond of the hipster writing style, but this ESPN write-up on a day with Kobe has some good stuff.

We know it’s that time of year (optimistic time!), but Dwight Howard’s prediction of the Magic winning the title…? Um. That’s all we can say, is “um”.

Dirk gets a big fat Dallas extension through 2011.

The Sixers complete their huge offseason by adding two guys we’ve never heard of.

Finally, for you NFL fans, Jamie at AOL wants to know what you think of FanHouse, now that it’s mighty and powerful.

Honestly, we love the concept and the power. We dislike the 80+ voices and ultra-high volume of posts. It’s too much content to keep up with. But then, we’re not a huge NFL fan, so maybe the NBA version will be different for us.

That said, Terrell Owens tried to commit suicide last night? How messed up is this dude??? Guess it’s back to all-T.O., all-the time.

Umm…yeah.

But whatever – these pics were fun, and we’re a fun guy, and stories about Tiger Woods’ wife’s fake naked pictures are fun. Everything’s fun.

Again, the operative word here is fun. If one day you happen to stumble upon this, Michael – it was all about fun. Just like it was when this all actually happened. Documentary.

They’re heading up to Springfield in the ol’ RV. Sekou Smith of the Atlanta Journal Constitution is riding along in “the Lexus of RVs”.

This trip will be included in NBATV’s coverage of the Hall of Fame stuff, although we’re guessing they won’t give you the truth you see here. A shame, really.

(The hot new I SHOT GERALD WILKINS shirts are available now over in the YAYsports! Store of Purchasable Merchandise! For real – they are. Go and look.

Oh yes! Now it being crazy in el streets of Greece, baby! Now it is! Whooo-weee!

We am in reading on the American site ESPN, et the people writer is saying “oh boo hoo!” We be in the club doing crazy dance! Look!

“This is the biggest thing we’ve ever done,” former Greek star Panayiotis Fasoulas said. “The Americans are the most talented players but we have a better team. Right now we’re the best in the world. … Beating the U.S. is more important than the final.”

Well, we are not being in the electric about that, et then it is electric about this! What about el grande trophy? La mans! Go get them number one! Then there may be wellness hugging and laughing!

Anyhow, we guess el crepes et dans l’oven for el Americanos now, bebe!

Well, le question only left et how much el lose to Argentinaland for la fourth place! Hola American movie stars!

Team USA lost to Greece, our internal clock is all screwy from staying up to watch it, and infamous naysayer Chris Sheridan (of ESPN) is dancing on the line between smug I-told-you-so guy and martyr.

I’ve been waiting for two weeks to watch [Spain vs Argentina], looking to see which of those two powers would emerge as the standard we’d end up judging Team USA against. Numero uno and numero dos, I called them in a preview column I wrote upon my arrival in Japan, a column that generated so many dismissive, nasty and uncomprehending e-mails to my inbox that I almost got physically sick reading them over the course of this tournament.

Physically sick? C’mon dude – no you didn’t. You’re really saying you sat there reading email from strangers and almost threw up from it?

Anyway, the US got schooled every which way last night on exactly what Sheridan said they would – backdoor cuts and other simple basketball plays. They were also inept in the halfcourt. We owe the Mighty MJD $100 – and he sure as hell better really get a whore with it like he said.

As for the Finals of the World Championship, it’s Greece v Spain, and as said MJD notes, it’s gonna be an oily affair, starring the one and only Pau Gasol.

BTW something we haven’t seen mentioned is that the US needs to win the Pan-American (or whatever it is) thing next summer or we don’t even get to play in the 2008 Olympics.

Get thy shit together, lads – you were 14-34 from the line last night!

This one followed the same template as most of the other games – it stayed close for awhile, then Team USA made a run of steals, causing our foreign opponents to crumble in fear. Dirk Nowitzki and Co. couldn’t keep up, and LeBron, et al are in the final four of this World Championship thing.

As for us, we kept our run of having the game spoiled alive, by glancing at msn.com before we could click away elsewhere. Why does that happen?

You open the window thingie, fully saying “don’t look, don’t look” to yourself the entire time, then you look. Then you’re unhappy. Then you start with the cutting again, and everyone you know looks at you with pity. (And a strange brand of envy, as well. Odd.)