As Heat's Winning Streak Ends, Bulls Show Blueprint (Sort Of) For Beating Them

This post started out as a cliffnotes version of the ESPN homepage from this morning, but as I started out on the Bulls ending Miami’s winning streak I found myself writing more than I originally anticipated…and so here we are with a full-on Miami Heat winning streak postmortem.

In case you have been living under a rock this morning, last night Chicago halted the Heat’s streak at 27 games. To me, the streak was cool because it brought some more interest into what seems like an endless 82 game regular season. Long gone is the sprint of the lockout-shortened 66 game slate, and for that reason alone another lockout can’t come soon enough.

The streak was amazing mostly because of the nature of the sport itself. In football, the more dominant team wins almost all of the time. Baseball is so quirky that the best team in the league can lose to the league doormat on any given night, and no one will so much bat an eyelash. Basketball lies somewhere in between those 2, but there are enough factors (such as a bad shooting night, a lack of energy in back-to-back nights on the road, some calls that go against you, or an opposing player going off out of nowhere a la Jeff Green last week) that stringing together that many wins in a row is pretty tough…kind of self-evident when you consider a longer streak had only been put together once.

Cue Nate Robinson and Kurt Heinrich.

So, does last night’s game and the end of the streak actually mean anything? Not really…Miami is still going to finish the regular season as a 60+ win team and the East’s number 1 seed. Even though Chicago, Indiana, and New York all boast winning records against the Heat so far this year, they would all be heavy underdogs in a 7 game series with Miami. To me, no team will post a serious threat to the Heat before the Finals. Some people say teams with size will give them problems, but if you go big against them you still have to somehow guard their fast, speedy, sharpshooting lineup on the defensive end.

To really have a chance, you have to do 1 of 2 things (and probably both). You either need to go crazy from the 3-point line (as the Knicks did to them twice earlier in the year), or you need to knock them on their a** and hope that the refs let you play a little bit (as the Bulls did last night). The key to the 2nd point is the officials though, because if they do let some of the physicality go, then you will at least be in the game and possibly have LeBron muttering to reporters about what is and isn’t a basketball play. If they don’t, then you will find yourselves in constant foul trouble, and Miami will feast from the free throw line. For every other Easter Conference playoff team, it’s a hit or miss strategy…but it may be their best bet.

A welcome site for fans of other Eastern Conference teams to say the least...

Pure Madness: Weekly-ish NBA Power Rankings

So much for Weekly NBA Power Rankings, as it’s been over a month since the last Power Ranking update. But what better time to jump back into it than when the NCAA Tournament is starting as I type?

1. Miami Heat (53-14, previous ranking = 1)…Like: the Harlem Shake. Dislike: losing…ever.
Want some perspective for Miami’s 24 game winning streak? They had the same number of losses as the last time I updated the Power Rankings.

2. San Antonio Spurs (52-16, previous ranking = 3)…Like: flying under the radar. Dislike: David Stern.
The Spurs continue to quietly go about their business as the best team in the West even though Tony Parker’s been nursing an ankle for the past couple of weeks.

3. Denver Nuggets (47-22, previous ranking = unranked)…Like: that mile high air. Dislike: star power.
I’m not sure if I completely trust Denver just yet, but after winning 13 in a row of their own they are starting to make me a believer.

The Heat haven't been the only team streaking as of late.

4. Memphis Grizzlies (46-21, previous ranking = 5-tie)…Like: Marc Gasol’s facial hair. Dislike: shooting 3’s and the luxury tax.
If last night’s beat-‘em-up with OKC was any indication, Memphis won’t be scared facing anyone in a 7 game series.

5. LA Clippers (47-22, previous ranking = 4)…Like: RIP Brandon Knight. Dislike: halfcourt offense.
Can we please have an opening round Clips-Nuggets playoff series? Please, please, pretty please?

19. Washington Wizards (24-43, previous ranking = somewhere close to last)…Like: John Wall. Dislike: Bradley Beal’s ankle.
Who knew Wall could actually be kind of a difference-maker on the court? You’re telling me you don’t think the Wiz could have snuck into the last playoff spot in the East if Wall played the whole year? It is the East, after all.

Official B-Court All-Star 2013 NCAA Tournament Preview

I think I need to write a full-on sports post to wash the icky taste out of my mouth from yesterday’s blog…like taking a long shower the morning after an unfortunate night out on the town. And what better thing to write about than the NCAA Tournament?!?

Last year’s bracket was a disaster for me. With my winner, Missouri, dropping to a 15-seed in round 1 (the real round 1), I was pretty much relegated to spectator very early on in the pools I was in.

Ugghh, why did I have to remind myself...

What’s funny is that last year I was fairly confident about my predictions. This year, I have no idea what I’m doing whatsoever. Maybe that is for the best, as often times when you are filling out your bracket, the less you know the better you will be…but it’s not exactly confidence-inspiring to go into the tournament thinking that any 1 of about 20 schools has about as good a chance to win the whole thing as anyone else.

Take the 4 number 1’s for example…aside from Kansas, I wouldn’t exactly say that any of them are that rock solid. Gonzaga, as good as they are, is still somewhat untested, and they often disappoint come tournament time. Indiana spent most of the year looking like they would be the number 1 overall seed in this tournament, but they actually backslid into their seeding thanks to a brutal Big Ten schedule, and they have lost 3 out of their last 6 games. And while Louisville had a great season, I must confess that I wasn’t even aware they were ranked as highly as they were until this past Sunday night…and they are the number 1 overall seed in the whole tournament!

So, with all that being said, I used past coaching success in the tournament as my ultimate tiebreaker throughout my bracket. And despite the fact that I think the Big Ten is overrated every year, I still think the conference was that much better than the other conferences to warrant 3 Big Ten teams in my Elite 8, and 2 in my Final 4. With no dominant teams out there, I went with teams that I thought were built for this kind of tournament setting: Tom Izzo and Michigan St. seem to have a formula to advance far into this thing year in and year out; despite how much I despise Aaron Kraft, Thad Matta and the Buckeyes’ style of play lends itself to a possible deep run; Brad Stevens and Butler have shown for several years now that they are a program that might not necessarily be built for the regular season, but other teams will not want to see them over the next few weeks.

And to me, Bill Self and Kansas have been the most consistently good team in the country since everyone’s conference schedules began. And that’s why I’m riding the Jayhawks to the championship game and beating out Michigan St. in an instant classic.

Kansas looks like it has what it takes to cut down the nets this year.

Colitis? But You Just Met Us

I used to post personal health stuff on here fairly often. Most of the time these posts were limited to injury updates or my own triumphs and tribulations with lifting weights, but for the most part they went by the wayside in favor of posts where I voiced comments about other stuff going on in the world around me. This post is definitely the personal kind. I thought a little bit about how to go about writing this, and I think the only real way to do it is to freewrite, as Krissy says. Sorry if it gets a little bit gross, but the subject matter is, in fact, gross. If you are at all squeamish about bodily functions, I would suggest hitting the back button in your browser window now.

Here it is: a week ago, I went to the doctor, and he diagnosed me with colitis. For anyone that doesn’t know, colitis is basically when your colon becomes inflamed for some reason, and you suffer from almost uncontrollable and pretty frequent diarrhea. Symptoms can also include fever, which I haven’t had, and stomach pain, which I only had a day or 2 leading up to my doctor’s visit last week. They also include blood in your stool, which I seemed to have in boatloads…so much so that the doctor also said I had become anemic.

What started all of this? I’m not exactly sure, but I 1st noticed an increase in, ummm, bowel movement frequency the week Krissy, Jacob, and I got home from the hospital. Why is that important? Well, according to the great mindf*** that is WebMD, the exact cause of colitis is unknown, but the disease is associated with stress. I had just gotten home from living in a hospital for 2 weeks, where at times I wasn’t sure if my wife was going to make it and where my newborn son (our 1st child, mind you) lived in a plastic tube. Did I have stress? Do a frog’s legs bump him in the a** when he hops? What a great punishment for worrying about the 2 things in the world you care about the most!

The 1st picture that comes up when you do a Google image search of "stress"...thanks, Google!

So, after a week or so of constantly p***ing and bleeding out of my a**, I finally caved and went to one of those walk-in doctor’s offices that was up the street from me…only they couldn’t tell me much other than, yes, you are bleeding out your behind and s****ing quite frequently, sir, and that I needed to see a specialist…oh, and that I had to have lab work done on my stool. If you’re looking for a good time, nothing beats having to take a dump (or 3) in a grocery bag and sifting through your own blood-covered excrement to fill a bunch of test tube thingies to bring back to a lab. (By the way, those tests revealed not much more than the facts that, again, I can poop, and there was blood in it…thanks, science!)

After that doctor’s visit, I made a beeline for the pharmacy to stock up on Imodium. At this point, I have bought enough Imodium that I should officially be a stockholder. The Imodium did help a little bit, in that instead of running to the bathroom 10-12 times a day I was only running to the bathroom 6-8 times a day, but it was like putting a band-aid on a bullet wound. (Also, I later read that Imodium can actually do more harm than good if your colitis is ulcerative colitis…thanks again, science!)

In the couple of weeks from that 1st doctor’s visit to my appointment with the specialist, I mostly felt fine. I would maybe get some gas/stomach cramps right before I had to go the bathroom, but I would excuse myself to the lavatory, take a crap, and then I would feel good as new…back to business as usual. It was mostly just the annoyance of having to go to the bathroom as often as I was…which sometimes transformed into actual fear. One week, I even brought an extra pair of underwear to work because what if I didn’t make it to the bathroom in time? What in the f*** would I have been supposed to do then?

No, David...no, it wasn't.

But as I touched on before, the day or 2 leading up to my 2nd appointment I actually wasn’t feeling too hot. No fever or anything like that, but I definitely had some more prevalent stomach achiness coupled with a lack of energy (from the anemia, in hindsight). Thank God for Lialda, the drug the specialist prescribed me. I take 4 of those horse pills every morning, and since I started I have definitely seen improvement: no stomach achiness, a decrease in bowel movements (only 2-4 times a day), more solid s***, and a slight decrease in blood. I’ve also been taking an iron supplement, so my energy level has been much closer to my normal level.

But those steps in the right direction have made me a little greedy. I’ve gotten a little better. Now, I want to be all better…like all-the-way better…like now. Unfortunately, I won’t know exactly what’s going on in there until my colonoscopy (speaking of other fun adventures), which is about 2 and a half weeks away. Until then, all I can do is keep taking my meds and try to pay attention to what I’m eating. If this colitis winds up being a long-term thing, my diet is going to be more bland than a goat’s…no dairy, no raw fruits or veggies, no whole grains, no beans, no nuts, no peanut butter, no ice cream, nothing spicy, no chocolate, no coffee, no soda, no alcohol…at least I can eat plain chicken, eggs, and oatmeal I guess. Eat s***, WebMD!

At the end of the day, I’m not talking about cancer or anything like that. My symptoms have been mild to moderate, and they should be manageable…especially once this colonoscopy shows the root cause of it all. So, I can deal with this, but it’s definitely a change for me. I used to think of myself as a tank. Aside from a cold, I would hardly ever get sick. Even after all this, I don’t even have a primary care doctor yet. And to be honest, there’s a little bit of a pity party going on here too. I’m a good person. I pay my taxes. I help old grannies reach stuff on the top shelf at the grocery store. So, why me? In fact, let’s branch this out to my wife, who’s health was in a much more serious state a month ago than mine is now. Why us? What exactly did we do to deserve this? But I’m usually better off leaving those types of questions to someone else…s*** if I know anyway.

Speed Stick Haircut Guy Cracks Me Up Every Time

Every once in a blue moon, a TV commercial comes by that I can pretty much watch on a loop. Cue the new Speed Stick ad…

That's gold, Jerry. Gold!

Latest Loss Might Have Been Maryland's 9th NCAA Tournament Life Biting the Dust

With Maryland’s overtime loss at Virginia yesterday, the Terps might have put the final nail in their season’s coffin. Long gone were the unbridled optimism of November and the slightly bridled optimism of January. Already projected as being on the outside of the bubble looking in, they probably needed to beat the Cavs, take care of business at home against Wake Forest this Thursday night, and then win a couple games in the ACC tournament to cement their NCAA resume. Now, Maryland most likely will have to win the conference tourney to get in.

...and I wouldn't count on that.

It’s tough to pinpoint exactly where this Maryland team’s season went wrong, but I would list their problems in this order: youth (7 freshman and sophomores in their regular rotation), being too deep in actuality, and no point guard play to speak of. Being young is not overly unusual in today’s age of college basketball, but the other 2 can be killers…and Coach Mark Turgeon, who I like a lot, is not completely innocent in those factors either.

Depth is great when you can build a consistent rotation and style of play. The Terps could go big, small, or use a conventional lineup. But it can be a killer with a young and vastly up-and-down team. When things aren’t going well and you have a lot of guys on your bench that can play, it can be tempting to give everyone a quick hook. And when you’re coaching a team that excels in turning the ball over and taking ill-advised shots, it can be pretty easy to give into that temptation. Alex Len and Dez Wells were the 2 guys that seemed to (and deservingly so) get consistent playing time every night, but at times Turgeon seemed to mix and match lineups this year like a chef who just couldn’t seem to produce the flavor combination he desired no matter how much he altered the ingredients. This team played dumb and mistake-prone, that’s for sure, but you wonder if the constant subbing sapped Turgeon’s young players of confidence and continuity at times. To be able to go to the bullpen when someone’s not getting it done is great, but there’s also something to be said for developing a consistent rotation where everyone knows what is expected of them every game.

Sometimes, too many options is just as bad as having not enough options in the 1st place.

This is related to my 3rd point, as it was no more evident than with Terp point guard Pe’Shon Howard. As deep as Maryland was, Howard was the only true point guard in their 10 man rotation. Despite showing flashes of being a solid player when he could stay healthy during his 1st 2 seasons, Howard’s play this year seemed uneven at best. Even early on, he looked like a guy who had lost all confidence in his game. Midway through the year, Turgeon made a gamble in benching him, but it never paid off. Playing guys who were more used to playing off the ball, like Nick Faust, Seth Allen, and Wells proved just as shaky, and once Howard was reinserted into the lineup, he seemed even more mentally fragile than before. The end product was a team that probably didn't perform up to their full potential, and unfortunately some of that blame falls on the coach also, as year 3 of Mark Turgeon's tenure at Maryland will surely be his most critical by far.

The Kobe System: Can We Put the Black Mamba Out to Pasture Already?

I know that many basketball fans and analysts gush about him and what his production still is at this point in his career, but count me as one of those people who’s just about had enough of Kobe Bryant. Kobe hasn’t done anything in particular to draw my ire, really. In fact, he was great in Sunday night’s win over the Hawks…dunking over Josh Smith and then hitting what was essentially the game-winning shot moments later. But I seriously wouldn’t mind at all if Kobe just retired and went away already.

Kobe has had a phenomenal career, but I, for one, have had enough.

This is coming from a guy who used to like Kobe, a guy who used to dig that he did Nutella commercials and spoke fluent Italian, a guy who had a giant poster of young afro-sporting Kobe on his wall when he was still living with the ‘rents. But somewhere along the way, I grew tired of his act. Maybe it was the rape trial. Maybe it was his failure to coexist with Shaq. Maybe it was the fact that every move of his seemed very contrived and orchestrated. Maybe it’s that his supreme level of arrogance seemed to dwarf that of even one of the most arrogant collections of people (pro athletes) on the planet. Or maybe it’s the constant comparisons to Michael Jordan, which I will vehemently argue against, but that may be a different blog for a different day (don’t get me started if you think Kobe's on MJ's level, please).

Or maybe it’s the constant slobbering over him by the media, or the insistence that he is one of the great clutch players ever (his “crunch-time” stats show he’s really kind of average…he just seems to get more opportunities in those situations than anyone else), or the notion that he is or ever was a lock-down defender, or the marveling at his ability to still score at an extremely high and efficient rate, when the truth is the Lakers have actually been worse the more he scores this season. And I know it was a slow news week at the time it happened, but if I have to hear about how Kobe blocked LeBron twice in the All-Star game one more time, I’m going to be sick. I’m sorry, it’s a big deal that he blocked someone’s shot in an exhibition game where everyone else was barely trying? That’s when you try to exert your dominance and show that you’re still the big dog on the block, Kobe? Where were you when you lost to and got personally outplayed by LeBron in actual games earlier this season?

Gimme that weak, All-Star game s***!

The worst part in all of this is that despite the Lakers’ troubles all season, they are going to make the playoffs. I know this. They are only 2 games out of the 8th seed in the West as we speak. They have Utah, Houston, and Golden State sitting ahead of them, none of which are exactly confidence-inspiring at the moment. They are going to get in somehow, someway, and I’m going to have to hear all about the greatness that is Kobe Bryant and how Kobe willed this team to the playoffs on his own all over again. And despite everything I already wrote, this is all coming from a guy that thinks Kobe is 1 of the top 10 all-time greats. But I’ve had enough. Save it for the retirement speech. Please, spare me anymore Kobe-worshiping for the time being.