Putting The Finishing Touches On A Wild, Wild NBA Weekend

It’s weekends like this past 1 that make me wonder how as kids we used to play in those weekend basketball or soccer tournaments where you play 2, 3, or 4 games in a single day. When you’re young, your body seems like this unbreakable rubber band. No matter how far or how many times you were stretched, you would always “unstretch” back to your normal shape. At 27, my body is still relatively young, but the rubber band doesn’t stretch back exactly the way it used to. God help me if I ever had to do some type of 6 games in a weekend tournament now.

So, I called for craziness from these NBA playoffs, and the 1st 2 days gave us nothing short of that. Let’s take a chronological look at the happenings from this weekend’s opening round games.

Bulls-76ers…The 1st game of this year’s playoffs cast a somber mood over the entire league. Reigning league MVP Derrick Rose’s leg buckled as he planted off it late in the 4th quarter of Chicago’s Game 1 win against Philadelphia, thus greatly diminishing the Bulls’ title chances this year. Fortunately for Chicago, they have grown accustomed to playing without Rose. While no one would suggest they are better without him, their record was still respectable in Rose’s absence this season, and Rose was out so much towards the end of the year that he always kind of seemed to be out of rhythm whenever he was inserted back into the lineup for a game or 2. Still, it’s not exactly what Bulls’ fans had in mind.

Not what the doctor ordered.

Heat-Knicks…So, that was interesting. Krissy and her brothers (all Knicks’ fans) were irate at the officiating in Game 1, but I personally think the calls that went against New York simply served to cause what would have been a 20 point blowout to be upgraded to a 33 point drubbing. Yes, you can argue that the Chandler foul altered the game’s momentum, but it’s hard to argue for the Knicks’ chances when Carmelo and Amare shoot a combined 5 for 22 and when they cough the ball up 27 times as a team. Also, I have gone back and forth on whether or not LeBron is a big faker or he really did get jolted by that Chandler screen. It was a dumb play by Chandler in the 1st place because it was an obvious moving screen by a guy who already had 3 fouls, but a flagrant? Really? And James’ head definitely whiplashed due to the hit and him not seeing it coming, but I can’t decide whether I’m buying all the histrionics after the play or not. James’ also flopped a few plays earlier to draw a foul on JR Smith, and then somehow had the strength to hit a couple impossible jumpers with guys hanging all over him later in the game. I begrudgingly accept that just like in soccer flopping is a part of the game now, but I’m not sure what to think about this? Whatever happens in Game 2, I can’t wait for this series to move to New York, where a hostile crowd surely awaits.

Magic-Pacers…How great would it be if Orlando somehow won a series or 2 this year with all their daily Dwight drama once he’s on the shelf? Anyone who watched Game 1 would say that Indiana should win the series. At any given time, it looked like they always had the better player at every position on the court. For Pete’s sake, Glen Davis had his shot blocked so many times by Roy Hibbert that he looked like the little brother who was playing in a pick-up game with big bro and all of his friends. And yet there are 2 things that put the Orlando upset in play here: the Magic shoot (and can make) a lot of 3’s, and while the Pacers are talented and very deep they lack that 1 true go-to guy that they can give the ball to in crunch time…without travelling, that is.

Thunder-Mavericks…Went to bed at halftime thinking that the Mavs were going to pull this game out somehow. Then, I woke up, turned on Sportcenter, and, “Boom!” Kevin Durant happened! Durant had a poor shooting game, but how about a 1-handed floater fading to your left with 1 of the best perimeter defenders in the game (Shawn Marion) contesting the shot to win the game?

Hawks-Celtics…Day 2 of the playoffs opened with a couple of ho-hum wins for the Spurs and Lakers over the lower seeded Jazz and Nuggets, respectively, but the NBA was apparently saving up its more theatrical games for the night cap. Year in and year out, the Hawks are 1 of the least interesting “good” teams in the league. With their current core group of players, they have made the playoffs every season, but they don’t ever seem to get better from year to year. They are usually good for somewhere between a number 3 and 6 seed in the East, a 1st round playoff series win, and a quiet 2nd round exit. For whatever reason though, they always seem to give the Celtics fits. Even during Boston’s championship run a few years ago, the Hawks stretched the Celtics to 7 games, and that was a 1-8 matchup. While this version of the Celtics is older, more injured, and less, well, “good,” they still seem to give the Bulls and Heat problems, but the Hawks remain a thorn in their own side for some reason. And while the C’s struggle to generate offense anyway (74 points in Game 1), it’s going to be even tougher if the league comes down hard the engine that makes them go, Rajon Rondo, for bumping an official at the end of last night’s game.

Come at me, bro.

Grizzlies-Clippers…This series has maybe the most interesting contrast of styles of any 1st round matchup, but for the majority of last night it appeared that Memphis had made it their type of game. Much like with the Thunder-Mavs game the night before, I went to bed at halftime. While OKC still had a fighting chance in that 1, the outcome of this game didn’t appear to be in doubt anymore. The Clips were down nearly 20 at the break, but more than that it just seemed to be the Grizzlies’ night. No one in red seemed to be playing well, the crowd was really into it, and it seemed like every shot was falling for Memphis. And similar to the morning following the Thunder-Mavs game, I woke up in shock, this time to find that LA had completed 1 of the greatest comebacks in NBA playoff history. I guess for all the Nick Young bashing I do on here regularly, I should mention that Young was crucial to the comeback, hitting 3 triples in the 4th quarter. If days 1 and 2 of this year’s playoffs are any indication, we’re in for a wild ride.

Step Aside, Regular Season...Make Room For The Playoffs

Typical...

This fast and furious NBA regular season ended with a whimper last night, as most playoff-bound teams rested the majority of their stars. It’s hard to blame them considering the toll this condensed season has put on a lot of players’ bodies and the fact that the playoffs start tomorrow, but it made for some oddities for sure. For example, my Wizards (who I wrote a pretty optimistic post about earlier in the week) closed out the season with their 6th win in a row. They doled out a 30+ point thumping to the Heat, who basically only dressed a D-League team. I still have a tiny bit of hope for them next year, but they closed the season in a fashion that this Washington franchise has perfected over time: charging fast and hard towards the finish line while the outcome of the race had already been decided some time ago. I think the phrase that Tony Kornheiser would use to describe the Wizards late stretch is “passing tired horses.” Anyway, if that wasn’t enough, Washington’s season closing stretch of winning 8 of their last 10 still didn’t bump them from having the 2nd worst record in the whole league (and therefore the 2nd best odds of winning the draft lottery). What a great strategy: play so terribly early on in the year that you can’t hurt your draft position no matter how many games you win at the end of season. Speaking of terrible, the Bobcats finished the year with the worst single season winning percentage of any team in league history. As nice as it would be for Anthony Davis to be wearing Washington red, white, and blue next year, I can’t help but root for Charlotte to get that number 1 pick…either that, or they should just be contracted.

Oh, dear.

As for the playoffs, here’s my official preview…I have no idea. Despite my power rankings, this crazy NBA season has succeeded in completely throwing me off the prognostication trail. Let’s look at the best teams by seeding. The Spurs have looked surgical as of late, but while I could see them winning the whole thing I could see them potentially losing to any team in the West (including the number 8 seed, Utah, who they are matched up with in the 1st round) as well. I’ve said all along that OKC is the most talented team from top to bottom in the whole league, but their recent struggles have shown that they can be beat when their outside shooting goes a little cold, and they are young enough that they still may need to go through 1 more year of growing pains anyway. The Bulls? They tied San Antonio for the best record in the whole league, but I’m not sure what to expect of them when Rose is inserted back in the lineup. Can he stay on the court and get himself in rhythm quickly enough? Even so, is Chicago really any better than last season when Miami dispatched them in 5 games? And what about the Heat? Much the same as last year, they will be the most heavily scrutinized team this postseason. The supporting cast might be slightly better than last year’s playoffs, but James, Wade, and Bosh are still going to have to carry the load night in and night out. I’m just not sure they have enough to win it all this year either. Do Boston and the Lakers have enough in them to make a strong push? Or will it be whichever Western Conference darkhorse makes it out of their 1st round series, the Griz or Clips? S***, even as a number 7 seed the Mavs are just as dangerous as they were last year (when they were a 6). In short, I don’t know…time to just sit back and enjoy.

No pressure...it's not like your legacy depends on this postseason or anything.

1 Best Friend Plays And The Obligatory Injury Update Post

Being employed by a company that works with the federal government, I have to take some bulls*** online trainings every so often, but 1 in particular was a doozy. It’s called something like “Trafficking In Persons” training or something…yes, it has to do with human trafficking. No, it doesn’t teach you how to perform human trafficking, as the title seems to suggest. It’s meant to give guidance when it comes to travelling overseas and what to do if you encounter certain scenarios that could tip you off to human trafficking, but part of the training utilizes some crude, 2-D, role play style videogame scenes…the training content is pretty “icky,” which I’m sure is an intentional scare tactic given the subject matter. I don’t want to make light of a serious issue, but if I could ever do a “Two Best Friends Play” style play-through video with running commentary, this would be the time. “Ok, dirty, dimly lit night clubs aren’t really my style, but I guess I’ll go inside,” and, “No, I don’t want to see what’s going on behind that dumpster in the alley! Nothing good ever happens there! Dear God, why!?!” Glad to see our tax dollars aren’t going to waste at least.

It’s been over a month since I’ve done any personal injury update kind of posts, and work is slow as of this moment, so I figured I would delve into that a little bit just to pass the time. I am relatively healthy right now (knock on wood), but let’s start from the head area and work our way down (that’s what she said).

Shoulders…I feel like my left shoulder may always be a problem for me off and on from here on out unless I go under the knife and get it cleaned out (or whatever would need to happen), and it still feels somewhat weak, but all things considered I think I’m finally starting to see it heal from whatever I did to tweak it a couple months ago. It’s just one of those things that I’m probably always going to have to monitor and be extra careful with. I actually felt some pain in my right shoulder, which has always been my good shoulder, when lifting sometime last week, but that pain has since gone away. Looking back now, I think that was just some general muscle soreness, and it’s probably something I don’t have to worry about.

Hands/Fingers/Wrists…These are a couple other nagging injuries that just don’t seem to want to get all the way better, and I’m doing something (whether it’s playing basketball, playing football, or lifting weights) that is putting stress on them just about every day too, so it’s not like they are going to heal any faster either. My left hand/index finger has actually healed to the point that I can basically use it normally. I can shoot a left-handed layup (just as poorly as ever, but still…), I can open doors with my left hand, and I can grip heavy or awkward objects with my left hand now as well, which were all things I was previously struggling with, so those are good signs. I still notice discomfort doing certain things like gripping heavy weights doing dumbbell shoulder presses, but I don’t think it’s preventing me from doing anything anymore, whereas I was avoiding certain activities before. For example, to break-up our training routines sometimes Krissy and I will go throw a football after work instead. I can recall at least 1 occasion where I declined because after an hour of catching balls my hand would be throbbing. Now, if I catch a pass awkwardly, it may sting for a few seconds, but it seems like I’ve gotten through the worst of it. Likewise, my right wrist has improved, but it’s something that’s not all the way better either. I can at least do a pushup now without much pain, but every time I hit the deck while playing football or basketball, I can’t help but use it to break my fall, which of course makes it sore all over again. Like a sprained ankle, it might be 1 of those things that never gains full strength again now that it’s been weakened.

Lower Back…Alas, my “old man” back. This is 1 of those injuries that just seems to come and go. I could take a hard fall while playing football or something, and my back will feel fine, but 2 weekends ago it started to stiffen up just from standing up too long after we finished playing basketball. This week it’s been fine. I usually shy away from doing dead lifts and other lower back exercises at the gym, but aside from trying to strengthen it and just babying it when I do start to feel it spazzing out, I’m not sure if there’s anything else that can be done.

Knees/Hamstrings/Groins…This is going to be a short section because none of these have given me any trouble lately. Let’s hope that I can keep it that way.

Achilles…2 years ago when I 1st started to feel achilles pain, it was on my left leg. Now, my left achilles feels pretty good, and it’s my right 1 that’s aggravated. Just as long as both of them don’t hurt at the same time (like they did last summer), it’s bearable at least. From everything I’ve read, pretty much the best thing you can do if you have achilles tendonitis is rest them. Because of that, I’ve cut down on my running at the gym during the week, and I’ve been trying to save any running/jumping/cutting for when we play different things on the weekend. I’ve also heard that the kind of shoes you where and how you run can contribute to achilles pain, but at the end of the day it’s still mostly an overuse injury, so I think I’m just going to have to deal with it for now. Maybe once football season ends, I will get some relief though.

Ankles…Krissy jokes with me that she’s not sure I have any tendons or ligaments even left in my ankles (especially my right 1), but it’s been like 3 or 4 years since I’ve suffered a serious or semi-serious ankle sprain. I did have a minor tweak playing football a month or so ago, and my ankles are weak enough that at this point even minor twists or exaggerated for me, but it hasn’t really given me any problems since the weekend that I sprained it. As I sit here at my desk, if I try to turn my ankle, it doesn’t feel so great, but I’m not sure it felt great before I tweaked it anyway. Summer is around the corner though. It’s time to try to get as healthy as possible. Maximum healthiness equals maximum playtime, and maximum playtime equals maximum fun. So, being “not injured” equals “fun.” There you go…the transitive property at its finest.

Nobody Beats The Wiz

As a sports fan, there are 3 kinds of bad teams. Using the NBA as an example, there are generically bland bad teams like the Hornets or Cavaliers, who try hard, but just don’t have the talent to succeed night in and night out. There are historically bad teams like the Bobcats, who are interesting solely because of their badness. In terms of team personality, they are usually just as ho-hum as the 1st kind of bad team, they just have even less talent. The 3rd kind of bad team is interesting not only because of how terrible they are, but because they are terrible in a completely bumbling fashion. This would be my hometown Washington Wizards. They started off the year with the kind of roster that could almost be a caricature of what a bad team looks like. It was like the casting call for a Disney sports movie. You had the overpaid, out of shape, too sensitive about being booed by the home crowd power forward. You had the self-absorbed, happy he put up his own stats in another loss, 1 assist per game shooting guard. You had the goofball, running the wrong way down court, mom blasting the coach in the media center with no self-awareness center. You had the former college stud point guard who seemed to regress being surrounded by his current cast of misfits. You had the old vet who gets paid like he’s 1 of the top 5 players in the league, yet rides the bench on a bad team. You had about 6 other impressionable and unproven young players who were being poisoned daily by the multiple bad apples in the bunch. And you had the embattled coach who didn’t really sign up for a rebuilding job when he got to town, but now was forced to deal with the situation. That was your 2011-2012 Washington Wizards, folks. By the middle of the year though, the Wizards brass seemed to finally gain some perspective, and realized that this ship was going nowhere fast. In no particular order, they canned the embattled coach (Flip Saunders), shipped off the self-absorbed shooting guard (Nick Young) and goofball center (JaVale McGee), and basically told the out of shape power forward (Andray Blatche) and overpaid vet (Rashard Lewis) to make themselves scarce.

Sigh...poor John Wall.

Since the moves, the Wizards have lost games at mostly the same rate, but their little addition by subtraction moves at least cleared up playing time for some of their younger guys so that they could be further evaluated. While Washington has made some abysmally bad moves in the past couple of years (one example is how they extended Blatche’s contract last year, which basically made him untradeable as well), most of the Wizards’ most recent moves have actually made sense. They have been able to stockpile young talent. The Wizards have 5 guys on their roster who were 1st round picks during the last 2 drafts, and another (Shelvin Mack) who was an early 2nd rounder. Including John Wall, that’s 7 high picks from the last 3 drafts. If you’re going to lose, you might as well lose with young players. Also, Rashard Lewis’ contract continues to seem like an anvil strapped to the franchise’s neck, but acquiring Lewis for Gilbert Arenas actually did save the Wiz 10’s of millions of dollars in the long run. Lastly, Washington got back a legit veteran low post threat in the McGee-Young deal this year. Even if Nene’s creaky knees only allow him to be a part time presence, he can at least serve as a mentor to Washington’s young bigs, Kevin Seraphin, Trevor Booker, and Jan Vesely.

All in all, I doubt the Wizards front office truly believed they could make a playoff push with the roster they had in place this year, but I think they could have lived without the nightly Sportscenter jabs at their players’ tomfoolery. Maybe even more maddening than that, Washington has shown a penchant for showing up against the better teams. At 18-46, they boast the 2nd worst record in the league to the Bobcats, but they have made a killing against Charlotte this year (4-0). That leaves 14 wins against the rest of the league, but those 14 include victories over the Thunder, Lakers, Bulls, and Heat. (In their wins against Chicago and Miami, those teams rested what seemed like their entire starting lineups, but still…) Despite all that inconsistency and every other bad thing I’ve said about this team so far, they are actually on a 4 game win streak, and they have won 6 out of their last 8. So, while riding high with 2 games left to go this season, it’s probably a good time to recap this year and look towards the next.

John Wall…Wall is probably the hardest Wizard to grade. His assists and 3 point shooting were down and his turnover rate was up compared to his rookie season, but it’s hard to blame him too much with all the moppishness that went on with this team earlier in the year. Anyone who watched Wizards games earlier this year knows John Wall was not having any fun. His listless expression all but said, “Get me out of here!” Still, I think he gets brownie points for showing up every night (he hasn’t missed a game this year) and playing hard on a team that didn’t exactly inspire good morale. And while he would do well to get in the gym and work on his outside shooting every day this summer, I actually like that he took less 3’s per game this year compared to the year before (which caused his overall shooting percentage to go up a tick). To me, he still projects as a Rajon Rondo type player. And actually, he is bigger, faster, and has a better looking jumper than Rondo, but while Rondo is a pure point guard, I’m not sure Wall has that same knack as a passer. Wall’s career assist numbers (8.1 a game) might be deceptively high just because he has his hands on the ball so often. To the naked eye, he makes nice passes to open guys, but watching Wall I don’t get the sense that he has any idea how to do things that good point guards do like get the ball to his teammates in the exact spot that they like or having a sense that he needs to get a particular teammate a shot to keep them interested on defense. While he might not be as explosive a leaper, Wall might want to more closely model his offensive game after Russell Westbrook in the future, but that comparison is still a long ways off.

The Bigs…I have always liked Nene’s overall game, but I wonder about his durability at this stage of his career. Since the trade, he has only played 9 games in a Wizards uniform and 37 games this year overall. Even so, I think it was a good trade for Washington just because it allowed them to move 2 guys who were bogging down their team, and even if Nene can’t play it will at least free up time for Vesely, Seraphin, and Booker. To anyone who just looks at stats, Vesely might look like somewhat of a bust for a lottery pick so far, but he is still very young and adjusting to the NBA game. I would like to see him add some strength and work on a midrange jumper, but I think that most people who actually watch Wizards games have actually liked what they have seen from him. I don’t ever think he will be a guy you can dump the ball into the post to, but if you watch him he always seems up to stuff…he’s a good screen setter and passer for his size, he seems to track rebounds pretty well, and it looks like he has a good sense of where to be on the court based on how a play is developing. The counter to that is that you don’t look for solid role players with lottery picks; you’re looking for an All-Star caliber player…but I have to say I’m a fan, and I think he’s worth paying attention to next season. I also liked what I saw from Trevor Booker this year (when he wasn’t battling injuries). I could see Booker developing into a left-handed, poor man’s Paul Milsap maybe, but at the worst he’s a high energy banger off the bench. Kevin Seraphin might be the most intriguing of the 3 young bigs. For his 1st season and a half in the league, Seraphin looked like a complete project. He seemed slow of foot, awkward, and uncoordinated. Since he’s gotten the opportunity to play he looks like, well, a young Nene. His footwork in the post is excellent, he has a nice soft touch around the basket, and he’s more athletic than I initially thought. In April, he’s averaged close to 16 points, 8 rebounds, and 2 blocks a game. He still needs to get stronger and become a much better passer out of the double team, but the kid actually looks like he can play.

Since Washington cleaned house, Seraphin's been a pleasant surprise.

Perimeter Scoring…A scoring point guard and a stable of young athletic big guys is nice, but without a franchise player, you’re not going anywhere. And unless your name is Chris Paul or Dwight Howard, if you’re a franchise player in today’s NBA, you’re most likely a shooting guard or small forward that can score from the wing. Simply put, the Wizards don’t have that. Right now, they have Wall and a bunch of “nice” perimeter players. Mack is a nice backup point guard. Chris Singleton is a good perimeter defender and hustle guy. Jordan Crawford can shoot you both in and out of games…they are all nice players. All of that is well and good, but without a LeBron/Durant/Kobe type player, well, your ceiling is probably only as good as the Indiana Pacers. That’s not necessarily a terrible thing given that this franchise has been floundering for what seems like forever, but for the most part you don’t win championships without “that” guy. The fact is that the Wizards have to get lucky in the draft again this upcoming summer…and not so much as getting lucky enough to get the number 1 pick and get Anthony Davis (which I wouldn’t hate either), but getting lucky in a sense that the draft is a crapshoot, and they need whoever they pick to turn into a real player. Otherwise, all this optimism is just a waste of time on my part…and I will be writing a similar post about the Wizards this next time next year too.

The "Ayes" Have It: Week 12 Of The NBA Power Rankings

It’s that time of the week again: time for NBA power rankings. Because of some blatant tanking for what should be called the “2012 Kentucky Wildcat Draft,” I’m just doing away with the bottom 5 for the last 2 weeks of the regular season. Yes, I’m looking at you New Jersey, Cleveland, Portland, Golden State, and Sacramento. I’m not sure you can call what’s going on in Charlotte “tanking” really…the Bobcats might just be this plain bad. And poor Minnesota…once in the thick of the playoff hunt, the Wolves have had a confluence of injuries and other oddities that have contributed to their 11 game losing streak. Although they have the 2nd and 3rd worst records in the league respectively, we might actually have to give some props to the Hornets and Wizards. New Orleans has won 6 of their last 9, and Washington has won 4 of 6. Luckily for them, they are both bad enough that they can afford not to tank and still be smack-dab in the middle of the Anthony Davis/Michael Kidd-Gilchrist sweepstakes. As a matter of fact, this whole tank-a-palooza puts a whole damper on the “rising” and “falling” sub-lists too…let’s table those until next year as well. Let’s move this thing along…to the rankings!

Could this Big 3 make 1 more deep postseason push?

1. San Antonio Spurs (PR=5, 45-16)…In the words of Vince Lombardi, “What the hell is going on out there?!?” The Spurs were 5th last week, and I’ve never had them higher than 3rd, but how can you not reward them for a 5-0 week? That’s 5 wins in 7 days for a team where the 3 main guys have a lot of miles on them. The Spurs’ little secret this year that is just starting to get some mention though: the guys surrounding Duncan, Manu, and TP all have young legs, and these Spurs more closely resemble the old “8 seconds or less” Suns than the plodding teams Coach Popovich has had in recent seasons. I still think they can potentially be beat in a series by any of these teams from the West: OKC, the Lakers, Memphis, and Dallas. However, it’s tough to argue with their system, experience, and the West’s best record overall.

2. Oklahoma City Thunder (PR=1, 45-17)…I can’t think of a time all year where the Thunder haven’t had the West’s best mark, and OKC went a respectable 4-2 over the past 2 weeks, yet here we are. I still think the Thunder have, from top to bottom, the best roster in the league. I still think they have the best offensive player in the world. I think they have the best home crowd in the NBA, and I think it would be their natural progression to make it the Finals this year. And yet there’s something about them that still gives me pause. Is it their youth? Or that they are a very perimeter-oriented team? Mostly I think it’s just the fact that their conference just seems completely wide open this year, but to me they’re still the best bet to come out of the West.

3. Chicago Bulls (PR=2, 47-15)…How big does that win last week in Chicago over the Heat seem now? The Bulls only suffered 1 loss this week (at home to the Wizards of all teams), but if the Heat beat the Bulls tonight in Miami that will shrink Chicago’s 1st place lead to 1.5 games. While it looks unlikely that Derrick Rose will play, the Bulls have proven that they can beat the Heat twice before basically without him, but those games were in Chicago. The Heat are much better at home, and this is a game they will definitely be motivated for: the last 2 losses to the Bulls have to be on Miami’s mind, and they desperately want to avoid Carmelo and the Knicks in Round 1 if at all possible. Meanwhile, the Bulls next 2 games will be against tough teams (Dallas and Indy) who will be fighting for playoff position, while Miami’s remaining schedule (outside of Boston, who could conceivably sit their entire roster out in that game anyway) seems a little easier. Just saying…

4. Miami Heat (PR=3, 44-17)…Basically everything I just said for the Bulls but in reverse. The Heat appear to still think they have a shot at that number 1 seed in the East, but if they drop another game to the Bulls tonight, that thought is toast.. Meanwhile, LeBron continues to look much more like the best player on the planet when Wade is out of the lineup than when he is in it. No one is suggesting that Miami is better without Wade, and most of those games have been against less than amazing teams, but it’s interesting none of the less.

5. Boston Celtics (PR=6, 37-26)…Like the Spurs, the C’s also played 5 games in the last 7 days, but they only went 3-2 in that span. If I were to guess, I would say Boston pretty much puts the rest of the regular season on cruise control though. They can’t really get a better seed than where they are positioned now. They could drop in theory I guess, although I am hardpressed to believe Orlando or Atlanta is going to step up and pass Boston in the standings. They have shown they can beat the best teams, and in this crapshoot of a season I don’t think anyone wants to see them in a series. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Rondo, KG, Pierce, and Allen sit out a bunch of games over the course of the next week.

6. LA Lakers (PR=4, 40-23)…The Lakers have been able to maintain their playoff position with Kobe resting a banged-up shin with a steady dose of Andrew Bynum doing what he’s supposed to be doing, which coincidentally doesn’t include spotting up for 3’s. It will be interesting to see when Kobe comes back whether he relies on his bigs a little more, or he just…well, you know. Kobe or no Kobe, the Spurs kind of showed the formula for beating the Lakers a few nights ago: push the ball up.

7. LA Clippers (PR=Not Ranked, 39-23)…Am I crazy for thinking the Clips look very dangerous right now? They’ve won 5 in a row, and are only a half game behind the Lakers for the Pacific Division lead. They are deeply flawed, and yet they have 1 of the 5 or 10 best players in the league (Chris Paul). There’s no reason to think that Mo Williams and Nick Young will continue to shoot as well as they have, but if they do, their simple pick and roll (and everyone else spot up) offense is pretty tough to handle. They also seem to play the best teams very well. I’m not sure how far they can really go, but I’m definitely intrigued.

8. Memphis Grizzlies (PR=Not Ranked, 37-25)…I have the Grizzlies 8th out of the 8 teams I’m going to list here, but make no mistake about it: none of the top 7 want to see Memphis in a series. Their “grindhouse” style of play means no fun for anyone on the other team. Just ask the Spurs team that was upset by the Griz last year. Because of that and the fact that Zach Randolph and Rudy Gay are both actually playing, don’t be surprised to hear the Grizzlies mentioned a lot next week as a trendy darkhorse playoff pick.

Trick or treat, motherf*****.

A Sports Fan's Dilemma

Out of all the major sports, baseball always fell behind basketball and football in terms of the enjoyment I got both from playing them and watching them. I was like the only kid I knew growing up who didn’t play little league or even tee ball. Sure, my brother and I would play pick-up baseball or wiffle ball with the neighborhood kids growing up, and we all had our own gloves and bats, but that was the extent of our baseball careers. Still, I grew up with much of the same overly romanticized views of baseball as any other kid. I checked box scores, stats leaders, and standings in the newspaper. To this day, I have a baseball card collection that numbers into the thousands (probably at least twice as many the number of trading cards I had for every other sport combined). If I got bored during the summer, I had a habit of going outside with my bat and pretending I was a big league slugger. Sometimes I would go into the garage with a tennis ball and pretend I was a pitcher too. Usually, the pitching sessions would be short-lived, as it wouldn’t take long for my Mom to grow tired of the sound of the tennis ball bouncing off the garage wall…and most of the time when I would go into my own little alternate baseball universe, I was either Cal Ripken Jr. or Mike Mussina in Baltimore Oriole white, black, and orange.

When I was younger, Cal could do no wrong in my eyes.

The 1st baseball game I ever went to was with my Dad at Camden Yards (in what was I think the ballpark’s inaugural season). That day, the Orioles fell to a 40-something year old pitcher for the Texas Rangers and a young hitting machine named Nolan Ryan and Juan Gonzalez, respectively. From that day on, the O’s were my team. When I was 11, 12, 13 years old, I could be found on most summer nights lying in bed listening to the AM radio broadcast of the O’s game. While some scrooges in my life have since tried to point out to me that Ripken was an egomaniacal fraud during his career, his consecutive game streak probably “saved” (or at least made the forgive and forget process a little easier for fans) baseball following the strike-shortened ’94 season. In the mid-90’s, the O’s almost always ranged from at least decent to sometimes very good. Between 1992 and 1997, Baltimore only finished below 0.500 once, and they barely missed that mark that 1 season with a 71-73 record. In ’96, the O’s won the Wild Card only to be ousted in the ALCS by the Yankees (thanks in part to a little kid hanging over the right field wall with a glove…the name Jeffrey Maier still makes me cringe to this day). ’97 was 1 of those years that Yankee fans and Laker fans take for granted, but for fans of lesser franchises they might be once or twice in a lifetime occurrences. The O’s led their division wire-to-wire and finished with the best record in the American League…only to get beaten in the ALCS again, this time by the Indians.

The day baseball died for me just a little bit.

Since then, the Baltimore Orioles have been stuck in a cycle of constant stink-itude. They finished above 0.500 while failing to reach the playoffs in 1998, but since then have had a winning record exactly 0 times. Mussina, sensing that the ship was going down, bolted for New York following the 2000 season. Ripken mercifully retired after several hanger-on type seasons in 2001. The O’s that I had officially grown up with were all but gone. Since then, they have suffered through countless managers, GMs, team presidents, and failed free agency signings. Any of these names ring a bell? Albert Belle, Javier Lopez, Miguel Tejada, Sidney Ponson, and on and on and on…

This brings me to something that I’ve been struggling with for a couple of years now. See, when my sports fandom 1st came into existence, there was no Washington professional baseball team, and there was no Baltimore professional football team. However, ever since the Ravens 1st season in ’96 I have watched person after person migrate from being a Redskins fan to a Ravens fan. This was always troubling to me because I lived in an area that was basically equidistant from Baltimore and Washington. Now, when I go back to where I grew up, it seems like purple and black is everywhere during football season. I can sympathize with some Ravens fans. What if you are from Baltimore? What if you were actually a fan of the old Colts teams before they moved to Indianapolis? But everyone else is a ship-jumper as far as I’m concerned. The thing is that the Redskins have given their fans every reason imaginable for their fans to cross over to the team located some 30-plus miles up I-95. They are perpetually stinky. Their owner is a meddler. They haven’t been able to cultivate any real homegrown talent for quite some time. Almost every personnel director, coach, and high-priced free agent they have acquired in recent memory has been a bust…wait, sound familiar O’s fans?

And for me, there’s the dilemma. In a way, my heart is still and always will be with the Orioles I think. They are the team of my youth after all…but I haven’t seen the Orioles live and in person in years. Out of the last 10 baseball games I’ve been to, I would bet that 8 of them were Nationals games, a shocking development considering that they have only been around since 2005. (Strangely, I also have lived somewhat close to Baltimore the last several years, whereas I have never in my life lived farther away from Washington, DC.) Currently, the only baseball apparel that I own is a navy blue cap sporting a curly W. The majority of the games I watch on TV are Nats games. The box scores that I check nowadays are of Strasburg and Zimmerman. The minor league phenom that I’m currently awaiting is Bryce Harper. Crazy I know, but I can’t really explain it…that’s just the way it is.

By the way, Strasburg's numbers so far this year: 3 starts, 1 strikeout per inning, and a 1.42 ERA.

The Orioles are still in my periphery. I will check in on them for a minute or 2 if I’m flipping through channels. It makes me happy that some of their younger players like Adam Jones and Matt Wieters seem to be coming along and that after 10 games they somehow hold a half game lead over Toronto for 1st place in the American League East. (It marks the 6th time since 2004 that the Orioles have been in either 1st or 2nd place in the division by today’s date, April 17th, so fast starts and dismal finishes are nothing new for the O’s either.) But no matter how you slice it, that’s what the Orioles are for me at this point in my life: a team I will root for when they play teams like the Yanks and Sox, but a team I only have a casual interest in at best. This means 2 things…1st, if and when the Orioles ever get good again, I am not really allowed to revel in it. Sure, I will root for them and be quietly happy for them, but it would be in poor taste for me to bask in their successes in the same way that someone who stuck with them through thick and thin would (like I could for the Redskins). 2nd, I guess it’s time for me to bury the hatchet with all the Ravens fans out there who switched allegiances, annoying as a lot of them are…but at least I can honestly say, “I get it.” Go Nats.

Heat-Bulls Recap Out Of Nowhere And Random YouTube Channels For Your Enjoyment

Wow…so, that was interesting. Last night’s Bulls-Heat game was a revelation in so many ways. With D-Rose struggling in shaking off the rust with so many games missed, Chicago put egos aside (sitting Noah, Boozer, and Rip Hamilton for much of the 2nd half and OT as well) and trusted their bench. Taj Gibson, CJ Watson, Kyle Korver, and Omer Asik played the bulk of the 4th quarter and extra session minutes, and those household names proved too much for Miami to overcome. As for the Heat, it was clear how badly they wanted this one. Udonis Haslem was only able to muster 11 minutes because of some kind of stomach bug, but the rest of the way they only really played 7 guys. LeBron played 47 of a possible 53 minutes, and I can’t recall him coming out of the game after halftime. Bosh and Wade each played over 40 as well, and by the numbers the Big 3 played well: a combined 71 points on 47.5% shooting against Chicago’s world class D translates to a good day at the office offensively overall. But Miami’s lack of depth really showed against Chicago’s super-subs. Mario Chalmers, Mike Miller, Shane Battier, and Ronny Turiaf averaged 29.5 minutes played, and they combined for 9 points while shooting a woeful 4 for 18. Even on a team where 3 guys are going to carry the offensive load, that’s not enough production from your role players. The Heat’s lack of a bench proved costly. In the 6 minutes James sat in the 1st half, Miami was outscored by 9. Wade’s +/- for the night was +17 as well, meaning the Bulls bench was killing Miami’s in even the brief moments when James and Wade got a blow, and it was clear that Wade, who carried the scoring load in the 4th quarter, and LeBron, who guarded nearly every position and played the point most of the 2nd half, had nothing left in the tank by game’s end. To me, that’s on the coaching staff. Even if your bench is clearly outclassed, you have to find a way to steal a couple minutes rest for those guys at some point here and there.

I also have to wonder if a lack of coaching contributed to Watson’s game-tying 3 in the final seconds of regulation. LeBron was guarding the inbounder, but went to double Korver once he caught the inbound pass. The only problem was that Bosh had the same idea (although he seemed to rotate too slowly), creating a somewhat weak and unnecessary triple team on the ball. That left the other 2 Miami defenders playing 4 on 2. Korver made a not all that difficult pass to Boozer at the high post, who then swung the ball to Watson. Wade still was able to make a good close-out on Watson, but the triple team put Miami’s defense in scramble mode, and that led to at least a semi-clean look at the basket. If it was just an instinctive play by James, it’s tough to fault the coaching, but it seems like they could have been better schooled as to how to react to that type of play. Either way, the alarming thing if you’re a Miami fan is that the Heat actually played pretty well in their last 2 games against Chicago and Boston, their 2 biggest threats in the East, and it just wasn’t good enough. Now, both the Celts and Bulls played great in those games too, but it seems that they have figured out some kind of formula to beat Miami…which leads to this point: despite anything LeBron and Wade do, the way this team is currently constructed just may not be good enough, period. In all honesty if I had to redo the power rankings today, I would have Miami at 4th or 5th, or maybe even 6th.

Anyway, enough of that for now…that recap of last night was almost like some stream of consciousness, spur of the moment stuff that just came out. What I wanted to do originally, what with it being Friday and all, is give mention to a couple of random YouTube channels that I have come across lately. YouTube is great and obnoxious for the same reason: because any shmuck with a camera who knows how to upload a video can put content on YouTube. With that being said, there are definitely some hidden gems out there. I found out about this 1st channel through my friend Mac, who emailed me a link of their videos. The channel is “Two Best Friends Play,” and it’s basically just 2 guys, Matt and Pat, playing through various video games with their running commentary. Since watching that 1st video, I’ve subsequently watched every video that they have posted. I’m not sure why exactly I’ve become such an addict though. The videos are very “inside baseball,” and I would be considered a “noob” in the gaming world to say the least, but there’s something about them that consistently cracks me up. The best episodes usually involve them playing some not very mainstream s*** game, which are generally endless sources of material. The gold standard remains the Bear Grylls game episode though.

A lot of people that have already come across the “Kev Jumba” channel probably had a similar experience to mine. They got bored 1 day, clicked on the “browse” link on YouTube, and found Kevin’s “Biggest Cockblock” video under the “most viewed today” heading. From what I can tell, Kevin is an awkwardly funny college-aged Asian dude who has been posting videos since he was 16 or 17. I’m not sure exactly how funny Kevin would be in real life (he could be hilarious for all I know), but he definitely edits and splices together his videos in a way that comes across pretty funny…oh and his Dad is a riot. The weird thing is that I perused through 5 or 6 of his other videos, and they are littered with semi-famous people like the Asian guy from “Twilight” (I think at least), actress/model Jamie Chung, the Harlem Globetrotters, and even Jeremy Lin before anybody knew who he was (in his Golden State Warriors days). Kev Jumba, who are you?

The last channel I’m going to pimp is called “Twin Muscle Workout.” I stumbled upon TMW looking for some workout tips, but I got a little bit more than I bargained for. The dudes in the videos are the Hodge twins, 2 (what looks like at least) identical twins giving fitness advice. There are a couple of reasons I sampled 2 or 3 other clips after watching the 1st. 1 reason is that from what I can tell, their tips seem pretty sound, but more than that these guys are weirdly entertaining. They have that always strange, almost telekinetic connection that twins have where they finish each other’s sentences and seem to know what the other is thinking at all times, and they have this odd routine that had me rolling by the time I watched the last video. “Hey man, you want to build some muscle, man? You do? That’s good, man [clenches his jaw and poses like a pro wrestler or something].” And at the end of the video, “It’s just advice, so do whatever the f*** you want to do!”