The NBA released its 2011-12 schedule today and it made the rounds in the blogosphere multiple times over. Why? It wasn't because the schedule held any particular relevance or importance. Instead, the story carried weight because there hasn't been any meaningful NBA news in nearly three weeks.
With that kind of inactivity in mind, it's time to let this blog rest for a bit. A summer. Hopefully not an autumn and a winter, too. Just a summer. Keep thinking positive thoughts about this lockout going away.
In the meantime, enjoy Jamaal Wilkes shooting a free throw.
Amazingly enough, Jamaal finished his career with a .759 FT percentage -- the exact same mark as Isiah Thomas.
Aaaah, the good old days of labor relations between NBA players and owners. No wonder they named a trophy after Larry O'B.
Pay close attention to the text at the top (transcribed below):
For what it's worth: Simon Gourdine (at far right) switched sides. After being the NBA's Deputy Commish from 1974-1981, he later came back and worked with the National Basketball Players Association, eventually becoming the Executive Director from 1995 to 1996.
NEW YORK (UPI) 04/12/76: The National Basketball Association reached a three-year contract agreement with the Players Association (4/12). Among other things, it calls for a $10,000 increase in minimum salaries -- from $20,000 to $30,000 per year through the 1978-79 season. From left, at news conference announcing the agreement are: Larry Fleisher, N.B.A. players' counsel; Paul Silas of the Boston Celtics, Lawrence F. O'Brien, N.B.A. Commissioner and Simon B. Gourdine, Deputy Commissioner of the N.B.A.
The Heat have taken a 3-1 lead in their series with Chicago, thanks in large part to Chris Bosh, LeBron James, a stalwart team defense, and an overall scrappy attitude not seen during the regular season. But the Heat's most reliable scorer this year, Dwayne Wade, has been noticeably quiet on offense -- he's currently shooting a paltry 39% from the field in this series.
Copyright NBAE 2011 (Photo by Issac Baldizon/NBAE via Getty Images)
Is it a slump? Or is it a strategy that have the Bulls employed? (Answer: it's a little of both.) So how do you slow down Dwyane Wade?
As it turns out, the Bulls have been making Wade shoot while going to his left. Granted, this development isn't new and Wade has always taken a high percentage of shots from the left side of the court. But the difference here is that Chicago is posturing its defenders far over onto Wade's right side, to the point where it looks like Wade could walk directly forward at will. So the Bulls are using defensive stances that are essentially begging him to go left, while taking his other options -- pull-ups from straightaway, moves into the paint, and points from the right-hand side -- and shelving them. It's not that he's missing those shots. The Bulls are overplaying to the point where he can't even take them.
For Coach Tom Thibodeau, it hasn't always worked this way, even recently. As as assistant coach and defensive specialist for the Celtics last season, he faced Wade and the Heat last season, too, with vastly different results. Wade made 56% of his field goals and sliced the Celtics for over 33 points per game even though, as a member of a less talented Heat squad, he was far and away the focal point of the Celtic defense. (If you don't believe me, look at Jermaine O'Neal's stats for that series. It's hard to believe the Celtics signed him after witnessing that self-immolation firsthand.)
Take a look at the shot charts for Wade (taken from ESPN's site) for the Bulls-Heat series:
It was a moment soaked in drama. The Bulls, trailing 2-1 in the Eastern Conference Finals, switched into desperation mode as they trailed by 6 points in overtime with less than a minute left. The reigning MVP blew past LeBron and soared to the rim, only to be detonated by Dwyane Wade at the rim.
Expect to see this clip again in all manner of NBA highlight reels and compilation clips.
But there's something else going on here. What was that going on in front of the Heat bench, shortly after the scramble that netted the Heat possession of the ball?
Eddie House comes over to celebrate with LeBron. But the play is still live, and James is trying to get set to head back down court. That's when the fun begins:
Frank Vogel can brush his teeth while balancing a balancing a spinning basketball on the toothbrush.
Vogel took over as interim coach of the Indiana Pacers in midseason and helped them negotiate a 20-18 finish to their season, plus the eighth seed in the playoffs from the Eastern Conference. Despite his success and a competitive first-round series against the Chicago Bulls, Vogel hasn't been able to secure the Pacers' gig permanently.
It's long been said that the Washington Monument is the world's largest phallus. So most would consider it a bit of a surprise then that the Washington Wizards today unveiled their new logos and jerseys, and despite incorporating a new basketball/Monument logo into the design scheme (multiple times, in fact), the Monument logo is not the most phallic representation. That honor instead goes to a design that harkens back to the Wizards glory days of Unseld and Hayes.
This new logo is phallic in a
first-person point-of-view way, isn't it?
Does Chris Bosh know the meaning of the word 'juxtaposition'?
After a game where Rajon Rondo had his elbow dislocated (in HD, in prime-time, with dozens of gruesome, ultra-slow motion replays) and then used that same arm to steal a pass from within Bosh's grasp, Bosh countered with the smoking pile of a post-game interview shown below.
After dislocating his left elbow, Rondo uses
the same arm to steal a pass from Bosh.
After watching far too many Milwaukee Bucks games this season (in my gig as writer for We're Bucked), I came to a conclusion that I was sure had to be true: the Bucks shot better from the field without Brandon Jennings on the court. Unlike the league's top point guards, who strove to set up their teammates with high-quality shots, Jennings ran a ragged half-court offense that too often resulted in a forced isolation play by John Salmons with time running out on the shot clock. I wanted to see the numbers on the Bucks field goal percentage with and without Jennings on the court to see if this hypothesis was true.
Eventually, I settled on using effective field goal percentage (eFG%), which takes into account the value of quality three-point FG attempts, and limited the data set to starting point guards who spent the entirety of the season leading their teams. The data below were obtained using the newly revamped Statscube feature of NBA.com.
Mayor Kevin Johnson of Sacramento made his presentation to the NBA Board of Governors today. After the meeting, he took time to send the following tweet:
The problem is, though, that the ownership of the Kings -- including the Maloof brothers -- have previously indicated an unwillingness to sell. But the Maloofs will need the approval of over half the NBA teams to get permission to relocate. Would the other NBA teams be interested in having the Maloofs take ownership of the Hornets instead of the Kings? In other words, could the NBA force the Maloofs to sell by not approving the relocation? Burkle could then purchase the Kings, giving the Maloofs enough money (probably with some left over) to purchase the Hornets from the league. The other owners would be happy to have the Hornets off their hands, the Kings could stay in Sacramento, and the Maloofs would then have a team to take to Anaheim so that they can get the lucrative cable TV deal of a large market. Or the Maloofs could leave the Hornets in New Orleans where they currently have a viable NBA arena.
The Man Who Traded the Celtics for the Clippers: Irv Levin.
He seems a bit Maloof-ish. (copyright: Dick Raphael)
An exchange or swap of NBA teams is not an unprecedented move.
Earl Barron tweeted that he was arriving in Portland for a workout with the Blazers.
In 7 games with the Bucks earlier this season, Barron, a 7'0" center, averaged 5.1 points and 3.1 rebounds while playing 12.1 minutes per game. He was the leading scorer for Milwaukee in a loss to Boston on March 13. The Bucks passed on signing Barron for the season after the second of his two 10-day contracts expired -- giving hm the flexibility to sign with a playoff team. Barron also spent 12 games with Phoenix earlier in the season.
Pistons CEO and President Alan Ostfield went on-air with Piston broadcasters Greg Kelser and George Blaha during the second quarter of Friday's Bucks-Pistons game to announce that a deal was reached to sell the Pistons to Tom Gores. In addition to a confirmation of the pact, the Pistons' chief executive offered a surprising candid assessment of the inner workings of the deal and the financial situation surrounding the organization. According to Ostfield,
Karen Davidson and Tom Gores today signed a tentative agreement and now they're going to dot a few more i's and cross a few more t's, get the Board of Governors approval at the right time and, um, hopefully that will all happen in an expeditious manner.
On a night where Jordan Crawford netted a triple-double and JaVale McGee put together a very efficient 25 points, the most astounding line of the night by far belonged to Andray Blatche.
36 points
19 rebounds
4 assists
1 steal
1 block
16 offensive rebounds, a Bullets/Wizards franchise record
The statistics for offensive rebounding on basketballreference.com go back to 1985-86. Here is a link showing all the players who garnered 15 boards on the offensive side. Quite a list of players, but none put up as many as Andray's 36 points.
The fact that Blatche set the franchise record is even more impressive when you consider that Moses Malone, the holder of virtually every offensive rebounding record, played two years at the tail-end of his prime in DC. But Moses never topped more than 11 offensive rebounds in a game as a Bullet.**
Moses holds the following NBA offensive rebounding records:
Career: 6731 (7382, if you count his ABA seasons)
Season: 587 (Houston, 1978-79)
Game: 21 (Houston vs. Seattle, February 11, 1982)
Career Average: 5.1
Season Average: 7.2 (Houston, 1978-79)
It's hard to imagine averaging 5.1 offensive rebounds per game for a career that spanned over 1300 games.
Can you guess which player holds the career mark for defensive rebounds per game? (Hint: Blake Griffin is pretty high on the list, but it's a different redhead.)
_______________________________________
** Offensive rebounding stats have only been kept in the NBA since '73-'74, so Wes Unseld's early years don't count. I wonder if Wes ever got 16?
Earlier today, KXTV News of Sacramento reported that an organization with Sacramento connections has filed applications with the US Patent and Trademark Office reserving the names "Anaheim Royals" and "Sacramento Royals". They also stated that
The web domains losangelesroyals.com and anaheimroyals.com have also been registered within the past three weeks.
The trademark applications were filed on behalf of Crickets Corp., a Nevada corporation represented by Sacramento attorney Scott Hervey. Hervey specializes in intellectual property issues and also represents the Maloof family, owners of the Sacramento Kings and the Palms Casino in Las Vegas.
The Maloof family is part of the ownership group of the NBA's Sacramento Kings. The filed trademarks demonstrate that Kings ownership is considering moving the Kings to Anaheim.
Further research of trademark applications also show that Mr. Hervey has filed a previous trademark application for the "Maloof Cup World Championship of Skateboarding", indicating direct connections to the Maloof brothers. In addition to the two patents mentioned in the KXTV article, Mr. Hervey has also filed applications for trademarks for the titles "Orange County Royals" and "Anaheim Royals of Southern California", although it is customary to file extra trademarks as red herrings to conceal the identity of the planned name.
The Sacramento Kings were originally named the Rochester Royals, before moving to Cincinnati. Their move to Kansas City prompted the name change to 'Kings', so as not to be confused with baseball's Kansas City Royals. In a bit of history repeating (and reversing back on) itself, it is thought that the Kings will change their name back to Royals to avoid conflict with the NHL's Los Angeles Kings.
In a separate and previous transaction, NBA Properties, using a correspondent other than Mr. Hervey, had a review for the trademark name "Anaheim Amigos" completed in February. However, it appears to focus on merchandise instead of sporting events.
See the information below on the applications for each trademarked name:
The New Jersey Nets added one of the premier point guards in the NBA when they traded for Deron Williams. Williams belongs to the upper echelon of floor leaders, which includes the likes of Chris Paul, Rajon Rondo, Russell Westbrook, and Derrick Rose. Replacing Devin Harris with Deron should prove to be a sizable upgrade.
But even if acquiring Deron Williams improves the Nets, there are problems that he does not solve, including the fact that starting center Brook Lopez (12.5%) collects defensive rebounds at nearly the same rate as Sasha Vujacic (11.8%). Point guards do not usually impact rebounding, though, so Deron may not help much there. There is another area, though, where point guards do make a difference: turnovers. The league leaders in steals, for example, are point (or combo) guards. Rondo, Paul, Monta Ellis, Mike Conley, and Westbrook fill out the NBA's top-5 leaderboard in steals per game. Will getting Deron Williams help them get turnovers and steals?
One way to measure the effectiveness of a team's ability to draw fouls and successfully shoot free throws is to look at their ratio of free throws made to field goal attempts (FT/FGA). By using FG attempts in the denominator, this ratio largely negates the impact of pace. This statistic also takes into account accuracy of each team's free throw shooters, by counting free throws instead of free throw attempts.
Through the NBA games played March 8, the league average for this ratio was 0.231. The average number of free throws made was 1188, the average number of field goal attempts was 5144, and the resulting quotient gives the number listed above.
The interesting quirk lies in comparing the league average to each of the NBA's 30 teams. When each team is compared to this 0.231 mark, only nine teams are above the league average. That's right -- there are 21 teams performing below the league average in this index. How can that happen? It turns out that way because there are a few squads that sit significantly higher than even the above-average teams. Here are the nine teams (note the outliers pulling up the average on the high end):
On the night of the Kendrick Perkins trade, Danny Ainge made some intriguing statements regarding Shaq's role replacing for Perkins. His remarks indicated that he understood the simple analysis of the situation -- the Celtics went 33-10 before Perkins' return to the team. His words, however, also implied the team's usage of more advanced, lineup-based analytics:
Shaq has proved to be excellent with our starters. The numbers actually show that he has been better with our starters. We beat all the good teams in the league while Kendrick was out.
My baby sister and I at the
rehearsal dinner with our
paternal (i.e., sane) cousins.
Back in November, my sister got married in New Orleans. On the balmy night before her wedding, my wife, kids, and I took a strolled a dozen blocks through the fabulous French Quarter to attend her rehearsal dinner. We arrived at the restaurant and there were police cars on the sidewalk and officers scattered amid the members of my wildly annoyed family. Before our arrival, my aunt decided to swipe a cocktail from her daughter (my cousin), and as they pawed at it, the drink shattered. Small shards got caught in the bartender's eye (which, thank God, were later removed without consequence). In the name of Downtown Freddie Brown, why am I telling you all of this needless information? Because that night is irreparably burned into my memory, and I distinctly recall watching the Celtics lose to the Thunder in Boston on the bar's TV while dealing with all of the fallout. (We sent the two drunks home and partied, as happily as we could, through the rest of the night.) So that means your new team won't be coming to Boston anytime soon, which is a shame, because you and Perk deserve the recognition of the city that adores you.
In the meantime, please find peace for yourself and take care of Perk. I would tell him myself, but he's not the type to read a whole lot of blogs or notes from fans. You, on the other hand, are that type of celebrity, and I hope that you get around to reading these thoughts. And know that both of you were loved. Not just liked, loved.
Perkins' last play as a Celtic. Moments after injuring his knee, he
blocked David Lee from behind.
Think about it for a moment: Kendrick was the 7-foot everyman. Unlike the other Celtics, he possessed no singular, jaw-dropping talent. Ray had his jump shot, Rondo could handle the ball like no other, but Perk was just there to work. He wasn't trying to 'do work' in a public show like Kobe, he was just plain working his butt off to make life as miserable as possible for the other team. And it was never anywhere near perfect. He could snag a game-changing rebound on one end and bounce the ball off his foot on the other. But he always helped his team win because of his willingness to work. Every New England male identified with Perkins, thinking (wrongly) that if we too were muscular and 84 inches tall, we could work hard and help the local team win in just the same way that he did.
You know the cat. He struts quietly into the gym wearing thick, faded, navy blue sweats and a pair of low-top adidas. His hair and beard are flecked with gray, but at the same time, it is tough to gauge his real age. As you step close to guard him on the inbounds pass, you notice the smell of Ben-Gay.
Because it seems cruel and easy to guard him, you sag off toward the paint and he churns out a creaky, but precise jumper. Annoyed, you guard him more closely on the next possession, but your new resolve sucks you into the backscreen he's set for one of his teammates.
On the other end of the court, trying to make motion in a halfcourt set is akin to moving through an endless stream of subway turnstiles, as his forearms never drift more than a few inches from your midsection. When you do manage to squirt free, you catch the ball and rise above the rim to shoot, but there is no shot -- just a linebacker's swipe and your arms flailing empty-handed. And now you realize the frustrating task set before you: this guy has 'old man game'.
Tonight's featured All-Star Weekend event is the Rookie Challenge, pitting the league's newest players against those who have been around a year longer. Those young'uns may run faster and jump higher, but if I had to lay down some heavy scratch on the game, I would pick this team of old-man gamers without hesitation.
Below is the starting five for my team of players with old-man game. At each position, I have chosen the player who best exemplifies the qualities of the grey-bearded gym rat. They received bonus points for playing that way since the earliest years of their career.
Andre Miller: The honorary captain of the team will not disappoint you. As I compiled this lineup and worked over the player descriptions, Andre faked a timeout against the Nuggets to earn himself two of the easiest points you will ever see in the NBA. There are no spare parts with Andre; he uses his brain, his shoulders, his butt, his forearms, and every other conceivably useful part of his body. He can post up a skinny point guard, set a pick for a teammate, or create separation for some earthbound penetration. Andre is the anti-Westbrook. In fact, Russell was guarding Miller when he went to a signature old-school move: making a pass to himself off the backboard. He has the full compliment of veteran point guard moves: teardrops, spin moves, finger rolls, and of course, plodding penetration.
At the beginning of this season, the NBA abounded in great point guard play. National TV personalities made a regular event out of quizzing each other for their top-5 point guards. Then the season started, and Derrick Rose quickly became everyone's darling with his sterling play.
Who is the best point guard? Since Steve Nash's MVP years, the debate has been between Chris Paul and Deron Williams, with rumblings from Celtic fans who want to include Rondo. While Rose has launched himself into the MVP discussion (not happening, but that's another matter), Paul and Williams took to self-deprecation on the same day.
First, Deron Williams took a shot at his recent play in a post-game interview.
"I'm sick of playing like crap, man. I need to pull my weight and help this team win."
I have a weakness for NBA t-shirts, especially those with logos from the 1980's or earlier. My wife gets on my case for having too many shirts, and quite frankly, she's right. But I'm pretty sure that it's the only situation where my obsessive-compulsive tendencies come out. There are a lot of them, and to keep my obsession's status fixed as 'out-of-sight/out-of-mind', I made space in two dresser drawers for them. Why does this matter? Well, it impacts my organizational scheme. Since I have enough room for four piles of shirts, and since the NBA of my youth had four divisions, my system is to use a separate pile for each division. Here's most of my pile for the Atlantic Division, with an oddball or two thrown in.
The Sixers, Warriors, and Jazz all made tremendously positive uniform changes before the 2010-11 season, each abandoning newer styles in favor of themes from their classics jerseys of 20+ years earlier. Philadelphia made changes to bring back the red-and-blue '76' shown on these shirts. Win.
Jerry Sloan has been the coach of the Jazz for quite a while. For perspective, Norm Nixon was the backup point guard for the Clippers during Sloan's first win as head coach of the Jazz in 1988. But his team, and specifically Deron Williams, have played listless basketball over the past month: they are 4-10 in their last 14 games. Adding these struggles to the impending free agency of Deron Williams, plus rumors of a malcontented relationship between Sloan and Williams, and the once unthinkable -- a forcible end to Sloan's tenure -- becomes a much more plausible reality.
Speculation may be premature at this point, but there seemed to be hints coming out of SLC via Twitter that something unusual is underfoot. The locker room was closed to the media much longer than usual, and general manager Kevin O'Connor was in the room during that time. Here are some of the tweets leaking the signs:
Update (2/7): The Kings are planning on wearing their Hardwood Classics Jerseys, throwbacks to the 1951 Rochester Royals, in games against LAC (2/28), POR (3/2), ORL (3/9), and GSW (3/14). Buying the package of tickets to all 4 games gets you the world's most disturbing bobblehead.
(2/4): February is Hardwood Classics Month in the NBA. The photos and images of the planned designs are slowly starting to come into the picture. Here's a breakdown of the details that have come out up to this point.
The Lakers: It may or may not be related to Hardwood Classics month, but the Lakers used their huge Sunday game against the Celtics to break out jerseys modeled after the ones worn by the 1971-72 championship team -- the ones with the exquisite shadowed numbers. On the other hand, the shorts and jerseys were seemingly mismatched as two different fabrics, with the top meshier than the bottom.
The Clippers won at home again last night. It was their ninth straight home win -- the fourth-longest home winning streak in the NBA this season. If you missed the late Tuesday game and/or the boxscore, Blake Griffin was his typical phenomenal self: 32 points, 11 rebounds, and 6 assists, plus an assortment of dives and tumbles to the Staples Center floor.
"Ersan, try this new beetle pose that I learned in yoga class this week. It works the glutes really well!"
Coming out of a fourth-quarter timeout, with 3:33 remaining in the game and the Clippers leading 94-87, Scott Skiles elected to employ a Hack-a-Shaq strategy on DeAndre Jordan. Jon Brockman fouled Jordan, who is hitting his free throws at a 45.9% clip this season. DeAndre went to the line and made one of the two free throws.
After a Bucks bucket, Brockman gave another off-ball, intentional foul to Jordan and DeAndre again went to the line to make 1-of-2. Jordan came out of the game shortly after, at the 2:56 mark, with the Clippers still maintaining a seven-point lead.
Only one player in NBA history has ever played more than 2000 minutes and converted fewer than 20 free throws.
Andris Biedrins has played in 37 games this season, racking up 976 minutes on the court. In those 976 minutes, he has converted 8 free throws.
Eight. Huit. Ocho. In half a season.
Sure he's a bad shooter (33% FT this season), but he is also attempting them at an abysmal rate (0.6 per game).
Carmelo Anthony hit eight free throws Friday... in the first half against Cleveland.
Assuming he keeps up his current pace (and there is no reason to assume he won't -- he hit 4 in over 700 minutes last season), Biedrins has a chance to enter some pretty rare company: the over-2000, under 20 club. The only current member is former New York Net Kim Hughes, who accomplished the feat for the Nets' in their inaugural NBA season of 1976-77. Sadly, like Biedrins, Hughes was a 6'11" center.
Don't feel bad if you thought Andris was avoiding all contact. As it turns out, he's not. Biedrins is committing a robust 5.2 fouls per 36 minutes, so even if Andris doesn't get to the line, his opponents will.
Down by 4 points with 26 seconds left, the Warriors scored the points they needed to force the game into regulation with two diametrically opposite plays. The first was a Monta Ellis three-pointer (the first game action in the video below).
Note the clockwise movement used to spring the open shooter in this sequence. The Warriors, on a play that did not follow a timeout, run this double-screen/double-shooter action to perfection.
Consider the following numbers, figures which crescendo to a peak like the final notes of a symphony:
7.5
8.4
9.6
10.7
12.2
11.5
12.2
12.1
11.8
12.9
12.4
13.5
12.9
13.6
14.2
Amazingly, those data reflect the number of rebounds gathered per 36 minutes for one NBA veteran over the course of his 15-year career. Even though he will turn 37 years old in a few months, his prowess on the boards (averaged out by the amount of time spent on the court) is nearly double what it was long ago when he entered the league as a much-hyped rookie.
Just a few more stats: in a span of 19 games dating back to early December, this player averaged 12.8 rebounds per game in less than 30 minutes per game of playing time, while reaching the 15-rebound threshold six times and the 20-rebound mark twice.
Wednesday night, I was home watching the Hornets/Magic game from New Orleans. It was a thoroughly enjoyable game, with competitive action that eventually drove the game into overtime. But as I watched, there was this nagging feeling that I was overlooking a key theme. I couldn't put my finger on it and it almost drove me crazy. But at the end of the regulation, the telecast featured a bunch of timeouts without commercial breaks. And lots of closeups. Then it hit me. The facial hair in this game... is... staggering!
The closeups made me realize that not only were these two teams well-matched on the court, but also that they both also featured a dazzling array of facial hair styles. I couldn't leave the topic alone given the juicy variety of mustaches, goatees, chin fuzz, etc... The trend even extended to the head coaches. So without further ado...
1) Gilbert Arenas - Goatee
A timeless look. Neatly trimmed. Well-suited as a pairing with his close-cropped hair. Honestly, the diversity of styles below is a cornucopia of facial follicles™ (Clyde Frazier), but what Gil has done here is honestly my favorite. The only thing it lacks is originality. (3.5 out of 4 stars)
Consider the factors heading into last night's game at the Verizon Center:
Wizards W-L record: 9-26
Kings W-L record: 8-26
Tuesday night game
Snowfall expected from 7PM to 11PM
Sounds like a winner! I was anticipating an announced attendance of around 5,000, with an actual attendance substantially below that figure. (The published number was 16,226.) My hopes for the game were even lower -- the plan was to incorporate lots of snarky tweeting -- but the game quickly won me over and the tweet machine never made it out of my pocket. Thank you to TruthAboutIt.net and StubHub for the free tickets.
The Miami Heat are playing fierce defense. They are best in the league in FG% defense, holding opponents to 42.3% shooting. And to make things even scarier, Miami has gotten even better of late. Only two of their last 21 opponents have made it to 100 points -- and the Heat won those two games in the 100s. They are 20-1 over that stretch of games.
On the other hand, even the best NBA defenses give up 80+ points per game. In the above clip, the Heat, up by 2 points in the final seconds of a game with the Milwaukee Bucks, play outstanding end-of-game defense. Earl Boykins finds a tiny seam to score the bucket to force the game into overtime, but only after the Heat take away the better options for the Bucks.
When I was a kid, I did lots of stupid things. In the age before iPods and cell phones, there would be instances where you would just had to stand there and wait. These pauses, of course, provided to the opportunity to do some really dumb things. We would be standing in line, with me bored half out of my mind and without anything better to do, so I would seize the opportunity to kick a rock or a brick wall. My mother, of course, would say something like, "You had better take care of those sneakers, because I'm not going to be buying you a new pair anytime soon." And it's like that for the the Washington Wizards. They will not be getting new trophies for the foreseeable future, so it is imperative that they cherish the one they have. The new ownership of the team has done a lot of work this season to recognize the great history of the Bullets, and tonight they take one more step in that direction.
During tonight's game versus New Jersey, the Wizards will unveil a new display case at the Verizon Center to showcase the Walter A. Brown NBA Championship Trophy that the Bullets won in the 1977-1978 season. Above is a picture from the Wizard's Facebook page, showing the newly restored trophy being placed into the case. The new display, located outside section 100 in the lower bowl of the arena, prominently uses the old 'Bullets' team name and their red-white-and-blue color scheme.
But the aspect of the display that caught my eye was the great quote sprayed in red across the back: "The opera isn't over 'til the fat lady sings." I had read a while back that the origins of that phrase traced back to the Bullets championship run, but seeing it again sparked an interest in finding the details.
When the Washington Wizards traded away Gilbert Arenas a couple of weeks ago, I speculated that the Blatche-Lewis combo would be an unmitigated defensive disaster for the team. I hypothesized that the two players were similar in many unflattering aspects: too many jumpshots, slender physique, overall inactivity, and passive defense; and as a result, the team would suffer, especially in those instances when they were paired together on the floor. To test out the theory, I am keeping tabs on their shared court time. Here is a summary of the results when the two have been paired on the floor together since Lewis' first game.
I went to the Verizon Center last night to watch the Washington take on New Orleans, a team who beat Boston a day earlier on the front end of a back-to-back road game sequence. The Hornets used their bench quite a bit in the first half, and the Wizards were able to take advantage. Facing the likes of a Marcus Thornton - Jarrett Jack - Willie Green - Jason Smith - Aaron Gray lineup to start the 2nd quarter, Washington was able to turn a 24-23 deficit into a 43-30 advantage. From that point until the end of the game, the Wiz clung pretty tightly to Murphy's Law. It all went wrong.
In their 100-89 win over the Utah Jazz on Thursday night, the Blazers were using picks and screens to generate their offense in the fourth quarter. One particularly nice sequence involved two screeners: LaMarcus Aldridge and Wesley Matthews.
Focus on the triangle at the forefront of the picture. You can see Andre Miller (bottom/front) with the ball guarded by Deron Williams, Wesley Matthews at the top of the three-point circle covered by Raja Bell, and Al Jefferson guarding LaMarcus Aldridge at the left elbow.
Matthews is going to continue to drive Bell into the traffic at the left elbow, and then move over to set a pick on Deron Williams to free up Miller
As you watch this play develop, keep in mind that this play utilizes the three Blazers in such a way that it positions each player toward his strengths in case he should get the ball: Miller driving with the ball driving in the paint, Aldridge rolling to the rim after a pick, and Matthews moving to the left corner for a potential three-point look.
As Matthews comes over to set the screen, Raja Bell has overcommitted to guarding Matthews, and he cannot recover in time to get anywhere near Andre Miller and the ball. To further complicate matters for the Jazz, Aldridge is getting set up to further free Miller with yet another pick.
The Jazz are doomed on this play when Deron Williams cannot fight his way over the top of the screen and Raja Bell fals too far behind the play to help Jefferson when Andre Miller gets to the top of the key.
Aldridge uses his screen to get nudges all over the place. After LaMarcus gets Jefferson stuck on his hip, he turns off the screen and gets in Deron Williams' way as he rolls to the basket.
Miller can now make the alley-oop pass with no pressure on him whatsoever, while Aldridge can roll to the hoop with a clear path and no one behind him. Millsap, guarding Camby on the other side, cannot rotate from over in time to help defend Aldridge.
The ball is in the air (in the photo, it is the blur right in front of Batum's face), LaMarcus catches it, draws a foul, and later completes a three-point play.
To see the play in live action, go to the 1 minute, 40 second mark of this video:
The best (or most annoying) part about the whole sequence is that Jazz color analyst Matt Harpring uses most of three possessions, including the entirety of this Blazer sequence, crying about how the Jazz get no calls when they are away from Salt Lake City. Instead of analyzing the play on the floor, Harpring provides us with a solid minute of comical whining. Meanwhile, the Blazers have run a gorgeously constructed play which helps seal their win.
The Lakers: It may or may not be related to Hardwood Classics month, but the Lakers used their huge Sunday game against the Celtics to break out jerseys modeled after the ones worn by the 1971-72 championship team -- the ones with the exquisite shadowed numbers. On the other hand, the shorts and jerseys were seemingly mismatched as two different fabrics, with the top meshier than the bottom. 
