T-Mac

Jameer Nelson and Maurice Evans: I've said over and over this season that guard play was going to doom. Well, after the first two games of the Raptors-Magic series, I was left enjoying the salty taste of my own foot. But no more. Nelson (6 points, 2-for-8, 5 fouls) and Evans (zero points, 0-for-3, zero assists, 3 turnovers) finally lived back down to my expectations. Even worse, they got burned by T.J. Ford (21 points, 7-for-11) and Jose Calderon (18 points, 7 rebounds, 13 assists).

Rasho Nesterovic: The Yugoslavian Terror has been on fire since March -- and I have proof -- but he still got exiled to the bench and played only 10 minutes last night. His line: 2 points, 1-for-3 shooting, 1 turnovers, 4 fouls. Why the reduced role? Some say that putting Jamario Moon back in the starting lineup rejuvenated a listless Raptors team. Me? I think Bryan Colangelo got Rasho's Contract Year Phenomenon vibe and told Sam Mitchell to sit him. That way he'll be cheaper in the offseason. See, as a GM, you've always got to be thinking ahead...

The Cavaliers' butterfingeritis: The Wizards put the pressure on Cleveland, and the Cavs responded by turning the ball over 23 times. Those turnovers translated to 30 points for Washington. Ouch.

LeBron James: With the Washington crowd chearing "OVER-RATED," LeBron chuckled and then boned a freethrow. If I was a Cleveland fan, I would have preferred to see King James adopt a look of steely-eyed determination, sink the freethrow, and then go off on the Wizards. But that didn't happen, which kind of surprised me. Maybe the presence of an angry Soulja Boy took LeBron out of his game.

Wally Szczerbiak: The line: 6 points, 3-for-9 shooting, no three-pointers, 2 rebounds, 3 assists. And while Wally World struggles, the Cavaliers are still waiting for the guy who was supposed to be such a big upgrade from Larry Hughes to show up.

Ben Wallace: Can somebody -- anybody -- tell me how having Big Ben (5 points, 2-for-4, 5 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 turnovers, 2 blocked shots) for $15.5 million is better than having Drew Gooden for $6.4 million? Since I haven't picked on him in a while, I am morally obligated to once again point out that John Hollinger said of the Chicago-Cleveland trade "This one works, big time (for Cleveland)."

Daniel Gibson: I said he was going to need to step up and hit some big threes for the Cavs. He didn't (0-for-3).

Devin Brown: Amazingly, he was Cleveland's second-best player last night (10 points, 8 rebounds), yet he shot 2-for-8 from the field. That's the kind of night it was for the Cavaliers. Speaking of which...

Dwayne Jones: He was a mere two seconds shy of achieving a seven trillion. Even at six, it's still the highest trillion of the playoffs so far.

Gilbert Arenas: On a night in which almost everything went Washington's way, there was one little cause for concern: Agent Zero reinjured his surgically-repaired left knee. The Wizards claim that Arenas only has a bone bruise and he's listed as day-to-day. But still...it feels a little ominous, doesn't it?

DeShawn Stevenson: Yes. We get it. You can't feel your face. Or whatever. But did you have to steal Hulk Hogan's ear-move too? The Locksmith has officially gone from "mildly amusing" to "unbearably annoying."

But here's a question. What exactly is up with Stevenson's hand gesture? Caseta said: "Here's some material for your WotN: the announcers of the Cavs-Wizards game. Stevenson kept doing the 'can't feel my face' thing, and they kept talking about how no one can see him. They were thinking his gesture meant he was hiding or something. Quite annoying. especially after all the talk during the past couple of weeks. I wonder what they think Mutombo's wagging finger means...perhaps 'do you want to smell my finger ?'"

And this was Mike's response: "Actually, and I'm getting quite annoyed at this, the Hand-Waving-Infront-Of-The-Face gesture is 'You Can't See Me' started by one John Cena of WWE and The Marine fame. He started using it as part of his gimmick about two, two and a half years ago now. Those announcers were actually spot on. Everyone else who thinks that it means that he can't feel his face or he's cooling off his hot hand is just plain wrong."

Can we get a ruling on this? Has Stevenson ever explained it? Does anybody know?

Carlos Boozer: I guess Boozer is taking those Karl Malone comparisons pretty seriously? Remember the trail of broken bodies left behind by The Mailman? Well, last night Boozer decided to begin his own trail, starting with Carl Landry.

Mehmet Okur: He had a double-double (12 points, 11 rebounds), but he also missed 10 of his 13 shot attempts. And his bricklaying did not help Utah's cause.

Andre Kirilenko: He is Utah's X-Factor. When the Russian Rifle is on his game -- scoring, rebounding, passing, playing defense, doing all the little things -- the Jazz seem unstoppable. The only problem is, you never know which Kirilenko is going to show up: The do-everything defensive ace, or the can't-to-anything moper? Last night he was more or less the latter: 5 points, 2-for-7, 2 rebounds, zero assists, 2 turnovers, 1 blocked shot, and 4 fouls. How can such a useful guy be so useless in such a big game? Update! Dunpizzle had this to add: "More AK47 WotN - he had the audacity to try to win a 2nd straight game with a flop." Oh my stars and garters, he did. How did I miss that?! Have...have I become desensitized to Andre's flopping??


Some random Jazz fan: Memo to front row spectators everywhere: Bob Delaney will not tolerate your potty mouth. [From Odenized.]


Tracy McGrady apologists: An anonymous reader left this comment on yesterday's Tracy McGrady: Responsible for the world and all its woes post: "Well, last night was, pretty much, T-Mac's fault that the Jazz lost the game."

However, another anonymous reader begged very much to differ: "Uh, not based on what I see. Sure he brought the Rockets close, but he almost bricked the game at the end as well. It was Carl Landry's drawn foul that gave the Rockets a 93-86 lead (opposed to 92-86). Tracy's screwup offensive foul allowed the Jazz to to pull within 93-92 (opposed to 92-92). Then Landry's block saved the lead for the win (no OT). It's annoying that most media members just blindly give McGrady a free pass, other than maybe Tony Kornheiser on Pardon The Interruption. That's 'why y'all hatin' on T-mac so much,' because at some point seven first round exits has to mean something."

It should be noted that McGrady scored 7 points in the final 3:29 of the fourth, and those were very important points. However, the win wasn't all Tracy, as Lipsome123 pointed out: "I keep seeing things about T-mac being great in the 4th quarter...really?! 2-8 shooting, bad fouls, leaving Okur wide open for a three is good? He was saved by his teammates." Keep in mind too that the win hardly absolves McGrady of several seasons worth of big game disappearances. As JR commented -- fairly or unfairly -- "T-Mac is just a real life exhibition of learned helplessness. I think its gotten to the point where we have to recognise T-Mac as the bizarro Kobe." Personally? I'd like to see Tracy put an end to all that. Just not against my Jazz, please.

ESPN caption writers: Basketbawful reader Quinton sent this in an email: "Big Q here, lover, fighter, die hard rockets fan. Thought you'd be interested in ESPN mislabeling not one of our role players, but our star shooting guard as a center." He's not wrong. Here's ESPN's caption for the lead picture of today's WotN post: "Houston Rockets center Tracy McGrady loses the ball as he heads against Utah Jazz guard Ronnie Brewer (9) during the first quarter of Game 3 of a first-round NBA basketball playoff series Thursday, April 24, 2008, in Salt Lake City." Center? So what, does that mean Yao is out of a job when his foot heals?

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26 Comments:
Blogger Unknown said...
How could you miss this?! Even when their season is over, the Heat (or their players) can't seen to stay out of the WotN ...

D.Wade is dating Star Jones?! Say it aint so!!!

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080424/SPORTS03/804240400/1048

Anonymous Anonymous said...
actually ...
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/dcsportsbog/2007/12/deshawns_i_cant_feel_my_face_e.html

from the horse's mouth.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
I don't know if there's a photo or video out there but another one of D Howards "special" screens happened yesterday LOL
D howard set a screen and Parker (better known as Candace parker's brother LOL) basically ran into a wall of Superman and crumpled to the ground, howard was called for the illegal screen LOL

Anonymous Anonymous said...
"actually ...
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/dcsportsbog/2007/12/deshawns_i_cant_feel_my_face_e.html

from the horse's mouth."

Then not only is he a loud mouth, but a rip off artist too. Cena started using the gesture in 2003 (correcting myself, I thought it was 05).

And I can't find any reference of Yayo actually doing the gesture, at all. Ever.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
more about "i can't feel my face":
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/dcsportsbog/2007/12/i_cant_feel_my_face_interpreta.html


==========

according to the yahoo recap, the game was already way out of hand when lebron bricked his FT:

"LeBron James was serenaded with chants of “over-rated!” as he stood at the free throw line late in the third quarter, the latest humorous twist in an ongoing saga that had somehow snared—yes, believe it or not—one of his son’s favorite rappers into a front-row seat near the basket.

James couldn’t help but laugh. He was so distracted he missed the free throw. Didn’t really matter. By then, the Cleveland Cavaliers were trailing by 28 points"

so it didn't matter much if he made or missed the FT. I personally like the way the he handled things (trash talking by deshawn, hard fouls, flagrant fouls, taunts). way more mature than i'd have expected ... maybe he IS 35 after all.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
watch the Yayo's 'so seductive' video as he does it in this video.

ike taylor of the steelers has been doing it since '05 soon after yayo's thoughts of a predicate felon hit stores.

so, stevenson is even late to that party in the sports world too.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Check this out, I did a little more research...

http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2007/04/12/sports/18050.shtml

http://forums.ballerstatus.com/archive/index.php/t-2787.html

So apparently, it looks like Cena did it first, then Yayo "bit it" (as they say in the rap industry), then Tim Thomas and Stevenson also bit it, from Yayo.

So there you go, it's been manipulated down the line to be something even more stupid than it originally was.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
I just watched the NBA Top 10 for yesterday and the look on Carl Landry's face after TJ Ford kissed him on the cheek is priceless.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
deshawn is looking at his hand in the utter confusion that this hand, the one that just made a big shot, is actually still connected to deshawn stevenson. it just seems so counter-intuitive.

-

how is this for basketbawful. i just ordered the pistons/76ers game two from nba.com instant downloads for $2.99 because it was on NBAtv and i didn't get to see it. Well the purchased and downloaded game is perfect except that there are no graphics. no clock, no score, no shot clock. therefore, no tension. i doubt i'll be buying any future games.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
carl landry said he might leave his tooth out for next game against utah... my dream right now is to see them win that game, then landry continuing his toothless carreer just like rip hamilton does with the mask! or even better, i gets that tooth fixed, and removes it after every game's warm up!!! that would be amazing!!! and t-mac's fault to!

Anonymous Anonymous said...
justin, i think we can all agree that regardless who started it, that gesture is idiotic. in either interpretation:

* i mean, you're so hot you ..... can't feel your face ?!?!?!?! WTF ??? has anyone EVER entered a bar and said "bartender, gimme a cold beer cause i can't feel my face" ? he'd deserve to get hit with the bottle on the head and asked "NOW you feel it ?"

* as for "you can't see me" .... it seems about right for someone with just as much brains as this guy

Blogger Unknown said...
Tim Thomas waves his hand in front of his face to say, "Nothing can bother me" or something like that...the PHX coaches would try to distract him by running at him and waving their arms in his face, and he'd still drain j after j in practice, so he started doing it himself after he hit shots in game.

Blogger Brandon said...
Thanks for your reference to Karl Malone's Greatest Hits. A few years ago, my Google search for Malone returned that article. Since then, I've read your hilarious take on the NBA almost every day. Keep up the good work.

Sincerely,
Brandon (fellow Jazz Fan and Kobe hater)

Anonymous Anonymous said...
If T-Mac gets unfair blame for Rockets losing, of course he's gonna get undeserved credit for the win. If his teammates have a no-show, he's a choke artist. If they show up, he's clutch, imposed his will, etc. Like his adidas promo, it takes 5ive.

More AK47 WotN - he had the audacity to try to win a 2nd straight game with a flop

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9StU1aTrns8

Blogger Unknown said...
The "I can't feel my face" gesture implies you are on cocaine, which in its purer forms can lead to numbness in the face (or whereever you put it, i suppose.)

The Lil Wayne/Juelz Santana song "Rewind" from the "I Can't Feel My Face" mixtape ends with that titular line.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
I was always under the impression that the hand thing meant you had the "hot hand" or you were "on fire" so you were waving the fire out or blowing it out by waving it in front of your face...clearly we need a whole article on the matter

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Why would you want to blow out your hot hand?!

And I don't buy the Tim Thomas story by Ravi because Thomas is a friend of Yayo and the other G-Unit members. The gesture seems more likely.

But yes, this whole thing is ridiculous. The list of theories of what it means and who started it is becoming as long as the Kennedy conspiracy theories. Atleast we all agree that it's stupid.

Blogger friesenth said...
How about a little Jason Kapono sandbagging conspiracy.

I read the following on dinosty.com

"Faithful reader Jon W. shared his Kapono Situation theory with me, and I gotta say it makes WAY too much sense:

Now, someone would need to check the details of kapono’s contract, but i imagine he gets a bonus if he leads the league in 3-point %. maybe he just decided it was better to stop shooting once he got his percentage high enough. shooting 48% from downtown, surely nobody was going to knock him from his throne, and when you’re hitting close to half your three-point attempts, you certainly couldn’t expect to do any better. He looked into his crystal bong…i mean ball…and realized that he had nowhere to go but down…so he just stopped shooting.yup, that’s the only way to explain it, i’m pretty sure"

I didn't want to believe it but after the first three games of the playoffs its starting to make sense. At first I thought maybe it was just a good match up with Orlando so I checked the regular season games and he had 9 points in 33 minutes, 4 in 14, and 4 in 18 during the three regular season meetings for an average of 5.6/game or 1 point for every 3.8 minutes of PT. Three playoff games in and he has 18 in 30, 20 in 32, and 15 in 24 for an average of 17.6/game or 1 point for every 1.6 minutes of action.

I hope Kapono is just built for playoff action but it seems like he could have been doing this all year and just wasn't. Unless he starts sucking again real soon he better play like this next season, or he may remind some Raptor fans of a certain former Raptor who is now sandbagging for the Nets.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
This is an earlier and better article on Stevenson/Yayo's gesture, made funnier by Stevenson declaring that he wasn't gonna do it no mo':

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/wizardsinsider/2007/01/dechanges_with_deshawn.html

There's a weird history of wrestlers and rappers ripping off each other's gestures. Diamond Dallas Page iirc tried suing Jay-Z because the latter's "dynasty sign" was the same as the signal for the diamond cutter.

Also, "seven first-round exits has to mean something." Kevin Garnett lost the first seven playoff series he played in, too. Then he got some teammates. Last season was the first time that I really felt T-Mac had the better team and still lost, although the collapse in '03 after declaring it felt good to get out of the first round was fuggin awful on its own merits. Anyways, I think my point is that McGrady's still got time for circumstances to get better. As of now apologists do still have somewhat of a point.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Another wrestler/rapper note that has nothing to do with basketball:

Triple H is currently sueing The Game over the use of the 'The Game' moniker.

Ah what a strange world.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Spurs suns game 3 report on si.com has Nowitzki as leading rebounder, but picture of Amare.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
There is no country called Yugoslavia. Rasdislav Nesterovic is Slovenian.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
My mistake. His name is Radoslav.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Another quality Reggie Miller moment, after a Kenyon Martin dunk Saturday: "And Kenyon Martin is really getting this crowd out of its feet!"

Rob, BigDiction.net

Anonymous Anonymous said...
"There is no country called Yugoslavia. Rasdislav Nesterovic is Slovenian."

AND DON'T YOU FORGET IT, CROATS

Anonymous Anonymous said...
I have the one true explanation behind the hand-in-front-of-the-face gesture. Here it is: DeShawn Stevenson is retarded.