Now here's a guy who could actually make armpit-hair defense work
(via Andy Gray's SI Vault)

Ah, the weekend. Time for BAD, and time for bad basketball. We're throwing the double-team on you tonight. I'll be covering tonight's games, and Wild Yams will be previewing the Saturday and Sunday games.

In case you didn't know already, there are no ESPN games tonight, but we will have two afternoon games on ABC this Sunday. Oh, and even though I finally got the NBA League Pass Broadband deal, I still won't be able to watch Celtics/Hawks tonight. It's nationally broadcast on NBA TV (which my cable provider does not offer), so it's blacked out from online coverage. Ugh.

Before we move on, you really ought to open this link up in another window and read it for a minute: Gilbert Arenas may be smarter than we thought. Poor Washington. I really do feel bad for you.

Oh, and one word: "Ball."

Worst of the Night in Pictures:

20100128-dirk-nowitzki-jared-dudley
"You're going to try to defend me, Dudley? Really?"


20100128-al-harrington
"I am fabulous!!!"


20100128-nate-robinson
"Look at me! I'm actually playing in a game!!"


20100128-rodrique-beaubois-goran-dragic
"Here Goran, let me get that shoelace for you"


Nationally Televised Friday Games:
Celtics at Hawks: The Hawks who have owned the C's this year? Gimpy KG playing like somebody took out his knee with a shotgun? I don't want to talk about this game. I'm just going to assume this will be another Hawks win and try to move on.

All The Other Friday Games:
Crabs at Pacers: Whenever J.J. Hickson has scored higher than his average of 6.9 points per game, the Crabs are 19-0. Now, the true question: is this statistically relevant, or is it comparable to AnacondaHL's awesome stastical-twisting analysis of the greatness that is Mario West?

Lakers at 76ers: The 76ers actually have won more games on the road than at home this year. Then again, when you only have 15 total wins, that's not that hard to do I suppose...

Bulls at Hornets: Not only have the Bulls managed to win four straight on the road against tough competition, they've held those opponents to 49% shooting. This team never played defense like that last year or earlier this year. Somebody check their shoes for Flubber!

Heat at Pistons: The Heat are already, of course, the "Bipolar Girlfriend at That Time of the Month on Crystal Meth" team of 2009-2010, but now they're also without Michael Beasley? Yeah, this is another one of those "flip a coin" games.

Clippers at Timberwolves: The Los Angeles "They Are Who We Thought They Were" Clippers and the Timberpoops? Facepalm.

Wizards Generals Bullets at Nyets: Oh yeah, Basketbawful Game of the Night. And go ahead and look at that facepalm picture again if you'd like. I don't blame you. The Nyets might get lucky and win two in a row. (Nooooooooo!)

Nuggets at Thunder: The Nuggets are on fire like an NBA Jam player, doing everything but dunking from the 3-point-line, and have won 8 straight. The Thunder have dropped three straight. Now watch OKC win this one to confuse us all.

Frail Blazers at Rockets: Houston has lost three straight home games. That hurts, but probably not as much as Brandon Roy's injury.

Grizzlies at Spurs: Accuscore has the Spurs listed as 74% favorites in this game despite Tony Parker's injury. I don't buy that. Then again, they were right about the Suns last night, unlike me, so forget I said anything.

Kings at Jazz: With the way the Jazz are shooting right now, I wouldn't want to be the Purple Paupers. (You know, aside from the whole "making tons of money for playing a game" part.)

Bobcats at Warriors: Ooh. Stephen Jackson's first game at the Oracle Arena since his November trade! This could be fun.

Nationally Televised Saturday Game:
Hawks at Magic: The Hawks are only one game over .500 on the road to begin with, so playing in Orlando one night after playing Boston probably isn't gonna help improve that record much.

All The Other Saturday Games:
Knicks at Wizards Generals Bullets: Here it is, your Basketbawful Game of the Night. Tune in to see David Lee continue his campaign to be the first All Star alternate for the East should someone get hurt in the next couple weeks.

Hornets at Grizzlies: Look who's buzzing into Gay-Mayo country this weekend. Maybe CP3 can give first time All Star Zack Randolph some tips about do's and don'ts for when he shows up in Dallas next month.

Heat at Bucks: I'm sure all the guys from Miami and just thrilled to be spending a weekend in late January in picturesque Milwaukee. If depression sets in too bad, the Bucks might get an easy win out of this.

Frail Blazers at Mavs: Here's hoping the local hospitals in Big D have been put on full alert, what with Portland limping into town.

Bobcats at Kings: Charlotte's still looking for their fifth road win on the year, and Sacramento might just be willing to oblige these feisty Cats as newly-named All Star Gerald Wallace goes back to where his whole career began.

Nationally Televised Sunday Games:
Nuggets at Spurs: Are Melo and Tony Parker gonna actually suit up for this one? It's on ABC, after all.

Lakers at Celtics: The last time the Lakers were in Boston on January 31st, the Celtic crowd chanted "MVP" and "Kobe" for Mr. Bryant. I'm guessing that three short years later we won't see a repeat of that on Sunday. Just a hunch.

Suns at Rockets: With the streak of winless games on TNT behind them, Phoenix looks to resume the tailspin they were in. Also, the next time Amar'''''''e plays a game in Texas it might be in a Spurs uniform, so enjoy this current version while you can.

All The Other Sunday Games:
Clippers at Crabs: Oy, this could get ugly. No word yet on whether the Quicken Loans Arena staff has reinforced the Gatorade tray by the Crabs bench, but considering it's The Other LA Team, there's probably no rush on that for now.

Magic at Pistons: Considering Detroit is 10-4 against Orlando over the last two plus seasons, it would appear that they are the Magicians' Walton's foot. Who knew?

76ers at Nyets: Facing some stiff competition from that Knicks-Wolves game below, this one narrowly edged it out to capture Basketbawful Game of the Night honors.

Pacers at Craptors: Toronto's actually looking to drop that 'C' in front of their team's name, especially if they keep up the 14-5 record they've amassed in their last 19 games. Beating weak teams like Indiana at home can go a long way to getting that done.

Knicks at Timberwolves: In the last week these two teams have lost games by 33 and 50, but they also just played each other on Tuesday and NY won by 27, so I'm thinking the Knicks might have a good chance in this one.

Warriors at Thunder: I can't wait to see if Nellie's gonna change his clothes for this game. BTW, check out the first result on Google images for "Don Nelson". Scary.

Labels: , ,

45 Comments:
Blogger AnacondaHL said...
C'mon Mario, there's only a few games left to get that Mario. A season without Mario getting a Mario, this could be worse than the Nets obtaining double digit wins.

Ball.

Blogger Boris Tilov said...
Ball.

Blogger chris said...
AND...Michael Vick now has his own TV series to try to repair his reputation, making me wonder...

Which beleaguered member of the Association would make the best TV?

As obvious as "Agent Zero" is for a choice, I almost feel like this deserves something more left-field than that.

Blogger Dan B. said...
Would anyone else be interested in watching a reality show where we take every insane bastard in the Association (I'm looking at you, Ron Artest) and just put them in a house together one summer? It'd be a totally different syle of insanity than Jersey Shore, but it'd be on the same level of overall awesomeness I bet.

Ball.

Blogger Bakes said...
Ok I give up. I'll ask here since it IS basketball related...

Anyone remember a commercial with Tim Duncan in it a handful of years ago (I really couldn't say how long ago, but I don't really think more than 10 years...?) where he's buying a car and each time the salesman tries to seal the deal Duncan has his typical blank face on. The salesman gets really uncomfortable under Duncan's gaze and keeps lowering the price and offering him a better package. At the end, when the salesman looks down at his paper, Duncan cracks a very uncharacteristic grin, but snaps back to his stone face when the salesman looks back up.

I don't remember what the commercial was for, though I can probably safely assume it was a Sportscenter commercial or something. I can't for the life of me find the commercial anywhere online. It's one of my favorite commercials of all time and if anyone could find it I'd be pretty damn grateful.

Mostly, I just need verification that this commercial actually existed.

Ball.

Blogger chris said...
Dan B.: Ron-Ron, Stephen Jackson, Spree, Arenas, Doug Christie's wife, Zeke...

So how should they all be "earning" the privilege to be on national TV, just like how the Jersey Shore crew "works" at that t-shirt shop?

Blogger chris said...
LOL, I think we need this clip up soon, listed in ESPN's picks of top SNL sports skits -

6. "The Charles Barkley Show" -- Kenan Thompson portrays Barkley hosting a talk show in a casino to pay back gambling debts. He describes how he got on the Olympic "Dream Team," saying: "I got a call from Michael Jordan, saying 'Hey, you wanna go play poker in Barcelona for two weeks? Here's the catch. We gotta leave the casino for two hours to beat Angola by 80 points.'" Only thing that would have made it better was if they had actually used Barkley.

Blogger chris said...
When you're a weak link on a team that has played its way from surprise story of the year to predictable lottery team, you do NOT say something like this -

I do what I do, and that is what has made me successful.


In that same vein, Bruce Ratner does what he does, and that is why the Nyets started this decade off perfect.

Blogger LotharBot said...
What I find shocking: there's only one Nuggets team on ESPN's "worst ever NBA teams" list.

Blogger chris said...
LotharBot: Well, if you lose a lot of games but entertainingly score in the triple digits most of the time, you can't be ALL that bad, right?

---

Dan B.: No, I don't feel bad for Washington, because Abe Pollin and co. gave Hibachi that overwrought blank check after what, two straight first round losses? By that token, then Knee-Mac should have a bigger contract than King Crab, The Truth, and Lord Mamba combined - and hey, Knee-Mac was ALMOST an all-star this year!!!

Blogger Dan B. said...
Chris -- I don't feel bad for the Washington team. I feel bad for the Washington fans. Big difference.

Wild Yams -- That Don Nelson picture you found is truly bawful. Well done.

(Wait for it, going to combine two of the most recent Bawful memes...)

Ball. And that's a Dan B. quote.

Blogger AnacondaHL said...
Hey guys, AnacondaHL here! Taking it one step too far!

Ball.

Blogger Dan B. said...
AnacondaHL -- Epic.

Nyets currently pissing away a lead in the 4th quarter. They led essentially the whole game and are now losing by three points as Earl Boykins took over in the latter statges of the 3rd quarter off the bench.

Anonymous kazam92 said...
I agree. Just epic (and great considering I never saw the original picture)

Blogger Dan B. said...
Earl Boykins just killed the Nyets with .4 left on a long pull-up jumper. Woo

Anonymous DKH said...
Josh:

Is this the commercial to which you are referring:

http://spurs.fandome.com/video/75379/Tim-Duncan-AmEx-Commercial/ ?

And man, I love me some Nets failure. I don't know why.

Worst-of nominations for:

The Pacers: Nine points in the fourth quarter; way to turn it on.

LeBron and the Cavs in general: I mean, LeBron was awesome (22 points, 13 assists), but he was only 10 of 17 on free throws, and the Cavs overall were 23 of 44. That's an awful lot of points to leave on the table.

Also, I didn't watch the game, and the Pacers shot 23 more field goal attempts than the Cavs, but they only shot five free throws. Seems to be so low it's an outlier!

Pacers' gunners: Granger was 6 of 23; Hibbert was 2 of 9; Brandon Rush was 5 of 14; Dunleavy was 2 of 8. But if everyone's shooting terrible, to whom do you pass, I guess, huh?

Anonymous Anonymous said...
can the clippers possibly be renamed to the cloppers????

Blogger Bakes said...
@ DKH

Oh sweet mercy thank you

Blogger chris said...
AnacondaHL:

YOUR WISH HAS BEEN GRANTED

Mario West is BACK IN LACKTION where it all began, with only 26 seconds of court time tonight that no doubt will make Shigeru Miyamoto proud!!!

Blogger AnacondaHL said...
BALL!

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Miami shot better from 3pt land then Detroit shot from the free-throw line. Fun stuff.

Blogger AnacondaHL said...
I had to double take my fantasy team stats, Did Paul Milsap just go 32/14/7?!

Oh, against the Kings, gotcha.

Anonymous Wouter said...
Useless stat of the night (from the ESPN weekend dime):

5: The Clippers' Chris Kaman, edged out of an All-Star berth by Randolph, recently became just the fifth center in the league to post two 20-point games in the same season in head-to-head starts against Washington's Brendan Haywood. The others: Shaquille O'Neal (2004-05 season and 2005-06), Orlando's Dwight Howard (2006-07), Milwaukee's Andrew Bogut (2007-08) and Phoenix's Amare Stoudemire (2007-2008).

Seriously, I had to read that four times before it actually made sense. Then I realised they were talking about Brendan Haywood. Then it didn't make sense again.

Blogger zyth said...
ah my goodness, i would like to nominate mr Afllalo for anything for getting blocked by a oneshoed Durant

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Jamal Crawford, quote machine: “I didn’t yell bank. I think the bank’s closed now.” after hitting one of the backboard.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
I like how that stat doesn't affiliate a team with Shaq, since well, he's pretty much bandwagon jumped every team he's been on (currently on team 5 with the Cavs).

Blogger stephanie g said...
Horford is gonna play in the ASG but Josh Smith isn't?! That blows my mind. Smith is on the same team and is more productive/important, plus his game is much more suited for the ASG (crazy dunks and blocks).

Someone please explain.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Oh, and one word: "Ball."

What if Turkoglu was attributing his performance to the wicked Assyrian/Carthaginian god "Baal", and just mispronounced it? (I think it's pronounced BAY-al, but it sure looks like "ball".)

Anyway- that would make his answer make a lot of sense.

Blogger chris said...
And the purple paupers continue to forget that basketball games last longer than 24 minutes...

They were only down 56-54 at the half.

Charlotte is now on a 27-5 run, with 2:52 left in the third.

Blogger chris said...
So great.

The Kings have made it a 5 point game at times in the 4th quarter...

So why did they have to collapse in the 3rd in every way possible to make this another moral victory?

Bobcats leading 102-96 and about to take the ball with 17 seconds left.

Blogger chris said...
Kings make it to the 30 loss mark! I guess it's time to look forward to the draft, right?

sigh.

Anonymous Hajt said...
Miller with 52 points on 21-32 shooting against Dallas. While Nic Batum, in his 3rd game of the season, forces 4 straight Dirk misses in OT.

Blogger chris said...
Tyreke "The Freak" Evans was not much of a freakshow tonight, due to some hip injury from last night or so that Westphal mentioned in the post-game presser - 4 points, 7 assists. Not exactly an inspiring statline.

Blogger LotharBot said...
zyth, I coulda sworn it was JR Smith who got the ego-ectomy courtesy of One Shoe Durant. Was it Aflack?

Also, I nominate the Nuggets for getting outscored 52-18 (I think) in the paint by the Thunder. Not a recipie for success.

As a Nuggets fan, I was already cringing about 3 minutes into the game. The Thunder were being super physical, and I was yelling at the refs to call something (most games, they woulda.) When I realized they were going to allow that level of play, I was yelling at the Nugs to match the Thunder's physicality... but wouldn't you know it, a team the haters have called the "Thuggets" for years -- a team with guys like KMart and Nene -- couldn't match the physicality of such rough-and-tumble guys as Nenad Kristic and Nick Collison. I eventually had to shut the game off because my infant son was picking up on my rage and starting to get angry himself.

Anonymous winnetou said...
LotharBot, the nba.com recap confirms it's #6, Afflalo. The sequence starts around the 30 second mark.
All ball.

Blogger gordon gartrelle said...
Have you all commented on this Kobe/Lebron gun-themed "controversy?"

ESPN and the NBA get the gasface for this nonsense.

Blogger Wild Yams said...
Way to defend your home court there, Boston. The Celtics were outscored 20-8 to finish the game over the last 9 minutes. Mr. Bawful can complain about how terrible the scheduling is that Boston had to play Orlando, Atlanta and then LA in consecutive games, but the Lakers have been on the road now for two straight weeks. The Celtics are currently only 6-11 since Christmas and have slid down to the 4th seed in the East. Cue the excuses.

BTW, did anyone notice that the announcers today mentioned it had been three years to the day since the Boston crowd chanted "MVP" for Kobe? I wonder if someone over at ABC is reading this site.

Blogger Dan B. said...
Wild Yams -- Considering the Lakers basically didn't play away from home at all before Christmas, let's call it a wash...

Anonymous Anonymous said...
I'm sure ESPN will give Bryant all the love for making the game winner, but 18-0 for the Lakers in points in the paint for the fourth quarter. That front court delivered today, particularly in stopping Rondo.

Still, the Lakers were up 11 after the 1st, then blew that lead until they were down by 11. At least they got it over with early, instead of blowing it late and losing.

Blogger Wild Yams said...
Just FYI, the Lakers actually will finish the season with the toughest schedule they'll have had in a number of years. The beginning being so easy ultimately won't matter, since everything balances out. This is stolen from Silver Screen & Roll:

They have the most back-2-backs on the road (the hardest games to win) at 18. Cleveland, Boston, Orlando and Denver have 11, 11, 13, and 15 respectively.

They actually catch opponents on a back-2-back the least amount as well (only 9 times, and only 3 of those are at Staples). This is 5 less games than the next unfortunate team (Portland and Oklahoma at 14). Compare this with Denver, who catches tired opponents an astonishing 24 times.


Just as an example of this, when the Lakers go to Memphis tomorrow it will be the 8th game of this current road trip (the longest road trip any team in the league will take this season), and tomorrow will be their third back to back game on this road trip alone. If anyone should be complaining about the schedule this year, it's LA. Boston having to play three tough opponents in a row is no real excuse for losing, and that's especially true when they go on to lose all three games. I'm just sayin'.

Anonymous Adam said...
Though I'm happy the Lakers won, can we get a WOTN for both teams for managing to combine for 34 turnovers? Yikes.

Also, while I have a love/hate relationship with that imp Van Gundy, at least somebody complained about Garnett's constant moving screens.

Blogger AnacondaHL said...
Kiki, on needing the 3-ptr at the end, commentary by me in brackets:

"Last play... I'm gonna take responsibility for that [really now]... We tried to run something that was perhaps a little tricky [so you AND the players were too stupid to pull it off. Got it.]... It was basically a series of flairs is what it ends up, uhm, but, it was a play you typically run from the full court, and we tried to run it at the half court [you are all awful]..."

Anonymous Megaman_X said...
Clippers @ Cavs

Let's see...46 points in the first quarter, 13 of 17 from 3 point range, and 23 for LeBron...more than Kobe scored all day and more than the Clippers scored in the first quarter.

Anonymous kazam92 said...
Adam: I felt the same way about Van Gundy calling KG out. Now I wish someone would call him out about being broken down in general and have his all-star pass revoked along with the Cancer and horford

Blogger Evan Sather said...
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/basketball/bulls/ct-spt-0201-bulls-chicago--20100131,0,3024814.story

It turns out the Chicago Bulls set a record...for winning!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLYKgrWdoXc

Here, have a free Will Perdue mixtape.