The NBA Is Flagrantly Pissing Me Off

Good grief, the NBA and its' officials really need to re-evaluate their flagrant foul calling procedures. There's been ridiculous calls throughout the season - not to mention throughout the playoffs when they need to consider carefully the impact of these calls - and I just saw another one.

PJ Brown just got hit with a Flagrant 1 on an attempt to block a dunk. He didn't jump high enough to get a hand on the ball, so he went up to stop the dunk. The shooter fell and fell pretty hard - but in no way was it a flagrant foul.

We all recall the Lakers' Ronny Turiaf getting hit with a Flagrant 2 and ejected from the game on a hard foul during the Jazz series - another bad call. Hard fouls aren't flagrant fouls every single time.

One of these games, a bad flagrant call is going to ultimately cost a team a game, a series, and maybe even a championship. The league desperately wants to clean up their act from the 80's Badboy days but they've gone too far with it. The game is too clean and pretty now. You can barely touch someone in the air or the hammer falls.

So, my message to David Stern?

STOP MAKING THE TEAMS PLAY PUSSY BASKETBALL!

Thank you.

Hello Darkness, My Old Friend

And no, that's not a Charlie Murphy reference.

You always knew it would end up this way - it just had to. With all the talk about the Jazz giving the Lakers a hard series. With all the mumbo jumbo about homecourt advantage in the playoffs. With all the hype about Chris Paul and the Hornets being the future of the league.

In the end, you knew it would have to come down to the Lakers vs Spurs. It's the equivalent of basketball destiny at its' best. The road to the NBA Finals leads through the defending champ - could it really have happened any other way?

And so, here we go again, Laker fans.

Let's break it down...

Point Guard - Derek Fisher vs Tony Parker
As much as I adore D-Fish, I have to give the edge to Parker. That being said, there definitely are games where Fish will go on a hot streak and give the team a huge lift but in the average game, he's going to have a very tough time defending Parker. And without Bynum in the back as a stopper, I look for a lot of drive and dish in the Lakers' immediate future. However, seeing how rattled got at a picture of his wife, maybe the Lakers can line up every man she's ever nailed in the front row behind the Spurs bench during home games. It's all about the in-game strategy, baby.
EDGE: SPURS

Shooting Guard - Kobe Bryant vs Manu Ginobli
Let's call a spade a spade and admit that Manu is the real starting SG for the Spurs and not Michael Finlay - although Finlay is a tough opponent as well. Manu's the master of the wild driving, weaving, throw something at the glass, crash to the floor and cry about a foul move. Kobe is... well, he's Kobe. He's the best player in the game, period.
EDGE: LAKERS

Small Forward - Vladimir Radmonovic vs Bruce Bowen
This one is a bit of a tossup. Vlad-Rad is a better offensive player than Bowen but he's still prone to the type of mental mistakes that made Phil Jackson label him a "space cadet." He can have a big impact on a game - or he can simply disappear. You just never know which Vlad will show up. Bruce Bowen won't add much on the offensive end for the Spurs but he's one of the few players in the league not afraid to play one-on-one defense against Kobe and be effective at it. That skill alone gives the Spurs the edge here.
EDGE: SPURS

Power Forward - Lamar Odom vs Tim Duncan
A month ago, I would have said this was a slam dunk category for the Spurs but Lamar has played a masterful game in these playoffs. Being slotted into the third option for scoring as helped worlds with his defense, his rebounding, and his hustle. He does a lot of the little things that don't show up on the stat sheet. Tim Duncan is... well, he's Tim Duncan. He's one of the best players in the league. As good as Odom has been, I have to give the edge to Duncan and the Spurs.
EDGE: SPURS

Center - Pau Gasol vs Fabricio Oberto
This is an easy win for the Lakers. Of course, if you're a pessimist, you look at how Bynum's injury affects this entire series. Bynum would still take this category against Oberto, Pau sliding down into the PF spot gives Duncan more trouble defensively and makes that a closer matchup, Lamar sliding into the SF spot against Bowen gives an easy win to the Lakers in that matchup. Instead of a 3-2 edge for the Spurs in the starting lineup, you have a 4-1 Laker lead. Ahhh, but it's not to be... this year at least.
EDGE: LAKERS

Bench
The sign of great Laker teams has always been a really strong bench. Whether it was the Showtime days with Byron and AC or the Shaq/Kobe Lakers with Horry and B-Shaw, when the bench was deep, the team was successful. This year is no different with the bench performing extremely well most of the year and giving the feeling that it's not so bad when Kobe goes to the bench to rest [briefly.] So, while the Lakers' bench is thriving with Walton, Farmar, Sasha, and Ronny among others - the Spurs' bench is pretty much limited to Finley and an aging [but always dangerous] Robert Horry.
EDGE: LAKERS

Coach - Phil Jackson vs Gregg Popovich
Pop is a tough, good coach - but he's no Zenmaster. Phil will have the team coached, prepared, and ready to rock for this series. It's going to be a tough series and in a tough series, I'd rather have Phil Jackson using his brain to get us an edge than Popovich.
EDGE: LAKERS

So, to wrap it up...

Lakers have an edge in Coaching, Bench, Center, and Shooting Guard.
Spure have an edge in Power Forward, Small Forward, and Point Guard.

Lakers with a 5-3 lead... but I expect this series will be even tighter than that.

My prediction?

Lakers in 6, winning on the road to close it out again.

One of my favorite NBA stories of the year

Take a look...

"Just like the real Eva Longoria, the one that showed up in New Orleans for Game 5 of the Hornets-Spurs series didn't have to buy a ticket. She was, after all, a welcome sight at the New Orleans Arena, a venue hungry for celebrity sightings to complement the Hornets' success. But Longoria was not given a free pass just because she was a celebrity. Rather, it was because she was printed on a life size poster, wearing a Hornets top intended to distract her husband Tony Parker.

"Idea was not to be offensive, just to be distractive," says Ivan Echegarrua, who partnered with fellow Hornets season ticket holder Rick Farrel to create the poster. And in case you were not at the game, the poster appeared to do the trick. Standing at the free throw line with about four minutes to go and the cutout of the Hornets-clothed Longoria in plain view, Parker missed both free throws."

There Will Be Blood

Whew, the unemployment line is filled with NBA coaches today.

Early breaking word this morning has both Mike D'Antoni and Avery Johnson getting shown the door by their respective franchises.

I can't say that either is a huge surprise but let's take a closer look.

Avery Johnson's days have been numbered for a while. It's been no secret that Mark Cuban has blamed him for the Mavs failures for some time and when Cuban went out and got Jason Kidd for the team and they _still_ couldn't win? You knew someone had to pay the piper for it. It's a tough situation though as the Mavs probably weren't going to beat the Hornets anyways. It's not Kidd's fault that he's old, past his prime, and unable to win in the clutch - okay, well, maybe it is his fault. But it's definitely not Avery Johnson's fault. AJ seemed like a perfectly fine coach to me who was put in an unwinnable scenario. He's sure to catch on somewhere else without much trouble, I'd imagine.

Mike D'Antoni is a bit of a sadder situation. As much as I dislike the guy's on-court histrionics, you can not deny that he instilled a system in Phoenix that for several years made them one of the most successful [and most popular] teams in the league. Sure, he didn't win a championship but not many coaches do. Few people assumed this would be a win-or-you're-out season for D'Antoni but the final nail in his coffin came with the Shaquille O'Neal trade. As much as I don't understand the trade, I understand the trade. On the surface, you question why they would do a deal that would basically cripple the run-and-gun offense that made them successful. They are infamous for getting their shot up within 7 seconds on the shot clock but it takes Shaq 7 seconds to reach the free throw line... on the defensive end of the floor! Of course they weren't going to be able to run-and-gun anymore... but the "realists" pointed out at the time that run-and-gun hadn't won them a title so maybe it was time for a change. You just can't expect a team to change that much in mid-season though. They were designed to run-and-gun and you tied an anchor to their ankle... and crippled the team's future in the process.

So, D'Antoni will be the fall guy because you can't spend that much money on a center, have that big trade publicized so much, and then only manage a weak one victory in the postseason. It's not fair at all to him since it's the Big Cactus that really hurt them but... well, so it goes.

I fully expect George Karl will be the next head to roll.

And don't even ask me to comment on Larry Brown deciding to coach the Bobcats. Unbelievable.

In closing, I would like to take credit for all of these moves [except Brown] on behalf of Mitch Kupchak. He set these dominoes a-tumblin' with the Pau Gasol deal which forced the Western Conference rivals to go out and try to make a big move to compete.

Well, so far, those moves to compete have earned their teams a first round postseason exit and a fired coach.

So it goes.