NBA

[ORDoubleBlues]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0PSCtB0k7k

check out Rasheeds 3 pointer to take the game into OT today....and then win the game...Denver had the ball with 2 secs to go...check the crowd out, they are all leaving the building!!

Bad finish again for the Nuggets after they were in control in a game against Chicago last week as well until the Nuggets stole the ball with about 8 seconds left, when they were one point in front, but then lost it again straight away and the missed jump shot from the Bulls was tipped in by Tyrus Thomas of Chicago for the win with only .2 of a second left.

[ORDoubleBlues]

Interesting that apparently Greg Oden is not necessarily a certainty to leave Ohio State after his freshman year and declare for the draft.
IMHO, he'd be a fool not to declare given that he may well win a national championship this week in college and given that he's the likely no.1 overall pick in this year's NBA draft (no.2 at worst), why hang around and risk a long term injury that would affect his draft position in the years to come?

[ORDoubleBlues]

An interesting game on the weekend where Toronto defeated Washington in Overtime. During normal time Washington had a 3 point lead with posession of the ball and only about 4 seconds to go when Washington's Michael Ruffin inexplicably threw the ball straight up in the air and Toronto's Morris Peterson caught it and nailed an unbeleivable one handed three point jump shot from about 30 feet as he was falling out of bounds to force overtime!!!!
A real entertaining game recently between Golden State and Phoenix that Golden State won 124-119. Golden State started off on fire and had 33 points in the first 6 six minutes of the first quarter (to put in perspective, if that pace could be kept up for an entire game, they would have scored 264 points!), 75 points at half time but could only manage 15 points in the last quarter to just hang on.

[Dutchy]

Interesting that apparently Greg Oden is not necessarily a certainty to leave Ohio State after his freshman year and declare for the draft.
IMHO, he'd be a fool not to declare given that he may well win a national championship this week in college and given that he's the likely no.1 overall pick in this year's NBA draft (no.2 at worst), why hang around and risk a long term injury that would affect his draft position in the years to come?

no championship for Oden...Florida Gators win

[ORDoubleBlues]

Interesting that apparently Greg Oden is not necessarily a certainty to leave Ohio State after his freshman year and declare for the draft.
IMHO, he'd be a fool not to declare given that he may well win a national championship this week in college and given that he's the likely no.1 overall pick in this year's NBA draft (no.2 at worst), why hang around and risk a long term injury that would affect his draft position in the years to come?

no championship for Oden...Florida Gators win

Florida definitely too good and I think it was Ohio State's achilles heel that was Florida's strength - 3 point shooting. Oden certainly is a commanding inside presence and IMHO Ohio State should have gone inside to him more than they did early to try and get Florida's big men in early foul trouble.
People also shouldn't read to much into Oden's numbers for the season being a gauge for his future NBA success as college teams play within a much more structured team concept and the games are 8 minutes shorter and the shot clock goes for 35 seconds compared to the NBA's 24 seconds. Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon and Patrick Ewing all averaged less than 20 points per game in college.

[Dutchy]

Huge effort from Florida winning both the College B/Ball and Football championships in the 1 year...thats one serious sporting college!!!

[Dutchy]

alright lads playoffs start today...whos your tip? While I would love to see Jazz take it, Im thinking Spurs might be too tough although if Jazz dont win I would love Dirk to get a ring with Dallas....looking at the betting for the championship there are 4 Western Conference teams favoured before a Eastern team gets a mention!

JAZZ @ HOUSTON on ESPN today at 11am Jazz never get TV games

[ORDoubleBlues]

Did see a bit of the game 1 Houston win over the Jazz and I still say that Houston is a real sleeper for the title despite the fact that McGrady hasn't been beyond the first playoff round before.
Dutchy, do you follow it closely enough to know the reasons for the funk that Andrei Kirilenko is in? A couple of years ago he was the most versatile player in the league and he owns 2 of the only 4 ever five by fives (at least 5 points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks in the same game!!!) in NBA history.

[Dutchy]

Did see a bit of the game 1 Houston win over the Jazz and I still say that Houston is a real sleeper for the title despite the fact that McGrady hasn't been beyond the first playoff round before.
Dutchy, do you follow it closely enough to know the reasons for the funk that Andrei Kirilenko is in? A couple of years ago he was the most versatile player in the league and he owns 2 of the only 4 ever five by fives (at least 5 points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks in the same game!!!) in NBA history.

yeah saw all of the game yesterday and was shattered, we had them on toast on occasions...Jazz have a good solid all round offence but we are struggling to contain the better sides for 48 minutes and also dont have the star to guide us to a championship...that being said Im on a US forum and they believe the Jazz have been the 4th best team in the NBA this season. Houston are great when they are switched on however they have massive lapses and arent consistent enough to make an impact yet...I still think the Jazz can get out of this series with them.

Dunno about Kirilenko, I think a few of the other guys have stepped up this season in Boozer, Fisher, Williams, Okur, Harpring but he has also missed at least a third of the season with injury, maybe he is playing injured now, didnt see much of him yesterday and is almost a bench player now....

My other tip is for Toronto and Miami to both win their 1st round playoff match ups despite both being 0-1...Toronto are the smokey for the East

[JK]

Cavs beat Wizards lead series 1-0
Suns beat Lakers lead series 1-0
Nuggets beat Spurs lead series 1-0 (interesting result)
Warriors currently leading Mavs by 4 early in the 4th

[the big bang]

bulls 3-0 up on reigning champs miami

[Dutchy]

bulls 3-0 up on reigning champs miami

now 4-0

I still like Toronto to pull out a series win against NJ

[Magpiespower]

Bring back best of five for the first round - too many non-events.

East

Chicago sweep Miami 4-0
Detroit sweep Orlando 4-0

Cleveland lead Washington 3-0
New Jersey lead Toronto 3-1

West

Houston and Utah deadlocked at 2-2
Golden State lead Dallas 3-1
Phoenix lead Lakers 3-1
San Antonio lead Denver 2-1

Award Winners

Rookie of the Year: Brandon Roy (Portland)
Coach of the Year: Sam Mitchell (Toronto)
Defensive Player of the Year: Marcus Camby (Denver)
Most Improved Player: Monta Ellis (Golden State)

All Defensive Team
Tim Duncan (San Antonio)
Bruce Bown (San Antonio)
Marcus Camby (Denver)
Kobe Bryant (LA Lakers)
Raja Bell (Phoenix)

All Defensive Second Team: Ben Wallace (Chicago) Kirk Hinrich (Chicago), Jason Kidd (New Jersey), Tayshaun Prince (Detroit), Kevin Garnett (Minnesota).

[JK]

GSW 111, Dal 86 - GSW wins 4-2

GSW become the first 8th seed under the best-of-seven first round format to knock off the top seeds in NBA history. The 1994 Nuggets and 1999 Knicks also achieved the feat but under the old best-of-five system.

[Dutchy]

GSW 111, Dal 86 - GSW wins 4-2

GSW become the first 8th seed under the best-of-seven first round format to knock off the top seeds in NBA history. The 1994 Nuggets and 1999 Knicks also achieved the feat but under the old best-of-five system.

Unbeleivable really....great news for the winner of Jazz/Houston...While warriosr are playing great ball I would think they will struggle in the next round

still like Spurs to take the whole thing

[ORDoubleBlues]

GSW 111, Dal 86 - GSW wins 4-2

GSW become the first 8th seed under the best-of-seven first round format to knock off the top seeds in NBA history. The 1994 Nuggets and 1999 Knicks also achieved the feat but under the old best-of-five system.

Unbeleivable really....great news for the winner of Jazz/Houston...While warriosr are playing great ball I would think they will struggle in the next round

still like Spurs to take the whole thing

Boilover of massive proportions for mine and it just goes to show that old Don Nelson really did know the Mavericks very well from his recent time there and was able to plot their downfall as coach of the Golden State Warriors.
Really thought that this was going to be Dallas' year and I think that they are going to have to do some retooling to be able to win a championship next season, which IMHO is their last shot in the current window of opportunity if they don't retool.

[Dutchy]

Jazz win Game 7 in Houston...after being headed with 5 mins to go they come back and win....great win considering every game in this series had gone to the home team....

Cavs/Nets and Suns/Spurs start tomorrow morning...early

[Magpiespower]

Dunno if anyone has posted about this, but Dennis Johnson, who Larry Bird regards as 'the best player [he] ever played with' died recently from a cardiac arrest, aged 52.

One of the greatest defensive guards of all-time...

Dennis Johnson
Career Averages: 14.1 ppg, 5.0 apg, 3.9 rpg.

NBA championships 1979, 1984, 1986
NBA Finals MVP 1979
All-NBA First Team 1981
All-NBA Second Team 1980
All-Defensive First Team 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1987
All-Defensive Second Team 1984, 1985, 1986
NBA All-Star 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1985

[ORDoubleBlues]

Dunno if anyone has posted about this, but Dennis Johnson, who Larry Bird regards as 'the best player [he] ever played with' died recently from a cardiac arrest, aged 52.

One of the greatest defensive guards of all-time...

Dennis Johnson
Career Averages: 14.1 ppg, 5.0 apg, 3.9 rpg.

NBA championships 1979, 1984, 1986
NBA Finals MVP 1979
All-NBA First Team 1981
All-NBA Second Team 1980
All-Defensive First Team 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1987
All-Defensive Second Team 1984, 1985, 1986
NBA All-Star 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1985

Yes, that was a shame MP.
Not that I was old enough to follow the league closely when he played but his ability as a player got lost a bit in those great Celtic teams and it's a credit to the man and a reason for Boston's success that he was able to sacrifice his own game for the sake of the team.


Think that the unexpected demise of the Toronto Raptors in the first round of the playoffs is further evidence that this and other awards shouldn't be given out until seasons end.

[Dutchy]

2-0....Go jazz


Hows this from Fisher....


He was gonna take the series off for "personal reasons" that turned out to be his baby girl has a tumor between her eye and her brain.

Williams gets two fouls in the 1st minute. Brown hurts himself real quick and is out with a neck injury. Utah had no one to play point.

Fisher drives from his home to the stadium when Brown got carted off. Came to play on short notice with no warmup really.

5 pts, 3 assists, 1 board in 9 minutes. Really propelled his team to the 10 point OT win where they would have been screwed without him.