Today is a good day. Baseball draft followed by Cavs basketball. Sorry, Reds, I'm skipping your game for the first Finals appearance.
Today is a good day. Baseball draft followed by Cavs basketball. Sorry, Reds, I'm skipping your game for the first Finals appearance.
Tony Parker looked tough tonight. He may be the 2nd best point guard in the NBA. I think he's going to be a thorn in the Cavs side all series, and may be the difference. Timmy was just bein' Timmy tonight.
Lebron's obviously going to play better than that. The Spurs D was pretty tough on him, but he really didn't play that well either. I love his confidence in himself though. He's only 22 but he understands that off nights happen and he KNOWS he'll play better. He needs help though. Gibson is the only one who showed up really, he needs to play more.
I usually find Stephen A. Smith annoying, but he was pretty accurate when he kept calling Illguaskis "Memet Okur". Big Z has got to play better also.
"I know a lot about the law and various other lawyerings."
Hitters who avoid outs are the funnest.
You would have thought by the 4th quarter that Mike Johnson would have figured out the Spurs had taken the high pick and roll away from LeBron and make an adjustment. Didn't seem to happen though. Post him up Mike.
She used to wake me up with coffee ever morning
Cavs deserve credit for cutting that lead to 9 in the 4th Quarter. It was too little, too late, though. They'll need all the help they can get from their home crowd.
I'm not looking forward to reading about the low TV ratings for this series. I'm sure a lot of people around the country tuned out to watch the Sopranos... and the Weather Channel or anything else that happened to be on around the time you made that post.
/r/reds
Actually the opener of the finals was the lowest rated prime time NBA finals game....ever.
I just can't even get remotely interested in the NBA anymore myself.
^
A big part of that ambivalence is the fact that it's mid-June, and the NBA is still playing basketball.
They need to crown a champ about a month earlier, IMO.
It's the markets that are playing that fail to inspire folks to tune in.
Cleveland is the bigger draw, even as a mid-size market, since it has the benefit of being the only team in its state, and probably drawing a bit from Eastern Pennsylvania. It also has the anointed next big thing in LBJ.
SA is one of the NBA's smallest markets nationally. There's not even interest across the state here because the two bigger markets in Texas both have teams of their own. The fans in Dallas moved on from basketball a month ago when their team laid an egg in the first round. That, plus the Spurs brand of team basketball and lack of controversy make them a tough sell against any opponent.
The casual fans who tune in are being treated to games that look lopsided in the first quarter, even if they turn out to be closer by the end. It had to be hard for fans without a rooting interest and who dig showmanship to stay interested when LeBron sat out most of the 1st Quarter with 2 fouls.
/r/reds
The only thing I don't like about the perception of the Spurs is that they aren't great individually, but great as a team.
Nothing could be further from the truth. I mean this 100%.....
Duncan/Parker/Ginobli can rival ANY three-man tandem in the history of the NBA.
They ARE a great team. They ARE unselfish. They DO play defense. But those three are ALSO excellent individual players.
Duncan is already in my top 10 all-time NBA players. He is a super-super star. And Parker is also a star-- a young one at that. He's the 2nd best PG in the NBA, IMO-- although Deron Williams is a stud too.
Manu is the one of the three who probably benefits the most from having the other two in the line-up, but even on his worst days he's still a fantastic third option. On his best days, he's an unstoppable scorer.
Mix in the most underrated coach in sports history, and you have a dynastic team,
And it's really funny to me. People say they don't watch the NBA because:
--The players are thugs.
--It's all individual
--They don't play defense
I would debate all three of things league-wide, but even the biggest cynic has to admit that the Spurs are the antithesis of those three things. Yet, nobody likes them because they are "boring." People want it both ways.
I like to watch the NBA, but when a game is a blow-out at the half, something else takes over as my primary show.
If I were Mike Johnson, I'd sit the gimpy Larry Hughes down and start Daniel Gibson. The Cavs just *have* to have some other offensive threat than LeBron. LeBron can beat some teams 1 on 5, but not the Spurs.
I still would have liked to see the Spurs-Suns series go 7. Suns could have legitimately beaten the Spurs straight up.
She used to wake me up with coffee ever morning
True.
I guess I'm coming from the angle that the league is so far down the path of hyping individuals (Kobe! Shaq! Iverson! King James!) that they're beyond the point of no return. Lakers! vs. Celtics! days are over.
Too bad.
So one option is to do something about the glut of the product. Ratchet back the supply a little and see what happens.
(Of course, that kills the TV revenues, etc., so add it to the list of things that will never happen.)
I think the talent divide between the west & east is about as lopsided as I can ever remember. The Lakers & Celtics/Sixers balanced each other out. The Bulls had the Lakers & some good Portland teams, with Houston in the middle.
Right now? I think at least 6 of the 2007 western playoff teams (SA, Dallas, Phoenix, Utah, Houston, and one of LA/Den/GS) beat Cleveland in a 7 game series for the title.
Oden and Durant going to the Pacific NW isn't going to help that chasm, either.
15-- I disagree.
I think the Cavs are the 4th best team in the NBA behind the Spurs, Suns, and Mavs. I think Cleveland would beat Utah and Houston in a series, and I definitely think they'd beat the rest of the west.
People are writing off the Pistons because the Cavs beat them, but that they've been a heck of a tough out over the past 5 years. I would actually still put Detroit ahead of Utah as well-- but not by much.
I've tried to pay attention during the playoffs, but having not watched the NBA in years, I feel like the level of play is disgraceful. Lots of traveling, flopping and flagrant fouls disguised as defense, coupled with the fact that no one seems to be able to hit an open shot. I was able to take a break from studying the other night to watch some of Game 1 and thought the Masons were playing the Bricklayers. Man I miss the days of World B. Free.
Last edited by Yachtzee; 06-11-2007 at 05:22 PM. Reason: Sloppy play
Wear gaudy colors, or avoid display. Lay a million eggs or give birth to one. The fittest shall survive, yet the unfit may live. Be like your ancestors or be different. We must repeat!
Yep, all about expansion watering down the talent and drafting too many high school kids, the schedule's way too long still, and there's too many "athletes" and not enough polished, skilled basketball players these days.
Something about the NBA that I just find completely and utterly boring and mindless. I love basketball, but man the NBA is really, really bad these days.
The ratings seem to back that up.
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