5. jacquing up shots - yesterday the spurs returned to phoenix for the first time since last year's controversial western conference finals and squeaked out at a hard fought 84-81 victory. suns fans must have been waiting for this game all summer if only for the chance to rain boos on robert horry while voicing their displeasure over the cheap shot that may have cost their team an nba championship. unfortunately, robert horry didn't play a single minute and even more unfortunately, jacque vaughn played 30 single minutes. and in this half hour, for reasons only beknownst to him, vaughn shot the ball 15 times. not only was it only one shot fewer than tim duncan took, it was the first time since march 2005 that vaughn took that many shots. i suspect that letting vaughn shoot as much as possible was part of the suns' gameplan. because otherwise, they are much worse defensively than i ever could have imagined.
4. all-star snubs - on wednesday, al thornton responded to not getting invited to the rookie-sophomore challenge by going off for a career-high 32 points. and since the all-star reserves were announced just last night, a other few key snubs will also get their chance to prove their worth. our first glimpse of this came in the celtics-mavericks game where after one quarter, ray allen had 15 points and josh howard countered with 13 of his own. boston eventually pulled out a close victory thanks to contributions from two other all star snubs, rajon rondo, who scored the go ahead basket, and brian scalabrine, who played 16 shotless minutes. and if that's what it takes to keep scalabrine from ever shooting again, i hope he never makes an all-star team.
3. all-star subs - for some reason, when the all-star rosters are announced, i've noticed that more time is spent talking about the people who didn't make the team than is spent talking about those people who played well enough to make the team. such as chauncey billups, who's been even better than usual, or caron butler, who has become the leader of the wizards, or carlos boozer, who's very loud. and let's not forget that chris paul, david west, and byron scott are all not only more than qualified to be part of the all-star game, but will be terrific ambassadors of the host city. sure jose calderon has been playing brilliantly, but i like joe johnson. and baron davis would be a welcome addition but he would also be mercilessly booed in new orleans. also, who in the west do you take out? the list goes on and we could spend endless hours arguing about the various players that should have been invited. or we could combine those endless hours to convince david stern to let rudy gay play in the all star game.
2. kobe bryant deferring - the pistons beat the lakers on a tayshaun prince three pointer in the waning seconds, but the real story of the game was kobe bryant's continued unselfish play. kobe finished with 39 points, 10 rebounds, five assists to his teammates, and 11 assists to detroit. and just in case you were interested, here are all 11:
Kobe Bryant lost ball (Richard Hamilton steals)- Kobe Bryant bad pass (Richard Hamilton steals)
- Kobe Bryant bad pass (Chauncey Billups steals)
- Kobe Bryant bad pass (Jarvis Hayes steals)
- Kobe Bryant lost ball (Rasheed Wallace steals)
- Kobe Bryant bad pass (Richard Hamilton steals)
- Kobe Bryant bad pass (Amir Johnson steals)
- Kobe Bryant traveling
- Kobe Bryant bad pass (Antonio McDyess steals)
- Kobe Bryant lost ball (Arron Afflalo steals)
- Kobe Bryant bad pass (Jarvis Hayes steals)
strangely, only one of his turnovers was of the dead ball variety. the rest were picked up by seven different pistons. hopefully all these bad passes finally convince kobe that he should never pass the ball again.
1. jesus christ berman - by now this video featuring chris berman kirking out has been linked and discussed many times over across the indernet already. and since i strive to fit in, i too will mention it. here goes: uh, chris berman kirks out, t's extremely funny. plus it features pretty much everything you could want in a tantrum: screaming, obscenities, breaking the third commandment, growing frustration, and swatting imaginary flies. the only thing that could have made this better is if at some point he asked, "do you know who i am?" or "so you gonna get in the truck?" but i guess beggars can't be choosers, even though bermans can be losers.
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