Results tagged “nba”

With the World Series upon us, college football reaching it's half-way point and an exciting NFL season heating up, you may not have realized that NBA is tipping off tonight. One guy who's definitely aware of this is J.E. Skeets, Yahoo! Sports NBA Blogger.

Bill Simmons is simply known by many as "The Sports Guy." But anyone who's ever read his columns on ESPN.com or heard an episode of his podcast, The B.S. Report, knows his interests extend far beyond the field. A Simmons column will take you from Kobe Bryant to Karate Kid, theories about Knicks' centers to jokes about late-night Cinemax starlets, Mike Dunleavy to Las Vegas travel tips.

Yup the NBA schedule for the 2009-2010 season was released today, and the first date anyone looks at is Christmas Day. The Lakers, of course, are playing the marquee game hosting the Cleveland Cavaliers at 2 pm.

Despite the rumors that circulated yesterday, Trevor Ariza did not end up backing out of his oral agreement with Houston to join LeBron James and Shaquille O'Neal in Cleveland. Today the former Laker made it official signing on the dotted line of his multi-year deal, making him a Rocket.

              

Even before the parade got underway news agencies in Los Angeles reported that the Coliseum was at max capacity, and traffic from most parts of the city headed towards Downtown was backed up before and all through the a.m. commute. People bedecked in purple and gold lined the streets, shouting and waving as any reporter and camera crew passed by. After the players boarded the bus and greeted the adoring fans at the Staples Center, the parade made its way just over 2 miles southbound on Figueroa, where those assembled were first greeted to performances from the Lakers Girls and had lots of opportunities to shout their devotion to our winning team.

            

Your city's team has won a major sports championship. It's a great achievement, and a reason to celebrate. You love your team, you love your city, you love a good time. But how do you celebrate? Dance, hug, shout, throw confetti, have some drinks, high five your friends, eat cake, relive the highlights of the game, throw a party at your home? Sure, right? You want to express your pride, your joy, your happiness on behalf of the team.

Talk of a victory parade for the NBA's Lakers began before the team had even cinched the victory itself, which, if you're in LA and live under a rock, happened last night in Orlando in game 5 of the championship.

In the most dominating fashion, the Lakers dismantled the Denver Nuggets 119-92 in Denver in Game 6 of the Western Conference Finals. They now head to their 30th NBA Finals and look to atone for their collapse in last year's finals against the Boston Celtics.

I still say the Lakers will defeat the Denver Nuggets in six games. But it's not this series that I'm finding all that compelling. Out in the east, we are witnessing an Orlando Magic team that is tearing apart the Cleveland Cavaliers. Aside from the Magic's 10-point victory in game three, all games have been close: one point margins in games one and two and a two point victory by the Magic in game four.

I don't get it. In Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals Pau Gasol got nine field goal attempts. In Game 2 he got eight. In these two games, Gasol has less attempts than he did in Game 7 of the Houston Rockets series.

       

LA has a diverse cast of characters. Whether it's the characters with stirring stories or interesting occupations or the people who are just simply characters, this town has them all. In an effort to get to know some of those characters a little better, we've created "Seven Questions with..." If you have a suggestion for a future Seven Questions subject send us an email.

That had to be one of the most frustrating Lakers playoff series in recent memory. The undermanned Houston Rockets team sans Tracy McGrady, Dikembe Mutombo and as of game three Yao Ming had no business being in that series. That should have been at worst a five-game series. But the Lakers sometime lackadaisical play kept the Rockets in the series making superstars out of Luis Scola, Shane Battier and Aaron Brooks.

I really don't know what's wrong with the Lakers. If anyone did surely it would be head coach Phil Jackson and his coaching staff. Then Lakers fans wouldn't be sitting in a pit of 780.7, the ICM-9 code for malaise.

Laker's guard Derek Fisher has been suspended by the NBA for Friday's game 3 against the Houston Rockets at Houston. He bodychecked Rockets forward Luis Scola in the waning minutes of the third quarter that was a ruled a flagrant-two foul resulting in an ejection. Kobe Bryant's elbow to Ron Artest in the fourth quarter was upgraded to a flagrant-one foul and will not result in any suspension.

In game one the Lakers tried to be physical but ended up being pretenders. The Rockets despite being the ones battered and bloodied got the first knock out. Shane Battier’s bloodied face and Yao Ming’s bumped knee wouldn’t detract the Rockets into getting away from their game plan. They just stuck with it while the Lakers just took shots in hopes of getting something to stick.

A week after the Lakers sent the Utah Jazz packing, they embark on the second round of the playoffs against the Houston Rockets.

Now that the real NBA season has started, those Laker flowers have started to bloom. At the Dodger game Friday night the evidence of the germination was seen as several cars were seen with the Laker flags flying.

In a press release just issued by the Lakers, 21-year old center Andrew Bynum suffered a tear in his medial collateral ligament in his right knee after a collision with Kobe Bryant in Friday night's game at Memphis Grizzlies. He is estimated to be out for eight to 12 weeks. Just about this time last year, Bynum suffered an injury to his left knee that kept him out for the rest of the season and the playoffs. He is averaging 14 points, 8 rebounds and 1.9 blocked shots per game this season and was named NBA's player of the week from January 19 through January 25. AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill

This was another statement game for the Lakers, and the Lakers answered.

While filling in for injured starter Josh Howard, the Dallas Mavericks' Jose Juan Barea surprisingly strung together four straight double-figure scoring efforts including a 22 point performance against the Atlanta Hawks on December 9th. The unexpected output of the 5-11 guard in his third year out of Northeastern University has not gone unnoticed by the NBA media, including Los Angeles Times NBA columnist Mark Heisler. Yesterday, Heisler recognized the play of Barea in his NBA Rankings, calling the Dallas guard a "Mexican smurf." While "smurf" isn't exactly the most becoming word to call a sub-six-footer it is actually the more accurate of the two words used by Heisler to describe Barea, who is a native of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico.

The ever-lovable Clippers just made a trade with the New York Knickerbockers according to Lisa Dillman of the LA Times. The Clippers get forward Zach Randolph and guard Mardy Collins for guard Cuttino Mobley and forward Tim Thomas. Randolph is averaging 20.5 points and 12.5 rebounds for the Knicks and has three years and $48 million left in his current contract.

LA Dodgers defeat St. Louis Cardinals 4-1. Six games, four home runs. Despite the Dodgers losing the last two games, Manny Ramirez has done everything he could to help the Dodgers win. Unfortunately he can only bat once every nine team at bats. He is batting .565 since coming to the Dodgers with an OPS of 1.745. Meanwhile Clayton Kershaw had another great outing going seven innings giving up only one run on three hits and four walks with seven strikeouts. He and Chad Billingsley are shaping up to be great one-two starters for the Dodgers. And just in case you were fearing another clubhouse division to strike the Dodgers, Jeff Kent has gone on record saying he is happy. Phew!

St. Louis Cardinals defeat LA Dodgers 9-6. Four words: Albert Pujols grand slam. That effectively shut the door on the Dodgers. Derek Lowe made his shortest outing of the season (3 1/3 innings) while giving up the most hits and runs of the season (13 hits and eight runs). In the eighth inning with Jeff Kent on deck to pinch hit, the PA announcer announced Mark Sweeney would be the pinch hitter. Joe Torre would argue to no avail. Kent would bat for Sweeney who "batted" for Pablo Ozuna. Kent would strike out, and the Dodgers would complete the game under protest. In the unlikely event the protest is upheld, the game won't necessarily be restarted at the point of protest if the league decides the screw up didn't affect the Dodger's chances of winning the game. So there you have it.

Minnesota Twins' Justin Morneau defeats Texas Rangers' Josh Hamilton. This year's edition was supposed to be a snooze fest. No A-Rod. No Big Papi. No Vlad. No Junior. No Bonds. Just a bunch of youngsters named Braun, Morneau, Utley, Berkman, Uggla, Sizemore, Longoria and Hamilton. But boy was this a doozy.

The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time until the system reaches equilibrium. In layman’s terms, everything tends towards chaos.

As we mentioned earlier today, Los Angeles native Baron Davis is headed home and he's bringing his beard and 21 points per game with him. The former Crossroads School and UCLA standout came to a verbal agreement with the LA's other team, making the Clippers suddenly relevant and a playoff contender. Baron credits the community for his decision telling ESPN, "I'm happy with where I'm going. A big reason is because of the impact and the things that I can do going forward. I knew I could have done them here and created all kinds of good things and positive things in the community, and ultimately, me going home helps me make an impact on young kids." Elton Brand, who opted out Monday is expected to re-sign with the Clips for a hometown discount. Baron and Brand! Clipper Nation hasn't been this excited since the Red, White and Blue marched all the way into the second round of the playoffs in 2006.

Former Golden State Warrior's guard Baron Davis is now a Clipper. According to ESPN.com, Davis has agreed verbally to a five-year $65 million deal. The Clippers are now expected to re-sign forward Elton Brand who opted out of the final year of his contract last night.

Houston Astros defeat LA Dodgers 4-1. The Dodgers return to National League play and promptly continue their offensive futility. With Juan Pierre on the disabled list for the first time in his nine-year career, the Dodgers called up Jason Repko from the minors hit lead off. He struck out four times. The rest of the team managed 11 hits but couldn't do anything with those hits. Meanwhile Eric Stults coming off of his complete game shutout of the Chicago White Sox got bit by the Astros. The Puma Lance Berkman went yard in the first inning with a solo shot.

A trio of hopeful NBA stars who played their college year(s) in Los Angeles were drafted #3, #4, and #5 in the NBA draft tonight.

This has been a very difficult post to write. The completely embarrassing game six that ended the Laker’s season was just very hard to stomach and left a lot of questions.