SB Nation User Blog: tomasito

NYT Article about Linas Kleiza's Parents

tomasito — Tue, 05 May 2009 16:48:36 -0000

NYT Article about Linas Kleiza's Parents

Interesting reading--Linas Kleiza's parents are both professional artists. Kleiza's a guy I would like to see on the Spurs, but would probably be too expensive.

A New Hope?

tomasito — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 15:06:07 -0000

You know, after the initial shock and depression has worn off, the thought occurred to me that we hung with the Lakers last year without a healthy Manu. I don't know that I'd say we should have beaten them, but we certainly could have: we should have held on in Game 1, and possibly Game 5, even without Manu. Manu's random threes were a big factor in the Game 3 win, but it's not hard to imagine RMJ or Bon-Bon having an unusually hot shooting night (ok, it is hard to imagine Bonner doing that, but he did do that against the Celtics in Boston).

In fact, given how much Manu was hurting, he might have been hurting the team by playing for several reasons:

1. The guys would subconsciously be relying on him, and would grow discouraged when he couldn't dominate scrubs like Vujacic.

2. He was keeping a healthier player off the court. Last year, that probably meant fewer minutes for Brent Barry, and this year that would be RMJ or Hill.It might even mean more minutes for KT and Drew Gooden, given Pop's affinity for Tinyball (because lack of quality smalls means he'll be forced to play a bigger lineup, or, fingers crossed, more JV!).

3. Tony didn't have the total green light to shoot whenever he felt like it. You can see that Manu's touches have been negatively affecting Tony this year. Tony plays much better when he decides that he has to score a ton of points himself, like against Atlanta this year.

What eez eet zat you say, Pop? You want me to score more? Zat eez what Eva said! Ha ha!
Seriously, I have one word for you: OK! Maybe zat was two words? Oh well, you get zee point...

So, do the Spurs have a chance without Manu? The team has better wing players and better big men than last year, which, as I mentioned, played the Lakers very close. Tony is now capable of scoring 30+ any given night, which was not the case last year. They now have another big man who can score in Drew Gooden, and who could be called upon to guard Gasol or even Odom, which would help prevent us from being pasted on the offensive glass. KT seems to be in better shape, is more acclimated to the team, and is playing much better than last year.

On the down side, TD is obviously hurting, and probably won't be himself for the remainder of the year. It is possible that he's not going all out right now, though, but will suck it up and really play hard when the POs start. There is some precedent for this hope: his plantar fasciitis had him hobbling against the Mavs in 2006, then he dropped 40 on them in game 7 (the hidden reason Dallas won: Keith Van Horn coming out of nowhere to hit 3 threes after having been inactive for weeks).

Lastly, the Lakers have Andrew Bynum coming back. There is at least a chance that his return will mess with their mojo, the same way Manu's return seemed to discombobulate the Spurs for the last few weeks. They're obviously a better team in the long run with Bynum, but if you caught them in the adjustment period? You could imagine a scenario where Pau or Odom played very passively and deferentially in a loss with Bynum back. Then, the Lakers bench Bynum, but Odom doesn't come through again, leading to a full-blown ESPN melodrama, where the topic is beaten to death on PTI, Around the Horn, Mike & Mike, etc.

ESPN likes melodramas...

Odom goes into the tank for the rest of the series, Kobe decides that he and he alone must take every shot, because his teammates are a bunch of bozos...

Far-fetched? Yes, and no. I'm not at all saying I think the Spurs have a 50-50 shot at winning a title. I guess I'd peg the odds at something like 5% that all that would come to pass (and John Hollinger would probably agree). That 5% chance will keep me tuned in to the playoffs this year. Who's with me?

I'm drawing a line in the sand. Cross the line, you get to die defending the Alamo from 4000 Mexicans, but on the plus side, you could be portrayed by John Wayne in a movie 100 years from now. Who's John Wayne? He's an actor who pretends to be a cowboy. Trust me, he'll be huge. It'll be awesome. Who's with me?

Pounding the Rock Road Trip Recap

tomasito — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 21:36:36 -0000

After last night's horrendous loss, I thought it appropriate to reflect on happier times... when you could leave your front door unlocked, not worry about drugs and gangs in school, and especially not worry about the Spurs losing to the : : Thunder : : .

I'm talking about a time two weeks ago, when a fellowship of a few brave, hardy souls took their mojo on the road to the AT&T Center, to watch the Spurs confront the gathering storm... of Wizards!

So, I'll start at the top. ATS and Powell offered me a ride to the game. They were leaving at noon and heading to a local watering hole. At first, I declined, because, you've seen ATS's avatar, right? I figured ATS would be like Begbie from Trainspotting, and would get drunk and start brawls just for fun.

ScotlandTechSpur

Then he'd get thrown in jail, and how would I get home? But then, I thought, what if he gets mad at me for turning down his generous offer, and comes by my office and beats me up? My office building is pretty dreary, in a gritty industrial part of town--a wasteland of parts counters, tile showrooms, and state agencies. It's like something out of Reservoir Dogs, so a parking lot confrontation seemed like a plausible scenario. I couldn't win. As it turned out, though, I had to work until about 3, so I was forced to decline.

My dreary office where I thought I would receive a beatdown

I let ATS know, and fortunately, he didn't beat me up. I told them I would meet them at Rosario's at about 4:30. Which I did, almost on the dot. I showed up wearing my shiny Spurs warmup tearoff pants (I can tell through the computer how jealous you all are) and 99 Champions T-shirt. So I walk into the restaurant, and I look and see Powell sitting down at a table with ATS, SiMA, and Bones.

I wave at Powell, and he looks right at me and... looks away. No wave, no sign of recognition, no nothing. Now, bear in mind a couple of facts:

1. I'm 6'4" and waving at him, so it's not like he didn't see me. Plus, I posted my photo on Hipuks' illusion crushing thread, so he knew more or less what I looked like.

2. I am decked out in Spurs gear. Granted, it's a game day, so other people are too, but remember...

3. He knew that someone from the site would be meeting them at 4:30, and...

4. He still ignored me!

I will not be ignored!

So Powell's a jerk. I may have to boil his rabbit. Anyways, I sit down, and greet ATS and Powell, SiMA (ATS and Powell picked him up from the airport), and Bones, who was also in town.

Shocking how much we resemble our avatars

I ordered a margarita, in order to fit in, because drinking alcohol is a good way to look cool in front of people you don't know well. The waiter brought the margarita, and it's like a fishbowl on a lampstand. It was like a Super Big Gulp, mixed with everclear and tequila. So naturally, I made a super big good impression on my new friends. "Wow, you're cool," they all said.

After putting away a Hipuks' fishtank's worth of margaritas, the PtR crew (now including Bones' wife, Mrs. Bones) journeyed to the fabled AT&T Center. ATS and I drove together in my totally badass VW New Beetle. We walked in from the parking lot to the building, then walked halfway around the concourse before asking an usher where we needed to go. He directed us to an elevator, which we took up to the Terrace Suite level.

Now, I didn't know that ATS had scored Suite tickets from a friend of a friend, and I'm feeling like a big baller. Then we hand our enormous tickets to the usher, who laughs at us and tells us that our suite is on the other side of the building. Like modern-day Magellans, we complete our circumnavigation of the AT&T Center.

Soooo... we arrive at our suite. Did I mention that we were in a suite? If anyone's seen the Andy Samberg "I'm on a Boat" video with T-Payne, that's our PtR crew. Except for Bones and Mrs. Bones, who had totally lame tickets (lame = not in a suite).

Everybody look at me, 'cause I'm sitting in a suite! Take a good hard look at the m11g suite!

As for the game, well, the Wizards were not as fearsome as I had feared. At Rosario's, I asked Powell and SiMA, in all seriousness, "who plays for the Wizards?" We were able to come up Caron Butler, Deshawn Stevenson, Antawn Jamison, and Gilbert Arenas. ::One:: of those guys played.

We thought we'd have the suite to ourselves, but some oldsters showed up midway through the first quarter. We thought we'd strike up friendly conversation with them, so we were all "Hi, how's it going?" They were all "..." We were all, "okay, back to watching the game." Maybe they were Powell's relatives.

Findog came out stroking J's, and I was about to jump up and point in Powell's face and yell "Findog!", but then Fin kept missing when I was all prepared to do that. A shame. Jamison scored some. TD looked like he didn't want to be there, and I think he intentionally got into foul trouble to make SiMA mad about flying halfway across the country to miss Manu and see TD for 15 listless minutes. Then Tony scored like 38 consecutive points in the third quarter, Fab dunked (who needs Pops Monster-Jamsu?), and we won going away.SiMA was stoked because they had Shiner Black on tap. A good time was had by all, except Powell, who was upset at the scantily clad Silverdancers shaking their moneymakers, objectifying themselves for all to see.

Maybe we should have saved some Mojo for the Thundercats...

I gave SiMA a ride back to his hotel, where apparently he, Powell, ATS, Bones, and Mrs. Bones had a night to remember. I don't think I want to know. Then, I drove the long lonely road back to Austin, feeling fortunate to have survived the inaugural PtR road trip.

I originally forgot to post this pic--The PtR gang with 4 of our best friends. Suck it, Mavs!

Rasheed Wallace to the Spurs?

tomasito — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 17:01:47 -0000

There I was, minding my own business not working at work, browsing ESPN's site, when I came across this article:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=stein_marc&page=tradetalk-090205

Basically, it says that Rasheed Wallace is interested in becoming a Spur as a free agent in the offseason. I don't know what to think of this. It reminds me of when there was some talk that Karl Malone might come out of retirement to join the Spurs. On one hand, he's one of my least favorite players in the league. On the other hand, Rasheed is EXACTLY what the Spurs need on the court:

1. He can stretch the floor and shoot threes to open it up inside for Timmy, Manu, and Tony;

2. He could score in the post himself when Timmy sits;

3. He could guard bigs like Bynum or Boozer AND athletic fours like Pau, West, Stoudemire, Dirk, etc.

4. He wouldn't care if the big three took all the shots; in fact, the knock on him (as a player) has always been that he's too willing to defer. That wouldn't be an issue on the Spurs.

Could Pop and the San Antonio environment control his on-court outbursts? Would this be a Randy Moss in New England type of situation? Discuss...

Irrefutable Proof that LatinD, Chilai et al were lying to us

tomasito — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 00:12:52 -0000

I searched high and low through the archives of Googledom. One time, I even clicked the strange and mysterious "view source" option in my browser. Only after much seeking did I find the proof I was looking for...

It turns out that apparently Menudo is indeed from Argentina. You may recognize the fellow in the top left as future Argentine president Ricky Martin, with his best friends and bandmates, all of whom went on to star for the National Team.

The Luke Ridnour Power Hour: Spurs vs. Bucks recap

tomasito — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 01:18:58 -0000

I'm not happy. My wife is sick, and I'm coming down with the same illness. Is there anything worse than knowing you'll be incapacitated within 48 hours? The answer is, of course, yes, there are worse things, but it still is pretty sucky. One thing that is worse would be to have wasted several hours of one's life watching the Spurs' dreadful performance Tuesday night.

I was picking up some pizza from Austin's Pizza during the first quarter, so I listened in on Bill Schoening's call on WOAI. Before the game, he was all "The Spurs got outrebounded by ten in the loss in Milwaukee, that's one thing Pop says they really need to improve." I guess he and Pop read PtR, 'cause they totally ripped that insight off from our very own LatinD. Anyways, the Spurs come out, and they're giving up offensive boards, and Andrew Frickin' Bogut is dunking all over us.

They messed up my pizza order as well, which should have clued me in that I was in for a bad night. Although it's really a blessing in disguise, because you call in and act all put out and you get a free pizza in addition to the messed up pizza. That is, provided the messed up pizza is worth the tip that you feel obligated to give the deliverer of the make-good pizza. And as it turned out, the messed up pizza was pretty yucky--just cheese and barbecue sauce. I'm not sure I would have paid $2 for it. Is that a metaphor for the Spurs performance--possibly a blessing in disguise, but so sucky that there is no silver lining?

Anyways, I get the sense that the Spurs get this attitude sometimes, especially with teams like the Bucks, where they think "yeah, whatever, I let him get an easy dunk. No big deal, we're still better than they are." And they are, but if you spot a team 10 points in the first five minutes, you effectively have to defeat them by more than that in a 43 minute game, which is a tall order.

In the second half, the Spurs got their house in order and started playing a lot better, but then the Bucks, particularly Luke Ridnour, were shooting lights out. The Bucks' commentators kept making insightful comments such as "the team looks a lot better when the ball's going in the basket." Thanks, guys. I was waiting for them to tell me that "The Bucks' need to score at least one more point than the Spurs in order to win this game." Michael Finley was keeping us in it, but that's fool's gold. When Finley is playing well, that's usually because NO ONE ELSE is, and that was certainly the case in this one.

Towards the end of the fourth, the Spurs played OK, but the Bucks hit some timely shots (and some crazy prayers), and were up five with under a minute. In the course of getting there, there were a few sequences where Manu lost his man after a loose ball scramble, and of course that guy reappeared under the basket for a layup. My point is not that Manu is a bad person or a bad player who takes stupid gambles; rather, it is that the whole team is just a little off right now. Usually, Manu's freelancing leads to steals or deflections. In this game, he was constantly a split second late.

Then the game looked over, but the Bucks forgot we have the most awesome player in the universe in the last minute of a game, the Honourable Romaju (Roger Mason Junior). He hit an absolutely nutty fallaway three pointer to cut the lead to two with about ten seconds left. Best case, they inbound the ball, waste a few seconds, then miss one free throw, leaving us a scant few seconds to get a three, right?

WRONG, they get an extremely quick five-second violation, meaning we're down two with the ball under the basket and ten seconds left. Usually Pop draws up magical plays in this situation, like that awesome one they used against Sacramento in the playoffs (and later against the Knicks in a regular season game) where Manu goes baseline and they set a weakside screen for a shooter against a defender who has invariably turned his head, allowing the shooter to cut to the corner for an uncontested three.

So what does Pop do here? The play they ran was extremely reminiscent of the inbounds play my 8th grade team used to run, starting with a stack at the free throw line, culminating in random screening and running around. It looked a lot like the Smurf village when Gargamel and/or Asrael showed up.

Tim Duncan ended up with the ball about 17 feet from the basket. Duncan pump-faked the 17 footer. Honestly, it looked like he didn't want to take the shot. That brings up the question: is Timmy is a clutch player? He hit that one against the Lakers in '99, and of course the three ball against Phoenix last year, but I can think of a half-dozen similar instances where he missed bunnies (against Detroit in the Robert Horry game, against Dallas in game 7, etc.) that would have given the Spurs a win. I don't know the answer; he often brings it throughout high-pressure games (his near quadruple double against NJ, his 48 point game against Dallas), but his record in last-possession situations is somewhat spotty.

In any case, I would submit that I'd much rather that Roger Mason Jr. or Manu had had the ball to end the game. The Bucks are a crappy enough team that a simple pick and roll with TD probably would have produced an open shot, the way that it did when RMJ hit that three against the Clips this year.

Anyways, he made his timid (no pun intended) pump fake, but fortunately for him Andrew Bogut stupidly closed out on him too eagerly and went right by him. Honestly, Andrew, you would chase TD off an outside J to give up the drive? If Foster's is Australian for beer, than move was Australian for "poor judgment." TD then drove to the basket and threw up a layup moving at about a million miles per hour (that's about 1.6 million kilometers per hour for you international PtR followers). He missed, and Gino was there for a tip-in, but again, he was just a little off. And once again, the Spurs fell to the mighty Bucks.

What does this game say about the Spurs? Are they real contenders? Are they pretenders? Are they just waiting for the real season to begin five months from now? Honestly, I don't think they are on the Celtics or Lakers level right now. Unless something unexpected comes to pass (an injury, the Lakers trading us Pau Gasol for Jacque Vaughn, Mahinmi emerging as a force), I can't see us competing with one of those teams.

Without further ado, your three stars

1. Michael Finley

Oklahoma City Thunder Recap

tomasito — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 12:06:31 -0000

I don't think anyone signed up for this one, and for once I actually saw the game, so I thought I'd write it up. Any objections? I didn't hear any, sitting alone in my underwear in front of my computer at 6 a.m., though honestly it would be pretty creepy if someone did manage to object. Besides, I WILL PUT YOU IN THE GROUND if you object.

So the Spurs came out, and they played like gods amongst mortal men. If they had traveled back in time 5000 years and indigenous peoples had witnessed them play this way, they would have immediately begun to build pyramids and temples in their honor. Instead of hieroglyphs, or petroglyphs, we would have Spuroglyphs. Instead of worshipping feathered serpents, they would worship a mighty bearded serpent as their god of wisdom.

via neopsychedelic.files.wordpress.com

He is called "Popovichcoatlus"

Chief among the Spurs' awesomeness was former PtR member Matt Bonner. He hasn't posted much lately since he's busy actually playing in games, but I have it on good authority that he got totally pissed when I said that he wasn't an NBA quality player. He started crying and stuff, and curled up in his room and started to console himself by eating brownies and reading his favorite Archie and Jughead comics. In the back, he saw an ad that reminded him of all of us saying mean things about him:

via tonova.typepad.com

And so he was like dude, what's Charles Atlas' secret? I got to get me some of that. So it arrived, and he took some, and it increased his awesomeness, but it had the side effect of making him like 15 feet tall. He was like, what the f*ck, I got to get out of the house, because he kept bumping his head on the ceiling and stuff. But he accidentally left some of the Atlas secret stuff out, and his wife took some, and she grew to be like 12 feet tall. Things were totally f*cked up at the Bonner household.

via 64.13.133.31

So his wife comes out of the house, and they're standing there, a couple of f*cking giants in the backyard, and they're like, WTF are we going to do? But then Matty has a genius idea and phones up his best friend Chuck Norris. If anyone knows what to do, it'll be Chuck Norris.

So Chuck Norris comes over and coolly assesses the situation like the bad ass motherf*cker that he is. And he's like, I know, I'll roundhouse kick you guys back to the right height (Chuck Norris's solutions ALWAYS involve roundhouse kicks). So he does, and Matty's right back down to 6'10". But the thing is, he still has all the awesomeness of a 15 foot tall Matt Bonner, which, granted, isn't as much awesomeness as a 6'11" Tim Duncan or a 6'6" Manu Ginobili, but it's still pretty f#cking awesome.

So he shows up at the game, and he's grabbing rebounds and knocking down three balls and Pop strokes his beard, takes a sip of ATS's wine using only the awesome power of his mind, and thinks "What happened to Matt Bonner? How did he get so f*cking awesome?" But he accidentally uses the mental channel that he usually uses to telepathically broadcast kick-ass plays to the team, and Bonner hears him, and smiles to Chuck Norris (watching the game on his huge HDTV in the den of his round house) and thinks "that'll be our little secret."

Then the second quarter started, and the Spurs were so far ahead that Pop thought he might get Ian Mahinmi into the game. But Mahinmi had been out late the night before with Tony eating croissants, wearing berets, not bathing, and surrendering to Germans (you know, typical French stuff), and he hadn't studied the playbook and didn't know what the f&ck was going on.

For Tony it didn't matter, 'cause as far as he's concerned there's only one play, and it goes "i dreeble zee ball up zee court, tres vite, and zen I drive at zee basket and throw zee ball off zee glass, zen fall down under zee basket while yelling "hey" in my funny french accent. Sometimes I meess zee layup and my man scores while I am laying on zee ground. Sometimes a funny homme avec un spotte balde asks for zee ball, and I am like, who eez zees man? I do not pass him zee ball, non, because I think eet may be a treeck."

But for Mahinmi it does matter, and he doesn't know a single damn play. You know that one play the Spurs run, where the guard passes to Timmy in the post, and then cuts right next to Tim, and you think there's going to be a handoff and the guard is going to finish with an awesome dunk, but there NEVER EVER is a handoff, and the guard just runs to the opposite corner, leaving you feeling strangely unfulfilled? Like when you're a kid and you're watching the windshield wipers, and they just won't get those little triangles in the corner, and you're like "come on wipers!" Well anyways, Mahinmi DOESN'T EVEN KNOW THAT PLAY.

via static.panoramio.com

I believe that play is called "Four Down"

So he convinces everyone to cover his ass and play super crappy defense so he doesn't have to play. And they do, and the Thunder make a run. It never feels like they're going to catch up, because their best player is Kevin Durant, and he totally sucks. I mean, he may be the 15th worst player in basketball (numbers 14 through 1 being the rest of the players on the Thunder's roster). I think every rookie in the NBA this year is at least six times better, some as much as ten or eleven times better (George Hill is nine times better). But out of nowhere "Jeff Green" (I think that might be an alias for Roger Mason Jr., who Pop told to switch teams just for this game to try to make it more competitive) is throwing in crazy shots as well, and they eventually cut it to four with under a minute to go.

So then they foul Manu intentionally, and he misses BOTH FREE THROWS. The only possible explanation is that he was told by acting president Barack Obama that it was in national security interests to miss the FTs. Really B.O. was just messing with Gino, but the sarcasm gets lost in translation due to the language barrier, so Gino goes ahead and misses them, then the totally sucky Kevin Durant makes another sucky basket, with his sucky left hand, to cut the lead to two.

via weblogs.newsday.com

Obama's Transition Team

Then Obama's like Manu, I'm bombing Argentina unless you pull your head out of your ass and make some free throws. And Manu is like "but you told me to miss the last two!" And Obama's like "I was kidding," and Manu is like "You didn't seem like you were kidding." But then they make up and Obama appoints Manu the special envoy of making and-1s with under 30 seconds to go. Manu confirms the appointment by making an and-1 with under 30 seconds to go.

I must point out made SiMA very angry for no good reason; he claimed Manu should have just dribbled around instead of making a layup and a free throw. One can only surmise that he was offended by Manu's newfound political associations. What did you expect? He's an atheist, and he's always going LEFT.

So then the Spurs were up 5, at which point Jeff Green threw up a heavily contested three that ricocheted off the glass into the waiting arms of the Spurs. They passed to Findog, who held the ball for the last 15 seconds of the game. I remember Findog trying to run out the clock that way one time, but the ball got stolen from him. It was pretty embarrassing.

Anyways, your three stars:

3. Matt Bonner (17 and 8--that's what we're talking about!)

2. Tony Parker

1. Franchise Duncan

Honorable mention to the JV for keeping his suckiness on the bench, and to Manu for putting the final nail in the coffin.

Mark Cuban charged with Insider Trading!

tomasito — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:25:31 -0000

No, this is not a joke of the "Keith Van Horn for Jason Kidd" variety. Mark Cuban was actually charged with insider trading by the SEC. The last celebrity I can recall getting an insider trading charge was Martha Stewart, and that didn't work out so well for her. Imagine how AWESOME it would be if Cubes went to jail. If Dirk Nowitzki were here, he might describe my reaction to this development as "schadenfreude" (a German word meaning "satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else's misfortune"). Man, I really loathe this guy.

If you were a billionaire facing jail time, would you try to skip the country? I sure would.

Here's the link, so you guys don't think I'm making this up:

http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=529822&catid=2

U-S-A! U-S-A!

tomasito — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 19:19:35 -0000

The stars aligned for a Spanish upset today. All the ingredients were in place: Spain brought their A+++++ game today. Kobe and Lebron were in foul trouble. Jason Kidd didn't get lost on the way to the gym and was inexplicably given lots of playing time. Spain shot great from 3 as a team, Rudy Fernandez played the game of his life, including a big dunk on Dwight Howard. Juan Carlos Navarro made some very difficult runners. Unfrozen Caveman Basketball Player Marc Gasol pounded the boards and scored inside. Pau scored inside until crunch time, at which point he was thrown off by minimal contact and pouted to the referees.

Unfortunately for Spain, Team USA brought like a B+ game today, and no other national team can beat Team USA playing at that level. They shot pretty well from three, but not great. Their frontcourt had some issues with Spain's size, but that was offset by Team USA's wings (Wade, Lebron) using their athleticism and compact strength to pound the boards.

There were some stretches where Team USA struggled, but in the first half Dwyane Wade carried the offense, and though I hate to say it, Chucker Kobe bailed them out in the fourth from about the 8-minute mark down to about the 2 minute mark.

Some observations from the game:

Crucial Stretch for Team USA:

Spain had just hit a three to pull within 2. Kobe takes the ball and drives the lane, absorbs some contact, and hits a leaner from just inside the foul line on the way down. It's the kind of shot we are accustomed to seeing from Manu. Lead back to four, and Team USA gets a defensive stop, then Kobe drives and dishes to an open Deron Williams, who drills a three. Next time down, Kobe hits a three.

Crisis averted, lead extended. That was Spain's moment. If Kobe misses there, and Spain hits a three to take the lead, I think it would have come down to the wire. Instead, the USA gets a lead they are able to maintain the rest of the game.

Nail in the Coffin:

At about the 2 minute mark, Juan Carlos Navarro drew a highly questionable foul on Kobe. He goes to the line and makes one of two FTs to cut it to 6. JCN misses the second, but Teen Sensation Ricky Rubio chases the rebound down and throws it off of Chris Paul to give the ball back to Spain. Spain then runs their offense, and Pau Gasol ends up with the ball at the top of the key and drives. Weak side help comes, and Pau's more handsome brother Mark makes an alert cut to the basket for a potential lay in or dunk.

Dwyane Wade is stuck in no man's land, as he doesn't want to come off Jimenez, who had just hit a three. Wade steps in front of Marc Gasol to prevent the easy dunk, and Pau Gasol dishes to an open Jimenez for three. Wade recovers quickly and hustles out to contest Jimenez's shot, but not before Jimenez gets a pretty clean look at the basket.

He misses, but the Gasol brothers are in good rebounding position. Lebron skies for a tough board in traffic, then gets raked by Rubio after he landed but holds on. That was it for Spain; they never threatened after that.

Spain's Jerseys

Some guys had their first names on their jerseys (Marc Gasol, Ricky Rubio, Rudy Fernandez). Some guys had their last names (Pau Gasol, Jimenez). One guy had his first initial and last name (F. Reyes). What gives? Is this the XFL? Can they just pick whatever they want? Was there a benchwarmer who had "el no me gustan" (translation: He Hate Me) on his jersey?

What We Learned in the Tournament

1. The Spurs' giving Scola away continues to mystify. I maintain that there has to be some behind-the-scenes reason, because I don't believe the answer is that Spurs' management is stupid. But what could it be? The best explanation seems to me to be that they liked Splitter better, and thought they could be cheap and not pay for both guys.

I also wish Nocioni played for us. During the regular season, I would follow the progress of Luol Deng and Tyrus Thomas, hoping they would make Nocioni expendable, at which point Manu would force RC to trade for him.

2. I'm always interested to see in All-Star games who the real All-Stars are and who is the second tier (like Michael Finley or Sean Elliott, back in the day). On this team, Lebron and Dwyane Wade separated themselves. I hadn't seen much of him in Toronto before the games, Chris Bosh looked like he belonged. Dwight Howard can dunk but doesn't do much else. Chris Paul looked like he belonged, but Deron Williams did not. Carmelo Anthony is a posturing poseur ass-clown. And Jason Kidd is totally done (nice trade, Dallas!).

3. Ricky Rubio's basketball IQ is off the charts. He reminds me of Gretzky or Larry Bird, in that he seems to see the game a step ahead of everyone else. He picked off some passes and made hustle plays (like his deflection off CP3 that gave Spain their last chance). He seemed to sense when a Team USA guard was waiting to pounce on a pass (the kind they were turning into breakaway dunks against everyone else), and use their aggressiveness against them to put his team in advantageous positions. Now if only he could learn to shoot.

4. Team USA is still the best basketball playing nation in the world, and if they play OK to pretty well, they beat everyone else. Period. However, the rest of the world has progressed to where an All-International team (say Nash or Tony Parker, Manu, Nowitzki, Yao, Pau Gasol) would play Team USA evenly.

Oh well, no basketball until preseason, at which point George Hill out of IUPOUOPPUUI will prove all you haters wrong, and Mahinmi will make us all forget about Luis... whatshisname. Or not.

You can watch the games live at NBC.com!

tomasito — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 03:31:10 -0000

http://www.nbcolympics.com/basketball/index.html

I was going to put this in a fanshot, but nobody reads those, and this is just too important to risk everyone not seeing it. I just found that out today.

In fact, you can watch pretty much any Olympic event you want live or in its entirety after its conclusion. I watched about 10 minutes of rousing Egypt-Netherlands (I think) team handball out of sheer stupefaction that it was available. Then I came to my senses and watched some beach volleyball highlights. Yup, I'm a shoo-in for employee of the month.

The first time I tried to watch it, it asked me for my zip code and cable provider; it said something like "NBC has a special deal with certain providers." I tried a couple of different ones before I got one it liked. If you get that question and your own address or provider doesn't work for you, try putting in 78704 and Time Warner Cable.