Category: NBA (Page 386 of 595)

      Couch Potato Alert: 1/16

      January 16, 2009 /

      Big weekend of sports kicks…um…tips off tonight with a great NBA doubleheader on ESPN. The league’s top four MVP candidates — LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Chris Paul and Dwight Howard — will all be in action. Saturday is a huge day in college basketball with no fewer than five top 25 matchups featuring nine of the top 15 teams in the country. Of course, Sunday features a pair of NFL Championship Games.

      Oh, there are a couple of hockey games on too…

      All times ET…

      NFL
      Sun, 3 PM: Eagles @ Cardinals (FOX)
      Sun, 6:30 PM: Ravens @ Steelers (CBS)

      College Hoops
      Sat, 12 PM: #13 Notre Dame @ #8 Syracuse (ESPN)
      Sat, 1:30 PM: #12 Georgetown @ #2 Duke (CBS)
      Sat, 3:30 PM: #3 Wake Forest @ #9 Clemson (ABC)
      Sat, 3:45 PM: #15 Arizona St. @ #7 UCLA (CBS)
      Sat, 6 PM: #1 Pittsburgh @ #20 Louisville (ESPN)

      NBA
      Fri, 8 PM: Hornets @ Cavs (ESPN)
      Fri, 10:30 PM: Magic @ Lakers (ESPN)

      NHL
      Fri, 9:30 PM: Oilers @ Avalanche (TSN)
      Sat, 10 PM: Coyotes @ Flames (CBC)
      Sun, 12:30 PM: Rangers @ Penguins (NBC)

      College Basketball, Couch Potato Alert, NBA, NFL, NHL, Television

      Video of J.R. Smith’s elbow — should he be fined and/or suspended?

      January 16, 2009 /

      You may have heard about Mark Cuban’s decision to confront Denver Nuggets G/F J.R. Smith after Smith threw an elbow at Mavs guard Antoine Wright.

      The league has reviewed Smith’s elbow and decided that no action is necessary, but Cuban may still be punished. Here’s the video of the elbow — do you think it warrants a fine and/or suspension?

      Keep in mind that the commentator here is a Nuggets fan, so he probably has his Denver goggles on. I don’t think that the elbow was meant as a warning. I think he tried to hit Wright in the face/throat after Wright got a shove in on Smith’s neck. Wright’s shove occurred when Smith tried to get to the glass and the shot was in the air. Smith threw his elbow after the ball went through the hoop.

      I think Smith deserves some sort of punishment. Had his elbow connected with Wright’s throat, serious damage should be done.

      This doesn’t give Cuban the right to confront an opposing team’s player. He should act like an adult and file a grievance with the league.

      On a more humorous note, after the game, Smith apparently sent a signed pair of shoes to the Mavs’ locker room as a present for Cuban. It didn’t go over well with the Bratty Billionaire.

      NBA, Video

      Yao says that things are fine with McGrady

      January 16, 2009 /

      Yesterday, we posted a rumor (from “a source close to the situation”) that Yao Ming was tired of Tracy McGrady’s injury issues.

      Yao said, however, that a report of locker-room discord to the point that he and Tracy McGrady do not speak and that he wants McGrady off the team are not true.

      Responding to an NBA.com story that he and McGrady are not on speaking terms and that he wants McGrady out, Yao said the report is not accurate.

      “I’m upset,” he said, “(that) this news is fake.”

      That McGrady and Yao still talk, even beyond the conversations necessary as teammates, is not news. They can often be seen conversing on the practice court, in the locker room and on the road.

      Well, I’m glad that’s settled.

      Fantasy Basketball, NBA, NBA Finals, Rumors & Gossip

      Yao getting frustrated with T-Mac?

      January 15, 2009 /

      On Tuesday, we discovered that the Rockets organization was getting tired of T-Mac’s act, and now there’s a rumor that Yao Ming is growing weary of it as well.

      According to a source close to the situation, Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady are no longer speaking with each other off the court. Ming is apparently so fed up with McGrady’s chronic injuries that he told the officials in Houston to get him out of the organization.

      Another source also revealed that Yao’s frustration is real. And Yao is not the only person that is grown tired of McGrady’s self-diagnosis, his up-to-the-last-minute decisions on whether he will play or not.

      If true, this could deal a serious blow to the Rockets’ 2009 title hopes. If a team doesn’t have chemistry between its stars, it’s unlikely that it will survive the gauntlet that is the NBA postseason. It’s a little funny that Yao is frustrated with T-Mac’s injuries when the big man has been injured several times himself. However, Yao’s injuries have typically been fractures and of the season-ending variety, not this nebulous, self-diagnosis stuff that McGrady has been experiencing with his knee.

      Unless they have some serious success in the playoffs, the Rocket will face a crossroads this offseason. They’re currently building around two injury-prone players. T-Mac has another year left on his contract, so he may be tradeable as his deal expires before the now-infamous summer of 2010. Still, his giant salary ($23.2 million) is a doozy, and it’s possible that the Rockets would rather let his deal expire than to take on all that salary in return. Yao is 28 (assuming his Chinese birth certificate is legit) and he has two more years left on his deal. The team’s third best player — Ron Artest — will be a free agent after the season.

      If the Rockets don’t make a run, we could see a very different lineup at the start of the 2009-10 season.

      Fantasy Basketball, NBA, NBA Finals, Rumors & Gossip

      Digging into home field advantage

      January 15, 2009 /

      In the Jan. 12 issue of ESPN the Magazine, Peter Keating breaks down a number of different reasons why teams enjoy an advantage at home. The entire article is worth a read (though you’ll have to buy a copy since the article isn’t available online), but the part that jumped out at me was a study that was done on soccer officials back in 2007.

      In every major pro sport over the past five years, home teams have benefited from a differential in calls made by the officials. Before you send irate e-mails to David Stern or Roger Goodell about zebras on the take, know this: Researchers say it’s likely that officials are subconsciously channeling fans’ preferences. “Referees get a lot of abuse, and as far as crowds are concerned, the only good decisions they make are those that help the home team,” says Paul Ward, a cognitive psychologist at Florida State. “If you’re looking for a way to deal with the stress of quick decisionmaking, favoring the home team is a way to reduce anxiety”

      To test this hypothesis, Ward and his colleagues strapped a group of soccer refs, coaches and players to EKGs and asked them to call videotaped games. Half watched games with crowd noise, the other half without. The results, published in 2007, showed that the participants subjected to crowd noise reported more mental anxiety–and called 21% fewer fouls on the home team.

      Bingo! This is why the intensity of crowds generates an advantage for home athletes. More fan frenzy equals more ref anxiety.

      It makes sense that if an official is calling a game in front of a packed house of 20,000 screaming fans, that it’s not unlikely that the ref will eventually bend to the fans’ will. They may have every good intention of calling the game right down the line, but it’s human nature to try to reduce your own stress, and the easiest way to do that is to make the people around you happy.

      So if you’re ever at a game and wondering if it’s worth the effort to stand up and cheer (or boo your fool head off), now you have your answer.

      College Basketball, College Football, General Sports, March Madness, MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, Soccer

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