There was a wild one late last night in Los Angeles. Check out the highlights:
The loss puts the Suns at 35-34, three games behind Memphis for the #8 seed in the West, but they’re just two games behind the Grizzlies in the loss column. Unfortunately, the Suns don’t face the Grizzlies down the stretch, so it will be tough to catch them. It looks like Steve Nash and Co. will miss the playoffs this year.
This is in the running for Dunk of the Year, but the Heat lost to the Thunder, so Perkins gets the last laugh.
It’s nice to have a franchise point guard, isn’t it?
A few weeks ago, longtime NCAA Tournament announcer Billy Packer sounded off about the plans by CBS to cover the 2011 tournament on four networks: CBS, TNT, TBS and TruTV.
ESPN would be better, he says, partly because it has announcers doing college games all season. He likens using NBA announcers to when he used to turn down requests to work NBA action by saying, ” ‘I’m not qualified, it’s a different sport.’ ” This, he says, is like CBS’ Verne Lundquist calling SEC football all year “and then having somebody who just did the pros come in to call the SEC title game.”
But with CBS’ old regionalized coverage now gone, isn’t it good for viewers who want to see a specific NCAA game to not have to worry about missing it because they’re in the wrong local TV market? “What percentage of the total audience does that represent,” says Packer. “Has all this been changed for the .01% of viewers who really want a specific game?”
And viewers, warns Packer, will miss the old system of being switched to the hottest action. Recalling working regional sites where “none of the games were really good,” he says the old way “enabled the product to never have to show them (widely) by going to exciting buzzer-beaters instead.”
One of those “NBA announcers” Packer refers to is Charles Barkley, who didn’t take the criticism very well:
I’m picturing Packer sitting on his porch in an 80s-era jogging suit, nursing a watered down iced tea and every so often yelling at the neighborhood kids to get off his lawn. He was grumpy 10 years ago, can you imagine how grumpy he is now?
I don’t know if CBS plans to bounce around to the best action on the main CBS feed, but I like the fact that I can switch to any of the four games on the four different channels, so I guess I’m in Packer’s .01% of viewers who want to be able to watch whichever game they want. I’m not exactly sure where he got that number — it sounds like he pulled it out of someplace very, very dark — but clearly the guy is old school, so he’s used to the days when a program director decided which game the audience would see instead of giving the audience that choice.
I would like to see CBS start with a game but then go to better action if the game gets out of hand. This would appease those viewers who don’t want to flip around on their own, while the rest of us would still have the option of watching whichever game we wanted.
As for Charles Barkley providing commentary for NCAA action — I don’t have a problem with it. Sure, he’s not going to be as educated as a Seth Davis or Clark Kellogg, but those guys will be providing their own commentary as well. Barkley is nothing if not entertaining, and he can bring a ton of levity to what otherwise has been a pretty humorless production.
I know, I know…when doesn’t Kobe think he was fouled? (ESPN)
“[Dwyane] Wade fouled the s— out of me,” Bryant said with his feet dipped in a bucket of ice water after the game. Bryant was referring to the 3-pointer he attempted with 1:06 left and the Lakers down 90-88.
“It was clearly evident,” Bryant said. “They missed it. … He fouled the hell out of me, they just missed it.”
“I couldn’t make that, he hit my whole arm,” said Bryant, who had made his previous two 3-point attempts at the time, including a long 28-footer to tie the score at 88. “That’s why I went so short. … I should have been shooting three free throws.”
Even with all of his other personality quirks, the thing that most drives me nuts about Kobe is his constant interaction with the officials. Nine times out of 10 if he loses the ball or misses a shot, he’ll have something to say or a nasty look for the ref. It’s almost as if he thinks he’s too good to fail on any particular possession without the defender doing something illegal to stop him.
The league has tried to cut down on all of the griping this season by implementing new “respect the game” rules for technicals, and for the most part I think it has worked. But Kobe is still Kobe and these comments prove that.
Maybe I’m being too nostalgic, but I don’t remember Michael Jordan or Larry Bird constantly complaining to (or about) the officials.
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