Are You F***ing S***ting Me, John Sterling?

From last nights game after the yankees tied the game: “Oh the gutty, gritty yankees!”

Firstly, it’s “gutsy”.

Secondly, the gritty YANKEES?  The Fucking Yankees are gritty now?  They have multiple hall of famers.  Their offense scored 915 runs this year.

I hope the Angels suicide squeeze on them all night.  Or hit weak ground balls to the shortstop that somehow get up the middle.  Seriously, check out that link if you have 15 seconds.  Anecdotally perfect.

Easily the best thing you’ll read today

CapitalSports has already documented just how awesome Redskins TE Chris Cooley is. His blog is the only pro athlete blog that I subscribe to. It’s not just because I live in DC and am a die-hard Redskins fan, either. His blog is one of the most incredibly entertaining* on the net, sports or otherwise. He’s such a personality.

For example, this account of his experience attending a high school lacrosse game and his thoughts on women’s lacrosse.  How could you read that and not smile the entire time?

 

*though it’s still a few notches behind We Talkin’ ‘Bout Practice

That old debate

If the team you root for is eliminated in the playoffs, do you root for or do you root against the team that eliminated you?

My theory is that you should root for the team that eliminated yours (if you even continue caring — I often don’t). If that team plays a closer match with your team than with any other opponents down the line, then you can argue that your team was the true runner-up.

The biggest exception to this rule is if the team that eliminates you is your team’s rival. If that’s the case, you obviously root for them to be eliminated as soon as possible. Thus, I hope the Penguins are absolutely squashed by the Red Wings. I ****ing hate the mother****ing piece of **** Penguins and hope Sidney Crosby doesn’t score a point all series.

Good shot, but seriously…

… How does Lebron only get 4 rebounds?  How does he get less than 8 rebounds ever?

It was an amazing and really cool shot, but he only had to make it because of his earlier mistakes (and a few teammates’ mistakes). Give Lebron credit for admitting he traveled with 30 seconds left– still about 2 steps less than this shot.  If he doesn’t turn the ball over 6 times, they probably cruise to a win.

Just wanted to put up a quick counterpoint to everyone who is gonna be lovin Lebron for the next 48 hours.  I mean, he ruined Hedo time!  That’s not allowed to happen.

And it’s still not the best playoff buzzerbeater hit in Cleveland…

Parker births baby girl. Aspiring women’s basketball infants everywhere weep, clamor for bottle.

A new generation of Candace is upon us, and somehow it took this blog, these six rabid Parker fans, five days to report it. Sorry, We Talkin’ ‘Bout Practice readers, all dozens of you.

No picture or name is available, but I’ve read a few places that the baby weighed 7 lbs. 6 oz. at birth with a height of 20 inches. No word on what colleges are at the top of baby Candace’s list, though analysts’ early predictions are that she’ll pick Tennessee when commitment day rolls around eighteen years from now.

Perhaps most incredible, Parker will probably not miss a day of the WNBA season. She continued working out through the night before the birth, and has said in interviews that she’ll get back to the gym and the Sparks’ recently-opened training camp as soon as her physician gives her the OK.

Here’s hoping that the reigning MVP is also a MVM (most valuable mom), too. Best wishes, Candace!

Is Caps-Pens a better series than Celtics-Bulls?

I don’t doubt for a second that Bulls-Celtics was one of the tightest, most thrilling playoff series in recent memory. Here are a few reasons why Caps-Pens might be just as or even more  incredible a series, as crazy as that sounds.

1. Celtics-Bulls lacked a true superstar. Lots of dazzling talent on both sides, but no Kobes or LeBrons. Of the players on the court with KG injured, you could probably only make a case for Paul Pierce being one of the top ten or fifteen stars in the league. Caps-Pens, on the other hand, has the top three leading points scorers in the game, and arguably the three best/most exciting players in the game. Each of the three — Ovie, Sid the Kid, and Malkin — has a shot to go down as the best of his era.
2. The Capitals and Penguins hate each other. The Caps hate the Pens because Pittsburgh seems to always win. It’s like Cowboys-Redskins in the nineties only not quite so horrific. The Caps both look forward to and dread match-ups with Steel City. The Penguins hate the Caps because of Alexander Ovechkin, who always picks on Pittsburgh stars Malkin and Crosby.  Both teams circle the games against the other on their calendars. The Cetlics and Bulls are historically important teams, but they’re not much of rivals.
3. Celtics-Bulls lacked a player-player rivalry as intense and interesting as Ovechkin-Crosby. The Great Eight is a trash-talking, physically dominating, jaw-dropping, acrobatic hockey player. He’s got more pure handling and shooting talent than Sidney Crosby, whom the city of Pittsburgh absolutely adores. Ovechkin, with his ugly mug and fractured smile, always pushes Crosby around and gets in Sid’s pretty little face. Crosby, on the other hand, has led his team further down the playoff road than Ovie has, and is a bit more popular and recognized, though Ovechkin is gaining ground. They have opposing styles: Crosby’s more of a passer and positioner. Classy and traditional. Ovechkin storms the net and slinks the puck around all sorts of defenders. Flashy and explosive.
4. It’s one thing to talk about how talented a player like Ovechkin supposedly is. It’s another thing for him to actually produce: His eleven points after five games had already tied a Caps postseason points record for a single series. With last night’s two-assist performance, he’s got the franchise record, and he’s got another game to push it even farther. 
5. You can’t make up something like Game 2 of Caps-Pens. Crosby and Ovechkin each score a hat trick but Washington’s Steckel gives the Caps a 4-3 edge. Its sheer, phenomenal star power made it almost as impressive a game as Bulls-Celtics Game 6.
6. The Caps-Pens series has been almost as close and back-and-forth as the Celtics-Bulls one was. Granted, we don’t have any triple overtimes, but we do have a shot to have as many games go to overtime as Boston and Chicago did. Every game except one has been a one-point edge or overtime game in the series. There have been late game twists and lead changes galore.
7. Hockey on TV has a lot of stuff going against it. It’s frustrating to try and follow the puck. The plain helmets and jerseys remove a lot of the personality of the game as you watch it. But it’s flukey, low-scoring games make for more tense sports entertainment, especially in the playoffs. Basketball is a sport won through consistency and damage control. The team that makes the fewest errors — and lets those errors affect score the least — will likely win the game. Hockey is all about making that one great or lucky shot. You never know when it’s going to come, which makes it all the more gripping from opening whistle to closing buzzer.

Whatsup from Swiz — and something fishy

Hey, Talkin’ ‘Bout Practice readers — this is Swiznit. I’ve been a longtime reader of this blog and I’ve been given the go-ahed to make some posts here in the near future. Feel free to contact me at any time at swiznit [at] gmail [dot] com.

I mostly wanted to say hi in this post, but I also wanted to point something fishy out:

In the past few days, two women’s basketball assistant coaches have stepped down at Virginia. One coach accredits a family emergeny to a difficult past year, but doesn’t directly say that’s why he’s leaving. The other coach doesn’t give any reason. Could something fishy be going on? Internal confict? Controversy? Why are both leaving so soon to each other? Coincidence? Did Debbie Ryan meet with AD recently?

I’m a little bit surprised they’re making big changes in the program like this. Most have viewed the past few years as pretty successful for the team, even if the sixth place finish and the blowout loss in the second round of the NCAA tournament this past season proved to be a disappointing end to a promising, thrilling season.

I’m busy sending e-mails to my sources to see what the buzz is. If any readers know anything or have any ideas, let me know in the comments or in an e-mail.

Looking forward to working on the blog. Cheers

I’m Out, Baby! I’m Out!

I’m not really liking having a personal blog, so I’m takin a break for a bit.  This is probably leaving on a low note, but whatever.

I might be back, who knows (or cares, am I right people?!).  Anyway I’m leavin up the blog to the other peoples, we’ll see if anyone wants to take over the heavy lifting.  Maybe Eagles can give us a live blog of cancercamp® or something.  A socal live blog of WNBA games from China?  Unlikely (probably clubbing too much).

Peace out.  It’s been real.

We Unethically Break News

Everyone who reads this blog regularly (just me) knows that we have mad connections and that we love to brag about them.  One of our connections came through for us yesterday, and we now have breaking news to report.

A student in the North Carolina area was talking to (or attempting to talk to) Gerald Henderson of Duke University’s men’s basketball team yesterday when Lance Thomas came by and yelled:

“He’s going to the NBA!!”

So there you have it folks, Gerald Henderson is going to the NBA.  As of right now all the major outlets have him as “probably going” or something like that.  Well, here we have him as definitely going because as I said before, we got madd connections.  Take that Jay Glazer.

And if this is kind of unethical because our connection kid wasn’t officially interviewing them, then our b.  This is a fricken blog.  I wouldn’t trust us enough to believe that we even know any students in any state anywhere.  We are pretty sketchy.  So there you go, don’t believe this report.  We aren’t reliable.

Quick Question

What exactly separates Ricky Rubio from Jason Williams?  Is it decision making?  Jason Williams averaged over 6 assists a game with about 2 turnovers.  Rubio has roughly the same amount of turnovers, but only had about 5 assists a game in his last European season (granted he’s extremely young). Everyone thinks Rubio is the next Pistol Pete, but didn’t we already have the next Pistol Pete?

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I am 100% excited that Rubio is entering the league.  Flashy point guards are awesome.  But even if a guy can do this, it doesn’t make him a world class point guard.  I’m not even really impressed with that move.  He had to slow down a lot to pull it off. Could he do this?

And for a version of the move Rubio did at full speed and 500 times as impressive go to 46 seconds, 1:09, 1:33, and other spots of this J-Will highlight reel.  Seriously, which guy has better moves?  Is it even close?

I guess my point is: I really hope Rubio can be like Jason Williams was, but I don’t know if I should get my hopes up.