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May 25, 2004
in defense..
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| reggie wouldve been better off takin a 3-ptr.. |
DISCLAIMER: this entry is almost ALL basketball, so proceed to go where only the superficial have gone before..
omigawd, last nites pistons-pacers game was probly the best game ive seen all season (i missed game 5 of the lakers-spurs) and was definitely the greatest defensive game ive EVER seen..
i was in utter awe, gushin durin and after the game cuz neither team let up on D. and esp in the 2nd, detroit clamped down on indy (how many clichés can he pull out?), limitin em to only 24 pts (zilch for jermaine). indy had 58 missed FG attempts and 19 of em were blocked!!
but of course, no block was bigger both in feat and in significance than tayshaun princes game-saving swat on reggie miller..
to sum up quickly, detroit was only up by 2 when billups loses the ball. its quickly flipped to a streakin reggie for wut-would-be-99-out-of-100-times-an-easy-layupl; he was easily five steps ahead of everyone!! but as he approached to basket, he slightly let up and in swooped a where-da-hell-did-he-come-from tayshaun prince to deflect the ball JUST before it hits the backboard!!
prince, of couse, goes flyin into the fourth row as i scream (yeah, it was 11pm) for havin seen the most sensational play all year!! i think the fact it saved the game for the pistons both amplified tayshauns effort and desire to get there while also necessitatin it. larry brown said it may have been the greatest hustle play hes ever witnessed..
afterwards, espn had a great freeze-frame of exactly how far away prince was from reggie when reggie got the ball. miller was 2/3 down court in the center lane while tayshaun was crossin the halfcourt marker next to the scorers table (the left side). somehow, he accelerates that full length to close the gap and deny a game-tieing basket. i may hate him for bein a wildcat, but man--he can plaaaaaay..
i was bein so silly afterwards cuz i could not stop smilin and gushin over the game; esther was like, "why are you laffing?" and i proceeded to bore her to death explainin my idiotic idiosyncrasy..
mungmungdawg and i were talkin once over how much i luv defense. he said id probly luv a game w/ the score endin up in the 40s--this was close enough (72-67)..
see the thing is while most low-scoring games can be blamed on offensive futility, i believe this game was dictated by defensive superiority. yeah, there were some bad shots and poorly executed plays, but the game was about contestin every basket and makin the opponent take jumpshots..
- by the way, the hidden play of tayshauns spectacular block was rip hamilton followin up tayshauns block to grab the ball before it went out-of-bounds thus reclaimin possession for detroit and gettin the opportunity to solidify their lead..
- which reminds me of one other thing, isnt it amazin at how similar rips game is to reggie millers? runnin all over the place, behind double-screens and back-picks to get open. reggie in fact dubbed rip: "mini-me". the primary difference in the two (besides age) is reggie is a better 3-pt shooter (no, really??) and rip is better w/ the ball in his hands..
but it was great cuz there was one sequence in the game yester when reggie flopped to draw an offensive foul on rip and bout two mins later, rip flopped to do the same to reggie. touché..
- okay, one MORE thing about detroit: why do i like the pistons so much? i think i simply luv how the team emphasizes defense and how joe dumars has constructed the team. bringin in rasheed was the clutch cuz now there are two--not towers but--imposin big men anchorin the painted area defensively. in fact, i wonder why larry brown doesnt experiment more w/ a 3-2 zone?
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| bulls dvd set? cmon, just call it an mj showpiece.. |
- "WUT TIME IS IT?? GAME TIME, WHOOOMP!!"
so speakin of basketball, oooooooooooh yeeeeeeeeaaah..
i freaked early last week when i saw this set finally comin to dvd. every yr, the nba puts out a video of the championship-winning teams season. obviously, in the 90s the bulls had six videos. since this was the time of the roman empire, however, they were all on VHS and i had actually been meanin to dig em out of my closet to watch cuz they make for a fun and exciting viewin..
each "video" is bout an hour and proceeds chronologically through the season, w/ the primary emphasis on the finals--or shall we call it, mjs stage. in fact, all the videos are basically jordan luv-fests but i like em more than the jordan-emphasised videos (aka, come fly w/ me) cuz i get to see how he does wut he does in the context of the season..
gawd, im droolin already..
(funny how ive juxtaposed the bulls next to the pistons in this entry..)
- one last thought, am i missin out by not watchin the sopranos? i guess itd be different if we actually had hbo, but should i be rentin the dvds? i guess i just like to see wut all the fuss is about cuz the fact there is fuss at all indicates, hmmm--maybe thats a pretty good show..
as if we dont have a hard enough time watchin the "latest" movies--is kill bill out on dvd? (haha)
Posted by chars at May 25, 2004 10:48 AM