I know, I know. This is actually an upgrade. Crazy Ron is still a better shooter than Trevor and remains an accomplished defender. His contract is only 3 years long, while Ariza got 5, so when the NBA salary cap drops for a couples years in a row, the Lakers are less screwed than they could be.
But the whole thing is just so dumb. Ariza took the SAME amount of money he was offered by the Lakers to play on a fundamentally fucked team. The Lakers offered the same amount of money to a crazy asshole who I can't stand, and who punched a fan in the stands, and who yelled in Kobe's ear like it was his job. It makes business sense, but goodness, I was much happier when Ariza was a Laker and Artest was a Rocket.
The Lakersneedneedneed to sign Odom. If nothing else, he's proven his worth in the playoffs.
Miscellany:
The Angels are currently leading 1-0 on a Bobby Abreu homer. Let's hope for more of those.
Mark pointed this out to me earlier today. It's something I've seen before but never mentioned here...pretty cool.
I own two fish, Drama and Turtle, and if you'd like to watch them swim around, they're on my webcam. At night, it's dark, so you won't see anything.
The article I mentioned earlier today doesn't get published until July 13th in ESPN the Magazine, so I have no idea why I can read it on my phone in class.
Santana got shelled last night, making 3 outs on 12 batters faced. He was charged with 7 runs on 9 hits, including a homer, and managed to throw 37 pitches.
What the hell happened?
Well, either Ervin is turning into the younger, less effective Magic of 2007, or there's something physical afoot. Let's take a look at some Fangraphs data.
During the 2008 season, Santana's average fastball velocity was third-best in the majors at 94.8 mph. Combined with a slider that averaged 84.2 mph, Santana's control finally caught up to his stuff, and he had the best season of his career. However, over his first two starts of 2009, his average fastball velocity is down to 91.1 and his slider's at 81. His changeup, normally around 85, is now near 87.
Interestingly, he seems to be getting more movement on all of his pitches. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how much that's helping. It's important to note that Santana is currently getting screwed by a .482 (!) BABIP, which is completely unsustainable for a major league pitcher with any sort of talent. I suspect most of that is derivative from the Chicago game.
Of course, this is all attached to a small sample size warning, as Santana has only pitched 12.2 innings so far. At the same time, there are distinctly few pitchers who have moved from power to finesse successfully, and Santana does not have the baseball IQ necessary to successfully accomplish such a switch.
Velocity is a tricky thing, mostly because it's so dependent on pitcher "feel." If Ervin's not comfortable with his elbow yet, he's probably not going to throw with 100% confidence and his velocity will suffer. I suspect this might be the case, as he's throwing twice as many changeups as he did last season, and these changeups are replacing both fastballs and sliders, both of which are better pitches.
If his velocity stays down after about 50 innings, the Angels might want to take a peak into his elbow and see if Tommy John seems like a good idea. Much of Santana's success comes from his slider, and as previously discussed, the slider is really tough on the UCL in the elbow.
Weird batting line of the day: Alexei Ramirez, 7 AB, 4 H, 3 RBI, 7 LOB ...that's ridiculous.
Why I'm not worried about Texas (yet): Harrison, 5 IP, 11 H, 7 ER ...pitching's a bitch.
Lakers
I didn't catch the game as I was driving back to Boston from LBI, but from what I understand, they looked tired. And looking at the box score, I'm inclined to agree. With a team as tall as the Lakers (why do they prefer "long" to "tall" in the NBA?), you don't tend to see a -18 rebounding margin, and a -11 on the offensive boards. As such, I'm not tremendously worried. All the Lakers need to do now is win their home games and they can start preparing for the Finals.
Which isn't to say I expect them to make the Finals, but it'd be nice if a team I liked won something. Or at least had the opportunity to win something.
Other problems with the Lakers: Kobe shooting 10 threes and making 2, Derek Fisher playing 23 minutes and shooting 5 threes (making 1), PauGasol only getting 11 shots from the field, Andrew Bynum only picking up 7 boards despite 14 points and 5 fouls in 23 minutes.
Miscellany:
This blog averages about 10 unique visitors a day. Yesterday, it hit 50 in 12 hours. Gotta love HH.
Dumb, although I'm inclined to agree. I guess we'll see tonight.
Still no blog updates (shocking, I know), but Thiessen is apparently enjoying his time in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Go Pens, I guess...frankly, anyone but the Ducks/Bruins can win and you'll hear no whining from this Kings fan.
The Padres are...over .500? The hell is going on?
The drive from southern New Jersey to Boston is long but not tremendously miserable. That said, Massachusetts is cheating, as far as I'm concerned. If I can't dress up like a cop, then cops shouldn't be able to dress up like me. Unmarked state police vehicles for the sole purpose of revenue generation should be illegal.
Next floor hockey game is June 4th. I'm trying to get some goalie pads before then.
Gotta love golf. And even if you don't, you're out of options, should you be a Boston Bruin or Boston Celtic. And thank goodness, talk about a city which has overstayed its welcome with sports success.
Angels swept by Rangers
I don't have a lot to say about these games, other than Brandon Wood's current line at Salt Lake City, mixed in with the lines from three other players on the Angels. See if you can tell who's who:
Player A is Figgins, B is Izturis, C is Wood, and D is Aybar. Two of those players would be getting 0 minutes of playing time on most major league teams. Aybar, despite his generally awful approach at the plate, is producing. Wood is annihilating the ball. And Izturis has an OPS below .600. Something is wrong here.
The only games that matter in modern baseball are intradivisional games. The Angels are 5-9 in the West while the Rangers are 10-2. If the Angels can manage .600 ball against the West and .500 elsewhere, the inevitable Texas pitching swoon will push the Halos into the playoffs.
The Angels start another series against the Mariners tonight at 7:05 Pacific.
Lakers finally put Rockets on golf course
The Lakers continued their bipolar nature, destroying the Rockets 89-70 in a game that wasn't even that close. The Lakers are very hard to root for, so here's how they can earn back the respect of their fans:
Play every game like it's game 7. Stop settling for jumpshots. Get the ball to the big guys (Gasol, Bynum, even Odom) and let them make plays from the post. And for god's sake, stop pretending like it's all okay in every press conference after you lose. Even if you think it's all right that you lost by 20 to a Houston team which is comically awful, pretend that you're really concerned and that you're going to take extra shooting practice. Hit your free throws.
Wins over the Red Sox, at this point in the season, are little more than happy circumstance. Since all that really matters these days is divisional play, it’s hard to worry too much about inter-divisional losses, regardless of how infuriating those particular losses might be.
With that said, that was a thoroughly entertaining baseball game. It looked like Matt Palmer was about to remember he’s 30 and pitching every start in the majors for the first time in his life. He had given up four runs in two innings and allowed Jason Bay to single in the third. Then he retired 19 straight batters and earned his first complete game win while pushing his undefeated record to 4-0. Against the Red Sox.
Offense against a knuckleballer is inconsistent, at best. Wakefield, who has been so strong this season, was having a hard time throwing the knuckler for strikes, and I think he got banged around when he’d have to throw his “fastball” or curve for strikes. I’ll take a look at the PitchF/X data when I get a few minutes. The third inning was good to the Angels, with the five first Angels getting on base safely, and all five of them scoring. Mike Napoli’s 3-run shot to center might be cementing his reputation as a Boston-killer, and that’s certainly something I’m okay with.
Palmer was left in, throwing 109 total pitches, which is something Scioscia probably wouldn’t have allowed had Palmer already owned a complete game. It also shows his immense distrust of the bullpen, a distrust seeping to the batters, starters, and fans.
The Angels play Boston once more today at 12:35 Pacific. The season series is currently led by the Halos, 3-2. Pitching tonight for the Angels? Ervin “Magic” Santana. Gird your loins.
Lakers 117, Houston 87
Sure, they won by 40 points, but I’m going to ignore the positives of this game and focus on a glaring issue that pretty much everyone else has ignored. Yes, I realize it’s dumb to criticize a team that won a game by 40 points, but 1.) the Rockets are so shorthanded it’s almost mean to play them, and 2.) if the Rockets had hit their shots, we’d be talking about a much smaller margin of victory.
Perimeter defense. I don’t know what it is, but something about the Lakers defense must give guys like Brent Barry and Wally Sczerbiak wet dreams. It must be zone defense, because with about 15 seconds of ball movement, there is always someone open in a corner or at the top of the arc, waiting for the ball. It’s particularly aggravating when a big man is out at the perimeter playing defense against a tiny guard. It’s nonsense. As far as I’m concerned, zone defense is an admission that you can’t guard the other team man to man, and I don’t think it’s a scheme these Lakers are particularly good at running. LA has premier defenders in Bryant, Ariza, and Farmar. Use them.
In game 4, Houston shot 10-29 from beyond the arc. Game 5, they go 5-29, which is pretty much how that whole game went for them. Shooting an even 30%, though, you’d expect them to make another 3 or 4, which isn’t much for a team that loses by 40, but maybe it keeps the Lakers off balance. You can’t let the other team get an open look from three land every possession. The only difference in the two games from the 3FG perspective was that Houston made them in game 4 and missed them in game 5. They still got the same number of wide open looks.
They play again tonight in Houston at 6:30 Pacific.
Miscellany
Sports terms and phrases which need to be retired:
“trey” as a reference to a three-point shot
“he gone” when referencing a strikeout
“Red Sox/Longhorn/Husky/sports team Nation”
“saucer pass” in reference to anything that clearly isn’t a saucer pass
“best shape of my/his life” when said by or spoken of an athlete
“WNBA”
“that’s a baseball/hockey/football play”
“hitting his spots” when referring to a pitcher exhibiting good control
Jordan makes a fair point: I haven't talked about Dallas point guard Jose Juan Barea. With all due respect, though, he hasn't done much this series until...yesterday. In the Mavericks season-saving 119-117 win, Jose went 5-8 for 10 points while playing almost 16 minutes with a +7 rating. The plus/minus stat in basketball is even worse than hockey's, but the Dallas players with at least a +5 rating are these: Dirk (+12), Jason Kidd (+5), and Jason Terry (+10). Not bad company, if you pretend Terry is actually, well, good.
Jose has played between 15 and 20 minutes for most games in the series, even getting a start in game three, but he hasn't taken more than 5 shots until last night. For those of you who remember JJB from his Northeastern days, he's definitely a rhythm shooter, and his best games as a Husky came when he took lots of shots. Missing the free throws, though, is unacceptable.
Dallas is probably done in 5, but I'd like to see Jose manage a double-double as he did several times during the season.
Washington/Pittsburgh
A great series already, the Caps evened it up to force a decisive game 7 with a 5-4 OT win in Pittsburgh. I've been rooting for Washington mostly because I find Sidney Crosby to be edging on Brett Favre drama queen status, but you really can't complain about the level of play from either side. Plus, the Penguins are currently utilizing Brad Thiessen as a practice goalie, and Joe Vitale is in the playoffs with the Baby Pens (0-0-0 with 12 PIM...ouch), so Pittsburgh isn't really an organization I can root against.
And no, Thiessen has not updated his blog.
Houston/Los Angeles
At some point in every fan's life, often as frequently as once a season, one becomes disappointed when the realization is made that the players don't care half as much as the fans. For the Lakers, they've been pulling this act all year, but game 4 was the worst. It was extremely clear that they don't give a shit, and it took about 5 minutes for me to realize they thought they didn't have to try to win. If this team could, just once, play 48 minutes with the effort to match their talent, they would win by 60 points.
But they won't.
I fully expect them to win this series, but there's no way they win another without realizing that talent only gets you so far.
Luke Walton should see 0 minutes of playing time and come off the bench after Adam Morrison. Josh Powell should take his minutes. Walton sucks. Seriously. He's a turnover machine who can't shoot, also known as the guy in street clothes on every other team.
Boston/Los Angeles
Another Angels/Red Sox series...already. The last time they played, the Angels miraculously took 2 of 3 despite playing some truly awful baseball. They're improving. Boston, somehow, is improving despite losing a couple SP's and infielders. Youkilis and Pedrioa are probably out for tonight's Weaver/Mastersonmatchup.
I'm cautiously optimistic about Weaver. He's kept his walks down, but his flyball tendency means he's always prone to the long ball, particularly against a team as proficient at hitting them as the Red Sox. That said, if Weaver pitches as well as he has already this season, I see a W tonight and a likely W in the series.
The Angels are a half game out of first place. Seattle has really, really screwed up, and it couldn't have happened to a better fanbase.
The Lakers will win this game if these things happen:
They find someone (Ariza? Sasha? Brown? Odom?) capable of hitting an open three. If the Lakers are hitting from beyond the arc, they win.
Jackson makes rational rotation decisions. For example, the second unit doesn't play to start the second half.
Kobe Bryant has more than ten assists.
Bynum is told to focus on getting, not sending, to the foul line.
Odom manages to finish at the rim and hits his foul shots.
They play effective perimeter defense.
Let's see here. Yes (11-20 3FG), sorta, no, no, yes, yes (Houston 6-10 3FG).
I said they needed two of those to win, and they got three. The Lakers finally played to their potential and pulled out a 108-94 win in Houston. The biggest difference between this game and the first two? Three point shooting. Kobe Bryant hit some ridiculous, completely unfair shots (4-6), but Odom went 2-2 and Ariza 3-4, with Vujacic and Walton both chipping in one each. Only Farmar had on o-fer from three land, which, frankly, is fine considering his overall level of play.
Speaking of Jordan Farmar, he played great defense and had 7 assists to a single turnover. His shooting was erratic, but Fisher's has been as well, and I really think Farmar should start over Fish in game 4. Defense is important, and when your point guard isn't hitting shots regardless, choose the guy who can actually guard the other team.
Something else we learned tonight: Kyle Lowry's favorite food is pancakes. What kind of Philadelphian's favorite food is pancakes?
Yao Ming looks like he's in some serious pain out there. I'd prefer he stay healthy, although I'm not sure how the coaching staff plans to pull that off. Rest, ice, compression, and elevation, my friend. Ron Artest, on the other hand, seemed to be trying to take bad shots. He went 2-8 from beyond the arc and did a great job of helping LA win this game. Kudos, Ron.
Angels 4, Royals 1
I missed most of this game while watching basketball, but the Angels are back to .500. It'll be tough to beat Greinke tomorrow, but hey, anything's possible.
Howie Kendrick hit a 2-run "inside the parker," put in quotes because it was clearly a 4-base Jose Guillen error. In his postgame interview, Howie joked that he's been "on the treadmill, getting fit just for this one moment."
Matt Palmer is looking like the 5th starter until Escobar's return, holding a surprisingly good Royals offense to a single run over 5.1 innings. He did walk 3, but struck out 5, and gave up only two hits. Extremely promising. I'm telling you, that cutter's got a ton of movement. I wish I could back that up with some sort of PitchF/X analysis...oh wait! I can!
This game is going to suck. Not from a who's-gonna-win-who's-gonna-lose perspective, but from the NBA's terrible track record at officiating following a game like game 2. There's going to be a million fouls, Bynum will probably foul out in about 6 minutes, and Yao Ming will have 5 halfway through the fourth.
With Fisher suspended for a game, as expected, I think we'll see Farmar get the start over Brown, just because I maintain Farmar is better at running the point. But who knows, maybe Jackson goes nuts and decides to play Vujacic at the point. At this stage in my fan career, I really wouldn't be surprised by anything he decides to do.
The Lakers will win this game if these things happen:
They find someone (Ariza? Sasha? Brown? Odom?) capable of hitting an open three. If the Lakers are hitting from beyond the arc, they win.
Jackson makes rational rotation decisions. For example, the second unit doesn't play to start the second half.
Kobe Bryant has more than ten assists.
Bynum is told to focus on getting, not sending, to the foul line.
Odom manages to finish at the rim and hits his foul shots.
They play effective perimeter defense.
I think any two of those will do it. Yao's gonna get his points, but I don't see any reason why Wafer, Brooks, and Battier should have more than 10 points a piece. Artest can be contained with effective defense. Make him take Crazy Ron Jumpshots (TM) and the game is much easier.
By the way, Rockets fans whine. Our point guard knocked your power forward onto his ass. Not only does Scola now look like a bitch, but so does the fan base. Seriously. If you have a problem with Fisher's hip check, then maybe you should consider that your favorite new player once beat up a fan in the stands. And probably will again, if I ever get to a game where he's playing.
Angels vs. Royals, 7:05 Pacific
Gil Meche goes up against Matt Palmer in the first LA/KC matchup of the season. The Royals tend to decimate the Angels, but typically only in Kansas City, unless I've just been repressing memories. This is a big start for Palmer. Another quality start+ will do lots to prove he belongs in the rotation over the Moseley's of the world once Lackey and Santana return in the coming week.
I like the Angels against Meche. A win tonight puts them at .500 for the first time since the second game of the season. Seattle, as expected, has begun to fizzle. Texas is currently in first place, but the staff tRA is catastrophic. The good starting pitching they've had is pure luck. Expect massive regression.
Manny
Not surprised. The 2004 Red Sox can borrow this from the 2002 Angels (and pretty much every late-90's early 00's World Series winner):*
Not only why, though, but how to fix it. But first,
Lakers 111, Houston 98
The Lakers always get accused of being "too soft" to win a title. I think it's time we remove the word "soft" from the adjective list when describing this Laker team. Derek Fisher threw a solid hip check and knocked down Luis Scola, a player twice his size, following some technical fouls a few seconds earlier. I think the amount of contact in basketball is dumb, and the entire technical/flagrant foul situation is handled poorly. But if Fish getting ejected (and probably suspended for game 3) is what it takes to wake up the non-Kobe Lakers, then I'm all for it. Scola earned it, too, and as far as I'm concerned, if Fisher hadn't thrown up his arms as he stepped into him, it would've been a personal foul.
Here come the "Lakers are dirty" calls. First they're soft, then they fight back, and they're dirty. Uh huh.
Beyond that, LA got good play from Pau Gasol and great play from Kobe Bryant, but the rest of the supporting cast refused to really show up. I liked Shannon Brown and Jordan Farmar after Fisher was ejected, and I think both of them are currently shooting better and are definitely better defenders than Fish at this point. If Farmar learns to finish at the rim and Brown can keep up some defensive pressure, the Lakers are probably a better team with Brown/Farmar running the point than Fisher, at this point.
I'd also like to point out the obvious, here. Officials lose control of games by growing more or less aggressive with the whistles. After the triple technicals and the Fisher ejection, the idiot referees started calling incidental contact fouls, and the game got chippy and out of control. In soccer, referees have the tendency to get stricter as the game goes on. If the game starts a little chippy, it ends with 6 players having been thrown out. It's wrong. All an official has to do is be consistent, and calling ticky tack fouls does not improve the level of play or reduce overall aggression.
I think the Lakers can win this series, but I'd really like to see a concerted effort with regards to inside presence. They need to stop settling for threes which just aren't falling, need to stop settling for midrange jumpers which just aren't falling, and need to start playing defense when they're not shooting well. Basketball basic #1: Park a tall player in the painted area and get him the ball. I don't think Bynum is being used properly, nor Gasol.
Also, this:
Anglels 1, Toronto 13
Anthony "AAA" Ortega allowed 6 runs on 6 hits and 3 walks in 1.1 innings, and wasn't helped by Rafael "AA" Rodriguez giving up a three-run homer to Vernon Wells upon entering in the second. Justin "DFA" Speier allowed 5 runs on 3 hits and 4(!) walks in 2 innings, and also managed to nearly get ejected for hitting a batter with a forkball travelling at the leisurely pace of 77 mph. Umpires are dumb. Mike Scioscia argued, though, and succeeded in getting tossed.
The offense was inconsistent, but that's what you get when you're in a 7-0 hole in the second inning. This was a throwaway game with Ortega facing off against Roy Halladay, so I didn't expect a whole lot. I don't think I expected to lose by 12, though.
Why the NBA sucks
If you watch the NBA of the pre-Jordan days, you'll notice something. It's an elegance brought about by players who are playing a game called basketball. Now watch some modern NBA,and you'll notice it looks a lot more like a game called football. The amount of contact is ridiculous. The fact that players can (and are encouraged to) "generate contact" during the shot as a way to get a free throw should be proof that the game has changed. It's ridiculous that there can be three players on the floor wrestling for the ball and a whistle never gets blown. It's dumb that the referees even bother trying to call fouls based on screens. Every screen in the NBA is a moving screen.
Then, of course, you have the end of the game. If the leading team has a 10-point margin with 2 minutes left, the foul train leaves the station. And boy, this is one crappy train. For the next three hours, the two minutes tick away 3 seconds at a time. You get to watch like 50 free throws. You signed up for basketball, and what you got was an insanely boring free throw shooting contest.
And the timeouts! Oh, the timeouts. Every time something fun starts to happen, a timeout gets called. Every time there's the potential for an interesting play, someone calls a timeout. Every time a player is battling for possession of the ball, there's a timeout. There's supposedly 6 timeouts allowed in regulation, but I don't buy that, because I definitely saw at least 30 last night.
So how does the NBA fix itself? First, they need to cut the total number of timeouts per half to two. One full timeout and one twenty-second timeout. Even two might be too many. Basketball is a momentum game, and coaches have learned that an easy way to stop or slow momentum is a timeout. So let's make that impossible. Let's go with one timeout per half. If a team is struggling to defend, too bad, figure it out or lose the game. You shouldn't need to get bailed out by a timeout every three minutes.
Second, the end of a game is incredibly boring because a team that's currently losing will foul in the hopes of missed free throws. So, let's fix that by making fouls in the last two minutes of the game more serious. A two-shot foul becomes a three-shot foul. A three-shot foul becomes a four-shot foul. Now, fouling gives the leading team a chance to increase its lead. It allows the losing team to run their offense without being fouled by the leading team.* It forces both teams to play complete basketball throughout the whole game and not win games in free throw contests. And by golly, it makes the game fun to watch.
Finally, someone needs to figure out how to deal with the contact situation. I think the first step is calling far more offensive fouls. If a player jumps into another player to shoot, it needs to be an offensive foul. This "making contact" crap sucks. There also needs to be a better method for determining and enforcing moving screen violations. When it's clear the officials can't tell whether a screen was legal, something needs to change. The problem, now, is that we've raised a couple generations of kids who think basketball is a contact sport, and I don't really know how to fix that.
But someone needs to. *I hate that, with a couple seconds remaining, a team in front by three points can foul the losing team and give them two free throws, forcing them to miss one and hope for an o-rebound. This fixes that problem. See also, '07 NU-Maryland, '09 Celtics-Bulls Game 5
NHL Playoffs
Just a quick observation: Marc-Andre Fleury has some truly awful goaltending mechanics. The fluke opening period goal by Alex Ovechkin was a severe misplay by Fleury, and he continued to flop around on the ice like a fish the whole game. If nothing else, Thiessen usually managed to stay upright in the crease, and Tim Thomas aside, it's always better to be ready for the next shot than on your chest flailing about.
Seriously. I bought it like 10 minutes ago and it's already doing that thing where it ices up and then won't make it up the straw. At least it's watermelon and not some crap like blueberry or cherry.
Angels
The Angels have had a strange week. Their series with New York was predictable, but only with regards to the record with which they left. I expected them to go 2-2, and they indeed went 1-2 with rain postponing my guessed second win. What was weird was that they a.) won Matt Palmer's start against CC Sabathia, and b.) managed to lose a game they should've won by blowing a 5-run lead with 6 outs to go.
The bullpen is clearly still an issue, but I think it's steadily improving as Arredondo, Shields, and Fuentes all relearn how to pitch. The biggest issue, in my mind, has been bullpen management, but a solid Arredondo-Shields-Fuentes back end helps reduce the number of games Scioscia can manage to screw up by putting in relievers like Rafael Rodriguez and Jason Bulger.
By the way, Matt Palmer has an obscene amount of movement, at least from my observation. SinceKalk'sPitchf/x tool doesn't include Palmer at the moment, I really can't provide a better analysis other than "everything he throws starts here and ends somewhere way different." His fastball reminds me of Scot Shields' two-seamer, in that it's pretty clear he doesn't know where it's going because it tails and drops so much. A neat guy to watch, although someone who's been in the minors until his age 30 season is probably not going to continue winning pitching duels with Sabathia.
I caught the last few innings of the Angels/Oakland game last night, and was overall pretty impressed with Joe Saunders and Jose Arredondo. Jose struck out all four batters he faced before giving way to Fuentes, who earned the three-run save without allowing a baserunner. Division wins are very important, and I'll feel more confident about this team if they can play .500 ball against the other divisions and .600 ball within the West, which isn't an unreasonable proposition.
Lakers 92, Houston 100
Nobody expected a 4-game sweep, but watching this team last night was aggravating. When the Lakers refuse to try and score easy points, they end up taking three pointers the second they encounter adversity. So they did. And they shot 2-18 from beyond the arc. Whoops.
Lamar Odom missed 5 of his 6 free throws. Kobe missed 2 of his 5. Add up those points and the game might've been 100-99. Free throws are easy, and they matter. The fact that Ray Allen is like the only NBA player who can consistently shoot over 95% on free throws should be embarrassing to the other players, but I guess Odom is too cool to use the glass.
I'm still not particularly worried about this series. I don't think PauGasol is going to go 6-14 from the field again, and I don't think Fisher and Ariza are likely to go 0-4 on three pointers again. This was a game the Rockets had to win if they had any chance of winning this series, and they did. But nothing leads me to believe we'll be seeing Yao Ming knock down deep jumpshots like he did last night.
Also, free Jordan Farmar. Fisher can't defend me, much less Aaron Brooks. Farmar, at least, hit a three and harassed Brooks.
Miscellaneous
Find the headline below which is an embarrassment to Yahoo Sports and the sports world in general:
Next week's headlines:
CC Sabathia pitches 8 strong, A-Rod doesn't eat sunflower seeds in dugout
Housing crisis continues, A-Rod doesn't wear tux to wedding
