For the first time since the '70s, the loathsome Los Angeles Lakers have lost the first two games of a playoff series at home. The Dallas Mavericks, who dispatched the Blazers, now hold a 2-0 lead heading back to Texas for a couple of games, with no one having any answer for Dirk Nowitzki.
The Laker fans at the Staples Center booed their team tonight. Lamar Odom and Phil Jackson appeared to have had some heated words. Ron Artest took a couple of cheap shots, including one at the end of the game that may get him suspended, and certainly fined. If the wheels come all the way off, the final round out west will be Dallas against either Memphis or Oklahoma City. The league executives wouldn't be too pleased with that outcome.
Comments (9)
The league executives will be pleased that whoever is playing is doing it with a degree of (BMcD, this is for you) *remarkableness.* Good entertainment will sell in any market around the globe, and the first round was over the top. Second round looks just as unpredictable. Does it matter as much who plays in the digital age? Just as long as they play well.
If the Lakers fall, the TV ratings for the last two rounds will go way down. The league doesn't care about that? Of course it does. It wants the Lakers against Miami. If it gets Atlanta against Memphis, the bean counters will be apoplectic.
Who 'dat at the door?
The NBA Stern Enforced Action Leveling Team 6? A stealth team of paid off refs, worried network executives and meddlesome league big wigs, assembled together to make sure that the World is protected by bringing major market match ups with pre-selected individual stars determined by the marketing arm of the above mentioned New Order.
Good-bye Mr. Mohammed bin al Cuban....
The Lakers always lose badly. I don't mean they don't like losing, I mean they act like children when they lose. Remember Bryant crying in Detroit? Yeah. That was extremely satisfying.
The Mavs have the Laker's number. Let's see if the refs let them dial it.
If the Stern Adjustment Bureau doesn't use foul calls to "adjust" things in game 3, I'll be very, very surprised. Look for Bryant to get so many foul calls that they call in a backup stats keeper.
Watching the Lakers lose last night was like recovering from a long illness. On some level I believe the 13 missed shots back in that one Blazer-Laker series when we had Pippen, was the beginning of a giant piece of bad luck. I believe that comeback dragged us through a vortex. If we had won that game, even monumental events like 9/11 would not have happened.
Mark, I don't know if you remember, but I felt compelled to call in the radio station the day after we lost as a comedy grief counselor. I said there were 7 stages of grief: Game 1, Game 2, Game 3...
I wondered if anyone else tied the fate of the Blazers to the overall universe, so when Jack had the post showing bin Ladin in a Lakers uniform, I sensed I was not alone.
To have the situation in Pakistan, followed by the game at the Staples Center last night is a cosmic hint. I feel that the Big Wheel of the Galactic Plane may have turned in our favor. Seeing Lionel Hollins and even Zach Randolph doing well in Memphis, is another sign. Remember: Memphis is where Elvis lived.
Now, the Anti-Christ Kobe could still bring the Lakers back, but this is a working theory.
Oh, and speaking of theories, I love how my Degree of Unusualness theory, was upgraded to Degree of Remarkableness. That's the kind of collaborative effort we need if we're going to get through the next vortex. The NBA lock-out could happen in 2012, so if they don't settle this, there is a good chance our planet will be destroyed.
just occurred to me there are no teams from the west in the playoffs. [no one counts the Fakers]
no denver/utah/phoenix/clipps , golden state/seattle...
Charamba, Douro 2008
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The Occasional Book
Neil Young - Waging Heavy Peace
Mark Bego - Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul (2012 ed.)
Jenny Lawson - Let's Pretend This Never Happened
J.D. Salinger - Franny and Zooey
Charles Dickens - A Christmas Carol
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Deborah Eisenberg - Transactions in a Foreign Currency
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. - Slaughterhouse Five
Kathryn Lance - Pandora's Genes
Cheryl Strayed - Wild
Fyodor Dostoyevsky - The Brothers Karamazov
Jack London - The House of Pride, and Other Tales of Hawaii
Jack Walker - The Extraordinary Rendition of Vincent Dellamaria
Colum McCann - Let the Great World Spin
Niccolò Machiavelli - The Prince
Harper Lee - To Kill a Mockingbird
Emma McLaughlin & Nicola Kraus - The Nanny Diaries
Brian Selznick - The Invention of Hugo Cabret
Sharon Creech - Walk Two Moons
Keith Richards - Life
F. Sionil Jose - Dusk
Natalie Babbitt - Tuck Everlasting
Justin Halpern - S#*t My Dad Says
Mark Herrmann - The Curmudgeon's Guide to Practicing Law
Barry Glassner - The Gospel of Food
Phil Stanford - The Peyton-Allan Files
Jesse Katz - The Opposite Field
Evelyn Waugh - Brideshead Revisited
J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
David Sedaris - Holidays on Ice
Donald Miller - A Million Miles in a Thousand Years
Mitch Albom - Have a Little Faith
C.S. Lewis - The Magician's Nephew
F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby
William Shakespeare - A Midsummer Night's Dream
Ivan Doig - Bucking the Sun
Penda Diakité - I Lost My Tooth in Africa
Grace Lin - The Year of the Rat
Oscar Hijuelos - Mr. Ives' Christmas
Madeline L'Engle - A Wrinkle in Time
Steven Hart - The Last Three Miles
David Sedaris - Me Talk Pretty One Day
Karen Armstrong - The Spiral Staircase
Charles Larson - The Portland Murders
Adrian Wojnarowski - The Miracle of St. Anthony
William H. Colby - Long Goodbye
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Phil Stanford - Portland Confidential
Rick Moody - Garden State
Jonathan Schwartz - All in Good Time
David Sedaris - Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
Anthony Holden - Big Deal
Robert J. Spitzer - The Spirit of Leadership
James McManus - Positively Fifth Street
Jeff Noon - Vurt
Road Work
Miles run year to date: 21
At this date last year: 52
Total run in 2012: 129
In 2011: 113
In 2010: 125
In 2009: 67
In 2008: 28
In 2007: 113
In 2006: 100
In 2005: 149
In 2004: 204
In 2003: 269
Comments (9)
The league executives will be pleased that whoever is playing is doing it with a degree of (BMcD, this is for you) *remarkableness.* Good entertainment will sell in any market around the globe, and the first round was over the top. Second round looks just as unpredictable. Does it matter as much who plays in the digital age? Just as long as they play well.
Posted by Mark Mason | May 4, 2011 11:40 PM
If the Lakers fall, the TV ratings for the last two rounds will go way down. The league doesn't care about that? Of course it does. It wants the Lakers against Miami. If it gets Atlanta against Memphis, the bean counters will be apoplectic.
Posted by Jack Bog | May 4, 2011 11:52 PM
Couldn't happen to a better bunch of killsports.
Posted by Mojo | May 5, 2011 12:11 AM
Who 'dat at the door?
The NBA Stern Enforced Action Leveling Team 6? A stealth team of paid off refs, worried network executives and meddlesome league big wigs, assembled together to make sure that the World is protected by bringing major market match ups with pre-selected individual stars determined by the marketing arm of the above mentioned New Order.
Good-bye Mr. Mohammed bin al Cuban....
Posted by PDXileinOmaha | May 5, 2011 6:05 AM
The Lakers always lose badly. I don't mean they don't like losing, I mean they act like children when they lose. Remember Bryant crying in Detroit? Yeah. That was extremely satisfying.
The Mavs have the Laker's number. Let's see if the refs let them dial it.
If the Stern Adjustment Bureau doesn't use foul calls to "adjust" things in game 3, I'll be very, very surprised. Look for Bryant to get so many foul calls that they call in a backup stats keeper.
Posted by the other white meat | May 5, 2011 8:24 AM
Watching the Lakers lose last night was like recovering from a long illness. On some level I believe the 13 missed shots back in that one Blazer-Laker series when we had Pippen, was the beginning of a giant piece of bad luck. I believe that comeback dragged us through a vortex. If we had won that game, even monumental events like 9/11 would not have happened.
Mark, I don't know if you remember, but I felt compelled to call in the radio station the day after we lost as a comedy grief counselor. I said there were 7 stages of grief: Game 1, Game 2, Game 3...
I wondered if anyone else tied the fate of the Blazers to the overall universe, so when Jack had the post showing bin Ladin in a Lakers uniform, I sensed I was not alone.
To have the situation in Pakistan, followed by the game at the Staples Center last night is a cosmic hint. I feel that the Big Wheel of the Galactic Plane may have turned in our favor. Seeing Lionel Hollins and even Zach Randolph doing well in Memphis, is another sign. Remember: Memphis is where Elvis lived.
Now, the Anti-Christ Kobe could still bring the Lakers back, but this is a working theory.
Oh, and speaking of theories, I love how my Degree of Unusualness theory, was upgraded to Degree of Remarkableness. That's the kind of collaborative effort we need if we're going to get through the next vortex. The NBA lock-out could happen in 2012, so if they don't settle this, there is a good chance our planet will be destroyed.
Posted by Bill McDonald | May 5, 2011 8:48 AM
The only thing from Texas I like is grapefruit.
Posted by dg | May 5, 2011 9:35 AM
So far, it looks like the Blazers handled the Mavs better than the Lakers can.
Posted by Snards | May 5, 2011 9:58 AM
just occurred to me there are no teams from the west in the playoffs. [no one counts the Fakers]
no denver/utah/phoenix/clipps , golden state/seattle...
Posted by billb | May 5, 2011 2:29 PM