Prolonging the agony
The meaningless pro hoops playoff series between the Cleveland LeBron and the Atlanta Hawks mercifully ended in a sweep tonight. But the matchup between the Denver Nuggets and the Dallas Mavericks, just about as ugly as you can get, lives to disgust another day, as Dallas narrowly avoided elimination at home. Dallas now trails 3 games to 1, with Denver needing only one more win in three tries to move on to the next round.
We've already blogged about how bad things got at the end of Saturday night's contest in Dallas. Referee Mark Wunderlich had one of his characteristic spells, giving the Nuggets a game that the Mavs legitimately won. But apparently things got even uglier than we acknowledged. After the game, Dallas owner Mark Cuban, who had pushed a TV cameraman and sworn on national TV against the officiating crew, reportedly had some unkind words for -- get this -- Denver forward Kenyon Martin's mother, who was in attendance.
At tonight's game, which featured seven technical foul calls and at least a couple of flagrant foul calls, some Dallas fans continued heckling Martin's mother, even throwing things at her before they were ejected. There was at least one other incident in which a fan threw something out onto the court. After the game, Martin was seen on TV mouthing off at someone, presumably Cuban, as he headed for the locker room.
The referees have totally screwed up this series, and there's no way Dallas is going to win it now. If ever the fix was in on a game -- and more and more fans every year think that's the way it is in the NBA playoffs -- please, David Stern, let's have Denver win on Wednesday and put the series out of its misery.
| Posted at 10:51 PM | Permalink |
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Comments (7)
It has been a while since I have seen a team get such an easy, red carpet to a Conference Finals.
Detroit quit the series after the 3rd quarter of Game 1. Dumars making that insane, absurd trade for Iverson blew my mind. Then again, Detroit has been needing to be blown up and reconstructed for a couple of years now.
Atlanta came into the series like a teenager who has just been mauled by a hungry grizzly bear. Too many injuries to key players.
Boston or Orlando, Cleveland has a good chance to lose to either. The first 2 series were walks in the park that did not test any of Cleveland's players to the point where game-to-game adjustments had to be made. Furthermore, these coronations instilled a fake confidence in individual Cleveland players like Delonte West who think they are better than they actually are.
Posted by YoungOregonMoonbat | May 12, 2009 12:24 AM
Nothing will stop the LeBron-Kobe Train. They should have made it a three-game series between the Lakers and the Cavs, starting two days after the regular season ended.
Posted by Jack Bog | May 12, 2009 12:45 AM
I am psyched about Tuesday's match-ups. Orlando-Boston is going to be intense. The Rockets vs. the Lakers has true sports glory potential. If the Rockets somehow beat the Lakers, that would be a great evening of basketball. One player I really appreciate more than ever: Shane Battier.
Great interviews full of brains. Shane gets it. He was from a championship Duke team along with Dunleavey's kid, but you can't hold that against him.
Meanwhile, Mark Cuban negates a lot of positive players. It's a case where the owner is such a jerk that the team should pay the price - not unlike Jerry Jones of the Cowboys.
Yelling at a player's Mom? How wrong is that?
Posted by Bill McDonald | May 12, 2009 1:24 AM
To tell a guy "Yo' Mama" is one thing. To tell a mama "Yo' son's a thug" is quite another.
I too hope Adelman and the Rockets can pull out a couple of miracle wins without Yao, Alston, and Mtumbo. That would be for the history books.
Posted by Jack Bog | May 12, 2009 1:42 AM
The Rockets can definitely do it. tonight will tell the story--but my prediction is:
Lakers 104, Rockets 96.
Kobe will heave up oh, say, 15 three-point attempts. threes are the main reason the Lakers win when the refs aren't whistle-happy; they shoot around 34% more of them than opponents when they win.
in fact, all of the teams now playing--except for the Rockets--often average over a third of their points from beyond the arc. it's how teams win now--get at least one or two three-point specialists, and turn them loose. it's the "hidden" factor in modern basketball.
Posted by ecohuman.com | May 12, 2009 9:14 AM
The crazy thing about the Rockets-Lakers series as that the Rockets' injuries have only made it more interesting.
Who doesn't love the notion that the ordained Lakers may struggle with Houston's remaining no-names? None of the Lakers point guards can stay with Brooks, Von Wafer is a streaky shooter with absolutely no conscience, and Houston's low-post bangers play with a lot of heart. It's a long shot for the Rockets to win this series, but the last game reminded me of Butch and Sundance complaining, "Who are these guys?"
Posted by Scott | May 12, 2009 9:16 AM
If Stern had any cojones when he issued that apology he would've also immediately ordered a game reset and replayed the last 5 seconds from the moment of the foul.
Posted by GJoubert | May 12, 2009 9:26 AM