1. The more I think about it, the more I become convinced that Lane Kiffin is the worst hire a major contender has made in, well maybe ever. He’s proven nothing as a coach, he has absolutely no loyalty or staying power, and recruits won’t trust him as far as they can throw him after what he did to Tennessee. Remarkably terrible decision.
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Tag: Los Angeles Lakers
The Hornets have become the first team to fire a coach this year by booting Byron Scott just a year and a half after he was named NBA Coach of the Year. The team had limped out to a 3-6 start, and two of those win hardly count because they were against the Clippers and Kings. I’d sum up the way the franchise handled this with two words – inevitable and stupid. It was inevitable because Scott had to go because of the start and because of the way the season last year went – a disappointing regular season and humiliating playoffs. Chris Paul was frustrated and the team has no more important task than keeping Paul happy. They are already over the luxury tax threshold so they can’t overhaul the roster in a meaningful way, so Scott was the only real option. The move was stupid, though, because of their choice of a replacement. The new head coach is general manager Jeff Bower. He has been with the team since 1995 and he built the current team so he knows them well, but he has never been a head coach and a couple of assistant stints atMarist and Penn State a hundred years ago are his only real bits of (barely) relevant experience. They have also hired Tim Floyd as Bower’s top assistant. Not only if Floyd coming off a disgraceful exit from USC, but his last coaching experience in the NBA was with the Hornets – and they fired him in 2004 after one season because he didn’t do a good job. I have no problem with getting rid of Scott, but only if they replace with a coach with a good chance of being better than Scott was. I just don’t really see that here.
It’s the 2008-2009 NBA Finals and this season sees the number three seed in the East, the Orlando Magic (59-23), meet the number one seed in the West, the Los Angeles Lakers (65-17). The Magic beat the Philadelphia 76ers in the initial round, the Boston Celtics in the second and the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference Finals. The Lakers took it to the Utah Jazz, Houston Rockets and Denver Nuggets.
The late spring into the early summer is a great time for professional sports. Here are a few observations regarding some of what’s happening in the NHL, NBA, NFL, NASCAR, PGA and MLB.
The 2009 NBA Western Conference Finals will feature the Los Angeles Lakers versus the Denver Nuggets. The Lakers finally beat the Houston Rockets in game seven of the semifinals by a score of 89-70 and won a spot in the Finals. To say the least, although the last game of the series was an easy victory, the series was hard fought. The Nuggets have been waiting around for days to see who they’ll face in their next best of seven series.
There’s a lot of hype around this game. It’s not just a match up of two teams, it’s also a figurative fistfight between Los Angeles Lakers’ coach Phil Jackson and Houston Rockets’ head man Rick Adelman. Three times teams coached by Adelman have been knocked out of the playoffs by a Jackson-coached club. However, neither guy will be on the court when this game is played and the fact is whatever these guys have done to get their teams to this point is all in the past. In other words, today’s win has more to do with the talent and skill on the court than the coaches on the bench. Here are five keys to each team’s success in today’s game seven.
In round one, the Los Angeles Lakers, the number one seed in the West, easily dispatched the Utah Jazz in five games to move onto the Western Conference Semifinals. Meantime, in the initial round of the NBA playoffs, the fifth seed Houston Rockets beat the fourth seed Portland Trailblazers four games to two. Thus the stage is now set for what should be a tough, hard-fought series between the two clubs. Simply put, the Lakers are favored in this one. Can the Rockets stop them?
Continue reading “Los Angeles Lakers Versus Houston Rockets”
The first round of the NBA Western Conference playoffs features the number one seed Los Angeles Lakers (65-17) against the eighth seed Utah Jazz (48-34). In the three-game season series between the two clubs, the Lakers won two. Of all NBA clubs, Los Angeles posted the second-best record, while the Jazz had the 12th best mark in the league. Los Angeles won seven of its last 10 and two straight. Utah has gone 3-7 in its final 10 contests.
It’s a shame that no one (full disclosure – myself included) cares about women’s basketball, because what UConn finished off last night was truly impressive. They thumped Louisville in the championship game to cut down the nets. More impressively, they weren’t beaten all year. I know that women’s basketball is more top heavy than men’s is, but it still seems incredible to me that a team can go all the way without faltering. Never mind that UConn is always about that good. This accomplishment is almost enough to make me want to start watching women’s basketball. Not quite, but almost.
The Boston Celtics have lost two straight (sort of like the bar if Ivory Soap sinking to the bottom of the tub—that never happens with Ivory. It always floats). And, apparently, the Celtics are not supposed to lose two in a row. But they have and folks are proclaiming that they have “run out of gas.” Maybe they have but there’s little need to panic. Everyone knows that the price of gas has plummeted and the team from Beantown should be refueled and on another winning streak shortly.
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