Hole Punch Sports

Super Bowl XLVI revealed!

2012-01-22T21:58:00.001-07:00

The Patriots and the Giants. Things just work out sometimes.

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Two new teams, the England Patriots and the York Giants, will play for the NFL title in Super Bowl Forty-Six in two weeks. I can't wait.

The matchup comes too late, and after too imperfect of a season, to make up for the wounds inflicted by the Giants in early 2008. The Patriots' undefeated season, a 16-0 masterpiece in which they set the league's single-season scoring record, broke at the hands of the upstart Giants in that year's Super Bowl.

The way the Giants won made their win feel especially flukish...Eli Manning, known more for his entitled attitude than his athleticism (the only player to which his moves have ever been compared favorably is his brother Peyton), somehow scrambled free of a Patriot pass rush in the closing minutes, and lofted a pass down the middle of the field to David Tyree, who caught the key throw against the top of his helmet. Then a touchdown pass to Plexiglass provided the winning points.

New England's Tom Brady, quarterback of the team since taking over in 2001, is the best football player of this millenium, and it isn't particularly close. His accuracy is unparalleled, but he's best known for relentlessly spectacular play in the clutch. But in 42, the Patriots couldn't move the ball and finished with only 14 points. It's disrespectful to suggest the Giants didn't have a lot to do with that. But honestly, I'm still not sure how much the Giants had to do with that. The Patriots came into that game uncharacterstically arrogant, surprising for a team that, if not humble, was always hungry and well-prepared.

The real loss that game wasn't that the Patriots didn't win (still hard to find too much sympathy for them) or even that long-suffering San Diego fans had to watch Eli hoist the Lombardi Trophy. No, it was that the 1972 Dolphins got to stay in the record books as the only perfect regular and postseason team. Asterisk asterisk asterisk, they only played 14 games in the season back then, and those Dolphins had one of the easiest schedules of all time, particularly for a Super Bowl team, etc.; still it would have warmed the soul to see those champagne-swilling jerks finally fade off into their long-overdue sunset. You know why Joe Montana is so cool? Because he wasn't pumping his fist all over the news that night when the Giants kept Brady from matching him with a fourth Super Bowl ring. (Neither pumped Terry Bradshaw but he kind of takes the cool out of the argument, kind of like how rooting for John Elway keeps me from calling Eli spoiled as often as I'd like to.)

Anyway, the Giants ruined the party for everyone. Bunch of jerks. Here's hoping it won't happen again. As a big Brady fan I've wanted to see him play in one more Super Bowl for years. I would've loved to see the 49ers or, of course, Tim Tebow's Denver Broncos make it, though the Niners would've made rooting interests a little tougher. As someone who was disappointed to a surprising degree when the Broncos lost last week, I found it hard to pay too much attention today. I'm relieved to get a game with such a clear hero and villain (Josh McDaniels aside). So while it's not the Super Bowl I deserve, it just might be the one I need right now.

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The Super Bowl 'twixt these aforementioned teams will be played Sunday, February 5, 2012 at 4:25 p.m. Mountain time in Indianapolis. The game will be broadcast on NBC and, pleasingly, on NBC.com.

Davies out; Cougars next?

2011-03-03T00:54:00.001-07:00

As you’ve probably heard by now, the BYU men’s basketball team has suspended its leading rebounder, Brandon Davies, for the rest of the season for an honor code violation.

The move comes as somewhat of a surprise in college basketball circles, as the Cougars are ranked No. 3 in both polls, and No. 1 in RPI. This is the best BYU team in years, and one that can hardly afford to lose such a key performer. Before tonight’s loss to New Mexico, the Cougars were regarded as a likely No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, which starts in two weeks.

After watching Saturday’s win over San Diego State, I’ve taken the Cougars seriously as contenders for the national championship. Jimmer’s great, and they play with a poise rare amongst Cougar teams I’ve followed.

However, the reactions of BYU fans are puzzling to me. I’ve seen more than one student there say how proud they are of the school. When said students aren’t basketball fans (and they haven’t been, so far), such expressions of pride underwhelm me. If you have no interest in BYU basketball, then of course you’re okay with the program getting its legs cut out from under it. It takes no courage to support the sacrifice of something you don’t care about, so why thump your chest on Facebook?

I do like the BYU basketball team, certainly more than I like the Honor Code Office, and I’ve gone back and forth today on this. The timing is just awful. But while I’m not surprised by the school’s decision, I’m not especially buoyed by it. BYU did exactly what you’d expect it to if you paid any attention to the school. Being a BYU fan and finding satisfaction in the school not putting winning first would be like a USC fan expressing shock that his football team did put winning first. It’s just what they do.

That’s not to say other schools’ values are just as valid as BYU’s. I’d rather have the integrity the Cougars showed than the anything-goes philosophy of many other athletic departments. But anyone could value other things above winning, and then not win.

The fact is, the Cougars are playing a different game from everyone else. It really wouldn’t make sense for a state university to set the same standards of personal conduct that a university owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would. It’s fair for BYU students to be proud of BYU for being BYU, but as a sports fan that doesn’t do much for me.

Of course, if the Cougars do win it all, or even make the Final Four, that would be truly impressive, and it would make sense to hold up the school as a model for all athletic departments. It’s just hard to see that happening after an 18-point loss.

My only other thought is how bad I feel for everyone involved in the team. Tough draw for the coach. Downer for Jimmer Fredette, a truly great collegiate star whose athletic peak might be this season. I hate to think this will cost him his moment of glory in the NCAA Tournament. And I feel sad for Davies, who may well have cost his teammates the high point of their basketball careers, but who is already paying dearly in public humiliation for his private failings. At any other school, his only job would be to beat his opponents; but at BYU, playing well and living right are both just part of the game.

The day the music died

2011-02-21T22:15:00.002-07:00

Seven years, seven months…actually, almost eight months, if you’re keeping track. That feels right, but also way too short.

I started following the NBA around the 1996-97 season. I jumped on the Bulls bandwagon and will never regret it, but my favorite team was my hometown one, the Denver Nuggets. They went 21-61. The next year they were 11-71. I learned early on how few players actually made it big, even the most hyped. Antonio McDyess was one of the two real talents we had in those lean years, but his temperament and durability made him a disappointment. Still, I loved those teams: inside enforcers like Tommy Hammonds and Danny Fortson, the promising Bobby Jackson, the high-flying Darvin Ham, and even Nick Van Exel.

The other talent was a young point guard named Chauncey Billups who I once saw, in person, hit a three from about halfway between the three-point line and halfcourt to beat the shot clock. Like it was nothing. I remembered pulling for us to get him in the draft, but when he was on the team I didn’t recognize how good he could become, which probably made it easier to handle when we shipped him to the Magic.

Being a Nuggets fan, the draft was always the highlight of my year…until it happened. In 1998 I hoped against hope that the team would see the potential in Vince Carter, but we picked up the equally athletic Raef LaFrentz instead. I never thought I’d get over Carter, who I followed intensely in Toronto and whose dunks in the 2000 Slam Dunk Contest I can still recall, but five years later I would. Missing Carter gave us a shot at someone much better. (Besides, we should’ve taken Pierce or Nowitzki anyway.)

From there it was guys like James Posey, Nobody Blocks Your Shot Like Your Mamadou, and the immortal Tskitishvili. We were clearly destined to be terrible forever, though I was never quite comfortable admitting it.

Then came the one bright hope of awful NBA teams everywhere: LeBron James. I think he first popped up on my radar as a sophomore in high school, and it was a long wait for him to enter the draft, but he finally would in 2003.

I was so excited for the draft, I started reading up months before, particularly the prospect profiles on nbadraft.net, where I learned about Syracuse’s Carmelo Anthony, who really wasn’t that far behind LeBron as a prospect. So all we needed was a top two pick, especially after Carmelo lead his team to the national championship and won the Most Outstanding Player trophy in the NCAA tournament.

On draft lottery night, of course, the Nuggets ended up with the third pick of the draft.

But almost immediately—I could be wrong, but I think it was the same night—I saw Joe Dumars, personnel man of the contending Detroit Pistons, who’d ended up with that second pick, on TV talking up Darko Milicic. Darko is exactly the kind of guy the Nuggets would have picked high in the draft: tall, with tantalizing potential, capable of scoring multiple times per game against 45-year-old Yugoslavian chain-smokers in Europe. Clearly, he was just one low-post move away from the All-Star Game.

It was pretty set going into draft night that Melo was ours, and I think it was on draft night that I saw Carmelo in a national ad campaign, I think with Kirk Hinrich and Chris Bosh for the new version of NBA Live. I couldn’t believe it—a Nugget was a star all across the country.

That first year might have been the most exciting NBA season of my lifetime. Everyone remember LeBron’s Nike ad, portraying his first game, where he froze up under the pressure, then exploded for an off-camera basket and flashed a smile? Yeah, he was ready, but I remember Carmelo having a fantastic season as well, and I remember the night of their first head-to-head meeting. Nuggets-Cavs games would be showpieces for years, I just knew it. Then the Nuggets made the playoffs, which they hadn’t done, ever, since I’d been interested. Carmelo had a rough game or two, and I remember one of my friends saying he choked, which struck me as just stupid. At that point, at his age, to do what he did? He’d accomplished more than even MJ had at that age, if you ask me.

You know how the rest of the story goes. For years, the Nuggets were exciting, and could compete with anyone, but they struggled to get out of the first round. (Didn’t keep us from some memorable moments, like when I went to Kobe’s first game back in Colorado after some legal trouble, when Carmelo scored a bunch and we blew the Lakers out.) Then, in late 2008, we got Chauncey Billups for Allen Iverson, a move I didn’t appreciate at the time, mostly because I still though of A.I. as the 2001 Answer, but which was a brilliant move. Billups had proven himself as a clutch performer on the title-winning team in Detroit, which upset the Lakers in 2004 despite Darko.

The next spring was beautiful, the most exciting basketball run I’ve ever followed, when the Nuggets decimated the New Orleans Hornets, beat the Dallas Mavericks (thanks in part to Carmelo’s winning three in Game Three), then hung with the Lakers in the Western Conference Finals for a few games before L.A. closed it out. Nuggets fans debated who was more critical to the team’s success, Carmelo or Chauncey, and while I differed from most (Melo was finally coming around and deserved credit), it was so exciting just to discuss it. Plus there was the Birdman, J.R. Smith playing lights-out in the first two rounds, and the atmosphere at the Pepsi Center. It was incredible.

Yes, we lost to the Jazz last year, and with an aging Billups our window was tiny…but still. What a team! And somehow we got Ty Lawson, too, who could, just maybe, learn enough from the master that we wouldn’t miss him too much.

Well, tonight that all ended, as Carmelo and Chauncey were sent off to the New York Knicks. As a Tar Heels fan, hurray, we got Raymond Felton…but some guys should never leave their teams, and Chauncey defines that category. A star player in Denver, the best baller in CU history, and an NBA star who just wanted to finish his playing days here. (One of my friends thought he heard of the possibility of a buyout that would bring him back here…I hope that’s true.)

Regardless of that, this is my worst day as an NBA fan, and I’m not sure I will ever follow the league the same way again. Or at all. Don’t delude yourself into thinking we got fair value in return. We didn’t, the Knicks owned us, and it’s going to be a long road back. The Nuggets may even remain in contention to make the playoffs the next few years, but if you think we’re the threat we once were, you’ve lost your mind.

(Postscript: I always thought Carmelo's playoff struggles were overblown, as he had so many game-winning shots in the regular season and played fine in '09 when he had a team around him. Thankfully I went to a Bulls game at the Pepsi Center over Thanksgiving and saw Carmelo hit a buzzer-beater in person for the first time. He's legit.)

The NFL hates you.

2011-02-17T09:27:00.001-07:00

It's no joke. It seems like the more devoted of a fan you are, the less the league cares about your continued patronage.

The best example is the league's blackout policy, a wonderful gift from the league to its teams granting them added market pressure to charge whatever ridiculous amount they want for tickets. If a game doesn't sell out, the home market doesn't get to watch it on TV. (Basically, a 75-mile radius around the stadium doesn't get to see the game on TV if all the tickets aren’t bought first.)

The NFL, like a needy girlfriend, says, "Hey, fans, you like us? Prove it." Then the league asks us to prove it again and again, week after week, year after year.

I live within 75 miles of what should be John Elway Stadium, but Broncos fans are pretty much shielded from this stuff, right?

Not all of them. One of my friends is as supportive a fan as the NFL can have: he's a Broncos season ticket holder and an NFL Sunday Ticket subscriber. That means he can watch every game every week. Or, I should say, almost every game. When the Broncos travelled to Oakland this year, the Raiders (who destroyed us at Mile High) couldn't sell out the game, so despite a) holding season tickets to the road team and b) paying for the largest amount of football broadcasts available for sale, he couldn't watch the game. I mean, this guy loves the league, just hands them money all the time, and they still snatched away a little chunk of the season to spite his neighbors.

If the NFL can hate that guy, trust me. They hate you.

Further, don't expect the next NFL season to start on time. If they cared about maintaining the relationship they'd built with you over the years, I'd feel differently, but the owners haven't exactly struck me as eager to rush to the bargaining table. And why should they be? The TV deals are going to pay them, games or no games. Their only motivation to return is money; surely they'll make more this year if there's no lockout, right? But I doubt they'll pass on the opportunity to crush the players union.

And let there be no mistake: the owners are the villains in this. First, a lockout (which is what it seems we're headed for) is the opposite of a strike: it's when factory owners lock out the workers to keep them from working. I point this out because when baseball was headed for a labor stoppage in 2002, or when the NHL had its lockout, everyone blamed the greedy players, because the average person is an idiot.

Second, football players already have a pretty horrible deal compared to other sports, what with the non-guaranteed contracts, short careers, and terrifying medical futures. And yet, the other leagues are all still minting cash, so it’s not like the NFL teams need to make conditions any more favorable to themselves. Football players know the deal going in, perhaps, but that hardly makes owners' grab for additional profits any more just or palatable.

Yet we still hear horrific ideas like an 18-game season tossed around.

Two things I would love to see: a) the owners bear the brunt of the blame for any games that are missed. Even if I didn't think they deserved it, the publically-recognized athletes always get an undeserved share of the criticism. And b) some city that financed an NFL stadium go after the team for economic damages when the team starts skipping home games. The welfare for the wealthy that is publically-financed stadiums is at least mildly unconscionable, but if the citizens are going to take all the risk of building sports fortresses because of the (perhaps overblown) promise of economic growth in their city, well, they should get something back if the owner decides to just stop holding games. And if we can't get money from the teams somehow, find a way to put a targeted tax on whatever it is football team owners buy. Hmmm, perhaps on football teams themselves. Of course, the current Congress will probably just shut down the government again until the billionaires are taken care of, but that's the risk you run. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed that Super Bowl, because I think it's going to be the last NFL game you're going to see for a while.

Screw Carmelo

2010-12-16T09:20:00.001-07:00

If Carmelo Anthony wants out so badly, let’s make him stay.

I used to think the Nuggets should keep Carmelo for the whole year since having Carmelo gives us our best shot at a championship for the foreseeable future. (Not that it’s an especially good shot.) But now? Let’s just keep him out of pure vengeance.

Recent rumors suggested Carmelo would only sign his extension with the Nuggets if they trade him to New York. Here’s how it works: in the NBA, a player’s current team can offer a guy more money than any other team. This is intended to give teams a fighting chance in free agency to hold on to their best players. But if Carmelo wants out of Denver so badly, let him go! I can’t see a single reason for the Nuggets to give him the max deal if he’s not going to play here.

Well, there is one reason, and that’s if we can trade Carmelo for something truly worthwhile. That’s unlikely. We could probably get some projects, or maybe one good player and some stiffs, for Carmelo, which isn’t close to fair. Neither trade possibility is inherently more favorable than just getting the salary cap space, and neither gives the team the sweet satisfaction of watching the door smack Anthony on his way out.

Some would say the team is better off without Carmelo anyway, as we haven’t won anything with him (mostly true) and he’ll never win a championship anyway (unknowable). I agree that Anthony is unlikely to be the cornerstone of a dynasty, but could he win a ring? You bet. History has many examples of swingman scorers who led a team to a title: Rick Barry, Dwyane Wade, and Paul Pierce come to mind. He’d probably need a higher caliber of teammate than, say, a young Shaq required to bring home a ring, but he could do it.

Anthony’s denied the report that he would accept a trade only to New York (though I still think he ends up with the Knicks), but the principle stands. He’s not a free agent, so he doesn’t get to pick his team, and that’s that.

Unless the Nuggets are truly blown away by a trade offer, I say let him walk. Let him play in New York for less money. It won’t crush the franchise the way the Mutombo departure did. Simply put, there’s no way the team’s braintrust is as dumb as it was in the mid-90s. Mutombo was just one in an epic list of mistakes back then. If Carmelo leaves, we’ll survive, and he’ll just have to film more ads to make ends meet.

Hey, I’ll miss the guy. But if he doesn’t want to play for the Nuggets any longer, let’s not do him any favors.

It's been a long time, been a long time, been a long, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time

2010-12-06T18:25:00.003-07:00

Today the Denver Broncos fired Josh McDaniels as their head coach. The team (and, by extension, the league) feels worth following once again.

McDaniels got his first shot at a pro head coaching job in Denver at the age of 15. He was, it turned out, the Brian Griese of coaches. Like Griese, he followed an absolute legend, one of the best ever in the game, in Denver, where expectations run a mile higher than they should. Griese had a weak arm at a position that almost demands a strong one; McDaniels came to town without the instant respectability a tenured NFL coach carries. Both were young, promising, and disappointing. And, as with Griese’s 2000 Pro Bowl season, McDaniels showed one flash of brilliance that gave him just a little too much leash.

His 6-0 start last season was the stuff of legend, a brilliant-if-misleading spark that gave him just enough job security to make it until today. (I say misleading because three of the wins came in one-score games, and the record since suggests winning those games was as much of a result of luck as it was clutch execution.) It became clear down the stretch last season that McDaniels lacked the chops to right a sinking ship.

When the team lost some of its best guys on both sides of the ball (Brandon Marshall and Elvis Dumervil), 2010 quickly became a lost cause. It’s bad, but I stopped caring almost as soon as I started. I moved a church meeting off of Sundays so I could watch the games, but I missed most of them anyway. Life’s too short to pour your heart into a team that impresses neither in execution nor in heart.

See, if McDaniels had coached a young-but-talented team that always played with pride, that might have been acceptable. If injuries had derailed the season but gave some unknowns a chance to get experience, that might have made it worthwhile, too. But besides quarterback Kyle Orton’s statistics (and he’s cooling off), there are hardly any bright spots at all. Plus, you know. 59-14.

And perhaps McDaniels’ lot wasn’t that thankless. He inherited a Pro Bowl quarterback in Jay Cutler and one of the league’s rising stars in Marshall, both of whom he chased out of town after each showed a healthy amount of immaturity. (At the times they left, I would have kept both, though Cutler’s truly obnoxious and impossible to root for.) He got a shot to coach one of the finest organizations in the NFL, too.

Perhaps he’ll be a good head coach someday. Regardless of the future, firing him right now was the right call. McDaniels didn’t get it done or even get it underway, and I’m glad Broncos owner Pat Bowlen had the presence of mind to recognize that.

So. Who’s got next?

If our contract with Mike Shanahan doesn't allow us to order him back to the Denver sideline, I'd be happy with former Broncos assistants Gary Kubiak, Bobby Turner, or Joe Collier. But I'm looking forward to hearing who the candidates are. Any preferences? And isn't it time we start Tebow?

Elway turns 50!

2010-06-28T08:47:00.003-06:00

Today is John Elway’s 50th birthday. (Thanks to Adam Schefter and my friend David for pointing this out.) In his honor, let’s look back on some of his greatest moments.

Elway capped his career with a second straight Super Bowl win and an MVP performance over the Atlanta Falcons.

Here’s a cool list of moments in video form. I love watching Elway immediately give T.D. props for Super Bowl XXXII.

We can’t discuss Elway without The Drive. (And Pat Bowlen was so much cooler in his fur coat days.)

I posted it a couple years ago, but Rick Reilly once did an exceptional profile on Elway that’s worth a read today.

Dexter Manley read this play like a book:

What the heck, another one from that Super Bowl loss:

How about when Elway started turning it around in his last AFC Championship Game, flipping the routes in a crazy wind?

Elway was and always will be my favorite athlete in any sport. The two Super Bowl wins that capped his career are the coolest sports story of my lifetime. The XXXII highlights still give me chills.

I would kill to watch that game again. Seriously, NFL, I got at least $100 with your name on it if you’ll put it on a DVD.

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On a side note, given that I don’t watch sports anymore, I don’t plan to post anything on this blog for at least a month. Maybe more. We’ll see how excited I am when the NFL rolls around. I’ll still be on HPE occasionally, so just drop these blogs in Google Reader or something and don’t bother checking here. Thanks for reading!

The Greatest Game Ever Played

2010-06-18T09:23:00.001-06:00

Last night’s NBA Championship Game was lamer than Yahoo! Answers, a disappointment in quality of play, memorable moments, and result.

Kobe Bryant was horrible offensively. He nearly choked, settling for awful shots and firing a jaw-dropping 6-for-24 from the floor. Since his team won the title, though, clearly he did enough, I guess. It’d be interesting to see what the reaction to his game would have been had the Celtics won, though he’d probably get a free pass, like he did in 2008. Though I think the refs called the start of the game fine, they weren’t giving him calls that he usually gets, though it’s his job not to get frustrated.

The box score vindicates no one else; did anyone have a good all-around game? Kevin Garnett played great for the most part, but only had three rebounds. Pau Gasol turned it on in crunch time, and grabbed eighteen rebounds (nine offensive!), but for an elite big man he sure got swatted a lot in the first half. Rajon Rondo was good, and his late three nearly huge, but the Lakers were able to play off him in the closing minutes because he’s not a confident shooter from distance. He’s been called one of the best players in the league, but he won’t truly be until he develops his shot. Paul Pierce inspired confidence, but he didn’t quite have it last night and forced a few shots. Rasheed Wallace was solid in his role and hit that three, but could have kept the Lakers off the boards more. Ron Artest played as well as Lakers fans could have hoped. The ambidextrose Lamar Odom pleased me with his confidence from beyond the arc, where he was 0-for-3, but somehow finished with the game’s highest plus/minus rating.

I thought the coaches were pretty even: each was okay, at best. Neither tried anything risky, and neither could get his team’s offense going.

In such a rare game, where anyone can step up, win his team a title, and be remembered forever, I expected someone out on the floor to rise to the occasion. It’s a little sad that it didn’t happen.

In the dark before the darkness meets the dawn

2010-06-16T09:15:00.001-06:00

The Lakers simply blew out the Celtics last night. Ideally you’d want to bookend a series with the kind of wins L.A. had in Games One and Six, but all last night’s win did is set the stage for what should be an epic Game Seven (Thursday, 7 p.m. Mountain, ABC).

I had secretly hoped for the Lakers to win last night; we’ve had only one winner-takes-all NBA championship game since Michael Jordan stopped playing baseball. So, as bad as the news from last night was, tomorrow night should be outstanding and historic.

The human drama is compelling; I’m jealous of everyone who gets to play in this game. Rajon Rondo could become a legend. Kevin Garnett could give us an Elway-in-XXXIII performance and make everyone forget how much they criticized his previous crunch-time efforts. Kobe Bryant could finally prove, to me anyway, that he’s as great as they say. Lamar Odom can show us all how far he’s come with his candy addiction. The list goes on. All I’m hoping for is a game that lives up to its billing.

U.S. ties; Celtics inch ahead

2010-06-14T09:04:00.005-06:00

This weekend I caught the U.S. vs. England World Cup game, and the last minute and a half of the Lakers-Celtics game. I'm not sure which took longer. Here are some random and unorganized thoughts on each:

Soccer is like baseball with a clock. Well, baseball off steroids, anyway. There are a lot more, "hey, something could happen" moments than there are times when things actually do happen. It lends a certain tension to the proceedings; we went nuts when the U.S. goal trickled across the line. And the final minutes were tense, but not quite like normal American sports, because you never really know when the next scoring chance will develop.

That said, the clock is huge. I love that the game starts moving, keeps moving, and ends in a timely fashion. Baseball has a huge problem with this. When it's a great playoff series (like Yankees-Red Sox in the Pedro Martinez era), I don't mind, but otherwise I start to wonder about how much of my life is ticking away watching pitchers throw to first base.

Soccer is quite good on TV, and almost great. The problem is the camera angle; for any extended action they have to pan the field because the ball can move so far so quickly. They tried showing a few seconds of the game in a close-up and it got confusing really quickly. But the slow-motion replays of slide tackles or Landon Donovan shaking a defender were great. I particularly liked the first half shots of Tim Howard, the U.S. goalie, shouting at his teammates. Like basketball, the minimalist uniforms showcase the emotional side of the game. I don't expect I really will, but I can see why people get into the World Cup now.

However, I'm sure the announcers wish they could have criticized the Americans' lone goal a few hundred more times.

Speaking of Howard, he was outstanding, and kept getting better as the game went on. He and England's Steven Gerrard (all over the place in the first half) were standouts. That's impressive because outside of Jozy Altidore's breakaway scoring chance, I'm not sure I could tell you what anyone else did.

And the Celtics took Game Five for a 3-2 NBA Finals lead. My favorite part was the Garnett-to-Pierce-to-Rondo lob-toss-lay-up that kept the Celtics' lead up late. Kobe got on my nerves even more than before. I don't understand how a guy who gets as many breaks as he does can be so mad at the refs all the time.

Apparently I underestimated the Celtics and especially Rajon Rondo. Here's hoping they finish the job Tuesday...but a Game Seven would be sick as well.

Boston ties NBA Finals at 2-2

2010-06-11T00:35:00.001-06:00

So today was a crazy day. CU is joining the Pac-10, which now joins the Big 12 and Big 10 in having eleven teams. I don’t care for the move and feel particularly annoyed at the potential loss of the rivalry game with Nebraska.

USC finally got busted. Thank you! Finally, justice is served against all those 2004 stars who are still on football scholarship with the school. And Pete Carroll’s going to have a tough time getting his next job. (Oh, wait.) Actually, I did get to tell a missionary in my ward today who is a big USC fan about the two-year bowl game ban, and that was kinda fun. (I can’t even describe how self-conscious I was writing that last sentence.)

Most importantly, the Boston Celtics beat the L.A. Lakers to even the Finals. I have mixed feelings. I didn’t see the end of the game, but I saw Rasheed Wallace’s Morey Rule three-pointer with about six minutes left in the fourth. I’m excited. Boston has energy throughout their lineup, which L.A. can really lack. On the other hand, I keep having these flashbacks to the Nuggets evening it 2-2 last year against L.A. before getting steamrolled. So I am cautiously optimistic.

This post is a bit lame; please help by adding your salient comments below.

Celtics Strike Back

2010-06-07T09:13:00.002-06:00

I missed the second half last night, leaving just as the third quarter started and thinking the Celtics would waste Ray Allen’s historic shooting night. In retrospect, I gave up way too soon. Go Boston!

Well…crap.

2010-06-04T07:58:00.003-06:00

Excited for an HPS comeback? I was, but I have nothing to say after last night. I’m pulling for the Celtics, obviously, and they were dominated pretty much start-to-finish. Other than Sheed’s straight-up block of Pau Gasol I didn’t see much to get excited about. (Oh, and I liked Doc Rivers’ $100/person motivational gimmick.) How much of a shot does Boston even have left in this series? Is it time to give up hope? I’m just hoping the Lakers get cocky and let up, which is totally possible.

Highlights if you want 'em:

Celtics knock out LeBron

2010-05-14T08:02:00.001-06:00

So ESPN 3 didn’t work for me at all last night, so after finally getting home I was unable to follow the game on anything nicer than a Gamecast. So I didn’t actually see the Cleveland Cavaliers’ last meaningful game of the decade. But if you did, let me know about it in the comments.

The big question: does this loss tarnish LeBron’s legacy? I don’t know. Michael’s Bulls lost to the Pistons three years in a row, and no one cares now. So I’m inclined to say it won’t, depending on how LeBron fares on his new team, of course. That said, Jordan’s Bulls didn’t choke away the best record in the league two seasons in a row, either. And how was LeBron last night, anyway?

It’s all a terrible mess

2010-05-12T20:37:00.001-06:00

…and we’re back! Saturday a friend’s dad asked me if I thought the Denver Nuggets would be well-advised to trade Carmelo Anthony this off-season. His take is that Carmelo was ineffective in Game Six against the Jazz, when it really counted, and I presume he meant ’Melo cannot be considered reliable in the future. I almost blew up at the poor guy, and threw in some unwarranted criticism of Chauncey Billups, but I still believe trading Anthony would be a huge mistake.

Game Six was the only game I saw of the playoffs this year, owing to my savvy decision to cancel cable just before the postseason started. (Hey, I still get House and Community; what else is there?) I ended up going to someone’s house where they watched the game on ESPN 3, or in other words over the Internet, where I probably could have watched the whole freaking series at my own place. (Note to self: edit out this part because it makes me look like an idiot.) Anyway, that game was a nightmare to watch: the refs were awful, Deron Williams was overly pleased with himself, and we couldn’t catch a break. Worst of all, though, the Nuggets each refused to step up and make a difference, including Carmelo. (Chauncey hit a few shots in a row where it looked like we might make a run, but it fizzled out just as quickly.)

Doesn’t matter or, rather, it doesn’t matter if you take the long view. Carmelo Anthony is the best thing to happen to the Nuggets in the last decade and a half and we’d be insane to trade him. After years of puzzling playoff ineptitude, he finally put it together with some huge games last season, including a game-winner over the Mavericks. (His struggles made no sense because he carried his Syracuse team to the national championship as a freshman, which is amazingly impressive and cemented his status as a prodigy in the sport. Compare that to your freshman year.)

The point is, we waited so long for him to put it together, and now we can stick by a guy who had one bad series. And did he? Numbers don’t tell the whole story, but Anthony, who scored 28.2 points and grabbed 6.6 rebounds per game in the regular season, scored 30.7 and grabbed 8.5 in the playoffs in just a few more minutes while improving his shooting percentages. He’s fine. So’s Chauncey, for that matter, though his age makes me think the Nuggets need to move yesterday to contend while he can still star.

So who deserves the blame? The obvious target is J.R. Smith, whose tweet after Game Four quickly became infamous. I hate piling on J.R. because everyone already is and because he was indispensable in last year’s first two rounds. He kept the Nuggets dialed in against New Orleans and Dallas whenever Chauncey was resting, particularly in the fourth quarters of games. However, he was pretty bad against L.A. last year and Utah this year.

What about Nene? The powerhouse interior man has had a star-crossed career, but isn’t it time his play starts to resemble his considerable potential?

And Kenyon Martin? Believe it or not, I think the Nuggets really did put a last year in his contract…and it’s next year. That excites me.

The problem with the Nuggets is, we’ve got a superstar scorer (Carmelo), a brilliant point guard and his understudy (Chauncey and Ty Lawson), and a ton of head cases who sometimes, but not always, play up to their potential, and probably can’t be traded for more reliable players unless we’re willing to take a talent drop-off in return. That said, I think the Nuggets need even more talent, particularly down low, to be title contenders. So perhaps it comes down to what we can get for K-Mart during next season. Your thoughts?

No one can tell me what my remorse is

2010-04-04T22:40:00.001-06:00

Dear Readers,

The last few years I always felt like writing a “Life is Good” post, celebrating how long it had been since the New York Yankees won a World Series or were a serious threat to: it had been nearly a decade. I suppose they were a threat to win it in 2003, when I didn’t watch the Florida Marlins whoop ’em, but the Arizona Diamondbacks’ seventh-game win in 2001 didn’t just knock off the Yankees’ aura, it made the team seem utterly vincible. After a few years, though, I felt most of us had forgotten how awful it had been in the late-90’s and 2000, when the Dynasty of Inequality crushed the hopes of baseball fans everywhere else, which is to say of real fans. (Those same fans had the pleasure of being insulted every time the team’s front-office and managerial savvy were praised on TV. Oh, that huge financial advantage inherent to playing in New York? I’m sure it’s nothing! Salary cap? That sounds like communism, and what kind of all-American sport would agree to such blatant loss of freedom?) It pains me to say that I did not write that post on time, for as you know the Yankees were “finally” back on top last year after a soul-searing ten-year absence.

Now, my friends, my regret is not doing the same for the Blue Devils of Duke, who are back in the national championship game tomorrow night for the first time since 2001. Screw Duke, I hate Duke, Duke sucks. You know me as an unnaturally-occurring fan of Duke’s main rival, the North Carolina Tar Heels, but that’s not my motivation here. Duke, in the grand tradition of the Yankees, New Red Sox, and Dallas Cowboys, is overhyped, overpraised, and overappreciated. But, you say, at least I have to admit that Coach Shursheffski has done a marvelous job with the ol’ program, don’t I? Actually, I don’t. I’m more than happy to ignore any changes in the game over several decades and instead compare him unfavorably to, say, John Wooden at UCLA. And hey, at least Kareem did a thing or two in the pros. (But seriously, is Coach K. really as far ahead of every other marquee de laffay-coach as they say he is? I think not.)

Let’s go Butler!

And whatever happens tomorrow night, at least we’ll always have this year’s Super Bowl,

Mike

Unfold your victory story

2010-03-18T13:14:00.001-06:00

So I was hardly excited about this year’s NCAA Tournament. Filled out three brackets this morning, but I don’t know who’s good, and I don’t really care. By the way, brackets are just awful when you can’t convince yourself yours matters.

But then the games started.

BYU just wrapped up a spectacular 99-92 double-overtime win over the 10-seed Florida Gators that reminded me why March Madness is king. Like many tourney games, it started slowly, with poor execution and a disappointing level of play. But the Cougars took a big second-half lead, blew it, and then somehow managed to win the game anyway.

My favorite part was when Jimmer Fredette got knocked down with four minutes to go in the second overtime period. As soon as the cameraman stood over him, he just looked up and waved. Totally cool under pressure, and that’s as close as I got to knowing the Cougars would win before the final buzzer sounded. My least favorite part would have been that stepback three he took late if he hadn’t made it, but it went in and he finished with 37 to lead BYU to an awesome victory.

So it’s back to the games for me. By the way, CBS and the NCAA completely rock for giving you alternative options if you can’t catch the games on TV, like their online streaming and $10 iPhone app (which has pretty solid video quality, by the way) for catching games on the go, or just seeing the game that isn’t on right now. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I can’t wait until everyone sees the light.

Broncos get Brady Quinn. Next stop? Missing the playoffs

2010-03-16T23:23:00.001-06:00

So you’ve probably heard that the Denver Broncos acquired quarterback Brady Quinn, late of the Cleveland Browns and previously of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, in a trade involving Peyton Hillis (who I’m not in love with) and some late draft picks.

I’ve got nothing against Hillis; he’s just not one of my favorites the way he seems to be for some Broncos fans.

So how does Brady Quinn, Medicine Woman, shift the balance of power in the AFC West? Not at all! Everyone keeps asking me what I think about this trade, which is weird, considering Quinn’s dazzling career 5.39 yards per attempt, which barely beats Hillis’ 4.9 yards per rushing attempt. Let me spell it out for you: he sucks. No, he doesn’t suck at football the way I suck at getting women, but he’s yet to show any hint that he’s got the potential to turn a team around, despite his build, athleticism, and hype.

And make no mistake: turning the franchise around is absolutely what the Broncos need right now. We might’ve been gangbusters out of the gate last year, including a Week Two win over Cleveland in which Quinn threw thirty-one times for 161 yards and a pick, but we were straight garbage down the stretch, with a pair of four-game losing streaks sandwiching our only second-half wins. Overall, we were middle-of-the-pack, if anything, outscoring opponents by two points over the course of the season and finishing 8-8. But the team fell apart in ways that seemed to go beyond things that are easily correctable. And we’ll be even worse if we get rid of Brandon Marshall, our one offensive weapon at the skill positions. (That’s an odd thing to say, because Ryan Clady is nothing if not skilled, but you know what I mean.) Knowing Josh McDaniels, we’ll probably get rid of Marshall and Champ Bailey, and then next year we can trade for guys with one third of their potential. In other words, don’t anybody get excited, because we’ve got a long way to go.

A perfect Sunday

2010-02-28T21:35:00.001-07:00

This afternoon I was awoken from a glorious slumber by a phone call I barely remember, and then I called back my friend David, who had also called during my nap. He told me he was heading home to watch the gold-medal Olympic hockey game and the Nuggets-Lakers game. Holy crap, how did I not know? So I switched on the TV and this is what I saw.

I picked up the hockey match early in the third period, with the U.S. down 2-1 and not really charging. I was alternately shocked how many names I did and didn’t recognize. Scott Niedermayer’s still playing? Whenever Jack Johnson’s name was called, I started to sing, “it seems to me that maybe…”, and likewise when Mike Richards was on the ice I began to reminisce out loud about what I would have done to him with a fork fifty years ago. This is particularly charming when you realize I was watching the game alone.

Meanwhile the Nuggets were taking care of business in L.A., up by eight or so.

The U.S. was getting occasional chances on goal, slightly better than Canada was, but it became clear that Canada was just playing not to give up another score. I was just hoping for a U.S. goal, or a really good U.S. chance, so the game could be worthy of its billing. Kept waiting, and waiting, and it didn’t come. Minutes were ticking off the clock very slowly, and I was wondering if anything was going to happen. The Nuggets were slowly losing their lead. I began to wonder where Team U.S.A. hockey ranks on my list of favorite teams…top 50, maybe? I of course would rather have one of my teams win gold than have another win some regular season game, but it began to appear I’d get neither.

Then the U.S. pulled their goalie. I don’t care how many hockey games you’ve seen, that never stops being fun, even if it often ends with the opponent scoring on an empty net. The Americans started pressing, forcing the issue, but we didn’t seem to know quite what to do. Come on, stop controlling the puck, get a shot! And then, holy crap, we tied it up.

There were, what, 24 seconds left at this point. The crowd seemed a little out of it, and the Canadian team in general felt shaky. I don’t know if they really were, or if they were just trying to play defense, but it felt good. Nonetheless, I thought, it would suck, but how awesome would it be for Canada to score in the closing seconds and win the gold? They didn’t, naturally, and the game went to overtime.

I switched back to the Nuggets and saw the Lakers take a lead, which later we tied, but the game started to feel over. I switch back to the hockey and IM a Canadian friend to say that they’re about to lose, but I honestly started to feel bad about it. It’s like if someone from Jacksonville had talked trash to me when they knocked out the aging Elway. I just would have cared too much to find any humor or charm in it whatsoever.

Our goalie, Ryan Miller, was playing his butt off, but Sidney Crosby broke free up the left side. I started to relax slightly, thanks to a Sports Guy tweet that he wasn’t worried about Crosby. And next thing I know, Crosby’s scoring on a point-blank, easy goal and the Canadians win the gold medal.

I’m bummed that the U.S. lost, but honestly, if you have to lose to any country in the world in anything, I’ll take to Canada in hockey. And I felt good for my friend, which I hope isn’t some sign of growing maturity or something. Seriously, though, the silver medal in hockey is great. It’s like I told a friend on the phone: if American football was an Olympic sport, we all know the most impressive country would be the one that won silver.

I switch back to the Nuggets, who were just clearly going to lose, and see Carmelo foul out while trying to establish position on Ron Artest. As Mark Jackson said, that wasn’t a sixth foul. But he was sent to the bench and well, that’s the ball game.

But I still had a great day today, since on the way to church I drove past my ex-girlfriend getting pulled over. Police, you’re okay by me. If you ever need voters to support some budget increase or something, you just let me know.

Saints triumph in the Super Bowl

2010-02-07T22:57:00.001-07:00

Everyone’s been asking me the last few weeks who I wanted to win the Super Bowl, and the answer was easy: the New Orleans Saints. Why? Because I hate Colts quarterback Peyton Manning, I’d say, even though everyone says he’s the greatest player in the universe.

As I was explaining this over and over, I realized how weird it is to say I am rooting against a team because I hate someone. Thing is, I don’t have any reason to hate Manning. He’s a good guy or whatever. Or maybe he’s not, but he doesn’t seem to be that bad of a guy, either. And he’s very good at football. But he’s wildly overrated in any discussion of his talents as a quarterback. It’s just off the charts how much more highly people think of him than his actual ability merits. Just look at his record in big games, or the way he started going off-target in the fourth quarter tonight.

Enough about Peyton Manning, though. Tonight’s all about the Saints and Drew Brees, who cemented what should have been an MVP year with a masterful performance. (Just for the record, his completion percentage, yards-per-attempt, touchdowns, and interceptions were all better than Manning’s, and his team scored almost one hundred points more in the regular season. In fact, his team led the NFL in scoring, where Manning’s would’ve been third in the NFC North alone. But it’s Manning who gets the MVP? Too bad Brees’ dad didn’t suck in the NFL; both MVP trophies could’ve been his.)

The entire Saints team was impressive. I loved coach Sean Payton going for the touchdown in the second quarter, then following up with the surprise onside kick to start the third. I really loved Tracy Porter’s interception return. The wide angle replay, where you could see almost the whole field, was particularly telling: many of the Colts were jogging back, with minimal effort, while at least one other Saint was sprinting like a bat out of Lincoln to meet Porter in the end zone. I know it’s demoralizing, but this is the Super Bowl; you shouldn’t need any more motivation to run, to scrap, or to fight. Plays like that will forever remind me of Rod Smith chasing down Julius Peppers from across the field, saying if it had been his last play, he would’ve wanted to give it his best. And New Orleans did. The Saints came to win; the Colts came to claim a trophy, and not to lose. I was so glad to see it work out for the aggressors.

George Gore

2010-02-01T13:31:00.002-07:00

Somehow I’ve never written about George Gore, the only Gore ever to play major league baseball. Though you’ve probably never heard of him, Gore was pretty sweet: an outfielder who could flat-out rake, run the bases, and had some skills on defense. He was probably a five-tool player, especially early in his career, though the standards were a little different back then.

Gore played his first eight seasons (1879-1886) for the Chicago White Stockings, the team that would become today’s…wait for it…Chicago Cubs (yes, seriously). In 1880, Gore won his only batting title, hitting .360, with league-leading on-base (.399) and slugging (.463) percentages, too.

According to Wikipedia, his last two White Stockings teams won the National League pennant, then faced the St. Louis Brown Stockings, champions of the American Association, in what then passed for a World Series. The clubs tied in 1885 and St. Louis won outright in 1886; this was the foundation of today’s Cubs-Cardinals rivalry.

Gore once stole seven bases in a single game. As near as I can tell, that record has never been broken. His 1,327 career runs rank him just outside of the top 100 all-time.

Gore’s nickname, “Piano Legs”, came from his massive calf muscles, a trait he shares with my brother John. In The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, Bill James named George Gore as having the best outfield arm of the 1880s. Gore finished with a career .301 average (just above Juan Pierre) and .386 on-base percentage (a little better than Ichiro). Told ya he could play.

More information about Gore can be found on Wikipedia, Baseball-Reference.com, and Bleed Cubbie Blue.

(If my timing confuses anyone, my nephew George was born today to John and his wife Kristina. Congratulations!)

Conference Championships

2010-01-24T21:16:00.003-07:00

The games today were predictable (AFC) and sloppy (NFC), and only one moment (the Saints' FG) was as cool as Carmelo's OT free throws Saturday, but here are my brief thoughts on what we've learned about the teams:

New York Jets: None of the teams whose seasons are over did more with their potential this year than the New York Jets. Their foundation was less solid than anyone else in the final four. Mark Sanchez is limited as a quarterback, particularly in his rookie season, but the team asked just the right amount of him, especially in the postseason. Their defense and running game are very good; will Sanchez get better quickly enough that the team returns to this point next year? And will teams like the Ravens and Patriots not improve enough to challenge them? It's too early to call next year, but Jets fans have a team to be proud of.

Indianapolis Colts: In the second half of the NFC title game, it hit me: the Colts are almost surely winning the Super Bowl again. I hate that, being as sick as I am of Peyton Manning, who absolutely did not deserve this year's MVP award. Other things I hate? The fact that Bobby Turner, the Broncos' longtime running back coach, has gone to Washington. Not sure how I missed that when it happened, but there goes my weekend. (I recently gave a USC fan some crap about Pete Carroll leaving; I'm barely exaggerating when I say this is just as devastating. Love that guy, way more than Josh.)

Minnesota Vikings: Sad day for Mr. Favre, who played tough through injury, then ended a fantastic year with a boneheaded toss across the middle. The Vikings refused to hang on to the ball today, and while they're clearly very talented, they refused to play up to the moment. They had so many chances they let pass them by.

New Orleans Saints: Classic Reggie Bush-in-a-big-game moment on that muffed punt return. The Saints didn't step up and make today's game their own. Rather, they took advantage of some bad Vikings turnovers, won a coin toss, and made just enough plays to be ahead on the scoreboard at the end. You can call that winning a conference championship if you'd like, but the Colts have been on the game's biggest stage before and gotten it done, as much as it pains me to say. One last thought: the game-winning field goal in OT? That's not the kind of play this franchise makes. Their fans must be going nuts right now. Everybody loves the Saints; let's hope they have enough in them to make this Super Bowl a memorable one.

Shanahan to coach Redskins

2010-01-05T21:47:00.001-07:00

Yes, that is seriously a football team’s name. Anyway, it’s official that the greatest coach in Denver Broncos history is heading to the overexposed NFC East. I twittered about this a bunch tonight so you can hit the link to the right if you want to see what I said. I appreciated more the sentiment from my Sunday Ticket host, who texted, “I feel like my ex-gf just got married.”

And go Nuggets! Crazy win against the Warriors tonight.

The Broncos are done. For how long?

2010-01-03T21:01:00.001-07:00

You wouldn’t put a fork in them, because you wouldn’t want to consume—you wouldn’t want to savor—you wouldn’t even want to think about this painful season one second more than is necessary. I’ll be brief.

Last season the Broncos ran out to an 8-5 start. Not unstoppable, but dangerous on offense, which for some reason makes a team look a lot better than when they’re just average on both sides of the ball with the same record. Wonder if there’s anything to that. Anyway, we just needed one win—any win—in the last three games to clinch a playoff spot. Instead we fell apart, losing by twenty to Carolina, by a touchdown to Buffalo, and by a ton to San Diego in the last game of the season, a painful and sad loss. That loss was so bad that it felt like a big factor in the dismissal of our Hall of Fame coach, Mike Shanahan, and the team’s overall letdown was surely at play in our trade of Jay Cutler, too.

This year we busted out of the gate to a sparkling 6-0 mark. However, we faltered, and were 8-5 heading into the last three weeks, before we once again lost all three. (We were also 8-4 before losing four, but don’t crush my narrative.) The fact is, we got off to a good start and then lost it all one more time.

Not that making the playoffs is good enough, or the be all end all. I don’t expect the Broncos to win a title every year or even every decade, but I like the team to provide some legitimate excitement, and I liked that Shanahan’s teams were almost always prepared. The six-and-oh start made me gun-shy on new coach Josh McDaniels, but haven’t we just spent a couple of months getting our butts beat up and down the field? And doesn’t it make that 6-0 start seem a bit…flukish?

The Raiders loss two weeks ago was the worst for me. Except for when JaMarcus Russell first stepped on the field, I just knew we were going to lose, because we were getting outplayed by a team with half our talent. Although now, I’m not sure we’re all that talented, especially if we lose Brandon Marshall, only the most or one of the most talented receivers in the game, a beast of a man who saved the Cowboys game and whose talents are wasted on a short-passing team.

Keep Marshall, find a tight end who can catch, get healthy, keep developing Knowshon, keep Elvis and Champ happy whatever the cost, force Shanahan to come back and fulfill his contract, let McDaniels follow his heart to greener pastures, and give Ron Wolf $10 million to pick some quarterbacks in next year’s draft. Do that, and next year maybe we can go 9-7.

A Sunday of Ticket

2009-12-27T20:39:00.001-07:00

Last Sunday I had the inestimable pleasure of spending my Sunday in a chair at a friend’s place watching NFL Sunday Ticket on a brand-new Sony HDTV. It was a blast. I don’t think I could do it every week, but if I had more time to spend on football, Sunday Ticket is a pretty sweet way to do it.

Sunday Ticket’s a DirecTV package that lets you watch every NFL game every Sunday. For some reason, the package is still subject to the NFL’s blackout regulations. So, for example, if you live near Oakland, as my friend does, and the team is unable to sell out its home game against the Broncos, as they were earlier this year, you don’t get to watch the game on TV. (Actually, he found it on some other channel, but you’re not supposed to have that option.)

Anyway, Sunday Ticket is mostly just a ton of channels that have NFL games on them. And that’s pretty awesome all by itself, because the NFL was made for television. (I mean, unless it’s the playoffs, aren’t games better at home?) Sunday Ticket adds more, like the Red Zone Channel, which jumps among games depending on what’s happening in them, but which strikes me as a pretty stupid way to watch football. There’s also a Game Mix Channel (possibly two channels according to some website, but we only watched one), which divides the screen into eighths and lets you watch eight games at once, or really seven and the Red Zone Channel.

What’s really cool is the sound: you can highlight any of the up-to-eight games that are on and play its audio, even while watching all these other games.

Sounds awesome, right? Unfortunately it misses on several counts. First, it doesn’t really divide the screen into eighths: there are eight boxes in a four-by-two arrangement, but there are always large swaths of gameless screen above and below the games. One is a constant sponsor’s logo, next to the huge “NFL GAMEMIX” in the center of the top of the screen. (Oh, that’s what I’m watching. Thought this was C-SPAN.) On the bottom’s a ticker. The problem is really one of geometry: you could make the game views taller, but not really any wider, so they’d be the wrong shape for the TV feeds anyway. Of course, you COULD divide the screen into quarters or ninths and they’d all be the right shape, and in the case of quarters much more watchable, but whatever. Another problem is that the screen always has eight squares divided, even if there aren’t eight games on. This leads us to our next issue, which is that the channel wasn’t even working right Sunday morning, because all the squares weren’t filled, but they also weren’t showing all the games. The final disappointment is performance: it’s very laggy switching between audio feeds and sometimes doesn’t seem to want to switch at all. It’s a weird thing to complain about: the setup is practically magic, and nothing on my TV comes even close, but it’s doesn’t seem like it should be much harder to do this well than it is to do it.

So, there’s my litany of complaints. So what. The experience of watching a ton of NFL action is just beyond compare. I got to see Vince Young, so beautifully back at the top of his game, go against the Dolphins, whose Chad Henne seems just awful. I got to see a similar mismatch as the Patriots took on the Buffalo Bills. The Eagles were taking care of the 49ers, which we barely watched because the other games were so much closer. It’s a weird phenomenon: if you’d had this in 2007, would you have watched any more than a few minutes of any Patriots game, or would they just be considered lame because they were blowing everyone out?

In the afternoon we focused primarily on the Denver-Oakland and Green Bay-Pittsburgh games, since my friend and I are Broncos fans and his girlfriend, who’s like the coolest person alive, is a Packers fan. Sadly both teams lost by one point. The Broncos game was fun: lasers, a guy losing his pants, and two near-brawls. Too bad it ended in unbelievable fashion as JaMarcus Russell took them down the field. (I thought the injury to Charlie Frye would’ve saved us.) Speaking of the Broncos, that 8-5 start followed by three losses last year is starting to feel awfully familiar. The Packers game was even worse, and gave me flashbacks to last year’s Super Bowl as Big Ben led a scoring drive in no time flat to pull out a win. I can’t wait to see him back in action in the playoffs, even if he screwed up our Sunday.

The nightcap of Minnesota-Carolina was fun to watch, and it just feels right to settle in to one single game at the end of the day.

What else changes with Sunday Ticket? Well, the highlights in postgame shows are superfluous and kind of funny, a reminder that some people just don’t have an NFL experience as nice as yours. Also, the “wait, why am I watching commercials?” feeling you sometimes get using a DVR is a million times worse when you’re missing live NFL games by not remoting fast enough, rather than just wasting a few minutes.

Anyway, Sunday Ticket is sweet. I don’t think I’ll ever have it, since I’d miss too many games being at church anyway, but if you’re gonna follow the NFL, there’s no better way.

Shanahan to Washington?

2009-12-18T10:05:00.001-07:00

I have a plane to catch…in several hours, but anyway, I’m too lazy to write about this. The Denver Post is reporting that Mike Shanahan may well be heading to the Redskins, which is sad because how well did it work for him the last time he had a control-freak owner? (And at least Al Davis knew football.) If anything big happens with this over the weekend, I’ll post some thoughts on Twitter.

Give in to your anger

2009-12-08T23:37:00.003-07:00

The BCS sucks. It’s a corrupt piece of garbage that goes against everything pure in sports, foisted upon us by fat cats with no concern for fair play, giving the fans what they want, or letting anyone win the title on the field. If it weren’t for big-money conferences, it wouldn’t exist.

We all know this. Everyone puts up with it, though, which makes me sick.

This year the BCS matchups are particularly stupid: Alabama, which just dominated the vaunted Florida Gators, will be playing Texas, which tried valiantly to lose to Nebraska last week, for the national championship. Left out of a shot at the championship are undefeated TCU, Cincinnati, and Boise State.

The great things about college football are the same things that are great about America. There’s all the pageantry, the spectacle, the youthful and regional pride, but most importantly, sports are a meritocracy. You want to know which of your state’s big schools has the best team? Let them figure it out, on the field, in front of thousands of screaming maniacs and watch as young men make amazing things happen under intense pressure with the threat of pain and suffering built into every down. The scoreboard doesn’t care what your facilities look like back home, or who your daddy was, or that fourth-quarter comeback you sparked with an interception last week. All that matters is what you can do right now—whose best beats whose best try.

The bad things about the BCS are all the things bad about America: small, powerful groups wielding unfair influence over everyone, all thanks to a taller stack of dollars. And their propaganda tactics are absurd: for years they pretended to have their hands tied by the sinister computer formulas, until one day we all realized that computers are our friends. Now they make patronizing allowances to smaller schools but refuse to invite them to the main event. We love to say socialism is a threat to the American way, but what about when the rich are so rich they can afford to stop trying?

That’s what happened with this year’s bowl matchups: the cowards in charge put TCU and Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl to spare the big-money teams the shame of losing they way they’ve lost to Boise State and Utah lately. It’s infuriating that the matchup between two undefeated teams will inevitably be billed as a sort of Junior National Championship, especially considering the Horned Frogs took it to their ranked competition so much better than the Longhorns ever did.

I’m not saying Texas doesn’t deserve to be there. Well, actually, I am, because no one “deserves” a spot in an arbitrary championship game just because they had a good regular season. But whatever. I don’t know who is the best out of Texas, TCU, Boise State, Cincinnati, or, for that matter, Alabama. The sad thing? No one will ever know. Sure, you can study it, break down the numbers, and come to a solid conclusion, but you can’t say anyone deserved that crystal football when just two teams were blessed with a chance to play for it. The World’s Shortest Tournament, we’ll call it. It’s not that a normal playoff system is perfect, or that the best team always wins (just ask Tom Brady). It’s just that real contenders all get a real shot, so nobody cares.

The most devastating part of it all is the aftermath, when BCS apologists (read: those with a financial stake in extending the current BS) rush out to cry: All is well! Perhaps Alabama wins in spectacular fashion over Texas, and the pundits agree that Alabama would have beaten anyone this year. You know, it might even be true. It’s just completely unfair to all the schools, including Alabama. Don’t you think Crimson Tide fans would want to savor a few more weeks of dominance in a playoff system? And shouldn’t the team get a chance to put all doubts to rest?

Actually, the real most devastating part is what we’re all missing, which is the joy we’d get from, say, a 16-team tournament. I get giddy just thinking about it. College football playoffs? Are you kidding me? I want to race to every sports website the morning after the committee makes it picks, printing out brackets and rifling through analysis until I find something I already agreed with. I want to sign into eight different places so I can lose bracket challenges to everyone I know. I want to know that a No. 13 upset a No. 4 in seven of the last ten years. I’ve never been to a bowl game, but I’d want to a lot more if that Liberty Bowl had an SEC team with a Pro Bowler behind center and a seven-game winning streak that I thought could win it all. See, I have nothing against big conferences. I like college football. I just wish I could love it.

So how do we fix this absolutely-broken system? It’s daunting, but simple: we have to stop putting up with it. There’s so much that could be done, from ignoring college football entirely to pressuring your local congressman into some good ol'-fashioned regulatory intervention. My plan this year is to pass on every BCS game but the Fiesta Bowl, and while I’m not ready to commit to it, I’m about ready to ignore the rest of the bowl games entirely. (I mean, come on, they’re stupid anyway: play all year just to get into one last ceremonial game?)

I could definitely watch the MAACO Bowl without any threat to my conscience, as BYU is the only non-BCS team in more than fifty years to win a national championship. And I’d watch Colorado if they were in a bowl, but that’s no problem this year. Anyway, that’s where I choose to draw the line. I know some of you won’t want to give up the national championship game, such as it is. That’s fine. But I call on everyone this year to do something to call attention to or challenge this grave injustice. Let’s stop acting like the current situation is anything short of a disaster.

Supersonic gone & took my soul

2009-12-02T06:40:00.002-07:00

My heart broke Monday when I read the apology that BYU quarterback Max Hall issued after some comments he made following Saturday’s 26-23 win over the Utah Utes.

Let’s start with the apology:

‘I want to take the opportunity to clarify and apologize for a few of my remarks after the game yesterday,’ Hall said in a statement Sunday, according to the Deseret News of Salt Lake City. ‘Last year at [Rice-Eccles Stadium], my family was spit on, had beer dumped on them and were physically assaulted on several occasions. They had to endure extremely vile comments personally attacking my wife, my mother, other family members and our religion. They had to be escorted to their car by local police.

‘As a result of what happened to my family last year, this rivalry became personal, and in the heat of the moment yesterday, I made comments toward the entire university that were really directed specifically at those fans in RES. It was not intended to be directed at the entire organization and all of their fans, and I apologize that it came out that way.’

Okay, so some fans were jerks last year, and he got carried away. Considering his need to say all this to defend himself, what he said must have been pretty awful, right?

‘I don't like Utah. In fact, I hate them. I hate everything about them. I hate their program, their fans. I hate everything,’ Hall said Saturday. ‘It felt really good to send those guys home.’

And:

‘I think the whole university and their fans and the organization is classless,’ Hall continued. ‘They threw beer on my family and stuff last year and did a whole bunch of nasty things. I don't respect them and they deserved to lose.’

I guess I feel like I’m still waiting for Hall to cross the line. So he hates Utah. And he doesn’t respect them. So what?

Personally I hate the University of Utah, too, and thought Hall’s comments were awesome, so I was disappointed when he didn’t stand by them. I know some Utah fans that I don’t hate but everything else he said, I’m down with.

Fans of the U have never done anything to my family, but I hate the school just the same. In my year at BYU I attended the rivalry football game and the basketball game in Provo. Both times I left incensed, and not only because Utah won. At football some BYU fan ran out onto the field and got taken down by a Utah cheerleader, who kept punching the guy well after taking him to the ground. I was kinda more upset that no one helped the kid, but come on. He’s down. The basketball game was a disaster; BYU didn’t hit a field goal (and perhaps they didn’t score, I’m not sure) over the last seven-plus minutes. Rick Majerus, then Utah’s coach, spent literally the entire game on the court. I don’t mean in the coaching box, I mean on the court, as in several steps in, as though to prevent three-pointers from the left side, where he planted himself on the wing. I don’t know why, but the refs completely ignored it. Of course, I was more annoyed that no one set up for a three deep in the corner and then, when getting back on D, lowered a shoulder and laid Majerus the freak out, but still. I mean, after a few minutes of watching him that was literally all I cared about. Get your butt off the court, man. Wouldn’t laying the opposing coach out, and making it look like an accident, of course, be so satisfying?

Surely this apology was forced out of Hall by the same losers who like to respond, whenever someone says they hate something, that hate is a strong word. Oh, my bad! It’s a strong word, you say? I meant to go through life saying only weak things, showing more care not to upset idiots. (I had a home-teaching companion at the Y who refused to root against Utah basketball because he had too much respect for Majerus. That’s BYU for you. Can you imagine what would have happened to a CU student back in the day who said, “I hope we win, but I can’t pull for the Huskers to lose because I have too much respect for Coach Osborne”?)

It's just a feeling, why isn't he allowed to express it?

I am so sick of the complete sissification of society and don’t see any problem whatsoever with Max Hall hating Utah. He didn’t say anything insulting, he didn’t incite mob violence, and while it’s not the greatest sportsmanship of all time he’s not even setting an horrific example for the young’ns. Anyone who has a problem with what Hall said really needs to grow up.

Carmelo goes for 50

2009-11-30T08:07:00.003-07:00

Denver Nuggets star Carmelo Anthony went for 50 points for the first time in his career Friday night against the New York Knicks.

It was a very efficient night for Carmelo, who shot 17-for-28 from the floor and missed just one of his sixteen free throw attempts. He also passed for five assists, which beats his season average of three and a half.

I spent the evening with my younger siblings and missed the game completely, but if you want to be like me and catch up with some rather-tame highlights, click below.

Happy Holidays!

2009-11-30T08:00:00.001-07:00

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, and really family, I decided to recap some of the best/most-telling scores of the college football regular season for anyone who hasn’t seen them:

CU 24, Wyoming 0

BYU 35, Utah State 17

BYU 52, Wyoming 0

CU 35, Texas A&M 34

BYU 26, Utah 23 (OT)

Enjoy the highlights! Also, though it has nothing to do with how awesome my colleges are:

Stanford 55, USC 21

Nuggets crush Lakers

2009-11-14T09:44:00.002-07:00

The Denver Nuggets beat the L.A. Lakers 105-79 last night at the Pepsi Center in our best win of the young season.

I’d been looking forward to this game for weeks, but on the way home from work yesterday I bought Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and, well, I barely caught any of the Nuggets game. Go ahead and judge me, but then try racing down a mountain with a handgun on a snowmobile and change your mind. It’s a great game, even better than the first Modern Warfare.

Anyway, have some highlights, and be sure to stick around for Ty Lawson’s dunk at the end:

What were all those dreams we shared those many years ago?

2009-11-10T21:41:00.001-07:00

The greatest championship ever was won on January 25, 1998, when the Denver Broncos upset the Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl XXXII.

Why do I call it the greatest? The Broncos are my favorite team in any sport: I’d root for them even if I was playing against them. But the stars aligned so well for that team that I will never root for a group of athletes in quite the same way again.

First off, the agony: the 1996 Broncos had burst out of the gates to a scorching 12-1 start and clinched homefield advantage way too early. They began resting players, they said, but perhaps really just screwing around, and I remember a picture in the paper of someone like Alfred Williams trying to kick a field goal in sweats. Not that you can’t relax a little bit, but the Broncos seemed satisfied with their ability to take care of business and were just waiting for the playoffs to begin. John Elway, the 36-year-old quarterback in his fourteenth year, would finally get the chance to return to the Super Bowl, which he’d lost three times in his career, his last trip coming in the first month of the nineties. Though the Green Bay Packers were also very good, this appeared to be Elway’s best team and his one last shot at a ring.

In the wild-card round, the Jacksonville Jaguars, a nearly brand-new expansion team, upset the aging Buffalo Bills. Pretty cool game, and I remember liking them. The Jaguars, led by lefty Q Mark Brunell and powerhouse runner Natrone Means, traveled into Mile High to face the Broncos the next Saturday. The Jags had no reason to be rusty, but Denver scored the first touchdown. Jason Elam’s PAT was blocked, but Denver scored the next touchdown, too. However, the Broncos were missing just a little crispness, as they went for two, but Elway’s pass, a little behind Shannon Sharpe, fell incomplete. I remember that 12-0 lead, an awesome start that to others felt ominous.

So many things went wrong in that game: defensive tackle Michael Dean Perry couldn’t get off the field, promising young corner Tory James got hurt, and the defense couldn’t tackle Means to save the dream. I’ll never forget the end, when Elway marched out onto the field, his team down, his chances dwindling, his shot at career redemption slipping through his fingers with time running out in the fourth quarter. Up popped the famous graphic: Elway’s X-number of career fourth-quarter comebacks, and how he’d done so, famously, even in the playoffs, where he was supposedly so awful. I remember he looked ready, but the rest of the team didn’t, and the comeback never came. They lost. It was heartbreaking: Elway would never get his ring. (Until he did, one year later.)

Another reason why the ’97 team’s win was so sweet was Denver’s head coach, Mike Shanahan, the local assistant made good. When I was a kid we had Broncos team posters on the walls some years, with pictures of all the players and all the coaches. Shanahan had left the Broncos to coach the Raiders, and later worked with Steve Young on the 49ers, but even at my young age he was literally a household name at the Gores and I knew he was a very good coach. That he was the one to lead Elway to the promised land just felt extra sweet. The Mastermind felt like a homegrown hero.

Also, the timing was perfect for me personally: I was in high school when the Broncos broke through, at a time when I was falling in love with sports and coming into my own in all kinds of ways. I got to read about the Broncos in the paper every single day, and the Denver Post sports section at the time was just loaded. The beat reporter for the Broncos was Adam Schefter, who’s only gone on to national acclaim in the job. (On the night Mark McGwire hit his 62nd home run, I met Schefter at his and Terrell Davis’ book signing at the Tattered Cover in Denver. Not sure whether I miss Davis or the Cover the most. Schefter seemed genuinely appreciative that someone even spoke to him, but I really was a fan.)

Really, though, it’s all about the players. And that ’97-’98 team had so many players on it that I’d been rooting for for years. Forgive me if you find this exercise mind-numbing but it blows my mind, even now, how many members of that team I had liked forever.

Small but tough: Let’s start with Tyrone Braxton, no. 34, a 5-11 cornerback who had moved to safety at that late stage in his career. He was somehow known for being undersized and slow, which doesn’t feel entirely accurate in retrospect, but he was a terrific pass defender and had picked off nine passes for the team that lost to Jacksonville. He spent one year in Miami and later remarked that while Elway was a real leader, Dan Marino also said hi to him…once.

His running mate was Steve Atwater, the more famous partner-in-crime who was the next (the last?) in a long line of outstanding Denver safeties. Atwater went to eight Pro Bowls, made the league’s All-Decade team for the ’90s, and belongs in the Hall of Fame. As a young kid, I remember hearing about an unstoppable running back on the Chiefs, a massive guy we’d have to face for years with no hope of bringing down…but then Atwater stepped in and stopped all that.

Also in the d-backfield: Darrien Gordon, who returned two punts for touchdowns in a single game against Carolina that year, a game in which he raised his return average to what was then the highest in NFL history.

The linebackers rocked, too. The young John Mobley was a beast, and knocked down Brett Favre’s last pass in the Super Bowl. Bill Romanowski, though now deep in disfavor after all kinds of intensity-gone-wrong, was absolutely beloved in Denver. Romo was the kind of ferocious player who personified the term linebacker. In San Francisco he’d gained a reputation for his devotion: when receivers like Jerry Rice would finish practice routes by sprinting the rest of the field, Romo would be right there, running behind them. We learned before the ’97 season that he’d hung a picture of Brunell where he’d see it every day to fire him up before his workouts. I loved it then and I love it now: the passion, the honesty, and the desire in that.

The defensive line was deep and star-studded. On one end was Alfred Williams, captain of CU’s national championship team, a Butkus Award winner, and a force in the NFL. On the other was Neil Smith, a longtime division rival who came straight to Denver when the Chiefs broke his heart and cut him. In between was Keith Traylor, who played incredibly in the road playoff win over Kansas City the week after his mother died. I can still remember seeing him on TV in the locker room, not-quite-devastated but inspiring. Other players, like pass-rush specialist Maa Tanuvasa (a pass-rush specialist on a team with Williams and Smith!), would have been starters in other towns or years.

The offensive line was a thing of beauty, the AFC Offensive Player of the Week after the revenge win over Jacksonville in the playoffs. Gary Zimmerman, Mark Schlereth, Tom Nalen, Brian Habib, and Tony Jones made up my favorite group of blockers ever assembled. I still remember when I found out we had Zimmerman. Zim was a tackle so good that even as a kid, I’d known who he was. I was so excited to find out years later he was on our roster. Though he had a mild Brett Favre streak in his later years as he waffled on retirement (a little different as he was supposedly unable to lift his hands above his shoulders), he could still block on the left like no one else. It may have been the first case where my team ended up with someone I already loved, as I later experienced with Jake Plummer, Allen Iverson, and Shammond Williams. Jones was an absolute stud who dominated from the left side of the line a year later when Zim retired. Plus I told him where to eat lunch once.

Sharpe, the tight end, was already a huge star in Denver as Elway’s breakout target. I remember his picture on McDonald’s cups. He was so strong, fast, and an exceptional trash-talker. He was one of my very favorite players. I remember wanting him to win it all a second time because he’d given his first ring to his brother Sterling, a fellow NFL star forced by a neck injury to retire early.

The other receivers were Rod Smith and Ed McCaffrey, who later became a 100-catches-each tandem. Both were terrific blockers: Easy Ed had a memorable one in particular on Denver’s go-ahead drive in the Super Bowl against the Packers when he leveled a Green Bay linebacker and pointed at him as he went down. Both were big and physical and had their share of huge catches. Smith was the deep threat, who certainly got more of Elway’s go routes than anyone in the last few years, but Eddie Mac got open deep, too, and sacrificed himself so many times to make catches in traffic, even as he played with ridiculously light padding. I really liked Smith, but everyone loved Ed.

Jason Elam was just a kicker, perhaps, but an offensive threat with range from the wrong side of the field.

Terrell Davis…wow. What can you say? He’s one of the best backs in NFL history. He surely belongs in the Hall of Fame, but if he doesn’t make it, he’s in a more elite club: one of the few players who was ever the best at any position in the league. On the way to Denver’s first Super Bowl win he set a record for the most combined regular season and postseason rushing yards. The next year, he broke it. He broke 100 yards in all seven playoff games in the championship years. He’s widely regarded as the man who finally got Elway his ring. That’s an oversimplification, perhaps, but not exactly false, either.

His lead blocker, Howard Griffith, was awesome, too. Griffith just cleared paths most games, but he scored a touchdown in the conference championship game three straight years and scored twice in the Super Bowl against Atlanta. He blocked for something like five different 1,000-yard rushers. Even better, Blaine got me his autograph.

Griffith’s backup was Detron Smith, the Human Bowling Ball, who supposedly blew guys up while covering kickoffs, not that you’d ever see it on TV. When I had the immense privilege of seeing the Broncos live against the Jaguars, I watched him, and all the stories were true. I can still see one Jag starting to backpedal once he recognized his fate.

The greatest of all Broncos, and the most meaningful of all the Super Bowl champions that year, was John Elway. He joined the Broncos in 1983 after forcing a trade from the Colts, and stayed in Denver his whole career. Technically I was around for some Broncos games before he joined the team, but I had never known the team without him.

Elway had led the team to the Super Bowl three times, losing to the Giants, Redskins, and 49ers. The 1996 team felt like a gift. We’d had some good teams, and even went to an AFC Championship game against Buffalo in the ’90s which we lost after Elway got hurt, but we’d been up and down and didn’t look like we’d ever make it back to the big show before Elway retired. Football is a very young man’s game and Elway, who was in some ways revitalized under Shanahan, was clearly losing some of the extraordinary physical skills that had set him apart. When he lost that chance I thought it was all over.

Growing up in Colorado a Broncos fan was kind of weird. Almost everyone liked the Broncos, though at times kids would make fun of Elway, or of me, for liking him. He was beloved, had the rocket arm and made plays no one else could, but he’d lost in that Super Bowl again and again. While our defense had been universally awful, surrendering 39, 42, and 55 points in those loses, Elway hadn’t been lights out, either. For his career, though, he had great numbers and durability, and the only thing he was missing was the ring.

In XXXII 7 became the oldest player ever to score a touchdown in the Super Bowl, and while he didn’t throw a touchdown pass, he gave it all he had. Elway finally earned his ring. Like Traylor’s play just a few weeks before, Elway’s overcoming the odds at the tail end of his career is inspiring to me in a way that transcends football. Elway was one of the most physically-gifted athletes of all time at his position, only the most significant one on the field, and he still worked fifteen more years after years of pre-professional preparation before he achieved his goal and had his career deemed a success. Kind of good to think about if you’ve ever spent year after frustrating day on something that means the world to you.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s the only way to win a championship. The next season, when the Broncos repeated, was one big exercise in don’t-take-this-for-granted, but it was almost impossible not to. Seinfeld says we root for laundry, but I don’t. It’s all about the fear, the fire, the story, and the triumph. It’s the same reason the Avs’ 2001 Stanley Cup was a million times sweeter than the one they moved in with in 1996. Only a few teams, players, and fanbases really know what it’s like: Walter Payton’s 1985 Bears and Boston’s 2004 Red Sox are some of the few that probably resonated in the same way. As sad as I was after the Broncos missed the Super Bowl a few years ago, I’ll never care about the team as much as I did that day in January years ago.

* * *

What does this have to do with anything? Nothing, and everything. This year’s Broncos still look playoff-bound, even after the last two weeks, but they probably aren’t on the short list of teams truly in contention.

The real problem, minor though it is, is how little I cared about Pittsburgh’s demolition Monday night. No, I’m not a teenager any more, so I don’t really internalize the losses anyway. But there has just been way too much turnover on this roster this year. Outside of Champ Bailey, there’s probably no one on this team I love as much as any of the guys I listed above. Okay, that’s a stretch; I probably like Eddie Royal and Elvis Dumervil more than Habib or someone, but it’s close. The thing is, if Kyle Orton & Josh McD came in and won it all in year one, it just wouldn’t be that cool. It wouldn’t mean that much. It’s like anything in life. The more you struggle, the more you appreciate. And years of struggling together helps teams come through when their moment finally comes. Losing, as Michael taught us, becomes a good thing.

Otherwise, you’re just rooting for the Yankees.

3-0, baby!

2009-11-01T21:28:00.001-07:00

Carmelo Anthony and the Denver Nuggets continued their torrid start to the season tonight with a 133-123 win at home over the Memphis Grizzlies.

Anthony scored 42 points in an effort that gave flashbacks to last year’s playoffs. He hit 15 of 26 field goals, including a three, and converted eleven of his twelve attempts from the stripe. Totally effective and, as far as I could tell after missing most of the first half, totally in the flow of the game. 26 shots isn’t bad at all, especially when Anthony’s that on. Carmelo’s point totals just keep going up, too: 30 in the opener against Utah and 41 the next night in Portland before his answer to life tonight.

The Nuggets, of course, are 3-0 and looking great. Tonight was a relatively safe win; even though Memphis was competitive in the first half, I saw the scores were in the 60s and knew the pace favored Denver. The opening night win over the Jazz was also lovely, especially when Carmelo missed a three, then tipped away a weak outlet lob and slammed it for a three-point play. But the whole team is playing well. Chauncey Billups had 22 points and 12 assists tonight, and his backup, Ty Lawson, is awesome running the break. (Lawson pulled up for a fifteen-or-so footer on a 3-on-2 against Utah that looked out of place, except he drilled it. Sounds silly but it gave me even more confidence in Lawson; what rookie risks looking foolish on a breakaway unless he KNOWS it’s going in? And great point guards just know sometimes.) Chris Andersen had another awesome Birdman moment where he followed up an Arron Afflalo miss with a tip-in, even though he’d fallen down at the top of the key seconds before. (Sorry that the ad is twice as long as the highlight.) Can’t feel good to have basketball as your profession and still get outworked on plays like that whenever you face Andersen.

The Nuggets are going on a six-game road trip, so they’ll be tested soon enough, not that it means a ton either way this early in the year. Still, it’s exhilarating that the team has continued its standout play from last season.

2-0, suckas

2009-11-01T18:22:00.001-07:00

Brett Favre and the Minnesota Vikings captured the season series sweep over their former employer/divisional rival Green Bay Packers today with a 38-26 win in Green Bay.

Favre was outstanding, throwing for four touchdown passes and none of his sometimes-characteristic picks (though he has only three this season). He continued what has been, by any measure, a fantastic season, which is all the more impressive because Favre turned 40 last month.

Of course, it helps to have Adrian Peterson on your team—Green Bay’s leading rusher was Favre’s replacement, Aaron Rodgers, who had an awesome game statistically and is having an impressive overall year himself. Rodgers has already turned out much better than I ever thought he’d be.

Nothing about this game was a surprise to me, though, especially after the Vikings’ win over the Packers last month. And the Vikings are widely regarded as a superior team. But honestly, the Vikings were gonna win today because they have Brett (freakin’) Favre. He is, of course, no longer the greatest player in the league. But he once was, and he’s as worthy of the term “legend” as any football player could be. He was going to play well in this game because it’s the most meaningful one he’s played in years and because he had to be ready. Do you think he would have signed with the Vikings if he wasn’t confident he could play two huge games against the Packers? Come on. He’s a proud man, as most great athletes are, and he desperately wanted these wins. And he got them. The team that knows him best could do nothing to stop him.

It was surreal watching Favre get booed in Lambeau, though, and I still don’t understand it. Can you picture Elway getting booed at Mile High? No, and not just because Real Mile High is long gone. What has Favre done to earn the wrath of Green Bay’s fans? Yes, he has squabbled publicly with management, but who sides with those guys, even on a publicly-owned team? Yes, he waffled on retirement for far too long. Perhaps he was a selfish jerk on many occasions. Still, though. If Favre had had a career like that for my team (three MVPs and, oh yeah, A RING), I’d never boo him.

The closest examples I can think of in Denver are Dikembe Mutombo and Terrell Davis. Mt. Mutombo, the shot-blocking centerpiece of our upset over the Sonics, was booed lustily when he returned to Denver with the Hawks, but he at least left over money, which isn’t comparable to Green Bay telling Favre to hit the road. And Davis, while never booed at Mile High, had to respond to allegations that he wasn’t tough enough as he suffered through injuries his last few seasons. The absurdity of that really pissed me off. Still, though. Favre always struck me as the most Elway-like player around after 7 retired—the strong arm, the mobility, the one-team-ness, and yes, the will—and even though he left, I can’t believe how quickly the Pack fans turned on him.

Then again, his glory days are a little less recent than John’s. But still, he almost took the Packers to the Super Bowl two years ago. During the ensuing offseason, Green Bay decided he wasn’t worth keeping. And yet somehow he’s the one who gets booed. Can someone explain that to me?

Better than this, don’t leave

2009-11-01T15:14:00.001-07:00

The Baltimore Ravens just ended the Denver Broncos’ six-game, season-long winning streak with a dominating 30-7 victory at M&T Bank Stadium.

All season long Broncos fans have asked themselves: how good is this team, really? The Broncos have won close games against tough opponents and dominated bad ones, suggesting they’re among the NFL’s elite. Today they were annihilated by a Ravens team outplaying them in seemingly all phases of the game.

But the Broncos aren’t as bad as they looked. A few things I noticed during the game:

1. The Ravens have to be one of the worst teams to play coming off a bye week. It’s not like there’s some big secret to Baltimore’s defensive prowess over the past decade: just that the Ravens are, even by NFL standards, a very physical team. Even in the first quarter the sound and violence of their hits stood out. While we had an extra week to prepare for the Ravens (as they did for us), it’s hard to scheme around getting smacked in the face time after time, especially when they’re fresh, too.

2. Knowshon Moreno is for real. As it quickly became clear that the Ravens were going to amp up the hitting, Moreno showed no interest in backing down, even though he lost a fumble in the first quarter on a perfectly-timed blow from Ed Reed for the game’s only turnover. He ran and dove without fear.

On the opening drive of the third quarter, we had that fourth-and-one deep in Baltimore territory, and I really wanted to see Moreno get the ball right in the teeth of that defense. Fortunately the success-free screen we threw instead to Brandon Marshall was negated by Ed Reed jumping offsides, and Moreno scored easily a few plays later to cut the lead to 13-7. You could tell he relished playing in this game. I just wish he would have had more than ten carries.

3. Kyle Orton has limits. I noticed before the game how many of our statistics are completely ridiculous and can’t possibly hold up throughout the season. For example: Orton’s one interception all year, which he threw to Randy Moss on a Hail Mary. There’s no way that continues. Actually, it did today, despite Orton’s best efforts; he threw at least two passes that went off Raven hands. It’s not a shot at Orton to say he’ll throw more picks, because any quarterback would. (Similarly: Curel had a 6.7 yards per carry average before the game; he carried eight times for sixteen yards today.)

More concerning was Orton’s inability to bring the Broncos back or move the ball consistently at all, though part of that was how quickly the Ravens took over in the second half and could sell out on the pass. Still, that doesn’t explain why we had so much trouble moving the ball in the first two quarters.

4. The defense isn’t invincible, either. The Ravens’ offense is pretty tough to face in your first week back, too—power running and a versatile, strong-armed quarterback. Joe Flacco was impressively sharp against our defense and, as always, spread the ball around. Five receivers had at least three catches today, though the leader had just five; those five Ravens each have at least 23 catches this year. Since the Ravens are so democratic in their aerial game, Champ Bailey can’t have his usual impact. Their massive line, with Michael Oher playing right tackle, held Elvis Dumervil without a sack.

It’s almost as though Baltimore’s offense was purpose-built to destroy our D; they’re definitely our worst matchup so far this season. If our offense had killed any clock in the second half, surely the defense would have played better. So I’m tempted to shrug it off. But if we’re going to make any noise in the playoffs, there’s a good chance we’ll be seeing the Ravens again this year.

What used to be a house of cards has turned into a reservoir

2009-10-19T23:29:00.001-06:00

Due to frankly incredible circumstances I missed tonight’s Broncos game, which they won over the Chargers of San Diego 34-23.

Eddie Royal took a punt and a kickoff back to the house, becoming the only Bronco ever to do so in a single game. It’s tough to appreciate how impressive that is. In the ’90s we often saw a stat in the Denver Post’s notes sections saying the Broncos hadn’t returned a kick for a touchdown since 1972, a string we didn’t break until late in the 1998 season. For a franchise with returners as gifted as Darrien Gordon and Rick Upchurch it’s a little surprising that this hadn’t happened before, but congrats to Royal.

Elvis Dumervil picked up his ninth and tenth sacks of the season. I think I’m finally grateful that Mr. Shanahan is out—he would never keep a pass rusher after a season like this.

Anyway, what else did I miss?

Dream the dreams of other men; you’ll be no one’s rival

2009-10-18T18:02:00.002-06:00

Yesterday I caught an early rivalry game: the Texas-Oklahoma showdown at the Cotton Bowl. Texas beat the Sooners 16-13 in a close but not great game.

The Sooners were very competitive though they were clearly a little overmatched this year. Sam Bradford went down on another routine tackle and left the game with a reinjured shoulder. I had to wonder yesterday whether the Heisman winner’s best days are already behind him. Landry Jones is doing well considering the circumstances, which should not be confused with doing well, at least compared to OU’s preseason expectations.

As for Texas, I was a little impressed with Colt McCoy’s mobility, and their run game looked very good in spurts, but the defense is clearly their bread and butter. Their D reminds me of other great teams, as Oklahoma has been in the past, with monstrous, athletic defenders who appear somehow bigger than their NFL counterparts.

I don’t count it against the Longhorns that this game was so close; that’s just how rivalries are sometimes. In fact, in this season of upsets, they're one of the few teams with a true shot at the national championship.

* * *

A couple weeks ago I discussed with a friend a topic I’d like to open to everyone: what college teams can a person root for? Do you need a tie to a school and, if so, what suffices?

We were talking about the 2006 Rose Bowl, and I mentioned that among the reasons I was rooting for Texas was that my brother had attended law school there. My friend, a fellow CU alum, cut me off and said that was not a sufficient reason. He further said that he was rooting for Texas because they’re a Big XII school, which is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard.

Perhaps because I followed the NFL first, I’ve never much cared for the conference ties that dominate so many college football conversations. Is the Pac-10 better than the Big XII this year? Who cares? I happen to make sweeping generalizations about conferences all the time (the Pac-10 is soft; the Big Eleven is boring), but I see no reason to root for teams I spent all year rooting against. I would never pull for the Chiefs in the playoffs just to bring honor to the AFC West. (Perhaps my friend is just doing the best he can considering Division I football’s absurd “championship” “system”, where it really does matter what people think of your conferencemates.)

College basketball’s a stretch for me, a fan of the North Carolina Tar Heels. I started pulling for the Tar Heels in 1998, mostly because MJ went there and they had an absolutely stacked team. (They didn’t win the title that year. In fact, they choked rather dramatically, so I don’t feel guilty about this at all.) I’ve visited the campus and even requested an application there, which I was too lazy to fill out. I know that doesn’t sound like much, but I honestly considered attending school in Chapel Hill. Growing up in Colorado, who else was I going to root for? I did support the Chauncey Billups Buffs, of course, but the whole point of college hoops is March Madness, so you need a good team.

On the other hand, I grew up rooting for BYU football because my parents went there. I was pretty sure I’d go there, too, though as a little kid I had no real idea. But I was a lifelong fan, so it’s not like my fandom was any less pure than anyone else’s. If I’d been a lifelong fan of UNC, would that have been any less legit just because my parents didn't go there? Come to think of it, BYU was only a few years removed from its championship season when I became a fan; I just realized I might have been a front-runner there, too.

CU football I remember liking in a general sense, though not nearly the way I liked BYU. They might’ve been my second-favorite team, but it was kind of a distant second. Our ties to the school were living in Colorado and the fact that my mom occasionally took us up to Boulder to play on Folsom Field, which is even more awesome in retrospect. I definitely watched some Orange Bowls as a kid. I can remember our family staying up together to watch the win (over Notre Dame; how cool is that?) that gave the Buffs the national championship. At the time it was cool, but not Super Bowl XXXII cool. Eventually my brother and I attended CU together, and if they ever win another championship I’m going to lose my freaking mind. Amidst the scandals of the Barnett era the team became a bit of a punchline, but I find myself liking the Buffs more and more as life goes on, for obvious reasons. They’re my one team now, if I can only have one, but it’s amazing to me how long it took me to get there. For some reason, though, the rivalry with Nebraska meant a lot to me for years before the team in general did. That game was appointment viewing long before I ever attended class in Boulder.

I also rooted for Miami football in the early part of this decade for reasons far too embarrassing to discuss publicly. But with Miami, UNC, and perhaps young CU, I think I’ve had the right idea: if you’re going to root for a college team you have no natural reason to like, you might as well sell out and pull for a powerhouse. Contrast this with a friend of mine who moved to North Carolina a few years ago and started promoting what he saw as a rising N.C. State program. He talked quite a bit of trash to me as a UNC fan, which I found patently hilarious, because big-money college sports have all the upward mobility of Major League Baseball. Last season, after the Tar Heels won it all, he claimed to have lost all interest in the sport. N.C. State has a proud history with two national titles, and they gave the Nuggets the fantastic Skywalker Thompson, whose awesome lightsaber-holding likeness adorned the walls of the old Denver ESPN Zone, but come on. College sports are all about the haves.

* * *

The Red River Rivalry was just an appetizer for CU’s win over No. 15 Kansas last night. What can I say, I love watching Tyler Hansen. He’s got a good arm, but those feet! Unlike some young quarterbacks with quickness, his first instinct isn't to run, but to buy time and keep plays alive long after the plug has been pulled. Twice after he purchased some clock his receivers dropped good passes, and I’m convinced they’d just become mesmerized watching him dance behind the scrimmage line. Tight end Riar Geer was able to keep his focus long enough to catch a pass after another great scramble on Colorado’s fourth-quarter go-ahead drive. Hopefully that's a sign of the future. Adjustments will need to be made, but I think receivers will love playing with Hansen.

Kansas, other than their end-of-half sequences, didn’t look that great, and I’m a little surprised they were No. 15 to begin with, though they were undefeated.

CU’s next game is Saturday morning at Kansas State.

The Blind Side

2009-10-15T22:35:00.002-06:00

So I’m a little late to the party, seeing as the book came out in 2006, but I just finished reading Michael Lewis’ The Blind Side, a book about many things which tells the story of Baltimore Ravens tackle Michael Oher, who started his first game on the left side of the line Sunday. That’s not only the same weekend I started reading the book, but Oher and I have nearly identical names (his last name rhymes with mine); we’re basically the same guy, right?

In The Blind Side as in the outstanding Moneyball, Lewis combines fantastic reporting and storytelling to touch on a ton of fascinating topics, and in this case they include race, opportunity, and pro football. Like Moneyball, this book changes the way I think about things. In The Blind Side Lewis discusses the rise of the left tackle, sure, but also touches on the careers of players and coaches who changed the game in that direction, like Lawrence Taylor and Bill Walsh. In other words, he talks about the real stars of my childhood, back when football’s legends were actually heroes. (He even drops a very passing reference to John Elway, or specifically to the salaries of his offensive linemen). I found those sections of the book a pleasure to read, particularly the discussions about Walsh, his offense, and the effect it had on the quarterbacks who played for him.

One more point I don’t want to pass by: there is an absolutely poignant quote in the section discussing former 49ers lineman John Ayers that is not only beautiful, but captures why I will always gravitate towards team sports over individual ones. If you like football, and you haven’t already, you have to read this book.

The Nuggets really started something

2009-10-11T20:56:00.001-06:00

As I watch the Rockies tie the game up in the first inning tonight and threaten to do more, I can’t stop thinking what wonderful momentum the Nuggets’ playoff run brought to our city. We ain’t quite Boston, but we’re getting there.

(And it’s 2-1, Colorado.) Of course it would be absurd to suggest that Chauncey Billups can really influence that many athletes, even as great as he is, but suddenly the Denver sports scene is booming again, even in vertically-striped socks.

Today I feel it almost necessary to take back every mean thing I’ve said about the Denver Broncos since they fired Mike Shanahan and traded Jay Cutler. Because this year’s team is good. Why, I don’t know. I mean, Mike Nolan, whose biggest achievement in San Fran was wearing those suits on the sideline, is doing a bang-up Joe Collier impression and putting the 3-4 back in vogue in Denver. The defense is awesome. They forced a three-and-out on New England’s first real crunch-time possession and forced a fumble on the next. The offense’s gradual rally was nice, but the defense saved the game.

I can’t explain the why, though. Was it really just a question of coaching? Teams moved the bill at will all of last year. Kyle Orton is putting up very good numbers without actually looking spectacular. And the new coach, now Mr. McDaniels, hasn’t, other than the “Wild Horses” today, tried anything outwardly fresh. But today was, to me, Denver’s most impressive win of the season. They’ve had dramatic wins, sure, but they came off of what were basically broken plays. Last week’s win over Dallas actually had more to do with Brandon Marshall’s freakish strength and agility, but still, it didn’t seem like the kind of play you should score a long touchdown on. Today, though? The Broncos stared down a formidable opponent and beat ’em. No, these aren’t your slightly-older brother’s Patriots, but we all saw Tom Brady spontaneously ignite against Buffalo in the clutch. Today the defense bottled him up, and the offense took advantage of the NFL’s overtime system just long enough to set up a winning field goal. To me, it was a standout win.

Back to the Rockies…

Hansen starting rest of the way?

2009-10-11T20:30:00.001-06:00

Tyler Hansen, who lost his favorite red shirt Saturday, will, if all goes well, be starting at quarterback for the Colorado Buffaloes for the rest of the season.

I felt bad for Hansen during the game Saturday, wondering if he was really prepared to play and if he would get much playing time down the stretch this season, or if perhaps he’d been compelled to surrender his year off for little gain. The ESPN.com article shows, however, that the coaches planned this out a little more than the ESPN broadcast crew led us to believe. (Yes, the same crew whose Brad Nessler cruelly suggested we’d learn more about the quarterback controversy by reading the Rocky Mountain News today. Ouch.) Turns out the coaches approached him before the game, and Hansen wanted to play, so it’s all good.

But anyway, the term redshirt reminded me of a cool quote from the man himself, Pat Tillman, that I wanted to share (that whole article is outstanding):

When the coach raised the possibility of a redshirt year that would give him extra time to grow and learn the Sun Devils' system, Pat said, ‘I've got things to do with my life. You can do whatever you want with me, but in four years I'm gone.’

I will take the blame, but just the same, this is not me.

2009-10-09T09:55:00.002-06:00

For the record, I like Matt Holliday. He was a key player during the Rockies’ 2007 World Series run. Unless he does something really awful—and wanting more money is not nearly “wrong” enough for me—I’ll always be a fan.

Even if I wasn’t, though, I think I’d still call the reaction to his play last night overblown.

ESPN’s main story right now: “Lost Holliday.” Over on the headlines, it’s: “Holliday’s error puts Cards in 2-0 hole.”

As you’ve probably heard, Holliday misjudged and dropped a low fly ball with no one on last night that would have ended the game with a 2-1 Cardinals victory. Instead, James Loney was safe on second. Casey Blake walked, then Ronnie Belliard singled to drive in the lead runner and tie the game. A passed ball moved the runners up, then another walk, then Mark Loretta singled to win the game.

In other words…a ton of stuff happened to ensure a Cardinals loss. If reliever Ryan Franklin had retired either of the two batters after Holliday’s drop, St. Louis still would have won in regulation. And further, if the offense had produced more than two runs—one of which Holliday created all by himself—they wouldn’t have been in that position, either. Blaming Holliday’s a popular narrative, but he’s hardly the single-handed reason the Cardinals lost.

It’s not just Holliday; it’s Bill Buckner, too, and every other athlete who’s been blamed for a loss. Is it even possible for a player to lose a team game all by himself? Yes, but it’s much more rare than people think. In baseball, you’d almost have to be a pitcher to do it, even though it’s often fielders or Cubs fans who are denounced after tough losses. Even the hallowed quarterback in football can rarely lose a game literally on his own merits. The same goes for wins, too.

Holliday dropped a ball he should have caught and normally would have, and it was very bad for the Cardinals and their fans. But he wasn’t the reason they lost, and he definitely didn’t cost his team the series.

Yesterdays how quick they change—oh, lost and long-gone now

2009-09-27T22:48:00.003-06:00

Yesterday was another proud day for the fat cats of college football.

The No. 2-ranked University of Texas Longhorns eked out a narrow 64-7 victory at home over UTEP. The No. 8 Boise State Broncos destroyed 1-3 Bowling Green 49-14. And No. 16 Oklahoma State devoured Grambling State’s defense to the tune of 587 yards in a 56-6 win.

You could say that the sham that is college football’s championship system encourages this kind of junk. (It’s often said that a team could lose on any given week and lose its shot at the national title. While that’s literally true, many of these matchups are like the U.S. Navy going against, I don’t know, the Antarctic Imperial Guard or something.)

Of course, the whole season won’t be that easy. Texas and Oklahoma State have to play each other, for starters, and of course the Longhorns have that Red River Shootout every year. Boise State will have to…well, actually, their schedule’s kinda easy, but you know what I mean.

I can’t help but think of these early-season tune-ups when I consider the Denver Broncos’ 3-0 start, extended today with an always-welcome 23-3 shellacking of the Oakland Raiders.

In some ways, the Broncos look outstanding: three straight wins with a brand-new coach and quarterback, an offense with an emerging ground game that seems to get a little more into the groove every week, and a defense that has given up a piddling sixteen points in three games.

On the other: who have they beaten? The Cincinnati Bengals, whom we beat with the flukiest of victories, are the only impressive silhouette under the cockpit. The Raiders are pretty horrible, and young JaMarcus Russell is really struggling. The Browns, well, the Browns will always be one of my favorite teams to see across the field. Not to be a jerk, but they’re basically still an expansion team, aren’t they?

The Broncos will be tested very soon, with upcoming home games against the Dallas Cowboys and New England Patriots. (Even if those teams aren’t as good as their reputations, surely they represent legitimate NFL challenges.) Then it’s road games against the Chargers and Ravens, and a home date with the defending champion Steelers. Would anyone be shocked if we’re 4-4 in a few weeks? On the other hand, if we can defend the home turf the next two weeks…at some point a team builds an impressive lead and it doesn’t so much matter if they’re really that good. But I don’t want to think too far ahead. For now, let us pause and give thanks that our offseason of disaster hasn’t prevented a wonderful start to the season.

I’ll find us a way to make light

2009-09-20T21:58:00.003-06:00

They’ve done it! Josh McDaniels’ Broncos are now 2-0 and appear to be an unstoppable force. All right, they’ve beaten two bad teams, but the defense, which needed seven tons of improvements after last season, has only given up thirteen points in two games. (We’d give that many up every 27 minutes and 52 seconds of game time last year.) Also, and I had thought I brought this up before, but I love Elvis Dumervil, maybe the last great defensive pick of the Mike Shanahan era. I still don’t get how a guy with twenty sacks in one year at a big-time program falls to the fourth round, but it’s okay with me that he did.

The twin rushing attack of the skin-softening Correll Buckhalter and Knowshon Moreno looked pretty good, too. I’ve always liked Buckhalter’s toughness and style. Moreno, though, ran exactly like a Shanahan-era back today. He didn’t do anything too special—it was only his second game—but the way he hit the hole and ran with balance and shifted his weight on his moves looked very familiar. Perhaps Bobby Turner can coach a little after all. I don’t know if Moreno was worth a first-round pick yet, but he fits in on a running scheme that doesn’t appear to have changed much yet from previous years.

The Ocho threw too many passes at his receivers’ feet in the first half, even though he was occasionally making the right call and just getting rid of the ball. He got hot in the second half, though, and perhaps I should stop ripping the guy every chance I get.

The other key takeaway today was Shannon Sharpe’s entrance into the Broncos’ Ring of Fame. Sharpe, the former tight end, was equal parts hilarious, ripped, and outstanding in his career. He played with Denver for ten years before spending two as a Raven, then finished his career with two more years in Denver. Shanahan let him go from Denver rather than give him a nice new contract; Sharpe’s deal with the Ravens was (if my brief Googling is correct) for four years and $13 or $14 million, which is kind of a funny price not to pay for one of the best pass-catchers at the position in history. (I’d say the best: I’ll take Shannon over anyone.) For a guy who supposedly couldn’t block, he played on teams with some outstanding running games, but he also caught over 10,000 yards of passes and won three Super Bowl rings. His retirement after the 2003 season left a void in the Broncos lineup that has yet to be filled.

My favorite catch of Sharpe’s career came late in the 1998 AFC Championship Game in Pittsburgh. The Steelers were down three (24-21) with a few minutes left, but kicked the ball deep rather than go for the onside. They forced a quick third-and-six. Sharpe didn’t hear the play call in the huddle, and upon asking John Elway what to do on the way to lining up was told to just get open. Elway’s pass drilled him in the chest, but Sharpe hauled it in and picked up enough for the first down to keep the clock moving. Just one of a million little things you have to do right to win a championship. I’d have to call his game-winner against Kansas City the following year a close second. But that’s not all we loved him for…

CU 24, Wyoming 0

2009-09-20T15:00:00.001-06:00

Now is the time for Colorado Buffaloes fans to breathe a huge sigh of relief: the football team picked up its first win of the season yesterday in a shutout over the Wyoming Cowboys at Folsom Field.

I was terrified all week that Wyoming would win. My brother and his wife were both athletes there and I thought if I didn’t make a big deal of it before the game, maybe they’d let me off easy afterwards. By Thursday I realized that the nature of the matchup (Big 12 vs. Mountain West) meant I’d be hearing a bunch anyway, so I talked a tiny amount of trash, and was very pleasantly surprised to check the score yesterday and find us winning.

I didn’t get to watch the game, since I don’t get Fox College Sports Central, which I could swear I’d never heard of before last week. I’m troubled by the box score that says our quarterback threw a ton of passes again (31) for not a lot of yards (175), but it appears our defense and running game were great, so I’ll take it. Any of you see what happened?

Not wrong, but oh-so-right

2009-09-18T23:33:00.002-06:00

Broncos fans: enjoy the picture below, snapped tonight by commenter and friend of the blog David V. at the Oakland Coliseum.

BRONCOS WIN!

2009-09-13T21:33:00.001-06:00

I didn’t see the game (or any pro football today, actually), but with all my pessimism before the season I have to at least link to the highlights of the Broncos’ spectacular win over the Cincinnati Bengals today. What a win!

2009 Basketball Hall of Fame inductees

2009-09-12T12:36:00.005-06:00

Congratulations to this year’s class of inductees to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Two coaches and three players were enshrined yesterday.

C. Vivian Stringer: Currently the head coach at Rutgers and owner of a pristine 813-269 career record. I don’t know enough about her career to cover it fairly; check Wikipedia for more information.

Jerry Sloan: I have mixed feelings about this guy, who seems like a jerk, and whose teams have never won a championship, making it into the Hall. On the other hand, he was a well-regarded player, especially defensively, and has a great reputation as a coach—is it fair to combine the two?

In an interesting historical note, Sloan has never won the NBA’s Coach of the Year Award. That’s OK with me because I’ve had a higher opinion of several coaches who have been active during his tenure, particularly Phil Jackson, Pat Riley, and Gregg Popovich. But it’s also bizarre because Sloan is a better coach than many of the men who have won the award in his time. Del Harris? Byron Scott? Come on.

I think Sloan’s a bit overrated as a coach; when has his team ever exceeded expectations in a meaningful way? With two (eventual) Hall of Famers for more than a decade, the Jazz made the Finals just twice. That’s not to say Sloan’s career was bad—were his teams any more disappointing than Harris’ Lakers or Don Nelson’s Mavericks or Brian Hill’s Magic? It just doesn’t strike me as Hall of Fame-level, and if Sloan had achieved his thousand-plus wins and playoff results with two or three different teams instead of just one, would he still have been enshrined? I think so, but I’m not sure.

David Robinson: The Admiral was just awesome. Maybe the most athletic true center ever, Robinson was a fantastic shot-blocker, rebounder, and scorer who could even do damage putting the ball on the floor and driving. Along with John Stockton and Michael Jordan, Robinson was part of the 1992 gold medal-winning Dream Team and the NBA’s 50th anniversary team. His career had the happiest ending: like Jordan and Stockton, he retired after the 2002-03 season, but his season ended with his second championship in a Finals win over the New Jersey Nets.

Like Sloan, though, he wasn’t the greatest of his era at his position. Hakeem Olajuwon and Shaquille O’Neal were both probably better. I’d take him over Patrick Ewing, though. Robinson’s late-career teammate, Tim Duncan, became the best big man in the game, and Duncan flourished from a young age thanks in no small part, I think, to Robinson’s presence.

Around the time the Spurs won their first title (1999), Sports Illustrated had two cool articles about Robinson. Rick Reilly’s piece talked a little about Robinson’s charity work that also mentioned some of Robinson’s impressive career awards. Then Robinson himself wrote about his feelings on winning it all.

The NBA posted some awesome highlights of Robinson on YouTube. The second video has some great highlights of him in action against Jordan’s Bulls.

John Stockton: I tend not to give Stockton his fair credit, probably because I’ve heard so many Jazz fans overrate him in my time. He was not the greatest point guard of all time. In his own career, I’d much rather have Magic Johnson, probably rather have Isiah Thomas, and stylistically prefer Gary Payton.

Stock was, however, a terrific player, holding career marks for assists and steals. He was best known for his passing and his mastery of the pick-and-roll, but he played with focus and toughness and rose to the occasion far better than his two-time MVP teammate, the Mailman, ever did. His career shooting percentage of 51.5% is basically off-the-charts for a guard.

1996-97, his thirteenth year in the league, was the last time he averaged double digits in assists but was, in the playoffs, his breakout year. In addition to his game- and series-winner in Game Six of the Western Conference Finals, he took over at the end of Game Four of the NBA Finals to even the series (see below), though the Bulls would win the next two games. Like John Elway, Stockton discovered how not only to contribute as he got older, but to play even better than he ever had before.

Michael Jordan: Players like Bill Russell have arguments, too, but I think Jordan was the greatest basketball player of all time. He was uniquely versatile, tough, creative, athletic, fearless, and determined. He had it all.

Wins? Try six NBA rings, two pairs of three in a row, all of which had Jordan winning the Finals MVP award, too. In Jordan’s last Finals with the Bulls, there were rumors Scottie Pippen would be given the award. Pippen was one of the very best players in the league and deserving of even more recognition than he got. But when an injury limited Pippen in Game Six, Jordan scored forty-five points and submitted a masterful final minute where he bent the game to his will. And, oh yeah, he won Olympic gold twice and hit a national championship-winning shot as a freshman at North Carolina. The NBA single-season record for wins by a team was 69 before Jordan played; his Bulls eventually submitted back-to-back 72 and 69-win seasons.

Stats? How about being the all-time leader in scoring average in the regular season and the playoffs? Jordan scored at least twenty points per game in each of his fifteen seasons. His career shooting percentage of 49.7% is amazing for a perimeter scorer; by comparison, Kobe Bryant’s at 45.5%. And he’s second only to Stockton in career steals.

Awards? In addition to those Finals MVPs, how about the five regular-season MVP trophies he picked up? (Should have been more.) He made the All-NBA first team ten times, and the All-Defensive first team nine. He won several player-of-the-year awards as a college junior. He was NBA rookie of the year and played in fourteen All-Star Games, winning three MVPs there.

Moments? There are too many to list, so some of my favorites: the Flu Game (Game 5 of the 1997 Finals)…his last game with the Bulls (the aforementioned Game 6 of the ’98 Finals)…The Shot over Craig Ehlo and Cleveland…the threes and the shrug against the Portland Trailblazers…switching hands against the Lakers in his first Finals…63 points against the Celtics in the playoffs his second year when he was returning from a broken foot…his game-winner over the Jazz in Game One of the 1997 Finals after “MVP” Karl Malone missed two free throws…his winner for UNC…and winning his first title after his father’s murder on Father’s Day, for starters.

Personally, I’ve seen Jordan’s most famous highlights a million times, so I decided instead to leave you with a) the NBA’s highlight package from his rookie year, and b) some of my favorite Jordan commercials. (The "Be Like Mike" song is a little annoying, but kids at school used to always sing that to me. Gotta admit I kinda liked it.)

The Buffs drop their first game

2009-09-07T10:45:00.002-06:00

Last night was rough. The Colorado Buffaloes lost their first game of the season 23-17 in a game that was much less competitive than the final score appears.

Colorado made some plays, sure, and they even started the second half with a quick scoring drive. But they struggled to move the ball for most of the game. CU’s opponent moved the ball effortlessly in the first half, then faltered as the game went on, scoring only a field goal in the second half. They gave the Buffs enough of an opening to get back into the game, but CU couldn’t capitalize.

In Boulder right now, you can buy the jerseys of two active players and one legend. The No. 7 jersey belongs to Cody Hawkins, who threw forty passes yesterday. The No. 2 on sale is worn by running back Darrell Scott, who carried the ball once last night for one yard. Is it fair to suggest the coach is putting his son ahead of the team? No, but these are the kind of things that come up when you fall madly in love with airing it out. Rodney Stewart, the team’s leading rusher a year ago, carried a mere six times for thirty-eight yards. His 6.3-yard average carry was better than Hawkins’ 5.6 yards per attempt passing. Perhaps we could have run the ball more.

What felt like it would be a promising season got off to a pretty poor start yesterday. We’ll see how the Buffs respond in their next game, this Friday at Toledo (7 p.m. Mountain, ESPN).

Rise and shout, the Cougars are out

2009-09-05T21:25:00.001-06:00

No. 3 Oklahoma may have lost Hyped Man Sam Bradford in the second quarter, but they still let the No. 20 BYU Cougars take it to ’em in crunch time. BYU notched the upset win 14-13 tonight in Dallas.

I’ve seen BYU make plenty of comebacks, but it’s been years since both the offense and defense played with the kind of mental toughness they did in tonight’s fourth quarter.

Cougars QB Max Hall threw a costly pick at the end of the third that left Oklahoma with good field position at BYU’s 27, with the Sooners already holding a 10-7 lead. They immediately picked up a first down, too. But that was about it for OU tonight. Oklahoma running back Chris Brown picked up a first and goal, then BYU stopped him on consecutive plays. Third and goal from the five. On the pass, BYU cornerback Brian Logan appeared to knock the ball down cleanly, but was flagged for pass interference in the end zone. I thought this was a horrible call, honestly, and it gave Oklahoma first and goal at the two. Having seen a number of BYU games in my life, I thought the upset bid was over.

Funny thing, though. Oklahoma only moved the ball one yard in three downs and had to settle for a field goal. (They actually went backwards after a delay of game call on fourth down.) The BYU defense was just too resilient. I was impressed. But the offense still needed to come through in a major way.

The offense’s final (meaningful drive) was classic BYU: pass, pass, pass, even out of obvious passing formations, but just keep moving the chains. They ran a few times, but only out of a sense of obligation. The nicest play was a shot downfield, when Hall rolled right on third and ten and drilled a pass twenty-two yards to tight end Dennis Pitta. Pitta caught four passes on the drive and picked up enough yards on his last grab to set up first and goal. After a make-up PI call on Oklahoma gave BYU a fresh set of downs, they resorted to running the ball. They made it most of the way on first down before getting stuffed on second. Then they took a delay of game of their own on third. The announcer wisely said it might be a blessing in disguise, since BYU could abandon the power running. Sure enough, Hall hit a wide-open receiver in the back of the end zone on the next play for the go-ahead score.

The endgame was sort of funny: after Oklahoma bungled a promising drive into a missed 54-yard field goal attempt, BYU had just enough downs to run out the clock, but barely. Thus Hall was being kind of cute with his kneels, standing for a second or two before going down. I get why he did it, but I also get why an OU defender took a shot at him after his kneel on second down. But the teams kept their heads, and the Cougars got the win.

The best football games of the decade

2009-09-03T22:27:00.009-06:00

Inspired by the Sports Guy’s debates this year about what has been the best whatever of the decade, I thought it would be nice to talk, as the last football season of the decade kicks off, about which have been the best games of the double-ohs. (Hopefully I’ll look dumb for leaving out some awesome game that happens this season.)

Honorable mention: Sadly, I had to exclude the 2003 Fiesta Bowl, when Ohio State upset the favored Miami Hurricanes for the national championship—the game even went to a typically-awesome college overtime, but I really hated the pass interference call that extended the Buckeyes’ first overtime possession…the fourth and 26 game…the Rams-Titans Super Bowl XXXIV showdown, which was sorta boring until the last few minutes, when my BYU companion conveniently scheduled a home-teaching appointment…the Titans’ third win of the season over the Jaguars in the AFC Championship right before that game…the Music City Miracle, which never would have happened if Wade Phillips had stuck with Doug Flutie instead of Rob Johnson…the Patriots-Panthers Super Bowl which I also found kind of boring, probably because I watched it with family members who didn’t like football…Vick over Favre at Lambeau…the Miami over Nebraksa national championship, because there’s no way Nebraska should have been in that game…BYU's 2001 comeback over Utah...any games that involved the USC Trojans or Indianapolis Colts winning.

10. New England 16, Oakland 13 OT (AFC Divisional Round, January 19, 2002)

This game is perhaps infamous for the Tuck Rule, which is lame, because it was the right call. This was a terrific game, in the snow, and it was memorable as the first playoff win for Tom Brady, the sport’s best player of the decade. Adam Vinatieri shook off the conditions and kicked a 45-yard field goal to tie the game in the final minute, then hit a shorter kick to win in overtime.

The tying kick:

9. Tampa Bay 48, Oakland 21 (Super Bowl XXXVIII, January 26, 2003)

The Snow Game wasn’t the Raiders’ only memorable loss this decade. One of my roommates got a projector and threw sort of a small party for this game. One guest was a normally-insufferable Raiders fan who wouldn’t even give me the satisfaction of being upset at the score, since he claimed to have expected it after years of suffering.

I loved this game because the Raiders lost in spectacular fashion. They lost because they ran their usually-unstoppable offense against Jon Gruden, the Buccaneers’ new coach who had spent several preceding years with…wait for it…the Oakland Raiders, and who had taught them that offense in the first place. I’ve heard that the NFL Films highlights of this game show Tampa Bay defenders calling out Oakland’s plays before the Raiders could even run them.

Jerry Rice, the only Raider I could stand, had a 48-yard touchdown catch, but Rich “Don’t Scratch My Corvette” Gannon threw a satisfying five interceptions in his career’s biggest game.

The Raiders’ blowout loss almost made up for missing out on my preferred Steve McNair-Donovan McNabb Super Bowl matchup.

8. Pittsburgh 21, Indianapolis 18 (AFC Divisional Round, January 15, 2006)

Of all of Peyton Manning’s choke jobs, this may have been the sweetest to watch. The No. 6-seeded Steelers were heading into the RCA Dome to face the Colts, who’d started the year 13-0 and stoked talk of an undefeated season before finishing 14-2. The Steelers weren’t your typical 6th seed; quarterback Ben Roethlisberger had missed four games and the team had missed him, but they still appeared overmatched.

The Steelers had a double-digit lead at halftime, but almost blew the game when Jerome Bettis fumbled late near the goal line. Colts safety Nick Harper tried to put a move on Big Ben while returning the fumble and somehow failed. Roethlisberger’s shoestring tackle may have saved a touchdown; certainly it set the stage for Mike Vanderjagt to blow a potential tying field goal in the final minute.

7. New York Giants 17, New England 14 (Super Bowl XLII, February 3, 2008)

I didn’t much care for this game when it happened, because not only did another Manning win a Super Bowl trophy, but the Patriots were unable to join the 1972 Dolphins as an undefeated team. That sucks because the 1972 Dolphins are a classless bunch of jerks.

Anyway, the Patriots went 16-0 in the regular season, Tom Brady threw 50 touchdown passes, including 23 to Randy Moss, and the team scored a record 589 points. Thus the Giants deserve respect for their historic upset. Pretty weird that a team that scored 36.8 per game in the regular season only put up 14 in the biggest game of the year; I wonder who their offensive coordinator was that day?

6. New England Patriots 24, Philadelphia Eagles 21 (Super Bowl XXXIX, February 6, 2005)

This game was, in some ways, more exciting for its star power than for the way it played out. Tom Brady, Bill Belichick, and the Patriots were going for their third ring. Terrell Owens, who was still a superstar, had joined the Eagles and helped them cruise through the regular season before breaking his ankle. The team finally made its first Super Bowl of the McNabb era, and Owens was determined to play in the Super Bowl, which he did.

This gave us one of my favorite Super Bowl pregame stories ever: Peter King’s interview with Jack Youngblood. I don’t want to spoil it but let’s just say Youngblood, who played several playoff games in a row with a taped-up broken leg, wasn’t too impressed with Owens.

The game itself was surreal. The Eagles got the ball down ten in the fourth and were slowly but surely moving down the field. Then I looked up at the clock and saw that there were like three and half minutes left, but no sense of urgency on the field. The Eagles completely botched their clock management and didn’t give themselves a good chance at the upset. No offense to Andy Reid and Donovan McNabb but it’s kind of amazing they still have their jobs, even now, after that. Still, this was one of the most memorable games of the decade for me; I can still remember watching the game, the phone call with my brother afterwards, and playing some Halo 2 after that.

(Speaking of great games, let’s not forget that the Patriots beat the Colts for the sixth time in a row a few weeks before this game, though the Colts have won four of five since.)

5. Denver 27, New England 13 (AFC Divisional Round, January 14, 2006)

My favorite team won exactly one playoff game this decade, so of course it makes the list. But the game was pretty relevant, seeing as it knocked the two-time defending champions out of the playoffs and ended New England’s playoff winning streak at ten games (!).

Early in the game, Broncos safety John Lynch was celebrating in the Patriots’ backfield. Brady followed him, pumping his fist and getting fired up. I’ll admit, I was terrified when Lynch did that, but it didn’t end up mattering. The Broncos capitalized on several turnovers, especially with Champ Bailey’s controversial 101-yard interception return, and won the game healthily. Later, someone unfamiliar with timestamps added the final score of the game to my HPS preview post as a “prediction”, which is fun, too.

Champ’s return:

4. Boise State 43, Oklahoma 42 OT (Fiesta Bowl, January 1, 2007)

This was the famous upset that proved a school from a non-BCS conference could beat a BCS school in a game for not the championship. Which is good, because unfortunately that's about the best those teams will be allowed to do (Boise State hadn't lost a single game all year; it's hard to imagine a team in their shoes doing better).

The Broncos connected on an incredible hook-and-ladder to force overtime, then scored a touchdown and went for two on two more trick plays to win the game in overtime. Here are some highlights:

And here's the condensed run of the complete game (the long version is on Hulu, too):

3. Colorado 62, Nebraska 36 (November 23, 2001)

I didn’t throw myself into the Buffs’ 2001 season out of a misguided sense of honor: while I liked CU and remembered rooting for them in the 1990 and 1991 Orange Bowls as a kid, I thought it would be fair-weather of me to fancy myself a huge Buffaloes fan once they were suddenly good again. This was particularly stupid considering I was attending CU at the time. But I definitely loved this game.

The Buffs had lost nine in a row to the Cornhuskers, including a few heartbreakers the few years previous. It was awful, how close we’d been to winning. I was living in Boulder but didn’t have tickets to the game, so I drove home to watch it at a friend’s house. I can still remember seeing the cars driving into Boulder that day, including several obnoxious vehicles with Nebraska flags adorning them. They’d come to Colorado to throw a party in our town.

The Cornhuskers were 11-0 and ranked No. 2 in the nation. But their vaunted defense was an absolute sieve against Colorado’s running game that day. Chris Brown ran for 198 yards and six touchdowns, while Bobby Purify added 154 and another score. They were unstoppable. At one point the announcers singled out (doubled out?) the blocking of Buffs right guard Andre Gurode and right tackle Victor Rogers, who opened up enormous holes the entire game, breaking Nebraska’s will and presumably ending their shot at a national championship.

The BCS being what it is, Nebraska actually got a second chance and played in the title game, where the Hurricanes thankfully finished the job.

I’m a jerk for posting this next one, but everyone remembers it:

2. New England 20, St. Louis 17 (Super Bowl XXXVI, February 3, 2002)

Do you remember what football was like at the turn of the century? You couldn’t crack open a sports magazine without reading about the Rams, a.k.a. The Greatest Show on Turf, and their explosive offense. Kurt Warner, the Rams’ QB, went from an inspiring story to an overexposed annoyance in record time, though he became a cool story again last year.

Though Warner’s a religious guy with a very humble start to his pro career, his team exuded arrogance. Marshall Faulk was an exceptional talent, no question, but I couldn’t stand guys like Dré Bly or the endless talk of the team’s speed. I’m pretty sure the guys on other NFL teams are fast. Also, I got sick of hearing how their speed was even more advantageous on turf, which made sense, considering that opposing defenses were still stuck playing on grass. (Oh, wait.)

The Patriots, on the other hand, had had a weird season. Franchise cornerstone Drew Bledsoe was hurt in the team’s second game, paving the way for backup quarterback Tom Brady to start. I didn’t see much of Brady outside of an October loss to the Broncos that year, but heard plenty of talk about him being a “game manager”. A game manager is usually a nice term for a quarterback who rises just close enough to mediocrity that he doesn’t lose games by himself. Why would anyone be impressed with that? Brady was hurt in the AFC Championship game, but Bledsoe came in and carried the team to its Super Bowl berth. I can remember arguing before the Super Bowl that the Patriots should start Bledsoe.

The game was a lot of fun. The Patriots took a 14-3 lead into halftime after a Ty Law interception return for a touchdown and a still-beautiful scoring pass from Brady to David Patten. It turned out the Rams’ speed was ineffective against the physical and aggressive New England defense. But, like they had the year before in their playoff loss to New Orleans, the Rams’ offense made a late charge. They scored two fourth-quarter touchdowns, including a 26-yard pass from Warner to Ricky Proehl to tie the game with ninety seconds left.

John Madden famously suggested that the Patriots kneel and try to win the game in overtime, but Brady drove the team far enough down the field to allow a 48-yard field goal attempt by Vinatieri, which he made on the last play for the championship. I decided after that game never to doubt Brady again. (By the way, you can tell which sportswriter I’ve read the most this decade by the fact that five Patriots games made my top ten.)

1. Texas 41, USC 38 (Rose Bowl National Championship Game, January 4, 2006)

It took me a while to decide on the best game of the decade, but after watching the highlight clip below (sorry about the language; mute it if you’re sensitive), the pick was obvious. Both the Patriots’ upset of the Rams and the Longhorns’ win in the Rose Bowl were sparked by physical defenses defeating a flashy opponent, but the college game had so much more drama, especially considering USC took a twelve-point lead with 6:42 remaining. There were so many moments, whether it was the helmet-removing hit on that Trojan heading up the sideline, or that amazing interception, or Reggie Bush’s idiotic pitch, or the way LenDale White got stuffed on fourth down. But the real star, of course, was Vince Young, who not only threw for 267 yards and ran for 200, but ran for a game-winning touchdown on fourth-and-five with the national championship on the line. I still get chills thinking about it.

Rookie to start at QB tomorrow

2009-09-02T09:35:00.002-06:00

The Broncos will be turning to Tom Brandstater tomorrow night for their last preseason game against the Arizona Cardinals (7 o'clock Mountain, CBS).

ESPN.com has a lovely Associated Press article up about it, which you should read. The scariest part of all is when Coach McD suggests he can’t say for sure whether Kyle Orton or Chris Simms will be back for the season opener.

I would just say that in the last preseason game, even The Brand-Stater (“Pepsi!” “Timex!”) was moving the offense down the field better than Mr. Orton. I don’t actually think the rookie’s a good option this year, or maybe ever, but it would certainly be interesting if he can manage a second-straight good pretend game. His inability to offer any explanation for playing all right in the last game makes me think he won’t do it again, but you never know. Not to beat a dead horse, but I just hope this doesn’t end up like the Jarrious Jackson backing up Brian Griese years, where the preseason was more fun to watch than the regular season because at least then we had quarterbacks who tried to make plays. Not that I’m suggesting that Orton needs to try to make plays any more than he already does. I don’t love watching my team throw picks or anything.

At this point in the post I get sidetracked and swing over to the Denver Post sports section, which also talks about the move. Their article starts by talking about Brandstater’s first car (Chevy!) and then basically abandons whatever narrative premise that was supposed to lead to. I don’t know, kinda weird. Anyway, guess I’m sort of looking forward to seeing what the young man can do.

Vick plays

2009-08-28T08:22:00.001-06:00

Perhaps I was too quick to judge the Eagles’ coaching staff, who not only let Mike Vick get a bit of PT last night, but also lined him up at wide receiver, though he didn’t catch a pass. If you’re interested, check out his highlights on NFL.com. I particularly liked his pass to Hank Baskett…nice accuracy, placing the ball away from the defender.

I did catch part of his postgame interview last night, and he sure is confident, talking about how he can do it all. I was a little surprised by that, but perhaps I shouldn’t have been. I guess I thought prison would humble a man. Anyway, I’m now really looking forward to seeing how the Eagles will use him this season.

Rockies grab Jason Giambi

2009-08-23T14:52:00.001-06:00

An excited reader sent me a text about this while I was in church today, but in case you haven’t heard, the Colorado Rockies agreed to terms with first baseman Jason Giambi. Giambi had hit .193/.332/.364 for the Oakland A’s this year.

This friend was excited to have the lefty Giambi as a pinch-hitter against right-handed relievers, but Giambi’s hitting even worse against righties (.186/.335/.306) this year than lefties (.209/.327./.488). For his career, of course, he’s better against right-handers.

I’m largely ambivalent about the move. That said, Giambi isn’t the most likeable guy and I’m not thrilled about adding even an apologetic performance-enhancing drug user in the middle of a strech run when the Rockies could use all available good karma.

Broncos lose again

2009-08-23T14:39:00.001-06:00

The Denver Broncos lost their second preseason game last night 27-13 to the Seattle Seahawks, dropping the team to 0-2 in pretend games so far this year.

Kyle Orton was better yesterday than he was in the first game. That’s not saying much. He completed 18 of 26 passes for 182 yards and a touchdown, and also threw an interception in the end zone. Let’s discuss that pick and the series of events leading to it because it is emblematic, I fear, of what Denver’s season could look like.

The Broncos got the ball on their own 13 yard line and, thanks largely to a series of complete passes, moved into scoring position. (Check the play-by-play here; it’s the drive that started with 10:33 left in the second.) After a short pass to Eddie Royal, the Broncos get first-and-goal on the four. LaMont Jordan runs three yards to the one. So it’s second-and-goal on the one or, in other words, the Broncos had three chances to move the ball one yard.

Well, here’s a team with a proud history of running the ball, and with a ton of RBs to evaluate on the roster. Surely ONE of the downs will go to a run. Instead, it’s three straight passing plays. The first two were incomplete passes to Jabar Gaffney, and I think one of them was that laser Orton threw over Gaffney’s head when he was standing wide open in the back of the end zone. Whenever that opportunity came, Orton blew it badly. But he didn’t call three straight pass plays. On fourth down, Orton ran away from pressure, switched the ball to his left hand (huh?), and lofted an absolute rainbow in the middle of about eighteen Seattle defenders which, predictably, was picked off. You know, it’s the kind of idiot play you make when you know you have absolute job security. (Chris Simms was 5-for-7, but Orton started the second half this time and Tom Brandstater came in later, so I guess Simms is the secret weapon this year.)

Again, though, why weren’t we running it? I get that Shanahan isn’t the coach here anymore, but it’s not like the conventional wisdom suggests it’s easy to throw with only one yard and an end zone to work with. And Shanahan HAS thrown in those situations, though often with bootlegs or play action or some other “set up the pass with the run” scheming. The fourth-down pick was awful. The sycophantic local announcers excused it since it was fourth down and everything, but as my brother pointed out, doesn’t the field position mean something? Since the Seahawks got a touchback, the interception, though not as costly as some, gave the Seahawks nineteen yards we didn’t have to give them, plus valuable breathing room on dropbacks, etc.

Look, it’s one thing when your team doesn’t win, but plays hard. It’s one thing when your team is young, and doesn’t quite know what it’s doing yet, but is still exciting and tough. But when your team is young, a little short on talent, and making horrible decisions on the sideline and on the field, it makes for a terrible year.

The return of Favre & Vick

2009-08-18T20:54:00.001-06:00

January 4, 2003 felt like a moment. If you don’t remember the date, surely you’re familiar with the events of the day. In the early AFC wild-card game, the New York Jets destroyed the Indianapolis Colts 41-0, dropping Peyton Manning’s career playoff record to 0-3.

But it was the night game that really looked like a torch-passing for the league. Michael Vick, a 22-year-old lefty phenom in his second year in the league, was leading the Atlanta Falcons into Lambeau Field, where the Green Bay Packers were 13-0 all-time in playoff games. The Packers’ quarterback that day was Brett Favre, 33, already a three-time MVP and a surefire Hall of Famer. It was the days before HPS, but I still covered the game in my journal:

“…it was like 28° at kickoff and it snowed in the second half. But Atlanta just jumped on the Pack early and Green Bay never recovered. I think it was 27-7. Falcons Q Michael Vick made some sweet plays, especially running, but his numbers weren’t great. I was definitely impressed by the Falcons. Brett Favre, the Packers QB, started slow and eventually threw two picks (one very early) and lost a fumble. He was on fire in the second half and made some really tough throws, but his receivers dropped a lot of passes, it seemed.”

And that was the day the NFC got its new premier quarterback, or so it seemed, though Vick’s Falcons were knocked out the next week by the Philadelphia Eagles in Donovan McNabb’s first game back from a broken ankle.

Careers didn’t quite pan out the way some thought they would after that game. Favre led the Packers to the playoffs the next two years, beating the Seahawks in an overtime game and losing to the Eagles and Minnesota Vikings. After two more years missing the playoffs, he took the Packers back following the 2007 season. He led them into the NFC Championship game, which the team lost at home to the New York Giants.

Vick, on the other hand, got back to the playoffs only once, following the 2004 season. His Falcons beat the St. Louis Rams by thirty in the divisional round, then he lost yet again to the Eagles.

Now these two high-profile quarterbacks have just found new teams: Favre, with the Vikings, and Vick, with the Eagles.

Both are players of incredible athletic talent and superstar name recognition. And both rub countless fans the wrong way, Favre with his chronic indecisiveness, and Vick with his animal cruelty. And between them, they’ve only led one true contender since their playoff showdown years ago (Favre’s 2007 team). But personally, I can’t wait to see how they do.

Favre, of course, has the better shot to change the outcome of the season than Vick does, if only because he’s much more likely to start. He strung the Vikings along for months. I seem to recall that team setting some deadlines, by which Favre absolutely had to commit, yet he we are, with Favre preparing for a start in Minnesota’s next preseason game.

Is Favre a jerk for dragging this out? An egomaniac? Someone who needs to retire? Perhaps. But the Vikings, whose defense ranked 6th in the NFL last year, and whose star runner, Adrian Peterson, led the league in rushing yards, just need Favre to play quarterback. And anyone who says he can’t get it done anymore has a short memory. Last year Favre completed 65.7% of his passes (his second straight year over 65%) for 3,472 yards, 22 touchdowns, and 22 interceptions. The problem, though, is that he ran out of gas as the season went on. Most telling is how much worse his end of the season was than his start:

First four games: 87/124 (70.2%), 12 TDs, 4 INT

Last four games: 75/132 (56.8%), 2 TDs, 8 INT

Well, of course he slowed down! He’s old! Of course, the then-25-year-old Jay Cutler had a rating of 110.6 in his first three games last year, and 73.8 in his last three, but perhaps that’s just because he was too young.

It’s no guarantee that Favre will play well for the Vikings this year, but he could, and that makes Minnesota’s season so much more interesting. Who wants to see a terrific, talented squad stumble all year for want of a quarterback? Add Brett, and they’re instant contenders.

The suffering of Packers fans and suddenly self-loathing Vikings fans, as well as the eventual Favre-in-Lambeau showdown, should make for fantastic theater. (Have we ever seen anything like Favre going back to Green Bay, playing for a division rival?) If the upcoming media circus threatens to derail that for you, just shut off your TV for a few hours and relax a little, because this is genuinely exciting.

Vick, on the other hand, is backing up an established star and starter in McNabb, who reportedly lobbied to bring Vick to the Eagles. Vick’s incredible speed (or rather the speed he had when he was last in the league) has led to countless speculation that he’ll play wideout, or be involved in trick formations, but I doubt coach Andy Reid’s Limbaugh-like conservatism will showcase much innovation. Who knows, though? Vick’s best shot to play a lot, naturally, is if McNabb gets injured. McNabb has had some serious injuries in his career, and missed significant time in 2005 and 2006, but has only missed two games the last two years. I’ll be a little surprised if Vick doesn’t start at least once this year, though. Despite Vick’s crimes, I hope he gets his moves back, because he’s a phenomenal entertainer who can pull off electrifying runs and passes.

I am more excited for this NFL season than I have been in years. Madden is even on its way from Amazon as we speak. This is weird, considering I have almost no faith in the Broncos. But Brett Favre and Michael Vick are two legitimate reasons I can’t wait for kickoff.

Broncos lose preseason opener; the time for action is NOW

2009-08-15T11:22:00.003-06:00

Friday night, during the Denver Broncos’ preseason opener, we learned one thing: if Kyle Orton gets enough time and help, he can make a drive last long enough to end in a punt. And that’s a big if.

The Broncos lost to the San Francisco 49ers 17-16 at Candlestick Park last night. (Check video highlights on NFL.com.) Orton, the new starting quarterback we stole from Chicago in exchange for a mere Pro Bowler, completed twelve of sixteen passes, though three of them were to 49ers, ending each of the team’s first three drives. The first was particularly galling: an awful pass into the end zone that billionaire Niners cornerback Nate Clements leaned into and caught to end our best scoring chance of the first half. Orton made his reputation in Chicago as an OK option across from a good defense, but I’m not sure any defense is good enough to cover throwing away chances like that, on second down from the three. My friend David V. calls Orton "The Ocho", which I love (Orton wears No. 8). I fear, though, that calling him that will be the most fun I'll have watching Orton all season. (To be fair, Orton was playing without top receiver Brandon Marshall, who was found not guilty of battery yesterday.)

In the second half, we saw Chris Simms, the former Longhorn whose career in the NFL, except for a brief stretch in Tampa Bay, has been puzzling for its lack of opportunities. Simms, the son of a former NFL star, put up very good numbers in Austin, but was always seen as a bit of a disappointment. That view carried over into the NFL without a moment’s examination, as Simms was a late third-round pick and has rarely been given chances by a team, the Bucs, that could afford to give them. He also suffered from some injuries in his career, including a brutal spleen rupture in 2006.

Anyway, Simms was 11-for-17 for 142 yards and two touchdowns, the second of which was especially sweet: a fifty-two yard rainbow bomb down the sideline on third-and-nine. He was picked off on the ensuing two-point conversion attempt. (To be fair, Simms was playing with backups the whole time and still moved the ball.) Now some might say that the Broncos have a quarterback controversy on their hands. They do not; Simms was clearly much, much better last night, and if he’s not starting when the season does, I’m going to lose it.

Don’t misunderstand me. I get that yesterday was just one game, and I don’t think either Orton or Simms will lead us to the promised land. I just have more faith in Simms’ untapped potential than I do in an offense led conservatively by Kyle Orton. I don’t think we’ll have enough defense to have a Bears-style O, and I question The Ocho’s ability to lead a more open attack. Simms played last night with more arm strength, wisdom, guts, and hunger. Orton may outplay him as the preseason goes on, and of course I don’t go to every practice, but for now, the need is clear: start Chris Simms!

Rockies take third of four from the Cubs

2009-08-11T00:14:00.003-06:00

The Colorado Rockies beat the Chicago Cubs 11-5 tonight after the Cubs “rallied” in the ninth inning. It was the first Rockies game I’ve attended since the team won the NLCS. (What do you mean, “fair weather”?)

I went to the game with several friends from home, and we went in honor of two brothers from my neighborhood. One of them, a former HPS commenter, has just returned from a Mormon mission, and the younger is leaving town for his tomorrow (now, technically, that’s later today). Along with the group was my own younger brother, which was exciting, because we’d watched countless Rockies games at home in the late ’90s but had not been to a game together in years.

I was coming from the other side of town, so I picked up my ticket at will call, mostly ignored the instructions for how to get to my seat, then walked around to the Rockpile before realizing my seats were, ahem, on the other side of the park. Walking into a game is still an awesome feeling. There’s a tangible joy in the air you don’t feel often. Plus Coors Field, which is still the only place I’ve ever caught a major league game, is an absolute treasure in my opinion. I made it to my seat in time to snap a picture of Todd Helton standing in familiar territory after singling in the first inning to extend his hitting streak to fifteen games.

Next up was Troy Tulowitzki, the Rockies’ 24-year-old shortstop and a key member of the 2007 World Series team. Tulowitzki immediately crushed a home run to left field to give the Rockies an early 2-0 lead.

In the second inning, all sorts of cool things happened. Clint Barmes hit a home run. Yorvit Torrealba doubled, then advanced to third on a hit from pitcher Jorge De La Rosa. Dexter Fowler reached on a hit that maybe should have been an error on Cubs starter Tom Gorzelanny. When Helton got up, I started to get this feeling like I should be taping the game on my phone because something good was about to happen. Eventually Helton walked to load the bases for Tulo, who crushes an apparent grand slam, and I caught it all. Awesome! But the umps call it out, so I immediately and absentmindedly erase the clip. Then they go to check the instant replay, and I feel like a freaking idiot, before they decide that they were in fact right and Tulo did not hit a homer. Good fun. Wouldn’t be the last Tulo moment I screwed up, either. Troy ended up knocking in two runners with a single.

The Cubs shut us out for the entire third inning before giving up two more runs in the fourth, including one scored by Helton when Tulo knocked him in with a double.

The game went on, and the comfortable home-team blowout made enjoyable background fodder for conversation. In the sixth inning De La Rosa, who struck out 11 and gave up one run in 7 and 2/3, led off with a double. Meanwhile we talked about all kinds of athletes from our younger years. It’s worth nothing that, despite the preseason opener on Friday, we spent very little time on the Broncos.

When the seventh inning stretch began, I realized I needed to hurry if I was going to grab a hot dog. So my brother and I headed down right as the crowd started singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” (2:30). Now you need to know that this crowd, as you might expect, had a lot of Cubs fans in it. I wouldn’t say they outnumbered the Rockies boosters or anything, but you could hear them cheer pretty well whenever the Cubs did something right. Anyway, what happened next was an almost instinctive experience. Right when the song hit the first “root”, I could hear the crowd taking a collective inhale, and that’s right when it hit me, too, just in time to scream, “for the ROCK-IES!” loud enough, in my section at least, to drown out the opposing “Cubbies” fans. It was awesome.

The first concession stand I walked by offered several different kinds of hot dogs, each named after a different city and slathered, in my opinion, with all kinds of undesirable toppings. I like my cats dead and my dogs dry, so I moved around for a plainer Italian-style hot dog which ended up being kind of awful. I walk around to meet back up with Dan, and hear wild cheering and the announcers babbling something about Soriano on TV before we head back to our seats. I sit down and the fresh RM tells me, “you missed it.” I missed what? Well, Tulo hit a triple while I was gone, meaning he hit for the cycle.

The rest of the game felt kind of long. I stood to clap for De La Rosa when he left the game after a great performance. I cheered a lot for Tulo, who added another two-RBI single in the eighth. That let him finish 5-for-5 with seven RBI and two runs scored. An outstanding night. You know, the Yankees can have Derek Jeter; I just hope we hang on to Tulowitzki for a long, long time. And my bro and I got to rest our feet on the row in front of us, which just happened to be the famous “mile high” row of purple seats.

The Cubs fans got excited in the ninth, when they scored a few runs to make the final score a little less disrespectable. At one point a guy behind me changed the “Let’s Go, Rock-ies!” chant into a far more fun, “Nineteen-oh-six!” which I joined in on and is even more sweet considering the Cubs last won the World Series in 1908. I almost wish someone had corrected it…well, excuuuuuse me! Your team rocks!

Anyway, the Rockies game tonight was a freaking blast, and a great way to celebrate. If you haven’t made it to a game yet this year, I highly recommend it.

Cutler calls out fans, then doesn’t

2009-08-09T22:33:00.002-06:00

This is a couple of days old, but it’s too good to skip, especially with the contrast between the new quarterbacks on the Bears and Broncos in the first story. (Don't miss how Kyle Orton's day at practice went, unless you value your sanity.)

The first story was when Cutler said the Denver fans weren’t as good as the fans of the Chicago Bears, or maybe just that there were fewer of them at training camp. Then he came out and sort of backtracked/explained himself, which sort of makes sense when you look at the quotes again.

Read the stories; they crack me up. For the record I really don’t care if Broncos fans are given any credit for being great fans; I just want us to be loud enough during big games and big moments that no opponent wants to play in Denver.

Vick in Denver?

2009-08-03T23:14:00.001-06:00

Probably not, as Denver Broncos owner Pat Bowlen has denied meeting with the recently-freed quarterback. Of course, you never know—I’d absolutely deny meeting with Vick under any circumstances up to the moment I signed him.

My question is, should the team consider it? On the one hand, Vick would immediately become the most talented quarterback on Denver’s roster. Our current candidates for the job this year are Kyle Orton, a career 55.3 percent passer who earned some small acclaim playing alongside a few good defenses in Chicago; Chris Simms, son of an NFL star who was best known for beating Denver in the Super Bowl, and a player who was considered a disappointment before he even left college; and Tom Brandstater, a rookie from Fresno State whose YouTube highlights fail to impress. It’s weird because I could have sworn we did okay at quarterback last year. In fact I keep hoping to hear that the trade of Jay Cutler and the firing of Mike Shanahan were all just one big joke or something, but anyway. The Broncos could use a passer.

As it is, our best bet could even be (cringe) Simms, who has somehow attempted only 494 passes in his six NFL seasons. That’s exactly as many as John Elway threw in 1994, when he notched the eighth-highest total of his career.

Vick, however, is in some respects one of the most talented quarterbacks in NFL history. Certainly he’s gifted as a runner; he picked up more than a thousand yards on the ground his last season in the game (2006). His passing can be underwhelming; he has a very strong arm and can pull off incredible throws, but he’s also capable of wild inaccuracy. Of course, you already know all this, as he was one of the most celebrated players of the decade. (One of the most annoying ways he was honored was how the abysmal ESPN Sunday Night Football crew used to shoehorn five Michael Vick mentions into every broadcast, even when his team had nothing to do with the game.)

So why not sign him? Well…there’s kinda sorta the small matter that he was involved in a long-running dog-fighting ring that involved what could be described as the torture of animals.

So should the Broncos sign Vick? To be honest, I’m not sure, but I don’t think I’d have a problem with it. Vick did hard time and has paid his debt to society. You might think he doesn’t deserve to be an NFL quarterback anymore, but the courts don’t see it that way. He needs a job, perhaps desperately, and this is the field he has experience in. I don’t think he deserves a big contract—he may be done as a player—and he’d have to earn his PT, but that’s true for everybody. I think it’d be worth signing Vick just to see one friend of mine flip out over it. Besides, it may be good PR for the team to say it’s only interested in so-called good-character guys, but if that’s true, it’s a pretty new development. For once, though, I want to know what YOU think, so hit the comments and let me know.

Steroids finally hit home

2009-07-31T08:22:00.003-06:00

There have been a few great moments for me in baseball this decade: Luis Gonzalez’s bloop single to win Game 7 of the 2001 World Series and defeat the hated New York Yankees; the Red Sox winning the championship in 2004; and, of course, the Colorado Rockies’ run to the World Series in 2007.

To be honest, Boston’s first championship of the decade has held up the best. The D-Backs in ’01 finally beat the three-time defending champions when no one thought they could, but the Yankees have never been the same since. It’s easy to take for granted how awesome it is when they lose. The Rockies’ hot streak was out of this world and came with nigh-perfect timing, except for its ending, but it was such a short burst of excitement. It wasn’t like the whole season had been awesome, or the next year was. But Boston’s win is still the stuff of legend. In 2003, they suffered a heartbreaking loss in the ALCS to the Yankees following a surprising meltdown from the once-incomparable Pedro Martinez. The next year they not only made it back but pulled an historic comeback from a 3-0 deficit before sweeping the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series. Even though they annihilated the Rockies in 2007, I can’t forget how much I loved the Sox once upon a time.

(By the way, I am compelled to mention: 2003 almost makes me understand the NBA. There is no way that David Stern would have let a potential Cubs-Red Sox World Series matchup get away. For all that’s happened to baseball, the Marlins-Yankees matchup proved at least that between the lines, the game is still on the level.)

With such fond memories of Boston’s title, you can imagine my dismay in reading reports that not only Manny Ramirez, but also the wildly popular David Ortiz, tested positive for performance-enhancing drug use in 2003. These tests, incidentally, were supposed to be anonymous, and while I wish they had stayed that way, it's amazing how at this late date, things are still coming out. Actually, in some ways I feel the players’ union got what it deserved, considering it basically fought for years to prevent drug testing. Not a union I’d want to belong to.

In any event, I can’t say I’m entirely shocked to hear Ortiz might have used steroids or whatever, considering how his career went from “hitter with some pop” to “legend” when he moved cities. But it still hurts.

I’ve said before that steroid use, having not been against the rules for so long, should not keep a suspected user out of the Hall of Fame, especially if his use came before the rule changes. And I guess this doesn’t change my mind, but I’m sick of seeing every single baseball accomplishment come with a freaking disclaimer attached.

Armstrong doesn’t win the Tour de France

2009-07-26T20:38:00.001-06:00

Alberto Contador, known best in America as Lance Armstrong’s teammate, won the Tour de France Sunday. It was his second victory in the race, having also won it two years ago.

Is finishing third at 37 more impressive than winning it all at 26? Eh, I don’t know. They were both impressive, which, you know, you can usually say about podium finishers on the Tour. Personally I’ve had more fun this year badmouthing Lance, probably because people get so mad about it, but it’s pretty unbelievable he could jump back into it like that.

Well, I got nothing else, but didn’t think I should let this pass by…

Perfection

2009-07-26T16:02:00.001-06:00

This is more of a thought than a full-blown post. Thursday Blaine e-mailed me with the news of Mark Buehrle’s perfect game in a 5-0 win against the Tampa Bay Rays. On my way out of work a couple hours later, I saw two co-workers downstairs, one of whom is a big White Sox fan. I asked if he had seen what happened in the game, and he hadn’t, so I urged him to go check a computer. But he just sits down as I start talking to the other guy, so I pull up ESPN.com on my phone and hand it to him, leading to an immediate stream of celebratory swearing. The other guy’s curiosity now piqued, he comes over to see what it is, and I tell him the Sox threw a perfect game. He shrugs his shoulders, completely unimpressed.

The next day I the non-fan comes into my office, and he asks if I heard about the baseball game yesterday where nothing happened. Very funny, but it made me think. The boxscore listed an attendance of 28,036 at U.S. Cellular Field Thursday. Of those twenty-eight thousand, surely some were at their first baseball game. Perhaps some were even forced to come by pushy friends. Well, can you imagine finally convincing someone to go to a baseball game with you, and you end up seeing a perfect game, and afterwards they complain that nothing happened? I think I would go ballistic.

On the other hand, if you didn’t like baseball it might be pretty boring. I mean, maybe DeWayne Wise’s catch would have looked kind of cool. But overall, you might not feel like going to a baseball game ever again.

Helton’s big game

2009-07-23T08:53:00.002-06:00

A concerned reader wrote in to ask why I hadn’t posted about Todd Helton’s 500th career home run. I had similar feelings when I first misread last night’s recaps; turns out Helton hit his 500th career double, and also hit a home run in the eighth inning to break the tie and lead the Colorado Rockies to a 4-3 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks.

If you’re looking for video highlights, I like MLB.com’s sadly unembeddable package.

Two things. First, five hundred career doubles, while not as cool as the same number of home runs, are incredibly impressive. Helton has been playing for years, sure, but the mark takes a ton of consistency, durability, and skill, and he’s had all three in spades. I can still remember when he first joined the team in 1997, my first year as a Rockies fan; he showed up late in Larry Walker’s MVP season, but showed enough promise to run wildly popular first baseman Andres Galarraga out of town.

The Big Cat was beloved in Denver; known best for his hitting (won the batting title with a .370 average in the franchise’s first year), he was actually surprisingly agile around the bag. I can recall his doing the splits to catch errant throws at first. But Helton never gave Rockies fans even a hint of a reason to think the team had made the wrong move. To the Cat’s quickness at first he added a terrific throwing arm; rarely does a first baseman have the chance to showcase it, but when he does, it’s oh-so-sweet. And, of course, his hitting numbers have been incredible, and no one even bought it years ago when he may have sort of been accused of using steroids.

And second, Helton is having a resurgence this year. He’s hitting .324/.406/.528 so far this year, with eleven homers and twenty-nine of those doubles. Helton will be 36 within a month. It’s pretty crazy to think the ride will be shutting down soon, but it’s nice to see he’s still getting it done.

All-Star Game 2009

2009-07-14T23:08:00.001-06:00

The MLB All-Star Game was tonight and, shock of all, the American League won. The A.L. has now won seven games in a row. Back in ’02? The game ended in a tie. Before that the A.L. had won five more in a row. If it hadn’t been for that public display of spinelessness in 2002, when the commissioner called the game before it was through, surely we’d be looking at a streak equal to that of the NFC’s Super Bowl dominance of the ’80s and ’90s.

I wanted to enjoy tonight’s game—I really did—but gosh, they sure made it hard. Strike one: FOX saying the game would start at 6. I remember seeing that and thinking, this game’s not really going to start at 6, but I decided to start watching then anyway. Of course, there wasn’t an actual game on at the time. Yeah, I could stand to be a little wiser, but they could stand to be a little more honest. When I first turned on the game, they were showing President Obama meeting some of the players, and I was thinking, wow, he’s like the biggest star at this game, isn’t he? It was kind of cool watching him talk to the players. Funny watching him stand next to Ichiro, almost motionless, for a few seconds before I realized the President was signing an autograph for the Japanese baseball star.

Anyway, next up were the introductions. Now I like the introductions. For some reason the All-Star gimmick of showing each player tip their hat as they’re announced always works for me. This year only one player, I think (can’t remember who) was doing the whole holding-his-kid thing, which is good. I was surprised to recognize the name of almost every player, considering I haven’t followed baseball closely for years. But it was still disappointing to think, oh, these guys are the stars now. Perhaps I’m romanticizing but go back five or ten years and the players, to me, seemed like much bigger stars. Even forgetting the home-run record guys, you had Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez and Nomar and all the pitchers from Atlanta and a million other guys. These weren’t necessarily the headliners, but they were on the team every year, and they were all well-known. Maybe it’s just that I grew up with them, but they felt like bigger stars. This year for real stars we had Albert Pujols and Derek Jeter, and maybe Joe Mauer and Ryan Howard and a few others belong in that tier, but overall I’m not going to remember most of these players when they’re gone. Plus the pitchers—I didn’t know a lot of those dudes. Mariano, Trevor Hoffman, and Josh Beckett are memorable enough, but shouldn’t there be more? What do you think?

Anyway, that tangent aside, the game still hadn’t started yet. Why not? Well, President Obama and four former presidents (and in a proud moment, I actually thought to myself: “I wonder which four”) narrated this tribute to “real” All-Stars or something that I think was about citizens who do stuff in their community. Not to be a jerk but was there a reason for that? Why do sports fans have to suffer through this, “there’s a real world out there” garbage? You know, I doubt Lifetime viewers are tearing up the value-to-society charts, but do they have to sit through a community-service infomercial before they can catch their latest drama? I don’t think so.

By the time the game came on, well, I was already doing other things. I did happen to catch the tail end of Obama’s time in the booth with Buck and McCarver. The booth guys were doing that whole thing where they just chat with the famous guest right on through the live action, and the President was mid-sentence when Prince Fielder smacked a ground-rule double down the leftfield line. Obama stopped, and said “ooh” or “oh” or something and shut up, forcing Buck to pick up the play-by-play. Thank you, Mr. President. I’m glad somebody wanted me to catch some baseball tonight. Plus he let Willie Mays fly along to the game. I think his role in the proceedings will be what I remember most fondly from tonight’s game.

Microsoft Silverlight update

2009-07-11T12:58:00.001-06:00

Microsoft just updated its Silverlight browser plug-in to version 3.0, which adds some new features, my favorite being its ability to leverage your computer’s graphics chip for smoother video playback. You can download it from their Silverlight website. They have a demo of their streaming video up that is just breathtaking if your connection is good enough. Seriously, check it out.

Silverlight, as you may remember, was the technology NBC chose for their streaming Olympic videos last year. I just watched a sweet Dwyane Wade-to-Kobe Bryant alley-oop on their site, and it looks just like it did last year, which is pretty good. But can you imagine how sweet it will be if they can get the 2012 stream from London looking half as good as that cartoon? That’d be so cool. I will never feel like waiting for one of NBC’s “Live” broadcasts to hit my TV again.

New Hole Punch blog

2009-07-11T12:37:00.001-06:00

Just a heads-up in case you didn’t notice the link to the side: I’ve started a new blog, Hole Punch Etc., for when I feel like posting about stuff that isn’t sports. I figured that would be less annoying than if I just randomly threw stuff on here. So far it only has one post, but I think in the future I will write about a bunch of different topics. It’s pretty open-ended on purpose. Last year I would have written there about the election, I’m sure, and I imagine I’ll put some technology-related stuff on there, but then again I also might just use it to vent about why Transformers 2 was so awful. I’m sure the updates will be sporadic, just like they are here. Anyway, feel free to check it out.

Vote for the Broncos’ all-time team

2009-07-10T20:35:00.002-06:00

I was just gonna write about this on Twitter, but didn’t know if anyone would see it. (Does anyone read that?) The Broncos are letting you pick your 50th anniversary Broncos team on their website, and it’s AWESOME. (Thanks, Lindsay.)

Some of the choices are great. Because I know Elway’s going to win at quarterback, I was tempted to vote for Frank Tripucka (whose No. 18 is one of the team’s three retired jerseys), or maybe Jake Plummer. And now that I know that the all-time team is going to be honored at a Broncos’ game this year, I really, really hope Jay Cutler wins it. But, in the end, I decided I’d rather be part of the 96.2% or whatever who go with Elway.

Some positions are really, really hard, because we’re so loaded. It’s funny that the Broncos spent the first part of the decade looking for the next Steve Atwater, who was just one in a long tradition of great Denver safeties (Dennis Smith, Billy Thompson, Austin Gonsulin). Leaving Smith off was tough, but I literally had to vote for Atwater (they show you some highlights before you see the candidates, and you can guess which Atwater hit made the reel) and Tyrone Braxton has always been a favorite of mine, the undersized, supposedly-slow D-back who was terrific in pass coverage.

We’ve had enough memorable linebackers that I would have gone with a 3-4 lineup, personally, though you don’t get the choice. I thought Simon Fletcher and Rich “Tombstone” Jackson had to be my bookends on the defensive line, but Rulon Jones caught my eye.

On the offensive side of the ball, running back is surprisingly tough even without Howard Griffith or the Human Bowling Ball, but T.D. and Floyd Little (his No. 44 joins 18 & 7, if you’re wondering) are the safe picks. Wide receiver is really, really difficult. I ended up going with Ed McCaffrey opposite Rod Smith but I think that’s going to keep me up nights, especially since I think they’re both gonna win, too. Lionel Taylor was the first pro receiver ever to catch one hundred passes in a season and Haven Moses was huge in bringing us to our first Super Bowl.

Anyway, if you like the Broncos, you have to try it!

The rest of my team: Shannon Sharpe (duh), a line of Gary Zimmerman-Mark Schlereth-Tom Nalen-Keith Bishop-Tony Jones, Louis Wright and Champ Bailey on the corners, with Trevor Pryce and Rubin Carter attacking in front of Randy Gradishar, Tom Jackson and Karl Mecklenburg. Jason Elam and Mike Horan are my kicking team, and Rick Upchurch edged the terrific Darrien Gordon as a return man.

DeMarcus Ware is awesome

2009-07-10T19:43:00.001-06:00

Many NFL fans knew that already, of course: Ware led the league with twenty sacks last year for the Dallas Cowboys (okay, that last part isn’t very awesome). And it’s not his eighty-plus tackles or his six forced fumbles that make him cool, either.

No, what makes DeMarcus Ware awesome is his willingness to go into hiding. Just ask ex-Cowboy Greg Ellis, which is what former Cowboys star Michael Irvin did Wednesday.

‘It's a disgrace when DeMarcus Ware comes off the field just so I can get in the game and when the coaches tell him to come on the field, he tries to hide so I can play,’ Ellis said on Irvin's show. ‘And you're telling me we're trying to win the Super Bowl?’

Seriously?

During the interview Wednesday, Irvin asked Ellis to clarify his statement that Ware would take himself out of games.

‘On his own. He would say, 'G, come on.' And I would tell him, 'No, DeMarcus, go ahead, man. You're coming up on your contract year. Don't mess that stuff up.'’

Ware gave a cagey response on the radio yesterday, which you can find in that ESPN article, but he admits that basically, yeah, he did do that. He gave up some of his own precious playing time for Ellis, who was in his eleventh year with the Cowboys.

That may look like a tiny risk, and it is if you ignore small facts like how many NFL players have statistics-based contract incentives (don’t know about Ware specifically on this) or the one that says most NFL owners are willing to be petty and vindictive in all your future contract negotiations. In a small way, at least, Ware was taking a chance with his career that wasn’t going to benefit him any.

Now wait: shouldn’t Ware do what his coaches say all the time? Well, I’m sure the coaches would like that, but I think it’s awesome that he has the leadership chops to just go ahead and pay respect to a long-tenured veteran like this. (It’s not like Ellis was a liability; he chipped in eight sacks of his own on the year.) Life in the NFL is really, really short, even if you’re star. Some organizations don’t value independent thinking in their rank-and-file, but to me a guy like Ware is worth his weight in gold to a team and its defense. If I were running the Cowboys, I’d do what I could to keep him happy for a long, long time.

Nuggets lose Dahntay Jones

2009-07-09T22:06:00.001-06:00

Former Nuggets shooting guard Dahntay Jones has agreed to terms on a four-year deal with the Indiana Pacers.

Jones was a starter, sure, but his minutes went down each round in the playoffs, and he only averaged 17.5 minutes per game over the entire postseason. So he was really more like a sixth man, except with Chris Andersen and J.R. Smith playing such huge roles off the bench, he was actually the seventh man in terms of PT. He also wasn’t much of a jump shooter even when teams were leaving him open.

But he also had a sweet dunk on Erick Dampier in Game Three of the Dallas series, and he was part of one of the memorable moments of the Lakers series when he tripped Kobe Bryant. I was much more concerned about the fate of Chris Andersen this offseason than I was with Jones. I tend to criticize filthy-rich sports owners when they cheap out on teams, but if the NBA salary cap is really shrinking before the 2010-2011 season, then losing Jones is a minor sacrifice. J.R. Smith can step up in the lineup, and he’ll have to, because the Nuggets don’t have another guard ready if he’s struggling. Yes, we have Ty Lawson. But rookie point guards are no sure thing. Congratulations to Jones on his deal and significant raise; here’s to hoping the Nuggets won’t miss him too much on the court.

Joe Sakic retiring

2009-07-08T10:31:00.001-06:00

John reminded me that longtime Colorado Avalanche center and captain Joe Sakic will retire tomorrow.

Like many Coloradans, I started following hockey right around June of 1996, right as Sakic was wrapping up his masterpiece postseason that would earn him the Conn Smythe trophy as playoff MVP. Over the next few seasons his reputation soured a bit among some Denver fans as his postseason numbers often didn’t match his lofty standards, which is sort of hilarious considering he led a Colorado team to the state’s first-ever major pro sports championship. Sakic was outstanding again in 2001, when the team won its second Stanley Cup.

I don’t really have any specific Sakic memories, but he’s been a leader and star of the Avs ever since they came to Denver. I want to call him the steady hand to Forsberg’s flash but that’s selling Sakic, who was a spectacular player, way too short. He will be missed.

Birdman to stay in Denver

2009-07-08T10:15:00.002-06:00

Hallelujah. Five years. Saw it on ESPN.com, which cites a Denver Post report. To me, this was the biggest question mark of our offseason, and it’s already taken care of. I’m very pleased to see ownership and management step up like this.

Catching up

2009-06-26T00:00:00.002-06:00

A lot has happened since I last blogged. Here are my thoughts:

1. The Rockies fired longtime manager Clint Hurdle and replaced him with Jim Tracy, who used to manage the Dodgers, who suck, and the Pirates. I don’t know why but I’ve always hated the Dodgers. Anyway, I thought it was a dumb move but the team is 19-7 under Tracy, including an eleven-game winning streak.

Last Saturday my ward went to the Rockies game, which I skipped, and which the Rockies won on Todd Helton’s ninth-inning home run. I don’t know why ESPN always starts a friggin’ video whenever you go to their website. With millions of visitors a month that’s gotta be cost-effective.

Anyway, I don’t know what it all means; the Dodgers have the best record in baseball and are 9.5 games up on us. But we’re already in wild-card contention.

2. The Cleveland Cavaliers picked up Shaq O’Neal in a trade with the Phoenix Suns, who got a 2010 second-rounder, half a mill, Sasha “Slover” Pavlovic and Ben Wallace, because one over-the-hill big man deserves another.

Shaq seems to be a great guy (although if you follow him on Twitter you’ll find his goofy antics get old pretty quickly) and a great teammate, as well as one of the two players with an argument as the best player since Michael Jordan (Timmy D is the other). His reputation as a completely washed-up player is inaccurate: he averaged 17.8 points and 8.4 boards last year. Solid numbers. Just not Shaq numbers. And even with the Heat he was inconsistent in the playoffs. When the Magic ganged up on LeBron in the playoffs, the Cavs missed having someone who could hit an open jumper; Shaq won’t fix that, but he might get open for enough dunks to buy King James just a little more airspace. Can he hold it together for one more title run? The odds are against him, but I’ll be pulling for him.

3. Kobe Bryant led the Lakers to an NBA title as the No. 1 guy, so you can’t knock him for not doing that anymore. I think he did it in a down year: the Spurs and Celtics, both formidable opponents for the Lakers, were bitten by injuries to key players, the Magic took out the guy who could match Kobe basket-for-basket, and the Nuggets were still at least a year away.

Bryant probably clinched first-ballot Hall of Fame status in most broadcasters’ minds around the time he turned 19; even I’ll allow now that he belongs in the Hall of Fame. He has four rings, including one as The Guy now, though it’d be at least five if he was a better team player.

The debate now is about Bryant’s legacy in history. I think I’ve seen people put him in the top five guards of all-time. I suppose that might be right. He’s definitely behind Jordan and Magic. (In case anyone’s an idiot, Magic had five rings, three MVPs, and three Finals MVPs to Kobe’s four, one, and one, and Kobe’s already played in and started more regular-season games than Magic.) I think Oscar Robertson and Jerry West belong ahead of him as well. But though there are a ton of guards I would rather have on my team than Bryant (Sam Jones, Reggie Miller, The Glove), it’s hard to say any of them are conclusively better. But I welcome your opinions.

4. Vince Carter got traded tonight to the Magic for a collection of role players. I want to think it’ll work out but Carter, who I had wanted the Nuggets to draft so badly, will probably disappoint. The ESPN frontpage points out that he’s been to eight All-Star Games already…does that mean he’ll be in the Hall someday? I mean, even if he doesn’t go right away people will look back and be like, this guy must’ve been something. If he does make the Hall, that’s kind of depressing.

5. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is like the Josh McDaniels of summer movies, though I guess Josh McDaniels hasn’t destroyed my fond memories of the Elway era yet. (Give him time.) Speaking of the Broncos, if you missed it, Brandon Marshall wants to get out of town.

6. And the whole reason for this post: as LT pointed out in the comments, during a trade in tonight’s draft, the Nuggets picked up former Tar Heels point Ty Lawson, ostensibly to back up Chauncey Bu-bu-bu-Billups! (I’ve had the Nuggets’ announcer stuck in my head for about a week now.) I’d link to the Denver Post article about it but Chrome tells me the page might contain malware. Nice. Anyway, we gave up a future first-rounder, which I thought I read might have started as Charlotte’s or something, but that’s fine with me. We also sold our second-round pick which is kind of savvy if you need the cash. Those are usually worthless. Anyway, here’s an AP story about the trade.

POSTSCRIPT: Now that I'm awake, how did Ty Lawson last until No. 18? Or stay available longer than Tyler Hansbrough? Lawson was masterful under the pressure of the NCAAs; the pros are a different ballgame for a point, but at least we know he has the ability and the quickness. Hopefully soon he can take Anthony Carter and J.R. Smith's minutes at the point. That way we're in better shape if J.R. goes through another cold spell. I am super excited about this pick.

What a win!

2009-06-15T07:49:00.001-06:00

Oh, you want me to write about the big game yesterday? Well, I didn’t watch it, unfortunately. But here’s a great recap and some highlights.

ESPN’s NBA Franchise Rankings

2009-06-11T22:26:00.006-06:00

The Lakers appear poised to take a 3-1 lead over the Magic, and since I don’t want to pay attention to that, let’s discuss ESPN.com’s ridiculous NBA franchise rankings.

I hate this list probably because I like the concept so much; for some reason NBA history has always appealed to me. Last time I played NBA Live, it was some combination of games among the all-time Celtics, all-time Lakers, and the so-unstoppa-Bulls of the late-90s. (I take turns beating the Lakers with either Boston or Chicago.) Anyway, John Hollinger explains most of his typically numbers-heavy decision-making here, if you’re inclined, but I’d rank the teams more with my gut. Before I get into things I disagree with, let me just say how much I LOVE that he put the New York Knicks at No. 14. I hate how the league sucks up to New York and pretends its team is some kind of marquee franchise.

Anyway, let’s start at the top. Hollinger puts the Lakers as the No. 1 franchise ever, over the Boston Celtics, since the Lakers have more wins and playoff series wins than the Celtics, though the Celtics have three more titles. Hollinger absurdly gives LA 150 points of intangibles for having famous fans, while giving Boston 50 points for having the deepest tradition in the league, which to me seems to be the whole measure of this exercise, but whatever. I also really like how he makes a list of the Lakers' great big men and throws Pau Gasol on it. The real reason Boston should be ahead of L.A.? Because they’re 9-2 against the Lakers in the Finals. It's like putting the Bills ahead of the Cowboys.

The Lakers would be the obvious No. 2, though.

The Spurs go third and the Bulls go fourth; of the Spurs he says, “They may not have the tradition of the Lakers or Celtics, but in the two decades since they drafted David Robinson the Spurs have arguably been the most successful organization in sports.” Too bad the Bulls have six rings in that same timespan to San Antonio’s four. It’s true, of course, that the Bulls were only great when they had Jordan, and the Spurs had George Gervin and all that, but it’s still kinda funny.

The Suns are at No. 5 and the Sixers fall just behind them in No. 6. I don’t like this at all. Screw the Suns. Their point guard already stole two MVPs…isn’t that enough? The Sixers are the one other franchise who get an all-time team on that ol’ PlayStation, by the way. A starting five of Wilt, Barkley, Dr. J, the Answer and Maurice Cheeks? How do the Suns compete with that? (And though everyone always does, let’s not forget Moses Malone, too.) Plus the Sixers have three titles to the Suns’ none. Phoenix’s NBA team has been overrated all decade and, apparently, throughout league history.

The only other listing that really bugs me is the Utah Jazz at No. 7. That’s offensively absurd. I know we’re all supposed to wax poetic about Stockton-to-Malone, but it’s been several years now, and if those guys were so great shouldn’t they have won something? It’s not just that they ran into Jordan and the Bulls; if you have a Hall of Fame point guard and a Hall of Fame big man together for that long you should make more than two Finals anyway. You know, it is weird that Jerry Sloan never got Coach of the Year those two times his team actually lived up to expectations. Outside of that era, have the Jazz ever mattered? Anyway, the Jazz are somehow three spots ahead of the Houston Rockets, who won two titles behind Hakeem Olajuwon, the best big man of the ’90s.

I can’t say much more about the list since ESPN wants me to pay to see the last twenty teams, even though it’s the friggin’ Internet. The Bad Boy Pistons of Jordan Rules fame have a horrible rep in my mind, but No. 13 seems pretty low for Detroit. I’m pleasantly surprised by the Nuggets’ No. 18 spot. And you kind of need to put the Clippers last, though Hollinger places them 29th to Memphis’ 30th.

What do you think?

Magic win Game Three; does it matter?

2009-06-10T08:02:00.001-06:00

The Orlando Magic won at home last night, cutting the L.A. Lakers’ NBA Finals lead to two games to one. They put up more than a hundred despite not getting much from Hedo down the stretch, and they have the next two games at home. But this is the same team that was blown out in Game One, blew Game Two, and almost lost their lead last night despite Kobe’s fourth-quarter struggles.

In other words, I don’t think so.

Rooting for the enemy?

2009-06-04T18:59:00.001-06:00

Twice today I’ve discussed the upcoming NBA Finals with people, both of whom said they hope the Los Angeles Lakers win the series. Why? Because if the Lakers humiliate the Orlando Magic, then that means the Denver Nuggets were the second-best team in the NBA!

Golly gee, that’s incredible! I forget, what do they call the trophy they give you for being the second-best team? (As a Broncos fan, I’m pretty sure the NFL calls it the “Lamar Hunt Trophy”, actually.)

Why does anyone care about this? The Nuggets are who they are, and what they are is a team not yet good enough to win the NBA championship. I don’t really care for second-place finishes. Seriously, though, I hate the Lakers, and have for years. That doesn’t just change because a Lakers victory might fool the simple-minded into regarding the Nuggets more highly.

* * *

As you’ve probably heard, LeBron James left after getting eliminated by the Magic without speaking to the media, which I guess wasn’t the most grown-up thing ever. I loved his quote the next day, though:

‘It’s hard for me to congratulate somebody after you just lose to them,’ James said Sunday after the team returned to Cleveland. ‘I’m a winner. It’s not being a poor sport or anything like that. If somebody beats you up, you’re not going to congratulate them. That doesn’t make sense to me. I’m a competitor.’

What do you suppose he means by “I’m a winner”? Because I assume it’s not the conventional definition.

* * *

Enough about LeBron. The actual winners of that series, according to the scoreboard, were the Orlando Magic, who pulled off an incredible upset. LeBron & Co. were crushing opponents with ease before they slammed into the brick wall of Orlando.

The Lakers, for my money, played extremely well their last five quarters but were largely inconsistent throughout the rest of the postseason. Nonetheless I am terrified that this is their year, especially considering the regular season they put together. But you know what? They haven’t won anything yet, nor can they keep Dwight Howard off the boards. And since I can’t pick teams I hate (would you believe I once prophesied a Bears Super Bowl victory for this very reason?), I’m calling this series for Orlando in six.

Nuggets out but not down

2009-05-29T22:42:00.003-06:00

Well, that sucked. Actually, I’m trying—and mostly succeeding—not to be bitter right now. The Denver Nuggets’ season came to a devastating stop the last few nights as the Los Angeles Lakers simply started trying. But the Nuggets’ playoff run was as inspiring as it was incredible. And man, have things changed.

It started with a matchup: the team, with a No. 2 seed that was the highest of the Carmelo era, was set to face the New Orleans Hornets in the first round. I can remember discussing it over the phone with a friend, distraught that we didn’t get to play the more favorable Utah Jazz or Dallas Mavericks. The Hornets had some great pieces around the league’s best point guard, Chris Paul…or so everyone said. Now I can’t see Paul’s face on TV without laughing to myself about what a terrible playoffs he had. His reputation, to me at least, has taken a huge hit. Know why? Because Chauncey Billups is just that good. And don’t forget our 121-63 win on the road in Game Four.

Going into the playoffs, fan expectations were low. All we needed to get that self-respect back was a series victory and for Carmelo to play well. We got that with the New Orleans series. The rest was gravy.

A No. 2 seed should also get through the second round, though, and of course we did that pretty handily against the Dallas Mavericks. I think we’ll look back at Game Three of that series as the day Carmelo went from NBA All-Star to NBA superstar. Here’s the thing. He was a very well-known and well-regarded player who scored tons of points and made game-winners all the time in the regular season. He’d be playing in the Sunday game in February for years either way. But once he hit that game-winning three against Dallas, he elevated his game and his confidence to a whole new level. He had 31 points that day, and the next four games, he scored 41, 30, 39, and 34. Those last two games were against Kobe Bryant’s Lakers. I was at Game Three of the Lakers series. Carmelo carried himself like he knew he was the best player on the floor. He didn’t end up playing like it the whole series, but the attitude alone is a huge step for Anthony, who has progressed more in the last year than anyone in basketball. A year ago he got a DUI and the team considered trade him. Now he’s an Olympic gold medalist and one of the most dangerous go-to scorers in basketball, especially at the end of games. We’re so lucky the team didn’t get rid of him.

As for the Lakers, well, they ended up beating us handily in the last two games. But as excited as we all were to play L.A., we probably shouldn’t have been. The Lakers won 65 regular season games this year, which is rare. In the 2000s, only four teams have had as many or more wins: the ’99-’00 Lakers (67), the ’06-’07 Mavericks (67), the ’07-’08 Celtics (66), and this year’s Cleveland Cavaliers (66). Those Lakers and Celtics teams both won the title. It would have been an historic upset for us to advance to the Finals this year. And if we’d hung on just a little longer in Game One, we just might have done it.

It’s a tough loss, but this isn’t the 2007 Rockies all over again. The Lakers should be fine next year, and now that they have a few days off, they might let Jeff Van Gundy or Mark Jackson take them out to a nice dinner. Get a room already. Seriously, go ahead. What’s the worst that could happen? Other powerhouse West teams of the last few years, though, like the Spurs, Suns, and Mavs, are all getting worse. This offseason is key. The Nuggets have to re-sign Chris Andersen, who will be an unrestricted free agent. It would be nice if we could pick up a power forward, someone who could rebound consistently, but I’m not sure if we’ll have or spend the money. Maybe, though. I feel like attendance should be up next year; the Birdman’s great, but every single person in this city is in love with Chauncey’s game. He is now the face of pro sports in Denver. Come November, when the Broncos are 0-9 or whatever, people are going to be stoked to have him back.

As for head coach George Karl, he’s been the target of some national media (read: The Sports Guy) criticism through this series, but I doubt the Nuggets will get rid of him. His pregame speech before the game was perhaps the most resigned I’ve ever heard, but he was just following a proud Nuggets tradition. Before Denver faced L.A. in the opening round of the 1987 playoffs, coach Doug Moe said, “We got no shot to beat the Lakers.”

We didn’t have a shot tonight, either, as Denver’s dream playoff run finally came to an end. You don't usually break out of the first round and win your first championship in the same year. Next year, though? Next year I think we just might have ’em.

Nuggets lose Game Five

2009-05-27T21:59:00.001-06:00

I won’t say the series is over, but tonight’s game, a 103-94 victory by the L.A. Lakers over the Denver Nuggets, really hurt.

I’d been nervous all day; I guess as a Broncos fan I don’t remember what deep playoff runs feel like. While Game Four was a game we had to win, it felt coming into tonight that our best shot of taking the series was to win Game Five, too. Surely the Lakers knew this and stepped up with their best effort of the series. It was their one good effort for a few players. It’s annoying how guys like Lamar Odom will get praised for this game.

The start of the fourth quarter is obviously where we lost the game, but the Lakers outplayed the Nuggets for most of the game, even in the tied first half. It was kind of like how some of our games with the Hornets played out: we controlled the tempo, and were clearly dominating, but didn’t have an actual lead yet. Tonight the Lakers did the same to us. They played just hard enough on defense to keep our shooters from developing any kind of rhythm. Why they don’t play like that all the time, I couldn’t tell you, but they clearly went all-out tonight and played well from start to finish. Man, I hate those guys.

The Nuggets’ backs are against the wall. Last time that happened, after Game Three, they responded with a huge home victory. Let’s hope they can unleash the running game at the Pepsi Center Friday night (7 pm Mountain, ESPN).

Magic up 3-1!

2009-05-26T23:29:00.002-06:00

Wait a second…if LeBron gets knocked out, will the league try even harder to ensure Kobe makes the Finals?

Nuggets even the Western Conference Finals

2009-05-25T22:49:00.003-06:00

With Carmelo Anthony sick and off to an icy start, the Denver Nuggets shouldn’t have had a chance tonight. But Chauncey Billups (loved that drive in the highlights) and J.R. Smith stepped up and led the team to a 120-101 victory over the visiting Los Angeles Lakers and even the Western Conference Finals at two games apiece.

The entire team played well as the Nuggets outscored the Lakers in every quarter. The Birdman was fantastic, and he, Nene, and K-Mart completely dominated the boards against an overmatched Lakers front line. Dahntay Jones had a sweet breakaway windmill dunk and a wonderful make-it-look-like-an-accident trip of Kobe Bryant. Carmelo came in and did his thing in the fourth quarter, forcing his way to the line when they needed to keep the lead up. And the fans were outstanding; one of the “no means no” chants came through crystal-clear on TV. You know the league’s not happy about that.

Really, the only complaint Nuggets fans can have is about that stretch in the fourth quarter where the clock seemed to move backwards and the Lakers got free throw after free throw. But the next time I looked up J.R. was sinking threes and Denver was cruising to an easy win. Well, that and, as Stuart Scott reports, Bryant scoring the most points ever in the first four games of a conference finals. That part’s rough.

The Lakers, for their part, continued not to go to Pau Gasol that much and still rely on Kobe to do everything. Does anyone else on that team have another gear? And what is up with Phil Jackson? He had one of the most bizarre nights I’ve seen from a coach in a while. First was Kobe and Gasol sitting on the bench for so long in the fourth quarter. Once Kobe came in, he hit a few shots in a row. The Nuggets had a big lead and were in Morey Rule territory with plenty of time left, but you never know what Bryant’s capable of, especially if he’s going to play several more minutes anyway. Jackson also pulled that ridiculous move where he didn’t sub anyone in for Luke Walton once he fouled out. I don’t know what that was about because it looked like a pretty clear foul to me. The real question is why Jackson had Luke on Carmelo in the first place.

Anyway, the Nuggets go back to L.A., where they’ll have to win at least Wednesday (7 Mountain, ESPN) or Sunday to stay alive. How do you like their odds?

Magic up 2-1

2009-05-24T21:59:00.001-06:00

Wow. Wow! The Orlando Magic just took a 2-1 lead over the Cleveland Cavaliers with a ten-point win in Game Three of the Eastern Conference Finals.

I didn’t think Orlando had a prayer in the series, and told a reader I expected the Cavs to win in five. I’m still not sure Orlando will win, especially when the refs are willing to call a foul on Dwight Howard’s last-minute block of LeBron James, perhaps the cleanest block I’ve ever seen (more in a second). At this point I just really want someone to break up the Cavs-Lakers Finals, which is a pretty bad place to be as a fan. I mean, obviously I want the Nuggets to win it all, but if they can’t I just hope someone crashes the league’s party.

The Magic sure do play funny on offense with a lead, though. They kept going for the dagger three instead of a) a good two or b) trying to kill any clock. It was like a football team passing every down with a four-point lead or something. I was afraid they were going to blow it.

And really, I hate complaining about the refs, but I also hate how it feels like the underdog has to do more than just outscore the favorite. About that block: LeBron is pushing the ball up the floor and you know he’s going to pull up for three (the Cavs were down eight). Dwight Howard comes up behind him and blocks the shot. Absolutely clean. I mean almost every block has some kind of body contact, but Howard didn’t touch James at all. Of course, there’s a whistle anyway. So LeBron got three free throws with 36.1 remaining. It wasn’t enough to change the game, but it totally could have been. (Charles Barkley, thankfully, kept saying it was a terrible call, asked if anyone noticed the seeing-eye dog next to the ref, and said that someone needs to review the tapes and give technicals for obvious flopping.)

One more note on the officials: I also hate watch the players complain to the refs, but if some star really does get suspended for picking up a seventh technical and that turns around a conference finals or the NBA Finals, really, whose best interest is that in? This is the lamest running subplot of the playoffs. I really, really hope none of these series come down to that.

More thoughts on Game Three

2009-05-24T08:14:00.001-06:00

• We bought our tickets on StubHub. If you’ve never used it before (I hadn’t), it’s totally legit. You buy your tickets online, and I think they’d mail them to you if there was time, but in our case we picked them up at a conference room in the Oxford Hotel downtown. All in all a pretty painless experience, except to the wallet.

• Niketown sucks. After I picked up David V at the airport, we had some time to kill, and he needed to get a Nuggets shirt. The last time I was there, which was a few years ago, I could have sworn one of the front rooms had a bunch of Nuggets or at least Carmelo stuff in it. There was none to be found anywhere in the store yesterday, even though Melo is the biggest star of the Jordan brand. But what really got me was that on the walls outside of the room where the basketball stuff is, they had a huge picture of LeBron James on one wall, and on the other…a big Kobe Bryant. You’ve got to be kidding me. Couldn’t they have paid some kid six cents to find a good picture of Carmelo?

• I remember reading about playoff games at the old Boston Garden. One characteristic of the place was that it would get really hot. The Pepsi Center wasn’t sweltering last night or anything but it was definitely a few degrees warmer than the first two playoff games I went to. It is later in the year, I guess, though yesterday wasn’t particularly hot. I really only noticed because I was amazed how comfortable it had been the first two games.

• What is was, though, was loud. The amount of artificial noise in the building was staggering. I don’t mean artificial cheering; I just mean things like the beat that goes with a “De-Fense!” chant. It never let up in the second half. I can’t imagine trying to play with that going on, and it wasn’t like it got quiet when the Nuggets had the ball. (Playing with a loud crowd would be friggin’ awesome; it’s all the fake noise that would be annoying.) If anything we overdid it and ended up favoring the more experienced team. Personally if I was, say, J.R. Smith, I would have liked a couple seconds to gather my thoughts when on the bench; the building was just annoyingly loud to the point that it got kind of uncomfortable sitting there.

The only reasonable explanation I can think of is that there were enough Lakers fans there cheering pretty loud in the first half when they’d score, so the Pepsi Center team decided to try to drown them out. I guess that’s cool, but the Nuggets were up most of the time, so I don’t think their fans would have had the edge. Besides, it’s way more fun trying to outcheer some obnoxious jerk than it is screaming when you can barely hear yourself. The tension in the air was pretty bad, though, and the Lakers fans were way more optimistic.

By the way, if you’re a Lakers fan at the Western Conference Finals, you probably should have found time to update that No. 8 Bryant jersey. Just saying. (Then again I thought the guy we passed in an old dark blue No. 4 Billups jersey was the man. Looking back those old uniforms were hideous, though.) I also saw two guys in Wilt Chamberlain jerseys. One was a lanky teenager, which I don’t get at all. The other was in his 20s or 30s and also definitely never saw Wilt play. I saw a Magic jersey, which is cool. Personally if I was a Lakers fan going for a retro look I think I’d lean more towards an Elgin Baylor or a Big Game James; what about you?

So back to the noise. There were a bunch of drummers going at halftime that were crazy loud and not my particular cup of tea anyway. The sound just lingered. Again, I’m down if the Nuggets’ locker room is soundproofed and L.A.’s isn’t, but who knows. I tried calling a friend at halftime and that was a miserable experience; fortunately the Can has these soundproofed rooms off to the side of the corridors you can hang out in.

• I had always wanted to sit in the seats where they give you the big balloons to wave at the free throw shooters, and yesterday, I did it. The Lakers shot free throws really poorly on our end, but Kobe was sinking them, so it was a pretty crappy feeling. Another cool thing was that a guy down the row had the Xerox of the NBA’s official stats for the first half, even though the story the numbers told was frightening. (I know we were up at halftime, but the shooting percentages scared me.)

• It’s funny how the fans react to the players live. After watching a few rounds we all know what the Nuggets do, and no one wants Kenyon Martin to try to do anything. J.R.’s tough to watch when he’s cold. Most guys would lose confidence in their rapid-fire threes, but not Smith. Guess that’s sort of a good thing. It reminds me of when a cornerback says he has to have a short memory, but it’s someone like Terrell Buckley who gets burned all the time and you’re like, maybe you should try to remember a little. When he drove for that shot with like a minute left, I said, “J.R., what are you doing?” and when it went in, the guy next to me screamed, “He’s scoring! He’s scoring!” then admitted he didn’t like the shot, either.

• If anyone’s going to Game Four, they did let us in more than an hour early now, not that there’s anything to do inside.

Nuggets drop Game Three

2009-05-23T23:35:00.002-06:00

In a devastating blow to their championship dreams, the Denver Nuggets lost Game Three of the Western Conference Finals to the Los Angeles Lakers tonight, 103-97. It was an absolutely brutal game to watch down the stretch if you like the Nuggets.

I do. As one of you noticed on my new Twitter page, I did indeed attend the game in person. Here is the requisite view from my seat:

Look familiar? It felt that way, though I was on the opposite end of the court from where I sat in Game Five of the Hornets series, meaning the Nuggets would actually come at us in the second half. Also I was two rows back, if anyone really freaking cares.

I was pretty down after the game, but now I’m not sure how to feel. It seemed like L.A. dictated a slower tempo than we like to play at home, but we still put up 97 points on a night when Carmelo Anthony was in foul trouble and we couldn’t hit a jump shot to save our lives. It’s starting to feel like J.R. Smith’s cold streak is rubbing off on Chauncey Billups, isn’t it? We were only a few made shots away from going up 2-1 in the series. But it’s pretty hard to beat the Lakers, I think, when you give away two of the first three games.

The Nuggets were up most of the second half, but it didn’t feel like they were up, and it definitely didn’t feel like it was going to last the way we were playing. Our perimeter shooting, on fire against Dallas and New Orleans, is now just bad. Our defense is slumping, too. Carmelo had some key steals, but all in all it feels like we’re counting on him to do everything. He’s carrying himself like he knows he’s the best player out there. I can still remember his first foul; I thought it was okay, because he’s good at going into the end of the game with only a few fouls. Except tonight he picked up quite a few and had to sit for too long of a stretch in the second half. That was killer.

I’ll give credit to Kobe. His three-pointer over J.R. Smith with just over a minute left was the nail in the coffin. I’d wanted Carmelo on him but I must have forgotten he had five fouls somehow.

Anyway, I’m done talking about this killer game, at least for now. Check out Twitter for more on the atmosphere at the game, etc., if you’re interested.

Meanwhile, back in the East

2009-05-22T21:54:00.003-06:00

I just caught the last six or so minutes of Game Two of the Orlando Magic-Cleveland Cavaliers Eastern Conference Finals, and I hope you did, too. It was NUTS. Beautiful basketball down the stretch from the Magic, who I seem to recall a certain reader supporting on his long and winding road to becoming a Nuggets fan. Anyway, Orlando Calrissian was hitting shots, and they seemed to know just how to cover LeBron: send absolutely everyone at him when he drives, and hope Mo Williams and The Big Z miss enough jumpers to keep it close. And it worked. Hedo Turkoglu hit a long three-pointer to tie the game at 93 with 48 seconds remaining. On the next possession LeBron appeared to take four steps on a drive and was actually called for it. For a second I thought it was some kind of defensive foul or something (wasn’t listening to the game sound), but no. (After the game Craig Sager asked LeBron if he had not argued the call because of fatigue, and James, to his credit, admitted he had travelled. To be fair he might have only taken three steps, but it looked like a foot was on the ground when he picked up his dribble.) Okay, again, anyway. The Magic are fouled and get the ball on the sideline with thirteen seconds left. I wasn’t super confident they’d get it done, but if they did, they’d be up 2-0 on the heretofore invincible Cavaliers! Hedo gets the ball on the right side, and drives into a crowd before launching an awkward, bending jumper that somehow falls in with a second left. Game over, Magic.

Except for a little fellow known as King James, who caught the ball behind the three point line, jumped, and fired a fadeaway three that rimmed in. And the Cavs salvage the split with a one-point win. Why isn’t anyone asking what makes his unstoppableness so unstoppable?

Lesson learned

2009-05-21T22:28:00.002-06:00

Can’t beat the Lakers? Try becoming the Lakers.

The Denver Nuggets stole a chapter out of L.A.’s playbook tonight, winning in a way only the Lakers usually do: taking the first half off, showing no outward signs of caring, and then, somehow, getting back into it and taking the game at the end.

In sharp contrast to their effort in Game One, the Nuggets played almost flawlessly down the stretch, save perhaps J.R. Smith’s turnover on a pass attempt to Carmelo Anthony. (I guess Anthony had that turnover, too.) Anthony, by the way, just about willed the Nuggets back into the game, scoring more than 30 points for the fifth game in a row, which Scott Van Pelt just told me breaks Alex English’s franchise single-season playoff record. That means the streak started with Game 3 in Dallas, when Carmelo hit that game-winning three pointer. I can almost hear Morpheus: “He’s beginning to believe.”

Chauncey Billups might be missing some of his free throws, but he played great, especially in the fourth quarter. He put it in another gear when the team needed it, driving to the basket, and making his way to the line again and again. He knew just how to attack, and carried the Nuggets when Carmelo began to falter ever so slightly near the end.

They said that Linas Kleiza was scoring something like five points per game in the playoffs; that's way higher than I would have thought, but his threes were big tonight. (And Coach Karl wisely pulled him when he missed a three in the fourth.) Nene and Kenyon Martin were solid, though a few more boards from the Mart are always welcome. I was so relieved/stoked when Nene hit those free throws.

Those words describe how I felt down the stretch, but now? Incredible! I can’t believe my Nuggets just beat the Los Angeles Lakers on the road in the Western Conference Finals in what was starting to feel like a must-win game. They got it, and now they have the homecourt advantage. But this series, which has been great basketball so far, is far from over. Game Three is Saturday night at the Pepsi Center (6:30 pm Mountain, ABC).

Hello from the second quarter

2009-05-21T20:10:00.001-06:00

It’s funny that I would post that link about the refs—and even funnier that Dick Bavetta is on the crew tonight—but if the Nuggets lose, they’ll have no one to blame but themselves. Where is the energy? Carmelo’s starting to heat up, but he still had to walk over to Nene to get a five after a made free throw. Wake up, people! We are lucky it’s as close as it is, and somehow now it’s a five-point game, so I’ll get back to watching it.

O-fishy-ating (Get it?)

2009-05-21T13:43:00.002-06:00

Guess who finally hit the big time? That’s right, folks, you can now read something I wrote on somebody else’s blog. Truly a momentous day. No, I didn’t actually write the whole post, but you should really check it out anyway.

It figures

2009-05-19T22:25:00.002-06:00

Without getting into any details, today sucked, and so it’s fitting that the Lakers took down the Nuggets in Game One tonight.

What’s sad, but also reassuring, is that the Nuggets put themselves in position to win the game. They had a big lead in the first quarter, which is almost annoying at this point, because unless you’re playing the Hornets you always lose a lead you build that early. But they also had some good leads in the fourth quarter. If you’re not familiar with this rule, which I think I’ve heard the Sports Guy credit to Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey, it’ll totally change the way you watch games. The quote is from Michael Lewis’ awesome profile of Shane Battier:

One statistical rule of thumb in basketball is that a team leading by more points than there are minutes left near the end of the game has an 80 percent chance of winning. If your team is down by more than 6 points halfway through the final quarter, and you’re anxious to beat the traffic, you can leave knowing that there is slightly less than a 20 percent chance you’ll miss a victory; on the other hand, if you miss a victory, it will have been an improbable and therefore sensational one.

So remember when Carmelo Anthony got caught by the sideline and called that timeout, but then right after the break caught a pass from Nene for a dunk? That gave the Nuggets a seven-point lead with 7:28 left, a lead they kept past when the clock ticked under seven minutes remaining. The Nuggets also led by six inside of six minutes and five inside of five. And, oh yeah, Chauncey Billups' three gave us a two-point lead with 1:38 remaining.

So what happened? Well, I refuse to turn this blog into a bunch of whining about the officiating, so I guess I can’t explain it. Also, the Lakers were getting the ball to Kobe Bryant better than the Nuggets were to Chauncey or Carmelo in the closing minutes. (Thankfully, both 7 and 15 played well when given opportunities down the stretch.) Anthony Carter’s inbounds pass that got stolen was absolutely atrocious, too. I think the Nuggets will be a lot better off on offense when J.R. Smith gets back on track, though. While he did hit one big three, he usually provides a bigger lift at the start of the fourth quarter.

My other concern is Denver’s first-half defense on Bryant. Way too many times he was allowed to get the ball down low and simply elevate for an easy shot. I don’t know how to prevent that but the Nuggets have to find a way or this is going to be a very short series.

Drug check

2009-05-18T21:37:00.001-06:00

Did anyone watch SportsCenter tonight? If you did, did you happen to see real-life Jon Barry on a real-life court guarding a life-size digital Kobe Bryant, presumably from NBA Live? Just, uh…just curious.

21.5 more hours…

It’s the Lakers

2009-05-17T18:06:00.001-06:00

Thanks to their 89-70 victory over the Houston Rockets today, the Los Angeles Lakers will face the Denver Nuggets in this year’s Western Conference Finals. If you didn’t see the game, know that it was truly an easy win; the Lakers won by 19 despite Houston closing the game on a 12-0 run.

The schedule is now set for the next series as well. Game One is Tuesday night at 7 Mountain (ESPN), and the Nuggets and Lakers will play every other day until the series is over. Actually, the schedule’s been set for a few days, a fact I wish I’d known when I was looking for but not getting any tickets on Friday. (Did any of you have any luck on that front?)

Does today’s first Game Seven give anyone pause heading into the series? I say it’s about time the Lakers step up, because they haven’t done much to this point. But then, all we’ve done is beat a bunch of quitters, and then a one-Germensional team. I am excited to see the games, but would feel a lot better with the warm blanket of homecourt advantage nearby. Does anyone think we have to win the series in six?

One thing I did notice in today’s game that Kobe wasn’t the first guy off the bench congratulating his teammates, even though he totally was the night before when I watched Kobe Doin’ Work. Huh. That’s weird. Could the Lakers’ star be hiding some kind of injury? I mean, gosh, I can’t think of any reason for him to act differently during the movie like that…

Two series down

2009-05-13T22:31:00.003-06:00

Enjoy the highlights, including Kenyon Martin's last-minute dunk that had Mark Cuban's name written all over it.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think before this postseason that the Nuggets were going to the Western Conference Finals. Even with that No. 2 seed, I would’ve settled for getting out of the first round and then losing to the Spurs. Now, of course, my dreams just keep getting crazier.

It was a tense closeout game, as those games tend to be. I didn’t get a single phone call, text, or game-related e-mail during the proceedings, and only sent one e-mail myself. I’m not sure all the fear was deserved, especially when Carmelo get off to a torrid start in the first half, scoring 21 on 9-of-11 shooting from the field. Can you believe a year ago the rumors were that the Nuggets were looking to trade Melo? (Charles Barkley just called him the best scorer in the NBA right now…how awesome is that?)

Unlike the Hornets, the Mavericks didn’t quit, but outside of Dirk Nowitzki and free throw attempt specialist Brandon Bass, was anyone memorable? One stood out to me tonight. In the first quarter Jason Kidd hit a three-pointer near the sideline, and the announcer called him “deadly”. This was Kidd’s first three, and I’m like, who gets called deadly for one shot? Kidd went on to make several long jumpers, but it made me think. The guy’s a career .402 shooter and hits just 34.2% from three land. He has terrific hands, balance, coordination, and was in great shape as a young man. And he’s a guard. So how come he never learned how to shoot? He’s had a very good career…but I can’t help how great it could have been with a little more time spent on his shot.

This may not make sense to anyone else right now, but it reminded me, briefly, of Kobe Bryant, who of course may be playing us in the conference finals. Here’s the thing I think: the all-time great players are the ones with the discipline to complete their game, to develop their weaknesses into strengths. Often, they have a secondary skill they can rely on that’s better than almost everyone else’s best talent. When Michael Jordan couldn’t score, which was almost never, he could fall back on his standing as the greatest defensive guard in the game and still have a huge impact. Larry Bird was a fearless scorer but also one of the greatest passers ever. Tim Duncan’s a great post player and passer who keyed several championship offenses, but in his prime he was so skilled on the boards he could dominate a game with his rebounding. And so on. And did any of these guys have a notable weakness, especially one that was relevant to their position? I can’t think of one. Which is why I’m bothered when guys like Kidd are placed in that rare air…because most of the transcendent greats took the game too seriously to have such a glaring weakness like Kidd’s shooting. The best example of the decade, of course, is Steve Nash and his complete inability to play defense, which is why he never should have won the MVP trophy. Anyway, what’s Kobe’s second skill, other than the ability to buy into his own hype? He gets credit for being a great defender, but like Derek Jeter, I don’t see it. If Kobe was great as everyone says he is, he’d do more on the court, as crazy as that sounds. And that’s why I’m not afraid of the Lakers.

But enough about the other teams, because tonight belongs to the Nuggets. I almost got chills watching Chauncey Billups in his postgame interview, where he was all business and knew now is not the time to celebrate. I love that guy and that attitude. And if you judge him by the standard of the last paragraph, he’s an athlete who’s made the most of his talent. I just can’t wait to enjoy the next part of the ride.

Mavs take Game Four

2009-05-11T22:50:00.002-06:00

Dirk Nowitzki is a pretty good sport. After preventing a sweep at the hands of the Denver Nuggets, a feat which made confetti fall at the American Airlines Center (seriously?), Nowitzki seemed eager to compliment the Nuggets. When a reporter asked him about the momentum in the series, he immediately said that Denver takes it to another level at home; it was exactly the kind of honest and humble answer we claim we want athletes to give. (Sort of like before Game Two, when he talked about how some of Denver's defenders give him trouble, and when Chris Webber and Charles Barkley tore him to shreds.) Furthermore he's scored at will in this series. I just feel like pointing that out considering how often I've given the man a hard time.

Anyway, the action tonight was another close and tightly-officiated game, though it didn't seem quite so ridiculous as Saturday's contest. Unfortunately the Nuggets couldn't execute the last two minutes. That's basically all it came down to. Carmelo created a decent look out of nothing on a possession that took way too long, but missed the close-range shot. Chauncey Billups lost the ball to Jason Kidd. That's basically it. Oh, that and a bunch of loose-ball fouls that defied imagination.

Still, there were positive signs in the fourth quarter. My favorite was when, with a little over three and half minutes left, Carmelo poked the ball away from Nowitzki while Dirk was posting up. It was notable because Dirk had already picked up some ticky-tack fouls on 'Melo, and I thought, "Carmelo's basically got to let him score, they're going to call him for a foul if he tries anything." And yet he still, somehow, forced the turnover. That's some mental toughness.

But don't forget J.R. Smith and his three long jumpers to beat the shot clock...just incredible shots, the kind you need to fuel a playoff run. (And it's always so nerve-wracking anyway at the start of the fourth when Chauncey is on the bench.) Speaking of Chauncey, he had nice lay-up/three-pointer sequence, but the best was the look he gave Carmelo when Antoine Wright picked up his fifth foul and a technical. It said, "I can't believe these wusses we're playing." And he drove and set up a big dunk by Nene with two minutes left. Later Carmelo had two free throws and that Reggie Miller-like three to cut the lead to one point at the end, but it just barely wasn't enough. I feel like if the game was even a minute longer, the Nuggets, who had suddenly found their rhythm again, might have won it.

The series will resume at the Pepsi Center Wednesday night (7 p.m. Mountain, TNT). I'm sad the Nuggets didn't pick up their first-ever sweep, but I can't complain too much. Carmelo has made huge strides even from game-to-game in these playoffs, and I swear Saturday's three has made him fearless. Chauncey, of course, still can't be stopped by the Mavericks. And with any luck, the Birdman, who missed the game with a stomach problem, will be back. Keep the faith, because Dirk is right: it's a whole new game at home.

Pregame warmup

2009-05-11T12:30:00.002-06:00

If you've missed it somehow, you need to go read Tom Friend's long profile on Chauncey Billups on ESPN.com. (Thanks to David V. for the heads-up.) You might want to hold off for a couple hours, though, because I cannot wait to watch this team play again tonight.

Nuggets up 3-0 on the Mavericks

2009-05-09T20:01:00.004-06:00

Double-click the highlights to go full-screen. Thanks, NBA.com!

For the last several playoff games, we’ve been wondering what would happen when the Nuggets finally get tested. Yes, they lost Game Three of the Hornets series, which is sad considering just how much can-do spirit the Hornets revealed in the series. But the Nuggets had a huge lead in the first quarter and almost won that game.

Perhaps the team still hasn’t been tested, but they absolutely stole a game from the Dallas Mavericks today thanks to a huge game by Chauncey Billups and Carmelo Anthony’s game-winning three. The game was close most of the way, but the Mavericks kept getting a lead in the fourth. Then Dallas couldn’t make enough free throws, or execute properly in a “foul-to-give” situation, and the rest is history.

The Mavericks, led by owner Mark Cuban, were obviously ticked by the no-call in the closing seconds, whereby Carmelo got free for his clutchest shot as a professional. (You may have seen Cuban’s little push of the cameraman as he was stomping around after the final whistle.) I guess it technically was a foul, but it was one that could be ignored just as easily at the end of a hard-fought contest as on a game’s first possession. Plus the Dallas defender threw his hands up in the international symbol for, “I didn’t foul him.” So Carmelo dribbled free for the three.

By the way, mark another one off the Nuggets’ list of accomplishments that expunge past sins: a big playoff game by Carmelo (check), another player stepping up when they needed him (check first by Chauncey, but now others), a true homecourt advantage (check), a series win (check), an all-time-record-tying margin of victory (check) and now, a stolen road win and a game-winning shot from the ’Melo man (check).

The Nuggets are so hot they’ve got non-basketball fans, like my mom, watching. I caught today’s game with my mom and little brother, who argued with me about which Nugget was the best player on the team (I say Carmelo Yellow, he says Chauncey). I’m interested in your thoughts on this.

And of course, let’s not forget the other big plays in the fourth quarter that made it possible, like Nene’s huge basket, Carmelo’s dunk, K-Mart’s jumpers, or J.R. Smith and Chauncey popping threes. Once again it was a total team effort by the most thrilling Colorado basketball team in ages. Now on to Monday’s Game Four (7:30 Mountain, TNT).

Up two in round two

2009-05-06T06:49:00.002-06:00

It’s becoming difficult for Nuggets fans to stay humble, which is unfortunate, because no team will be as eager to quit as the Hornets were. Nevertheless, the win last night wasn’t easy…or was it?

After a thrilling start to the game, including back-to-back dunks by Carmelo and J.R. Smith in the first quarter, a friend and I were discussing our chances. I try not to take anything for granted in sports because that backfires so often. But the Nuggets were controlling the tempo completely, and I felt like even if the game was close, we’d run away with it in the fourth quarter. He agreed.

Watching the third quarter last night, I was not so confident. Dallas controlled the pace of the game and turned it into a halfcourt, let’s-trade-possessions contest, which they’d clearly rather play at altitude than deal with our frenetic attack. I thought the Nuggets were headed for a real test in the fourth quarter. Nevertheless they blew the Mavericks away with another huge run to start the fourth and the game became another chance to take our stars out early to the roar of the crowd.

Once again, the whole team stepped up. Nene had his second great offensive game of the series, scoring 25 to go with eight rebounds. Carmelo added 25 of his own despite taking himself out with stomach cramps briefly in the second quarter. (He still played a game-high 42 minutes.) I thought watching the game that Chauncey’s shooting had cooled off, and I guess compared to his start in the Hornets series it has, but he hit four-of-nine threes and had some great passes. J.R. Smith poured in points all night, which made up for his costly three-point miss before halftime that gave Jason Kidd time to convert one of his own. The only other play I really hated was when Kenyon Martin, who was fined $25,000 for his post-whistle hit on Dirk Sunday, was whistled for a foul as part of a double technical when he was hammered attacking the rim, but I still don’t think he did anything wrong on the play, so I don’t blame him for that. And still, it was fun to see Nene step in after the foul, because he's so huge it's clear no one is even going to pretend to want a piece of him. (By the way, I was surprised by the fine, but the video reminds me how his hit came after the whistle, so what are you gonna do?)

Broncos links

2009-05-03T17:04:00.002-06:00

I hate to move the news of the Nuggets’ win down, but you can scroll down. (Can’t you?) Here are a few things I’ve run across lately.

1. Rick Reilly’s brief but cutting take on the Broncos’ draft haul this year. The worst part was when he said of McDaniels:

This is the same genius who traded one of Denver's first-round choices in 2010 to move up in the second round to take a 5'9'' defensive back—Alphonso Smith…And if the Broncos are going to be as lame as I think they're going to be—4-12 perhaps—that first-round pick will be very high.

And it’s time for a retraction. After the draft I wrote about Denver’s trade for Alphonso Smith, thinking we had dealt Chicago’s first-round pick, which I estimate next year will be about No. 32 overall. But Reilly’s right: it was our own pick we gave up for the 5-9 corner with 4.5 speed (which I don’t think is all that fast for that position). In other words, it was a DISASTROUS move, giving up the top pick of next year's draft for a second-round corner. The Broncos screwed up big-time. I guess I screwed up, too, by not realizing it, but there you go. I’m so pissed I don’t even want to write the rest of this (I started out here assuming Reilly was wrong…crap).

2. Next year we’ll surely be calling for Tom Brandstater, our new rookie QB from Fresno State, to get on the field. Here’s a YouTube clip of his highlights from the 2007 season. Now it’s possible that whoever cut this tape is a moron, but these aren’t very good highlights: the biggest standout to me was how bad his pass 23 seconds into the clip is. That’s a touchdown with a real quarterback. Freak!

3. And finally, Woody Paige had an interview with Pat Bowlen that’s worth reading, but will hardly improve your mood.

Go Nuggets!

Nuggets win Game One (rd. 2!)

2009-05-03T16:37:00.001-06:00

As a longtime Nuggets fan, the more I think about this team’s still-brief playoff run, the more excited I get. Sometimes it’s the little things: watching an NBA playoff game on ABC and realizing that’s the Pepsi Center court where all the action is taking place. And sometimes it’s the huge things, like watching John Elway introducing Chauncey Billups to the crowd, a clip which literally gave me chills.

The Nuggets’ win today was textbook and also wasn’t—common in the way the team completely blew it open at the end, but rare in the way everyone stepped up around Billups and Carmelo Anthony, neither of whom had a great game. (’Melo still had his moments, namely his three-point play at the start of the second half and his first three-pointer in the fourth quarter.) It was the bench, as ABC pointed out, that really stepped it up.

I recently voiced my concern to, um, LT that we didn’t really have an answer for Dirk Nowitzki on our roster, while he contended the Chris Andersen could do the job. So far, he’s right. There are two things relatively unique about how the Birdman works that I really like. With a great shotblocker (and we’ve seen this with Marcus Camby, for instance), announcers always talk about how many shots they don’t block that they also alter. When I watch closely, though, I don’t see guys altering that many shots—except for Andersen, who clearly does affect at least a couple extra shots every game. And second, he doesn’t just get weakside blocks, but he’s also a good individual defender; just watch what he does when isolated against anyone from a point guard to a 7-foot German. Even on a team that switches as much as the Nuggets, he’s never a liability.

Nene was huge in the first half, and it was great to see him get off to such a good start. Erick Dampier can match up with him sizewise, sure, but I don’t think he can really defend Nene when Nene’s playing as aggressively and confidently as he did today. The play of Nene will undoubtedly be key as the series wears on.

Despite today’s win, the Mavericks seem to have a few weapons that could make this series much tougher than the last. The most obvious is Nowitzki, who got off to a great start today. The Nuggets started playing him physically (esp. with K-Mart knocking him to the floor) and slowed him down to the point that he was throwing up horrible shots in an effort to get foul calls. But he is skilled enough to take advantage of certain matchups. Jason Kidd is old but still sneaky, in that he can get himself open shots and still knows just when to attack. You kind of forget he’s out there. And Jason Terry’s very dangerous off the bench, though I think J.R. Smith is a pretty good answer to him. Has anyone ever loved strutting after a big bucket more than Smith?

Overall, though, while the Mavericks made me pretty nervous in the first half, the Nuggets won handily. How do you think the rest of the series will play out?

What? It happened again?

2009-04-30T00:46:00.003-06:00

That’s right: I just got home from watching the Denver Nuggets knock out the Charlotte Hornets, live at the Pepsi Center. And (most of) you didn’t.

This was my view in pregame:

That’s right: better seats, far worse view. (That guy’s sign, by the way, was something to the effect of how the Tenacious Nuggets Team D was worse than swine flu or something.) It also didn’t help that while meeting up with a different friend and his wife to go to this game that I broke my glasses and spent the game watching through a pair of specs with no left side to ’em.

Anyway, you (hopefully) caught the game. The first half was tense, with a few great moments, namely Chris Andersen’s ridiculous block on Chris Paul late in the first quarter. Also, there was Nene’s beastly left-handed dunk that was quickly followed by a Chauncey Billups three-pointer. And it blew my mind when Kenyon Martin hit that three. But the Hornets, led by David West, had it tied at the intermission.

The second half, though, the Nuggets pulled away. Carmelo Anthony seized the moment, scoring 24 of his 34 after halftime. He completely took over the way you’d expect a superstar to and I can’t wait to see how he’ll do against the Mavs. And J.R. Smith went a little nuts on the threes, including one he hit with his feet on the “F”s in the NBA Playoffs logo on the court (in other words, from really far out).

I have to say, though, that Chris Paul’s stock has dropped further in this series than any guy I’ve seen since maybe Vince Carter against the Knicks in 2000. Paul did absolutely nothing tonight and showed no sign he was capable of more. Of course, he is capable of more—he obviously has a ton of talent he’s shown other times—but it will be interesting to see what sense of urgency he has next year, because hurt or not, tired or not, he flat out did not get it done.

The night, though, was pretty awesome. You couldn’t hear Chauncey’s postgame interview as player of the game (?) over the crowd even if you’d wanted to. I finally met two of my friends’ wives tonight, and the one I drove down with actually knew how to get around Denver, so I made it home way faster this time. Plus, as you’ll see below, the guy in front of me actually sat down most of the game. It was great.

On to the second round!

Nuggets win a squeaker

2009-04-27T21:24:00.001-06:00

Did you catch the Nuggets’ 58-point win tonight over the New Orleans Hornets in Game Four? If you live outside of Denver, the answer is probably not, as the game was broadcast nationally on NBA TV. The only thing lamer than a league starting its own TV network is when that league starts airing playoff games on it.

As I would have anyway, I caught the game on Altitude here in Colorado. Well, except for the parts that were on when I was catching 24…did I mention the Nuggets won by 58 freaking points? 121-63 was the final score, and according to the Altitude crew that tied as the highest margin victory ever in the NBA playoffs.

There’s not much to say about the game, other than that it was everything Game Three should have been. The Nuggets dominated from start to finish, Carmelo was great, and while Chauncey may have started to cool off just a little bit he still badly outplayed Chris Paul, whom Scott Hastings called the best American flopper in the game today. I love that phrase.

Right now in the postgame they’re talking about Carmelo and how well he played tonight. I have to say it’s the best playoff game I’ve seen from him and he really stepped it up. But frankly, so did everyone; just check out the box score. (The plus/minus ratings are particularly hilarious.)

Nothing else to say. 58 friggin’ points!

Do you know Shawn Moreno?

2009-04-26T01:04:00.001-06:00

Today, I think, was the first time I appreciated how much pressure there is in making decisions in the NFL draft. For starters, there is the sheer amount of decisions to be made. Do we keep the pick? Do we trade it? Do we draft this guy, that guy, or this other guy? Do we go for offense or defense? Can we afford his likely contract demands? If we trade this for a pick next year, where do we think that pick will fall? Do we draft based on need, or do we take the best player we think is available? (I do not think there is a universal right answer to that last question, by the way.)

More frighteningly, there are so many important factors which are basically unknown. I doubt I could do it. Personally, if I’m making a decision, I analyze it to death, find out everything I possibly can, and then try to avoid making it. But the quite simple fact of the matter is that it’s impossible to know, or even be all that sure about, how any individual decision will work out.

Take, for instance, a simple move the Broncos made today. They started today holding the Chicago Bears’ first-round pick in next year’s draft from the Jay Cutler trade. They moved it to Seattle for the fifth pick of this year’s draft, no. 37 overall. Now on the face of it, moving a pick down just five spots to get it a year early is a pretty stellar move. But if Alphonso Smith, a 5-9 cornerback from Wake Forest, gets hurt, or is too slow, or is lazy, or receives poor coaching (on this team? Ha!), or otherwise doesn’t pan out, then the move was the wrong move, and the team is that much closer to getting literally nothing, rather than a more figurative nothing, for Cutler. If he’s the next Champ Bailey, then it was a brilliant move. If he’s the next Terrell Buckley, then he’ll play for fifteen teams, and even play well for some of them, but maybe not for us so we didn’t really get “value” for the pick. The point is, you just can’t know.

However, you CAN know that drafting a running back with the no. 12 pick, on a team with a horrific defense, a new pass-minded head coach, and frankly the best RBs coach in the business, a guy who can make diamonds out of anything, is probably not that savvy of a move. Even if Moreno turns out all right, would we have really needed him to?

Let’s check in with the Boy Wonder:

‘We went through a lot of backs last year,’ McDaniels said. ‘We only had three healthy backs at the minicamp last weekend. Again, we still got the defensive football player at 18 that we were hoping to get at 18, and we got them.’

Did he really just suggest we spent a first-round pick on a position because we need more bodies for camps? And while I think you can never be too sure of your haul on draft day, coach seems pretty confident.

The Broncos could have taken Ayers or another coveted defensive end/outside linebacker, Brian Orakpo, at No. 12 and hoped Moreno would have been around at No. 18. But McDaniels said he was hearing too much inside information about teams picking between them — perhaps New Orleans at No. 14 or San Diego at No. 16 — who were considering Moreno.

‘The way that it fell it just made all the sense in the world for us to go ahead and take him at 12 and not deal with: ‘Well we'll hold our breath or try to move up from 18 into the middle, between 12 and 18 to get him,' ’ McDaniels said. ‘The two players we really valued right there at that spot were Ayers and Knowshon.’