Monday Morning Point Guard

By Craig Kwasniewski

MMPG time, and not soon enough as both my fantasy football team and my knock-out pool entries are officially dead and buried (Did I mention that I hate the Detroit Lions?):

1. What the hell is Kevin McHale thinking? Individually, some of the Timberwolves' acquisitions in the past 12 months didn't look all that bad. They had to trade off Szczerbiak and getting the athletic Ricky Davis was an even swap. Taking a chance on Eddie Griffin, with the size, quickness, upside and cell phone use... why not. Signing Mike James looked like a coup, this thing's just crazy enough it might work.

Then I saw them in person last Tuesday, and crazy is the right word. Just how the hell is acquiring three frickin' psychos going to keep The Big Ticket happy? Rickey Davis, Eddie Griffin and Vin Baker have all ruined several franchises on their own, now with the combined power of all three... well let's just say that Garnett's already purchased a home in Malibu and according to Sam Smith, "has an escape clause in his contract after next season. My guess is he uses it, even with $23 million left for one season, and joins Kobe Bryant and Lamar Odom on the Lakers."

2. Nice Offense? Throughout the 4th quarter in Saturday night's win over Indiana, the Chicago Bulls offense consisted of firing off bad shot after bad shot and crashing the boards for the rebound and put-back. The effort and sheer hustle late in the game was impressive and it worked, but this will be a problem as the season rolls on.

Merely getting Ben Wallace doesn't really solve the Bulls' low-post problem. Sheed is the key low post threat for the Pistons, drawing double teams and kicking out for open jumpers. Until they get a player that draws the multiple defenders, the Bulls will be a second round loss every year.

3. How to defend the Lakers. Very simple, just double off of Smush Parker. The past 3 Laker opponents have been leaving Smush Parker W-I-D-E O-P-E-N on the offensive end, basically ignoring him altogether. How has he responded? I haven't seen such an extreme case of Sphincteritis since Tim Duncan shot freethrows in the playoffs. Smush is 10-29 from the field with both hands firmly around his neck in the last three games.

Jordan Farmar is just weeks away from starting for the Lakers.

4. Greatest Moment in NBA History??? During the commercial break in the Spurs-Knicks game on Saturday, MSG was playing a "Greatest Moment in NBA History" clip from the 1999 NBA Finals. The play showed Avery Johnson hitting a ridiculously wide open 13-foot baseline jumper to clinch the Spurs 1999 NBA Title*.

Just how bad is a championship when the "highlight" was a journeyman guard hitting an uncontested 13-foot jump shot? That's like saying the World Series highlights were poor fielding pitchers or something.

5. No Doubt About It, Part 2: Yesterday I posted a few links to youtube to back up my argument that Bruce Bowen is a dirty player. The whole start of this discussion was a heated exchage between Isiah Thomas, Bowen and Greg Pockavich after Thomas took offense to Bowen trying to undercut Nate Robinson Jamal Crawford on a jump shot. Greg Pockovich took offense to Thomas yelling at his player, and both benches got technical fouls. Well I found the specific clip from Saturday's game.

The video shows Bowen trying to take out Jamal Crawford on the jumper and Isiah Thomas reacting to the play. Again, note how Bowen extends his right foot underneath Crawford, increasing the odds for an ankle injury, pure bush-league.

Comments

[dave]

it was jamal crawford, not nate robinson. way to check your facts. bowen is not doing this on purpose. i admit he needs to be more careful, but he is trying not to get called for a foul by turning his body. when he lands, he is keeping his feet apart to land evenly.

bowen is playing hard and trying to contest shots. he is not trying to hurt people. there is no advantage to him hurting another player in the spurs rotation style defense. when bowen keeps his body facing his opponent, he is called for a foul. his head is turned away from his opponent when he lands for chissakes!

nobody ever calls a post defender a dirty player when his opponent roll an ankle on his foot after a layup or a dunk. this all started because bowen has ray allen's number defnsively. ray allen called bowen dirty because he is frustrated by him.

isiah thomas admitted he was trying to fire up his team by going after bowen. thomas also said he did not consider bowen a dirty player. this is all a bunch of hype and you are buying into it. the writing on this blog has been sub-par at best lately. this is junk journalism. bowen and the nba deserve better.

i hope you try harder to not sully the game with your crackpot writing and hair-brained theories.

i know i'm going to catch a lot of shit for this, but i don't care. it's getting old. i don't care what somebody who's never played basketball before has to say. you don't know what you're talking about.

nobody wants to see someone get hurt. certainly, no one wants to be responsible for someone getting hurt. bruce bowen is not any different than any other player in this respect.

[coach]

dave , i'm not sure bowen is as innocent as you portayed .
they're just too many 'victims' of the same dirty trick .
add vince carter to the list of bowen's former victims .
every raptors fans still remembered how bowen 'stuck'his foot
when vc was making a 'j' causing him to twist his ankle and which sidelined vc for sometime !
even duncan said then that bowen was a dirty player .

[Craig]

Dave, thanks for pointing that mistake out. I had another video of Bowen jumping into Robinson and got confused. (What can you expect from a 2 AM post?)

BTW - This is not a vendetta against the Spurs, I used video evidence to prove my point. Maybe the LAPD and San Antonio Spurs fans don't believe in video evidence, I'm hoping most other people will.

I've seen roughly three other examples on youtube of Bowen undercutting a jump shooter. I was in a cast for 8 weeks with a very similiar injury (someone got under my foot as I jumped and I tore ligaments and had a minor fracture). When you're in the air (1 inch in my case), you're exposing yourself to a serious injury and you're hoping that the person defending you respects the game enough to not resort to those tactics.

What I tried to show in the videos was how blatant Bowen is undercutting the shooter. It's not just from challenging the shot but more from a concerted effort to intimidate the shooter via the theat of injury.

Everyone in the league has the capability to do this, but they don't because nobody wants to see star athletes go down with injuries from journeyman players... this ain't hockey!

[John R.]

Dave, you are disgusting homer.

The problem is there is no mutually assured destruction for a no talent clown like Bowen. The only time he scores is wide open jumpers. Who is around to return the favor when he leaves the ground? Maybe its time someone slips one under Duncan or Parker or Manu baseball status. The league has to do something.

Also, kick him off Team USA. There is enough reason for the world to hate us before he starts ending budding careers overseas.

[geebs]

Bowen is a hack. The fuckin guy never even leaves the ground to get a hand in the face of the jumpshooter, he's more concerned with putting a foot underneath them. Watch the video: If his body is turned to grab a rebound, he's got no reason to keep moving underneath the shooter, he turns to make it appear that he is following the shot, so he'll have his "I didn't do anything!" defense. I'll just wait until that idiot tries that shit against 'Sheid or Artest. He'll get his.

[dave]

answer me this. if bowen is doing this on purpose . . . why hasn't he ever done it in a big game against a serious western conference rival? like . . . i dunno . . . to nowitzki in the playoffs last year.

no, you're probably right. steve francis and the new york knicks are a much more serious threat to a spurs title run. he had to take him out. an overrated player on a shitbag team. so dangerous!

oh, and popovich tells him to do it. "take out brevin knight bruce. we can't lose to the bobcats!"

i never said he wasn't doing it. i even admit it's irresponsible. all i am saying is he is not trying to hurt people.

do you get it?

[reyjinn]

Even though I tend to agree with Bowen being a cheap player I don't think that video is very good evidence of that. You see that Bowen lands with his right leg inside the three point line while Crawford jumps over the line. It didn't look to me like he was trying to undercut him that time. Please note that I am only refering to this incident because I haven't seen any video of the Francis thing for example.