Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Shaq looks good

I'm an admitted Shaq "hater." I thought the Suns made a mistake in trading for him. But I'm sitting here watching the Suns-Spurs game on TV, and boy does he look good tonight.

In Miami, I thought he looked slow and old. Tonight, he's looking spry. He's making moves and getting some good lift. If he plays like this throughout the post-season, then I'm a believer.

[Update: I just looked at the box score for the game. Apparently I don't notice turnovers because Shaq had five in his 24 minutes of playing time. I really don't remember them at all. I thought he looked good all around.]

On the other side of the court, this game is the second time recently that I've watched the Spurs and in the second half just felt like they didn't have any desire. And that includes the whole team, from Duncan and Ginobili on down. Not sure if they're bored with the regular season, the whole "age" thing is actually catching up with them, or if I just caught them on bad nights (after all, they've still won more than 50 games). I think they've gotten a few bad calls against them in the last couple of minutes, but frustration with refs can't be the answer since they'd already dropped to more than 10 points behind (and looked lethargic) before I thought there were any bad calls worth noting.

[Update 2: John Hollinger over at ESPN has also noted that the Spurs have been looking lethargic in second halves recently. It's an "Insider" post, but is currently open to everyone.]

Monday, April 7, 2008

I feel bad for Memphis

Not NBA related, but I enjoyed the NCAA championship game tonight. A little sloppy, but definitely fun to watch. I am curious to know if Derrick Rose was feeling under the weather, because he didn't seem to have quite as much zest the entire game as he seemed to have in previous games. He had moments where he seemed dominant, but other times he seemed to not have the same energy.

Congrats to Kansas, but I definitely feel bad for the players on Memphis. If Chalmers doesn't hit that last second three, they're going home champions.

(Mario Chalmers also happens to be from Alaska, so I'm sure all the papers here will be all over the story tomorrow morning....)