Hooped Up

It’s hard out there for a 2009 playoffs Celtics versus Bulls ball. Damn!

In short, I hate Duke. However even I’ll be forced to even sneak a few Blue Devil games in when Austin Rivers joins them for his freshman season. The son of Doc Rivers has been doing damage during his time in high school and BallisLife put together a mixtape of some of the best Austin Rivers highlights and it’s so good. It’ll make you watch a Duke game, there is really no higher compliment than that in my eyes.

H/N SLAM

You say Manu Ginobili hits a halfcourt buzzer beater at the end of the third quarter in Game 6. I simply say, Manu-gic (Manu + Magic).

Tim Tebow, Kyle Orton and Brady Quinn — all pretenders. If the Denver Broncos want to spike ticket sales and have their next John Elway, maybe they should give JR Smith a call. He’s wicked accurate as you can see and that was just his pre-game warmup.

‘Memba when Gilbert Arenas was the talk of the league? Yeah, it pine for those days too. Before the card game and knee surgeries that put his career in Orlando coming off the bench. Arenas was the second most polarizing figure in the league next to Ron Artest easily and he was super fascinating.

On his mission to draw 54 NBA stars, Wang Tao from Shanghai, China decided to give the Hibachi a nod for his overall body of work with this depiction of Arenas as we hope he’ll be with the Orlando Magic as they pay him $62 million over the next three years after this season. Here to hoping!

The second round starts this weekend (finally) and the Boston Celtics kick things off with a visit to Miami to play the upstart Heat. Based on the fact that Boston has a starting line up that consist of 80% all-stars. The Miami Three will have their hands full trying to stop the Boston Four of Ray Allen, Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Rajon Rondo.

Cop one over at the NBA Store.

The speed, finesse and power we come to expect from Josh Smith is all here as he drives, spins and slams his way to a hard deuce.

Destination, Dallas.

Or Portland.

Either way, the Lakers will be the well-rested host for Game 1 of the Western Conference semifinal series against the Mavericks or Trail Blazers. They got the weekend off by defeating the Hornets, 98-80, in Game 6 on Thursday night at New Orleans Arena, winning the series, 4-2.

“It was huge,” center Andrew Bynum said in his on-court TV interview of finishing the series in six games.

Game 1 of the next round will be Monday night at Staples Center.
LA Times

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