Basketball Fiend

Posts Tagged ‘quote’

The Celtics held off a late surge from Kobe Bryant and Co. to beat the Lakers 92-86 in Game 5 Sunday. L.A. now faces the unenviable task of winning two games in a row against the Celtics, albeit at home. Otherwise they relinquish their 2009 crown and lose to a hated rival two times in three years — not a good look when you’re trying to put together a “greatest of all-time” resume. Yeah, Kobe. I’m looking at you.

Boston won by playing great team defense and hitting open looks — as a team they shot an incredible 56.2 percent from the field, which is insane when you consider a) this is the NBA Finals and b) they hadn’t shot over 45 percent in any of the previous games. They got stops when they needed to and knocked down their free throws (what few they got) when it mattered. It was as complete a performance as we’ve seen since Game 1, when the Lakers absolutely tore the Celts apart.

In terms of individual performances, Paul Pierce broke out of his Finals slump with 27 points. Kevin Garnett had his most complete game of the series, scoring 18 points to go along with 10 rebounds and five steals. And Rajon Rondo contributed his usual usual: 18 points, 8 assists, 9-of-12 shooting from the field.

However, the play of the night belonged to His Black Mambaness, Kobe Bryant.

Kobe scored 38 points on the night (19 in the third quarter alone), including the following one-handed alley-oop. At this point I was convinced he wasn’t going to miss a shot until MJ unretires a third time. That’s how on fire he was. (Video courtesy of NBA.com)

Kobe eventually cooled down and ceded the ball to Pau Gasol for a few possessions — until that point I didn’t think Gasol even existed anymore. I thought he had disappeared like that girl who tried to sail around the world. (I can say that now, right? She’s been found and everything? Okay, cool.) That didn’t go well. Gasol flopped around and fumbled the ball away like it was 2008, finishing with just 12 points on a very un-All-Star-like 5-of-12 shooting.

To insult to injury, Gasol also got blocked. And he got blocked hard. Like I want to erase you, your kids and everything everybody ever knew about your life hard (a.ka. the Enemy of the State block).

Kudos to Tony Allen for the best weak side assault we’ve seen since King James got eliminated.

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A contrite and gracious Mark Cuban issued a public apology to Kenyon Martin and his family on Cuban’s blog this morning at around 1:00 a.m.

Cuban apologized to Martin for calling him a “punk” in front of Martin’s mother, Lydia Moore, on Saturday night, saying,

“At this point I would like to apologize to you and your mom KMart for my comment. I should have not said anything and I was wrong. Hopefully you will accept the apology and we can move on.”

Cuban then offered to house Martin’s family in his personal suite if the series returned to Dallas - fat chance of that - or pay for a separate suite for K-Mart and Co., if that makes them feel more comfortable.

Though issued a day late, the apology from Cuban comes across as genuine. He seems truly contrite, which is something we rarely see from the maverick owner in cases such as this.

Cuban also addressed the issue of security for family and friends at opposing NBA arenas in his statement. Citing incidences from Denver, Cuban says that he knows, first-hand, how brutal the treatment can be in opposing fieldhouses.

“When tempers and such start impacting the fan experience both in Dallas and Denver, and it requires special security, thats not what I want for Mavs or Nuggets fans. No one takes more abuse and gets more threats on the road than I do. So I know exactly how it feels. I’ve also had my family and friends spit on at games in this series. So I know how unpleasant that is as well. It’s a dirty secret that all arenas need to do a better job of protection for visiting team fans, particularly during the playoffs.”

Cuban went on to promise increased security at the American Airlines Arena in Dallas, saying, “This arena is my responsibility, we could and should do a better job.”

Perhaps Cuban wouldn’t need such heightened security if the home-town fans were not incited by their owner before games to hate the opposing team and the referees so much. Though sufficiently contrite, Cuban could have easily avoided this situation by keeping his mouth shut in the first place.

A hot-head by nature, Cuban initiated the public spat with Martin on Saturday by saying inflammatory things about Martin in front of Martin’s mother, a day before Mother’s Day. The original comment (allegedly) occurred in the midst of the postgame melee that followed Game 3 - which Denver won a last-second shot by Carmelo Anthony to take a 3-0 series lead over the Mavericks.

Cuban was walking toward the locker room, encountered a Mavericks fan who shouted that the Nuggets were a bunch of punks, at which time Cuban turned to Moore and said “that includes your son.” Cuban’s mini-diatribe sparked controversy throughout the NBA community and angered Martin.

On Monday, before Game 4, Martin offered a heated response to Cuban, saying,

“If you got something to say, say it to me. But I’m going to take care of it. I’m not going to do the whole media thing, back and forth. That’s his thing. I’m more of a personal, face-to-face type of dude.

“Whenever the opportunity presents itself, then I will address it. But we got a game to go win. At some point I will, but I got a game to go win first and foremost. That’s my focus and concentration right now.”

Martin has not responded yet to Cuban’s apology, but the feud - if it is indeed vitriolic enough to call it a feud - hinges on his response. If he accepts, everything will be swept under the rug, qualified as a misunderstanding. If he does not…damn, I can’t even imagine the fireworks in store for us in Game 5 (on Wednesday).

We’ll keep you updated as more information comes to light tomorrow.

The Internet is alive with Shaq versus SVG buzz; SVG being Stan Van Gundy, the coach of the Orlando Magic, who publicly razzed Shaq about flopping in a matchup in the post with Magic center Dwight Howard on Tuesday.

The flop came late in the fourth quarter when Howard put a spin move on the Big Shaqtus and Shaqtus went down hard, looking for an offensive foul call that never came.

Here’s video of the play for anyone who missed it:

Orlando went on to win the game 111-99. In the post-game press conference, an unprovoked Van Gundy addressed his former center (Shaq played for SVG in Miami before SVG was forced to step down by power player Pat Riley in 2006), saying,

“Note this. It’s not often that I will needle Shaq, because he’s a big guy and he played for me and helped me win a lot of games. But he always talks about people flopping. Only one big guy tried to flop tonight. He tried to flop. So ask him about that. I told him something on the sideline. I said, ‘C’mon now, all the griping you do about flopping and you’re trying to take a flop.”’

 

  Anybody who follows NBA basketball on a regular basis knows that nobody does Shaq that way. If you come at Shaq, you better expect a retaliation. Which is exactly what happened. On Wednesday, Shaq unleashed a torrent of ridiculous insults, all of which were aimed at SVG, and many of which made no sense. I’ll let you decide on a personal favorite.

“One thing I really despise is a frontrunner. I know for a fact [SVG's] a master of panic and when it gets time for his team to go into the postseason and do certain things, he will let them down because of his panic. I’ve been there before. I’ve played for him.”  

A frontrunner and a panicker? My brother is a frontrunner and my grandma is a panicker, and I like them both. Maybe this is a term of endearment from the Shaqtus. We’ll dig a little further.

“Flopping is playing like that your whole career,” O’Neal said. “I was trying to take a charge, trying to get a call. Yeah, it probably was a flop, but flopping is wrong. Flopping would describe his coaching.”

Flopping is his coaching? That one has to sting a little. Maybe Shaq will throw in a weight joke to round out the trio. Or a joke about having a brother who is more successful and looks less like a porn star. Let’s see.

“I’m not going to sit around and let nobodies take shots at me,” O’Neal said. “[SVG] is a nobody to me. If he thinks he can get a little press conference and take shots at me like I’m not take one back, he has another thing coming. …

And thus the wrath of Shaq hath fallen. The “nobody” insult was, in my opinion, the knockout blow in this public sparring match.

Can you imagine if Turtle called Drama a “nobody” on Entourage? Or if Jose Canseco called brother Ozzie a “nobody” at a Canseco family dinner? Or if a producer called Mickey Rourke a “nobody” five years ago? There’d be blood on the floor and furniture smashed. It would be on, brother. No holds barred.  

But SVG can’t do that. He is a professional. (Even if he did let his attempts at comedy overwhelm his better judgement at that press conference on Tuesday.) He has to let this go and move on, knowing that his team has a far better chance in the playoffs than the Suns do.

In the end, Shaq is the winner. But at what cost? Much of the good will that he built up over All-Star weekend, and in subsequent weeks (when he returned to form as a dominant scorer), is now negated. In the constant struggle between Charitable, Gregarious Shaq and Bitter, Defensive Shaq, the latter is once again prevalent.  

Public image is always tricky to gauge, but we’re quickly approaching the possibility of Shaq being remembered, post-career, as something of a Jekyll and Hyde character. We’re seeing the Jekyll in Shaq more often these days (the Kobe feud, the malacious raps, the way he criticized Miami when he left, and now the feud with SVG).

Perhaps Dwyane Wade said it best when he weighed in on the Shaq-SVG feud earlier this week. “My grandma always said, you forgive, but you don’t forget,” Wade said. “I live by those words. I forgive a lot of guys. I’m that kind of person. But I don’t forget what [Shaq] said, either.”

Wade is talking about Shaq’s parting shots in leaving Miami, but he may as well be critiquing Shaq’s public image as a whole.

It’s official. Shaq can still ball.

The Big Aristotle was Shaqtastic on Friday night, scoring 45 points (on 20 of 25 shooting) and grabbing 11 boards as the Suns cruised to a 133-113 win over the Raptors. Not bad for a soon-to-be 37-year-old center.

It was the biggest offensive production from Shaq in six years and the first time in four seasons that he has topped 40 points. Shaq now boasts 49 career 40-point games.

Following the game Shaq was his usual braggadocious self, at one point claiming that he viewed all other centers in the league as “barbequed chicken”.

“If I can get the touches like that, it doesn’t matter who is down there,” O’Neal said. “They’re going to have to double or triple me down there. If they don’t, especially with the way I’m shooting free throws, they will have to pay.”

The Raptors’ front line, which has been depleted since the Jermaine O’Neal trade, certainly looked barbequed on Friday night. The platoon of Chris Bosh, Andrea Bargnani and Jake Voskuhl made Twilight of His Career Shaq look like Prime Shaq. Bosh and Bargnani are too slight to match the Big Cactus’ bulk and Voskuhl was hopeless. In fact Voskuhl fouled out in just eight minutes of play.

Though Bosh and Bargnani are obviously too small to handle Shaq in single coverage, Raptors coach Jay Triano decided - to his team’s detriment - not to double-team the big man. Meanwhile Bosh complained that Shaq was aided by a lack of three-second calls from the refs.

“He was just camping down in the lane,” Bosh said. “I mean, if they’re not calling three seconds — I thought it was a rule, but I guess not.”

Granted, there isn’t much that a 6′10″, 230-pound power forward can do defensively against the Big Massive, but Bosh should have handled the loss with dignity. What happened to the happy-go-lucky Bosh who launched hilarious marketing campaigns and won gold medals? We have now officially entered the Era of Frustrated Bosh and I can’t imagine that Frustrated Bosh is too keen about the idea of staying in Toronto when 2010 rolls around.

Though Shaq led the way, the Suns also got solid performances from Louis “I Ride My Bike to Work” Amundson (a career-high 20 points), Grant Hill (14 points, 12 assists) and Matt Barnes (18 points). Recently acquired forward Shawn Marion paced the Raptors with 27 points and 11 rebounds.

With the victory, the Suns redeemed a 26-point loss at the hands of the Lakers on Thursday night. Phoenix is now 5-2 under recently promoted head coach Alvin Gentry.