Built Ford Tough

That doesn't look good for Courtney Lee. He wasn't putting any weight on his right foot and with the way that injury happened (nobody being near him and it just came out of nowhere like that as he went to run) you can't help but think it may be an achillies injury, which would be absolutely terrible. Hopefully both myself and the Lakers commentators, who said the same thing, are wrong and he just cramped up or something and it isn't a serious injury such as an achillies.

Is there anything more entertaining than watching a Canada-Russia hockey game? Jesus christ, I almost had a heart attack in that 3rd period. Unfortunately the Canadians, other than Connolly, seemed to think that simply showing up entitled them to a gold medal or something and it wasn't until the game got to 6-1 that they finally realized that they have to play. At that point, the game was just too far out of reach, but man, did they ever come close by making it 6-5 and coming inches away from evening it up with 43 seconds left on that Strome shot that hit the post. Kudos to the Russian coach for having the balls to pull to Marakov in after the 5th goal. That took some serious guts and it paid off ten fold as he was rock solid and held the lead. Hopefully this is the kick in the ass that Hockey Canada needs to realize that they need to take the best players, regardless of their age. There is no reason why guys like Nathan MacKinnon, Sean Monahan and Malcolm Subban should not be on the team considering how good they are just because they aren't 18 or 19 years old. Last year it was Nugent-Hopkins and the year before it was Seguin but I doubt their philosophy of this being primarily a "19 year olds" tournament. Oh yeah, the Finland-Sweden game earlier in the day wasn't too shabby either. You have to feel bad for the Finnish goalie who plays brilliantly all game long to keep his team in it and literally makes one mistake behind his net trying to clear the puck, but that one mistake ends up costing the Fins the game and a chance at the Gold on Thursday.

Burke trades for yet another one of his former draft picks. He sent Luca Caputi to the Ducks for Nicolas Deschamps, who was drafted by Burke in the 2nd round of the 2008 Draft. The move is likely a nothing move, but I do like it somewhat. I know absolutely nothing about Deschamps, but it was clear that Caputi wasn't going to do anything in Toronto as he has shown nothing to suggest that he would be capable of cracking the lineup. Deschamps had a solid rookie season in the AHL (although he has struggled so far in his 2nd year). At the end of the day, this is one of those change of scenery trades that will likely never result in anything.

http://aol.sportingnews.com/nba/story/2012-01-03/marcus-morris-sent-to-rockets-d-league-team Not really surprising when you consider the depth the Rockets have at the 4 and that Morris really isn't capable of playing the 3 at the NBA level at this point in his career. A good move on their part to send him down so that he will be able to work on his perimeter skills in the hopes of him being able to slide in at the 3 later on in the season.

He has actually gotten a fair amount of PT in the games that I have watched (Clippers, Knicks and Sixers [although Monta wasn't in the lineup for that one]). However, he has struggled with his shot and defense so far and hasn't made the jump quite as well as Jackson had hoped/expected. It doesn't help that he is playing behind Monta, but his own play hasn't exactly warranted a lot of minutes when you consider Jackson is looking to get into the playoffs and establish a mentality where if you play well, especially defensively, you will be rewarded with an increase in minutes.

Damn, I was hoping they would play Blatche for all 48 minutes. Would possibly be more entertaining seeing his countless screw ups than actually watching the game itself. Seriously though, this might prove to be a good thing for the Wizards because, like you said, it will likely result in more playing time for Seraphin and considering how awful the Wizards have looked to start the season, you might as well play your young guys and see what they can do. If you are going to be awful, be awful with young players as opposed to sucking with veterans.

http://www.csnwashington.com/blog/wizards-talk/post/Turiaf-out-with-broken-hand?blockID=623472&feedID=6356 Could this mean.... MORE ANDRAY BLATCHE!?!!?!?!

14 points, 11 rebounds, 4 blocks and 2 assists for him today in another a 72-61 win over Spartak, who was previously undefeated I believe. He shot 4-8 from the floor and 6-6 from the line in 27 minutes of play. He really came out and set the tone early a he had 12 points and 7 rebounds in the 1st half as Rytas jumped out to an 8 point lead at the half. His next game is on January 7th against Zalgiris, who is Rytas' biggest rivals. For those of you who don't know, that is also the team that Sonny Weems is playing for so he will be going up against a likely future teammate as I imagine the Raptors will bring Sonny back next season.

Jeff Teague is really impressing me this season. I'll be the first to admit that I thought he was going to be a bust coming out of Wake and that I thought his play in the playoffs was a complete anomaly, but he has proven so far this year that he is actually a very good player. He just needed a bit of time to develop and an opportunity to prove himself. He got 2 years under solid vets like Bibby and Hinrich and then when Hinrich went down, he got his opportunity. Kudos to him for making the most of it. Josh Smith really isn't a good basketball player, by the way. Why does he continue to think that he is any good offensively outside of dunks, oops and put backs? I thought he finally got it through his thick skull that he can't shoot 2 years ago when he stopped chucking threes, but he went right back to it last season and so far this year, although he hasn't attempted many threes, he continues to chuck up long range jumpers. Nice win for the Hawks, though.

It was an off game as he has actually played really well so far this season making much, much better decisions with the ball. His game also wasn't quite as bad as those numbers suggest, either. He didn't play all that well but some of those turnovers weren't his fault and there were a decent amount of missed open shots that cost him around 3 or 4 assists.

I liked the way that the Mavs utilized Carter in the post whenever he had smaller defenders like Harden, Jackson, Westbrook or Maynor on him. That is one area of his game that has always been overlooked and, even though he wasn't able to really convert any of his FGA, he created some very good scoring opportunities for his teammates and, obviously, got to the line frequently. Odom looked like he actually had a pulse for the first time this year, so hopefully he can get his head out of LA and realize that he plays for Dallas now. I liked what Mahinmi and Haywood gave the Mavs tonight. I thought both played really well inside, especially during the 3rd quarter when the Mavs pretty much won this game. OKC didn't really play that well tonight, but that shouldn't take away from the way that the Mavs played. This was an impressive performance from them and a lot of OKC's struggles should be attributed to how well they played (although I do agree that they kind of shot themselves in the foot a bit as well).

Unreal goaltending from both the Czech and Russian goalies. They have both made some ridiculous saves to keep this game tied. Very fun to watch these two goalies stand on their heads, and the game itself has been highly entertaining as well. EDIT: And Russia scores 1:30 seconds into OT, just seconds after killing off a penalty to give them the 2-1 win and a berth in the Semi-Finals.

Milwuakee tries to force the turnover as opposed to fouling and Lawson ends up with a wide open layup to put the Nuggets up 4 with 10 seconds. That decision from Ilyasova may have cost them the game.

Nuggets seem to be really bothered by Bogut inside. They have missed aruond 4 or 5 really easy shots from within 8 feet because of Bogut's presence. Once Bogut comes out of the game they immediately convert inside. Nice ball movement from the Nuggets for the Mbah a Motue layup. Bogut showcasing his excellent passing ability on the last few possessions.

They had it perfected the last two games against the Magic and Mavs. Get the big lead and then late in the 3rd/early in the 4th start to do the exact opposite of what got you the lead which will result in a close loss that you can point to and be like "well, it was close". They tried doing it in this game, but, unfortunately for them, the Knicks aren't very good when their jumpers aren't falling. It also helps that the Wizards have a coach who is just there to collect a pay cheque and have Andray Blatche on their team while the Casey has the team playing as hard as can be and Bargnani is playing like Dirk.... Wanna trade?

I get the feeling the Raptors are going to come out completely flat in this game after blowing the game last night when they seemingly had it wrapped up. There is also the issue of Calderon and Bargnani in a back-to-back. Both usually struggle, they played a lot of minutes last night and the fact that Bayless is out of the lineup puts even more pressure on them to perform.

I agree about Ed getting more minutes, but I can understand Casey's logic and he did explain why Ed played so little last night. He mentioned how he doesn't want Ed having to guard a guy like Anderson who is going to be running off screens, stretching the floor and things like that. He said that it was nothing to do with how Davis played or him doing something wrong and that it was strictly a matchup issue. He also said that as the season goes along Davis will get plenty of minutes. It makes sense, even if I'd rather him just throw Davis to the Wolves.

Great job of Paul taking control down the stretch on both ends of the floor. Crawford was torching the Clippers for most of the 4th quarter and then Paul switched onto him and I believe he didn't score a basket after that. He also came up with some big shots to really swing the momentum in the Clippers' direction. He was basically invisible for the first 3 quarters but he really stepped up in the 4th, like a superstar should. The Clippers played great defense for the first 3 quarters but in the 4th they got picked apart much like in the games against San Antonio and Chicago. They are lucky that they played so well in the first 36 minutes or else they would've blown this game with how poorly they played defensively in the 4th. A rough game for Wallace and Aldridge tonight. I realize that Aldridge scored 19 points, but I thought he was pretty bad for most of this game and he looked completely lost against the length of DeAndre Jordan. He couldn't do anything against him offensively other than force up contested jumpers. Wallace just struggled in basically every aspect of the game, although in his defense he had a few tough calls go against him.

Watching the game on LP right now and just finished the first half. Man, that was an ugly, sloppy half of basketball with a handful of highlight reel plays mixed in with the sloppiness. The Clippers showed some very nice play in the half court towards the end of the half, though. They still have a lot of work to do on their half court offense, but they did show flashes of just how good it can become over time, assuming they continue to develop chemistry as they should.

New Jersey is bad.... Really bad. Williams is turning the ball over like crazy, shooting terribly from the floor and looks like complete garbage to start the year. Some of that can be placed on him having absolutely nobody to play with, but part of it has to fall on his shoulders as well because, poor team or not, he has sucked. Outside of Williams, it is obvious just how terrible this team is. They are completely screwed if they don't get Dwight, whether by trade or via free agency, because if they don't get him I see no way that Williams sticks around and they are in an absolutely terrible position. These last two seasons would've been a complete and utter waste in every sense possible.

Yeah, a bounce pass between Dirk for three. The other one was just as impressive. A one handed bounce pass off the dribble between two Mav defenders to Love for the open dunk. Both plays from him looked exactly like the plays you see from Steve Nash. Nearly identical.

Love with two huge threes to answer the 7 straight points that Dirk scored. The Mavs looked poised to take the lead and then Love hit the two huge shots to increase the lead back to 8 for the Wolves.

I agree, but the Mavs defense has been absolutely terrible. Not trying to take anything away from him because he did stick the two open threes and make the two layups, but the Mavs are giving him absolutely no respect and it is resulting in either wide open looks from three or clear, straight-line drives to the basket. That ball fake to freeze Carter was sick. Very impressive move on that drive. He has completely turned the game around for the Wolves, though. Since he came into the game near the end of the 3rd, the Wolves have completely outplayed the Mavs.

I think that three Odom hit at the end of the 3rd was the first jump shot I've seen him hit all season long.

Yeah, I met him last year when he broke out.