Built Ford Tough

What an absolutely crazy finish to the Gonzaga/Butler game. I can't believe that just happened. For those of you who didn't watch it, Barlow (the walk-on who hit the game winner in overtime against Indiana in December) hits a floater to give Butler a 1 point lead with 20 seconds left. On the next possession Pangos drives into the paint and looks to be in no-man's land after leaving his feet, but somehow manages to find Olynyk with a wrap-around pass (around 2 defenders no less) and Olynyk gets fouled. He drains both free throws to give Gonzaga a 1 point lead with 4.6 seconds left. Butler throws the ball to Barlow at halfcourt, but he ends up travelling and turning the ball over, which should've sealed the game, right? Wrong. On the ensuing inbounds, David Stockton throws an absolutely awful rainbow pass that goes directly to Roosevelt Jones (for those of you who don't know, Jones plays for Butler, not Gonzaga). Jones then dribbles down the court and hits a 10 foot runner to give Butler the 1 point win. To make it even crazier, Jones literally released the ball with 0.1 seconds left on the game clock. A crazy ending to a fantastic game. Easily the best college game of the year so far. As much as I enjoyed the UCLA/Mizzou and Zona/Florida games, they don't even hold a candle to this game.

Holiday stole Lowry's soul in overtime. God damn, just straight annihilation on both ends of the floor.

Jrue Holiday's defense is unreal. His ball pressure and quick hands is CP3-esque.

Calderon has to be the single worst inbounder in the NBA. He routinely fails to inbound the ball in late, pressure situations. Was Anderson fouled by Young? Yeah, but still, Calderon needs to do a much better job than forcing such a low percentage pass.

NBA apologizes for screwing the Raptors. http://www.nba.com/official/ 2nd time this year that the NBA has had to "issue an apology" for [expletive]ing them over on final possessions. Raptors lead the league in something!

Davis and Amir are absolute animals on the offensive glass when playign together. It is really impressive how both of them get so man second chance opportunities despite both usually being smaller than their counterparts.

http://www.cbc.ca/sports/basketball/nba/story/2013/01/18/sp-nba-basketball-phoenix-suns-coach-alvin-gentry-part-ways.html It should be interesting to see who agrees to coach this mess whenever they do decide to name a permanent replacement. Is there a team with a worse future the Suns? The only thing they have going for them is their medical staff.

I just laugh about it now. Random shit like this happens so often that it doesn't even bother me anymore. I also go into every single game fully expecting the Raptors to lose too, so that helps a bit. This year alone there has been: Al Jefferson miracle 3 and then lose in 3OT. Missed foul on MKG. George Hill buzzer beater. Brandon Knight game winner. Calderon 5 second count (shades of Rasual Butler against the Lakers last year). At least 5 final 5 minute meltdowns to lose games they should've won. This game tonight (Deng push, Amir non-shooting foul, questionable Noah out of bounds, etc...) And that is just off the top of my head. All I can hope for is that when next year's draft lottery rolls around, karma will repay the Raptors with Andrew Wiggins.

So you ignore a fairly obvious push off on Deng and then don't give Amir continuation on the other end. Yeah, we are watching a Raptors game.

Wait, what? They aren't calling that a shooting foul?

Thibs stops [expletive]ing with everybody and finally gives the ball to Deng like he should've, oh, 25 minutes ago at the end of regulation.

Longest. Overtime. Ever. Lol at DeMar. Such a terrible defender. Lol at Belinelli. Such a terrible player.

Isolations for Marco Belinelli and Alan Anderson in overtime. This game is terrible.

Leo Rautins is such an idiot. "Well, on the bright side you are at home and going to overtime. Always a good thing." It isn't like the Raptors have lost a triple and double overtime game at home already this year or anything. Oh wait....

Umm, Thibs? Are you trying to troll or something? Did you seriously just call a Marco Belinelli isolation? That was glorious.

Deng for the game winning buzzer beater, just like last year.

I know right. Good thing DeRozan can't get around a screen to save his life.

Are the refs trying to claim that was a foul on the floor on Hinrich? It looked like he was pointing to the floor. I sure as hell hope he was doing that to signal that it was a 3 because Lowry was clearing going into his shooting motion when Hinrich fouled him. There isn't even any debate about that as far as I'm concerned. Now, if you want to argue that Hinrich never actually fouled him, you have a case. The foul itself was very questionable.

Quincy Acy has looked 10X better since being called up from the D-League when Valanciunas went down. Before I only wanted him to play for the comedic gold that he provided, but lately he has actually been relatively solid out there. His hyper activity still results in some head scratching rotations at times, but tonight it has been awesome as he has been drawing charges left and right. Sadly, I can't say the same thing about DeMar. The only thing missing from him is him literally taking a dump at centre court.

Boozer with 32 points 5 minutes into the 3rd quarter. It was so funny hearing all the ridiculous talk of playoffs when the Raptors were beating up on shitty teams. Now that they are playing good teams again, their complete lack of talent is showing through again. But of course, the Raptors problems have nothing to do with a talent issue, according to the moron in my avatar.

Lombardi dealt to the Yotes for a 4th round pick (3rd if he re-signs with Phoenix). I like the move as it opens up a roster spot for one of the younger players like Kadri and it won't have to be Kadri or Frattin like it likely would've been prior to this trade.

It is Gordon and, really, it isn't even close. The only reason why you even consider taking Bledsoe is because of Gordon's extensive injury history. From a pure talent standpoint, Gordon runs away with this. The only concern is him being able to stay on the court. Even if you want to use age in Bledsoe's favour, well, it isn't that big of a deal. Gordon is almost exactly 1 year older has only played 53 more NBA games than Bledsoe. At 22 years old, Gordon was averaging 22/3/4 on a 56.6 TS% while also playing great individual defense on a terrible defensive team. (I didn't use his 23 year old stats because he only played in 9 games last year, but per 36 they were nearly identical). It is also worth noting that Bledose plays the 1, a position that is so saturated with talent throughout the league, while Gordon plays the 2, a position that is completely devoid of talent, and it makes this one a no-brainer for me. A healthy Eric Gordon is the 4th best shooting guard in the league and a championship calibre 2nd option. Eric Bledose has yet to prove that he can be more than a change of pace bench sparkplug (for the record, I do think he is more than that, but we still don't know).

Yeah, I get where you are coming from. I even remember there being questions about this dating back to his Hoosier days. I've just never seen it this bad from him. Even last year he wasn't moping around like he did tonight. Combine that with all the drama this offseason (begging the Hornets not to match, the whole "my heart is in Phoenix" thing, etc...) and it just seems like he is already done with the Hornets. I really hope that isn't the case because Gordon is a hell of a player when healthy and motivated. If the Hornets are able to land somebody like Shabazz in the draft, I think they have a really bright future when you combine him with Gordon, Davis and even Vasquez.

This was my first time watching the Hornets since Eric Gordon returned and, man, his body language out there is just awful. Even though he has played about as well as you could hope coming off of knee surgery, he looks like he'd rather be anything other than a Hornet. He isn't really hustling on defense, isn't running the lanes hard and settles for some difficult jumpers (granted, he was hitting them to start this game). For anybody who has watched more than just one game of hsi this year, is this a common theme or was this just a one time thing from him? As for the game itself, I really enjoyed watching the point guard matchup between Vasquez and Holiday. I think Vasquez is the most improved player this year and Holiday, as all of you already know, has taken that step from being a solid point guard to being a bonafide all-star. It was really fun watching the two of them go at it tonight. Holiday (29 points, 11 assists, 5 boards and 3 steals) got the better of the individual matchup, but Vasquez played a very good game of his own (23 points, 9 assists, although he did have 6 turnovers against Holiday's smothering defense) and also got the win. EDIT: Oh yeah, I also forgot to mention that my favourite part of this game was by far the numerous meltdowns that Collins was having on the sideline. I don't envy the Sixer players after this game or at their next practice. Collins probably tore a strip off them and will undoubtedly run them intot he ground after the way they played in this one.

That last play from Calderon is probably my biggest pet peeve when it comes to him (and there are a lot of them). You are the point guard and you decide to pass the ball to a covered Ed Davis 20 feet from the basket with 2 seconds left in the quarter? So annoying and he does that kind of crap all the time.