Built Ford Tough

Are you still going on about that? Give it a rest already, the Mavs were the better team and they won the game because of it.

His tweets about being fined are even better.

I wouldn't be too confident. Even though Luongo only let in one goal in Game 7 against Chicago, he didn't play particularly well. He was fighting the puck a lot, gave up some terrible rebounds and looked shaky in general. The Canucks just played so well in front of him that they played the majority of the game in the Hawks zone and when they were stuck in their own zone, the defense did a great job of clearing away his rebounds and making life easy for him. I also thought he was a bit shaky to start off the Predators series as well, but he settled in really well against the Sharks.

Louuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!! http://cdn2.sbnation.com/fan_shot_images/199048/loluongo_ii.jpg :lol:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=6641932 Love the deal for the Clippers, not exactly sure about it for the Sixers. Kaman is a better fit than Ellis would be, but Ellis is much more talented. Getting Kaman rounds out their roster very nicely, though, especially if they manage to re-sign Thad Young this summer.

And it is down to two... http://www.thestar.com/sports/basketball/nba/raptors/article/1005039--casey-or-frank-next-raptors-coach No shocker here as I think everybody knew that these two were at the top of Colangelo's list and it would inevitably be one of these two that he would want to coach this team. I'd be fine with either one as both were at the top of my list as well (obviously I'd love a guy like Sloan or Adelman, but obviously neither one of those two were even even remote possibilities to coach this team). Both of them fit the bill of being defensive minded, both have plenty of experience and both coaches know what it takes to win at this level. So long as the Raptors manage to get one of these two, I will be very happy with the decision.

http://sports.espn.go.com/dallas/nba/news/story?id=6632104 Tough break for the Mavs if he does in fact miss the rest of the Finals. Chandler played amazing in Game 4, but I doubt you will be able to consistently get 43 minutes out of him especially if LeBron decides to get his head out of his ass and attack the rim. Brian Cardinal to the rescue? You know it! http://cdn.news-gazette.com/photos/galleries/1862_brian_cardinal_still_having_fun/0116sporBCardinalNBA017.jpg

Knight and Walker were in Toronto yesterday but there isn't too much talk about how the workouts went. Nothing really noteworthy came out of the workouts as far as I know. Walker struggled with his jumper supposedly and impressed Jim Kelly with his passing, but that is pretty much all that came out of the workouts. Raptors seem to be pretty tight lipped about the whole process, even more so than last year. A couple of things from today, including Colangelo shooting down those ridiculous rumors that he offered DeRozan for the 2nd pick in the draft. From a Ford chat earlier today. Rhett (Toronto) Chad, it's beginning to look like the top 4 in the draft are settled: Irving, Williams, Knight, Kanter. Does the uncertainty begin with the Raptors at 5? Chad Ford (1:22 PM) Ford's latest mock has the Raptors taking... Dear god, no. If the Raptors taking Vesely at 5 I will offcially be back on the fire Colangelo bandwagon. I would take any of Walker, Biyombo, Valanciunas, Leonard, Walker or ever Marcus Morris or Thompson over Vesely. Hell, give me Jimmer instead of him. You know what, I'll take Donotas Motijunas over Vesely. Everything I have seen from this guy screams absolute bust. He can jump and run, but has literally no basketball skills, and on top of that, he is already 21 years old.

Pretty lucky break for the Mavs that Wade fumbled that pass, though. He looked like he would've had a very good look at a game tying three there as Bosh set a nice screen to give Wade plenty of seperation from the defender (was it Kidd?). Either way, another nice 4th quarter performance from the Mavs. Their defense in that quarter was absolutely fantastic and forced Miami into some very difficult shots.

Well that was an anti-climatic ending.

Was exactly as you would expect in that situation? You guard the 3 point line at all costs there and be willing to give up the two.

Good decision by Wade to go for the quick two. Put the pressure back on the Mavs.

Big shot by Dirk, but they left a lot of clock for the Heat. Lets see what kind of play Spo will draw up for a three.

What a terrible call on Kidd. That was all ball. lol at anybody who takes this post seriously.

Dallas is leaving the door open for the Heat with all of these misses on open shots. They are getting great looks but just missing some easy looks. Terry had two wide open jumpers that he couldn't convert and Dirk had one as well. The Mavs are playing great defense, though. Very good rotations and close outs forcing guys like Miller to put the ball on the floor instead of allowing him to get his feet set and shoot. Mixing up zone and man defense has been a great coaching move on Carlisle's part. PS: What is up with James? He is playing so passively it is disgusting. There is no reason why he shouldn't be demanding the ball every time the Mavs switch and put Terry on him, but he isn't even trying to get the ball. Luckily for Miami Wade and Bosh (in the first half) played really well offensively.

Basically. Only difference Dirk has played like absolute shit for the most part, but that is a minor detail.

He has a fever. Really nothing more to it than that, haha.

I could be wrong as I haven't watched any replays on it or anything, but when I was watching it live, I thought that Krejci just caught an edge and fell on his own. I don't recall seeing any Canucks in the vicinity when Krejci went down, but I only say it out of the corner of my eye during the game last night so I could definitely be wrong. Sucks to hear about Horton being out for the series. I caught a replay of it this morning and I did not realize just how hard his head hit the ice when he went down.

Lets say you are right and he was looking to get the puck back from Lucic, he is still a moron for going through the neutral zone with his head down. Whether he was admiring his pass, or looking for a return feed like you think, he needs to keep his head up when coming through the neutral zone which is the basic point I was trying to make. Cut across the middle with your head down and there is a good chance you are going to get rocked, especially in the Stanley Cup Finals. Again, I'm not condoning the hit from Rome because it was definitely late and he should have let up because of that (or not even hit him at all), but part of the blame should be played on Horton as well for putting himself in that position.

Why on earth should a Vancouver Canuck fan from British Columbia cheer for the Bruins because they are the "underdogs"? That s the dumbest thing I've heard. Full credit to Boston, though. Their first goal came off of a lucky break when Edler's stick broke off of the opening faceoff, but since then they have completely dominated the Canucks whether it is 5-5, 5-4 or 4-5 even. They are beating them to every loose puck, winning all of the battles down low and, to put it simply, are dominating Vancouver in every aspect of the game. PS: Hope Horton is ok. It was a late hit on Rome's part, there is no denying that, but Horton absolutely needs to keep his head up there and not admire his pass. Either way, you never want to see a player get carried off on a stretcher. Horton seems like he will be fine, though, and it wouldn't surprise me if he is back at some point in this series even though it didn't look good.

I don't really take anything Givony says about Kanter seriously, just like I don't take anything that he says about Valanciunas seriously (or at least all of the positives). He has spent the last 10 months pimping up Valanciunas while shitting on Kanter and Givony is known to have his favourites as well as players he seems to constantly hate on. Valanciunas and Kanter seem to be those two this year. Not that I can blame him about Valanciunas considering how he was basically the first guy to discover him as an NBA prospect, but he seems to have something seriously against Kanter as I don't think I've seen anything positive from him about Enes. If somebody like Ford or Aldridge start ripping into Kanter then I would be worried, but as long as Givony is the only guy constantly saying how underwhelming he is, I'm not going to think too much about it. Most other draft guys seem to think he has been fairly impressive thoughout this process and it is mainly Givony who is harping on all of his weaknesses without mentioning any strengths.

Walker will be working out for the Raptors tomorrow. Brandon Knight will be in Toronto to workout for the Raptors this week as well, but unfortunately, him and Walker will have seperate workouts, not against each other. Colangelo and Co. will be heading to Europe in a bit to watch Vesely and Biyombo at some point this week as well. I haven't heard anything about how their visit to Chiacgo to see Kanter has gone, but if I see anything I'll make sure to post it.

Add Mike Woodson to the speculation list, at least according to Stein. http://twitter.com/#!/STEIN_LINE_HQ/status/77680527326449664 http://www.thestar.com/sports/basketball/nba/raptors/article/1003634--raptors-among-suitors-for-mavs-assistant-dwane-casey Sounds like they will be interviewing him after the Finals. I think their ideal coach is probably Frank (just a gut feeling), but I imagine Casey is right up there with him, perhaps in a 1A/1B type of situation. Seeing how well he had his T'Wolves playing defensively despite a completely awful record definitely gives me hope that he could make a real impact for the Raptors if he is hired.

Malhotra is in the lineup for the Canucks tonight. I imagine he won't play much and will only take defensive zone faceoffs and maybe see the odd shift on the PK. If he can win faceoffs like he did in the regular season it will be a huge help for the Canucks considering how poorly Lappiere and H. Sedin were in the faceoff dot. Even if all he does is take faceoffs and then immediately heads to the bench, that will still be more than what their 4th line gave them in Game 1 considering guys like Bolduc only got a minute of ice time anyways.

The thing is, the Heat haven't shown that they can completely dominate the Mavs for a whole game either. Like I said earlier, the Heat went on two huge runs (the end of the 2nd, beginning of the 3rd and the beginning of the 4th) and Dallas went on one huge run (the last 6 minutes), but outside of those three runs the Heat never looked that great and you can make a valid case that the Mavs controlled play for the majority of the game. Dallas went on a 22-5 run at the end of the game, but Miami went on a 9-0 run to close out the first half, followed by a 6-1 run to start the third quarter so that was around a 15-1 run in a 6 minute span and then the Heat went on a 13-0 run to start the 4th. Take out those 18 minutes or so where each team went on substantial runs and the game was actually easily in Dallas' hands as they outscored the Heat 72-60 in the remaining 30 minutes or so that weren't acounted for in those extended runs for each team. I still think the Heat will win the NBA Championship but if they don't it will be because Dallas will have outplayed them, not because Miami handed them the series like I'm sure some people will try to say considering the fallout from last nights game.