Built Ford Tough

Man, pass the [expletive]ing ball Kobe. This is ridiculous.

Ezeli has a serious case of the "Kwame Brown". Dude can't catch a pass to save his life.

Great defense by Green. I thought Kobe had him when he bit on that shoulder fake, but he recovered nicely. To be honest, I'm not a fan of a Kobe iso in that situation, especially since they've been getting good looks off ball movement.

So Jack has to drain a buzzer beating 3 point winner, right? Nothing else will do this game justice.

This has been an absolutely crazy 4th quarter and the crowd has made it even better. What an atmosphere.

When Golden State are hitting their shots they are a scary good offensive team just because of how many different ways they can beat you. Jarrett Jack has been one of the most underrated pickups of the offseason, though. Nobody is talking about him but the guy has been awesome for the Warriors all season long. He has been such a great addition to this team and is a huge reason for their great start.

Utah really needs to decide what direction they want to take this team. I know losing against Miami isn't anything to be ashamed of but when I was watching this game all I could think about is how Utah is so directionless. They either need to deal at least one of Milsap or Jefferson to open up minutes for Kanter and Favors and also start playing Alec Burks more or they should look to package some of their young talent and draft picks (they have two this year) to acquire another piece or two to make them more than just a 8th-10th treadmill team.

Ugh. I can't really blame him since Duke is such a perfect fit for him and I was expecting him to pick Duke over MSU anyways (never thought Florida, BYU or Stanford had a chance), but it still sucks to hear. Can we please get Andrew Wiggins to go to Chapel Hill now? It would be too perfect having Wiggins as a Tar Heel and Parker as a Blue Devil when you consider how they'll likely be compared to each other for their entire careers.

It isn't exactly the best time to use the "LeBron gets every call" argument considering he is averaging his lowest amount of FTA per game (6) since his rookie season (5.8). For comparisions sake lets look at the top 3 small forwards in the game. - Kevin Durant draws a foul 17.3% of the time and has been fouled a total of 85 times. He has taken 190 shots (roughly 44% of his total attempts) 9 feet from the rim or closer. - Carmelo Anthony draws a foul 14.6% of the time and has been fouled a total of 69 times. He has taken 154 shots (rougly 36% of his total attempts) 9 feet or closer. - LeBron James draws a foul 12.2% of the time and has been fouled a total of 54 times. He has taken 204 shots (roughly 50% of his total attempts) 9 feet or closer.

Yeah it is. Overall I thought it was a pretty weak finale (at least in terms of nothing really surprising or unexpected happened), but I really enjoyed this season as a whole. A nice bounce back season after two average ones, at least in comparision to the excellent 4th season. I think the two main guest starts this year (Yvonne Strahovski and Ray Stevenson) were both superb. By far the two best guest stars since Lithgow in season 4. They both added a lot to the show in their own ways. I was starting to lose faith in the show (don't get me wrong, it was still good but not as good as it once was) but this season has restored my faith in the series and I'm definitely looking forward to seeing how it ends next year, although it will be a bittersweet moment for sure.

Refs ruined what should've been an awesome finish with some really weak foul calls down the stretch, particularly on Curry which forced him out of the game after his hot shooting brought the Warriors back from a 14 point 4th quarter defecit. Of his 3 4th quarter fouls, only one of them was legit, and even that one was debatable. The game was still in reach for Golden State, but once Curry fouled out it kind of sucked the life out of the team and you could tell that the Kings would come away with the win. I guess in their (the refs) defense, they were calling some ticky tack shit all game long (mainly on the Warriors, but still, they were calling it), especially when it came to bumping screeners and fighting for position in the post or when a shot went up, so Golden state should've adjusted their style of play accordingly. I still think the calls they made were really weak, but there was a precedent set beforehand. Anybody who is a fan of defense should stay clear of this game, though. I really don't know what happened to the Warriors because this was a Nellie era type of defensive performance from them. What is even more baffling is the fact that it was against a very, very poor Sacramento offense.

MKG joined LeBron as the only other player in NBA history to have two 25 point, 12 rebound games as a teenager.

That is a total of 4 games and about 155 minutes (not counting whenever he picked up his 2nd foul in that Hornet game). Now I can't really comment about whether or not this is because he is just playing passive defense, is getting preferential treatment from refs or is he is actually not committing fouls since I have only watched one Heat game (the Warriors game) during this time period. I just found it interesting that he hasn't been called for one in 4 games. Just going off of averagesm even if he hasn't actually fouled anybody, you would think that over the course of 155 minutes the refs would make a mistake and give him one.

If he is 100% you play him, that is obvious. However, what if he gets cleared to play but is only at 75-80%? Do you bring him back and play him? So much of Wall's game is dependent on his explosiveness and athleticism so do you gamble with playing him and running the chance that he may tweak something and need to go under the knife or just does something that may have a long term effect on his knees. That would be way more damaging to his development than missing an entire season based on his strengths as a player.

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/8764784/myck-kabongo-texas-longhorns-suspended-season-according-report Pretty stupid of Kabongo to lie or withhold information from the NCAA when they were investigating him, but I honestly think the whole investigation in the first place was just absurd, at least based on what has been released to the public.

UNC with a brutal loss to Texas and will finally be knocked out of the top 25. Even their name power, which is probably the only thing keeping them in the top 25 because it sure as hell isn't based on their play, won't be able to save themselves after that pathetic loss. James Michael McAdoo has been a huge disappointment so far. I, like many Tar Heel fans, thought he was held back by the frontcourt depth of last year but after seeing his play so far this season, that really doesn't seem to be the case. Sure, his numbers (15/8 on 48%) may look solid on paper but he has been a dud in pretty much every game against even a half decent team. vs. Butler - 10 points, 5 rebounds and 7 turnovers on 45% vs. Indiana - 10 points, 9 rebounds and 1 turnover on 27% vs. East Carolina - 19 points, 7 rebounds and 1 turnover on 36% vs. Texas - 14 points, 9 rebounds and 5 turnovers on 36% He hasn't taken this team by storm like expected of him. Not to say that UNC's struggles are squarely on his shoulders because everybody from Bullock to Hairston to Paige to Strickland haven't played up to expectations this season but as the marquee player on that team he needs to be better.

I think Detroit got away with a lot of over the back tonight, but you can give them the benefit of the doubt because of just how hard they were attacking the glass. If you are going hard after every missed shot you are eventually going to make the refs put away their whistle. Overall, yeah, I'd say the officiating was leaning to the Pistons side, but not nearly as bad as it was earlier in the year or in the first meeting between these teams. I also think that the Pistons just played a lot harder than the Raptors and when that happens you usually get some calls that you otherwise wouldn't get. Might not be fair, but that is usually how things go. As far as DeRozan goes, I agree with you but it is worth pointing out that he is starting to drift to the perimeter more often now. When the season began he was always looking to get into the paint but over the past week or two he hasn't been looking to slash as much. I don't know if it is because he is just getting fed up with not getting the calls, teams sending a 2nd defender when posting up or if it is because his mid range jumper is starting to get back to where it was 2 seasons ago (he is shooting 44% from 10-15 feet compared to 40% last year), but he is definitely attacking less than he was earlier in the year. It is still pretty pathetic how little respect he gets from the refs, though. He isn't flailing or recklessly throwing his body at defenders like he was earlier in the year either, so that argument isn't a valid one anymore. I'm really not sure why he doesn't get calls.

I really don't understand why Toronto gets so trigger happy when they have a lead late in games. This is 3 games in a row where they've built up a decent lead (between 8-12 points) and then just start launching quick jumpers allowing the other team to get back into the game.

Duncan Dwight Gasol Chandler Varejao Noah Horford I'd take all 7 of them and then you also have guys like Brook Lopez and Al Jefferson maybe even DeMarcus Cousins who you can argue for. Throw in Andrew Bynum and Andrew Bogut when they are healthy as well. Don't get me wrong, I really like Monroe's game but he is not top 5. An argument can be made for top 10, but not 5.

Prince sure has lost a step or two on the defensive end. He's been completely blown by on multiple occasions in this game and the Raptors 2/3 rotation doesn't exactly possess a lot of blow by ability.

I'll never understand why horrible shooters like Pietrus continue to chuck long range shots. He should never take a 3 other than the corner 3 ball off of a kick out. What made that play even more infuriating is that he had a wide open Ross in the corner.

Amir with a very rough start to the game. Gave up an offensive rebound to Drummond, got out worked by Charlie Villanueva of all people for another offensive board and then just committed a lazy turnover on the inbounds to Dummond who then converted an And 1.

Well, that's kind of terrifying. I'm sure he's just speaking from a precautionary manner here. It's also mentioned in the article that he feels less pain and can do much more than he was able to do a short time ago. The injections he's receiving are Synvisc injections to his knee to take away pain in his injured knee. http://www.cbssports.com/nba/blog/eye-on-basketball/21420239/john-wall-sort-of-worries-about-missing-the-entire-season If Wall's condition doesn't become any clearer, when do the Wizards consider shutting him down for the season? They've already dug themselves way too big of a hole to even think about the playoffs so it's not like they would have that to worry about.

Calderon with what would've been his 10th assist of the 1st quarter had Valanciunas not gotten fould there (it looked to be a fairly wide open dunk). I've probably been one of Calderon's biggest critics, but he is playing some awesome basketball as of late. Very impressed by his play.

Monroe is picking Toronto's defense apart with his high post passing. He got Knight an open layup and then two possessions later he got Prince an open dunk. If Detroit gets some talent around him he is going to put up some really nice assist numbers. Valanciunas has looked good offensively so far. I really like the foot work he is showing and he is using the usual pump fakes to set himself up underneath. He's struggling with Monroe on the other end, though. EDIT: And as I type that Valanciunas blocks a Monroe hook shot.