Built Ford Tough

I'm with ECN on this one. Lucic was just trying to free the puck up and made a hockey play on McDonagh. He may have used a bit of unecessary force and did contact the head a bit, but it wasn't anything malicious imo. You can't expect Lucic not to retaliate to McDonagh coming after him after the hit. Compared to some of the shit Lucic does, this was pretty tame. I absolutely hate the guy (fully admit I would love him if he was on my team, though) but I can't really get too upset about this particular instance. I'm sure if this something like this happened tomorrow during the Leafs game, I'd probably get upset, though, haha.

Lawson with a dagger from 20 feet to put the Nuggets up by 3 with 11 seconds left after a Duncan dunk to cut the lead to just 1. This game really shouldn't even be this close, though, if not for some horrific shooting by Andre Miller. I think he is 1/9 in the quarter or something attrocious like that. EDIT: Neal misses a 3 to tie, but you couldn't ask for a better look. A fantastic play drawn up by Pop there.

The seeding may change, but is it safe to say that the Eastern Conference playoff teams are already established? Chicago Miami Indiana Orlando Atlanta Philly Boston New York Does anybody see any of these teams falling out? Teams like MIlwaukee and Cleveland looked like they could threaten for a spot earlier in the season, but both of them have fallen off a cliff and have gone 2-8 and 3-7 respectively in their last 10. Of course, it shouldn't really surprise anybody since about 99% of people predicted that these 8 teams would be in this season.

17 seconds into the game Blair bangs knees with Mozgov and was on the floor for about a minute. He got up on his own and walked to the bench, so it doesn't look like anything serious. With his history of knee problems, it probably was a bit of a scare for the Spurs. Blair is heading to the locker room now, though. He didn't appear to be limping or anything like that so I imagine he will be back.

In terms of current jerseys, I really like the Kings alternates: http://cdn2.sulitstatic.com/images/2012/0214/012512717_012425100b2978609efecf9c4d17f624ace801ae6916f44bb.jpg Actually, I'm a fan of the Kings jerseys in general, whether it is home, away, alternate or throwback.

Sixers really blew not one, but two great chances to tie the game up. Both times they were able to get the ball out of Rose's hands on the offensive end and the Bulls supporting cast couldn't convert. They just didn't do anything on offense and settled for jumpers. Then Rose converts a difficult floater to make it a 4 point lead and Brand commits on offensive foul on the ensuing inbound play to likely wrap this game up for Chicago.

Philly with a nice job of answering back with a run of their own to cut the Bulls lead from 13 to 4.

Not particularly thrilled with the win, especially since Bargnani is supposed to be back in a week or so, as it is looking more and more likely that a bottom 4 finish is out of reach for this team. However, if the Raptors are going to win a game, I'll take wins like this one where it is the young players contributing to the win over the Hornets won earlier in the year. In that Hornets game it was Kleiza and Barbosa who led the way and won the game for the Raptors in the 4th. Tonight, it was the young guys: DeRozan: 25 points, 3 rebounds, 4 assists on 9/17 shooting and 6/6 from the line Davis: 12 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals and 1 block JJ: 12 points, 12 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals and 1 block Bayless: 4 rebounds, 4 assists and played great defense on Ellis holding him to very poor shooting numbers Amir: 11 points, 13 rebounds and 3 blocks The only vet who played well was Barbosa with 18 points, other than that it was the young guns show, which I can live with even if I would prefer to see a loss. I am starting to come to terms with the fact that unless they are lucky in the lottery, the Raptors will be picking around the 5-8 area instead of in the top 3, though.

Rose starting to take over. Bulls by 13 after outscoring the Sixers 17-4 thus far in the quarter.

Illinois St. just simply ran out of gas in OT, which is to be expected after yesterdays intense game against Wichita St. and with how this game went down the stretch. A great effort, but Creighton was simply too good and took advantage of that in OT.

And they don't go to McDermott, instead opting to have Young drive into the paint. The shot didn't fall, nor did the tip in. OT for the MVC Championship. Couldn't have asked for more from this game.

Terrible foul by Moore. Absolutely brutal. After splitting a pair of free throws to make it a 2 point lead, Illinois St. drove to the basket and got a layup to tie the game. Then Moore fouled Gibbs at halfcourt and Gibbs knocked down a pair. Timeout Illinois St. 11.8 seconds left with them down 2. Do they go for the tie or the win? EDIT: And Moore goes coast to coast and finishes with the layup to tie the game. Creighton timeout with 6 seconds left. I'm thinking we are going to see a McDermott jumper for the win. With the way this game has gone, you can just feel it.

What a game. 6 lead changes in the last 2 minutes. Moore with a dirty pull up jumper and then McDermott comes down on the next possession and drains an NBA three like nothing. 31 points on 11/15 shooting for McDermott. He has put his team on his back ever since Illinois St. took that 8 point lead. 19 of his 31 have come in teh 2nd half, including 17 of the Jays last 21. Nasty.

McDermott starting to take over and bring his team back into this, like a true star does. 23 points for him including 6 straight to tie the game up. Illinois St. needs to find a way to be able to slow him down if they want to win this game. Of course, that is much easier said than done. EDIT: My bad on the 6 straight. I guess he actually had 10 straight at the time, I just missed two baskets when switching to the Knicks/Celtics game. He has Creighton's last 12 points.

And he makes up for it by hitting a very difficult three.

What a stupid shot by Pierce.

Lmao. On that last sequence, I think every single player hit the deck at one point or another. You have got to love that kind of passion from players. Everybody really is leaving it on the floor in this game. Somebody will obviously lose this game, but it certainly won't be from a lack of effort.

Awesome defense from Ekey on the McDermott post up. Didn't bite on any of the fakes and then blocked the shot. You really can't play him any better than that. EDIT: Now Ekey draws a charge on McDermott. He is playing fantastic defense to start this half.

A bot is a software application that runs automated tasks. (from Wikipedia, lol) For example, you will see advertising/spam bots that will just post the same message over and over again to get the message across/out there and things like that.

I love Bradley's defense, but boy is he a trainwreck on offense. What a weak T on Sump. Brutal.

Illinois St. will pretty much the ideal ending to the 1st half in this one. Creighton looked ready to take a double digit lead but Illionois St. goes on a great run in the final 3:11 seconds after the flagrant foul committed by Echenique (probably spelt wrong, but whatever) on Carmichael to take a 31-30 halftime lead. A lot of power conference bubble schools are probably not happy with the way this game is going. Teams like UCONN, NC State, Northwestern, Texas, etc... would definitely not want to see Illinois St. take this game as it would definitely decrease their chances of making the tournament. Creighton is going to be in regardless, but you have to think that Illionois St. needs to win the MVC Championship in order to make the tournament.

Davis is so damn impressive. Blocks Beal's shot (and just catches it instead of swatting it), leads the break, makes a nice bounce pass to MKG and then finishes with a put back slam after the MKG miss to officially put an end to any chance of a comeback (although it was probably over before then anyways). 22 points, 12 rebounds and 6 blocks for Davis.

Lol at Walker. Davis is caught on a switch, gambles on the pass and gets burned, but instead of attacking the open lane, he pulls up from 28 feet and throws up an absolute brick. Young has been killing it all game but once Walker become the primary ball handler, he hasn't even touched the ball in the post. That isn't to say he is completely to blame as Beal has been terrible shooting the ball and Boynton seems to not give a damn about this game after not starting, but he has been the biggest reason for Florida falling behind by double digits late here, after having cut the lead to 4.

Walker sucks. Can't make an entry pass to save his life, has terrible vision and is just a straight up chucker. He had a wide open Patric Young down low for a good 2 seconds before he even saw him and then turns the ball over trying to pass it to him when all he needed to do was make a simple bounce pass. Instead, he tried to lob it over Anthony Davis. If Florida wants to have a chance at winning this game, they need to take him off the ball and give it to Beal or Boynton. At least they are capable of finding the bigs off the roll or making an entry pass.

If Davis continues to hit that outside jumper, nobody is touching this team unless they have an off night in the tournament. That is 2 games in a row where he has knocked down a 3 and an 18 foot jumper as well. Luckily for the rest of the country, he is still not consistent with it. You can tell that he has the potential to be a solid shooter out there. He has nice form, arc and rotation on his shot, but he just isn't capable of hitting it on a consistent basis right now, but should be able to in the future.