Thank God for Football

We have been about a month in to the “no need to watch Sports Center” time period which is when ESPN is filled with baseball highlights and tennis or golf. The only thing worse than hearing about LeBron all day every day is hearing about baseball, tennis and golf every day. Now we can safely say it’s football season and sports will be relevant again. We aren’t stuck with watching this sinking ship known as the Red Sox who have somehow put together the biggest team of pussy’s ever assembled. I mean they are worse than any normal soccer team. Newsflash: you guys are getting paid millions of dollars to play a game. I don’t care if you get one day off a month, I don’t care if you have to work your ass off for 6 months a year. All of us have to work 40 hours a week at a miserable job for the rest of our lives, and you have guys like David Ortiz complaining every day because his 14.5 million dollar 2012 contract isn’t enough and he wanted a multi-year deal. Or maybe Jon Lester who is pitching like Darnell McDonald and looks like he wants to off himself every time he takes the mound. Youk ratted on his teammates and decided to go into a shell until he got shipped out of here for a bag of baseballs, and Ellsbury and Crawford just enjoy watching the games from the dugout and taking the Sox money, maybe taking some Japanese lessons with the ultimate shitbag himself Dice-K. End the season now and trade them all except for Pedroia. Give me 1 million dollars a year and ill go out to center field in a wheel chair trying to catch a baseball. Or maybe they should line all of them up at Pat’s training camp on their next day off and let Mayo and Chung tee off on them.

Someone needs to explain to me why the Patriots keep signing tight ends. Are they trying to run a tight end monopoly? All I know is Vick has been talking Eagles dynasty and I dig it. They had bad overall season, but people forget how good, wait not good, dominant they were over their last 4 games. Their defense that should be dominant only gave up 46 over the last 4 games of the season and their offense put up 125. Yeah sure Vick has only played one full season but I don’t think it’s possible to have a worse offensive line than they had last season. They all looked like Michael Oher at the beginning of the Blind Side not the end. Looking at damn balloons in the air or God knows what. Also don’t forget they went 5-1 in the NFC East last season. They are bound for the Super Bowl this season, no contest…unless of course the Jets decide to hand the starting QB job over to my boy Timmy T. 41 days, I’ll see you there. I will also be starting a fantasy football once a week page, but I can’t give away too much info because my good friend Tom Bomb will steal all my strategies.

Ochocinco canned by the Pats

Today there has been a lot of buzz around the release of Chad Ochocinco. Honestly I am not really sure why. The guy had 15 catches for 276 yards and a TD. I am pretty sure Wes Welker did that in one game. He sure was right when he said he had no idea he was landing in heaven AKA getting paid to do nothing. The guy came to New England with a lot of hype and it didn’t work out. Turn the page. That’s all the Pats are doing, and I don’t get why everyone cares so much. The only value he added to the Pats last season was on Twitter, and Welker has one of those now too so win win. He’s a good person, he’s a nice guy, but he forgot how to play football so he is unemployed for now. There are plenty of nicer guys and better guys who get cut every year so I am not surprised Chad is gone. He didn’t fit the mold and will never fit the mold, that’s just how it is. But then again, Gronk definitely doesn’t fit the mold, unless Bill starts tweeting pictures of him with porn stars and starts going wild on the dance floor after they lose to Timmy Tebow and the Jets this year. Maybe Chad and Fat Albert Haynesworth can go on Dancing with the Stars together next season. Now that is something I would watch. Go Sixers.

Do or Die

Tonight will reveal which team will have the opportunity to be swept by the Miami Heat beginning next week. The Sixers and Celts are about 2 hours away from tip-off in a do or die game 7 at the Garden. I won’t pull a KG and call the Celtics fans “fair weather” even though  for about 10 years a significantly less amount of people went to the games because they were bad and even this year I did not hear one word about the Celtics from fans until about one month remaining in the regular season because they had finally taken first place from the Sixers. Quite frankly, I think any team that is bad for a long period of time is bound to lose fans and have low attendance. Why would you buy season tickets or pay to go to games to watch your team put on a bad show? That’s like hearing every critic tell you this movie was the worst they have ever seen and you still paying 14 dollars to go see it in the movie theater. Anyway, I don’t care what KG says, he is a thug who would have been booed out of Boston this year if he did not have an epiphany at the beginning of the playoffs and found some way to play like he had in his prime. 

This series has been ugly, brutal at times, and I do not think either of these teams has any chance at beating the Heat. You cannot honestly call yourself a championship contender and consistently have multiple quarters a game scoring under 15 points. That is unacceptable and will not get you a sniff at the championship. I am extremely surprised the Sixers have managed to get to a game seven. Maybe the NBA really is rigged and was telling the refs not to call anything for the Sixers all series. I am leaning towards the fact that the refs have no respect for any of the Sixers players yet and that is why they are getting no calls. During the regular season the Sixers were a mid-range jump shooting team, that rarely drove to the hoop. In these playoffs, Lou Williams and Jrue Holiday have been attacking relentlessly. However, the back of their jerseys do not say Pierce or Garnett so they have not been getting any calls. It’s a sad trend in this league, and I think the NBA needs more teams like the Sixers to bring respectful play and gamesmanship back to the league. You don’t see them falling down when getting bumped at the 3 point line just to emphasize the fact that they got fouled, or see them complaining to the referees every time a foul is called on them. The league is full of floppers and embellishers, and the Celtics have one of the worst offenders in Paul Pierce. Pierce is a good player, but to constantly drive to the hoop and throw your arms up in the air with no expectations of the ball ending up anywhere near the basket is embarrassing, especially when he gets calls from the refs every time. Why can’t he take the ball to the hoop and go up strong without flailing his arms and screaming like he just got hit by an 18 wheeler? In the 3rd quarter of game 6, he was dribbling 4 feet behind the 3 point line and got bumped by Lavoie Allen. It was a clear foul, and it would have been called yet he felt the need to flop to the ground.

I’m not trying to pick on Paul Pierce, because there are many other players in the league who do it, but I can honestly say nobody on the Sixers plays that way. They play hard, honest basketball which is something every team should do. You wouldn’t catch Julius Erving and Larry Bird flopping around the court or snapping their heads back when a guy puts his hand on their chest. The Sixers might not be as talented as other teams, they might not have as much experience, but they play as a team and play the game the right way. That is why I think the basketball God’s are looking down on them tonight and helping them fight through the adversity of being in a game 7 at the Garden where the refs will continue to be favorable for the Celtics. If they lose, they lose and it won’t be the refs fault. The whole series the refs have been against them and they’ve won 3 games, so there is no reason they can’t win game 7. I honestly think the Celtics have realized once Avery Bradley went down for the season that their chances of beating the Heat or one of the West teams was slim to none. That is why I like the Sixers to come out smoking tonight as they did in game 5, but they won’t relinquish the lead this time. Sixers advance to the East Finals to get swept by LeBron, but tonight is every Sixers fan’s championship. The chance to end the Big 3 era. It will be sweet.

Perfect Storm

Wow. That’s all I could say after witnessing the 2nd half of that game last night. Many people are very against booing your own team at home and will say it’s very disrespectful but I feel the complete opposite way. As fans, we are the people paying these players salaries essentially. We have the right to let them know when they are not playing well and we have the right to praise them when they are playing great. The Sixers were booed off the court at halftime, and I guarentee everyone on that team including coach Doug Collins will agree that they deserved it. For me, getting booed off the court at home would be motivation enough to dig deep and play that 2nd half to my potential, and that’s exactly what the Sixers did. Momentum is a huge deal in basketball, and right now the Sixers have it. Think of how big of a swing emotionally and physically that was for both teams. The Celtics were up 19 in the 3rd quarter, cruising to a 3-1 series lead and potentially resting some starters to close out the series on Monday. Instead, the Celtics open the door for the Sixers who were shooting 21% in the first half to gain confidence in their shot, their game, and the idea that they have a legitimate shot at winning this series. I’ve heard a lot of complaining about the foul discrpency, as the Sixers got to the line about 18 or so more times than the Celtics, but any basketball fan who watched could have seen that the Sixers took it to the rim much more often than the Celtics.

As I said in my last post, Thad Young playing well is a huge boost to this team. It showed in both halves last night. Thad looked terrible in the 1st half, making poor passes, dribbling the ball into traps and not being able to throw the ball in the ocean. I’m honestly surprised Doug stuck with him in the 2nd half but it paid off. Thad out worked the Celtics defense, battling for offensive boards and making good cuts to the hoop and finishing. This Sixers bench has virtually been nonexistent this whole playoffs, and last night was a resurgence of the Sixers backbone. Sweet Lou played like the 6th man he has been all year, making scoring look easy at times. Now I would be crazy to say I wanted the Sixers to go down 14-0 in the first quarter and be down by 19 in the 2nd half, but honestly it couldn’t have worked out more perfectly. This truly is the perfect storm for the Sixers. This confidence boost couldn’t have come at a more perfect time. With the confidence through the roof and the Celtics seriously looking at whether or not they are contenders could be that little bit of doubt needed for the Sixers to get a crucial win Monday night. If the Sixers can come out in the 1st half like they played the end of the last game, I really like the Sixers chances of winning this series. It all comes down to toughness and whether the Sixers really want to win or not. The one edge I think the Celtics have on the Sixers right now is they have been here before and know what it takes to win a tight series. However, whether the Celtics have the pieces to finish off a series is something we will find out. Their bench is just not good, and I have said all year you can’t be a contender without a bench. Your star guys are going to have tough games, and if your relying on Greg Steimsma or Ryan Hollins to be a solid option off the bench you are crazy. Not to mention they should call Brandon Bass Brandon “first half” Bass because that guy was nowhere to be found in the 2nd half of last nights game.