Last night marked the beginning of the 2012-13 NBA season, and it started pretty much the same way that I assume next season will begin – with the Miami Heat raising a banner. But I’ll save my season predictions for tomorrow and just stick to the highlights of what we saw in last night’s three games starting with the obvious – Steve Nash, WTF?
The Los Angeles Lakers point guard showed up to the Staples Center looking rather geeked up for his Hollywood debut, and he did not disappoint. Wait, yes he did. In fact, everyone on the Lakers except for Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol disappointed in one way or another. Scores, thoughts and bright, shining moments after the jump.
Well NFL, I hope you enjoyed your whole day of relevance, because tonight the NBA returns and everyone loves the NBA more than the NFL. Wait, hold on a sec… my carrier pigeon Lorenzo just returned from delivering my latest batch of nude pics to Ciara Price, and there’s a return message on it:
“Dear Burnsy, nobody likes the NBA more than the NFL. Even David Stern.”
Damn, I must have been fed false information. Oh well, at least we have something to watch on an otherwise boring Tuesday night and then we can all go back to not caring about how many games the Miami Heat have won in a row until at least January.
NBA: Boston Celtics at Miami Heat – 8 PM ET on TNT
Ray Allen makes his debut for his new team tonight against his old team, which is all people are going to talk about for the next 24 hours and then the 48 hours leading up to and following every time they play this season. Also, Rashard Lewis makes his debut as the Heat’s new “Hey, stand over there and only shoot the ball if the other four of us have absolutely no shot”.
Yesterday marked the first meaningless burp of the 2012-13 NBA season, as players casually took their time arriving to their respective arenas to be prepped for clichés and generic positive statements about their chances this year, as part of the 2012 NBA Media Day. Basically, it’s a glorified way for teams to drum up last second season ticket sales and David Stern to remind Major League Baseball that it only has a few weeks left before a preseason NBA game will outdraw the World Series.
But all of the teams had their PR and social media people on full alert yesterday, as they Tweeted and Facebooked pictures of the NBA’s best and brightest awkwardly hamming it up for the local media. Some teams had a lot of fun, while some teams, well, you can’t expect the Charlotte Bobcats to pretend like they were at Disney. After the jump, I’ve gathered the best of the NBA’s Media Day so you can pretend like you were there for every team.
People send and Tweet a lot of links to me each week and the results range from tame and general to bizarre and borderline terrifying, but every now and then somebody shows me something that just makes me giggle with delight, and that’s good for everyone. That happened the other day when a friend passed along the Tumblr site Indie Basketball, which, as the name implies, combines popular indie bands with NBA stars. Simple and sweet.
But more than anything, I’m a sucker for puns, so that more than makes up for my shameful lack of knowledge when it comes to who some of these bands are. For example, Bat for Lashes? No clue. But Bat for Nashes? That’s a giggle-maker right there. So let’s get the pun machine rolling with some of our own names (that aren’t exactly indie bands, I know):
Earl the Pearl Jam Houston Rocket from the Crypt Kids in Glass Eddie Houses King Charles Barkley Franz Vasquez Ferdinand P.J. Donnell Harvey Heypenny Hardaway
Damn, that’s some fine punning right there. I’ve included some of my favorite Indie Basketball efforts after the jump, but don’t let that stop you slick hipsters from suggesting your own with your favorite Bright Eyes and Wolf Parade jams playing in the background.
As I’ve pointed out a few dozen times since July 1, whoever is running the public relations strategy for the NBA players union is doing a terrible job. But I’m also willing to bet that nobody is really in charge of the spin machine, as we’ve seen both the players and owners struggle to grasp reality during this entire lockout.
However, it’s worth pointing out that the players, despite coming off as greedy and arrogant at times (*cough, Dwyane Wade claiming he deserves $50 million per season, cough*), really do have their acts together for the most part. Sure, some of them are acting like they don’t give a crap about whether or not there is a season, but some of them are using their free time for the betterment of society and they’re not necessarily doing it so they can pose for the cameras.
Us basketball fans may be pissed, annoyed, frustrated, and flat out angry, but we’re also ignorant to the better efforts because a couple guys giving out Playstations to terminally ill kids doesn’t make a front page look as sexy as Wade telling off the league’s commish. Fortunately, I was doing some fall hard drive cleaning and came across a slew of images that proves that even the most robotic, soulless eventual billionaires like LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony have big hearts. They just don’t have good marketing teams.
In case you weren’t aware, the Boston Celtics went into Staples Center and defeated the Lakers 103-94 last night. Ray Allen, who had to sit much of Game 1 because of foul trouble, was better in Game 2. I’ll let Larry David tell you how he played:
Pretty good indeed, Larry. Warming up for 3 hours before game paid off, as Allen channeled his inner NBA Jam to the tune of 32 points. He was on fire in the first half hitting 7 threes in a row, a Finals record. But he wasn’t done there, Allen hit another three in the second half (finishing 8-11 from downtown) to set the record for three pointers made in a Finals game. He eclipsed his own performance in the 2008 Finals, Scottie Pippen, and Kenny Smith to make the record his own. Ray talked about how he was able to get open at the post game press conference.
“I didn’t think it was easy, getting the 3′s up in the air,” Allen said. “You look up and everybody is probably thinking, ‘How did this guy get open?’ But there’s so much going on there — big screens, misdirection plays. I thought they did everything they could to keep me from shooting 3′s, [but we] worked tirelessly.” –ESPN.com
Rajon Rondo finished with a “quiet” triple double, if such a thing exists. He was a stat sheet stuffer, leading the Celtics in rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks. The Lakers got 20 point performances out of Pau Gasol, Kobe Bryant, and Andrew Bynum. Highlights after the jump: Read the rest of this entry »
