In boring NBA news, the Indiana Pacers defeated the Golden State Warriors 108-97 last night, and the most shocking thing about that game should have been that both the Pacers and Warriors are in the thick of the playoff hunt. Of course, the Pacers have it much easier, as they’re currently in second place in the Eastern Conference, 8 games ahead of the 8th seed Milwaukee Bucks, while the Warriors are clinging to a small lead over the Utah Jazz and Houston Rockets for the 6th seed, so they need every win they can get.

But we don’t give a crap about any of that because FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!!! With 6 minutes left in the game, Warriors forward David Lee and disgruntled former Entertainment 720 employee Roy Hibbert got into a heated shoving match. Somewhere, the scrapper formerly known as Ron Artest just shook his head and frowned.

Then everyone else got involved and the Pacers fans shouted a collective, “Why, I never!” What a terrible thing to happen on free monocle night.

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As someone who follows quite a few web comic series and has started and forgotten a few of his own, I’ve always gotten a kick out of people who give the artists and authors crap for not posting frequently enough. It’s like, “Hey dick, you’re not producing your free Internet content at a pace that is conducive of my unappreciative viewing experience, and that makes me hate you!” I actually like those types of trolls – those that call themselves “fans” – better than the “This thing you made sucks” crowd, because they feel like they actually deserve the right to criticize someone’s work.

That said, someone introduced me to the web comics of artist J.O. Applegate during the 2012 NBA Playoffs, and I write with completely aware irony today – HE DOES NOT POST HIS COMICS ENOUGH.

Applegate’s web comics, known collectively as Bounce Bounce Bounce or BounceX3, are mostly standalone jokes about certain players or the NBA experience in general, but his takes on fan and player behaviors are so dead on and hilarious, especially his latest work after the jump, that I almost consider them therapeutic to look at when I think about how insane most NBA fans are.

Most of all, I’m jealous of the awesome way that Applegate ties GIF animation into his comics, because I’m still trying to figure out how to do that and I should just probably realize that I’m a big ol’ dummy already. Alas, I digress. After the jump, I’ve included Applegate’s most recent efforts, dating from the start of this season to last season’s playoffs, and if you’re an NBA fan, you should absolutely follow him and complain like an impatient child like I do when a day goes by without a new comic.

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During this year’s Summer Olympics, NBC’s best play-by-play analyst was Retta, who plays Donna on ‘Parks And Recreation’. Her tweets about chocolate tumblers and the Olympics trying to break a bitch were amazing, and as sports bloggers it’s our duty to shine the spotlight on every legitimately hilarious person who touches sports.

Not only is Retta’s show one of the best on television right now, it’s also one of the most sports friendly. That makes it a perfect fit for Sports On TV, our column dedicated to the best sports moments of shows about something other than sports. This is the first still-on-the-air show we’ve attempted to cover, so if you’re reading this a year from now and are all, “HEY, WHERE’S THE EPISODE WHERE MCKAYLA MARONEY SHOWS UP AND ANDY WINS THE LONG JUMP” or whatever, give us a break, we aren’t time travelers.

With greatest possible love to Retta, Michael Shur, Greg Daniels and the rest of the talented people making my favorite 30 minutes of any given week, here are our 20 favorite sports moments from ‘Parks And Recreation’. I don’t know what this is, but I want you to read all of it.

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Indiana Pacers center and Parks and Rec guest star Roy Hibbert joined free agent Jeremy Lin on Jimmy Kimmel Live the other night for a segment called Skype Scavenger Hunt, and the whole thing (included after the jump) was fantastic, because Hibbert and Lin have great personalities and Kimmel has a strange way of bringing out the best in people.

But the star of the clip is Nala, Hibbert’s $3,000 French bulldog. Look at that derpy little face! God, I just want to grab that little pooch and put it in a Baby Bjorn and stand outside of Kate Upton’s apartment with it. Normally I’d scoff at throwing down 3 grand for a pet, but this appears to be a very acceptable investment.

More importantly, though – and this is the real reason that I’m mentioning this clip two days later – it kills me how well Kimmel has proven time and again that he can take even the most boring athletes and make them seem lovable, yet ESPN and ABC treat us to the same, boring pre-game coverage. Sure, ABC gave us a little Kimmel before Game 1, but there should be an entire one-hour segment with his name on it before Game 2.

Instead we’ll probably have Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith shouting at each other again. Hooray.

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I’m a big sucker for fan art – well, appropriate fan art – and that’s why I’ve been pounding my desk all morning over the news that the world’s biggest patent troll is going after Etsy’s new $40 million investment. But while soulless thieves are going after the sources of the Internet’s showcases for art and inspiration, they’ll thankfully never be able to crush the actual artists. At least not yet. I’m sure they’ll find a way eventually.

My Internet Artist of the Day of the Week goes to the guys at Double Scribble, a Tumblr site devoted to NBA fan art.

Double Scribble is the lovechild of basketball and art; two of Nick Kastner and Mike McGrath’s favorite things in the world. From the coldest, murkiest depths of Cleveland, OH (and now to some extent, some obscure part of North Carolina) Nick and Mike have forged a blog out of blood, sweat and tears in their unwavering vision to provide you, the viewer, with a never ending source of basketball related art.

And it’s pretty awesome. I’ve been shuffling back and forth through its archives since a friend emailed the link last week and there is just a ton of great artwork on this site that has really inspired me to consider re-launching my web comic series, “The Erotic Adventures of a Sports Blogger.” Spoiler alert: it’s sad and gross.

After the jump, I’ve included many of my favorite efforts of Double Scribble’s authors, but I encourage you to check out the submissions that they’ve posted from other artists as well. It’s a highly recommended worm hole to limit your productivity today.

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In case you’re the type who needs a screenprinted message on an oversized foam finger to be convinced of anything and believes the NBA Lockout is ending soon, here’s your finger: pending the ability of the team owner to actually get the money to make it happen, Kobe Bryant has agreed to play basketball in Italy.

From The Associated Press:

Italian club Virtus Bologna has reached a verbal agreement with Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant to play in Italy during the NBA lockout. The sides have settled on a $3 million contract for the opening 40 days of the Italian league season, a person with knowledge of the negotiations told The Associated Press on Friday.

Bryant, who spent much of his childhood in Italy, was in the country for sponsor appearances over the past two days but was flying back to the U.S. for labor talks with the NBA on Friday.

Bryant will get a work visa and return to Italy next week, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the deal has still not been signed. Virtus had been due to open the season Oct. 9 against Roma, but schedules now need to be reworked after Venezia was added to the league as a 17th team.

I’m guessing “Virtus Bologna” makes the most righteous sandwiches ever.

Three million dollars for 40 days of work comes out to roughly $75,000 a day for basketball. However, Bryant was set to make $25.244 million for the 2011-12 NBA season, so the deal in Italy gives him about a $233,000 a game pay-cut. With the lockout still on with no end in sight, it beats getting a real job, or going on Twitter and joking about having to get a real job, or whatever it is players are doing now. Not sure whether or not it beats what Roy Hibbert had going at Entertainment 7wenty, but Kobe knows what he’s doing, and “actually getting paid to play basketball somewhere” is absolutely what he should be doing.