screengrab via SBN

After a brief hiatus to deal with objective weekly winners like DeAndre Jordan’s dunk on Brandon Knight, LeBron’s ridiculous circus posterization of Jason Terry and Doug Anderson’s destruction of the space-time continuum, the Wednesday Dunk Battle is back!

If this is your first Dunk Battle, here are the rules: You have to watch the following dunks and vote on which one is the best, because science doesn’t do itself. There’s a handy poll at the bottom, so take your time and go through each clip frame by frame, vote, then drop down into the comments section to let us know who you voted for.

This week’s dunks:

1. Russell Westbrook elevates and dunks on the Utah Jazz
2. LeBron James alley-oops the ball to himself off the backboard and dunks, because LeBron James
3. Blake Griffin goes for a finger roll, calls an audible, dunks his finger roll
4. Terrence Ross’ 360 180 degree jam

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So, this happened:

The Denver Nuggets prevailed over the OKC Thunder in a hard-fought, overtime thriller. The biggest beef of the game, however, was between Russell Westbrook and Nuggets mascot Rocky. Russ trolled the fans in Denver by goaltending two of his halfcourt attempts. Per the Denver Post: “Fans now have a villain,’ Ty Lawson said.

I’m not sure whose side I’m on. Regular readers know that I’m a sports mascot enthusiast, so I usually take their side, and my first reaction to Goaltending A Lion-Gate was the headline. After reading about it, the half-court shots were an attempt to win Q’Doba queso for the arena … if Rocky makes any of those shots, everyone gets a coupon for a bowl of cheese.

So do I side with the anthropomorphic lion because goaltending is an assy move, or do I side with Westbrook for preventing a few thousand people from downing a styrofoam bowl of hot cheese they wouldn’t have wanted or eaten unless it was free?

You make the call. Video is below.

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Despite me watching it last night, the NBA posted its new “BIG Color” commercial on YouTube today to celebrate both the holiday season and the surprisingly plain jerseys that some teams will be wearing on Christmas day. As we already know, the Christmas day NBA schedule looks like this:

Boston Celtics at Brooklyn Nets
New York Knicks at Los Angeles Lakers
Oklahoma City Thunder at Miami Heat
Houston Rockets at Chicago Bulls
Denver Nuggets at Los Angeles Clippers

It’s a regular potpourri of games that we both care and don’t care about. Thanks NBA! But back to the uniforms and commercial at hand. The BIG Color commercial features four of the league’s most recognizable stars and Joe Johnson, as they bounce their jingle balls in rhythm to the tune of “Carol of the Bells”. For what it is, it’s a simple but cool spot that doesn’t play any favorites, except that 25 teams are left out of the fun. But that’s their fault for stinking.

Check out the commercial after the jump, as well as some special holiday cheer commentary from my favorite and most intelligent people on the Internet – YouTube commenters.

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I don’t know what it is about NBA players that makes them so much more fun to criticize and make fun of than other pro sports stars. Maybe it’s the holier than thou mentality or the rock star “swag” and godlike baller image, but people just tend to either love or hate NBA stars more than other athletes, and that’s typically fine because they seem to like it. And even though a lot of the league’s stars are as transparent as invisible glass, we’re still pretty big suckers for when they break character and the villain becomes the good guy or the good guy becomes the great guy by helping a good cause.

Before heading to Los Angeles for tonight’s game against the Clippers, the Oklahoma City Thunder, which you could argue is a team of good guys and Kendrick Perkins, hit up the City Rescue Mission in downtown OKC to serve food to more than 400 homeless people on Monday. Even if you absolutely loathe the Thunder, you have to admit that this was rather swell of them.

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With a 105-94 win on Tuesday night, Kevin Durant and the Oklahoma City Thunder struck first against the Miami Heat, who held a double digit lead for the majority of Game 1. Was it Lebron James’ fault? What about Dwyane Wade? Maybe it was Juwan Howard screwing everything up like he did with last Saturday’s locker room dance party? Blame whoever you want, but at least we got a fantastic game out of it.

We’ll be back for another Live Discussion during Game 2 tonight, as I’ll make snarky comments about commercials that annoy me in between yelling at Chris Duhon when he walks into my bar, and maybe even Vince will stop by to mock our love of sports again. And we might have a very special guest stopping by, but he’s a very hard man to keep in touch with, so I can’t reveal the surprise just yet. But if he does show up, you’re all going to lose your minds and I’m actually quite terrified to see the result.

Nice blue balls, eh?

Coverage begins on ABC at 9 PM ET, but I’ll be here all day, so join me, make funny comments, and win With Leather t-shirts.

How To Unlock Badge:
Log into UPROXX (or create an account), Like or Tweet to unlock the Groucho Wade Badge, and share your participation in tonight’s discussion — then this bad boy is all yours.

Goodbye forever, Los Angeles Lakers! (h/t to Jon Bois)

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Links

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Here Is Everything Rihanna Says in ‘Battleship’ |Gamma Squad|

Dear Sports Teams, Enough With The ‘Call Me Maybe’ Covers Already |With Leather|

First trailer for James Bond: Skyfall |Film Drunk|

5 Reasons Why Facebook’s Stock Flopped |Smoking Section|

Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong Was Mark Zuckerberg’s Wedding Singer |UPROXX|

12 Celebrities And Their Stunt Doubles Because People Seem To Enjoy This Sort Of Thing |UPROXX|

The Ladies Of The Billboard Music Awards 2012 |Smoking Section|

The Anchorman 2 Teaser, Non Butt-Cam Version |Film Drunk|

Attention Scantily Clad Women: Do Not Tweet Your Pictures With Tim Tebow |With Leather|

9 “Prominent” Characters DC Could Out As Gay (and One They Shouldn’t) |Gamma Squad|

‘Game of Thrones’ Recap: ‘The Prince of Winterfell’ |Warming Glow|

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