This blog represents my attempt to cover the 2010 NCAA March Madness. It was a great year, made exciting by the phenomenal play of several “Cinderellas” – the most prominent of these being the Butler Bulldogs, finalists in an epic coming out party in their hometown .
I hope you will peruse the entirety of Yesterday’s Hoops for a comprehensive flashback of the 2010 Tournament.
Thanks to all of the thousands of followers for a great experience.
Charlotte 98, Lakers 83
L.A. had 20 turnovers in this one, shot a miserable 36% from the field and a horrific 17% from downtown.
The Lakeshow really has no idea how to beat Larry Brown (and now Michael Jordan’s) Bobcats. Maybe they just don’t care to play hard in games against teams they know they’re never gonna see again – but again, I blame Phil Jackson for a lack in energy or motivation or fundamental skill. That’s not Championship ball.
Dallas 108, Sacramento 100
Without Jason Terry after a brutal elbow to the face last week, the Mavs have turned to first round draft pick Rodrigue Beaubois, from the island of Guadeloupe. The rookie was highly touted, but hasn’t had a chance to play much, since Rick Carlisle’s team is stacked with veteran talent.
Rook was eaaaaager for pt and it shows! Since Terry went down, Beaubois scored 17 in 29 minutes against the T’wolves and last night poured in 22 points in just 24 minutes of the game.
These next ten games are Beaubois’ season, so look for him to show-off in what Carlisle has made – a powerhouse offense and a disciplined team.
Dallas threatens L.A. the most out west, and YH says if Dallas wins the West, the Mavs will be NBA Champions this year – nobody out East, Orlando included, can beat this juggernaut.
OKC Thunder 104, Clippers 87
YH loves Durantula and is pulling hard to see the Thunder in the playoffs. KD is a joy to watch – he reminds me of someone … hmmmm future YH Flashback coming soon!
and finally, a lot of people in Denver and Atlanta are really hyped about their very exciting teams. YH loves Josh Smith and Joe Johnson, and we have waxed poetic about Chauncey Billups and Carmelo Anthony.
But these teams show their true colors in March victories … just look at these scores:
Hawks 127, Warriors 122
Nuggets 122, Pacers 114
When you give up this many points in regulation to teams that aren’t even in the hunt for the playoffs, you get earmarked with Charles Barkley’s observation that:
a lot of these teams don’t play defense all year and then when they get to the first round of the playoffs they all say, ‘Well, we’re gonna tighten up on defense and win this.’ – No. You can’t suddenly learn to play Team D in the playoffs.
Blame George Karl for the problems in Denver when they don’t get out of the second round. But Atlanta started the year playing great team defense and somewhere along the way the funtimes run-and-gun has taken over.
Take a tip kids – slow it down and play hard D.
Recently, YH endorsed the proposed nickname Durantula for KD in OKC – which Durant cemented for himself over the All Star break.
We now feel ROY-candidate Stephen Curry needs a nickname, and so we propose, The Synthesis.
Curry is the synthesis of so many things:
the college game and the nba game;
his father’s game and the contemporary game;
the shooting guard and point guard;
the end of the old warriors and the beginning of the new warriors.
And the Synthesis is performing way above the bar. Through it all, this young man has shown superior basketball IQ, stunning physical ability, and command – a leadership quality expected of players five and six years older.
Steph Curry – the Synthesis – YH salutes you.
Please accept our nickname with much respect.
The San Antonio Spurs are an aging champion struggling to find an identity that works. Timmy D is in his 12th season, the expensive acquisition RJ, who was supposed to be a 4th or even 3rd option, is an utter failure in the system.
Worse, floor general Tony Parker’s plantar fascitis and other ailments are proving to be an insurmountable problem and George Hill just doesn’t look ready to take over against Derek Fisher or Deron Williams.
Yup, the Spurs look like they are headed for first round elimination …
Then all of a sudden, Manu shows up with superhero effort at just the right time …
… and the Spurs make you wonder.
Remember what Popp says:
“Doesn’t matter if you’re a #1 seed or a #8, you gotta beat everybody to win it all.”
YH joins in giving big ups to Manu Ginobili, who not only had the critical block but an excellent performance against the Thunder.
Ups too, to George Hill for correctly staying with the ball handler on that play and allowing the trailer to catch up – textbook Spur-team-defense.
Awesome game in Cleveland last night as ‘Melo returns to the Denver Nuggets, slugs toe-to-toe with LeBron, hits the game winning jumper Jordan-v-Bird-playoffs-style and has some, as Marv put it, gorgeous moves in the paint.
In ‘Melo’s sweetest, he spins into the lane from the left side of the painted area, goes up in the air, hangs, moves the ball fully around in a circle as defenders go up, stays hanging Air-style and finishes with the floater over falling, outstretched hands.
Though LeBron was typical and stunning, this could have ended earlier against him. Mr. Big Shot blew a chance for the Nugs to win in regulation on a 3pt-er that rimmed out – which doesn’t happen often … it’s like watching Mariano Rivera blow a save.
Quiet, steady Chauncey who picks up the load when ‘Melo is out, was rusty since he’d been busy all night smoothly transitioning to backup to the young star guy. Still, didn’t you just know the corner three in OT was going down? Billups is great – he ain’t missing twice! (see previous entry)
Peep the highlights for Carmelo Anthony’s fine performance – pure shooting swishes with LeBron’s five bigass fingers in his eyes – comatose. And to see the smart young star being the first guy to look back and check to make sure LeBron doesn’t spike his breakaway dunk from behind. YH likes Carmelo Anthony and are so glad he’s back from injury.
In the other game – the Network’s so-called marquee matchup, big-market extravaganza – Jesus Shuttlesworth blew up the third quarter and the Celtics rolled L.A. to take a win in what was basically a meaningless game because Kobe wasn’t in it.
Ray Allen scored half his 24 in the third, including one that looked like he was shooting it from Jake Shuttlesworth’s prisonyard – he had to have been 26 feet from the rack.
Crazy thing in this game was the ending and Phil Jackson’s idiotic timeout that killed a trip to the free throw line for Lamar Odom. Odom makes it to the rack and the ball agonizingly rides the rim for a second, verging on an and1, before falling out. But it’s for naught, ’cause in an Alzheimer’s moment, Phil Jackson called a TO.
Even that’s cool, though, right? I mean, he’s X. Mr. Ten. The Zen Master. The Ten Zen. He’ll design the magic wonderment, right?
Nope. Phil Jackson designed the worst possible play for Fisher to attempt a game-winning three under heavy coverage.
wtf, Phil? It’s stuff like that that makes a lot of people doubt you and say your championships weren’t because of you, but because you have the best players – Jordan, Pippen, Shaq and Kobe.
It’s brain freeze like that that makes long-grumbling-underappreciated-Popovitch fans say you couldn’t coach your way out of the last two minutes of a paper bag.
Good games last night with Utah, OKC, Miami and the Lakes all picking up where they left off.
I hate the NBA.com’s Top Ten Videos – they seem to miss the best plays and prioritize their favorite – usually big market – plays. But sometimes they don’t even pic the best play from a given game of their own favorite teams!
In today’s top ten, they make a big deal out of Lamar Odom’s dish in the paint to Shannon Brown – which was basically Odom’s only choice, to dump the ball since he was off the floor – when in the same game Pau Gasol’s behind the back sweetness was the much better dime … didn’t even make the highlight reel. wtf?
In general they cater to the youth with dunkfest alley-oop central on those top ten reels, so here at Yesterday’s Hoops we are trying to take it away from all this dunk, dunk dunk, noise, noise, noise and toward more fundamental skills and team play.
That said, I really love the way the OKC Thunder are moving the ball and I am really happy for that sleepy town and those rural folk in their small market.
The Mavs did play Caron Butler for the first time, and probaby couldn’t get all units to gel so quick. They also seemed sort of hungover from the NBA All Star Weekend – airball by Nowitzki?
But it’s turning out to be tough to beat this Thunder team in Oklahoma and that’s great for the NBA and Oklahoma. Durantula is a joy to watch.
[by the way those idiots at Ball Don’t Lie keep spelling it wrong ‘Darantala’ – it’s supposed to rhyme with the spider, fools – think!]
I have been trying to figure out whom he reminds me of, it’ll come to me by season’s end. Just great to see Durant and Westbrook receive their Team USA jerseys last night. and the Rookie Harden? Just gonna get better.
Portland, which has been beleagured by an endless stream of injuries and off-court problems took it all out on the hapless Clippers with the speed and size that put the Blazers high on many pre-season prediction lists – ours, too.
Brandon Roy left last night’s game at the half with his lingering hamstring injury. But Martell Webster stepped it up big, with Rudy Fernandez’s continuingly energetic play and LaMarcus Aldridge’s 22 and 9 – they’re a great team to watch.
More exciting for Blazer fans is the Marcus Camby trade. I have always loved to hate Camby because he really is an underrated post player who has stung my teams at critical times. I have a feeling that for the Blazers he can focus on O boards and if so, the phalanx of capable 3-point shooters on this Blazer team are just waiting for that outlet. Dangerous playoff team, this.
The Pistons last night looked like the Pistons of the recent Championship era – big dunks by Ben Wallace, sick Rip Hamilton and Prince highlights and how about Jerebco? glad to see that. Villanueva and Gordon are gonna be deadly in the playoffs, look for them to improve.
Oh and Stephen Jackson, I am LMAO at seeing how your vaunted Bobcats never even led once against the Nets! at Home! ha!
Lakes manhandled the Warriors and have now won four in a row without Kobe, but the hottest team in the NBA right now is Utah, and last night’s spanking of the Rockets was exemplary. Jazz looked very, very, very good even with Boozer out.
Yesterday’s Hoops – a new site on men’s basketball – officially launches next Tuesday and we’re on the air February to June for the second half of the NBA, the NCAA Men’s Conference Tournaments, March Madness. In short, YH is all men’s hoops when it matters most.
We like Ice
and Elgin
cause we saw them play, live.
and we watched everybody from then through the ABA-NBA merger, the Spurs moving from east to west, Bird/McHale/Parish, Dr.J’s ring, the rookie Magic at center ftw, Showtime, Phi Slamma Jamma, Isaiah, Dumars and the Microwave, Ferry at the buzzer, Air Jordan, Hakeem the Dream, Fab Five Timeout at the Superdome, His Airness’ Return, Stockton to Malone, Tark’s Runnin Reb’s and on through Shaq, Timmy, the Black Mamba, Dwyane, CP3, Nowitzki, LeBron and on up to Brandon Jennings and Steph Curry today, because we love the game in its purest form.
We’ve listened to Jones, Riley, Daly, Jackson, Poppovitch, Sloan, Bickerstaff and Brown, to Wooden, Dean, Coach K, Knight, Calhoun, Boeheim, Massimino, Tarkanian, Thompson, Self and countless other tacticians.
so,
bookmark us and stay tuned for scintillating analysis of Yesterday’s Hoops.
Yesterday's Hoops 