The Big MAtch-up
Date: Jan 21st, 2004 2:36:15 am - Subscribe
Mood: sleepy
Alrightie Ladies and gentlemen, there's some good news: the network here is finally in place, and thus, I have a little "surprise" for y'all... even though I should be sleeping already (like, 3 hours or so), we'll be going "live" otoTte American Airlines Center for the match "you've all been waiting for," namely the Dallas MAvericks versus the New Jersey Nets! Fasten your seatbelts, this should be one heck of a ride!
Well, still several minutes before the game starts, and I'm currently watching stats roll by of Cleveland versus Seattle, it's a tight game, but I think that the Cavaliers might not have the strength to play this out, without Ilgauskas and Lebron James.
At the moment there the score is 57-56 in favor of the Cavs, but we're gonna leave that game pretty soon.
Slight update, Cavs pulled in front by 3 points, 59-56. Now, let's see what other games are going on.
Indiana are leading Detroit (who beat San Antonio on MOnday) by 4 points, Jermaine O'Neal leading the scoring with 16. Also, the Celtics are getting wiped out AGAIN, this time (get this) by the Miami Heat, of all teams. Well, they are playing away, but still, the Heat! Jesus.
Two more minutes before the game in Dallas officially starts.
I'd like to point out one thing about the Cavs game (who've scored another 2-pointer to extend the lead to 5): they wouldn't be in this game if it weren't for Carlos Boozer. This guy has gotten 20 points so far, and 9 rebounds, so he's sort of trying to fill the gap while Lebron is gone, thing is, with Ilgauskas also out, how are they gonna keep this out until the final buzzer? I wouldn't dare to speculate. I do stand by my belief though, the Cavs pon't win this one.
Meanwhile, the Pacers are starting to put some distance between them an dthe Pistons, O'Neal now at 20 points. The Celtics meanwhile are struggling to get back in their game against the Heat (both teams aren't scoring a lot, if I may say so).
The Cavs seem hell-bent on crashing my predictions, they're now 7 points ahead.
MAvs-Nets should be starting any second now; I'm waiting patiently.
The Supersonics have gone level with the Cavs again, 63-63.
And the Sonics go in front! 67-65. Carlos Boozer made another shot, now at 22.
The Celtics are closing in on the Heat, finally. Pierce has 14 points at the moment...
And we're still waiting for the MAvs and Nets to square off.
YES! We're on! MAvericks have cored a 2-pointer already. Let's see who made it.
It's now 4-2 Mavs. Josh Howard and Michael Finley both got a shot in.
Wow! 3-pointer by JASON KIDD! Nets lead by 7-6. This seems like a typical MAvs game.
Nowitzki got his first shot of the game, by the way.
Holy crap, a two-pointer by Jefferson and Jason Kidd have brought it to 11-8, Nets favor.
Josh Howard now has 4 points, and Steve Nash (now returned) got his first two points. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH WALKER?! He has tried three shots already, missed them all. Christ.
Antoine Walker (who just missed a 3-pointer as well) made one free throw so far.
Dallas now level at 11-11.
Jefferson made another couple shots. Score is now 16-13 for the NEts. Grr.
Dirk Nowitzki scored another 2 points as well (that's why the mavs are at 13)
We're about halfway through the first quarter, and this game does indeed look interesting.
Argh, JAson Collins with his first hit of the game, 18-13.
Correction, it wasn' tNowitzki who was at 4, it was Steve Nash.
Score now is 20-15... come on MAvs...
The culprit of this shot was MArtin.
This time Nowitzki scored. Finley's not shooting very welle ither, he's 1-6 at the moment.
STEEEEEEEEEEVE NAAAAAAASH! 2-pointer! 20-17!
Steve Nash and Josh Howard give the Mavs a lead of 1 point. I like how Howard has been doing so far.
2:15 remaining in the 1st quarter. The Mavs need to try and get this quarter in the bag.
Just looked up Howard's shooting stats, he's 3-3, not bad (considering he's a rookie as well).
With 16 seconds to go, the Mavs lead by 27 to 24. Latest Mav points were by Travis Best, a free throw by Antawn Jamison, and a freethrow and 2-pointer b Dirk Nowitzki.
And that's the final score in this quarter, not bad.
The big hitter is of course Richard Jefferson, and the Nets know it, JEfferson has scored 9 points for them already. The others are doing pretty good too, Jason Kidd scoring about 50% at the moment.
Steve Nash is currently leading the Mavs with 8 points, Dirk Nowitzki close behind with 7.
Gah, stupid mistake, remember when I said Nowitzki had drained a free throw? It was a 3-pointer, stupid you can't tell with this scoring system. If anyone can figure that one out for me... heh. So, there you go, first three for the MAvs.
Off we go again! Second quarter has begun.
And BAGN! MAvericks added another 4 points to their lead, scorers were Antawn Jamison and Antoine Walker.
9 minutes to go. Score is 31-24.
Lucious Harris of the Nets scored a 2-pointer to close the gap to 31-26.
Michael Finley and some Nets player exchanged shots, score now is 33-28.
Danny Fortson made 1 of 2 free throws, so the score is now 34-28.
7:50 remaining in this quarter.
Michael Finley made both a 2- and 3-pointer. Score (get this) is now 37-32. Don't blame me, it's the weird SI.com scoring system, it doesn't make sense, but whatever.
Dirk nowitzki... 2-2 from beyond the arc, and he got another 2-pointer. 40-34.
5:45 remaining. Whew! Hectic!
Hmm, let's see. Fortson scored a 2-pointer, so did Nash, and he dumped a three on top of that 45-36. MAvericks are going strong.
NOWITZKI! Another 2 points on his tally.
Nash drains a single free throw. 48-36 for the MAvericks...
My goodness! Nowitzki is slamming 'em down tonight like it's nothing. 3-3 from beyond the arc, another 2-pointer as well, he's now at 15. 51-36 for the MAvericks.
2:53 remaining, and this game already looks played, too bad this is basketball, or that might've been true.
30 seconds ofo nothingness. Nice to have it calm for a little.
Antawn Jamison got his second 2-pointer of the game, New Jersey answered on the other end. 53-38 is the score.
Mavericks are currently (-9 from beyond the arc.
34 seconds to go, another point, Mavs, and you'll be good to go.
Antawn Jamison drained one of two free throws. 54-39.
Halftime score: Mavericks 54, Nets 41. An overall impressive eprformance by the Mavericks, who were able to limit the Nets's ability to score significantly.
My appologies, but I just don't think I can continue, I'm just too damn tired. May the Mavericks crush those Nets, they're well on their way of doing so.
Good night all.
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Oh, Boredom where have you been...
Date: Jan 18th, 2004 8:01:15 pm - Subscribe
Mood: blah
This weekend has been uneventful as any. I'm still nto able to bring myself to do any homework at all, so there.
I have been really ticked off about this Israel ambassador damaging that installation in a Stockholm museum. You just don't do that, whatever your opinion is about the installation's message. That message is something of your own interpretation, that's the quality o fit. It's freedom of speech, and so the Israelis have proven once more that freedom of speech in their country about the situation they're in at the moment is somthing that's simply not done, or accepted for that matter. Mind you, I dodn't think the Palestinians are any better, or rather I should rephrase that one.
I have no quarrel with the Israeli or Palestinian population, but I do get a serious headache when I hear the Israeli and Palestinian governments argue on and on about things they cannot solve by themselves, since they're just too radical on either side. What they all need is more socially-oriented governments that are actually willing to LISTEN to each other, instead of drilling bullet holes in each other's heads.
Hammas and other radical groups don't mind this at all, of course, the mor eunstable the country is, the better. If someone tries to stabilise it, bomb 'em! Hah!
This is all so depressing.
And then there's the democrats in the US. I personally think Wesley Clark would be the best to take it to bush, and whatever the candidat, I hope they DO take it to Bush. This farce has lasted long enough, thank you very much. I don't intend to offend people, but that is what I personally think. Bush is single-handedly estroying his own country,a nd taking the rest of the world with it. Give him four more years, and hey, maybe we might have nuclear war after all! Sure, it's not likely, but with Bush in office, nothing's certain.
At least there's still the NBA to keep my spirits up. The MAvericks have done pretty well, considering their situation. They lost Steve Nash in the match against the Nuggets, and won it by 3 points. Then, they beat the Trail Blazers by a margin of four. No big wins to be sure, but they were important AWAY wins, and the Mavericks haven't had a lot of those. Nowitzki and Finley performed miracles in yesterday's game, scoring 32 and 33 points respectively.
Meanwhile, the Lakers found it in them to beat the Clippers (after losing to them earlier this week, I believe), and so trying to get back. as I'm typing this, the Spurs are ahead ten points in their game in boston. I can't help but be impressed with the Spurs of late. They were in a bit of a slump early in the season, but they seem to have recovered nicely, contending with the Timberwolves (another slight surprise) at the top of the Midwest, the Mavericks trying to catch up.
Next big game for the MAvs is against New Jersey (!) on Tuesday, I truly hope Steve Nash will be ready for that game, the Mavs really need him. Jason Kidd will be hard-pressed to show the MAvericks what he's made of, and I'm not questioning the fact that he will, he's both an amazing assist specialist, but he can score, oh yes he can.
Another player that consistantly impressed me so far is Tracy cGrady. Teh Magic don't win often, but almost every time, T-Mac is there to hammer down big points, it's not uncommon of him to score 40+ points. No doubt about it, without T-Mac, the Magic wouldn't even be winning any games.
I've decided to write some commentary ont he Spurs game I'm following at the moment. tim duncan hasn't performed really well up 'till now. He is 3 for 9 from the field, and 3 for 6 from the free throw line at this stage. The CEltics are still trailing by 10 (58-4
. We're halfway through the third quarter at the moment.
5:23 remaining in the third. Still going steady, now 60-50.
3:54 remaining. Still going steady (Jesus), it's now 64-54, Spurs' favor.
That last point was scored by Duncan, now 4-10 from the field.
Whew, Tony Parker has really been impressive so far. He scored 8 of his 9 2-pointers, and 2 of 2 threes, two-of-two free throws to round it off. Nice going.
Paul Pierce hasn't done that well so far (compared to Tony Parker, that is), though he is outperforming Tim Duncan, that has to be said. 
There seems to be a timeout right now, Celtics have closed to 8 points.
2:39 to go, and the Spurs have jumped forward again, now leading with 11 points. (67-56)
This last point, by the way, was by Tim Duncan, though he missed one earlier, so he's now 5-12 from the field.
47 seconds to go, and the Spurs are really taking it to the Celtics, the score now is 71-56.
22 seconds to go in the third quarter. Celtics have come back 2 points to 71-58.
Okay. 3rd Quarter =over. the spurs have done well to preserve their lead, though compared to the earlier quarters, the scoring was pretty low (or rather, the first quarter, that is, the spurs got 32 in that one).
Well, while we're waiting for the 4th quarter to begin, I might say that the Celtics haven't looked that impressive, especially Paul Pierce should be ablle to do more, I guess he's having a bit of an off-day. Fortunately fo the Celtics, so is Duncan, but Tony Parker is substituting him nicely.
While we're waiting, there's something I don't really understand about the stat recording in NBA games, it seems that whenever someone scores a 3-pointer, it only counts for 1. Tony Parker, for example, has 2 three-pointers, as I pointed out earlier, but still he only scored 20 points in total, instead of 24. What's up with that?
Okay, gettin' ready to roll again!
50 seconds in the fourth, and both teams have scored 2 points so far.
Whew! 3-pointer by the Spurs! Now if I could only figure out who the hell scored it.
80-62 for the SPURS! They're really kicking behind here!
10 minuets left.
Tim Duncan now 6-13.
9:15 to go. 84-64 to go. What a mess for the Celtics.
Turkoglu (try saying that five times in a row) finally scored a two-pointer! 86-66.
7:10. 88-68.
Another two-pointer for Turkoglu.
6:30. 90-70. Nesterovic is leading the Spurs with 23.
5:10. 95-71, and the Spurs CONTINUE to dominate. I've never seen the Celtics do so badly in a while.
Charlie Ward has done pretty well in the ending stages of the game. He's got 4 of 4 2-pointers and 2-2 3-pointers.
4:10 remaining. Score: 98-77. This is an impossible gap for the Celtics, and if they do bridge it, you can call me a retard, okay?
3:38 remaining. Score is now 100-77. Doink.
Just a note here that the Spurs have scored 29 points already, with about 3:30 to go, so they can easily make this their best quarter of the game. Quite impressive.
Ah, we're in that timeout phase again. Bloody hell.
2:22 to go. 103-81. The Spurs've done it, this is their best quarter.
1:42 remaining. 106-86, the Celtics ediging back some points, but to no avail.
The Spurs aren't even playing with their hard hitters now. I can't say it enough, if they can keep up this form, then they're definitely a force to reckon with, and they're playing away.
22 seconds remaining! 109-90, the Spurs have won! really.
12 seconds. The Celtics are now at 91. Spurs unchanged.
The game is OVER! Final score: 109-92. Spurs WIN!
Most points are for Nesterovic with 23, he also got most rebounds (12). Assists winner is Turkoglu with 7.
All-around, a big win for the Spurs, watch out Mavericks. :S
Cheers y'all.
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Must... sleep... now...
Date: Jan 16th, 2004 6:29:18 pm - Subscribe
Mood: grumpy
I suppose I should've known staying up 'till 3:10 in the morning would've backfired on me, but I got out alright, though now I wouldn't mind crawling in bed early (it's almost 19:30 here at the moment).
Anyway, back to yesterday. A couple of semi-interesting things happened. Our religion teacher made a grand fool of himself, again. And some of us too. He handed out a test about anti-conception methods, those who scored less than 14/20 would have to bake a cake. I got 16, thankfully. Some of the statements included:
- A single condom can be used more than once.
- The morning-after pill is only meant for emergencies. (Well duh, it's kind of obvious wouldn't you say?)
After all this (resulting in four cakes needing baking), we got ANOTHER test, this one more obscure. We had to write down terms ranging from orgasm to masturbation to vaginism (what on Earth is that anyway, if that's a religion, I'm commiting suicide. Good thing it probably isn't.) We had to write suitable descriptions for all of these terms. Thankfully, the bell saved us from total humiliation.
After the noon break, we had our weekly media class. Media is a nice subject to have, it's not exactly the most exciting one to sit through, but it's thought-provoking to say the least. We've been watching Anna, a Russian movie depicting the life of a young girl and her father as they live through the end of the Cold War (these people actually exist, all of the footage in the movie is real). While the movie is interesting, it's (err, guess) all in Russian, and without sight one cannot read the subtitles, so it's pretty much thumb-twisting for me.
Of course I can hum with the Russian national anthem if I feel like it, but it's kind of ... strange to do that all the time.
PE today sucked, well it didn't reallys uck, it just wasn't interesting at all. Regular fitness stuff, nothing exciting. Bad thing is, we're stuck with that until AT LEAST mid-February. Joy.
Our English teacher was absent again today. What the hell is up with this guy anyway, his nerves seem to fry at random. This time, we were stuck with our history teacher. As usual, he couldn't teach us anything, because he had work to do (it's like this every single time, which isn't too bad). Don't get me wrong, I like history, but I don't think I would've ben able to pay a lot of attention on a Friday afternoon, with barely four hours of sleep.
Plans for tonight include, well, not much. Playing around with my Genesis emulator a bit, I'm kinda hooked to REvenge of Hinobi at the moment. Go me. Go ahead, flame me, I probably deserve it. 
And, because it'd be uncharacteristic of me not to, I'll just end this by saying I really do hope the MAvs can haul a win out of Denver tonight, they really need it. At least they're third in the Midwest now, but they really need to start creeping up on San Antonio and Minesota.
The other big game tonight is, without a doubt, Sacramento versus the Lakers. The Kings have been in outstanding form throughout the season, moreso than the Lakers, and I like Stojakovich, their top scorer. I hope they beat the Lakers square, they have home advantage too.
Spurs fac
Right, signing off now, not much else I can bother you guys with. Take care.
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God... damn!
Date: Jan 15th, 2004 8:53:43 pm - Subscribe
Mood: anxious
The MAvericks, what the hell are the MAvericks doing?! They needed TWO overtimes to finally wipe the floor with Philadelphia. Well, it has to be said, the MAvs didn't shoot as well as they should have, especially Antoine Walker. He hasn't been performing that well lately, and last night's game was no exception. His shooting was, well, quite bad. Even Nowitzki didn't shoot as well as he usually does, especially seeing as he had so many attempts to score. He did score at the important moments though, and Michael Finley did quite nicely (30+ points).
And then there was Glenn Robinson. Why is it that whenever someone faces off against the Mavs, they suddenly get insane points. Robinson had 34.
Well, at least the Spurs lost, to the Timberwolves no less, they're ona roll right now.
Well, at least they won, but the Nuggets will be difficult, even after they succumbed to the Lakers last night, who seem to be back into form (oh dear...)
I could write a lot more, but it'll have to wait 'till tomorrow, my brother needs the internet. No network here yet, sadly. Take care all, and I'll talk about something else tomorrow, no basketball then.
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Tough break for Mavericks
Date: Jan 14th, 2004 2:03:05 pm - Subscribe
Mood: good
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: The Mavericks are sfacin some of the toughest matches this and next week. Tonight they're facing off against the 76ers, a match they should win, but with Iverson back on his feet you can never be sure. Then there's an away game in Denver, which I'm not too hopeful the Mavs will win, and the last game of this week is in Portaant, another winnable game, but by no means an easy one.
Next week is going to be interesting. First there's the match against the Nets (thank God it's at home), and then... the LAkers come to the American Airlines Center. The Lakers have been somewhat weakened due to Bryant's shoulder injury, and Shaq's absence, but I believe Shaq will be there for the encounter, and perhaps Bryant as well. Let's just hope the Mavs get out of that one alive.
The Mavericks seem to really make a point of the philosophy that "you sure can score against us, but you can't outscore us." They demonstrated this on MOnday night in New York, but this is by no means a solid philosophy, and if anything the Mavericks might want to look into a more solid defense. The fact that Marbury got 38 points that evening is proof enough, I believe. I do think (hope) they can take out the 76ers, if they can keep up the great shooting and rebounding work they've demonstrated lately (well, not against the pacers, but you get the idea).
Anyway, as for what's been happening to me lately, well, I'm still more or less stuck with that cold, though it seems to be going away gradually. School has been outright boring the last few days, though there were some notable exceptions.
Psychology must've been one of them. Not because of the class itself, that was quite boring (we had a student teacher that day, and she didn't look overtly confident, though she did well enough). The thing that intrigued me was a test we did to determine some traits of ourselves. Apparently, I am psychotic. I'm not certain whether I should be proud of that, but I've decided that it could be a lot worse. I'd rather be a psycho than a neurotic, annoying idiot. So, psychotic it is.
I have some reading to do today, mostly concerning that little trip we're taking to Brussels in March, so that we can visit the European Parliament there. It's not exciting stuff to read, but interesting enough.
Now, I might as well be off, I'd like to rant about something, but I can't think of anything, so I might as well quit wasting your time. Stay alive!
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