On Monday, Stan Van Gundy was fired from his job as coach of the Orlando Magic. After the emotional tractor trailer jack-knifing that was this Magic season, this move was inevitable. It was a day of housecleaning for the franchise, as they also relieved general manager Otis Smith of his general management duties. Somewhere, no doubt, Dwight Howard ran through a wall, Kool-Aid Man-style, in delight.
In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Monday.
Russell Westbrook scored 28 points and Kevin Durant added 25 and 10 boards as the Thunder eliminated the Lakers and advanced to the Western Conference Finals with a 106-90 win. As he walked out of the building, Pau Gasol felt something heavy in his coat pocket. He reached in and found the hilt of a knife with a note wrapped around it. "Amigo," it said. "Mine has a blade. See you tonight. -K." He's probably just letting off steam, thought Gasol, who found himself sprinting.
Rust versus rest! You would be right to forget about the pregame narrative after watching the Thunder wax the Lakers last night, but outside of the Metta World Peace vs. James Harden story line, the dominant discussion leading into (and through the early stages of) Game 1 was how the Thunder would play after their nine-day break following their sweep of the Mavericks. Of course, the way the Thunder played might write off any rust-related discussion for a while, but it's an interesting question to ponder: Do NBA teams really get rusty after long postseason layoffs?
One way to make the case for rust is to absolutely fabricate a story about being rusty. That's what Shaquille O'Neal did during the pregame show, when he mentioned that his 1994-95 Magic team, the one that had beaten the Bulls during their playoff run, promptly received 17 days off before playing the Rockets in the Finals. There, a rusty Magic team couldn't compete with Houston in Game 1 and eventually, according to Shaq, lost the series because of it.
In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Tuesday.
Josh Hamilton hit four home runs — only the 16th time that feat has been accomplished in major league history — in a 10-3 win over the Orioles. "This seems like as good a time as any to start collapsing," said Orioles manager Buck Showalter, as his players nodded in agreement. "I mean, if that's not a sign … four home runs? Come on. See you in 2013. Maybe."
In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports over the weekend.
A chestnut colt named I'll Have Another won the 138th Kentucky Derby on Saturday. Nobody was happier about the win than Rex Ryan, who celebrated deep into the night until someone told him that the horse wasn't named after his personal food motto. In related news, golfer John Daly is suing the horse for copyright infringement.
The defending NBA champions are out of the playoffs. James Harden scored 29 points and made several late baskets as the Thunder swept the Mavericks with a 103-97 Game 4 win. When he saw the result, a therapist in L.A. sighed, realizing that Metta World Peace would spend the full hour of this week's session expounding on his theory that his vicious elbow from two weeks ago gave Harden superpowers, and that the only way to reverse them is to elbow him again.
In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Wednesday.
Angels hurler Jered Weaver threw MLB's second no-hitter of the season, striking out nine and walking one in a 9-0 win over the Twins. "Why couldn't you be perfect?" screamed Weaver's mother, who was actually Weaver himself wearing a wig and staring in a mirror. "You're nothing! You'll always be nothing!" Man, Jered Weaver is complicated.
Absent from that list of moments are just two first-round series — Spurs-Jazz and Pacers-Magic. And while the Utah–San Antonio series features a guy whose nickname is “The Big Fundamental” and a team from a place where liquor laws basically make it almost impossible for residents to get drunk, the fact that Indiana and Orlando have zero combined NBA championships and zero combined household names on their playoff rosters is why it is likely the first-round series that NBA fans care about the least.
Because the Pacers-Magic series doesn’t exactly demand your attention and because they played Monday night at the same time as the Heat and Knicks (and they played on NBA TV no less), my guess is that only 12 people watched Game 2 between Indiana and Orlando.
Luckily for you, I was one of those 12, and I’m here to give you an idea of what you missed by pointing out seven things I noticed while watching.
In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Monday.
Dwyane Wade scored 25 points as the Heat took a 2-0 lead on the Knicks with a 104-94 win. After the game, sources report that Amar'e Stoudemire punched the glass casing surrounding a fire extinguisher, suffering lacerations that may keep him out for the rest of the playoffs. The incident reportedly began with the Knicks forward sitting in the locker room muttering crazily to himself: "What stops Heat? To know what stops heat, I must know what makes heat. Heat comes from flames. Flames come from fire. Fire must be extinguished. FIRE MUST BE EXTINGUISHED! AHHHHHHH *sound of shattering glass* AHHHH, MY HAND!" Following the incident, Knicks forward Steve Novak quietly picked up the fire extinguisher, whispered, "He was right — fire must be extinguished," and went off looking for Burnie, the Heat mascot.
In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Thursday.
Notes kept by Arkansas athletic director Jeff Long during his investigation show that former head coach Bobby Petrino's relationship with his assistant began with a kiss over lunch last fall. "Hi, I'm Bobby Petrino," the coach said immediately afterward. "Thanks for not being weird when I kissed you just now."
In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Thursday.
Detroit's Austin Jackson got the first walk-off hit of the season, an RBI single in the ninth as the Tigers beat the Red Sox 3-2. "Wait a second," slurred inactive Boston pitcher Josh Beckett, staggering out of the dugout to confront the umpire. "Thassa endofa game? Wha inning isst?" Luckily, he stumbled and fell before he could reach home plate, where he spent the next 20 minutes mumbling "you think you're better'n me?" to a piece of grass.
J.P Arencibia hit a three-run homer in the 16th inning as the Blue Jays beat the Indians 7-4 in the longest season opener in MLB history. The few thousand fans who stayed for the entire game — again, between the Blue Jays and Indians — remain quarantined inside Cleveland's Progressive Field this morning as experts check for signs of contagious insanity.
In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Wednesday.
Bill Parcells said he would be a "hypocrite" if he didn't consider the Saints' offer to coach for a year in Sean Payton's absence. He never really explained what he meant by "hypocrite," but most experts agree that it has something to do with his hilarious yet poignant blog IllCoachAnywhere.joomla.com.
In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Monday.
Randy Moss is back in football. The 35-year-old receiver signed a one-year deal with the 49ers after working out for Jim Harbaugh. Sources reported that the workout went really well, except for an awkward moment near the end when Harbaugh shoved Moss to the ground while shaking hands, and Moss responded by aggressively mooning him.
Faith in each team’s current construction as they move forward. Stan Van Gundy’s comments after his team’s 100-84 loss against Charlotte on Tuesday had a strange sense of both reason and reservation. "Our guys are satisfied that we came in with the third-best record in the East and the fifth-best record in the league," Van Gundy said. "They're satisfied with that. I don't think there's any push to be better or any push to be great. If there is, it doesn't show up in games."
"This is who we are. Whether we change that or not, I don't know."
Here's the scenario: A team's MVP-caliber player goes down, leaving room in the spotlight for one of his teammates to finally shine. Nobody believed in him before, but, game by game, he's changing our minds.
Obviously, the MVP-caliber player I'm talking about is Carmelo Anthony and the ascendant teammate is Jeremy Lin, right? Obviously not! No, for today's lesson, class, we're talking about the reigning MVP, Derrick Rose, his spasming lower back, and the Eve Harrington to his Margo Channing, none other than Luol Deng.
In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Tuesday.
Linside the Air Canada Centre lin Toronto, the lindomitable Jeremy Lin linitiated the offense. Raptors defender Jose Calderon had a linkling — lindeed, a lincredibly strong linference — that a linstantaneous drive was linevitable. "He's not so linventive," Calderon linsisted, linternalizing his lincessant doubt. Linstead, Lin lincapacitated the linattentive Calderon with a lintrepid game-winning 3-pointer. "Linsubordinate lincorrigible lingrate!" a lincensed Amar'e Stoudemire linsisted, lindulging in linvective and linnuendo. "How linteresting!" linterjected the linoffensive Canadians. "Linspired!" Coach Mike D'Antoni lintimated to his lintermediaries. "A LINCANDESCENT, LINVIGORATING SHOT TO LINVOKE GHOSTS, LINCITE RIOTS, AND LINFLAME THE MASSES!" shouted the announcer, and everyone was like, whoa, dude, enough.
