Monthly Archives: March 2012

A New Savior in Denver

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In the past six months the sports world has been overwhelmed with two triumphant stories of individual athletes who defied the odds. The most notable coming from the NFL in Tim Tebow and most recently in the NBA with Jeremy Lin. Each has caused a media frenzy that I don’t think any of us have seen before. Tebow Mania, Bronco’s Savior, Linsanity, Super Lintendo. The list of puns and corny titles go on. But the two “Cinderella” stories have since died down. We all know what happened to Tebow when he stepped foot on the turf at Gillette Stadium in the playoffs and the hype around Jeremy Lin has since settled down, as the Knicks have been on a skid. But once again, Tebow finds himself in the headlines in a much different way.

At the end of the Bronco’s season, John Elway announced that Tebow would be the team’s starting QB heading into next year. Sorry Timmy, but I don’t exactly see that happening any more. With Peyton Manning now heading to Denver, I think even Tebow knew to start packing his bags. In a way, you gotta feel bad for the guy. Then again, it’s pretty funny. Tebow spent all season winning games in the most unlikely ways, gaining an immense fan base in no time, and redefining the phrase “becoming a household name”. But it has to be rough with all the progress he’s made and what he did for the Denver organization to be put in a position to expectedly get ousted in a heartbeat by Manning. Although painful, I’m sure Tebow won’t even argue with his replacement, I mean who could? Don’t get me wrong, I can’t hate on Tebow. He’s clearly a good guy and he showed he could win (some games) but the Pat’s certainly put him in his place in the playoffs, so no hard feelings. Nothing definite has happened with his place in Denver or potential trade, but I’m sure once things begin panning out as to where he will end up, Tebow will once again be the sole topic of ESPN.

Snowman

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The B’s put an absolute beatdown on the Toronto Maple Leafs last night in more ways than one. Four goals in the first, three in the second and one in the third equaled a snowman and showed the fans that this team may have just got its offense clicking again. Over the last few games each line has been playing well. They are causing turnovers, supporting the puck, and capitalizing on the other team’s mistakes by putting the puck in the net. Rolston is starting to get in sync with Big Z at the point on the powerplay and it is paying dividends. Pouliot and Caron have been playing their asses off lately and both have been showing up on score sheet as a result.

In addition to the scoreboard beatdown, Milan Lucic handed old sparring partner Mike Komisarek one uppercut after another in an all too familiar fashion. It was good to see that 6’4” 240lbs Komisarek is still as soft as he was when he was with Montreal.

 

Let’s see if the Bruins can keep this thing rolling. Tim Thomas is playing with confidence, the offense may have just lit a spark under itself, and they have a little motivation now with Ottawa seriously in the picture (a wake up call when they passed the Bruins in the standings).

Gronk’s Going Viral! (Again)

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For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, Patriots star Tight End Rob Gronkowski has made a YouTube video to make his case for why he should be on the cover of Madden 2013. I guess he couldn’t care less about the Madden curse.. He is going up against one player from every other team, but also going up against Wes Welker.  Anyways, this video is hilarious and just describes Gronk in full.  Take a look!

Finally…Center Grades

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Player

Points

Rebounds

Assists

Blocks

Steals

+/-

PER

Kevin Garnett

15.1

8.3

2.6

1.12

.94

+136

20.4

Up until last week, KG would have been placed with the power forwards, but with the injury to Jermaine O’Neal, KG has been moved to center and thrived. KG doesn’t have the quickness that he used to in his prime but understands maybe better than anyone else in the NBA how to use his body defensively and to be in the right position.

20120308-120538.jpgPositives: By all accounts KG, has not Pierce or Rondo has been the Celtics best player this season. He has the highest PER on the team as well as the best +/-. As I said up above, KG just understands the game. He is still quicker than most centers and gets to good position defensively and the five game win streak was correlated to KG being switched to center. His jumper from outside is still pure as ever. He stretches the floor just like Bass does, and allows room for Rondo, Ray, and Paul to drive the lane. He is still the heart of the Celtics and he brings the intensity to every single game. Last season according to Synergy, KG was the second best defensive power forward in the game, behind Taj Gibson.

Negatives: He has lost the quickness and the ability to jump that he had as a youngster and it shows on both the offensive and defensive ends of the floor. Quicker players just go right by him as he helplessly looks on. Also, KG doesn’t seem to want or feel the need to box out. If he stuck a body on some players he would have saved at least 30 offensive rebounds this season for the Celtics. His knees are also a constant worry for the Celtics and his minutes need to be monitored.

Grade: B+

Player

Points

Rebounds

Assists

Blocks

Steals

+/-

PER

Jermaine O’Neal

5.0

5.4

.4

1.72

.32

+26

9.7

Positives: Jermaine O’Neal is the rare NBA player who has completely transformed his game. Long gone is the high-flying center that would sky for dunks on one end and have highlight reel blocks on the other. He still blocks shots now, but it is completely due to his great positioning and timing instead of athletic ability. He is also the rare player who has the ability to not only block shots, but be in position to take charges. Before his injury Jermaine was up and away leading the NBA in charges taken this year. He is also one of the Celtics best rebounders and provides much needed big man depth for the team.

Negatives: His offensive game has much to be desired. He has a decent 10-15 foot jumper, but outside of that, does not bring much else to the table. He is constantly hurt and his latest wrist injury, may keep him out for the rest of the season. Poor guy, because his body just doesn’t seem to be able to hold up anymore. On top of the wrist, his knees are farther gone than KG’s.

Due to the uncertainty with his wrist for the rest of the season. The Celtics may look to cut Jermaine O’Neal to open up space to sign another big man for the playoff run. They also were looking to trade his expiring contract. While I love Jermaine and his passion, I am not sure that the Celtics are going to have him on the roster past this season.

Jermaine O’Neal Update

Grade: C+

Player

Points

Rebounds

Assists

Blocks

Steals

+/-

PER

Greg Stiemsma

1.7

2.3

.3

.89

.25

-82

11.1

Positives: The steamer has been a fun player to watch this year. Burdened with big expectations after a big preseason, Stiemsma has played well in some situations and looked lost in others. He is averaging almost a block every 9 minutes and has shown great defensive ability. He also has a better than expected 10-15 foot jump shot that he’ll hit every once in a while.

Negatives: He is not always ready to play and will sometimes just look lost or confused out there. He takes chances defensively going for the big block and can look silly out there. Other than a few jumpers, he is extremely limited offensively and has terrible hands. You gotta love the steamer though.

Grade: C

Power Forward Grades

Small Forward Grades

Shooting Guard Grades

Point Guard Grades

 

Throwback Thursday

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Here’s a new addition to the Boston Sports Blog…Throwback Thursdays. Each Thursday we’ll post a few historic events in Boston sports or other interesting events that occurred at this time years ago. Enjoy.

1939 – Boston Bruins won the Prince of Wales Trophy, clinching the NHL regular season championship. Marked the first time the trophy was awarded for this reason.

1954 – NBA raised the basket from 10 ft to 12 ft for an exhibition game between the Minneapolis Lakers and the Milwaukee Hawks.

1955 – Baseball commissioner Ford Frick said that he was in favor of legalizing the classic spitball.

1982 – The NCAA college basketball tournament selections were televised for the first time.

1995 – Dominique Wilkins of the Boston Celtics became the ninth NBA player to achieve 25,000 career points.

And why not use this post to give a little old school tribute to the B’s in the video below.

 

76er’s Blow Out C’s

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After winning five in a row after the Celtics didn’t seem to 20120308-092507.jpgshow up at all against the 76er’s. The Celtics were coming off two overtime games in a row and it clearly showed against the 76er’s. After starting out the game down 14-11. The 76er’s opened up the game with a 30-10 run off of turnovers and bad transition defense by the Celtics. During the run the Celtics shot 4-27 from the floor and were just missing easy open jumpers. The 76er’s were led by Evan Turner who turned his first start into 26 points on 11-19 shooting. He also grabbed 8 defensive rebounds and was huge in starting fast break after fast break for the 76er’s who ran the Celtics into the ground. The rest of the scoring for the 76ers was pretty even as Elton Brand had 18 and Lou Williams had 15.

The Celtics were led by Pierce with 16 and Garnett with 12, honestly not much to talk about the Celtics tonight. The offense was some of the worst that I had seen in the time with the big 3. The 33 first half points were the least, since Danny Ainge traded for Garnett and Ray Allen. I’m going to attribute this loss to some old legs playing a back-to-back after an overtime game.

The Celtics play the Blazers Friday night at the Garden at 7:30.

Extra Notes:

Celtics bench got a lot of play tonight, only Marquis Daniels played under 13 minutes for the bench as Doc played all 13 players; Ray Allen was 0-5 from the field and had his only 2 points from the line; Celtics only had 11 turnovers overall most of them coming during the run, and then 2 more by Marquis late; Tony Battie and Craig Brackins also started but only played 15 minutes total.

Avery Bradley Alert:

Avery had one big highlight of the night for the Celtics, stuffing Jrue Holiday’s last second shot to the ground and leading a fast break which ended up in the hands of Brandon Bass for the dunk. Other than that he was pretty quiet from the field shooting 2-3 and making both of his free throws for 6 points on the night. Lou Williams did put a fade away three right in Avery’s eye; I’m not sure how he could have played better defense, pretty great shot by Williams.

 

Can UConn Strike Twice?

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Since UConn has been my favorite team since I can remember, I figured it would be a good idea to write an article since everyone is talking about their back-to-back wins, just as they did last year en route to a national championship.  They ran over Depaul, which they should every day of the week, and then barely snuck by West Virginia yesterday in overtime.  This was due largely in part to Shabazz Napier’s 26 points and Jeremy Lamb’s 22 points.  Luckily for the Huskies, WVU only shot 34.7% from the field.  They did, however, out-rebound UConn 40-24.

Next up is their toughest test.  They will be taking on #1 in the Big East Syracuse. Syracuse has been chosen by many, including me, to win the Final Four.  As much as I do not think UConn can beat the Orange, I will not count them out completely because I began to do that last year and we all know how that turned out. At the beginning of February, UConn got blown out of the water by them 85-67.  However, by the end of the month, they only lost to them 71-69.  I think it is possible for them to stir up an upset but is going to be tough.  I mean this is the same team who has lost against Providence and Rutgers, both awful teams.  Maybe we will be lucky enough to see another 5 overtime game like last season.   Unfortunately, the Huskies are missing one key component from last year’s team—Kemba Walker.

 

Peyton Manning Press Conference Reaction

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LeBron James take notes, Peyton Manning just showed you how to make yourself a legend in a place after your gone. He left with his head held high, while reminiscing on all of the good times he had with the Colts and Irsay. Instead of throwing the Colts organization under the bus, Manning went out of his way to praise the Colts, Irsay.

The Colts keep saying they want the best for Peyton. They are saying that they are doing a favor for Peyton by releasing him because they didn’t have the pieces that they had in 1998. I mean if they had the same pieces in 1998, would they have cut Peyton then to save him the trouble. There not doing it for the cap, there not doing it because Andrew Luck is the first pick of the draft, but because they want what is best for Peyton. Yeah right.

To me Irsay is the quintessential girl who says one thing to your face, and then would go behind your back to say things to other people or in this case the media. After all that Irsay has said, I found it ridiculous that he started crying and said it was over. To me it seemed like a total PR move, people were offended at the way the Colts had been treating Peyton so far and everything about the conference from the Colts point of view went perfect. During the question and answer section, Irsay stood next to Manning awkwardly while Manning was asked questions. It was awkward and only served the purpose to show how sad that Irsay looked.

Back to Peyton, I couldn’t have been more impressed than he left me. There’s many ways that Peyton could have handled it, but he carried it with class and a level of sophistication rarely seen any more in sports. Peyton said in the press conference “the contract and the money were never a factor”, which was not true at all. The Colts by doing this today avoid paying 28 million bonus. Within the next few moments, Irsay was talking about how it would save the Colts cap room.


The biggest thing was the way that Peyton connected with his fans. He mentioned how he is separated from the Colts but not from the great city of Indianapolis. He told them how he loved being their quarterback. There was no mention of taking his talents anywhere. He’s not going to South Beach; he is going to keep working out in Indianapolis. He even went to say that he had not been able to think about playing for another team yet. He showed the blueprint on how to leave a team, it was the opposite of the decision, maybe because it was made for him, but the openness and vulnerability shown was good to see in the business-driven world of sports.


How Not to Treat a Legend

Bruins Squeak By Leafs; Not So Fast on Turco

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UPDATE: Marty Turco has officially joined the Boston Bruins after being claimed off of waivers. Minutes after the waiver deadline passed, Turco joined the team on the ice for practice, even staying an extra 30 minutes after the team was done to get some extra work in.

The Bruins barely held on to beat the Maple Leafs last night in Toronto. The Bruins had a two goal lead in the 3rd period thanks to young guns Tyler Seguin and Jordan Caron who each netted two goals. However, Toronto pulled within one thanks a Mikhail Grabovski snap shot. In the waning seconds of the game, the Bruins were able to maintain the lead despite a 6 on 4 advantage for Leafs. The effort stopped the two game skid they were on and gave them a much needed win. Thomas had 25 saves on 29 shots, claiming he is on a little bit of a bad luck streak right now. He has definitely not had some bounces go his way; speaking like a Sox fan, let’s hope he gets his bad luck out of the way now, so it’s all good luck for the playoffs.

Jordan Caron Jordan Caron #38 of the Boston Bruins on the ice against the Philadelphia Flyers at the Wells Fargo Center on December 1, 2010 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

In other news, the Bruins and GM Peter Chiarelli are not overly optimistic that Marty Turco will join the club. Chiarelli put the odds at 50-50. The reason for this is because Turco has to clear waivers before the Bruins can sign him, and there are other teams out there who would benefit from Turco’s services during the stretch run. Any NHL team has until 12 p.m. ET on Wednesday to put in a claim for Turco. On Monday night, he signed a one-year contract with Boston for a pro-rated salary of $600,000 and had to be placed on the waiver wire because he had only played in Europe this season.

Big East Conference Bubble Watch

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South Florida:

With the Big East Tournament beginning yesterday, there are still a few big east teams that are on the NCAA Tournament bubble.  South Florida finished the season with a Big East record of 12-6 and an overall record of 19-12.  The Bulls have many things working in their favor as they enter the Big East Tournament.  Their strength of schedule is 29th in the NCAA and their current RPI is 44.  Their home loss to West Virginia on Saturday may prove to be a big one being it was their 9th loss to an RPI top 50 school.  With their 1-9 record against the RPI top 50 this season the Bulls will most likely need a somewhat deep run in the Big East Tournament to prove to the selection committee that they are worthy of an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament.  After VCU’s potential bid steal Monday night in the CAA Championship, Joe Lunardi has the Bulls ranked as one of the thirteen teams fighting for 24 bubble spots on his S-Curve of potential tournament teams.  This ranking could change barring an early exit from the Big East Tournament or other stolen bids from mid major schools.

Seton Hall:

The Pirates of Seton Hall are another Big East team that will most likely have their fate decided by the selection committee on Selection Sunday.  Seton Hall finished the season with an 8-10 record in the Big East and a 19-11 record overall.  Coming off of their big overtime win against Georgetown, with a record of 19-9 and two sub five hundred opponents in Rutgers and DePaul left on the schedule, the Pirates looked to be a lock for an at-large bid in the NCAA Tournament.  However, after losing to Rutgers 77-72 in overtime and getting manhandled by DePaul 86-58, they find themselves back in the bubble talk.  With an RPI of 56 and strength of schedule of 58 the Pirates will most likely need to wins a couple games in the Big East Tournament. However, big conference wins against Connecticut, West Virginia, and Georgetown will certainly help their chances of making the tournament.  Currently, Joe Lunardi has Seton Hall as one of his last four teams into the field who will play March 13 and 14 in the opening rounds in Dayton, Ohio.  The Pirates took a step in the right direction with their convincing 79-47 win over Providence in the first round of the Big East Tournament last night.

Connecticut:

The third major bubble team from the Big East Conference is the Connecticut Huskies. The Huskies started the year ranked number 4 in the nation and with the talent that they possess on both sides of the ball they have truly underperformed.  The Huskies finished with a record of 8-10 in the Big East and 18-12 overall. The Huskies have some work to do in the Big East Tournament to strengthen their resume for the selection committee.  They are on the right track with a big win against the Pittsburgh Panthers on Saturday and an easy victory over DePaul in the first round of the Big East Tournament.  Other things that strengthen UConn’s tournament chances are their RPI rank of 33 and there Strength of Schedule rank of number 1 in the country.  The Huskies will play West Virginia at noon today in the second round of the Big East Tournament, and a win in this game should pretty much lock up an at-large bid.

According to Joe Lunardi, there are currently six Big East teams that are locks to make the tournament.  These teams include Syracuse, Marquette, Georgetown, Louisville, Notre Dame, and Cincinnati.  West Virginia is not a lock in Lunardi’s mind, but he also does not feel that they are a bubble team, being ranked 39th on the S-Curve of potential tournament teams

-Guest Writer – Matt Frags