Thierry Henry: Showing he still has the Magic in him

Posted on July 18, 2012 by leibo4

Thierry Henry showing he still has it with his first goal since April 28th. If this isn’t goal of the week for the MLS then I don’t know what is. This might be my second favorite goal of the season, behind the strike from Lee Nguyen earlier. Playing in only 13 games this season Henry has 10 goals, which is good for 3rd in the league. He likely will not catch Chris Wondolowski who is looking to smash the all time scoring record this year with 18 goals in 18 games so far. The record if anyone was wondering is held by Roy Lassiter with 27. And if anyone is wondering the Revs are being led by Saer Sene with 8 goals.

Celtics to Sign Terry Using MLE

Posted on July 18, 2012 by leibo4

The Celtics GM Danny Ainge announced yesterday that the Celtics were going to sign Jason Terry using the Mid-Level Exception. The signing of Terry is no surprise as he has already been introduced to the Boston media and has said that the is going to do everything that he can to help the Celtics win banner 18.

“If they need me to wash the uniforms or sweep the floors, whatever role Doc [Rivers] wants me to play, I’m here to do it at 100 percent and I’ll give it my all,” Terry said. “That’s what I’ve done my whole career. Whatever it takes to win, whatever puts us in the best position to win these games and win a championship is what I’ll be doing.”

They had tried to maneuver a sign-and-trade with the Mavericks to save the MLE to potentially use on another player such as the Rockets Courtney Lee. The Celtic’s could not find a third team to facilitate the sign-and-trade and the Mavericks signing of O.J. Mayo basically ended the talks. This means that the Celtics would have to offer the Rockets players and picks to acquire Lee as they can only fill out the rest of their roster with minimum contracts.

NHL Locking Out?

Posted on July 17, 2012 by christoph131

The NHL’s current Collective Bargaining Agreement expires in just less than two months. So far, the players like what they are getting, but the owners want more. The rich trying to get richer, sound familiar? (See NBA/NFL negotiations). The last report shows that the players would make 46% of the revenue for the league, when they made 57% last season. Contracts would also be limited to 5 years in the new proposal. This is a big difference seeing as Zach Parise and Ryan suter both just signed 13 year deals with the Wild, worth $98 million each.

This sucks. Hockey is just becoming very popular again, especially after the playoffs of the past few seasons. They already cancelled the 2004-05 season, due to negotiating problems. Commissioner Gary Bettman is actually a pretty decent guy, especially compared to NBA commissioner David Stern. He said openly that he sees the players as 50-50 partners with the owners.

Since the season is starting on October 11 (hopefully), there isn’t all that much time to get things done. All we need is another lockout to ruin yet another sport.

NBA Round Up

Posted on July 17, 2012 by christoph131

Jeremy Lin

The Knicks have until 11:59 tonight to match the Rockets offer to new sensation Jeremy Lin. Many fans would probably say that New York would be crazy not to sign Lin after last season, but there’s a lot more to the story. They were ready to match the $25.1 million offer until they saw that the third year offer was worth $14.8 million. This would mean that they would have been over the line for the luxury tax and would have to pay an excess of $43 million dollars for the 2014-15 season. This isn’t bad for Lin seeing as he made under $800k last year.

The Knicks have now signed Raymond Felton who was part of a deal that brought Carmelo Anthony to New York just a few seasons ago. So it seems as though Lin will be going back to the team that only kept him around for two weeks of training camp last season.

Howard talks Getting Annoying

There has been speculation that Dwight Howard’s agent and the Lakers have been talking about a trade that would bring the big man to Los Angeles, while Andrew Bynum goes to Houston, and Orlando gets some young players and picks. However, Howard said that he would only sign with the Nets for a long term contract, so that might change the Lakers minds.

Jason Kidd fitting in in The Big Apple

After leaving Dallas where he could probably drive around in fields and not be seen, Jason Kidd has been charged with refusing a breathalyzer at the scene of a crash and failure to stop, just days after being traded to the New York Knicks. His escalade hit a telephone pole and ended up in the woods. Probably should have called for a cab and paid the 10 bucks after you just inked a deal for over $10 million.

The Mavericks Sign Mayo

O.J. Mayo, who averaged 12.6 PPG off the bench last season with the Grizzlies, has signed a contract with the Mavs. He will most likely be the starting Shooting Guard for them, seeing as he averaged over 17 points in both seasons as a starter before moving to the bench the last two seasons. If not, he can have Jason Terry’s old role as the sixth man now that Terry has signed with the Celtics.

Pats-Welker Cant Agree, Will Play Season with Franchise Tag

Posted on July 17, 2012 by leibo4

The New England Patriots and Wes Welker could not come to an agreement yesterday. He will play the next season at a 1 year contract worth $9.5 million. Now that the deadline has passed, the Patriots cannot renegotiate with Welker until after the season is over.

Other notable players such as Ray Rice (5 years $40 Million) and Matt Forte (4 years $32 Million) struck deals just before the deadline yesterday, getting the payday they deserved.

Welker, with 330 catches in the past three years, wasn’t as lucky. He had earlier signed the franchise tender to show the Patriots faith, but by doing so may have cornered himself. The Patriots felt no reason to sign a 31 year old reciever who has previously torn his ACL to a long term contract when they have him for this season. Whether they will franchise him again next year, sign him to a longer contract, or just let him go remains to be seen.

I would have liked to see the Patriots sign Welker to a 3 year deal totally anywhere from $24-28 million. That would have been around the same contract that they gave to Randy Moss. Reward him for always being true to the Patriots and the hard work that he has given them. If he plays well anyways they are going to be on the hook for over $11 million to franchise him again, or give him a new three year contract. This just doesn’t seem to make much sense from the Patriots standpoint, unless they are counting Welker to have a down year.

Las Vegas Schedule

Posted on July 16, 2012 by leibo4

The Celtics tip off the Las Vegas games tomorrow and finish up this Sunday playing ever day except for Wednesday and Friday. All games will be aired on NBA TV.

Here’s the Schedule

Atlanta vs. Boston 3 PM Monday, July 16th

Chicago vs. Boston 10 PM Tuesday, July 17th

Boston vs. Sacramento 10:30 PM Thursday, July 19th

Milwaukee vs. Boston 10:30 PM Saturday, July 21st

Boston vs. LA (Clippers) 10 PM Sunday, July 22nd

Celtics Summer League: Orlando Review

Posted on July 16, 2012 by leibo4

The Celtics led by coach Ty Lue had a bright start going 4-1 in the Orlando summer league, losing only to Detroit and beating up on the Magic, Pacers, Nets and Thunder respectively.

Player	College	Previous Team	Position	Age	Height
Craig Brackins	Iowa State	Maine Red Claws	PF	24	6-10
Dionte Christmas	Temple	Rethymno (Greece)	SG	25	6-5
Jonathan Gibson	New Mexico St	Trabzonspor (Turkey)	G	24	6-1
Jajuan Johnson	Purdue	Celtics	PF	23	6-10
Kris Joseph	Syracuse		SF	23	6-7
Stephane Lasme	Massachusetts	Obradoiro (Spain)	PF	29	6-8
Fab Melo	Syracuse		C	22	7-0
E’Twaun Moore	Purdue	Celtics	PG	23	6-4
Jamar Smith	Southern Indiana	BK Prostejov (Czech)	SG	25	6-3
Jared Sullinger	Ohio State		PF	20	6-9
Sean Williams	Boston College	Celtics / Mavericks	PF / C	25	6-10
Larry Owens	Oral Roberts	Nets	SF	29	6-7

Suprises in Orlando

Kris Joseph

Showed great length and wingspan (6-11), was flying all over the court. While Joseph had up and down shooting games, he found ways to make his mark by defending and hitting the glass. His shooting will improve, he has good form and is very confident on midrange jumpers, it just doesn’t extend to the three-point line yet.

Dionte Christmas

Got better and better as the week went along, finishing with his best game against the Magic with 21 points, including 19 in the first half where he had a stretch of 11 in a row. The surprise about Christmas was that he showed an all-around game. Known at Temple as a scorer and mainly a shooter, Christmas played tough defense (3 steals) and hit the boards throughout the week.

Jared Sullinger’s Passing Ability

Everyone knew Sully could play. If his back holds up and he adjusts to the size of the NBA everyone believes that he will be a steal. What we didn’t know about was his ability to pass. Faced with constant double teams, Sullinger looked and found the open man and made it easier on the guards as the Celtics looked to run their offense through him more and more throughout the week. He won’t see those double teams in the NBA, but the vision and ability to pass is only another positive to take from the first round pick.

Up and Down

E’Twaun Moore

In the one loss of the week, Moore was clearly outplayed Pistons guard Brandon Knight, seemingly struggling with the quickness. For a guy who is described as cool as extremely calm, Moore was frazzled from the start. The rest of the week Moore shined and showed his ability to run the point. He made good decisions on pick and rolls and had a great assist to turnover ratio. In the final game, he got into a little scoring battle with Christmas as they poured it on against the Magic.

Jujuan Johnson

Johnson showed that he could shoot over most players, but not much else. He hasn’t added much if any weight to his frame from his rookie season and was having a tough time on the blocks going against other players. He rebounded well during the week but was sometimes a little slow on his rotations. I’m holding Johnson to a higher standard because I expected big things from the former Big Ten Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year.

Fab Melo

Melo truly had an up and down week, shocking everyone in the gym one game with a dribble drive and dish on one play and then throwing an outlet pass to Kris Joseph while he was sitting on the bench. He had some great blocks and showed good defensive ability, but didn’t have much of an idea on how to play defense against the pick and roll. It seems that he is going to need a full year under Doc to understand the complex Boston defense and figure out the rotations.

Celtics Refs for Tonight

Posted on June 1, 2012 by leibo4

Official 1 – Scott Foster

Most known for being linked to Tim Donaghy for 134 phone calls supposably related to fixing games.

Official 2 – Mike Callahan

Knickname…Duke

Official 3 – Rodney Mott

Most known for January 12, 2007, Mott was suspended for three games after making obscene gestures and using obscenities toward fans during a game

Donny Marshall on the 98.5 the Sports Hub yesterday said that from texting his NBA buddies, the NBA will let the Celtics win one of the games, but not two because they would be afraid that the Celtics could get hot. Pretty intersting bit, according to Donny and the referees given, this would be the game.

According to the Homer report about the Ref’s Scott Foster is ranked 23 out of 66, Mike Callahan is 22nd, and Rodney Mott is the #1 in the entire list. That’s right, Mott is the ref who gives the most calls to the home team out of every single ref.

Im not saying the NBA is fixed, or guided, just relaying what was said from current and former NBA players.

Below are the stats for the refs during the 2012 NBA playoffs curtesy of NBAstuffer.com.

Refs		Games	Home Team	Point Differential	Total	Called Fouls	Road Team	Home Team	Road Tech	Home Tech
	Type	Officiated	Win %	(Home Team)	Points Per	Per Game	Foul Percentage	Foul Percentage	Per Game	Per Game
Scott Foster	Head	8	0.75	8	185.3	46	54.1	45.9	1.5	1.1
Mike Callahan	Crew	4	0.5	-1.3	183.8	44.3	49.1	50.8	0	0.3
Rodney Mott	Crew	7	0.714	4.6	185.1	41.7	52.4	47.6	0	0
Rodney Mott	Head	1	0	-10	182	42	45.2	54.8	0	0

We Believe

Posted on June 1, 2012 by jtulz07

Here’s a little mix to set the mood for tonight’s must win at the Garden. Grit and Balls.

Thanks to Devin for the tip.

Painful Loss Despite Rondo’s Heroics

Posted on May 31, 2012 by jtulz07

Here’s a video that sums up pretty much how every Celtics fan feels right now…

Last night could have been one the most heart breaking playoff losses for the C’s thus far. Just utterly painful. Falling short of the win in OT to the Heat. The only positive was Rondo’s incredible performance, nearing a triple double with 44 points, 8 rebounds, and 10 assists, but even that gets overshadowed by the loss. When asked about his performance, Rondo responded, “We lost, simple as that.” Exactly why as much as I want to talk more about Rondo’s night, I just can’t. One of the biggest problems the Celts had and have had was giving up second chances. There’s no way they win giving the Heat offensive boards like that. It’s just not going to happen. Regardless, the C’s better come out firing on Friday when the Heat come to the Garden for game 3, a must win for the Celtics. And Leibo…we’re missing your boy Avery…bad.