Category: Featured

Lakers Have No Right to Complain About Gortat

ESPN – Brandon Ingram said Lonzo Ball and the Los Angeles Lakers did not take kindly to Marcin Gortat’s tweet about how John Wall “will torture” the rookie point guard when the Washington Wizards visit L.A. on Wednesday.

“Yeah, of course we did,” Ingram said when asked whether he saw Gortat’s tweet on Monday. “Everyone has social media, definitely saw it. The competitor in Lonzo, of course he didn’t take it so well, and with his teammates behind him, we didn’t take it so well.”

The Wizards center was responding to a video of Ball’s father, LaVar, saying, “Washington is coming in Wednesday? They better beware because Lonzo ain’t losing again [this week].”

What a joke — what do they expect? People aren’t going to let LaVar run his mouth and not come right back at the Lakers. Here’s the tweet in question:

First off before addressing anything, Gortat is absolutely correct. John Wall is one of the premier PGs in the league and will absolutely have his way with the rookie Lonzo all night long. Let’s get this straight — the Lakers are NOT good. The only reason anybody is even paying attention to them is because of the sitcom that the media has run with which is LaVar Ball. I actually do expect the Lakers to keep it close tonight as they are hosting a Wizards team travelling out west but give me a break. Lonzo & the Lakers can’t expect

According to The Washington Post, “Nah, no mercy,” Wall responded when asked if he would show leniency to the 19-year-old rookie point guard despite his braggadocious father.

John Wall plays with an aggression that I’d put only second to Russell Westbrook. It’ll be great to see Lonzo put in his place, as he should be all season long. John Wall is 10-5 against starting rookie point guards — should be 11-5 after tonight.

Here Comes FogGate

SBNation – The Patriots embarrassed the Falcons on Sunday night in their Super Bowl LI rematch. For some in the stadium, the game was hard — and at times impossible — to see because of thick fog.

While that’s not great for the folks that were there, it seems the Los Angeles Chargers are going to suffer the most from the fog.

The Patriots are already the best team in the NFL the past decade and a half. Bill Belichick is going to go down as one of if not the best coach of all time because of his run with New England. He’s known to not only get the most out of his players, but also strategically, even if he did cheat that one time.

The Chargers haven’t been particularly good and would obviously benefit from some clear tape. That’s not going to happen.

Great — another year, another controversy for the Patriots (not really though). Anybody who watched the Sunday night beatdown of the Falcons noticed that NBC was forced to use different angles due to the immense fog that crept into Gillette Stadium. Of course, this isn’t a real controversy but we can use this an example of what extent people will go to blame the Patriots:

Julio — are you serious? “Not trying to make excuses” but blames the fireworks for creating that fog. Somebody please tell Julio that fog of that amount is not creating by fireworks. The Jets play Atlanta this week who — guess what — will also have to try to watch film of the Falcons but nobody really cares about them so you don’t hear a word. Wouldn’t surprise me if ESPN was debating the fact on whether or not the Patriots pumped in fog machines right now.

On a real note, the Patriots won’t be able to study their own tape either so they are at the same disadvantage. That being said, this team looked real good against the Falcons in all three phases of the game. They look to be clicking at exactly the right time.

 

Alex Cora to the Red Sox

In a not so surprising move, the Red Sox have named Alex Cora as their 47th manager in team history.  For the past week, it was speculated that he was the top choice for the open manager spot. The only other notable competition he had was Arizona Diamondbacks’ assistant coach Ron Gardenhire.  That all changed on Saturday, when Gardenhire was swept up by the Detroit Tigers. From there, it was clear that Cora was the man for the job. The team has not made it official yet — they must wait for Cora‘s current team to finish their season. Currently, he is the Houston Astros’ bench coach and the organization is about to embark in their second ever World Series appearance.

This is not Cora’s first stint in Boston, he played for the Red Sox from 2005-2008 mainly as a utility infielder.  Although he was never a star player, he was always highly respected by fellow players and had a reputation amongst fans as being a very like-able person.

Right now, he feels like the right type of manager that the Red Sox need. They need someone that is personable — and like-able among the fans and players. They also need  a person the younger players can go to and the fact that he speaks Spanish should help out some of the Hispanic players on the Sox. The biggest question mark is going to be whether he can in game manage and handle the scrutiny of the Red Sox brass. There are high expectations in Boston and we’ll see if Cora is able to handle that.

 

Martavis Bryant Would Like You to Know He’s Upset

Sporting News–  Martavis Bryant said last weekend he was happy to be a Steeler, but his actions make that hard to believe.

Bryant, who reportedly asked for a trade weeks ago, was a no-show for a team meeting Monday. A teammate told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that Bryant “called in sick.” 

After Sunday’s win over Cincinnati, Bryant commented on an Instagram post defending himself against fellow Steelers wideout JuJu Smith-Schuster. Bryant caught just one pass Sunday for three yards, while Smith-Schuster, a rookie from USC, had two catches for 39 yards and a touchdown.

The since-deleted comment read: “JuJu is no where near better than me, fool. All they need to do is give me what I want and y’all can have JuJu and whoever else.”

Bryant later refined his remarks and commented on the same post: “JuJu is the future and got great talent and is going to be one of the best to play this game. I want him to get his. I just want mines, period, point-blank.”

Bryant has 18 catches this season for 234 yards and one touchdown. He was suspended all of 2016 for multiple violations of the league’s substance abuse policy.

This comes on the heel of the rumors of Martavis Bryant requesting a trade last week. He suited up for the Steelers this week and things looked better as they opened up play with a reverse to — you guessed it — Martavis Bryant. That would be the first of TWO looks that he got all game. Bryant, clearly upset with the Steelers, went on a rant against his fellow WR JuJu Smith-Schuster (who absolutely crushed it with his hide-and-seek celebration) on a random Instagram post. And then today..

Now I’m never a fan of guys not playing out their contract but something has to be done in Pittsburgh. Bryant’s contract ends this season and he’s clearly not on the same page with anybody on the Steelers. Trade him or bench him — but the Steelers have to do something. Bryant is obviously extremely talented but isn’t near the level of Antonio Brown or Le’Veon Bell, Big Ben’s top two targets. The emergence of the dynamic rookie Smith-Schuster is clearly not helping his case either.

Lighting up social media and now skipping practice? The Steelers need to ship this guy out of town before it becomes detrimental to their Super Bowl efforts. Hardly utilizing him, they’re 5-2 anyway — might as well save some face and get some value before he pulls a Blount and walks out on the team.

It’s Time For Vontaze Burfict To Go

ProFootballTalk-  Steelers running back Le’Veon Bell is fed up with Bengals linebacker Vontaze Burfict.

After Burfict kicked at the head of Steelers fullback Roosevelt Nix in a pileup during Sunday’s game, Bell posted a video of the incident on Twitter and blasted Burfict for his behavior.

“Dude gotta go, man,” Bell wrote. “That’s not football at all.”

Bell felt that Nix showed admirable restraint by not retaliating against Burfict, but the NFL shouldn’t be restrained in its punishment of him.

“It’s unbelievable the league is just condoning this activity,” Bell wrote. “But if Rosie reacts, Rosie would be the one that would get into trouble.”

Burfict was suspended for the first three games of last season for cheap shots against the Steelers in the 2015 playoffs, and suspended for the first three games of this season for a cheap shot in the preseason. Those suspensions apparently haven’t been enough to make him change his ways. Another suspension may be in order.

 

Another season, another controversy that Burfict finds himself involved in. After being suspended for a total of 6 games — this man does not learn. The game was only 45 seconds in before Burfict caused trouble against the Steelers — a team he has already been suspended for his actions against. This time it was for a kick on the Steelers’ FB Nix.

 

These plays aren’t going to stop happening and Burfict will continue to put players in harms way. Bell, clearly frustrated that he keeps getting away with it, aired his grievances out and I have to agree. Burfict has been flagged a whopping 17 times in his NFL career for a personal foul, and that’s not even counting all the plays he should have been flagged for (including this one).

If the NFL actually cared about player safety, which they don’t, Burfict would be gone. I don’t know if this play is strong enough to warrant any kind of suspension but this is a clear indication that even after the hit on Anthony Sherman in the preseason (yes, preseason), Burfict does not care and never will. It’s a joke that the NFL won’t actually step in and do something.

Week 7 Picks

The parity this year has been incredible — it’s starting to look like nobody wants to separate from the pack. Our picks struggle for the third consecutive week but we have some movement on the overall leaderboard. The highlight no doubt this week is the rematch between the Falcons and the Patriots. Let’s take a look at this picks:

CONSENSUS PICKS:   24-14  (LW: 3-1)

nflwk7.PNG

 

CONSENSUS PICKS: MIN, LAR, DAL, PIT, NE, PHI

Office Lock of the Day 10/19

Last lock of the day was a real close win thanks to the Celtics hanging in there after the Hayward injury. We had the Celtics + 3.5 and they lost by 3. We’ll take the extra half point (even though the line was closer to 5 when LeBron was announced to be active) and move on to Thursday Night Football. Always hard to predict, the 5-1 Chiefs travel to the 2-4 Oakland Raiders. The Raiders have massive underachieved due in part to the Carr injury. They’ll look to get back on track against the AFC West leaders.

LOTD: 3-0-0

The Pick: Oakland Raiders (+3) vs Kansas City Chiefs
Give me the Home underdog in a different time zone and I’ll take it more often than not. This line screams trap game for the Chiefs and I actually like the Raiders to upset here. The Chiefs were banged up a bit by the Steelers and I like Oakland to finally get their run game started against the Chiefs. Give me the points and give me the Raiders.

Bruins Beat 10/19

Another day, another bout of injury news for the Bruins.  Just getting absolutely hosed by the hockey gods early into the 2017 campaign.  Seems like every day that the Bruins are issuing an injury update on a new key player.  Now, is the loss of Ryan Spooner completely detrimental?  Absolutely not.  Ryan Spooner is a prime example of a player that has “all the tools”, and no “toolbox”.   He’s above average to good skating ability.  He’s got decent vision, hands, and produces on powerplay.

Ryan’s biggest issue is his head.  There are times in which he is invisible for games at a time.  He seems to get rattled easily from coaching, and is completely unwilling to sacrifice his body to make plays.  Spooner is slotting in as the B’s third line center and generally on the second powerplay unit.  Occasionally, he looks like an elite player and will slot in to play on the top powerplay.  Not overly concerned with the loss of him, but it takes out a player that has at least shown a small ability to score at decent clip.

This was mentioned briefly yesterday as it broke in the afternoon, but with today being a game-day I wanted to address it.  This is worrisome.  The Bruins go as far as Tuukka Rask takes them.  It’s that simple.   Rask is the most over-scrutinized athlete in Boston.  The guy is easily a top 10 goalie in the NHL.  He finished 2016 with 65 games played, tied for the most in the NHL for goalies.  Part of this is how unreliable Bruins backup goalies have been the past year.  Backup Anton Khudobin finished 2016 with an underwhelming .904 save %, and a 2.64 goals against average.  These numbers are respectable considering he started the year 0-5, and was sent to Providence to find his game.

So far, it looks like Rask will miss at least this next game as Bruce Cassidy confirmed that he will be out this evening.

 

Image result for Bruins logo  vs. Image result for vancouver canucks logo

Forwards:                                               

Marchand-Bergeron-Bjork

DeBrusk-Krejci-Pastrnak

Schaller-Kuraly-Backes

Agostino-Nash-Frank Vatrano

Defense:

Chara-McAvoy

Krug-Carlo

Miller-McQuaid

Goalies: 

Anton Khudobin

Zayne Macintyre

Nothing too special with the lineup tonight.  Bergeron is still listed as a game time decision, so someone else may have to step into that top line center role. Backes will be making his season debut, after recovering from Diverticulitis.  Will be good to have both (hopefully) back in the lineup.

Forwards:

D. Sedin-H. Sedin-Granlund

Baertschi-Burmistrov-Boeser

Gagner-Horvat-Vanek

Dorsett-Sutter-Virtanen

Defense:

Del Zotto-Tanev

Hutton-Gudbranson

Pouliot-Stetcher

Goalies:

Anders Nilsson

Jacob Markstrom

The Canucks come in with a 1-2-1 record so far.  They are a team expected to finish in the bottom 10 of the league, if not bottom 5.  They do have some quality young players mixed in with Hall of Fame veterans.  Bo Horvat is one to keep an eye on as young lethal goal scoring center, and Brock Boeser who currently leads the Canucks in points at 4.

Overall, we’re going to need a full 60 minute effort from the boys to wrap up 2 points.  While Vancouver definitely sucks, they are a team who can compete with anyone on any given night.  It also helps to have two future Hall of Famers (Sedins) on your top line.  Despite all this, I think the Bruins find their game and pull out a 3-1 victory in front of the TD Garden crowd.

 

Quickly before I go, remember how excited I was that Cehlarik was called up yesterday? I certainly do:

 

Let’s go B’s!!!!!!

Celtics vs. Cavs Recap

Opening night in the NBA did not disappoint. An off-season filled with excitement and interest carried over to Tuesday night. Unfortunately the night began with sadness. Less than 6 minutes into the first quarter, Gordon Hayward came off a back screen alley-oop attempt, flew through the air, came down off balance and awkwardly landed on his ankle. As he spun himself on the ground, we were shown the horrific scene — his ankle was facing the wrong way. After the game, it was reported that he had dislocated his ankle and had a fractured tibia. He was stretchered off the court and has been brought back to Boston for further testing and surgery.

After that gruesome injury, the Celtics were in a daze and the Cavs out-scored the Celtics 45 – 26. At halftime, it was reported that Gordon Hayward stuck around to see his teammates during the half to let them know he was okay. Knowing that Hayward was okay, the Celtics came out out red hot and by the end of the third they were able to come within 1 point, nearly erasing a 19 point deficit.

The 4th quarter was pure electricity — each team trading the lead multiple times. In the end what did the Celtics in, was a corner three from Kevin Love with 46 seconds left.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmNbHn_SvTY

 

Although the Celtics started the season off with a loss, there were a few positive take aways.

The first has to be the fight that this team has — only having 4 returning players from last years 53 win team and only 1 starter, we weren’t sure what to expect from this team.

Although losing Gordon Hayward will hurt the C’s, his injury will provide more playing time for Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum. Two young players who played very well last night. Jaylen scored 25 points, had 6 rebounds and 2 steals. Jayson also had played well, after having a shaky first half which is expected from a rookie playing his first game, he still recorded a double – double 14 points and 10 rebounds. These two players have been given a great opportunity — lets hope they don’t blow it.

We all knew this was Kryie’s team, but now because of the injury he will be looked to even more on and off the court. He will be asked to score more than he has ever scored before and as it stands the season rests on his shoulders.

The starting lineup moving forward should look like:

PG – Kyrie Irving

SG – Jaylen Brown

SF – Jayson Tatum

PF – Marcus Morris

C – Al Horford

Gordon Hayward Fractures Ankle in First Quarter as a Celtic

https://twitter.com/MySportsUpdate/status/920443910593314816

Awful stuff in the first quarter of the Celtics game. Hayward went up for a routine play and came down right on his ankle. Immediately thought to be a broken leg, looks to be a fractured ankle. Unreal stuff watching this live — hope he has a speedy recovery.

 

 

 

 

Good to see that players can put aside their team allegiances aside for each other as well.