DivineBovine

What a F@#$ING PASS!

NOW Boozer decides to contest a Hansborough shot?!

I didn't know the Pacers had Larry Bird and Reggie Miller. Oh wait. It's Tyler Hanborogh and Danny Grainger.

They're shooting 67% from 3. They couldn't keep that up in the gym with nobody guarding them.

Relax guys. There's no way any team can keep hitting shots like that.

I think the moment he became the third option on the team he became very good. Earlier in the year he was inconsistent and then once Boozer came back he was a completely different player. Deng is really bad when you give him the ball and ask him to create his own shot. He'll turn it over or get swatted a lot. But he's great within the Bulls system. And he actually realizes what his strengths and weaknesses are, which helps a lot.

My homer picks: San Antonio in 5 OKC in 6 Portland in 7 LA in 5 Chicago in 5 Orlando in 6 Boston in 5 Miami in 6 San Antonio in 6 LA in 5 Chicago in 6 Boston in 6 Chicago over LA in 7 I'm actually happy with so many people in the media giving Boston and Miami the East. Tougher to be a frontrunner. If Chicago plays either Boston or Miami in the finals, both sides are going to try and play underdog. The lack of playoff experience makes me a little nervous for the Bulls. However, anyone who cites this as a reason that Miami is better is smoking crack. Neither LeBron or Bosh have won much in the playoffs.

jimi hendrix did not learn to play on a guitar simply flipped upside-down. Didn't he learn on an acoustic that his father got him? Anyways, he kept playing on a righty stratocaster long after he could easily afford a lefty model. He liked the tone of the righty guitar flipped and liked the whammy bar on top. I love it when righty guitarists buy lefty strats and flip them like Hendrix. Posers. My strat is righty. But I still couldn't resist getting Olympic White ala Jimi Hendrix, though. Because Hendrix was the man. May he RIP.

I've read about the Phil Mickelson is a phony thing from tour players, but not recently. I read it a few years back, and ironically I think it was before he won any majors, or maybe he had only 1. I'm pretty certain it had nothing to do with his golf game. And Ben Hogan was a natural lefty who played golf righty, and is thought by many to have been the greatest ball striker of all time.

Here's another article about Putts per Round, highlighting Tiger vs. Ernie. http://www.slate.com/id/2263080/

You're reflexively taking the position that these advanced metrics are always a better gauge of value than a little bit of stats and a little bit of the eye test. 1) Sometimes the model stinks (just because these stats are advanced compared to their precedecessors doesn't necessarily make them all that great; I think a lot of these numbers are getting the SABR treatment when they fall wayyyy short of them in actually quantifying value) 2) Even if the model doesn't stink it doesn't work the same way in all cases I mean if these metrics are enough to say Rose isn't a real MVP contender then why weren't the militant stat heads waving the Kevin Love for MVP banner earlier on? To me, that's just a tacit admission that their numbers can be misleading. Agreed. Why are LeBron, Howard and Wade clearly the "best by any measure"? I don't get that. They are the best by statistical measures that Hollinger and others have used. They try and use math and statistics to simplify a complicated game. Didn't Hollinger predict the Heat to win 72 games? Didn't he predict pretty early in the season that the Pacers had a better chance of making the playoffs than OKC? He loves it when he can say something controversial and back it up with statistics. But really, in both cases above, any casual fan with common sense would've outpredicted his fancy statistics. Rose is the best player on the best team, by most people's rankings, including Hollinger's. He'll win MVP. And don't get me started on LeBron. What a waste of talent. I definitely wouldn't take him first if I were starting a team. The most talented player in history- yes. But the best? Not even close. He's the definition of a Rotisserie League player.

Putting statistics (Putts per GIR, Putts per round) can be very misleading. If you're into this kind of thing, check out this article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703791704575114071142473884.html This stat actually confirms what many people have suspected for a long time. Ernie Els is a horrific putter, although traditional putting stats haven't always shown it. Mickelson actually ranked 149 in this stat last year. During the time of his dominance, Tiger Woods was by far and away the best putter around with this stat. Anyone who's watched a lot of golf in the past 13 years has seen Tiger Woods drain 10-20 footers with major championships and big tournaments on the line, over and over again. And 5 footers? Forget about it. Gimmes. Conversely, you can go back and count multiple majors where Phil Mickelson has come up just short, and missed many 4 footers along the way. He would've won the Masters a few years back when he blistered the front nine, he 3 putted a critical time against David Toms in the last round of the PGA, he could've won the US open against Payne Stewart. Those are just the majors I can think of off the top of my head, and I know there are more. Everyone remembers his drive on 18 at Winged Foot. But I honestly feel that his putter has probably let him down more than his driver in his career. Tiger has won a lot spraying his driver as well. Many of Phil Mickelson's ball striking woes (and he's a damn good iron player) are covered up by the fact that he has the best short game in the world. His short game dominance is almost on par with Tiger's putting dominance. I think it also has masked some of his poor putting in the past. He has worked on his putting a lot. But Phil is just not a great putter, and he used to be a worse. Tiger Woods, on the other hand, has won 14 majors because he's the greatest putter that has ever played the game. Yes, he hits it a mile, and hits incredible shots. But his putting was inhuman. If he gets back there, then he will be dominant again.

Good analogy. Both also experienced a squirrely putter on the back nine. Mickelson has a long history of the shaky putter. If he could putt like Tiger in his prime, he might have 10 majors himself. But the bad putting is relatively new for Tiger. So much is made of Tiger's swing, but the Tiger Woods that won 14 majors is the best putter of all time, bar none. If he ever gets it back, he can win many more majors again. He proved it yesterday. As for Rory, gotta feel for he guy. He choked, but he's not the first golfer to do it and won't be the last. Hopefully, it doesn't define his career. I'll be rooting for him.

If it were the old Tiger, I'd say he were the favorite at this point. But with the new tiger you never know. Rory will be tough and if it were any other young guy I'd say he's going to fall back. But rory has been through contending at a major and been through a Ryder cup already. Will be an interesting weekend.

The whole thing is if your billing address isn't an Indiana residency you can't have them yet. But Pacers basketball still hasn't recouped close to the amount of fans it had pre-brawl era. You're gonna be able to grab some seats no worries. Being that these will be the first Pacers home playoff games since 2006 I imagine that will help with filling the place. :wink: Plus yeah, Bulls fans (the real ones + the wagoners) will surely scoop up what is left. I won't be surprised to see a Bulls crowd. Bulls fans will scalp tickets. The price will be small compared to buying playoff tickets at the UC. Indy fans know they're probably going to lose and will gladly take the money. And plenty of enterprising Indy residents will buy tickets knowing they can sell them to Bulls fans.

Why? This has taken a big rebound from Deng and a huge leap from Rose plus ridiculously good bench play to achieve. Rose is making the third-year leap, that was expected. Deng is actually shooting worse from the field, from three, from the FT line and rebounding less than a year ago. But he defends, which is the real thing. Everyone knew he would defend and that Noah would defend. Couple that with getting away from Del Negro ball and getting a defensive genius as a head coach, coupled with a great defensive assistant, combined with the expected Rose jump and however many games of Boozer you're gonna get. I'm just saying it's something that didn't take imagination to see coming. Realistically all you had to do was go "wow, if their bench defends, they're going to be really good." But maybe everyone was so caught up in the Miami spectacle that they missed it. I honestly thought they'd be good but by good I mean pulling off a 3 seed and having a chance at an upset in the playoffs and making the Eastern conference finals (this could still be as far as they go but now they may be the favorites and losing in the conference finals may be disappointing). Once the Miami hangover wore off you started to think, maybe 3 guys won't dominate and maybe the Celtics are too old. I didn't think the Bulls would pull off the number one seed though. I knew they would be better, but how can anyone have expected this? 47-50 wins was a reasonable expectation, but this team should get to 60 easy. The biggest addition player wise was Boozer. There's no way Boozer could account for so many wins, especially considering how many games he's missed. Rose's improvement could be expected, but this degree of improvement is a very pleasant surprise. Props to Tom Thibideau. Going from Del Negro to Thibs might be the biggest factor of them all. Thibs definitely deserves coach of the year.

Eastern Conference #1. Barring a miracle.

They at least want home court vs Miami.

When did DRose get so money from the FT line? If he could shoot FT's like that in college, Memphis would've had a national title stripped rather than just a Final Four.

I still haven't come to grips with the fact that this team is actually a championship contender.

Great play Lu.

If Rondo weren't such an incompetent scorer, he'd be a hell of a player. That was funny.

Suck it Miami! A lot of people still giving Heat a lot of love in playoff predictions. Hopefully they are wrong. Personally I'm looking forward to seeing LeBron sulking off the court after losing and then throwing his coaches and teammates under the bus. Now take care of business tomorrow.

http://espn.go.com/blog/chicago/cubs/post/_/id/3756/cubs-draw-smallest-crowd-since-2002 So much for the "Cub fans will show up to Wrigley no matter what" theory. Put a winner on the field Ricketts. I'm sure they'll show up. :-"

Yeah, was waiting for someone to bring up Byrd. I know it's early, but he's sucked so far. If the Bosox can move down Carl Crawford after a few games, why not move Byrd down for a bit.