A Busy Weekend... (March 9, 1999)

I was very busy this weekend. I was watching a lot of basketball. NBA ball. College ball. Women's high school basketball (thank you Fox Sports Net). Here's what I've noticed.

I was watching the Utah Jazz/L.A. Lakers game on Sunday. I'm sure that anybody watching it realized that Shaquille O'Neal owns Greg Ostertag. I don't want to belittle anyone, but Ostertag is Shaq's bitch. He went 6 for 7 (or something like that) from the field and scored 14 points in the first quarter. Ostertag wasn't even getting a body on him. It was depressing. The Lakers on the whole, played a great game. Utah tends to leave one player open when they rotate. This time it was Derek Fisher. Rightly so, since Fisher hasn't shown the ability to knock down the open jumper. Fisher scored 20 and was 6 for 8 from the field. It was an impressive display. When Fisher was out, the other Derek, Harper, was equally deadly. If these two can maintain the same intensity and consistency, I think the Lakers can make a run for the title. I'm not changing my tune though, even though Utah lost. Utah is the best team in the west. The Stockton/Malone pick and roll is the most deadly play in all of basketball. What other play can be run almost every possession and is virtually impossible to stop.

Boston played Toronto on Sunday afternoon as well, before the Lakers game. It was billed as Vince Carter versus Paul Pierce. Didn't the NBA say they were going to stop marketing player versus player, like Michael versus Hakeem. Well, the battle of Vince versus Paul, Mr. Carter smoked Mr. Pierce. Pierce scored 7, which Carter put up 28. Carter also wowed the crowed with some rim shaking dunks. This guy can play. In less half of this bastardized season, I've heard Carter compared to Michael Jordan (obviously, because of his high flying act, and he went to North Carolina), Jerry Stackhouse (like Carter, similar game and went to UNC), Dominique Wilkins (small forward and can bring it to the rack with authority) and a few others which I can't seem to remember. I tell you this, he might be all of the above, but he might be the only super-star on the Raptors, a team in need of one, since their last star trash talked his way out of town.

If you don't have DirectTV, get it. I was watching every college basketball conference final on the weekend. What I noticed is that there are a lot of teams, and a lot of conferences. I like Rhode Island. Sure Jim Harrick is UCLA's former coach and I love UCLA. Sure Lamar Odom is an awesome talent and is destined for stardom in the NBA. But I think they are getting hot at the right time, with Odom hitting that game winner with no time on the clock and they finally got over losing their starting back court in the NBA draft. Michigan State is for real. Mateen Cleaves is the best point guard in college basketball, with all due respect to Andre Miller at Utah and Jason Terry at Arizona. UConn is an amazing team. They are deep. Talented and scary. I think they have the best chance to beat Duke. Damn that team. I hate Duke. They are really deep. Their second team could be in the Top 25. Elton Brand is an awesome force and he's only 6'8". As much as I hate to admit it, I see UConn losing to Duke in the finals.

What else happened? Hmm…the Clippers are still perfect, I mean perfectly awful. There have been more and more articles popping up about their futility. March 19, the Clips are playing the Raptors. Look for a Clipper win. I think we know that Donald Sterling is the main reason for the Clippers continued futility. He won't pay the big bucks. He makes stupid moves, overruling Elgin Baylor. You've got to wonder what Elgin is still doing there. I guess he still has a mortgage on his home in L.A.

That's it for now. I haven't heard from you out there in Internet-land lately. Write me. Send in your own articles and responses. With you, I'm just a guy writing articles for my own self-indulgence, (which isn't all that incorrect).

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