GarageGabs

I told you yesterday that I felt tonight would be the night that Boston broke their losing streak. Well, it happened. The Celtics FINALLY won a game, defeating Milwaukee 117-97 after losing 18 in a row.

I gotta think Paul Pierce had as much to do with this win, and the losing streak as anything. His return doesn’t make the Celtics a playoff team…but they can at least win one in three the rest of the way out.

Celtics end 18 game losing streak vs. Bucks (ESPN)

Elsewhere in the NBA, Jason Kidd has been replaced in the All Star Game by Joe Johnson.

San Antonio ended the Pistons win streak, 90-81.

Steve Nashless Phoenix loses again, this time to Seattle, 114-90.

Jazz continue to win without Boozer, beat Cavaliers, 99-98.

Well, if you didn’t already know, Duke broke out of their 4 game losing streak by beating Boston College tonight, 78-70. Coach K got all excited and pumped his chest, Dookie V told us how K has “no tolerance” for losing, Duke is back in the hunt, blah blah blah. Basically, all is right for your biggest Duke lovers…including ESPN.

Need Proof?

Hell, why not just have ESPN tell you that all is right? Here’s what the ESPN front page looks like at 12:10 am, 2-15-07.  Honestly, a local paper may as well have printed this headline.

That’s more like it. As in, that’s more like it Blue Devils, we (ESPN) knew ya had it in ya! The Duke Love-Thon continues.

First place in the ACC will be on the line when UNC and Boston College square off Saturday.

McRoberts helps Duke bounce back with win over BC (ESPN)

Tim Hardaway dropped what ESPN is calling a “bomb” in reference to gay people today while being interviewed by Dan LeBatard. Here is the conversation with all the “umms” and “ya knows” removed.
Lebatard: “How do you deal with a gay team mate?”

Hardaway: “First of all, I wouldn’t want them on my team. Seconnd of all, if he was on my team, I would really distance myself from him, because I dont’ think that’s right. And, I don’t think that he should be in the locker room while we in the locker room, and it’s just a whole lot of other things, so I wouldn’t even be a part of that. But, stuff like that is going on, and there is a whole lot of other people here like that, that’s still in the closet, and don’t wanna come out of the closet,but I just leave that alone.”

Lebatard: “You know that what you’re saying there though timmy is flatly homo phobic, it’s bigotry.”

Hardaway: “Well ya know, I hate gay people. So, I let it be known. I don’t like gay people, I don’t like to be around gay people. Yeah I’m homo phobic, I don’t like it, it shouldn’t be in the world today, or the united states, so yeah i don’t like it.”

In defense of Tim, at least he’s honest. I will say that I don’t hate gay people, but ESPN calling this a “bombshell” is a bit of an overstatement. Go figure, a heterosexual man hates gay people. Get outta here!? Have you ever been to church? Most Christian churches (at least the ones I have attended) act like gay people are incredibly evil and won’t allow their kids within sight of them. So now, this concept of a man hating other gay men is a shocker? Please. I don’t agree with Tim, but I respect him for being honest and straight forward. At least you know where he stands. I’m sure some gay rights group will call for Tim Hardaway to be imprisoned for his comments.

Hardaway Audio (ESPN.com)

As a teen I had my walls covered with the women of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition.  At that time, the swimsuit edition represented soft-porn to me.  In recent years, the annual swim-wear spectacular has gone south….in my opinion anyway.

This year however…..they’ve outdone themselves.

That’s right, Beyonce is in this years edition.  I’m not usually one to foam at mega-stars and their looks, but Beyonce is gorgeous.  I have to admit, When I saw her in Dreamgirls (yes, I saw that movie, so what?) I was disturbed at how much weight she had lost, but she looks fantastic in these photos.  Check out the following link to see all her photos and a short video of her shoot.

Swimsuit 2007 Beyonce  (SI.com)

I’ve dogged Peyton Manning his entire career.  Now that he has finally won a Super Bowl, I’m really not left with a lot of ammunition to say that he isn’t a magnificent quarterback.  He seems to be a great person also.  Awful Announcing stayed up late last night to record Peyton Manning on David Letterman and get it uploaded to Youtube for us all to enjoy.

Seriously, this is a fantastic interview.  Manning is funny, candid, humble, witty, and intelligent.  David Letterman, as always, does a fantastic job of engaging his personality.  Well worth watching.

Peyton Manning On Late Night With David Letterman  (Awful Announcing)

Back for another edition of Quick Slants, this week we’ll start in the crazy ACC.

The ACC gets even crazier tonight as Virginia Tech upset #4 North Carolina in OT, 81-80. The win gives Virginia Tech a season sweep over the Heels and sets up a HUGE matchup as Carolina travels to #21 Boston College this Saturday. B.C. will be no worse than tied for first in the ACC. They currently have a one game lead on Carolina, but host struggling Duke tomorrow night. Back to back wins over Duke and UNC would give the Eagles a commanding 2 game lead in the league. All this without Sean Williams. Another mild upset tonight as Georgia Tech knocked off Florida State, 63-57.

Carlos Zambrano refers to himself as himself. “Whatever happens, I don’t want to know about a contract during the season. I want to sign with the Cubs before the season starts. If they don’t sign me, sorry, but I must go. That’s what Carlos Zambrano thinks.”

Not only is John Amaechi gay, he also feels that Jerry Sloan’s perceptions of him held him back in the NBA. He also sounds like a mix between Shakespeare and Edgar Allen Poe; “We want our pound of flesh. We as society. Give us our human sacrifice. I don’t care what you lose. I don’t care what you risk. You must fall on your sword for us to look at you in a different way”. I think Amaechi is giving society WAY too much credit if he thinks we put that much thought into a player coming forward and telling us he is gay.
Amaechi Interview (CNN)

Hope For Bloggers Everywhere: True Hoop is absorbed by ESPN This is MAJOR news in the blog-realm. True Hoop is a fantastic site, but it gives everyone the hope that the can do the same.

I can now post something that will interest my fiancee!! Reggie Bush has been spotted with Ciara! Of course, since they were spotted together, this automatically means they are dating. The Big Lead goes as far to say that Ciara is being called the next Beyonce. I call whatever on that, she’s somewhat talented, even less hot, (she’s cute, but built like an 18 year old boy) and is nowhere in the REALM of hotness that Beyonce inhabits.

Reggie Bush Getting His Mac-Daddy Vibe With Ciara (The Big Lead)

Ha Ha, Duke sucks!

Tiki Barber joins NBC to be a ‘Today’ show correspondent. NBC is a fitting network for Tiki.

Finally, I’ve been following the world of politics a little more lately. I’m a bit put off by Hillary Clinton being a little foggy in explaining why she originally voted for the Iraq war. I get that people would not have voted for the war had they known what they know now. That is a reasonable answer. However, the thing with Hillary is that she seems to use public perception to determine if her vote was a good thing…or a bad thing. Just 1 day after Saddam was captured Hillary was very clear to point out how pleased she was and that she voted for the war. See, the war was a good thing on that day, so she wanted to be clear that she voted for it. Now, the war is a bad thing, and she wants to be clear that she was voting for the inspectors to return to Iraq.

Elsewhere, Barack Obama, used the word “wasted” when referring to the 3,000+ U.S. soldiers that had died in Iraq. He quickly apologized and said that he shouldn’t and didn’t mean to use the word wasted. That’s fine by me, we all get carried away at times. However, Obama is about as far left on the war as you can get. He wants to get out of Iraq and fast. If he were to pull troops out of Iraq before the mission was completed, would our soldiers lives have been wasted? I don’t think it will matter, Obama is too far left to get the Democratic nomination anyway. It’s truly a shame, because he is the only candidate that doesn’t change his stance based on polls.

Finally, John Edwards second crazy blogger quit today. These girls, and Edwards keep making out like their blogs were “ok” because the were their own personal blogs. Yeah, ok for me to write, but I’m not involved with someone running for president. Jeez!

Here is her blog: Shakespeare’s Sister

We are only a few days away from NBA “All Star Weekend” and I am yet again playing Mike in a shortened week in our fantasy basketball league. Somehow, he and I face each other during All Star Weekend every year.

Anyway, here’s a look at the NBA at the somewhat halfway point and a preview of this weekends all star attractions.

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ESPN is reporting that the Chargers have fired Head Coach Marty Schottenheimer 

I just don’t get this move.  Well, yeah I do….sorta.  After losing both coordinators and a couple of other coaches, Chargers brass decided that the Marty headache just wasn’t worth it any more.

Whatever.  The guy got you to 14-2 with an untested QB and no real wide receivers.  Also, everyone knows that Marty and G.M. A.J. Smith do not get along.  The Chargers aren’t trying to hide that this was the biggest part of the equation.  So now the Chargers are left without a coaching staff in what is a very thin head coaching market.  There just aren’t any big names left.  I’ll have more on this later, I just wanted to jump in while the jumping was good.

Often times when I take a couple days off from posting, I return with little to no inspiration.  That happened to me this weekend as well.  I searched Sirius radio on the long ride home yesterday for inspiration, and found little.  In fact, I ended up spending most of the trip listening to talk radio go on and on about Anna Nicole Smith.

I got home and still…no inspiration.  Carolina had trounced Weak Forest , on a day that was understandably special to their fan base…but wasn’t all that special to me.

UNC Reunion Photo Album  (InsideCarolina.com)

I flipped to find my beloved Wolfpack getting out rebounded, out hustled, and beaten…by Miami, the worst team in the ACC.

Ho-hum, the Pro-Bowl was on…I didn’t watch a single second of it.  My fiancee and I settled in to watch a few of her shows that she had DVR’d.  I’m talking shows like “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” .  I’ll be honest, while Ellen provides no inspiration for blogging, I generally don’t mind her show.  She’s entertaining, somewhat funny, has good guests (often hot women) and unlike Rosie O’Donnell on “The View” she doesn’t find the need to constantly obsess over her being a lesbian.  Speaking of Rosie, while I know none of the rest of us were all that broken up over the death of Anna Nicole, check out her comments about Anna Nicole Smith just hours before she died:

Honestly, Rosie didn’t say anything the rest of us didn’t already think but talk about bad timing!  Wow!

Anyway, I got a little off track.  Maybe I break “man code” by watching these shows, but I generally enjoy them.

Back to my lack of inspiration.  After moping on the couch for a couple of hours, we decided to go check out Eddie Murphy’s new movie “Norbit”.   If you like funny movies, and aren’t offended by race, sex, or weight jokes, you’ll love this movie.  We both enjoyed it a lot.  Ate a lot of popcorn, laughed and then came back home.  I don’t even remember falling to sleep last night.  Still no inspiration.

I woke up this morning and found my inspiration.  How?  I did what I normally do on a lazy Sunday.   I made a visit to the rest-room.  And there it was!  My inspiration….something/someone for me to write about.  Something I was interested in, that pertained to sports!!

That something or someone was Dwight Howard, ESPN’s “NEXT” athlete for 2007….and he was in my bathroom!  How could I have missed this!?  You really have no idea how much inspiration I get while in the john.  I do most of my reading in there.  I get ideas.  I think.  It’s quiet, I’m not disturbed.  It’s an amazing place to brain storm.

Anyway, I had been following Howard’s career ever since I snagged him off the waiver wire early in his rookie season.  His 12 points and 10 boards, along with 50+% shooting, and 1.7 blocks per game helped team “Tony Montana” win the Grandmaster Flash league.  The first of my back to back Fantasy Basketball Championships.

The kid was Amare Stoudemire raw.  6-11, 265 pounds, straight out of high school, beast.

Fast forward to present day.   Howard has now come into his own.  He’s dropping 17 and 12 per night, while shooting nearly 60% from the field!!  He and Stoudemire are redefining the center position.  No longer is height the only asset.  No more tall, lumbering, strictly post-up guys barely making it up and down the court.  Howard is a pure athlete, in a sculpted body.  Cat quick, with the ability to attack the rim…not only with power…but with speed.  The kicker?  He’s 21 years old!

Wanna see an incredible stat line?  Check out Howard’s numbers from a January 10th win over Golden State:  44 minutes, 11 of 18 from the field, 8 of 15 from the line, 25 boards, (9 offensive) 2 steals, 1 block, 30 points.  He’s the youngest player in history to accumulate 20 points and 20 boards in the same game….He’s done it 6 times now, 4 in this season alone!  Beast.

I chose to write about Howard because I want to write about the future, today.   I’m not sure when, but at some point Howard is going to be leading his team to great things.

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By the way, before I finish up.  Howard (64,477 votes) did have some competition in “ESPN The Magazine”.  Calvin Johnson (62,427), Evgeni Malkin (49,668),  Jose’ Reyes (38,504), and Juan Pablo Montoya (12,758).

Malkin: (One of the best hockey goals you’ll ever see)

Montoya Burnout

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I know I didn’t.  If you didn’t, it appears you missed a fairly good game as the NFC rallied from 28-14 with 3 minutes remaining, only to have victory snatched from them as time expired.

Trailing 28-14, Steven Jackson scored from 4 yards out for the NFC who then failed on a 2 point conversion, leaving the score at 28-20.  Then, Ronde Barber recovered an onside kick, Tony Romo found Anquan Boldin for a 47 yard TD pass, and finally hit Steve Smith for a 2 point conversion, knotting things up at 28.

Carson Palmer got the AFC over midfield and then was aided as Adrian Wilson interfered with Chad Johnson at the goal line.  Wilson thought the ball had been tipped.  Nate Kaeding came in and kicked a 21 yard game winning field goal, giving the AFC a 31-28 win.

In the “go figure” moment of the game, Drew Brees played just 2 series before leaving the game with a dislocated elbow.  Sweet huh?

Anyway, I wish I would have at least DVR’d the game, I’ve heard that Tony Romo had to do some holding on kicks, I wonder how that went.  Also, this was Tiki Barber’s last pro effort,  he ran for 4 yards on 7 carries, caught an 8 yard pass, and did score the games 1st TD, a 5 yarder.