'Nasty News - Traversing Time & Space' Vol: 26

[nasty daddy]

http://www.hoopsworld.com/Scores/Recap. ... E_ID=28982

MILWAUKEE 92, DETROIT 86 AUBURN HILLS, Michigan (Ticker) -- The second half began the same way the first half ended for the Detroit Pistons - with a loss. The Pistons' recent struggles continued on Tuesday night as they dropped their fourth straight contest, a 92-86 setback to the shorthanded Milwaukee Bucks. Milwaukee is still playing without the services of Michael Redd, Andrew Bogut and Luke Ridnour, but has continued to persevere nonetheless. "If you want to be a good, consistent club there isn't one formula every night," Milwaukee coach Scott Skiles said. "You have to find different ways to win. Some nights, the shots are going in and you look like a great offensive club. When they're not going in, you have to find a way to win a game - like we did tonight." The Bucks took control early but finally began to wilt in the fourth quarter when the Pistons stormed back. Antonio McDyess scored seven points in an 11-0 run midway through the period, capping the run with a three-point play that cut the deficit to 80-79. But Richard Jefferson answered with a three-point play of his own, plowing to the basket and finishing strong at the hoop while drawing contact from Detroit forward Jason Maxiell. "We're not going to replace a Michael Redd or an Andrew Bogut or Luke Ridnour in the way he pushes the ball, so we have to depend on each other," Jefferson said. "Guys are passing the ball and hitting big shots." McDyess added two more layups later in the quarter to pull Detroit back to within two at 88-86, but the Bucks finished things off at the foul line to keep the Pistons reeling. "We didn't play with the level of intensity that we need to, especially in the first quarter," Detroit coach Michael Curry said. "In the second half of the third quarter and in the fourth, we played the way we needed to play. We played with a sense of urgency and in attack mode." Jefferson finished with 29 points, five boards and five assists for Milwaukee (27-29), which is now just two games behind Detroit (27-25) for the seventh spot in the Eastern Conference. The Bucks have won three straight overall. "We're looking at it as, 'Why stay in the spot that you're in? Why not try to move up in the playoffs? Why not try to get above .500?'" Jefferson said. "These are goals we've had all season, but because of injuries and inconsistencies we haven't been able to do it. We're a lot hungrier than we look on paper." They jumped out of the gate in this one early on, going on a 9-2 run early in the first quarter behind a pair of long jumpers by Jefferson. They held a 12-point advantage through one and held it for the duration of the contest. The Pistons' only lead was 2-0 after McDyess' layup on the game's first possession. McDyess led Detroit with a season-high 24 points and 14 boards, while the team's backcourt combo of Allen Iverson and Rodney Stuckey combined to hit 5-of-19. Richard Hamilton provided a lift off the bench with 22 points. "We've got the message. Time is running out," Iverson said. "We have 30 games left and we've played nowhere near as good as we can play. We have spurts where we play well, but we have to put whole games together. For some reason, we're not doing that and it's unacceptable." The Pistons' hopes of home-court advantage in the first round continue to dwindle, as they've slipped from fourth to seventh in the East. Then again, perhaps The Palace at Auburn Hills wouldn't be so accommodating. The Pistons have astonishingly lost seven of their last eight games at home, falling to 14-14 here on the season. "It's a little different team. We have some new guys who are key for us and we look forward to them playing well, especially in this building," Curry said. "We moved our shootarounds over here (from the practice facility) to get guys more familiar with this building. We just aren't playing good basketball."

[nasty daddy]

http://www.hoopsworld.com/HeadlineStories.html

The Celtics have gone from being top-heavy in guards to being short in the backcourt after trading Sam Cassell yesterday and announcing that Tony Allen will undergo thumb surgery today.

[nasty daddy]

http://www.nj.com/nets/index.ssf/2009/0 ... rod_2.html

The Rockets were without Tracy McGrady last night - he's missed 19 games, and hasn't played since Feb. 8 - and there's no easy solution to the pain he's had in his left knee since an arthroscopy last May. He was actually in New York getting his 20th second opinion yesterday.

[nasty daddy]

http://www.nj.com/nets/index.ssf/2009/0 ... rod_2.html

Yi Jianlian played his first game in a month during last night's 114-88 loss to the Rockets, and though his numbers weren't much (six points and five boards in 15 minutes off the bench), he played with the same aggressiveness he showed before breaking his finger.

"It was good, I thought he had some good moments, he was active on the glass," coach Lawrence Frank said. Even though the game was decided, it was good for him to have some offensive (reps). It's just good to have him in the mix again."

"I feel pretty good," Yi said. "The first quarter I was a little bit tired, but after that I picked it up and felt better. I need some time, but I think it will pick up pretty soon."

[nasty daddy]

http://www.boston.com/sports/basketball ... trade_out/

The Celtics have gone from being top-heavy in guards to being short in the backcourt after trading Sam Cassell yesterday and announcing that Tony Allen will undergo thumb surgery today.

Asked if Allen's injury would lead him to go after another guard, Ainge said, "I don't think that changes anything we're doing or changes our mind-set.

Allen was injured during practice before the Celtics started their current road trip with wins at New Orleans and Dallas last week. Rivers said that when he was a player, he sustained a similar thumb injury during the offseason.

[nasty daddy]

http://www.cleveland.com/cavs/index.ssf ... rds_j.html

Chris Bosh (knee) is questionable, Kris Humphries (leg) is out, Jose Calderon (hamstring) and Joey Graham (shin) are probable for Toronto. ... Tarence Kinsey (ankle) and Ben Wallace (arm) are questionable and Delonte West (wrist) is doubtful for the Cavs.

[nasty daddy]

http://www.torontosun.com/sports/basket ... 1-sun.html

He said he will see how his sprained right knee feels after shootaround today before making a decision. However, the fact that he has yet to go through a full practice and has not played in two weeks suggests Marion's Raptors debut will go off without Bosh in the lineup.

[nasty daddy]

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/dailydime

Trying To Fix Detroit's Rotation: ESPN.com Speaking of Detroit, I heartily applaud the decision to put Antonio McDyess in the starting lineup ahead of Amir Johnson. With a 15.32 player efficiency rating, 50.5 percent shooting and solid defense, McDyess has been the best Pistons frontcourt player after Rasheed Wallace. Johnson, meanwhile, has struggled with fouls the entire season and has been surprisingly invisible on offense. And Kwame Brown ... seriously, don't get me started.

Now if the Pistons would just let Jason Maxiell onto the court once in a while, they'd have all their rotation problems solved. Mad Max's 16.05 PER is nearly the same as last season's, but despite the struggles of Johnson and Brown and the fact that McDyess was gone for over a month, he's averaging only 16 minutes a game. He hasn't played more than 20 minutes since Jan. 21 and received single-figure minutes in four of Detroit's eight games leading into the break.

As much heat as Michael Curry has taken this season for his approach, personnel selection has been just as big of an issue. It shouldn't take a guy two-thirds of the season to figure out who his best players are.

[nasty daddy]

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/dailydime

QUOTE OF THE NIGHT: "The last couple of games, I've regressed. I've felt pain."

Rockets forward Tracy McGrady, who will miss the rest of the season to have surgery on his troublesome left knee

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http://www.nba.com/video/channels/top_p ... index.html

Block of the Night

Rasheed Wallace meets Malik Allen at the rim.

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http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3915854

Trail Blazers center Greg Oden will sit out Wednesday night's game against the Memphis Grizzlies because of a bone chip in his left knee.

Oden was hurt in a collision during a game at Golden State last Thursday. He was unable to play in the All-Star Weekend's rookie challenge. The 7-foot center is listed as day-to-day. Team doctors are expected to evaluate his knee later Wednesday. Oden, the top pick in the 2007 draft, sat out all of last season after microfracture surgery on his right knee. He missed six games at the start of this season with a foot injury.

Oden has averaged nine points and just over seven rebounds in 39 games this season. Joel Przybilla will start in Oden's place against the Grizzlies. Blazers starting point guard Steve Blake was described as probable against Memphis, after missing 13 of the last 14 games because of a separated right shoulder. Blake was averaging 11.3 points a game before he was injured.

[nasty daddy]

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3915576

Williams not allowed on campus New Jersey Nets forward Sean Williams was arrested at Boston College last weekend for allegedly violating a no-trespassing order. The 22-year-old former BC player was arrested Sunday shortly before the Eagles played Duke for violating an order issued in May, according to the campus police report.

Williams' Boston-based lawyer, Howard Fisher, said the player was invited to Sunday's game by a member of Boston College's coaching staff and blamed the arrest on "lack of communication" between the staffer and campus police. The police report said Williams was belligerent when police tried to arrest him and wrote obscenities instead of his name on the fingerprint card and trespass warning. "Maybe it's just human nature to act that way when someone is invited to an event and then placed under arrest," Fisher said.

The 6-foot-10 Williams was dismissed from the Boston College team in January 2007 for multiple rules violations that included an arrest for marijuana possession in 2005. That charge was dropped after he completed a rehabilitation program. Williams posted $40 bail but failed to show for arraignment Tuesday. Prosecutors asked the judge to issue an arrest warrant, but the arraignment was rescheduled for March 5 -- the day after the Nets play the Celtics in Boston. Williams and Nets coach Lawrence Frank had no comment in Houston, where the Nets played Tuesday night. Williams was the Nets' first-round pick in the 2007 NBA draft.

[nasty daddy]

http://www.detroitnews.com/apps/pbcs.dl ... 80438/1127

'Toughest stretch' next for Pistons
Don't call it a defining stretch of games. The Pistons already had their defining stretch when they lost home games to Boston and Cleveland in a three-day span at the end of January. That stretch, if not their pedestrian 27-25 record, clearly defined them as not ready to compete against the Eastern Conference elite. This next brutal stretch of games won't define the Pistons, but it offers them a chance to either alter or validate that definition.

Starting Thursday night at The Palace, the Pistons will face seven playoff contenders -- San Antonio, then on the road against Cleveland, Miami, New Orleans, Orlando and Boston, before coming home to play Denver. "That's what we need," Allen Iverson said. "We don't need some (mediocre) team to come in here and then beat them and start feeling like we did something. We need to beat quality teams. We need that challenge. We need somebody that's going to come in here and want to kick our butts all over the basketball court, just to see how we respond." Newsflash: The Pistons need to beat any and all teams. The challenge is to stop the four-game losing streak and their freefall toward lottery-land. Every team that plays the Pistons these days wants to kick their butts and has completely confidence they will do so. The challenge is to start winning games and restore their confidence and maybe, eventually, their credibility as a potential contender. "This is the toughest stretch of our season," Tayshaun Prince said.

Here is the upcoming schedule:
Thursday -- vs. San Antonio (35-17), 8 p.m.
Sunday -- at Cleveland (40-11), 8 p.m.
Tuesday -- at Miami (28-24), 7:30 p.m.
Wednesday -- at New Orleans (31-20), 8 p.m.
Friday, Feb. 27 -- at Orlando (39-13), 7 p.m.
Sunday, March 1 -- at Boston (44-11), 1 p.m.
Tuesday, March 3 -- vs. Denver (36-17), 7:30 p.m.

[nasty daddy]

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3916327

Reserve Allen has thumb surgery : Celtics backup guard Tony Allen is expected to be sidelined for eight weeks after having thumb surgery on Wednesday.

The operation repaired ligaments in the left thumb of the veteran of five NBA seasons, all with the Celtics. Allen was hurt during practice last week.

He is averaging 7.8 points in 40 games this season and 7.4 for his career. His career high of 11.5 points per game came in 2006-07, but he was limited to 33 games by a knee injury.

[nasty daddy]

http://www.nba.com/2009/news/02/18/tmac ... index.html

Houston Rockets star Tracy McGrady will have surgery on his left knee and miss the rest of the season.

The star forward said on his Web site Wednesday that the pain has been persistent and he will have microfracture surgery. He's confident he'll return next season.

McGrady is Houston's third-leading scorer. He had arthroscopic surgery in May and has missed 18 games this season because of his sore knee. He said before the All-Star break he wanted to consult with doctors before deciding on the best course of treatment.

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http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3916703

Bulls, Kings pull off deal
The Chicago Bulls and Sacramento Kings have reached tentative agreement on a trade sending Andres Nocioni, Drew Gooden and Cedric Simmons to the Kings for Brad Miller and John Salmons, ESPN.com.

One source said the Bulls players were pulled off the team bus Wednesday afternoon and were told they had been traded.

The deal also involved a third team. The Bulls agreed to send Michael Ruffin to Portland, and the Trail Blazers would ship Ike Diogu to the Kings, sources told ESPN The Magazine's Chris Broussard.

[nasty daddy]

http://blog.mlive.com/fullcourtpress/20 ... heave.html

Will Allen Iverson Go to Heaven? That's a question Allen was asking himself some days ago when talking about NBA players and the various charity events they attend. Dr. Ray Pritchard must have seen or heard about Iverson asking those questions, because he has an article about this subject in Wednesday's edition of Cross Walk.

I confess to not having given any thought as to the eternal destiny of Allen Iverson, a premier professional basketball player with the Detroit Pistons, and I would not have thought about it at all if Mr. Iverson had not raised the topic himself. During a press conference in connection with the NBA All-Star Weekend, Allen Iverson brought up the topic of heaven and hell and where he thought he would end up. In a discussion about various charity events where NBA athletes do nice things for the sick and disadvantaged, Mr. Iverson said he prefers to do his charity work behind the scenes, a sentiment shared by Jesus himself in Matthew 6:1-4. That alone would be provocative enough, but the basketball star decided to add a few other thoughts.

Then Dr. Pritchard quotes Allen Iverson, and concludes that he is happy Iverson thinks about these things and hopes Allen does get his chance to "enter through those Gates".

[nasty daddy]

http://www.freep.com/article/20090218/S ... a+quandary

Losing ground, fast: The Pistons are on another losing streak. They find it tough to win at home. The bench reminds one of musical chairs played at kindergarten. They can’t hit the side of a barn with their shots and the rebounding is terrible. Last night, the team lost, 92-86, to Milwaukee, their fourth straight defeat, and are now 27-25 overall, with a 14-14 record at the Palace.

Of course, if they started clicking on all cylinders — or just a few, anyway — they might be back in business. Is it too late? Has the team that was once so proud of “going to work” each night quit on the coach, themselves and the city? Can they — or should they — make the conference finals?

Coach Michael Curry isn’t pleased, obviously. The Freep’s Carlos Monarrez quotes the coach as saying after Tuesday’s loss: “I wasn’t pleased with the intensity level from the beginning of the game. Whether you’re sluggish or not (after the All-Star break), we can play hard — make mistakes, missed shots, whatever it may be, but play hard.” Hardly, right now, Mike.

[nasty daddy]

http://blog.mlive.com/fullcourtpress/20 ... heave.html

Most of us have seen Iverson enter the Eastern Conference locker room after getting his hair cut, but have you seen Iverson actually getting his hair shaved off?

Clip of A.I getting his hair cut in th elink above^.

[nasty daddy]

http://pistonpost.com/2009/02/18/the-struggle-goes-on/

The Struggle Goes On
The Pistons haven’t won for almost two weeks and the trade deadline is tomorrow. A golden opportunity for all of that to change. The Bucks left the Palace like so many visiting teams this season-victorious. The typical 4th quarter comeback attempt showed up right on schedule, but like so many times this season-it failed.

I’m all in support of Antonio McDyess moving into the starting five, but when the closest starter scores 14 points less than he does, it’s never a good sign. McDyess is on the floor for gritty rebounds and occasional jumpers from 15-20 feet. He is not Rip Hamilton or Allen Iverson. The burden of go-to offense should not be on his shoulders. It’s not his job.