Congratulations Miami Heat

[lightfungus]

I was very surprised they won game 6. I had my mavs shirt on and everything, hoping for a game 7. But alas, the Mavs were too mentally destroyed from losing 3 games in a row and simply lost it. I am happy for Zo, GP, and Shaq...but the Mavericks were and will be such a great team. Oh well. "I love this game."

[kkirk1329]

love basketball, and GO WIZARDS, got screwed over this year but hopefully we'll be back next year

[lightfungus]

Glad someone likes basketball in this forum. No one was even impressed that Bibby handed me a basketball...losers.

[Zybomb]

lol

Sorry Im more of a football (pro and college) and boxing guy... no one here really likes boxing, so I feel you...

but I follow what goes on during the regular season and watch the playoffs (hey its kinda hard when your home team is the knicks to get excited!)

[Boobie Lover]

I like boxing.

[PShabi]

You do know I coach basketball, don't you???

As in, for a living.

[omahilo]

Im glad to see GP and Zo finally get a championship ring... I love to see the old vets get a ring.

I really wanted to see Malone and Stockton get a ring.

[Zybomb]

Two potentially great fights on HBO Saturday Night involving 4 undefeated prospects if you haven't heard

The line up starts with two undefeated welterweights, Joel Julio, supposedly the hottest prospect in all of boxing (any division) against undefeated Carlos Quintana. Quintana has a good rep himself and this should be a damn good fight

In the main event American Heavyweight Calvin Brock, who is supposed to the be the biggest (and only) up and coming american heavyweight prospect is taking on undefeated Uzbekistan (sp?) Timor Ibragimov.

I've seen Brock fight Jameel McCline and his last fight against Zuri Lawrence where he knocked him cold with one left hook. Brock looked beatable in both fights, Im not as impressed as everyone seems to be with him, but maybe I'll see after Sat

Ibragimov although undefeated is considered to be the worse of the two cousins (his cousin Sultan is also an active undefeated heavyweight who is supposed to have the greater skills and greater punching power...he will be fighting Ray Austin next month with the winner probably getting a crack at Wladamir Klitschko's IBF title), and is a huge dog on the betting.

Oh and the Winky Taylor fight last week I think was scored correctly, I would have agreed with 115-113 for either fighter or a 114-114 draw....Winky comparing it to the Vargas fight (where he was clearly robbed) is outragous

[Boobie Lover]

Yeah, I saw the Winky fight and his belief he was robbed was outrageous. I had it 115-113 for Taylor.

[Zybomb]

After the hype I wrote up about these two fights geez. Were they ANYTHING but what I expected.

Quintana took Julio to school and exposed him as a one dimensional KO fighter, uncapable of throwing combinations when up against an opponent who moves in and out and feeds him angles. I gave Quintana every round besides the first although there was one middle round which I could have seen either way. How one judge had 115-112 i have no idea... I dont know what they hell they were watching, but it certainly wasnt this fight

The Main Event was a snooze fest to put it lightly. Ibrigimov looked horrendous, all he did was throw one punch at a time (except occassionally double and triple up his jab) and clinch -- he made Ruiz look half decent yuck. The only entertaining part was listening to his trainers comments "Do you wanna quit? Should I stop the fight? (no) THEN FIGHT!" and my favorite "If you don't do something this round, you're gunna come back to this corner and we're not gunna be here anymore...you're gunna be by yourself because we're gunna leave you ". Maybe if he offered his fighter...I dunno SOME ADVICE ON THE FIGHT, he may have done something....speaking of advice, WTF was up with Buddy McGirt telling Joel Julio to NOT look for the knockout and use your jab when going nito the 11th round in a fight he was clearly 5+ pts behind in? He said the same thing to Tarver late in the fight vs Hopkins when the same thing was evident....McGirt is supposed to be a world class trainer....what is he thinking? At least Ibrigimov's guy told him to "let it all go"

As for Brock, he didn't do much either besides land a few combinations in spurts which looked nice.... granted it wasn't an easy fight to look good in because of the 'safety first' style Ibrigimov was fighting, and the excess clinching, but the crowds boos said it all.... HBO must have been pissed, as they were hoping to attract some new fans and showcase some up and coming talent/ prospects, and what they got was two lopsided fights, their welterweight prospect (Julio) humiliated and a main event that was a snoozefest where neither fighter impressed anyone.

Nothing much exciting to look forward to: I'm not real interested in the Vargas/Mosley rematch, the Gatti/Baldomir title fight isn't taken seriously, Karmazin/Spinks will be a bore fest and Vernon Forest and Ike Quarter are both years past their prime... oh and the fact Rahman/Maskev is PPV is just ridiculous, I mean come on.... I'll lok forward to Valuev's US debut in his next title defense, and the Sultan Ibrigimov/ Ray Austin eliminator, although based on his cousin's performance tonight, it leaves me questioning him as well.

The UFC card (which I taped) was half decent at least, with a real good Middleweight final battle

[lightfungus]

Holy shit, totally forgot. You are seriously my new hero. Not kidding at all. How'd your team do this season?

[PShabi]

Well, I only coached my middle school team this year. In past summers, I've coached some pretty big AAU teams at the high school level. One team I coached two summers ago had 6 kids go Division I (smaller schools, nobody really notable). My team this year was only .500, but I had to kick a kid off the team preseason who literally would've got us 2 more victories at least. It was an alright season.

Next year will be my first taste of the "big time", as I'm moving to Vegas to take my first HS head coaching job. I'm really excited about it. A lifelong dream realized is a wonderful thing.

Did you play in HS?

[lightfungus]

Ha, no. My whiteness gets in the way. I actually just got into basketball when I started college. So I am a fresh fan, but also fresh at the game. I am getting better though. I regularly play at a gym all year round. I was in line to play pickup with Mike Bibby and Eddie house like I said in that other thread, but I probably would have broken my ankles.

[PShabi]

Cool. It's a great game. The best, actually. I've never played anybody THAT good, but I did play against a few of Purdue's players while I was there.

We had a huge CoRec facility with something sick, like 12 full courts, all under one roof. They'd come in from time to time, even though they weren't supposed to.

There was this freshman, who I can't recall now , who came in one day. Quick little guard who was close to my size. I shut him down for a couple games and got him all pissed off. He transferred after that year. People said it was cause of playing time, but I'm sure it was cause of the embarassment a 5'10" whiteboy laid down that day.

I AM the definition of "in your jock" defense.

[lightfungus]

Pshabi, I don't know if you have read before, but I love the intimacy with which Mark Cuban writes about issues in the NBA. I really have taken a liking to the guy and think he will only help the NBA improve. Good reading.