The Score Buzz

The Getting Blanked Show #22

Wed, 16 May 2012 16:04:38 -0400

The Getting Blanked Show #22

Top-10 hits of the Second Round

Wed, 16 May 2012 14:55:49 -0400

Top-10 hits of the Second Round

DJF: More Lawrie Fallout

Wed, 16 May 2012 14:10:46 -0400

DJF: More Lawrie Fallout

Backhand Shelf Podcast: What Holmgren thinks of Carter and Richards' success

Wed, 16 May 2012 13:18:15 -0400

Backhand Shelf Podcast: What Holmgren thinks of Carter and Richards' success

TBJ The Fix Ep. 823; Breaking down Tuesday's games

Wed, 16 May 2012 13:00:14 -0400

On today’s playoff edition of “The Fix,” Skeets and Tas breakdown Tuesday’s games: Pacers-Heat and Clippers-Spurs. Topics discussed include: the Heat’s final play, Wade’s comments regarding the Pacers post-game “celebration,” whether D-Wade should be suspended for tackling Collison, The Bosh Effect, the Spurs pick-and-roll D, Eric Bledsoe’s great game, “GM of the Year” R.C. Buford, and what the Clippers need to do to make this a series. All that, plus Sebastian Ellis, Jimmy Goldstein, KevCops, and more.

Slasher Mike Smith Hacks Diver Dustin Brown

Wed, 16 May 2012 00:48:34 -0400

Busted.

Some bizarre things happen in hockey games, but few are more bizarre than the standards for skater-goaltender relations. It’s common to see the goaltenders have free reign over the ice, bringing about penalty calls on a whim with flops, hacks and the like. Calling a goaltender for slashing these days seems about as common as the two-line pass.

Equally bizarre in this sport is the double call of a trip, hook, dive or slash in addition to a diving call on the victim of the initial offense. HOW COULD IT BE BOTH? is a common phrase to hear in the living room of hockey fans across the world.

Today, we got both.

Not only was Mike Smith called for a hack on Dustin Brown, Brown was called for diving, embellishing, whatever jargon you want to use. I’m not sure how you penalize a guy for a physical reaction to a whack in the back of the knees. Heck, just poke a friend in the back of the knees and see what happens. I think it’s a little excessive, but hey, what do I know?

Did you think it was called right? Who deserved it more?

Coyotes Hitting Kings From Behind

Tue, 15 May 2012 23:59:27 -0400

The Gate.

It’s no secret that part of the path to success in the NHL playoffs is not shooting yourself in the foot, as evidenced by every winning team, ever. A prolonged level of strong play is as much not beating yourself as it is scoring more goals than the team you’re playing and a key to that is not taking penalties or getting suspended.

Unfortunately for their Stanley Cup hopes, the Phoenix Coyotes forgot that part in their game two tilt with the Kings and let the wheels fall off the bus with undisciplined play. This was punctuated of course by two game misconducts by Shane Doan and Martin Hanzal for boarding calls.

Here are the hits:

The Doan hit is a borderline one of course, given that Lewis could clearly see Doan coming at him and still turned. That being said, I’m still inclined to suggest that Doan could have done more to pull up. I hate to be the 100000th person to reference the Brian Burke ‘hug’ but that was probably a more appropriate approach. Stop signs, kids.

The Hanzal hit, however, is absolutely suspension worthy. Back turned the entire way, big follow-through, face first into the boards. Literally no excuse for that.

Do you think Doan and/or Hanzal should be suspended? Fined?

Wade's Flagrant Foul On Collison

Tue, 15 May 2012 23:31:49 -0400

Dwyane Wade tossed a complete cheap shot at Darren Collison on Tuesday night in game two of the Eastern Conference Semifinals between the Miami Heat and Indiana Pacers.

With under 10 minutes to go in the fourth quarter, the Pacers had a fast-break immediately after Wade thought he drew a foul on the offensive end, and the Heat star then took his frustration out on Collison with this flagrant-1 foul:

You could certainly argue that the foul should be ruled a flagrant-2, as it appeared to contain unnecessary and excessive contact. You could even argue that Wade deserves a suspension for it, but let's be real here: David Stern's not going to let a superstar get suspended for a play like that in the playoffs.

H/T: @jose3030

GIF: Charles Barkley & A Shake Weight

Tue, 15 May 2012 21:15:07 -0400

During halftime of the Heat-Pacers game Tuesday night on TNT, this happened:

Charles Barkley is having way too much fun with that thing. I feel highly uncomfortable right now.

H/T: @cjzero

Massive Canadian Lacrosse Brawl

Tue, 15 May 2012 20:15:41 -0400

There were fights all over the place during an indoor lacrosse game between the Coquitlam Adanacs and Nanaimo Timbermen on Saturday in British Columbia. As Chris Partlow of Cosby Sweaters points out, "This bench clearing melee had everything from goalie fighting, to stick fighting."

Here's video of the brawl:

Kenny and Charles call out Shaq for NBA Finals lies

Tue, 15 May 2012 15:25:57 -0400

The Shaquille O’Neal experiment on “Inside the NBA” has been a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand, sometimes Shaq does really stupid stuff that is unintentionally funny, so that is OK and pretty nice for the internet. On the other hand, he basically just tries to take things off-topic, rarely makes actual basketball points and almost always mumbles. So maybe the bag hasn’t been that mixed. More like it is a bag of Gardetto’s that has already been picked through and all that is left is really dry pretzels, but sometimes you luck out and find a rye chip that someone skipped over. This is a perfect analogy.

Last night, however, was a bit different. As you can see up top, Shaq pretty much just made up some “facts” about the time he took the Orlando Magic to the NBA Finals in 1995. Almost immediately, Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley called him out for being wrong. Then, Houston’s Sports 790 handled the rest.

Exactly how wrong was Shaq – Let’s find out…

– Unless Shaq was taking a veiled shot at the Pacers – the Magic beat Jordan’s Bulls in 6 games in the Eastern semis in a series that ended May 18th. They then played a 7 game series with the Pacers, obviously winning 4 games to 3. That series ended on a Sunday (June 4th) in Orlando, they started their finals series with Houston that Wednesday, June 7th. That’s two, count ‘em two, off days.

– Shaq claimed they beat the Rockets 3 straight times. He must be talking about the regular season, since Orlando has never beaten Houston in the playoffs … ever. But even in the regular season, that statement is still bogus. They obviously didn’t play 3 times during the regular season, but the Magic did win both games that season. However, they didn’t win the final game between them the previous season, so even that is off base.

Even if Shaq was trying to zing the Pacers — which he wasn’t, as he reiterated later in the show that the Magic had 17 off days between games — the Magic would have had 20 days off after beating the Bulls in the second round (which Shaq said was the Eastern Conference finals). Not only was the basis of his argument completely imaginary, he botched the numbers that he imagined. The guy can’t even get his made-up stats right.

Other than that, pretty strong argument that’s zero percent based in fact. I mean, if your team sweeping a regular season series — which was two games and not three, no big D — and then getting beat 4-0 doesn’t prove that your team was the best, then I don’t know what does. Shaq also probably thinks he beat Hakeem Olajuwon one-on-one after the Finals.

This just goes to show that you’ve got to be careful when you’re rewriting history sitting a man away from a guy who actually knows what happened. If we let Shaq have his way, he’d be a 19-time champion who taught Rakim how to rap and taught the world that a leather vest with no shirt underneath is the epitome of men’s style. Good thing Kenny and Charles are around to set him straight.

The Getting Blanked Show: Harper Goes Deep Edition

Tue, 15 May 2012 15:19:39 -0400

Your Tuesday edition of the Getting Blanked Show is here. The guys discuss Monday night’s attempted beanball war between the Arizona Diamondback and Los Angeles Dodgers, Matt Kemp’s trip to the DL, and the first career home run of one Bryce Harper. MLB’s blackout restrictions come under fire in this week’s edition of the Switch Hitter, and Parkes recaps his #PropHate punishment experience.

If you aren’t into video, below is an audio-only version of the show and an MP3 link. You can also subscribe to The Getting Blanked Podcast on iTunes, to have the podcast, live stream MP3s and other life-changing materials delivered straight to your computer each week via the RSS feed here.

Top-10 goals of the Second Round

Tue, 15 May 2012 12:35:09 -0400

Top 10 goals of the second round of playoffs

TBJ The Fix: Ep. 822: Breaking down Monday's action

Tue, 15 May 2012 12:31:03 -0400

On today’s playoff edition of “The Fix,” Skeets and Tas breakdown Monday’s games: Thunder-Lakers and Celtics-Sixers. Topics discussed include: OKC jumpers, LA’s lazy pick-and-roll defense, turnovers, World Peace boos, match-up nightmares, Perk’s impact, Iggy vs. Pierce, KG’s moving screen, Bradley’s shoulder, Lavoy’s contributions, and why Rondo is the anti-Westbrook. All that, plus the best post-game outfits to date.

Durant Dunks on Bynum

Tue, 15 May 2012 00:04:16 -0400

http://video.thescore.com/watch/durant-driving-slam

Brodeur Robs Staal

Mon, 14 May 2012 23:03:48 -0400

http://video.thescore.com/watch/brodeur-big-save

Top-10 Saves of the Second Round

Mon, 14 May 2012 18:52:20 -0400

With the Eastern Conference Final about to start and most blogs posting their previews, we thought we’d do a little something different and take a look back at the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Here are the 10-best saves from the Conference semis - we’ll be sharing the best hits and goals over the next 24 hours to go along with them.

He's Just Not That Good Anymore - Mark Teixeira

Mon, 14 May 2012 17:10:14 -0400

http://video.thescore.com/watch/hes-just-not-that-good-anymore-may-14-2012

Join the Getting Blanked guys as we perform the autopsy of Mark Teixeira's career to determine why He's Just Not That Good Anymore.

Tevez: RIP Fergie

Mon, 14 May 2012 15:46:03 -0400

No, he almost certainly does. This screen capture from the Manchester City parade. Oh dear indeed.

LeBron's MVP Shoes

Mon, 14 May 2012 15:17:02 -0400

When you are both the Most Valuable Player of a major sports league and the Most Valuable Endorser of a major shoe company, you’re going to get special shoes when you take home a trophy. We’ve seen it in the past and that’s just how it works. Strike while the iron is hot and all that. Yesterday, LeBron James and Nike struck while the iron was super duper skin-melty hot, lacing LBJ with a special edition of his LeBron 9 kicks for Game 1 of the Heat’s second round series with the Indiana Pacers.

As you can see in the pictures after the jump, there are a bunch of little MVP-y flourishes to these sneakers. You’ve got the fancy diamondish MVP plate on the back, some very cool nods to LeBron’s other MVPs in the shoe’s liner and a faded colorway we’ve never seen on this shoe. Pretty cool look, says me.

Peculiarly, however, is that LeBron only wore these for the first half of yesterday’s game, switching to the LeBron 9 Elite in the second half. I guess he prefers the updated technologies and tougher shoe he gets from his playoffs kicks to flossing another MVP trophy which he says means nothing if the Heat don’t win the title. Suit yourself, but I like the pop LeBron gets from the MVP shoe. Very flashy, which is perfect for Miami.

Rumor has it that a limited number of these MVP kicks are going to hit retail, though no release details are available. Let’s just assume they’re going to be costly and hard to get a hold of, just like an MVP trophy. Sure, LeBron gets ‘em all the time, but us normal people won’t ever have a chance.

Detailed photos after the jump.

And these are LeBron’s second half shoes, the Nike LeBron 9 Elite. Also note George Hill in the background wearing LeBron’s shoes. Whoops.

(via Sole Collector)