Not Surprised

This is about what I expected. One thing to keep in mind, though, everyone who picked the Lakers in 6 must realize that game 6 is IN Utah. Are the Jazz going to lose an elimination game at home? Personally, I'll take the Jazz in 6. I think we can take game 1 simply because we played great yesterday, we won 2 games in Houston, and the Lakers haven't played in about a week. We'll have to win both home games after that but I think we can, because LA is not the defensive team that Houston was.

We all know that Kobe is going to score, that's a given. But the x-factor for BOTH teams will be the bench play. Vujacic, Walton and Farmar vs. Millsap, Harpring and Korver. You can guess where my money is.


Game on 21 1/2 hrs.

Welcome May

"A" Game

Is there any doubt who the best player has been in this playoff series so far? There are really only 2 candidates:

• Tracy McGrady
• 23.3 points per game
• 7.8 assists
• 8.5 rebounds
• 38.3% FG
• 15.4% 3-point
• 57.6% FT
• 3 points per 4th quarter
  

• Deron Williams
• 21.8 points per game
• 9 assists
• 1.8 rebounds
• 54.5% FG
• 58.3% 3-point
• 66.7% FT
• 6.8 points per 4th quarter
  

BUT...the most important stat: Deron - 3 wins, Tracy - 1 win.

What was nice about last night's win was that the scoring was balanced, all the starters were in double figures and shot fairly well (aside from Boozer's 3-13, but he made all his FTs.) If we shoot at least 25% on threes we win by 10.

I am still worried about game 5. We've won 3 of 4 overall and 3 in a row (in the playoffs) in Houston, but they've been playing well and we've had 3 close games in a row. I say the winner is the first to 90 points.

And in case you didn't see the game last night, here's one of the highlights...

Refresher Course

I saw this today on CNN.com and thought it would a good opportunity to remind people what the 1st Amendment means.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Seems simple enough, right? The story is about an atheist soldier who is claiming harassment from other soldiers and officers. This guy is out there putting his life on the line, religious beliefs couldn't be any less important. He should be able to worship how he wishes, even if it means not at all. If the tables were turned, if the atheist soldier was harassing Christians, you KNOW that he would be crucified in the media (pun intended.) The 1st Amendment guarantees that citizens can follow any faith they want without punishment and that no religion will be forced upon them; I'm fairly certain that it applies to the Federal Government.

26 years ago...

...I was born. Happy birthday to ME!

Special thanks to my sister who arranged a call from Carlos Boozer earlier. Seriously, I talked to Booz today (well, I use "talked" loosely, it was more like me stammering.) Thanks Booz, good luck on Thu.

[update: TrueHoop blogger Henry Abbott picked up on my story and posted on his blog. This is both awesome and embarrassing.]

Game On

Time for the playoffs! Jazz will start the post-season in Houston (again) tonight, but the biggest difference is that the Jazz are actually favored this time:



Of course, the Jazz won this series last year even though everyone picked the Rockets:


My previous predictions weren't exactly accurate, although I was 1 win from being right about the 3 seed. I'll pick the Jazz (obviously) to win in 6 games, but 5 games wouldn't be shocking at all either.

The Jazz have gotten a lot of love lately from ESPN,

In the second round, I see Utah and the Lakers meeting in what should be the true conference finals...I have Utah beating L.A. in a six-game barn burner that's about as close to a coin-flip as any pairing you can come up with. That sets up Chris Paul versus Deron Williams in the conference finals...so Utah rolls to the Finals in six.

Game on in 5 hours and 15 minutes!

First Timer

It is 5:01 AM and I woke up about 25 minutes ago with my bed shaking. It was as if someone was standing there shaking it violently. It lasted about 10 seconds and I had NO idea what was going on. It was weird enough that I was immediately alert. I walked around to see if anything had fallen off the walls, but nothing had. I turned on the TV and waited until the 5 o'clock news started and, lo and behold, there was a 5.2 earthquake about 250 miles away near the state line. It is officially my first earthquake; kinda scary, but nothing serious.

[update: just felt a brief aftershock at 10:15 AM]

Of Nerdery and Weather

First things first...

My birthday is next Wednesday and I've been checking the weather to see if I'll get some sun. Last week weather.com said 60s and sunny. YAY! Then about 4 days ago it said scattered showers (BOO!) but later that day it said cloudy (better) then back to rain (yargh). Today it says 60s and sunny again. This is torture! Can it please just be warm enough to drive with the windows down and sunny enough to wear my sunglasses?

Next...

I bought a TV tuner card for my computer over the summer. It was fun to play with for a bit, but the software was really really bad. I didn't hardly use it. THEN, after some suggestions from the Roomie, I looked for some new software and found Sage TV. THIS. IS. AWESOME. Not only is it easy to use and find shows (the interface is like Comcast digital cable) but it also works like a DVR so I can record shows right to my computer (if anyone wants to see tonight's episode of The Office, let me know.) It is the perfect companion to a habitual interwebs surfer. I have a fairly large monitor (21" widescreen) so I can have the TV up and a resized, but still pretty big, browser window open. Tasty...

MIA

Sorry I've been quiet for so long. It's pretty clear that my love for the Jazz has completely taken over my life for the time being; I've been following the Jazz religiously and reading the Jazz blogs that I just linked to under "sweet blogs." I've become a regular commenter on a couple of them. If you haven't been following the NBA, the western conference is like the 405 at rush-hour. 6 teams have at least 49 wins and only 2.5 games separate 1st from 6th place. This is significant for the Jazz for several reasons:

1. Only 3 more road games (but they're at New Orleans, Dallas, and the black hole...San Antonio, where we haven't won since 1999)
2. The Jazz lost @ Miami (13-61), @ New York (20-53) and @ Minnesota (TWICE! 19-53). Had they won those games they'd be #1
3. Of the 4 home games remaining, we should win at least 3; and since 3 of those games are against playoff teams (or borderline: Denver) we should make up a game on at least 2 of them.
4. The Jazz are 4th, but that's only because of the silly rule that division winners are guaranteed at least 4th. BUT, that doesn't mean homecourt advantage if the 5th seed has a better record. If the playoffs were seeded only by record with no advantage to division winners, the Jazz would be 6th.
   

Bottomline: I'm nervous about the playoffs. We'll probably play either Phoenix or Houston and neither will be easy.

In other news:
I got a job with the Public Defender one county over. I start in July so I'll have 6 weeks to be lazy as I can be. I'll probably go home for a week or 2 in June and go to the Lake. Luckily it's a paying job so I'll have a little income to blow on video games and Jimmy John's.

Also, I'm pretty tired of school. This is the worst part of the semester because I have to start thinking about finals, and there's still stuff to do before that (like finish the decision for the judge). All in all this semester has been alright, nothing great, but not painful.

I'm looking at next semester's schedule and I'll probably be taking insurance law, secured transactions, and (drumroll please...) the criminal clinic. This is fairly frightening because it is REAL defense of REAL defendants and it's as close to practicing as one can get without passing the bar.

With 6 weeks off after finals, expect more posts and more fun stories.

Shame

Soooooooooo.................I had good tickets (although my view was blocked by the basketball hoop, as I thought they would be) but the game just made me mad. Being the geek that I am, I kept track of the run the Bulls went on after the Jazz were up 18-10 (26-7); I guessed that they missed 10 straight shots (pretty sure it was 7); and also guessed that they went about 7 min without getting a FG (turns out it was just over 8 min). Seemed like every time the Jazz cut the lead to 8 or 9, the Bulls would hit a 3, or have a turnover or both. It was supremely frustrating.


Just to put things in perspective, the arena was full. This Bulls team is currently out of the playoffs and is 12 games UNDER .500. New Orleans can't fill a stadium when their team is playing for the top seed and the Bulls are selling out when they may not even make the playoffs.

I had my Jazz shirt on and once the game ended I had to walk out in shame. We shouldn't be losing to bad teams on the road...EVER. Last year was nice, they won. In fact, the Bulls scored 85 points last year and THIS year they had 86 points after 3 quarters. Truth be told, had the Jazz not won tonight, I probably wouldn't have posted this at all, woulda been too depressing.

Where "where is everyone?" happens

I was hoping that the Jazz would be playing here while I was in town, but we missed that game by 2 days. We decided to go to a Hornets game anyway to see what all the fuss is about. The Hornets have the 5th best record in the league and had the best record for about the first 2 1/2 months of the season. You'd think they'd have the stands full to the rafters. You'd be wrong.

This isn't pre-tipoff either, look at the clock and score on the jumbotron.

This one was right at tip-off.

Almost 5 min left in the first.

They were playing the Hawks and it wasn't a very exciting game other than the Hornets' 62 three pointers and a nasty put-back by...some guy for N.O. The best part of the game was during the 4th quarter when there was a problem with the net on one of the rims. There was a 10 minute timeout to fix it and the Arena staff decided to run the "kiss-cam" for a full 4 minutes. For those of you that don't know, the camera men around the arena will zoom in on a couple and the jumbotron will show a cute little heart around them and that's a queue for them to kiss. Eventually it zoomed on Tyson Chandler and Josh Childress who were hanging out at the scorer's table. They both saw the screen and Childress played along and tried to plant a sloppy kiss on Chandler, which he adamantly (and playfully) denied. It was also a good time for Pargo (who I want to fight for his 4th quarter against the Jazz) to show off his Harlem Globetrotters skills, it was pretty cool. (As I write this, Around the Horn is showing the footage.)

Before I forget, I want to comment on the gayest halftime show I've ever seen.
These "brothers" were prancing around and spinning while juggling. About as exciting as an AARP convention.

There is also no lack of booz here. There are full bars throughout the stadium and beer stations about every 15 feet.

Finally, I am convinced that the people here think that Chris Paul is Jesus. It's like he is, literally, their savior. I don't think there's anything he could do that the fans wouldn't support/justify/forgive. If he got high and drunk and drove a bus into a school full of autistic and retarded orphans, they'd still chant, "M-V-P!" every time he touched the ball.

As I watched the game, I thought to myself, "How does this team have 40 wins?" There are no real stars on this team (aside from Paul) and their bench is mostly a bunch of no-names. They have specialists like Chandler (rebounds, blocks, and alley-oops); Peja (threes, threes, and threes); and Pargo (clutch shots, spark off the bench) and Paul knows how to use them to exploit other teams' weaknesses. BUT...it's hard for me to not think that they'll fade in the last 8 weeks.


[update: more pics]

Pre-game intros:


Stadium shots:

Perspective

Before I get into my experiences so far here in New Orleans, let me first thank the 2 groups who have financed my trip.

1. The Federal Government ($560 tax return)
2. Everyone I have played poker against in the last 3 weeks, including the fine folks at the New Orleans Harrah's ($380)

So here I am in New Orleans at the Public Defender's Office. It has been exactly what I thought it would be, but I didn't think it would have such an effect on me. I figured it would mostly be young black kids facing drug charges, and the first guy I interviewed was a 17 year-old high schooler who was in lockup for possession of marijuana. This kid is on the baseball team and plays the trombone in the school band, it was his first offense and they had him chained up wearing an orange jumpsuit just like the rapist and armed robber. How traumatic for this kid for a stupid offense; this "war on drugs" is a big joke. One of the staff members here mentioned that 55% of Federal prisoners are there on drug charges...55%!! Can you imagine how much strain could be relieved by eliminating jail time for drug offenses? Our prisons wouldn't be as crowded and it wouldn't take 10 years to appeal a case. This country has spent billions fighting the "war" on drugs and you can still buy marijuana in any city in America with no problems; what have we accomplished? But I digress...

It's amazing how much work the people here do and how little they get paid. We have a volunteer staff of over 20 and we are all busy. I don't know how they get by without an army of volunteers. It is weird, though, to look for ways to get somebody released from prison when they have been arrested for robbery or gun charges. Normally I would think, "good, keep 'em there, they screwed up." But after 2 days of work I feel like I need to bust my ass to give them the same opportunities that Robert Downey, Jr. gets when he gets busted for drugs. Money may be able to buy expensive lawyers who can find loopholes, but it cannot buy justice. If my work allows one person the same opportunities as someone who can afford a lawyer, then my trip here was a smashing success.

I have at least 2 more days here (not sure if I'm working Friday) so I'll have a recap and some funny stories later.