Is he strong? Listen, bud.

First things first: LEANDRO BARBOSA HAS A BLOG. *ahem* Ok, now for the rest.

This is almost a week old, but I wanted to put it in here in case I wanted to find it later. Nash really really wanted to play with Shaq.

Yesterday I talked to someone who kept insisting that I had to hear what Shaq was saying about Bill Walton. But I couldn't find it anywhere. Tonight I found it, and it was worth the anticipation.

Any little crack in the armor can cause disruption. I don't want to be the crack in the armor. I want to be the extra coat on the metal. Boy, Shaq sure likes his extended metaphors.

The pluses and minuses of playing with Shaq and without Marion.

I have been (clearly) having the "can Shaq still play?" conversation with a lot of people lately. One thing that I keep bringing up is the amazing training staff at the US Airways Arena. I'm glad that this finally got addressed in the media with regard to Shaq. Now I feel less crazy. About that, anyway.

There's not a very good chance that Shaq will play tonight against the Warriors. He might play tomorrow against the Mavericks (though I doubt it). Most likely is that they would wait until after the All Star Break and have him play in the game against the Lakers. As an aside to this, I'm kind of pissed that he would find it funny to put down Erick Dampier by comparing his play to the WNBA. What is he, seven? "Hey, Dampier! Shaq says you play like a girl." WTF?

I'm so nervous about tonight's game. Apparently I'm not the only one. Facing the Warriors all depleted? Ugh.

While I'm not a Wizards fan, I do have an appreciation for them. I hope that Arenas coming back helps them, but I'm more eager to see Caron come back.

This is crazy. I wonder what he thinks of Donaghy. It's probably not safe for work or small children. Just a guess.

All Star Weekend from a WNBA perspective. Yay for Nikki Teasley being involved!

An interesting article on how women's college coaching is changing because of the WNBA.

A few videos:

Jeff Green misses a dunk in the Sonics @ Suns game on 2/8



Wally Szczerbiak calls a time out when his team doesn't have one, making the Suns glad that that rule has been changed since 1976.



A WNBA/The L Word fanvid that has a song that keeps getting stuck in my head (stupid Gwen Stefani). It's mostly up here to show my sister, but I think it's fun--so there.

Shot heard 'round the world

I know it's been awhile since I've posted. It's not for lack of things to talk about (oddly, since it's officially the off season now), but just basically because I'm lazy. I have made a list of things to write about, but first I wanted to mention something that's not on the list.

It was recently the 31st anniversary of the Greatest Game in the history of the NBA. I was a basketball fan for the 30th anniversary, but I didn't know about it then.

It was game 5 in the finals between the Celtics (of course, weren't they all back then?) and the Suns. The Celtics won in a triple overtime forced by one of the awesomest sequences that I've ever heard about.

According to Harvey Frommer (from the above link), with one second left on the clock and Boston up by one the Suns' Paul Westphal asked for, and received, a timeout he knew his team was not entitled to. It was good strategy, though. The Celtics were given a technical foul, whereupon Jo Jo White hit the free throw. The Celtic lead was moved up to two points, but the technical foul enabled the Suns to make the inbounds pass from midcourt.

Forward Gar Heard caught the pass to the right of the free-throw line, turned and hit a 20-foot jumper right at the buzzer. The noisy Garden faithful was stunned into silence for the moment. And they went into a third and final overtime.

Not only is this an amazing turn of events (that I wish I could see), but it all happened on my birthday. Which, yeah, was two weeks ago. I intended to post about it on the day itself, but you know what they say about the road to Hell.

Next time I post it will either be about the Mystics and their season of doom or about Leandro and his chances of being at the FIBA Americas tournament in Vegas. There are other things too (7 Seconds or Less, trade rumors, Kobe, etc.), but the likelihood is that one of those will be next.