I like our team posted by Scott Backes

I like this year's version of the Atlanta Hawks.  I really do.  I think we have it all together now for a playoff run.  I honestly think we can compete with the team we have, without any major shakeups or moves at the trade deadline.  I don't think anybody in the NBA can guard Josh Smith.  Joe Johnson is the leader and scorer, and simply gets the job done without hurting the team.  Bibby is a proven veteran and has experience.  Al Horford works his tail off and will NEVER give you less than 110% effort.  I hope we can continue to play strong and up to our abilities.  With the stretch of tough games we've recently played in, I think it has put the NBA world on notice to our ability.  Let's keep it up, Hawks!

Mavericks come from 15 points behind to beat the Los Angeles Clippers posted by Peter

Last night, the Mavs trailed the entire game until the final seconds to beat the Clippers. This is obviously far from an impressive outing. We're talking about the Clippers here. Their record is now 3-14. Dallas should be running laps around the Clippers. They shouldn't need to come from behind to beat them by just 2 points.

On the Mavs' Yahoo! team report, they're talking about the Mavs being on top of the division by the end of the 7 game home-stand. Are you kidding me? Sure, they're only 1 1/2 games behind the leading Houston Rockets. But, if they need last minute heroics from Jose Barea shooting 3's to edge out the lowly Clippers, they'll be lucky if still above .500 by the end of the home-stand. Especially because they'll be playing teams with winning records: Phoenix Suns, Atlanta Hawks, San Antonio Spurs, and Denver Nuggets. The Charlotte Bobcats and Oklahoma City Thunder games might seem like easy wins. But if they struggled against the Clippers, I wouldn't count on those wins yet.

Picking Up the Pieces posted by Brad Hurt

After seeing their lead slip away in the second half of Saturday night's devastating loss to Oklahoma City, the Memphis Grizzlies face their toughest mental task of the season Wednesday in Atlanta. It may not be significant in the long run, but for the sake of the team's psyche, this game is huge. They let a golden opportunity get away from them against the Thunder, and they must come out tonight and show that they have put that performance behind them

Instead of looking at what they didn't do against the Thunder, they have to look at what they need to do against the Hawks to be successful.  They need to relax and not let their circumstances affect their play on the court.  They should take the season one game at a time and just try to win tonight's game instead of thinking of their current slump.

They need to play within their capabilities.  Pressing and trying to do too much is only going to lead to mistakes.  They need to let the game come to them and regain their self-confidence.  The same is especially true for Rudy Gay, who seems to be struggling the most right now.  He needs to have a good game to remind himself of how good he can be.  Once he has a breakout night, I think he will get back to his usual form.

With Gay struggling, it is critical that Marc Gasol and others step up offensively in support of O.J. Mayo.  The team has to get off to a good start and continue to shoot above 50 percent.  Most importantly, the defense has to improve.  If the Grizzlies had played better defense over the past few games, they might be working on a win streak.  As well as they have been shooting as a group, the defense is all that is missing.

Chicago Bulls Big Men Just Plain Bad posted by Sam Brown

If you look at half the box score of the Bulls 113-108 loss to the suddenly high flying Atlanta Hawks you’d think the Bulls would have handed the young Atlanta team its first loss of the year.

Derrick Rose lead the way with 26 points, 10 rebounds, and 6 assists.  Ben Gordon and Lou Deng both put in 19 points and Andres Nocioni chipped in 20 off the bench.  Even demoted starter Thabo Sefolosha managed to break through the lid that has generally been on the basket when he shoots and scored 13 points on 5-9 shooting

That is just the type of all around effort that this Bulls team needs to win.  Sure they may not yet have a dominating scorer, but that type of production should produce a win.

Unfortunately there are some other players whose names, and not much more show up in the box score.  Starting big men Tyrus Thomas and Joakim Noah combined for 5 points on 2-11 shooting.  Both of them were out rebounded by their rookie point guard and Thomas threw in three turnovers for good measure.

These are pathetic numbers for any NBA players but what makes it worse for the Bulls is that Thomas and Noah are both top ten picks.  They aren’t rookies anymore either.  Their paltry offensive display doesn’t even tell the whole story.

The Atlanta Hawks' rookie Al Horford, a real NBA big man, dominated Thomas and Noah to the tune of 27 points and 17 rebounds.  The Atlanta rookie made it look easy.  A lot of his baskets came when he simply beat the lazy Bulls big men down the court.

Thomas can leap out of the gym but he is no basketball player.  As for Noah I don’t really see what he can do for you on a basketball court.  He can’t score, he can’t pass, he is too skinny to defend bigger players, and all he really seems good at is whining to the refs.  Noah is like Ben Wallace without any of the talent.

Ramblings of the NBA world posted by Song Ki

Hello Bloggers ~ I am extremly happy to give you my opinions and thoughts on the world of the NBA, so any comments and even criticisms will be accepted (happily).  Let's get this ball rollin' !

Pretty much the NBA is well underway and I couldn't ask for a better start of the season, but I usually enjoy all of them .  Did you see that crazy, amazing, sick, shot by Brandon Roy against the Houston Rockets with .08 seconds to go for a win ! "The Truth" and nothing but the truth setting the tone saying we are champions by nailing that buzzer beater against the young and fearless Atlanta Hawks.  But to have the veteran superstars in the names of "Mr. BIG SHOT" Chauncey Billups and "The Answer" Allen Iverson each being acquired to a playoff team that is in huge need of a change from their same old game like a sitting apple has been the talk of the league and I am very excited for these two superstars to make a huge impact for a run at a championship, but who are you kidding, the west is too deep for even a "big shot" and I'm not sure if there are enough "answers" to stop the three "championship" studs in the likes of pierce, garnett and mr. jesus shuttlesworth and no introduction needed in the name of "The King".  But, we still got like 70+ more games to go, so it's going to be a long grind for every player to the top offices in the league.   You truly will need the passion, love, and the motivation to fight through this long season and everyone is gunning for the same thing as they hope to have the beautiful banner of a championship to rise above their arena.  I look forward to yet another great season, and every player movement possible to change a team's perspective in improving their overall game.  

Lakers Vs. Hornets 2008 posted by David Robinson

“I just wanted to shoot it in his face,” Bryant said of the late 3-pointer. “I knew I was due.”

Wow. If you've ever wanted to hear determination to win this year, that was it. I'm sold. The Lakers will win the Championship this year. But they haven't even played Boston yet right? Doesn't matter, the simple fact that Kobe knew would be guarding him and the fact that he wanted to hit the shot in his face speaks volumes to me.

Also, another thing that I saw in last night's game was that the Lakers didn't blow the game. I can think of the Lakers who played the Suns in 2006 I think and they were up but they let Tim Thomas hit a three in game 5 to keep hopes alive for the Suns who were down 3-1. These Lakers now however are learning how to close out games. No more disappointments.

The Laker are the only undefeated team in the league right now at 7-0. The Hawks did put up a valiant effort but c'mon, you can't guard that shot that Pierce hit. Good D Horford, make sure he pays for that one in the Playoffs this year. I don't know who the Lakers are playing next, but I am calling a win. In fact, I'm calling maybe three or four runs of 8 or 9 games in a row for these Lakers. I think this team will win 63 games this year. I think that's a better bet than me trying to call it game by game. 63 games...I said it first.

Bobcats looking to mesh in preseason; Red Sox/Rays game 3 posted by Wally Brennan

Tonight the Bobcats look to get their first preseason victory of the year when they face the Hawks in Atlanta. The Cats haven't looked all that great in the preseason so far, dropping games to the Orlando Magic and Memphis Grizzlies. Gerald Wallace has led the Bobcats in minutes per game (26) and points (15.5) through the two games.

What to look for out of the Cats is how the role players look. We know what we're going to get out of guys like Jason Richardson and Emeka Okafor, and provided they are healthy those are the two most reliable guys on the team. What the team needs is role players and depth. Raymond Felton and Gerald Wallace need to show that they can handle a season long grind and step up their game. This team can compete for the last playoff spot. A lot depends on health, but role players need to step up in order for the Bobcats to avoid the lottery.

Quick thoughts on the Red Sox/Rays ALCS game 3 this afternoon: Jon Lester needs to be the dominant pitcher he has been throughout the season. The Red Sox offense just simply isn't good enough to play catch up the entire game. Matt Garza needs to do the same for Tampa. He has good stuff but needs to harness it and learn to pitch rather than throw. I believe the Rays will steal game 3 and go on to win the series in six.

Monday Mourning posted by Bob Lalor

So I normally title my Monday blog: Monday Mourning due to being hungover from a full day of drinking and watching sports, hence the “mourning” because I have to get up, go to work, puke in the bathroom, and subsequently fall asleep in all of my meetings and get absolutely no work done. But today is different, mainly due to the fact that CBS’s and Fox’s regional coverage of NFL games in my area was HORRIBLE. Games that had a spread of +11 with no fantasy implications at all were being aired, so I went and watched polo (you know, the sport where guys on horses trot around and whack a ball with mallets). I had never been to a polo game before but we decided to go due to the possibility of attractive females (there are always beautiful women at horse events). We mingled with a few and made up some elaborate lies that we were just checking out the competition and had our horses stabled a few miles away. We were obviously out of place, with our cheers of “nice pass man!” and “shoooooot it!” but we wholeheartedly plan on attending it every Sunday for the rest of the season – pending what NFL games are on of course.

Sorry about getting off on that tangent of girls and horses, I will actually talk about sports in this column. We’ll start with college football. 4 words: Sam Bradford is good! Did you see his stats by halftime? The Sooners look phenomenal. I’m not as hot on ‘Bama as I was last week, even though Coffee had more yards than the entire Kentucky offense. The news of the week is Ball State cracking the Top 25. Ball State? Really? They won’t be there by the time my column next week comes out. A quick note on a kid that made a huge impression on me: Evan Royster from Penn St. Ladies and Gents, we have a future NFL star on our hands. Everyone needs to watch a Penn State game just to watch this kid run and catch. The match-up to look forward to and help get you through this week: Sooners/Longhorns.

The Ups and Downs of the MLB Playoffs posted by Karol Kudyba

With the MLB playoffs set to begin, there is a subtle difference in the air compared to start of any other postseason. In the NHL, fans can potentially look forward to a great Canadians/Bruins series that is not only exciting, but has a historical kick to it. Likewise basketball fans always have the chance to see if the Suns can finally get past the Spurs and football fans love seeing the rivalry of the Eagles Vs the City of Philadelphia when the Eagles so much as get tackled for a loss.

The MLB playoffs reward the team that did the best over the long baseball season and consistently wins over a long period of time. Even a team that ‘backs in’ had to have been a dominant team in their division for 5+ months and being that good for half a calendar year unless their division was a mess. And although there may be no wildly anticipated matchup that involves throwing batteries, there is logic behind the current system. You have to earn your way to get a chance at the multiple-flags-on-a-block-of-wood trophy and it doesn’t come easy.

But because of the long season combined with the lack of playoff teams, there are no playoff rivalries in baseball. The system simply doesn’t allow it.

If all teams were equal, the odds of any team making the playoffs for each major sports league from the outset are: 

League

# of teams

# of playoff teams

%  of teams in the Playoffs

MLB

30

8

To All Bloggers posted by Z.V. Sanders

Hello Everyone!

If we haven't talked yet, my name is Zach "Z.V." Sanders and I have been writing here since May.

This past January I set up another sports site called 24/7 Sports Stop as a side project of mine. My current writing staff has gotten lazy and stopped posting, and I am looking to add new writers.

I was wondering if anyone writing here would be interested in contributing to the site by posting their work onto the site? The posts would go to the blogspot version of the site, as well as the main site. Think of it as another way to gain exposure and share your work. Along with your single posts, we do collaborations as a site. These include but are not limited to Draft Previews and Playoff predictions.

If you are interested please send me a message or shoot me an email. I do not expect a lot from a blogger on our site, but at the least I would like around 2 posts a week from our writers.

ThanksContinue reading "To All Bloggers"

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Bibby's 3 lifts Hawks by Rockets 103-100 (AP)

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