whining like 3 year-olds

doug, you’re projecting.

Travis has decided to blog about a sport that people actually care about: basketball

actually, i’m blogging about an NHL-caliber hip check. as nash said,

I was trying to skate between him and the boards and he got me with a nice hip check. What can I say? It was a pretty nice check.

the reason i thought this was blog-worthy at all (notice i didn’t bother blogging about nash getting a knee in his crotch or stoudemire getting slew-footed when those incidents happened) was because someone had already raised the issue of the spurs being a dirty team. then robert horry shows up and gives us Exibit A Numero Uno.

that’s all.

and, mike, the reason the NBA is such a wussy game on the court is because it is practically a traveling war zone off it. remember what happened in las vegas during NBA all-star weekend? the players relish the protection they receive from the referees during the game; it’s practically the only time they don’t fear for their lives (not to mention the only time people in NBA cities can safely allow their daughters out of the house).

those things go too far beyond the ’subtle’ ones — they are dirty.

…but if the ref doesn’t see it, it’s clean.

What Phoenix needs is an enforcer. A couple of jaw-jacks and Horry would reconsider taking cheap shots at a franchise player. Even baseball players (by all accounts the wussiest players on the planet) will step up to defend their own.

That said, basketball sucks anyway. If a sport considers a body check (and one that Nash could clearly watch develop, i.e. not from behind) to be a cheap shot, it is time to watch something else.

In any case, I wish all of you a merry time whining like 3 year-olds about a couple flagrant fouls in rather physical playoff games.

When Rick Mahorn and Bill Laimbeer get back in the league, then we can start talking about real dirty teams.

I wouldn’t put it all on Horry just because his was the final blow.

no, don’t worry, i give bowen and manu credit for their cheap shots, too.

he should have resorted to the more subtle gut checks, cat claws, and jabs Barbosa was giving Parker all night

yeah, that’s kind of the point. have you ever played sports? it’s about what you can get away with. players try to get every advantage they can, but they have to have an eye for precision to stay within the lines the game’s referees establish and to stay away from taking cheap shots that could cause serious injury. you see every player in the NBA doing the little things. you see them touching the shooter in the gut after he lets fly a 3-pointer, for example, or you see guys grab each other while they set up to take an inbounds pass. it goes way over the line when a horry tries to injure somebody with a bodycheck or bowen tries to injure stoudemire by putting his foot in amare’s landing area, so he’ll roll his ankle. those things go too far beyond the ‘subtle’ ones — they are dirty.