Tag Archive: doug collins

Doug Collins, NBA Playoffs, and Iggy’s Comeback Season

April 17, 2013 Randy Neil

20130417-104206.jpgIt’s been a rough season Sixers fans, but I am thankful to report that with tonight’s game, the season will finally be over. The Sixers play the Pacers in Indiana, just after the recent announcement that Doug Collins will resign as head coach.

This was right after his recent announcement that he was not resigning as head coach. That came right after Sixers’ ownership released a statement backing Collins as the head coach of the future.

Real classy Philadelphia.There’s a lot of speculation that Collins will remain with the Sixers as a consultant (which is probably what he wanted all along), and that definitely takes away some of the trashiness of this debacle, but never the less, this was handled wrong. Like most things with this team.

It’s hard to say where the Sixers go from here. The free agent market looks pretty dismal aside from that All-Star center who will be anxiously shopping for a team next year. Let’s not get burned twice.

NBA Playoff predictions: Heat in 5 over the Denver Nuggets.

I also want to note that with all the fanfare and attention Iguodala is getting in Denver for his contributions to that team, his averages are down and his stat sheet is not any better than it was while in Philadelphia. In Denver, he’s credited as a major player for that team (maybe THE major player for that team) with almost identical or worse stats than in Philadelphia. Still, the media pegs him as a huge contributor and attributes him for the Nuggets playoff success.

You can definitely argue that in Philly, he was expected (and paid) to be a superstar, but money and fame aside, he was a big puzzle piece to a winning franchise and undeservedly carried a lot of the blame for the Sixers’ shortcomings. I think this post season will prove that.

I mean, in Denver, he is still the biggest star they have, the most well rounded player there, the only All Star starting for them, and he’s getting paid the exact same amount as he was in Philadelphia. Why is there no resentment in Denver fans?

Haha, even with my bold acclamation, I’ve changed my Finals prediction to Heat over the Spurs in 6.

Thank God I don’t get judged like Iguodala.

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The Masters…

April 15, 2013 Adam Thomas

1.) Was awesome. I only watched it on the final day, but man, what a day to watch!  The final between El Pato (aka Angel Cabrera) and Adam Scott was incredible, with Cabrera basically coming within inches of winning it twice (well, once with his chip on the first playoff hole and then barely missing birdie on the second which would’ve put the pressure on Scott).

adam scottI thought it was awesome that a guy named Adam Scott won and–let me be the millionth person to make this joke–it wasn’t the dude from Parks and Rec.

2.) I read a Rolling Stone interview with Louis CK and it’s a really good read, but in it, CK claims that he isn’t a millionaire which I find hard to believe. It seems like that guy should’ve made a million bucks by now, and if not, can somebody please get this man a better financial advisor?

3.) It was good to see Roy Halladay look like his old self yesterday against the Marlins but man oh man is it going to be tough for the Phils to catch both the Nationals and the Braves–who look like the best team in baseball.  But remember: it’s only April and word over here is that the Upton brothers have short attention spans. (That made a lot more sense before I looked up BJ Upton’s numbers and saw that he is hitting .163 with 1 HR and 2 RBI’s…so they are winning even without him playing well offensively.  YIKES!)

4.) Doug Collins is out as Sixers coach which is the greatest news about the team all season.  Seriously: the man is a bad coach. He never lasts more than 3 seasons with a team and is very self-serving in the press, throws his players under the bus and deflects a lot of blame.  He should go back to broadcasting and stay there. It’s what he’s good at.

5.) Draft season is right around the corner (aka Randy’s favorite time of the year) so let me make a few predictions: a.) The Chiefs will trade out of number one OR draft Luke Joeckel (BOLD!).

b.) The Raiders will trade out of their spot or draft Ezekial Ansah (which I am not on board with).

c.) The Eagles will draft Dion Jordan if he’s available.

d.) The Jaguars will take Geno Smith.

Yeah, they aren’t the boldest picks but what are you gonna do? It’s Monday and I’m tired.

6.) Before I go, I want to give a big shout out to Dolph Ziggler for winning the WWE World Championship.  It’s about darn time. That man is the best wrestler on their roster and they needed to reward him. Now, after he gets done with the obligatory Alberto Del Rio feud, if he can somehow feud with Damien Sandow (the best mic worker currently in the WWE), we’ll be getting somewhere. And yes, I know they are both heels, but whatever. WWE can make it work.

 

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Tim Kurkjian has Never Heard a Dr. Evil Impression

July 16, 2012 Adam Thomas

So last night, after a nice weekend at the beach, I get home and turn on some ESPN to get caught up on what happened in the world of sports when I was away. Much to my delight/chagrin, ESPN was running a clip of Tim Kurkjian where he interviewed Cubs pitcher Ryan Dempster and asked him to do some impressions and man oh man was it high comedy.  Just kidding. It was actually incredibly confusing/perplexing. The reason?

Dempster busted out impressions of Dr. Evil, Fat Bastard and Harry Caray. Now, I get the Harry Caray one, since he plays for the Cubs, but Dr. Evil and Fat Bastard… are you kidding me? That movie came out in 1997 (with Fat Bastard coming on the scene in 1999). But there was Kurkjian, giggling like a school girl. No joke. He was literally “cracking up” and thought that it was the most hilarious thing in the world. Has Kurkjian never heard a Dr. Evil impression before?  You know who else does a good Dr. Evil impression? EVERYONE ON PLANET EARTH!

Perhaps he was a little drunk. Or something. It was weird.

Moving on….

I got a text from Randy while I was on the beach and it said that the Sixers had signed Kwame Brown. I thought it was a joke. But it wasn’t. Man, Doug Collins is such an idiot. As the Liberty Ballers pointed out, the Sixers may be starting a front court of Spencer Hawes at the 4 and Kwame Brown at the 5. GOOOOOOOOOOO! That looks so terrible on paper that it’s not even funny.

Seriously though, why did they draft Vucevic last year and Arnett Moultrie this year, if they were just going to go out and sign terrible veterans to take their minutes away? Is that really their draft strategy? Taking guys that they are never going to use? I am really down on the Sixers at this point. They don’t look better than last year’s team, they don’t look markedly worse, they look about the same. Which means more of the same: squeaking into the playoffs followed by a 1st round playoff exit and then the drafting of someone in the 16-20 spot who does nothing for the team. Awesome.

Phillies have won two in a row!  Happy Happy, Joy Joy!  It’s always fun to watch them win, even if they are 14 games out of first place.

And man, how good are those Nats? I hate to admit it, but I don’t think anybody from the NL is going to beat them in a 5 or 7 game series. They have the bats, they have the arms, and if they get hot at the right time, they may take this year’s World Series.

It’s never too early for Super Bowl predictions so here is my first prediction of the year.

This year’s Super Bowl will be…..49ers vs. Bengals. BOOOOOOOM!

Of course, I may change that after training camps and all that stuff shakes out, but that’s just my gut feeling right now.

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Bring the King. It’s a Great Day in Philly.

April 24, 2011 Randy Neil

Man it feels good to be writing this post. The Philadelphia Phillies swept the San Diego Padres in 4 games. The Flyers somehow brought the Sabres to OT and won, forcing a game 7. Aaaaaand….

After 7 very long, very strenuous games with the Miami Heat this season, the Philadelphia 76ers have finally walked away with a victory. Every game was within reach and followed the exact same pattern, except this one.

Typically, the 76ers start the game off well and outscore the Heat. Then, through fouls and amazing shots, the Heat climb back in and make a final push in the 4th quarter. Every game it seemed like the “Big 3” were demoralizing the efforts of our younger players and it was keeping the game out of reach. It would happen on cue with about 5 minutes left in the game. You could set your watch to it.

Here’s some of the differences I saw in this game :

1) Altercations. For 6 games you could see the Sixers deflate after Lebron James and Dwayne Wade put on a spectacle. For game 4 of this playoff series, you finally saw the 76ers show some teeth. Thaddeus Young and Evan Turner both got in the face of Jones in the 2nd quarter, and it had to be broken up. Spencer Hawes wrapped up Lebron James during a drive and he was livid. And Spencer Hawes got right back at him. You could finally see some anger when we used to just see despair. It showed resilience.

2) Fouls and points in the paint. We all know the insane amount of calls the Heat were getting nearly every time they drove in the paint. The Sixers weren’t getting those calls, but that’s mostly due to the fact that they weren’t even driving to the basket. Lou Williams, Evan Turner, and Jrue Holiday all drove in the paint consistently in the 4th and kept pushing to keep the intensity up. Yes, most of those got blocked, but it’s more the principle at that point. For the previous 3 games in this series when the lead would get out of hand, the Sixers fell back on making poor jumpers from outside, and a miss would result in an immediate rebound and score for the Heat. Driving helped keep the rebounds alive for us and established some presence where it hadn’t been before.

3) Miracles. Two back to back 3-pointers in the final 40 seconds of the game really made the difference. We finished the game 10-0 which is an absurd stat. The end-of-game stats were also much more favorable for the 76ers (which means they were actually even.) Team fouls were practically tied at 17 (MIA) and 18 (PHI.) Offensive rebounds, the stat that destroyed the Sixers, were dead even at 9 a piece. We actually out-rebounded them as a whole 18-16.

Even if we lost this game, I still would walk away with a great sense of accomplishment. We had 14 more wins than last year. We have a solid young core of great basketball players led by an amazing coach. The upcoming years in Philadelphia are going to be great.

It’s a great day to be in Philly. Happy Easter everybody.

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March Madness, Sprinkled with Sixers Talk? Yes Please.

March 14, 2011 Randy Neil

Bracketology. A science only few are familiar with and only the elite can master. Deciphering the strategies and match-ups of a 64 team tournament into one great spectacle, analysts around the horn are going to be on TV for the next 3 days speculating what players have enough “swagger” to lead them to Houston for the NCAA Championship.

Before they can even get to that, arguments need to be made about what teams were left out, and which undeserving ones got in. When analysts on ESPN starting jabbering about which teams got robbed, arguing that bigger market teams were chosen instead, my first response was “duh.” Of course they did. The NCAA is still a business at the end of the day. But, after some thought, I’m kind of glad it was said. It needs to be said. This is the system, as shitty as it is, that helps recycle universities in need of some recognition. Complaining gets you there. It IS retarded that teams that haven’t played all weekend in their conference tournaments have lost ranking to teams that did good in their poor…. poor… just god awful representation of a conference. I’m looking at you, UNC.

Good news is you don’t have to listen to those idiots. theheadrush.com is having their own predictions this year, and we’re so cocky and confident in our choices, we’re going to compete and wager against one another. Starting Wednesday, I’ll have a bracket in place on the site, listing our predictions, constantly updating the score throughout the entire tournament. Should be a good time.

Talk about the Sixers? Alright you twisted my arm. Yes, I did in fact see the victory over the Celtics on Friday. It was sick. When we hold teams to 80-90 points with great defense, we have a chance against anybody. So if I check correctly, we upset not only the #1 team in the West, but also the #1 team in the East. It was almost a given that we’d lose to the Bucks on Saturday. Back to back home-away games always spell disaster. We just poured our hearts into a game against a great Celtic team, and then had to travel 500 miles to play less than 24 hours later against a youthful Milwaukee Bucks team that has nothing to lose. We were tired. We looked tired. Doug Collins made note to address that in the post-game interview.

And I take anything that man says as the truth. Doug Collins was named Coach of the Month in February for leading the Sixers to a 7-3 month, the best winning percentage we’ve had since 2007. He’s still got my vote for Coach of the Year. We have already surpassed our total wins in a season for last year and clearly shown we can hang with the elite in the NBA.

Tonight, we face the brand new Utah Jazz. They’ve been dropping coaches, players, training staff, wives, all kinds of crazy stuff. The Jazz are coming off a 2-4 record this month, with scoring in the 100’s almost every game. The Sixers boast a 108 pt. average the past 9 games, in spite of the two lack luster offensive performances last weekend. The Sixers have been 2-19 going into Utah, and this road trip proves to be tough, but I have faith with the Jazz’s recent troubles that we’ll light it up.

Stop the Mormons.

And one of my favorite highlights from this weekend coming from the NBA Playbook. Best part is, KG gets burned.

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After The Thunder, Comes the Tears

March 10, 2011 Randy Neil

Alright, so we didn’t win. We didn’t win. Ahhhhhhhhhhh that’s still taking some time to sink in. Up 5 points with 40 seconds to go, we were hanging with the OKC for the entire game, making shots, playing OK defense, but in the end it wasn’t enough. Kevin Durantula made an amazing 3 (which he got fouled on) to tie the game into overtime, and it was pretty much all downhill from there.

But, I will reflect on some of the good things. I had the most amazing seats I’ve ever had in the history of sports ever. Front row, right behind the Sixers bench, where I was literally feet away from every player I’ve been watching on TV for the past 2 years. We had our own waitress, who brought us things (and women) if we desired them, and access to the Lexus Club. It felt nice to smooze with the elite of Philadelphia. I saw some 80 year old man with two 30 year old ladies on his arm. BALLIN. Rich people don’t get hype like us common folk though, so to say that the crowd around us was bland would be an understatement. It seemed more about the outing than the game, and that ain’t right. Where’s my Miller High Life guy?

There are some things you get with a higher price ticket aren’t necessary supposed to be included. Hearing Doug Collins call out his players, directing them on how to play, was amazing. It was like watching a gladiator in Roman times screaming for the kill. You could watch the players jabber to each other back and forth, truly enjoying the game. One play Collins was so mad about a foul that he grabbed the ball and refused to give it back to the ref. That was directly in front of me, about 5 feet away. Awesome.

Eric Snow, one of Comcast’s TV play by play announcers almost got into a fist fight prior to the game. Here we all were, soaking in the seats we had got, and I look over and some guy calls out Snow for falling asleep on TV a few games ago during a Rockets’ game. Jokingly of course, and the man did fall asleep during a game on live TV, it’s all over Youtube, but Eric Snow did not like this one bit. He stands up, turns around, and starts talking shit to the guy in the crowd, about 2 rows behind us. It went on for like 5 minutes! Security ended up coming over, but apparently the gentlemen were able to squash it. Like really Snow?? You DID fall asleep on TV. It IS funny. Why you getting salty dawg??

Ah well. I wasn’t expecting a win last night, coming off an away game the night before, but I certainly hoped for one. I was impressed with how well the Sixers still managed to hang with the #3 team in the West, almost winning the game if it wasn’t for Durantula’s amazing 3 pointer. The Wells Fargo Center was packed, more than I’ve ever seen it. I got on TV a bunch, and now I have a new Facebook picture. That was well worth the price of admission.

I’ll leave you with two videos. This NBA 2K11 commercial I never saw on TV once, but it’s got Iggy and Russell Westbrook in it, pretty funny.

And, since baseball season is right around the corner, the classic Carlos Ruiz post game interview

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