The Defense Is Killing Me Inside
So the huge pitchers duel from Josh Johnson and Roy Halladay lived up the hype last night (sarcasm.) Yeah, they pitched great, but the Phillies lost, so it’s still a let-down in my eyes. Having Josh Johnson in a fantasy league didn’t help either. You want him to do great, but so great that he still loses. I’m like Tupac with all my inner conflict.
How many innings does Roy Halladay plan on pitching this year?? Seriously. I get that he is a work-horse, the man wants to pitch all the time, but he’s pitched for 61.1 innings so far this year, which leads the league. The next highest is Jered Weaver at 57.7, who is about 5 years younger. It’s awesome that Halladay has the stuff to go 9 innings every start, but it doesn’t mean he should. Not in mid-May.
Charlie needs to start digging into the bullpen and take the reigns a little. Halladay’s emotions were clearly running a little wild when Polanco was too slow throwing out Ramirez in the 8th. Roy looked like he wanted to smash his face in. Just pitch 7-8 innings and save that arm for the fall.
I watched the Grizzlies/OKC game from about 5 minutes of the 4th quarter to the end of the 2nd OT. Yes. That’s right. I stopped watching. Overtime after overtime, it was just getting a little out of control. The identity crisis that Oklahoma City is having right now makes me wonder if they are going to make it past the Mavs IF they make it past the Grizzlies.
Westbrook is taking a lot of heat for not dishing the ball to Durant in this series. They have a lot of weird defensive match-ups with the Grizzlies and it’s hurting the OKC’s offensive scheme, and even causing some drama in the locker room. Westbrook can basically drive at any point he chooses, so I don’t mind that he’s being a little more aggressive. He just needs to understand that the last shot of every quarter shouldn’t be him, and that it shouldn’t be Durant with 2 seconds left with a defender all over him because Westbrook gave a poor pass. It’s a learning experience.
It’s funny how relaxed a lot of these veterans are in the NBA playoffs… as they are losing. Kobe Bryant was ‘convinced’ he could still win the series after being down 3-0 to the Mavericks. And then he lost. The big 3 from Boston are trying to keep the same casual, care-free confidence as they travel to Miami to play the Heat tonight. I wonder what’s going to happen to them…
Once the Conference Finals are set up, I’m sure that we’ll probably have a revamp of our play-off picks. I know I need to. I still think the OKC have a pretty good chance of winning the whole she-bang, but with Miami playing at the level they are, I don’t know who’s gonna stop them. The Bulls and Hawks are taxing themselves in their series, so I pretty much have the Heat winning the East. This sucks of course, because the Miami Heat are everything wrong with the NBA, and they have (in my eyes) the easiest schedule and best chance to win the NBA Finals now.
Step 1 : Abandon teams, assemble new team of stars .
Step 2 : Play entire season casually, as to not strain yourself, draw media attention.
Step 3 : Win NBA Championship.
Perhaps I’m only bringing this up to double-jinx myself on my OKC pick. I mean, to be fair, I haven’t definitively changed my pick yet. There has been no official announcement of my new selection. So… in efforts to be respectable… my pick for the NBA Champion this year is…
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