Lord of the Championship Rings: Return of the Tweener

That's right!  After a long absence, I'm bringing back my "Tweener" column!  You can read the original "Tweener" here, and other examples here and here and here and...ok enough already.

>>>> Mostly I decided to bring this back because the Australian Open started today/yesterday/I don't really understand how the international dateline works, but it was on TV when I woke up in the middle of the night.  If you haven't seen or heard about the draw, well, one half is a little stacked.  Here's what is important in this tournament:

• If Rafael Nadal wins, he ties Sampras with 14 career majors.  Due to the draw and his streak of 24 consecutive matches won, the odds seem to be in Djokovic's favor.  But you better believe if these two make the final I will be up at 3:30am that Sunday to watch it.
• That's really the only important thing.
• Serena will probably still be really good.
• Oh wait - I'm reeeeally hoping we see something like this:

>>>> STOP THE PRESSES.  Whatever you're doing, it isn't worth it.  Instead, you should be spending the next 5 hours staring at the NBA standings, since four whole Eastern Conference teams are currently above .500!  Actually Toronto plays Milwaukee tonight, and Boston on Wednesday, so this may hold up for a while.

Wait.  Who am I kidding?  This is the Eastern Conference we're talking about!  Relish it while you can.

>>>> In all seriousness, call me crazy, but Chicago (because no Luol Deng) and Detroit (because Josh Smith lol) are going to fall out of those standings.  (When I told him this, co-Volume Shooter Paul Britton told me I was crazy.)  Instead, the New York Suddenly-A-Real-Basketball-Team-After-Benching-JR-Smith Knicks will pull it together (much to Denver's chagrin, since they own the Knicks' first round pick), and the Charlotte (!!!!!!) Bobcats will also find a way in.  I know...I really did just type those words, which virtually guarantees Charlotte will lose 10 of their next 11 games (though they'd probably still be within striking distance of the playoffs because the East is that bad).

>>>> This (s/o to Drake Varn):

Weener Wednesday - Game 6 Reactions

Once more, a hiccup in our weekly time-table has me posting on Wednesday instead of Tuesday.  Therefore, this column is now "Weener Wednesday" instead of "Tweener Tuesday."

It would be wrong of me to talk about anything other than last night's Game 6 of the NBA Finals.  So let's get a few things out of the way.

1. The Spurs missed some free throws.  I don't mean to imply I would have made them.  But everything else can be taken with a grain of salt through the lens of...they could have made their free throws and it wouldn't have mattered.
1.5. I just want to make sure I'm clear...the Spurs missed some free throws.
2. WHY WAS TIM DUNCAN NOT IN THE GAME AT LEAST FOR THE SECOND TRIP DOWN WHEN THE HEAT NEEDED A THREE AFTER THEY GOT AN OFFENSIVE REBOUND THE FIRST TIME ray allen that was a great shot BUT SERIOUSLY POP WHAT WERE YOU THINKING DID YOU LEARN NOTHING FROM THE INDIANA DEBACLE YOU PLAY YOUR BEST PLAYERS PERIOD END OF STORY WHAT HAPPENED

The Tweener: Danny Green, Danny Green, Danny Green, and Nadal (and Danny Green)

On February 26 I wrote an inaugural Tweener column.  Due to our live blogging of Game 2, this week's Tweener is appearing on Wednesday - sorry if you had withdrawal yesterday.

>>>> This is how I felt last night watching Game 3 of the NBA Finals.

Check out Tony Parker in that clip. "Oh my god."

You know why?  The big numbers are obvious and have been covered: the record number of 3s in a game - the trio of Neal, Green, and Leonard scoring the same number of points as Wade, Lebron, and Bosh in this series (which is NOT a good thing for Miami) - Tracy McGrady going 0-for-2 yet somehow getting the loudest cheers of the night and registering a solid +10 over his 7 garbage time minutes.

But here are some more numbers from that game:

The Tweener: Moore, OK, we're here for you.

On February 26 I wrote an inaugural Tweener column. It's that time of the week again - this issue's quick hitters are below with a special topic at the end.

• This is the worst part of the playoffs, where the time between televised games gets longer, and the entertainment factor within each game gets smaller.  You have to assume the NBA office is performing every sort of voodoo magic they can think of to prevent a Memphis-Indiana final. If there wasn't the possibility that at any moment Wade could throw an alley-oop pass to Lebron, and if the Spurs offense wasn't the prettiest thing to watch since Emma Watson in Harry Potter 7 Part I (the saving grace of that movie), I wouldn't watch any of these Conference Finals games.  And even though Miami and San Antonio aren't the largest markets out there, they're still pretty effing big. And the best part is, no one knows what to think about that match up. Seriously. They've basically never played each other at full strength. Can Popovich draw up the perfect Xs and Os to beat a small ball, athletic, we're-faster-than-you-because-you-play-3-old-men kind of attack? So here's to Indiana beating Miami so this intrigue can live on for another year!

No really, the Pacers are so boring Lance Stephenson tried choking himself.

The Tweener - Grow up and wear some clothes

On February 26 I wrote an inaugural Tweener column. It's that time of the week again - here are this issue's quick hitters:

• This week here in DC it is supposed to be in the 60s or low 70s every day. I don't say that to rub it in your face, I say that because I would like for you to empathize with how much I want a hammock. You know that feeling when you just want to take a nap? You're just too tired to do anything but lie down because you spent the day at work, or you got up early on a Saturday because someone wanted you to accompany them to a farmers market and are therefore sleep deprived, or if you're like me you got up at noon and spent two hours watching tv and that made you sleepy again. You have that "as soon as my head hits the pillow" feeling. Well, that must be how the Bulls feel. (Was that a stretch? I don't know.) The number of shots they left on the front of the rim last night was dizzying. The number of tips they missed was unlikely. The number of loose balls they won was, well, not very good. They're just tired. The good news is - that "as soon as my head hits the pillow feeling" they have will be resolved soon, since they're one game away from being done. It's too bad they couldn't be healthy - it would have been a lot more fun for the rest of us.  Don't be surprised if during game 5 Carlos Boozer does this to himself, just so he can get to sleep even earlier:

The Tweener: Parties, Iron Man, and a Facebook Creation

On February 26 I wrote an inaugural "Tweener" column. It's that time of the week again! Here are this issue's quick hitters:

Happy Birthday to...

My birthday is at the end of this week. So I figured it would be interesting to see if any famous NBA players shared my birthday, or at least a volume shooter or two. Here's what I found (possible Obscure NBA Players alert!):

The Tweener: A let-down, a spectacular quarter, and a spectacular revelation

On February 26 I wrote my inaugural Tweener column. It's that time of the week again - here are this week's quick hitters:

Womp

One of the most unfortunate feelings in life is being let down. I'm talking, major time let down, like your city's franchises repeatedly make the playoffs or have great seasons and can never win anything important (cough Denver cough).  This isn't some "I wanted to go for a bike ride and it rained" kind of crap. I really mean let down. As far as I can remember, this has happened to me 4 times in my life: (1) when I was flying home from abroad and passed out on the plane, causing me to miss my connection cause they made me go to the hospital, causing me to get stuck in London for 5 days because of snow (this was really not tight at all), (2) when I was 14 and had gotten the new version of Madden each Christmas for like 5 straight years and all I could think about on Christmas Eve was getting to play it for 14 hours the next day, and then "Santa" didn't bring it that year, (3) when I heard Emma Watson was newly single, only to have someone respond to my exuberance with "yeah did you hear how she said she's done dating American men?", and (4) when my parents didn't fill the pinata at my kindergarten birthday party with candy (this is actually the most anti-climactic moment of my life...but the good news is one of my classmates still managed to hit my uncle in the face while we were trying to break the empty-pinata, so that saves it a little bit).

Why did I say all of that?

Remember that time they photo-shopped Steve Nash's face onto
John Cena's body for the cover of this issue?

The Tweener: Pi, GIs, and the fat lady singing

On February 26 I wrote an inaugural Tweener column. It's that time of the week again! My apologies for opting out of this column last week. This week, well, I've watched more than a couple movies recently. Just so everyone knows, THERE ARE AT LEAST MINOR SPOILERS ABOUT LIFE OF PI, GI JOE 2, and LES MISERABLES in the following post. Just FYI. Ok...anyway, I warned you, so if you read something you didn't want to know, don't blame me if you end up like this:

I don't even know what that is from. Ok here we go:

What's in a name?

The Tweener: "A Cold-Blooded Three!"

On February 26 I wrote an inaugural Tweener column. It's that time of the week again! This time we're going to look at the five most hateful shots of the 2013 NCAA Tournament (to date, at least).

Just in case you forgot why this column was called "The Tweener," it's because I love points, and more specifically shots, like this:

Anyway, here's the real theme of this week's piece:

THE TOP 5 MOST HATEFUL SHOTS OF THE NCAA TOURNAMENT (thus far)

The Tweener: A Horcrux, Decisions, and a Flying Chicken

On February 26 I wrote an inaugural Tweener column.  It's that time of the week again - here are this issue's quick hitters:

• Forgive my depression. I still haven't fully recovered from the soul crushing loss Davidson suffered in the first round of the NCAA tournament on Thursday.  As we slouched on the couch in the dark in the immediate aftermath of this loss, a friend remarked, "This must be how it feels to make a horcrux."  That someone could reference Harry Potter in this situation almost made me smile, but my cheek muscles didn't budge.  Perhaps the worst part? So many good things that happened in that game will be lost because of the final result.  I'm talking about the smart defensive scheme Davidson employed, the realization by the rest of the country that Davidson was probably under-seeded, Jake "Late second round pick/poor man's Ryan Anderson" Cohen's fluid game, and, most notably, this: