N.O. Sleep – East vs West!

Third night in a row that I’m awake. Yes, of course I did catch some z’s during the past couple of days, mostly in the morning, and I fell asleep on the couch earlier this evening. If only for an hour, but now I’m fresh like Doug E. so can’t wait for the main event: the All-Star game. It’s 2 am over here, and I’m good to go, wanting to see my favorite player Jason Kidd to star for the East one final time, seeing AI actually play for the West for the first time (he was selected as a reserve last year, but was injured so he couldn’t play), and hopefully Rasheed Wallace will find a way to have some fun. By the way, I just saw the Chris Rock All-Star promo, and it doesn’t happen often when celebrities do these kind of things, but it sounded like he actually was excited to talk about the game. I know it’s all scripted, but still.

-Coverage starts, once again Dutch commentary, I have to deal with it. What’s more difficult to deal with is the absence of Shaquille O’Neal. He’s been an All-Star for 14 straight seasons, and a comedian all his life, or so it seems.

-Man, the Rebirth Brass Band sure sounds good.

-Caron Butler and Kevin Garnett both are looking sharp, too bad they aren’t playing.

-Ray Allen is the substitute for Butler, and when he was introduced on the Conan O’Brien show last week, the Max Weinberg 7 played the awesome “NBA on NBC” theme when he was introduced by Conan. Respect Max!

-The Eastern All-Star starters seem happy. Dancing a bit, all smiles, and on the reserves I noticed that even Sheed had rhythm.

-Byron Scott is relatively still a young coach, but it’s the second time he’s coaching in the All-Star game. Now the Western squad, and in 2002 he was coaching the East when was with the Nets. He never was an All-Star in all of his 14 years as a player., but he truly deserves to be here tonight.

-The U.S. anthem was nice. Although the Marvin Gaye version in 1983 will remain the best ever. Ever. Ever-ever.

-East starting five: Kidd, Wade, Bosh, James and Howard.

-West starting five: Bryant, Iverson, Anthony, Duncan and Ming.

-Some players define a team, like you immediately associate Kobe with the Lakers, Yao with the Rockets, Dirk with the Mavs, Wade with the Heat, and young Chris Paul defines the Hornets. I hope the team will find a way to stay in N.O., and Paul will carry the Hornets for a long time.

1ST HALF:

-Wade scores the first basket on a little dunk. With a lot of steps.

-LeBron to Dwight for the alley-oop.

-Bosh dunks, 6-0 East.

-I wonder how long Kobe will play. I can imagine his pink must hurt like hell. Anyone who played basketball had some kind of injury on one or multiple fingers. I, for one, can’t stretch my right pinkie entirely. So dislocating it like Kobe can’t be fun.

-The sound isn’t too good. The Dutch commentary is too loud, or the game sound is too soft, but it’s a bit annoying.

-Holy crap, nice alley-oop from Kidd to LeBron.

-Kidd seems to be involved in every play so far, offensively and defensively. He is happy, I wonder why….

-Crap, Kidd goes to the bench, and Kobe already has his hand wrapped in ice.

-Three Pistons on the court. I wonder if Ben Wallace is watching this game on TV thinking: “What have I done?”

-I’m not sure if the crowd is really silent, or it’s because of the problem I mentioned earlier. The commentators are at a normal volume, but the rest if way off.

-Too many whistles, it kills momentum. Then again, this has been going on for the last four years in every single NBA game, so I might be wrong.

-Amare Stoudemire is a big man, but around the basket he can do what some of the best guards in the League can do, flying under the basket and scoring on the other side, like a Kobe Bryant or T-Mac.

-Whoever thought is was fun to let old people dance during breaks never talked to me about this. They, along with dancing fat people, are not what I call a form of entertainment. NBA: where shaking skeletons happen.

-I really, really like this year’s All-Star logo (as can be seen in my first All-Star blog). And I think I saw a picture of Carmelo (not sure if it really was him) with an All-Star hoodie that also looked great. It must be really fun to be an All-Star, getting this free stuff. Although I can’t imagine that a player would ever wear it after this weekend.

END OF 1ST QUARTER, EAST 34, WEST 28.

-Yes, Kidd is back in the game (not being biased here, but like I said earlier, he’s very active tonight, and makes things happen. Even if he’s not a Net anymore between now and probably really soon, I’ll be following him for the rest of his career).

-Pretty cool that David West is there. You hardly hear anything about him during the regular season, until you see his statline, and you know the coaches made the right choice to select him.

-Boozer checks in. The guy is having an amazing season, especially if you keep in mind that he’s got important issues in his private life, regarding his kid who has a serious illness. Hope everything will turn out okay.

-Dancing Honeybees during the time-out. For you who don’t know what I’m talking about, they are the cheerleaders of the Hornets. A vast improvement over the elderly people.

-One of the Dutch announcers always makes the same joke when he sees a guy with tattoos. “He’s a frequent customer of the tattoo store!”. Come to think of it, it’s not even a joke, yet he thinks it’s funny. He does this almost every single game.

-Ooookay…. Subliminal message? Some mics here and there, and TNT decides to check on Jason Kidd, who says to Sheed that this might be his “last time” (in the East). I mention this, because just hours ago ESPN mentioned that the Nets-Mavs deal is almost completed. More on that another time.

-Oh shit, too many alley-oops in a short sequence to mention here. Three for the East, once for the West. Spectacular.

-Roy missed the alley-oop, but it makes me wonder: how many Blazers will be in the game next year. Roy will only get better, Aldridge can be really good, at what will happen when Oden finally steps onto the court this fall?

-The score in on pace with the average Suns-Warriors game. I really would’ve liked to see Baron Davis getting some minutes tonight. Then again, the Beard is playing a lot of minutes again this season, so this will give his body some rest.

-I saw Sheed shooting three 3’s so far, two left-handed, one right-handed. He hit a left-handed one. Weird.

-Howard and James lead the East with 12, Roy leads the West with 11. MVP so far? Gotta be Lebron. Along with his 12 points he also 6 rebounds and 7 assists.

END OF FIRST HALF, EAST 74, WEST 65.

-Harry Connick jr. plays the piano quite well, as far as I can judge on piano skills. Good for him.

-Dr. John sure has a “distinctive look”. Now that’s a dude you would recognize in a crowd. He’s like and old version of Captain Jack Sparrow. While Dr. John is playing, Connick really is enjoying himself out there, dancing, clapping, even though the cameras are not on him.

-To quote Wyclef Jean from his debut solo album: “Nevill Brothers in the house tonight”. Pretty good performance, raspy voices, piano solos, it works for me.

-Allen Toussaint is playing now, that’s a nice collection of musicians lined up right there.

2ND HALF:

-Also in this half Wade gets the first bucket on a midair back to the basket lay-up. We can basically call this his signature move.

-Yao tries a three, and misses. The world economy immediately takes a hit.

-The sound in the Dutch broadcast is still really fucked up. I thought it was better in the second quarter. Who knows, maybe those guys can’t do anything about it.

-Why the hell makes Howard a cheap foul on Yao? Let him play man.

-Yao misses another three. Airball.

-LeBron is getting hot, 19, 8 and 8.

-David West got fouled four times in one sequence. No whistle.

-Ray Allen makes basketball look so easy. Whether it’s a three or a reverse lay-up, it’s effortlessly. He Got Game. When I try to do it, it’s like those old people dancing: not pretty.

-Pierce dribbled the last 15 seconds of the third, but missed the three. He has 10 points so far can’t recall any of them.

END OF 3RD QUARTER, EAST 106, WEST 93.

-12 minutes to go, and the annual party is over.

-If LeBron gets a triple-double, he must be the MVP of the game. Two boards and two assists to go. I haven’t voted yet on NBA.com, for the simple reason that I won’t vote until I know which team has won the game. And the MVP must come from a winning team.

-Stoudemire gets up high and jams it in Howard’s face. This will not be the last time these two will face off in the All-Star game.

-Boozer dunks on an assist from Paul. When you watch the replay you see the beauty of the move Paul made leading up to the pass.

-Amare again with the tomahawk, Dwight moved out of his way this time.

-LeBron wants to do it himself, went for the three and hit nothing but air. Yikes.

-And now even Der Dirk shoots an airball.

-Kidd hands out another assist to LeBron. I don’t know if James should be happy about that or not. Once again he really feels on what he is missing out.

-Stoudemire blocks Wade, goes to the other side for the and-one. I don’t know if he made the ensuing free thow, I wasn’t paying attention. Whoops.

-Both team are matching each other point for point, but Ray Allen keeps hitting threes.

-The cheerleaders are wearing masks this time. And skimpy golden uniforms with some feathers on it. Oh the possibilities.

-If the West does win, Chris Paul should win the MVP.

-LeBron goes through traffic and jams it on Dirk. Actually, he places his forearm into Dirk’s face while up in the air, and then dunks it.

-Wade for the acrobatic and-one.

-And if the East wins, Ray Allen saved them in the fourth quarter. I don’t know who to vote for after the game. KG is so excited, you see that he wants to be out there with Allen. We all wish KG could be out there too.

-Very exciting game here. But ultimately the East keeps a small lead and wins it. The fourth quarter was the most exciting one, great game.

END OF GAME, EAST 134, WEST 128.

I voted for Allen, but LeBron’s (27, 8 and 9) the MVP, and there’s nothing wrong with that. So that’s it folks. I’ll probably write some sort of recap tomorrow, but All-Star Weekend 2008 is over. It was better than I expected, and the final 30 games of the season are about to be played, the road to the playoffs start now. Well, Tuesday.