(Don’t know what happened when I tried to post this earlier today, like half of it disappeared. So now I’m re-posting, like Tim Duncan with the shot clock winding down.)
A two hour hotel room nap accidentally turned into a five hour sleepathon, so I missed pregame locker room time. Needless to say, after taking a big Zzz, players who occasionally miss practice have my empathy. Pregame, we’re talking, PREGAME?!?!
Thankfully, I get to the Pepsi Center in time to eat dinner. As I chow down with some other reputable journalists, we witness the KG-McDyess dust-up. A writer who is choosing to remain anonymous, imitating KG: “You thought I was a tough guy. You were fooled!”
–Food Review: I was going to give the generic red meat buffet a C+ because it reminded so much of boring but edible college food, but after hearing Brian Windhorst’s horror stories from Seattle and Portland, I’m bumping it up to a B-. Honestly, I ate so much red meat during my first two days in Denver, I think I got a text message from Peter King’s colon. Too soon? (And just let the record state that, even though the game will have been played by the time you read this—it’s Saturday as I write this—I wholly expect Peyton Manning to doody the sheets on Sunday. Update: I was wrong.)
One more note on the food: The hot dogs were decent but they really made me appreciate the hawt dawgs in Joisey. I mean, at this point, even if the Nuggets ate (no pun intended) his entire salary, I wouldn’t trade the Jersey press room hot dogs for Kenyon Martin and the Denver press room hot dogs. Maybe that illustrates some fading nostalgia, but I think the greater point has been made.
–The Nuggets PA Announcer sounds like a horrible mix of ’96 SNL Jim Breuer and Satan from the South Park movie. The game hasn’t even started and I wish he came with a mute button.
–Even though he’s not starting, JR Smith goes out to the half court sideline to exchange pounds with the Cleveland starters.
–What the hell is going on? Is Denver obsessed with metal? Everything coming out of the PA system seems to be altered by a heavy drum machine. A metal version of “Show Me What You Got”? Let the record state that what I got is imaginary vomit, and even though it’s imaginary, I doubt you wanna see it…Little Mama…Perty Lady….
GAMETIME:
–LeBron starts out with a pretty spin move over Linas Kleiza.
–Name another starting center besides Marcus Camby that can put the rock on the floor from behind halfcourt, go all the way, convert an AND-1, AND look good doing it.
–Larry Hughes has a nice little stretch early on: Pretty jumper, a sweet fake jumper and quick look into Zzz for an easy layup, and an AND-1 opportunity (ft missed). Of course, we’ll barely hear from him the rest of the way, but whatever.
–The Nugs open up a 15 point cushion behind Steve Blake and Marcus Camby.
–The much anticipated matchup between Anderson Varejao and Eduardo Najera comes to fruition. That’s international hustle, right there. Like the drug trade. Like the sex trade. Like David Beckham.
–A metal remix to Livin’ On A Prayer? UGH. I’m going to start throwing my Bill Cartwright elbows around pretty soon.
–So, the Nuggets call Yakhouba Diawara “Kooba”. His new nickname is King Kooba. And his groupies are Kooba Troopas.
–Rocky, the respectable Nuggets’ mascot, alternates humping air with doing the hokey pokey. Then, inexplicably, a fake referee starts stripping.
–It appears that the Cavs still do not run a discernible offense. This is bad against the Nuggets because they aren’t playing much first half defense either. Mike Brown would talk after the game about how their identity needs to be defense, and they usually play good defense, but still….On Thursday afternoon, I watched George Karl lead his troops through the sets that they ran well on Friday night.
–As Kanye’s “Jesus Walks” plays over the PA, Eduardo Najera grabs an offensive rebound between four stationary Cavaliers. Seconds later, Najera converts an AND-1. Creepy.
–Sorry, I’m not much on the game minutiae tonight. I’m focusing on one guy and the Nuggets are just blowing Cleveland out. You probably saw this one on ESPN, anyway.
–The Nuggets are moving on offense. The Cavs aren’t. Are they suffering from road motion sickness?
–Marcus Camby = Eastern Conference All-Star.
–The PA announcer calls Eduardo Najera, “El Grande Chiwawa.” That’s not cool; if you’re going to project condescending American/Mexican stereotypes on him, you might as well just call him “Taco Bell” and get it over with.
–I’m sitting next to the aisle dominated by the dancing usher. I get some accidental jumbotron time as he does the robot. He’s dancing to Young MC’s “Bust a Move”. Then, ten kids with mullets come and join the fray. As the sequence comes to a close, one kid, probably eight, walks back to his seat beaming. “That was SO cool.” In sum, 1991 was fun, thanks for asking.
–Nene fires an airball over his Brazilian teammate, Anderson. That was HI-LAR-I-O.
–I’m going to take a page out of Lang’s book for the end of this recap: Blah Blah Blah The Cavs makes a run Blah Blah Blah Damon Jones wets a three and falls into the cheerleaders Blah Blah Blah Nuggets win easily Blah Blah Blah LeBron’s triple double barely feels like one blah blah blah AI played a solid all around game and looks great out there for the Nuggets blah blah blah.
A few other things:
–I was watching the VH1 show, “White Rappers” the other day when I was bored in my hotel room. A few things about this show: 1) It is stupid 2) It’s not as bad as you’d think 3) The rapping isn’t as putrid as you might. 4) They kicked off “Misfit”, a hot British chick with fake boobs. This was unfortunate because she had just started sleeping with “Sulley” from Boston, who couldn’t “close the deal” after three tries. Something I’ve always wondered about: Is it required that at least one out of every five New Englanders is nicknamed “Sully”? Because that’s what it seems like. And if so, what is the significance of this name? 5) The best thing about this show is that when the wannabe rappers get an assignment it comes on this screen that’s inside a big mayonnaise jar, and it says, “You’ve got mayo!” Mayonnaise + Yayo = Mayo?…
–I don’t think you can completely discredit the Cavs for their poor road trip. The Cavs always suck out west. They’re a bad road team. It’s that simple. They only have one two game Western swing remaining in their ENTIRE season. They’ll probably win 50 games and have as good a shot at the Finals as anybody in the Least*. With or without a point guard that can shoot.
*=Unless Miami pulls that, “Haha we fooled you, regular seasons are fo’ suckas, and we have D Wade and the refs and lots of people wearing white so don’t even try and stop us; fake titties and rings on South Beach as Pat Riley saves the last dance, bitches!” mumbo jumbo.
