Tag: Indiana Pacers (Page 1 of 5)

Sports Notes

June 20, 2024 / DB

Time to knock out some sports notes while I avoid going outside and facing Heat Dome ’24.

Say Hey

The incomparable Willie Mays died Tuesday night. I never saw him play live as the tail end of his career just barely overlapped with my life. I did hear the stories and saw the grainy highlight reels. And I remember how those fat, softcover, sports trivia books popular in the late Seventies and early Eighties were always filled with amazing facts about his career. Willie, at worst, was on of the four best players ever. At worst.[1]

I sent a few of you this statement after the news of his death broke. I’m pretty proud of it so will repeat it for my blog readers:

Willie should have kicked Joe DiMaggio’s ass when the Yankee Clipper insisted on being introduced as “The Greatest Living Baseball Player” late in his life. It was asinine, dishonest, and offensive to suggest Joe D was better than the Say Hey Kid.

Rany Jazayerli has a great piece on The Ringer breaking down how Mays was even better than the raw numbers suggest. I know all about the time Ted Williams missed because of his military service in World War II and the Korean War. I did not know, or did not recall, Mays missed nearly two years when he served in Korea. Even for a player as accomplished as he was, those two years made a massive difference in his career production.

Willie Mays Was the Greatest Baseball Player Who Ever Lived

Royals

I’ve been paying more attention to the Royals over the past month or so. Figures that whatever fueled their hot start over the first two months of the season seems to have fizzled over that stretch. It is nice that they aren’t terrible, though. I’ve been on the verge of resubscribing to either MLB.TV to watch or At Bat to listen several times, but then they lose a couple games and I figure I watch/listen to other stuff at night so why upset my routine. Then again, At Bat is only $30…

Pacers

It won’t be official for a couple more weeks when the NBA calendar turns over, but word has it that the Pacers and Pascal Siakam have agreed on a big contract extension. There wasn’t much doubt; word around the NBA was that Siakam would not agree to be traded to a team he was not interested in re-signing with. There were some rough patches early, but eventually he fit in well with his new teammates. Add a summer of working out together plus a 100% healthy Tyrese Haliburton next season and the Pacers should be firmly in the second tier of the Eastern Conference behind Boston.

NBA Finals

What a boring series. Boston is the least impressive great team I can recall. That isn’t really fair. Almost every game, though, they have one terrible quarter which keeps you from thinking, “Wow, this team is incredible!” They have two legit stars in Jaylen Brown and Jason Tatum, a perfect compliment (when healthy) in Kristaps Porzingis, and remarkable role players in Jrue Holiday and Derrick White. White, especially, floors me every game when he makes multiple “HOLY SHIT!!!” defensive plays.

The Celtics definitely got a great draw, with Jimmy Butler, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Joel Embiid, and the entire Knicks roster injured and then Haliburton getting hurt during the Eastern Conference Finals and the Denver Nuggets getting knocked out of the Western Conference semis by Minnesota. That shouldn’t distract from a magnificent season and a team that is poised to be, perhaps, the next NBA dynasty getting the Finals monkey off their backs.

Olympic Swimming Trials

Big week here in Indy with the Olympic swimming trials at Lucas Oil Stadium, which is obviously a little weird. The closest we came to attending was having dinner with some friends who were in town to attend and dropping them off at the gates before we headed home.

I highly suggest finding one of the videos showing how they built the pools inside a football stadium. Wild stuff, and roughly 20,000 people a night are coming in to watch.

It’s been a good week for the local swimmers, with several athletes who either went/go to high school in the Indy suburbs, or attend(ed) IU or Notre Dame making the Olympic roster so far. I guess swimmers can come from anywhere, and the high school/club swim programs in Carmel are some of the absolute best in the world, but it is always weird to me that landlocked Indiana can crank out such high level swimmers.

The schedule for the week seems weird to me. Or at least the TV schedule. Some nights NBC showed swimming for an hour. Some nights two hours. I get that they have airtime to fill, and buzz to create for the Paris games. But seems like the trial meet used to be over a long weekend instead of stretched across a week.

Also I’m preemptively complaining about local NBC stations sending reporters to the Olympics. Absolutely zero need for it and their little puff pieces they file for the local news are terrible 99% of the time.

Mays, Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Barry Bonds in some order. Your mileage may vary on Bonds. ↩

Weekend Notes

May 20, 2024 / DB

Lots of notes from the past several days.

Travel Hoops

Pretty good weekend of hoops in Louisville. For the first time ever, we went 3–0 in pool play at a national event. We won our first game Friday by 11. It was a very tough, defensive contest that we controlled pretty much from the opening tip. However we only scored 28 points for the game, so it wasn’t the smoothest of performances. Giving up only 17 is decent, though.

Saturday we had two games, eight hours apart, which was not ideal for planning the day. We won game one by 10. Again controlled it pretty much the entire time. Our final game we won by 19, but led by just five early in the second half before we finally got things figured out. Both games we were in the mid–40s so a little more typical performances.

None of these teams were great, but we also could have lost any of those games just a year ago. It helps having some more size and for our returning girls to really be locked in.

Sunday morning we had a semifinal game against a team from Southeast Missouri. We watched part of one of their games Saturday and knew they were basically one girl on offense and really tough, pressure D. We figured it would be a good game we could win if we handled the pressure.

That was exactly how it worked out. We did not handle their pressure for about a five minute stretch in the first half and they ran out to an 11-point lead. On consecutive possessions we turned it over in the backcourt and they scored, which is just a killer.

Their one girl was exactly what we thought. She’s probably 6’1” but super fast. Most of her game is just grabbing a rebound and taking off, daring anyone to stop her. She killed us either beating our defense up the court, overwhelming whoever was guarding her, or making a great move to get by the primary defender and then no one was there to help. She hit one three and a couple free throws, but everything else was on a drive to the basket.

We were down nine at the half. Midway through the second half we finally started getting some stops. We got it the lead down to four points three times, but kept stalling there. Then L hit a 3 to bring us to within three. In the final 90 seconds L scored three times – once on a drive when she was also fouled but didn’t get the call,[1] once on a long two, and once when she hit two free throws after her shot barely rimmed out – to cut it to one. But each time we either gave up a basket or they hit two free throws when we fouled to put them on the line. We never had the ball down one or two.

Their best player hit a free throw with one second left to put them up two, then intentionally missed her second attempt. L got the rebound and made a full-court heave that only went about 60 feet. Worth noting we were playing on a college court, which is 10 feet longer than where the girls normally play. So her shot would have only been 20 feet short had we been on a high school court.

Bummer to lose, but a really good game. If we could have just weathered those five minutes – L was on the bench for that entire stretch, by the way – it could have been a different result.

Playing for the championship at a national tournament would have been cool,[2] but it was nice to leave Louisville at 10:00 AM and not have to hang around for a 1:00 game.

LB was fantastic all weekend. It was the best she’s ever played over multiple games. Friday she only scored four points, but finally hit a 3, her first in a real game since December! Seriously, it had been since before Christmas, nearly five full months. Sure, there weren’t any games from the last week of January until the first week of April, but you figure she would have made one in there somewhere.

She scored 12 and 11 on Saturday, hitting another 3 in each game. Then she had 14 on Sunday, hitting two threes and both of her free throws while getting three rebounds, two assists, and three steals. I was pumped afterwards, she was pissed that they lost. Perfect.

Overall she was 16–31 from the field, 5–12 from 3, 4–6 from the line. Again, likely the best she’s ever shot.

She had told me she thought the training she’s doing three nights a week had been helping, making her both stronger and more confident. For this weekend, at least, that seemed to be absolutely true.

Now travel takes a pause for a month, although she still has a week or two of training left. High school ball will start the first week of June. Right now it looks like they’ll lift weights 2–3 times a week, have one basketball workout, then, assuming she gets pulled into the varsity group for summer, play two nights a week in different leagues. I think it’s a good assumption she will be varsity for the summer since A) she deserves it and B) one of the varsity starting guards is a D1 soccer recruit and is usually traveling for soccer and skips basketball over the summer. Then two more out-of-town tournaments in July before this travel cycle wraps up.

Louisville

A few non-hoops stories from the weekend.

We stayed at an Econo Lodge downtown. This was again a tournament where you are required to stay at an “approved” hotel. And the PGA Championship was also in Louisville. So pickins was slim. I read good reviews of the Econo Lodge and figured it was better to take a chance, be downtown for activities, and less than ten minutes from the Expo Center as opposed to staying 30–40 minutes away as a lot of other teams were doing.

They must have paid someone to do those reviews because they were not accurate.

Our hotel was old, it smelled, and it was surrounded by homeless people. Our room smelled like people had been smoking weed in it for years. Friday night starting around 11–11:30 a bunch of kids showed up for what seems to have been a post-party. They ran around screaming and yelling for hours. I guess the cops finally came flying into the parking lot at 3:00 AM and cleared them all out. I think I had finally passed out about 2:45 so missed that excitement. I had Sentry Mode engaged on my Tesla and never got any alerts, so hoped all was well. Some of our other families said they saw kids taking pictures around it. I haven’t gone back to review the footage yet, mostly because I can’t figure out how to pull it up, but there weren’t any scratches, dents, or dings, so I figured it’s all good. I’m glad I could contribute to their fun.

Despite the smell, our room seemed clean, which is more important than dodging homeless men and dealing with hours of teenage noise. The AC worked sporadically so I went from sweaty to freezing every 30 minutes or so as it debated what temperature air to pump out.

So qualified success? We have some good stories!

There was actually a good pizza place across the street. We went there Friday after our game to eat and watch the Pacers game.

A bonus of the PGA being in town was the parking for that event was at the Expo center, too. Thus, for some reason, they weren’t charging parking. Two years ago when we played in the same event it was $35 to park for the weekend. I’m sure they’ll get us when we go back in July. It was $70 to get in the door for the weekend, though.

We had a very bougey breakfast Saturday. L and I grabbed some Starbucks and ate/drank it while charging the Tesla.

That evening we had a good team dinner at a little hole-in-the-wall Mexican place. Not sure how, but they brought meals for 19 people out at the same time. A team of French Canadian girls rolled in while we were eating. One of their coaches saw our shirts and asked if we knew Jennifer Mathurin, sister of injured Pacer Bennedict Mathurin. She has done some work with girls youth programs in Indy, but isn’t directly associated with ours. He said she had played in his program when she was growing up in Montreal. Nice coincidence.

The Dreaded Procedure

I kicked off the weekend Thursday by having my second colonoscopy, seven years after #1. I put off the second because I’m lazy, justifying it by thinking since I was a little early with the first, I could be late with the second. All seems to have gone well. They did remove a couple polyps, like last time. Thankfully the biopsies came back clean.

The prep always sucks. I don’t mind the “stool time,” for lack of a better phrase. It’s the hunger and headaches that come with that bother me. Wednesday kind of sucked as I dealt with that. But Thursday was fine. Pro tip: pick a flavor of Gatorade you can tolerate but don’t love for your Metamucil dosing. After you suck down those two 32 ounce servings the night before and morning of, the taste is kind of disgusting. You don’t want to ruin your preference for a good flavor.

After my first scope, it took me hours to shake the anesthesia. I only vaguely remember leaving the facility and riding home. My first real memory was saying something at the dinner table and everyone laughing at me because it was, apparently, the third time I had said the same thing.

This time I bounced back pretty quickly. There were some hazy moments in the recovery room, but I clearly remember it being like someone flipped a switch and I was suddenly awake and talking to my nurse. We had a real good conversation, as I recall. It didn’t hurt that she was nice to look at.[3] But later I realized I have no memory of getting dressed. I’m pretty sure I did it on my own. If a pretty nurse helped me get dressed I sure hope I would remember it. Don’t tell S.

Before my scope seven years ago, a friend who had already been through it told me to plan on stopping for some kind of good food on my way home to reward myself for two days of fasting. Which I obviously couldn’t do since I was still sleepy. Thursday, though, I was wide awake, ordered Culver’s from my phone and had S stop there on the way home to pick up a shake, burger, and fries. Which tasted amazing!

I took a couple brief naps in the afternoon but otherwise seemed pretty normal. I slept like a baby Thursday night and was pretty much normal again on Friday for the drive south.

When I weighed in before we left for the surgery center, I was down six pounds! Just in time for pool season!

PACERS!!!!!!!

I’ll admit, I was totally prepared to be let down Sunday. Especially since we made it home in time to watch Pacers-Knicks game seven. Even when the Pacers jumped out to an early lead, shooting nearly 80% in the first quarter, I figured it wouldn’t last. Surely they would start tossing up bricks, Jalen Brunson would score 50, every close call would go against the Pacers, the Nova Knicks would shove with impunity, and the Pacers would slink back home for the off-season.

I was kind of right: the Pacers cooled off to shoot just 67.1% for the game, an NBA Playoffs record. They answered every Knicks run. Tyrese Haliburton turned into the Hali from before his January injuries. The bench was gigantic. The Knicks ran out of steam, other than Donte DiVincenzo, and Brunson’s body finally let him down, his left hand breaking when he tried to prevent a Haliburton break-away layup.

Massive win for the Pacers. This was supposed to be a year to just get back into the playoffs. Instead they are four wins from the NBA Finals. The #1 seed Boston Celtics block their path. It feels like a Celtics in five pick. However, a non-Pacers friend texted me Sunday evening saying he fully expects whatever voodoo magic the Pacers are working with to cause Jason Tatum and Jaylen Brown to get hurt in the next week. Giannis didn’t play in round one and Dame missed two games. The Knicks started the series with a ton of injuries and seemingly added another each game along the way. I would be worried if I was a Celtics fan.

I felt terrible for Brunson. You can’t help but respect that dude, even with all his flopping. He works so damn hard and takes on such a huge role for that team, and makes tough bucket after tough bucket. And as much as I hate Jason Hart and DiVincenzo, I give them grudging respect for how hard they play. Granted, they foul on every possession and somehow never get called for it. This series generated flashbacks to the KU-Villanova Elite 8 game I went to in, coincidentally, Louisville, when the Wildcats somehow ran through every KU screen and were never called for a foul. It’s like the refs let it go the first time because they can’t believe anyone would be so brazen, then realize they can’t call it later in the game because they didn’t in the first half. Not that I’m still bitter about a game that was eight years ago…[4]

And how about Minnesota ripping off a 54–24 run in the second half to come from 20 down to knock out the defending champs? I never expect the Nuggets to be the team to fall apart in their season’s biggest moments.

PGA

I guess it was a good tournament. I saw bits and pieces here and there over the weekend. It was a little weird to be so close to the tournament without seeing much of it.

But, HOLY SHIT, the Scottie Scheffler kerfuffle! Obviously this in no way compares to another Louisville Police Department fuck up. Or others if you want to dig into their history. Still, what an absolute shit-show. Saturday when we were navigating to the parking lot there were a bunch of LPD officers directing traffic. You can be damn-sure I followed their instructions to the letter.

Obviously this is going to get “fixed” soon. Major props to Scheffler for handling it with absolute aplomb. Shooting a 65 after spending a few hours in jail is one of the most impressive things he’s ever done. He fell apart Saturday and you have to wonder if the stress of Friday caught up with him. He finished eight shots behind winner Xander Schauffele, so I doubt it cost him the tournament. But you never know how things would have turned out if he had been in the final group, or simply closer to Schauffele, and able to put pressure on him Sunday.

I also had to laugh at how many people were screaming “Free Scottie!” Friday who probably have performative Blue Lives Matter stickers on their vehicles, think George Floyd got what he deserved, and that Black Lives Matters is a terrorist group without legitimate complaints. And how a lot of these people suddenly took eye witness accounts that were completely different than the official police report very seriously when an affluent, white golfer was involved. America, baby!

One of our other parents got a video and you can hear me yelling “AND ONE!!!” I’m generally more laid back at games than I have been in recent years, but for a moment I was That Dad again. ↩
That sounds cooler than it actually is. There are literally hundreds of teams in every age group at these tournaments. To win the “championship,” L’s team had to win their pool, win a semifinal game against another pool winner, then beat a team that won their semifinal. So this represented just four pools out of eight. And this was just in our division within the 2027 age bracket. There were four different ’27 divisions. I’m not sure if all the others had eight pools but assuming they did, that means there were eight champions just for current freshmen this weekend. I think there are even more teams in the middle school divisions. Wild. ↩
I’m sorry. ↩
As you well know I can get all fired up about games from way longer ago than eight years. ↩

Weekend Notes

May 13, 2024 / DB

A nice weekend here in Indy. I know eventually it will come back to bite us in the ass, but this is like the fifth or sixth straight season here that has been terrific. It got warm early but didn’t turn into summer in April. We’ve had a few cooldowns but none of those surprise weeks when you go from shorts and tees to coats and hats again. All that after a mild winter, a normal fall, a terrific summer, another nice spring, and I believe a relatively warm winter a year ago. Mother Nature is loading up for something big.

The pool has been open since Monday and by Friday the water was both warm and filtered enough to get in. L had friends over Friday night, and after spending the night they hung around to swim Saturday. We hosted S’s dad and stepmom for dinner Saturday night. Sunday we hung out around the pool, with two of the local nephews coming over to get their first swims of the year in.

Kid Props

I mentioned Friday that I had to attend a function Friday morning. I went into school early with L to attend the Blessed Basil Moreau awards ceremony. We knew she would receive an award. We were not told what it was for or who had nominated her when we got the invitation.

When we arrived her religion teacher, Mrs. K, strolled over and sat with us. She had both M and C in her classes, so we chatted a bit about them.

The ceremony began and Mrs. K went to the podium and asked L to join her. She said a series of nice things about L’s attitude, leadership, and dedication. She said L was the kind of kid you wished you had 24 more of in class. She then shared a specific example of L’s behavior.

One day L saw one of her friends getting picked on in class. L didn’t think that was right, so she went and sat with her friend, calmed her down, got her back on track, and after class let Mrs. K know about the situation.

That all sounded pretty good.

After the ceremony I asked for the whole story.

“It was T,” she said, referring to a basketball teammate who is autistic and has been targeted by a few mean girls this year. “This little bitch was picking on her because she knows T won’t say anything back to her. So I went over and shut that shit down.”

Even prouder, especially for how she related what happened! Of course, if Mrs. K had heard that version she might not have nominated L for the award!

Now L is a part of the Holy Cross council at CHS. Not sure exactly what that entails but she acted mock put out about it. “More meetings,” she sighed.

As a parent you hope that your kids have a strong set of core values and that they will speak up when those values are violated. One of the things I am most proud of is that our girls do exactly that. When they see friends in need, they help them. They all, to a certain extent, are wiling to confront people who they think are being assholes.

It’s one thing to convey these lessons to your kids. It’s another for them to have the strength to stand up for their values when presented with an opportunity. Our girls aren’t perfect, but it gives me immense satisfaction that my primary job for the last 20 years has not been in vain.

Pacers

I was pretty pissed after the first two games of the Pacers-Knicks series. Yes, there were a lot of bad calls, most of which seemed to go against the Pacers. I mean, how do referees get kicked ball calls wrong against the same team, in clutch moments, in two straight games? And how do they claim they can’t correct an incorrect call one night, when it goes against the Pacers, then stop the game to huddle up and correct an incorrect call two nights later when it allows the Knicks to keep the ball in the final two minutes of a close game?

But, let’s be honest: bad calls or not, the Pacers lost the first two games because they couldn’t block out on the boards or stay in front of anyone on defense. They reverted to December Pacers ball, thinking they could just score 150 and win by two. That shit doesn’t work in the playoffs. At least not usually.

After two games in Indy, though?

WHOOOOO DOCTOR, WE’VE GOT A SERIES!!!!

An incredibly frustrating and tense game Friday, with the Pacers jumping out early, giving the lead up, getting another cushion just after halftime, then not only blowing that but finding themselves down nine points with nine minutes to play. Were they going to get swept? They righted the ship, made some big plays, and Andrew Nembhard threw in a prayer of a 3 with 17 seconds left to break the final tie.

The Knicks are about as banged up as you can be so there was no reason for this game to be close. Yet the Pacers’ refusal to even pretend to play defense killed them.

Sunday all that switched. The Knicks looked injured, tired, and short-handed. The Pacers defense was nearly as good as their offense. The lead was 20 points in the first quarter. It was around 40 points much of the third quarter. The fourth quarter was one of the most bizarre things I’ve seen in the NBA: both teams cleared their benches early and just let those cats roll for 12 minutes. It was not scintillating basketball. Pacers fans didn’t care.

Two-two, going back to New York.

You figure there’s going to be a huge swing after game four. The Knicks can’t play that poorly again, can they? The Pacers can’t play that good on the road, right? It feels like this series is going seven, unless either Tyrese Haliburton’s or Jalen Brunson’s bodies completely fail on them and their teams are forced to play without them.

Northern Lights

We missed them here. Friday evening it was mostly cloudy in our part of Indy. I walked outside several times between 10 and midnight but never had a clear view of the sky. Where the low level clouds had gaps, higher clouds were reflecting the ground light and preventing any glimpses of the colors. I saw great pictures that people got not too far from our home, so had I hopped in the car and driven even 20 minutes I could have seen the spectacular views on my own.

But it was late, I was fired up after the Pacers game, and had drank a beer. Bad combos for an old man. Probably best to stay at home.

Saturday our skies were crystal clear but the lights weren’t as intense in our part of the state. Again, I could have taken a drive but M and one of her friends tried that without success so I stayed home.

Bummer. I’ve never seen the Northern Lights in person and this weekend’s show seems like it was one of the best in memory. Seeing them would have been a nice companion to watching the eclipse last month.

Blog Archives

For some reason I got out of my routine of reading through my posts from 20 years ago in February. This weekend I caught up on three months of blogging from 2004. It was fun to read through a lot of pregnancy posts. I was surprised how much I wrote about American Idol and The Bachelor. That was the one spring I watched both of those shows.

Anyway, if you’re ever really bored, a reminder that I have nearly 21 years of archives you can read through. Could be good for nights you can’t sleep. Probably better than white noise for easing you into a slumber.

Weekend Notes

May 6, 2024 / DB

Kid Hoops

Teenagers are funny. One day they are on top of the world, the next everything is shit.

That might be a little dramatic but it kind of sums up the weekend for L’s travel team. Saturday they played great, winning their two games by a combined 22 points. They should have one the first by 20+ – they got to a running clock midway through the second half – but turned sloppy and let the lead slip to single digits before stretching it out in the end. We had a girl score 22 points in this game.

In the second game was the third against this team this season. Game one was a one-point win. Game two was a two-point loss. Saturday our gurls controlled most of the game. They had a 10-point lead midway through the second half. Again, they got sloppy and let the other team come all the way back to tie. But then we controlled the last 3–4 minutes of the game to win comfortably by eight.

Things were clicking Saturday. L wasn’t great scoring – 0 in the first game, 4 in the second – but had four rebounds and three assists in game one despite battling some light headedness that caused her to miss much of the second half. In game two she played great defense, was getting to the rim, and was a little unlucky to miss two makable layups while making two tough ones.

Then, Sunday, in the game to make bracket play, our girls just looked lost. We played another slow-ish, patient, tough defensive team. And we shrunk from the challenge. They let the other team get soooo many rebounds and loose balls. We got a tough whistle in the first half and it seemed to make about half the team afraid to dig in on defense.

We trailed by ten about five minutes into the second half. Each time we tried to mount a comeback it was undone by a missed blockout, a failure to get back on the break, or a missed layup. We strung a few shots together and finally got a real rally together, getting it to four with the ball with about 5:00 left. Then we fell apart, losing by 14. In the closing minutes we gave up at four completely uncontested layups when they broke our pressure and the girls who were playing the back line didn’t stop the ball.

On the ride home L was pissed. I saw her yelling at people after one of those unguarded layups. She said she was mad because only four or five girls play hard on every play. She was mad because we have two or three girls who are almost guaranteed to turn the ball over if they end up with it. And she was mad that our tall girls don’t rebound. “That’s the only reason they are on the team and they just stand there and watch.”

It was kind of awesome. She had a decent game, scoring six but not doing anything else in the boxscore. She played really good defense, again, and was solid when she was running the offense. I think she was also frustrated because she knows if she scored 10–15 points, she could really lay into people.

Weird that they were so good Saturday, and so bad Sunday. I know the other team had something to do with it but our girls just did not seem engaged or willing to fight. Again, teenagers.

Kid Tennis

C got to play her three matches of the high school tennis season over the past 10 days. They went about as well as you would expect for a kid who never practices.

They lost match one a week ago, 6–1, and I have no idea how they won that single game. The other team must have felt bad and given them a game on the scorecard because I don’t remember them dropping one. Then she played two matches last Wednesday at the school across the street from us. These were eight game, single set matches and she and her teammate lost 8–3 and 8–6. They should have won that second match but C’s partner seemed checked out, totally ignoring balls that were hit right at her. I was ready to yell at her but since it is JV tennis just quietly fumed and asked C, “What was up her ass?” when we got home.

Oh well. Not sure C enjoys it as much as M, but I’m glad her back condition has improved enough where she can get out and move around without complaining about pain.

Pacers

Hey, they did it! After dropping a massive turd in game five – getting crushed by the Bucks who were playing without Dame and Giannis – the Pacers controlled almost all of game six, blowing out the Bucks in the last 14 minutes or so of the game, to advance to the Eastern Conference semifinals for the first time in six years.

Kind of crazy how consistently good the Pacers were the first 10–12 years I lived here, brawl years excepted, and then how mediocre they’ve been since that. Nice to have them winning playoff series again. The Knicks aren’t in the best of health, which makes them a decent matchup if the Pacers remember to play defense.

I missed almost all of game six, although I was about a mile from Gainbridge Fieldhouse. We went to a fundraiser for a program a friend of ours is on the board for, hosted at Victory Field during an Indianapolis Indians game. We were up in a terrace, so spent more time socializing and eating than watching baseball. That was a bummer because it was a nearly perfect night for baseball. We also missed the top pitching prospect in the minors by two nights.

I did try to keep my eye on the big TV out in the lobby that showed the Pacers game. It got a little awkward when they brought all the attendees into the lobby to hear the spiel for the program, which supports a trio of Catholic schools that serve kids from some of the worst economic parts of the city, and the muted TV was directly behind all the speakers. You could tell who the hoops fans were by how we shifted our bodies to follow the action.

A Trip to Miami

M and two of her high school friends jumped in a car and traveled to Oxford, OH to visit two of their buddies who attend Miami. Miami still has another week of school, so it was the perfect chance for people to visit. M said she saw several friends from high and middle school who were also visiting Miami pals.

She had fun. She still thinks Oxford is too small. But she was impressed with how it has more bars than the area of Cincinnati around UC. Glad she’s focused on the important things.

Pool

Our pool is scheduled to be opened today. Probably two weeks too late given how the weather has been. We’ll see if the heavy rain holds off long enough for our guys to show up and get it cranking.

I did the second power wash of the season to get all the pollen and crap off of the cover yesterday. The water didn’t seem super cold, so I’ll be interested to see what the temperature starts at when they turn the heater on. Last year it was 57. As warm as it’s been lately, it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s in the mid–60s. Which means the heater might get the water to a swimmable temperature before the filter cleans out all the crap that has settled into the water over the winter.

Weekend Notes

April 29, 2024 / DB

Some quick weekend notes. I’m going to try to really let the content flow this week. So be prepared either to read a lot or be disappointed if I only crank out a couple posts.

Home For The Summer

I went down to Cincinnati Friday morning to pack up M for the summer. She had called me Thursday night to let me know that in addition to being the day a lot of the dorm kids were leaving, UC was hosting two big graduation events Friday.

Urban campus + limited parking + people moving out of dorms + thousands of extra people on campus for graduation = ???

It ended up being not as bad as I feared. I thought I was going to have to park well away from her dorm and then we’d have to huff it several blocks to drag all her crap to the car. Right when I got to the front of her dorm, though, a police officer directed me to a spot right across the street. He even held traffic so I could spin around and pull in! The only downside was once we were done, we had to wait about 20 minutes for traffic to clear to get out of our spot. But at least we didn’t have to walk blocks.

Move-out was pretty easy. Her roommate had gone home the previous weekend, and I had taken a load of stuff home from L’s basketball games last week, so her room was fairly empty. Thursday night S suggested I take her Telluride so I had plenty of room to load everything. I scoffed at that, saying she didn’t realize how much cargo space the Model Y has. I admit there was a moment Friday when I wasn’t convinced we were going to squeeze everything in. But we managed.

We stopped for her last lunch in Ohio for four months then headed home.

She’s been submitting job applications online for several weeks without any bites. She was scheduled for jury duty starting today. When she called last night to get her status, she was cleared. So her task for this week is to complete some applications in person. S gave me instructions not to complete getting M a car until she’s got a job. I told her C has first dibs on the Mazda if we don’t have a fourth car when the Audi goes back, so hopefully that lights a fire under her ass. She already helped one of her aunts do some stuff, but she needs a real job.

She was the first of her high school friends to get home for the summer. A friend who goes to Pepperdine got home Saturday night. One who went to the College of Charleston arrived Sunday. The bulk of the kids who went to public schools will trickle in over the next 10 days.

Strangely, as we were waiting for traffic to clear Friday, I got notifications from CHS that both C and L had earned High Honors for the year. With a month of school left. Bizarre. Not sure if this was an error and was supposed to just cover the third quarter. The certificates in the emails clearly noted the entire academic year. We told them this doesn’t mean they can slack off for the last month.

Pacers

What a weekend!

Friday night’s game three could not have been more exciting. The Pacers jumped out to an early 19-point lead, hitting just about everything they shot. They were up 12 at the half before a 5–0 run extended that to back to 17. The Bucks methodically sliced into that margin, finally taking the lead late in the fourth quarter. Some back-and-forth, including a ridiculous Khris Middleton shot to send the game to overtime. Another crazy Middleton 3 with about five seconds left in OT tied it again. Then Tyrese Haliburton torched Patrick Beverly for the game-winning shot.

Sunday, no Dame Lillard, Beverly got injured early, and Bobby Portis was ejected in the first half. Yet the Bucks played their asses off and stayed in it until a couple huge Pacers runs after halftime broke the game open. Even then, the Bucks trimmed a 17-point lead to six at one point. Myles Turner might have played his two best games as a Pacer over the weekend to key the wins. And now the Pacers are one win away from advancing, with both Giannis’ and Dame’s status in doubt going forward.

HS Hoops

L didn’t have any games this weekend. But she did go to the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame induction ceremony with several of her teammates Saturday to watch their head coach get put into the hall. That was kind of cool. L and her teammates all snuck out after about 90 minutes as there were A LOT of speeches and they were more interested in doing silly high school girl stuff than listen to old people talk.

Weather

Man, it suddenly got really nice. We kicked the air on Sunday because it was warm and muggy. The forecast ahead looks great. We are opening the pool next Monday. I probably should have scheduled that a week earlier.

Weekend Notes

April 22, 2024 / DB

A super busy weekend, with plenty of time in the car.

Kid Hoops

L had her first, big, out-of-town tournament as a high schooler in Cincinnati. It was a three-day deal, and we had booked two nights in a hotel. Then we got the schedule which had our first game at 12:30 Friday and our second at 6:30 Saturday night. Our team agreed it was easier to drive back-and-forth than try to kill approximately 30 hours between games.

So we headed down Friday morning, played, ran to UC and had lunch with M and grabbed a bunch of her stuff to move home, and headed back to Indy. Saturday afternoon we returned to the Queen City, checked into our hotel, and got to the gym for two evening games.

The hoops were decent. We went 2–2, three of the games were very close, which made it fun.

We won our first game 50–9, starting the game on a 19–2 run. That was a far cry from our first travel tournament two years ago when we lost by approximately the same score.

Saturday we fell behind by 14 in the first half of our first game. We steadily worked our way back into the game and tied it with just under a minute left. But we gave up an and-one, couldn’t get a shot, and the game seemed to be over. I was talking to a dad next to me when we somehow picked off an entry pass, threw the ball ahead, and got an open-look from 3 to tie. It rimmed out and we lost by 3. Good game, though.

Our second game Saturday was against a team that beat the girls we beat Friday by four, so we figured we had this one in the bag. Jinx! We gave up a 9–0 run to start the game, and the girls kept trying to make the 6–8 point play to erase most of the deficit in one shot. We finally answered with a 7–0 run but were still down five at the half.

We started the second half much better and finally took the lead about four minutes in. We stretched that out to a seven-point margin and seemed to have the game in hand. Cue the 8–0 run by the other girls. Fortunately we rallied again and held on to win by four.

Then Sunday we had a single game. This was a “live” event for recruiting, so there was no bracket play. This one was good, too. It was against a team we beat by one in Indy while we were on spring break. We did our usual dig a hole early thing and played from behind all day. Never more than five points down, but each time we got it to one or two, we couldn’t get over the top. I believe we took the lead once briefly in the second half, but couldn’t stretch it out. We had it tied twice in the final 90 seconds but never had the ball with a chance to lead. We ended up losing by two.

Both the parents and kids agreed at our post-game meal that even though we lost two of them, we much prefer these close games. L told me she thinks it makes her better because she has to stay focused. And while it’s more tense, it is a lot more interesting to care about the result until the final buzzer.

L played decent. She didn’t score much, only eight total points for the weekend. She did have 13 rebounds and seven assists with just 3 turnovers. In that last game, especially, she was great moving the ball and playing defense. She got isolated in the post against a big girl on one possession and did a terrific job battling, making the girl pass out twice before she finally took a bad shot and L got the board. Her jumper still is a mess so she was reluctant to take any. In the last game she also had two beautiful drives she couldn’t finish, which would have helped in a two-point game. And her biggest mistake was in the last game when she got caught on a screen and bumped a 3-point shooter as she tried to fight through. That girl hit two of three free throws which, again, were kind of important. That was my one coaching point for the weekend: when you get caught on those screens, you have to let the shooter go because the refs will always call that foul when you try to block them from behind.

I took over reserving the team hotel rooms this year, in hopes of avoiding some of the bad places we got last year. This tournament is “stay to play,” meaning you are supposed to use the official travel site to book your rooms and do so only at hotels on the list. Even though we booked in February, all the decent hotels were taken, so I booked at a Quality Inn that seemed to be in a good area and got good reviews.

Well, it wasn’t as bad as the hotel we stayed at last year that literally had people doing crack near the dumpsters, but it wasn’t great either. I don’t think it had been renovated in 40 years. The entire place smelled like a combination of weed and Indian food. The girls found what they claimed to be a heroin needle outside. L said she heard people fighting in the hall in the middle of the night, which I somehow slept through despite not sleeping very well. For the after-game hang, we went to the much nicer hotel across the street where two teammates who booked late were staying.

So not great. But our room was clean and we only stayed one night. I have another iffy place lined up for our next trip to Louisville next month. Fingers crossed…

This whole Stay to Play thing is such a scam. I think the majority of the time they don’t really care where you stay, especially for a team at our level. But as travel organizer I didn’t want us to get denied entry because we couldn’t prove we’re in an approved hotel. And I wanted us to be less than 20 minutes from the buildings we are playing in plus stay for a reasonable rate since our families are spread across a fairly wide swath of the economic spectrum. Feels like you have to come up short in at least one of those three areas – quality of hotel, location, or price – to find a hotel at these big tournaments.

Prom

While I was doing the Good Dad thing and watching my youngest kid play basketball out-of-town, I was missing my middle kid’s prom night. Which I think qualifies as a Bad Dad thing, right? 😬

Fortunately things seemed to go fairly well here for C on her big night. She had a date who is just a friend, which ended up being a good thing because he acted like a bit of a douche from what I was told. There was some stress getting ready, which is almost required on prom night, right? But she recovered and it was like a 98% great night. Good weather, she avoided the assholes she wanted to avoid and most of her friends got through the night without drama.

When we were at lunch with M on Friday she said C had told her she just wanted it to all be over. That’s the sad thing about events like prom: there’s so much prep and pressure on the night that it can be hard for kids to relax and actually enjoy the evening because they are so wound up about 50 different things.

Pacers

Yeesh. After a week of hearing almost every national writer pick the Pacers to upset the Bucks, mostly due to Giannis being unavailable for at least the beginning of the series, the Pacers clearly were not ready for the big lights of the playoffs. It was like a five point game when I muted it when C came down to tell me her prom details. Next thing I knew the Bucks were up by 20 and Dame Lillard was hitting everything. That’s not the way to start a series at all. The Pacers looked like a team that hadn’t been in the playoffs in four years. The Bucks looked like a team that was laser-focused on erasing all the negativity and mediocrity of their regular season. It’s only one game of seven, but the Pacers at least needed to be competitive in game one.

Tyrese Haliburton continues to look like a shell of the player he was pre-injury. This might be the most destructive hamstring pull in NBA history. I believe the Pacers missed their first 14 3-pointers. We’ll see if Rick Carlisle can get this shit fixed for game two.

PJ

Hey, that new Pearl Jam album is, indeed, very good!

Weekend Notes

April 15, 2024 / DB

A pretty solid weekend around our house. Enough went on that I will divide this into two parts. Smaller items in this post, a bigger post to come tomorrow.

After a crappy four days of rain and steadily decreasing temps, the weekend was gorgeous here in Indy. Sunday it got into the 80s for the first time this year. We took advantage by doing phase one of pool opening prep, power washing all the crap that had collected on the cover since last October. Actually pool opening isn’t until three weeks from today. S half-mentioned getting the patio furniture out yesterday, but I told her if we did that it would 100% snow sometime in the next three weeks so we decided to hold off a little longer.

Kid Hoops

L played in the same gym as a week ago, once again three games.

Saturday we played her middle school buddy’s team, a higher ranked team from her program. Her buddy and two other girls were missing, so they only had six. It didn’t look like that would matter at first as they got a quick 10–2 lead. We answered with our own 10–2 run to tie and trailed by just two at halftime. Midway through the second half we were up five. Our girls were playing really well on both ends. The other team was down to five girls as one girl rolled her ankle and missed a big chunk of the first half, although she returned in the second half.

We couldn’t hang on, though, and lost by four. Too many second-chance opportunities because we couldn’t grab any rebounds and way too many unforced turnovers.

An hour later we were back on the court against a team that didn’t look very good in warmups. Our girls came out focused and led 23–8 just before halftime. Then we started missing layups. After halftime we kept missing layups. Then we started missing jumpers. Then girls started taking bad shots as soon as they got the ball. Our coach, who isn’t a big yeller, was screaming at the girls to stop taking dumb shots.

Next thing you knew it was 23–21 six minutes into the second half before L hit a free throw to break the run. After one more basket by the other girls we ripped off a 10–0 stretch that put the game away.

That win kept us out of fourth place, which meant we had to go back at 9:05 Sunday instead of 8:00. In the bracket game we played a higher level team from the program we beat on Saturday. These girls also didn’t look like anything special in warmups. No super tall girls, or girls that looked super athletic, and they weren’t lighting it up as they shot.

But this team was one of the best coached teams I’ve ever seen. They ran a really good motion offense, but their goal was to get one of their big girls posted on a smaller defender, and then both of those girls could finish over either shoulder. Old school basketball! It was impressive. They were tough as hell, too, something our girls don’t always handle well. Their defense was perfect for AAU where refs let you get away with just about anything. Bob Huggins probably loves the defensive rules in summer ball.

It turned out to be a really good game. We trailed by six early, by seven later in the first half, before getting it to 19–17 at halftime.

Second half was the same story. We trailed by seven, came back to take a five point lead, trailed by five late, and then our only shooter hit four 3’s in the final 90 seconds to force overtime.

Overtime sucked. We didn’t score. L had two turnovers in the final minute. We lost by six.

At least that meant we got out of the gym to enjoy the beautiful day.

L was mixed for the weekend. She scored seven in the first game, hitting her first three shots before missing a couple when she got fouled and there was no call. She hit a free throw on an and-one. Otherwise she didn’t do much good or bad. In game two she was one of the girls who missed layups in our bad stretch. She grabbed four rebounds, which is good for her, but only scored three points. Then Sunday she just scored one point and had those two huge turnovers late.

The good news was she went 4–5 on free throws, and all five looked great, The main trainer at her weekly workouts adjusted L’s mechanics last week. It’s going to be a process to get those integrated but at least from the free throw line the changes seemed to be working.

We are off to Cincinnati Friday for a weekend of games.

Big Kid Props

We talked to M twice on Sunday. She called us after she had her final house meeting of the year for her sorority. They gave out awards and she won one of the Founders awards for her “positive attitude and impact on the house even as a freshman.” We laughed because she said they read the things that people said about the winners before they announced the winner’s names, and she had kind of tuned out whoever was talking when they got to her award. So she doesn’t remember what specific nice things they said about her. Hilarious! She was probably talking to whoever was sitting next to her.

Later she texted us and said she got selected to go to her sorority’s national office this summer to take part in a leadership conference. They pay for it, so we said she should absolutely do it. The only bummer is it is in St. Louis in July, so she’ll have to deal with that fun humidity in the Lou.

Masters

Between the PGA-LIV stupidity and my old-man arthritis that has kept me from playing golf for two years, I rarely watch golf anymore. I did catch a lot of the Masters over the weekend, still one of the best four days in sports.

Brilliant stuff from Scottie Scheffler. That dude is really fucking good. My guy Max Homa had his shots, but two bad holes Sunday ruined his chances.

Mostly it was fun to see weather really affect how the course played. Heavy winds all week made it damn near impossible to know where your ball would end up. That Scheffler ran away on the back nine Sunday was even more impressive as pretty much everyone close to him fell apart.

Masters week also meant it was time for the return of one of the best sports bits of the year.

Masters Update

NBA Playoffs

The Pacers ended the regular season in style, blowing out the Hawks once again, winning 157–115. It was the second time this season the Pacers have set a new franchise scoring record, both times coming against the Hawks.

It’s back to the playoffs for the first time in four years, with the Milwaukee Bucks waiting. There’s some bad blood in the matchup from games back in December and January. There was the weird “Ballgame” confrontation. There was the Pacers knocking the Bucks out of the IST, and then winning again a couple weeks later. Malik Beasley went on record back then as wanting the Pacers in the playoffs so the Bucks could put them in their proper place.

Giannis Anteotkounmpo missed the end of the regular season and there’s no concrete word on his status for round one. That would be a pretty big bonus for the Pacers if he either can’t play or is limited. Tyrese Haliburton gets to go back to his hometown. Should be a great series.

A Boston-Denver Finals is the smart bet. The West, especially, is going to be a slog for whoever comes out of that conference.

College Hoops

Kentucky hiring Mark Pope was unexpected, but it may end up being genius. He’s a really good coach, runs a modern offense, and is much more laid back than John Calipari. Being a former UK player he’ll get a longer honeymoon than pretty much any other hire if there are early struggles. I would also expect him to moderate recruiting a little, focusing more on getting players who fit his system and maybe want to play in Lexington for a couple years rather than trying to get the five best freshmen he can get every year. To be sure UK will still have great recruiting classes. I think he knows that you win in college by having experience, and his offense works better with guys who have been in it more than three months.

I find the transfer portal, and the rumors surrounding it, exhausting. But I still pay attention because KU is in the market. I laughed out loud this morning when I saw that Colby Rogers, a former Wichita Sate player, had committed to Memphis. Yesterday a top-notch recruiting site said he was down to KU, Michigan, and Alabama. I’ve been trying to back off on the college hoops rumor monitoring because of situations exactly like this. No one really knows until the kid makes an announcement.

Weekend Notes

March 11, 2024 / DB

In some ways it was a terrible weekend. In other ways it was a good one. The common theme was a lot of basketball.

Jayhawk Talk

I’m very glad that I didn’t see a minute of Houston destroying KU. I had this game chalked up as an L ever since KU easily beat the Cougars last month. A 30-point loss, though? I have to admit, that was unexpected.

It wasn’t a huge surprise that Kevin McCullar was ineffective then sat the entire second half. But Hunter Dickinson injuring his shoulder and leaving the game was not on my BINGO card for the day. I’m starting to think the Hoops Gods are punishing KU for not getting the hammer from the NCAA. Or perhaps for us Jayhawk fans for gloating when we didn’t get the hammer. This is shaping up to be a terrible March and lost season for my favorite team.

The Hoops Gods may also be preparing to punish me for talking shit to M every time KU beat Cincinnati in anything this year. If the Bearcats beat West Virginia Tuesday, they play the Jayhawks Wednesday. I’m assuming neither McCullar or Dickinson will play. Good grief.

The KU women also lost their Big 12 tournament game to Texas Saturday. Bad day for the Jayhawks.

HS Hoops

This didn’t really bother me too much, but Kokomo and future Jayhawk Flory Bidunga were playing in the regional round of the Indiana state tournament at the same time KU was losing to Houston. Flory had 20 points, 7 rebounds, and 4 assists, but #4 Kokomo lost to #1 Fishers by 14.

Time for him to get in the weight room so he’s ready to compete in the Big 12. Unless he can play next week?

Pacers

The Pacers have been in a bit of a funk lately, sandwiching great games with ones when something just seems off. Their offense, which was bound to regress, isn’t nearly as free-flowing and fun as it was the first three months of the season. Some folks are complaining that trading Buddy Hield messed up the team’s chemistry. While Pascal Siakam has been solid since coming over from Toronto, I wouldn’t say he’s been a dramatic game changer.

The biggest factor is that Tyrese Haliburton has been in a slump. His shooting has gone in the toilet lately, and his already mediocre defense has taken a step back. I wonder if he should have taken longer to come back from his late January hamstring injury, even if that meant missing All Star weekend action.

Anyway, adding to the bad of Saturday was the announcement that evening that Bennedict Mathurin will undergo shoulder surgery and miss the rest of the season. After a slow start to his second year, he had really picked it up lately. He isn’t the shooter Hield is, but he’s a far more complete player and the additional minutes seemed to do him wonders. Until he got hurt.

Blech.

Youth Hoops

Why did I miss the KU game? L had two days of “training camp” this weekend with her travel team. The sessions were way out in Plainfield, about 40 minutes from our house. Don’t ask me why they were out there, I have no idea.

After Saturday’s session we had a team dinner for our first hang as a new squad. Three of L’s teammates from the past two years are back, but the other four girls are new. It was nice to meet the parents and new co-coach. The kids seemed to have fun. L said she really likes everyone so far.

They also had two new girls work out with them both days. I’m not sure if they will officially join the team or not – there’s some intra-program politics involved – but they are both above six-feet tall, which is huge. Literally.

I talked to the head coach after Saturday’s workout and he said one of them has some skill and promise while the other is pretty raw. However, he said that raw girl got a ton of rebounds when they scrimmaged. I suggested he teach her how to throw outlet passes and tell her to just get every loose ball she sees. It would be kind of crazy if we went from no height the past two years, to three girls 5’10” or better this year.

L missed her CHS awards banquet last Monday because she came home from school sick. The team FaceTimed her in so she could participate virtually. She won the Rising Star award, given to the best underclassman. She didn’t seem to think it was all that cool but I thought it was a great way to cap off her first year of high school ball.

Spring Break

M is flying to Florida today for a week in Sarasota with a group of UC friends. She sent us a picture this morning as she walked onto the plane, so her early alarm and Uber to the airport worked ok. We trust her to make good decisions. Still, I have to admit I’m a little nervous. I never went on spring break as a college kid, but I’ve seen movies and heard stories.

We leave for Anna Maria next Saturday. Our trips overlap by one night, so after we land we are going to pick her and her St P’s/CHS buddy up and they will spend that night with us. We haven’t seen her since she went back for second semester, if you don’t count the weekly FaceTimes and calls.

My Stupid Brain

Saturday night I fell into a car research rabbit hole again. I’m an idiot. The issue with these spells is they get my brain cranked up, increase my pulse and blood pressure, and make me a little anxious.

I couldn’t relax and stay asleep so after a couple hours of tossing and turning, I got up to try to re-set my body. Unfortunately I waited too long to do it and I was sitting in my chair, wide awake, when the clock jumped from 2:00 to 3:00 as Daylight Saving Time arrived. Wonderful. I need to lock away all my devices two hours before bed until I actually have a new car.

The rabbit hole gave me more content for posts, though, so you, my loyal readers, are the big winners!

Weekend Notes

February 19, 2024 / DB

Snow!

Our first significant snow of the year hit Friday afternoon. Which was perfect for A) kids who are driving home from school, B) a wife who has to commute through rush hour traffic, and C) the opening night of All Star Weekend. Perfect in this case meaning the opposite of perfect.

We ended up getting between 4–5” inches of heavy, wet snow at our house. Everyone made it home safely and I was excited to get to use the snowblower for the first time in three years. It broke exactly three years ago right when I finished clearing the 9” we got in that storm. I didn’t get it fixed for the ’21–22 winter, gambling we wouldn’t get a big snow. Which turned out to be a good gamble. I got it fixed in the fall of ’22 but again we never got enough snow to break it out.

But Friday was my night! I pulled the starter, it fired right up, and I got to work. It threw snow like a champ and I was looking forward to clearing the driveway in a fraction of the time it would take with a shovel.

Then the fucking thing broke after about five minutes. Once again the auger stopped turning, the same thing that I had fixed a year ago. Sigh. I’m guessing work done 16 months ago probably isn’t under any kind of warranty.

So I pushed the heavy-ass snow around with a shovel for about an hour until the driveway was clear.

Then the sun came out Saturday morning and even though the windchill was around zero, everything on pavement quickly melted.

Someone hates me.

All Star Weekend

I watched a lot of the ASG activities, way more than I usually do. I don’t know if this has been done in other recent host cities, but it was interesting that Friday night’s activities were split between two locations. The celebrity game was at Lucas Oil Stadium, then the Rising Stars games were in Gainbridge Fieldhouse. Saturday’s events were in Lucas, the actual All Star Game in Gainbridge. A little surprised the game wasn’t in Lucas, too, given how many seats in Gainbridge were blocked off for various non-spectating functions.

I tuned in late for the Celebrity Game. Dumb, but good, clean dumbness. The Rising Stars games were fun, mostly because Pacer Bennedict Mathurin led his team to victory and won the MVP. He was going off in their first game, but badly missed two dunks that would have been spectacular. The highlight, though, was him taking things super seriously when Indiana native Jaden Ivey talked a little trash. Mathurin told him, in very uncertain terms, that Ivey couldn’t guard him in the regular season or this game. The playful smile quickly disappeared from Ivey’s face and he looked ready to throw down. TNT picked the right guy – Mathurin – to mic up for that game. Solid exhibition game drama!

Saturday’s events were fun. The Skills Contest is goofy and largely relatable. It helped that the Pacers squad of Mathurin, Tyrese Haliburton, and Myles Turner won. The 3-point contest still holds up, especially now that everyone can routinely hit 30-footers. The dunk contest remains kind of sleepy, the judging sucks, and even the cool dunks aren’t as cool as the original cool dunks were in the Eighties. There were way too many dunks that involved jumping over people.

The best event of the night was the shortest, Sabrina Ionescu’s 3-point competition with Steph Curry. I’m sure like 5% of viewers wrote it off as “Woke Basketball,” but I found it charming and entertaining. Reggie Miller quickly called for (hopefully) future Indiana Fever Caitlin Clark to get an invite next year.

The LED court used at Lucas Oil was nutty. I would think that would be super distracting if you were actually playing on it but I didn’t hear any complaints.

It was great having Uncle Reggie be on the mic for so many events. He was never my favorite player, but having a local cheerleader as one of the main announcers made the Indy homie in me feel good.

Like the dunk contest, the game was the game. The East scored 211 points, which is more about how the game has turned into a 3-point shooting exercise played by shooters with unlimited range and accuracy. It’s not terribly engaging, but you have to admire the skill. The East being up so big meant there was no ratcheting up of the intensity in the fourth quarter as guys suddenly started caring about winning.

There’s been a lot of grousing in the media about how badly the game is broken. I don’t have a good answer for how to fix it – players decided 20 years ago they weren’t going to risk injury and play actual defense – other than scrapping a traditional game. Maybe go to a series of mini-games with smaller teams, more like the Rising Stars game? In the era of load management and constant injuries because of hyper-bulked up players, I don’t think it’s possible to play a normal, 48 minute game. Football has scrapped the traditional all star contest because of the injury risk. The NBA really should do the same.

Draymond Green complaining all week about the game being in Indy got annoying quick. MFer is from Saginaw. A little cold and snow shouldn’t get to him like that. Soft as hell.

I guess LeBron James has been fighting an ankle injury and his minutes Sunday were limited because of that. When he was on the court he still had flashes. But it was very evident that he’s lost a significant amount from his game. Now I’m even more suspicious of how he managed to play so hard and well during the In-season Tournament in December. Not that I would accuse a 39-year-old man still playing at a high level of not being 100% clean.

Steph Curry may be in the process of losing his first step, too. I loved how he was still out there having fun Sunday. He saw other dudes were lighting it up and ran around making crazy passes to get them shots. Compare him to game MVP Dame Lilliard who seems to play with whatever the opposite of joy is. We need more Stephs.

That’s not totally fair. I think most of the players were having a good time, goofing around as much as they can. Karl-Anthony Towns looked like he was having the time of his life. Jason Tatum was running around laughing. Haliburton is always having fun. Nikola Jokic was making fun of himself, attempting half-assed dunks. It’s just a bummer the game MVP was the one guy who did not seem to let his competitive guard down.

Jayhawk Talk

I knew last Monday’s game at Texas Tech would be a loss. KU doesn’t win on the road this year for starters, they had beaten Baylor in a tough game two days earlier, and Kevin McCullar was still out.

I did not expect a 29-point loss where the guys on the court didn’t look super interested in competing.

Saturday I was getting pissed because for the first 18 minutes against Oklahoma, not much seemed to have changed. McCullar was back, but he was beyond rusty and not close to 100%. As with Tech in Lubbock, KU was letting OU shoot 80% from 3 while shooting 10% on their end. The team looked lethargic and lacked fire.

Then they put a little run on before halftime and came out a completely different team in the second half. I’m not sure OU is all that good, especially down a couple players, but a road win is a road win in a year KU has had zero luck when playing true road games.

Now they get a six-day breather to heal and recharge before the final regular season run. Protect the home court and they are a comfortable 2–3 seed. Just be healthy in March.

Rabbit Hole

I will share that I fell into an unexpected and exciting rabbit hole Sunday. I am not going to share what that rabbit hole was just yet. Maybe in a day or two, we’ll see how things go.

Wednesday Notes

January 24, 2024 / DB

NFL

Because of basketball (KU and CHS) and some other activities, I didn’t get to see much of the four playoff games last weekend. San Francisco is very lucky to advance, and does not seem like the same team that ran roughshod through their opponents during stretches of the regular season. Jordan Love’s final pass for Green Bay might have been the worst choice/throw in a big moment in a long time.

Good for Detroit for advancing again. A damn shame the NFC title game won’t be at Ford Field. That scene would have been wild.

I’ve written many times that no team, player, coach, or fanbase deserves success because they’ve had years of bad luck and tough breaks. That’s not how sports work. You can play hard, follow the rules, be a good teammate, etc and sometimes the other team is just better and/or luckier.

But, man, Buffalo losing because their kicker pushed a field goal wide right seemed like an especially cruel ending to their game. That wasn’t the real reason the Bills lost – they lost because of a couple bad throws, a terrible drop, and their defense wilting – but it was the final gut punch you kind of knew was coming.

Of course I, like about a million other people, said even if the Bills made that kick, the Chiefs still would have found a way to win, either in regulation or overtime. As cruel as having to watch a postseason game end on a kick sailing wide-right again, maybe it was better than losing at the final gun, or in overtime.

Poor Buffalo.

Pacers

Hey, the Pacers made a trade! And it was a big one, grabbing Pascal Siakam from Toronto for a bench player and three first round picks. At first glance three picks seemed like a lot for a player on an expiring contract. Those picks – two this year, the third in two years – will likely be in the 20s, though, so the Pacers likely aren’t giving up franchise-changing draft opportunities. And most NBA insiders suggest that Siakam is open to re-signing with the Pacers this summer.

It’s tough to gauge the trade since Tyrese Haliburton has only played one, injury-affected game with Siakam so far. While he isn’t perfect, and isn’t playing quite as well as he did three years ago, Siakam is a terrific match for what the Pacers do on offense, and a big upgrade on the defensive end.

It’s tough to get top tier players to come to Indiana. In the last three winters they have traded for Haliburton and Siakam. That’s pretty good.

Even after that trade the Pacers remain in good position to make another move, should the right opportunity arise. Or just play out this season, re-sign Siakam, and tweak the roster over the summer to make a real run next season.

Now Haliburton just needs to get healthy again.

Media

A rough week for people who write for a living.

First, Pitchfork got absorbed into the GQ brand. No one is sure what that means short term, but long term you have to think it signals the end of one of the most important music journalism outlets of the internet era. I’ve always been more of a Stereogum fan, but I’ve read plenty of pieces on Pitchfork over the years.

The next day it was announced that all of Sports Illustrated’s staff had been laid off. SI has been a joke for a long time, and hasn’t covered itself in glory recently. People of my generation longed for it to return to its prime, when it was a vital element of being a fully-informed fan of sports. That was never going to happen. With the NFL exploring buying into ESPN, and the NBA and MLB likely to do so soon after, SI could have carved out a new niche as an alternative to ESPN’s online presence, a home for sports journalism that was free of constraints put in place by one league or another. Instead the private equity ghouls that run it chose to strip it to the bone and let it fade into obscurity.

Finally, the Los Angeles Times laid off a large chunk of its workforce, including some great sports writers with national reputations. The Times seemed like one of the last big papers that would be able to thrive in the current climate. Once again, ownership is more interested in squeezing profit from the paper than viewing it as a public necessity.

As a former member of the media this is just more very sad news. There are fewer and fewer independent media outlets that create original and interesting content. Major media outlets are focused on conflict and who is winning/losing. Local media often seems more like advertising than informative news. AI is going to dramatically change news in the next decade.

I never had great illusions about being able to match the money I made in the corporate world as a journalist, not that that was all that much. As the avenues to make a reasonable wage writing dry up and more and more experienced journalists get thrown out of their traditional jobs, I don’t think there is any chance I could ever get back into the semi- or fully employed writing game.

Which I guess means more blogging, so good for my loyal readers I guess?