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December 1, 2010

Kings-Pacers Observations

By mceezy

I made my Arco Arena debut last night – a week and a half after my Oracle Arena debut – and caught the Kings and Pacers. Yes, it was as bad as advertised. Indiana fans will argue that their team is 9-7, and I even picked them to make the playoffs this year. But trust me, they’re not very fun to watch. Danny Granger is one of the league’s great players, but along with Mike Dunleavy and James Posey, they stand around and jack up a lot of threes. Roy Hibbert is surprisingly polished for someone I never thought would be a solid NBA player. I really thought he was going to be the beta version of Hasheem Thabeet. On the Kings side, Tyreke Evans had a few highlight moves, but seems to have taken a step backward from last year’s Rookie of the Year campaign. There were only two players on the court that impressed me…..

Demarcus Cousins – After an impressive summer league that had many predicting back to back ROYs for Sacramento, Cousins has struggled out of the regular season gate. He’s been mired in foul trouble and proved the knocks on him to be true with his whiny demeanor on the court. Hell, he even got kicked out of practice on Monday. Last night, though, he looked like a future all-star. Cousins is ridiculously quick off the dribble, blowing by post defenders for some strong finishes inside. He fought hard on the glass and even showed a smooth stroke from the perimeter, knocking down some shots from 18 feet. He finished with 20 pts and 8 rebounds, and was +6 during his 23 minutes on the floor – pretty good for a guy who’s team lost by nine.

Josh McRoberts – Here’s a guy who wasn’t that dominant at Duke, and played in just 8 games in his rookie season with Portland. He started only three contests through his first two seasons in Indiana since. This year, he’s started all 16 games for the Pacers, and last night, he looked particularly impressive. His line of 7 pts, 3 reb, an 4 ast isn’t overwhelming by any stretch of the imagination, but he made some great plays on the court. He was somewhat limited due to foul trouble, but along with some sweet dimes, he had two amazing highlight plays. One was a thundering alley-oop dunk from Darren Collison that could be seen on NBA.com’s Top 10 Plays of the Night. The other was a blocked dunk attempt on Jason Thompson that should’ve been on there, but the video is nowhere to be found. I’m pretty excited to have this guy on my fantasy team, since I just added him to replace the injured Reggie Evans. (Yes, my team is that bad, despite my 3rd place standing). If McRoberts gets the minutes, he’ll be a breakout player this year.

3 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Sports

November 26, 2010

Showdown In Reno

By mceezy

There’s three big games in college football today featuring a matchup of two Top 25 teams. You’ve got Oregon-Arizona and the biggest game of the year possibly in Auburn-Alabama. But, the one I’m looking forward to most is the nightcap, Boise State at Nevada. We all know where the Broncos stand, but what few outside of Nevada realize, the Wolfpack are enjoying quite possibly their greatest season ever. With BSU set to move over to the Mountain West next year, this will be the final conference matchup between the perennial champions, and maybe their greatest challenger this decade. I could delve into an in-depth preview of the game, but clearly this game is going to hinge on one factor: UNR’s mindset. Despite growing up a mere 100 miles from Reno, I’ve only seen one sporting event there, and I was fortunate enough for it to be a huge basketball upset of then #2 Kansas. Although, that game wasn’t necessary for me to understand how great Nevada fans are. The Wolfpack are the only game in town, if you don’t count the AAA-Reno Aces or the NBDL’S Reno Bighorns. The stadium is going to be rocking tonight, so it’s all going to come down to how the players come out the gates. They could either ride the emotion of the crowd and play the game of their lives, or they could buckle under the pressure and suffer a similar fate to that of their WAC counterparts in Fresno, who lost 51-0 last week. I’m so fired up for this game though, that I looked into getting tickets for the game. Not surprisingly, they’ve been sold out for some time now. It’s not a bad consolation that I’ll be in nearby Lake Tahoe for the weekend, so I’m really looking forward to catching the game somewhere in Wolfpack country. The game kicks off at 7:15pm Pacific Time at Mackay Stadium in Reno and can be seen on ESPN

3 Comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in Sports

November 22, 2010

Mour to Sey

By mceezy

Richard Seymour was fined $25,000 today by the NFL for his open hand punch to the face of Ben Roethlisberger. I’m still trying to decide how I feel about this. I mean, obviously the $25k fine is whatever, (for someone on an NFL salary of course, not me) but what does this mean in my conflicted struggle to like Seymour? The Raiders have brought in their share of players that took me a while to warm up to, but nothing close to to when they acquired him last year. First, Seymour played in the Tuck Rule game, so that’s reason enough to hate him right there. But he also went on to win multiple Super Bowl titles with the Patriots. Add to that, he’s widely considered the dirtiest player in the league. And furthermore, he seemed, or at least was portrayed to be, hesitant to leave New England and join a loser in Oakland, and perhaps rightfully so.

This season, he’s seemed like a catalyst for a team that’s finally turning it around. He was giving 100% and guys were feeding on that. I might even say off the record that he and Tommy Kelly are the best tandem in the NFL at defensive tackle. It feels like if Seymour is in the game, the Raiders are in the game. On Sunday, though, it looked as though Seymour gave up. He realized they were no match for the Steelers and didn’t want to stick around to see the end of it. Felt symbolic of the game as a whole, let’s just hope not for the season.

On the other hand, I might like the guy a whole lot more now. Though Roethlisberger has a pretty good reputation despite possibly raping an ugly girl, I got some gratitude out seeing him get clocked in the face. It looked like he was flopping when he went to the ground, but they did show a quick shot of a trainer checking him out looking pretty concerned that he took a solid shot. What I really want to know is what Big Ben said. That’s the key evidence I need to see to make my decision here. I don’t buy the “Let’s get ready for the extra point” line. Anyone know what he really said?

3 Comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in Sports

November 18, 2010

Double Sun Roof!

By mceezy

I didn’t even know this video existed…. what does it mean??? I just got introduced to this classic from one of the funniest guys I’ve ever met. Bryan Iredell, ladies and gentlemen…..

Leave a comment   |  tags: , | posted in Comedy

November 17, 2010

Hella Love Oakland

By mceezy

Doin Work reps Oakland like few other blogs when it comes to sports. We don’t often rep the Town when it comes to dancing though. Well…. we don’t rep anything when it comes to dancing. But when someone sent me this year old video, I knew it had to be posted. Just when you start to think to yourself, “alright, that was cool….”  BOOM. 2:45 mark.

Dance moves aside, there are 99 other reasons to love this video. The instrumental is tight and the video editing is on point. It starts with the shot of two young dudes standing around on 90th and MacArthur with Oakland PD pulling up. You naturally assume you’re about to witness a homicide and then it does an artistic 180 on you. The beauty of it all is it’s Oakland, so traffic continues to pass by and no one flinches. Some kids dancing on the corner is probably the 17th weirdest thing they’ll see on that given day.

3 Comments   |  tags: , | posted in Random

November 10, 2010

Doin Eastern Conference Predictions

By mceezy

MCeezy:

#1 Boston Celtics – They’re still the best team overall in the East, there’s just too many variables with the Celtics. Of course age is always a question, but I think they’ll be driven this year…. enough to capture the top seed in the East again. They’ve got enough big bodies to let Garnett fade into the background (clearly it’s time), and as long as Rondo, Pierce, or Ray Allen is on the floor, they’ll be okay. They’ll come out on top in the regular season, but I don’t expect a similar result in the postseason.

#2 Atlanta Hawks – Quietly the second best regular season team in the East. The Joe Johnson, Josh Smith, Al Horford core is good enough to contend with anybody, but they need to upgrade from Mike Bibby. Not saying he’s the weak link, but the aforementioned trio deserves a playmaker to run the floor with them. You know, someone that’ll rack up more than 4.5 assists per game. Do they even have a point guard on their roster? I guess Jeff Teague is the future. I bet they wish they still had Acie Law right about now!

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5 Comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Sports

November 5, 2010

Doin BCS Bowl Projections

By mceezy

Without bashing the BCS, or fully knowing the rules these days (are the ACC and Big East still guaranteed a BCS berth? I hope not), here goes my predictions for this year’s BCS Bowl matchups. It’s tough because there’s so many teams from the West up high in the rankings, but we all know the BCS likes SEC schools, and even Big Ten and ACC teams. By factoring that in with projecting the rest of the season, here’s what I’ve come up with.

ROSE BOWL – STANFORD VS. OKLAHOMA

Stanford wins out and finishes 11-1, enough to let the Rose Bowl have a coveted Pac-10 team, and one who hasn’t been there very often, but has a huge following. Expect a sea of red on hand to cheer on the Cardinal against Oklahoma…. or maybe some other team. I’ve got Oklahoma finishing 10-3, but there’s going to be a logjam atop the Big-12, so this could easily be Missouri, Oklahoma State, or Baylor, or even a team from another conference altogether.
FIESTA BOWL – NEBRASKA VS. TCU

Nebraska will get the obligatory Big-12 berth in this game, thanks to a 11-2 finish with a conference championship over Oklahoma. TCU will be unhappy, but I see them losing to Utah. Having that one loss relieves some of the pressure on the BCS to include smaller schools that go undefeated.
ORANGE BOWL – ALABAMA VS. BOISE STATE

Also taking the heat off the BCS will be Boise State’s regular season loss to either Fresno State or Nevada on the horizon. Alabama will end up in Florida despite beating Auburn, because they’ll come up short in the conference.

SUGAR BOWL – AUBURN VS. UTAH

Utah will go undefeated, but once again get snubbed out of fear of a Utah-Oregon television ratings disaster. Like clockwork, they’ll opt for a one-loss goliath and Utah will be left to face another SEC team.

BCS CHAMPIONSHIP – OREGON VS. OHIO STATE

Ah, a BCS dream matchup. Despite being a West Coast team, the Ducks have a huge following, so ratings shouldn’t be a problem for the committee here. And Ohio State is always a slam dunk on a national stage. This should be one of the best National Championship games in a long time.

4 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Sports

November 3, 2010

Mythbusters: There’s No Good Centers in Basketball Anymore

By mceezy

They say there just aren’t as many good centers anymore these days. It’s true, there’s only a handful of them, and many of them look like they’d have played power forward if they lived a generation earlier. I feel like we’ve been saying that about basketball for years now though. Could it be that there’s always been a shortage of solid, true centers and we’ve just always remembered there being more great ones before them? I’ve decided to put it to the test. Here I’ll list the top ten centers in the game, in my opinion, and then work our way back each decade. Let’s see if the quantity / quality of centers in the game has gone down over the years….

2010

  • Dwight Howard
  • Andrew Bogut
  • Marcus Camby
  • Chris Kaman
  • Al Horford
  • Amare Stoudemire
  • Andris Biedrins
  • Nene
  • Roy Hibbert
  • Brendan Haywood

2000

  • Shaquille O’Neal
  • Alonzo Mourning
  • Dikembe Mutombo
  • David Robinson
  • Dale Davis
  • Vlade Divac
  • Antonio Davis
  • Michael Olowokandi
  • Theo Ratliff
  • Ervin Johnson

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9 Comments   |  tags: | posted in Sports

November 1, 2010

San Francisco: World Champions

By mceezy

It was a bittersweet victory for me tonight. Although I rep Northern California like nobody’s business, I’m still an A’s fan, so it’s tough to see the other team win it all. The way I looked at it, there were four World Series trophies in Oakland, why do we need any on the other side of the Bay? But the fact remains, San Francisco is my home. I spent 7 of the greatest years of my life there, but I’ll admit I’m a little bitter they did it now, but couldn’t come through back in 2002 when I resided there. Nonetheless, I love this group of players they put together over there in the City. How can you not be happy they won?

Despite all the NorCal love on Doin Work, there’s only one true Giants fan on board here. Congrats to By on seeing his team win the hardware. And even though Chappy and I bleed Green and Gold, it’s GREAT to see Northern California bring home its first major pro sports championship since 1994.

8 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Sports

October 30, 2010

Saturday Wake Up Jam

By mceezy

I’ve gotta go get my college football picks in, but here’s some tunes to get your Saturday (or Saturday night) started. Legend has it this was made by a friend of a friend, but no favortism here. It’s got cool camera angles and a lot of other stuff I like: the song, better yet the Wayman Tisdale verson of the song, bart, head-bobbing, and the always popular surveillance  cam shot.

4 Comments   |  tags: , , | posted in Music

October 24, 2010

A Great Day In Denver

By mceezy

It wasn’t quite as exciting as the home win over San Diego two weeks ago, but it sure was nice to see the Raiders hang 59 points of the Broncos at Mile High. They’re lucky to get 59 points in four games, let alone four quarters. The Raiders got on the board quick with a 43 yard touchdown pass from Jason Campbell to a wide open Zach Miller. Right about at that point I realized, WE HAVE A GAME. It’s a great feeling that a Raider fan only gets to experience three or four times a year. You never know when they’re going to show up. Even if you try to guess when they will, they definitely won’t. So today when I saw Campbell and Miller connect on their opening drive touchdown, I decided I’d better knock out my weekly Sunday chores now rather than wait till the second half when the Raiders are long out of it. I bounced out to the garage for what seemed like 5 minutes to vacuum my car, and when I came back in, it was 21-0! Fortunately, they weren’t done, so I got to see the next 38 points that followed. It was bittersweet that Darren McFadden’s four touchdowns went to my fantasy opponent, but for a win like this, I’ll take it. At least he had Kyle Orton… Anyway, now that the Raiders sit firmly in second place, just 1.5 games back of division leader Kansas City, it’s time for one of those can the Raiders be a playoff contender? Let’s predict their win-loss record game by game for the rest of the season and see where they end up deals…

Wk 7: @Denver.  59-14 Win.  (3-4) The best Raiders performance of the last 7 seasons gives them a 2-0 record in the division.

Wk 8: Seattle.  13-24 Loss.  (3-5) Seattle realizes it’s suddenly 4-2 and in the driver’s seat in the NFC West and decides to make a run at it.

Wk 9: Kansas City.  10-35 Loss.  (3-6) The Chiefs continue with an easy schedule by cruising through Buffalo and have the division in their back pocket.

Wk 10: BYE  (3-6) A tough matchup, but it’s usually the one week the Raiders never lose.

Wk 11: @Pittsburgh.  3-35 Loss.  (3-7) Not sure how you manage to draw the Steelers in Pittsburgh two years in a row, but probably not gonna win two in a row.

Wk 12: Miami. 24-28 Loss.  (3-8) Oakland’s had a tough time with Miami, only winning once this decade in the regular season. There was a shutout playoff victory in there.

Wk 13: @San Diego. 6-27 Loss.  (3-9) I should’ve known they weren’t gonna be able to pull it off twice in a row.

Wk 14: @Jacksonville. 30-13 Win.  (4-9) Ah, finally a game against a bad team. That always helps remind the Raiders they can be good.

Wk 15: Denver. 34-42 Loss.  (4-10) The Broncos avenge their week 7 massacre behind three rushing TDs for Tim Tebow.

Wk 16: Indianapolis. 9-38 Loss.  (4-11) The Colts are fighting for a playoff spot and the Raiders are downward spiraling into draft position. This can’t end well.

Wk 17: @Kansas City. 17-13 Win.  (5-11) With the division sewn up, the Chiefs rest their starters and Oakland withstands a late game drive by Brodie Croyle to lock up another 5-11 season for Tom Cable.

Call me a pessimist if you must, just call me right when the season is over.

 

5 Comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Sports

October 22, 2010

Game 6

By mceezy

1 Comment | posted in Sports

October 18, 2010

Must See Teams of ’10-11

By mceezy

Bill (but he looks more like a Jeff) Simmons wrote about the teams he was looking forward to seeing in person this season a few days ago. Since big games don’t really come into play as a Clippers fan, it’s all about the other team. What players are you excited to see in new uniforms. What rookies are you looking forward to seeing in their first visit to your city. Which ticking time bomb situations are you hoping to see come to a head, for example last season I was unfortunate enough to see two of three games Allen Iverson would play in his career as a Memphis Grizzly. You can never know when you’ll witness greatness at an NBA game (though the refs always come to play), but you can pick out the games that have the most potential for greatness. That’s what I’m attempting to do here, except I’ve got an extra factor to consider. Alright guys, I’m not gonna lie to you. This is gonna get kinda weird… TWO home teams. Due to extended stints in both Sacramento and San Francisco, the 10-15 games I’ll probably catch this year will be split between Oracle and Arco. Here’s who I’d be most interested to see, though I’m sure I’ll just be happy take what comes my way. Maybe all the more reason to try and build interest….

Ed. note – please keep in mind I was the kid who wasn’t trying to go see Jordan and the Bulls or Magic and the Lakers (though I’d make a point to at least once). So don’t expect to see Miami atop my list
1. Seattle Sonics – Man, I can’t remember there ever being two players who juiced up their floor cred, let alone on the same team, more than Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook this season. They’re already coming off an impressive season, and I can’t think of a more exciting team to see this upcoming season. What’s that you say? They left Seattle? They moved where? They’re called the what? Nevermind, I don’t wanna go to that game.

2. New York Knicks – I’ve never been this excited to see the Knicks. I guess they’ve been for long enough that I’m kinda ready for them to be good again. I really like that Amare had the balls to go try and be the man in NYC. I hope he succeeds, but I just don’t think he has enough help yet. I think I’ll try to catch them in Oakland, because there’s the added bonus of seeing Anthony Randolph come back to the Bay and try to show up his old team that traded him. Maybe he’ll succeed, and maybe he’ll embarrass himself, but he’ll damn sure try. That’s what made watching him fun: he might dunk on someone or swat a shot into the 5th row, or he might throw a pass into the 5th row. Either way, he definitely tries. (Except the other 90% of the time when he’s not trying at all). It’ll also be good to see Ronny Turiaf and Kelenna Azubuike, two of the most liked Warriors, return. Not that Randolph wasn’t liked, but I see him eventually work his way into a villain’s role.

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3 Comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Sports

October 13, 2010

In Case You Missed It….

By mceezy

Finally, a 30 for 30 on ESPN got my attention. It’s been a pretty successful series so far and has won over plenty of sports fans, but “Once Brothers” really became the defining episode of the series for me. It’s not saying much, because I still associate sports documentaries with Kobe Bryant Doin Work. I’ll spare you the movie review and simply say that I was old enough to remember Vlade Divac and Drazen Petrovic on the floor, but too young to understand what was really going on between them and back home. I was a huge Nets fan in the early 90s, because of Kenny Anderson. So naturally, I became a fan of Drazen, since he was the real star of the team. (Sorry Derrick Coleman)

Here’s the trailer, but find a way to check out the whole thing.

6 Comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Sports, TV

October 9, 2010

Are the Twins the New Braves?

By mceezy

Chappy brought up a good point the other day. The Minnesota Twins are the new Atlanta Braves. The Braves gained notoriety for not just winning 14 division titles in 15 years, but only winning ONE World Series during their run of domination. The Twins aren’t quite on that level, but they are starting to put together quite a streak of postseason futility. Being an A’s fan, I can’t say I don’t know what it feels like, but with today’s ALDS series loss to the Yankees, that makes 5 LDS losses in the last 8 years. What’s worse is they only have TWO wins to their name during that stretch. This is their third consecutive time being swept in the LDS, including one at the hands of the Oakland Athletics in 2006. They seem to have their nucleus locked up for a few years to come, but will they ever taste postseason success? Much like the A’s, their defeats seem to come often at the hands of the Yankees. You can’t help but feel like they’re destined to reach the playoffs year after year, only to be tossed aside by whichever team draws them in the opening round. But hey, most can only hope for a taste of the postseason. I can appreciate the Twins’ low-budget success. But really, I can’t help but think they’re the Braves of this era.

6 Comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in Sports