Kevin Garnett Likely to Respond on TD Garden Court to Phil Jackson’s Verbal Jab
It doesn’t take much to get under Kevin Garnett’s skin — typically, the slightest hint of a bad call from a ref or an elbow from opposing big guy is enough to set him off. So when you call KG out and it makes waves in the national media, yeah, that’s probably going to raise red flags for the Celtics’ forward. Phil Jackson knows this, and there were definitely ulterior motives at play when the Lakers coach took a little jab at KG earlier this week. “He is who he is,” the Zen Master said of his own power forward,…
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Boston Celtics: How Will the Team Respond to Marquis Daniels’ Injury?
Boston Celtics Guard, Marquis Daniels’ freak spinal cord injury during Sunday’s game against the Orlando Magic was both scary and unsettling. Scary, because Daniels lay motionless on the court with a (later determined) bruised spine, and unsettling, because he will need to be replaced in the Celtics rotation.
Thankfully, Daniels will be okay according to Danny Ainge and team doctor, Brian McKeon during their postgame press conference, but he will miss an indefinite amount of time.
Sources are varying, but a month appears to be the general consensus on how long Daniels will be out. Celtics fans will have to hope for a speedy recovery.
A curious note to come out of the press conference was that pre-existing conditions from multiple injuries suffered throughout the past few years contributed to Daniels’ current injury. It’s a situation that will surely generate questions about Daniels’ long-term health in the coming days.
So while Daniels is out, Delonte West will be returning to the team. West has only appeared in five games this season with his own injury (and suspension), but he knows the system and is the type of player who can immediately step in and make contributions.
The downside is that there will be a two-week period where the Celtics presumably will not have either Daniels or West in the lineup, since Delonte is not fully healed. This leaves Von Wafer to step in and fulfill a greater role.
Wafer played 13 minutes on Sunday but did not contribute much in the stats column and has been limited to spot duty throughout most of the season. Still, he shows flashes of productivity at times.
He can drive to the hoop like Daniels and isn’t a complete liability on defense. So the Celtics should be able to manage with Wafer in the rotation.
One alternative is Avery Bradley who is currently playing for the Maine Red Claws in the D-League. Bradley will most likely be recalled with the Celtics currently unable to field a full 12-man active roster, but he would most likely not see any significant playing time.
The most realistic expectation would be an increase in minutes for Ray Allen, Paul Pierce and Rajon Rondo. The starters would need to compensate for the lack of options after Nate Robinson off the bench.
The next couple of weeks will be a test to the Celtics’ team chemistry and overall tenacity, but injuries are not something the team hasn’t already encountered this season. The real question will be can the Celtics remain healthy as the regular season starts to wind down.
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Syracuse vs. UConn Basketball: Orange Respond with Big Road Win
The Syracuse losing streak is over at four. The Orange picked up a big win at seventh-ranked UConn, beating the Huskies 66-58 Wednesday night.
Rick Jackson led the Orange with 13 points and 13 rebounds for his 15th double-double of the season. Brandon Triche scored a team-high 16.
The game also set a record for the most total wins between two opposing coaches.
Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim picked up win No. 848 and UConn’s Jim Calhoun is still stuck on 840 in a game the Orange desperately needed to win.
Riding a four-game losing streak, Syracuse was looking to avoid its longest skid in Boeheim’s 35-year career.
The Orange got off to another slow start at Hartford’s XL Center and didn’t score until the 14:29 mark in the first half.
Syracuse trailed by as many as nine points in the early going but Rick Jackson’s hook shot at the buzzer capped a 12-2 run, and Syracuse took a 26-25 lead into the half. It was the Orange’s first lead in a game since going up 2-0 on Villanova back on Jan. 22.
Syracuse led 46-27 with 10:59 left in the second half but a Jeremy Lamb layup would pull UConn to within three and trailed 51-48.
A quick five-point run by Kris Joseph stretched the Syracuse lead to seven points with 1:21 to go but a Huskies steal and, layup by Lamb, cut the lead to 61-58 with less than a minute to play. That’s as close as they got thanks to some clutch free throws by Scoop Jardine down the stretch as the Orange handed UConn its first loss at the XL Center this season.
Lamb finished with a game-high 22 points for the Huskies and got virtually no help from the nation’s third-leading scorer, Kemba Walker. Walker finished with a season-low eight points on 3-of-14 shooting and was held under 10 points for the first time this year.
Neither team shot particularly well but the Syracuse defense played a lot better. The Orange’s 2-3 zone forced UConn into taking tough shots and that led to a host of fast-break opportunities at the other end. The Huskies shot 36.2 percent from the field and 34.7 percent from three-point range. The Orange offense wasn’t much better, shooting 37.6 percent and connecting on 4-of-15 threes.
The Orange (19-4, 6-4) play at South Florida Saturday before playing Georgetown and Louisville next week.
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Harris, Nets respond after difficult loss to sink Blazers
After last night’s disappointing loss to the Philadelphia 76ers, Avery Johnson called for a team shootaround this morning, a rarity for a squad in the midst of a back-to-back. The Nets’ coach wanted more attentiveness and focus out of his team, and he got it in a big way Sunday night. Trailing by as many as 12 points in the second half, the Nets outplayed the Trail Blazers down the stretch for a 98-96 win in Newark.
Winning time: With the game tied at 89 apiece with 72 seconds to go, Devin Harris knocked down a huge 3-pointer from the top of the key to put the Nets ahead. On the ensuing possession, Travis Outlaw and Brook Lopez helped force Brandon Roy to lose the ball out of bounds along the sideline and give New Jersey the ball back in the final minute. Although Portland got it to within two after that play, Outlaw, Harris and Morrow each hit a pair of free throws to seal the deal for the Nets.
How the game was won: Aggressive and cohesive are not words that anyone wou…
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LeBron James Quitness Video: Cleveland Hopefuls Respond to Rise Commercial
LeBron James Quitness Video:
As a response to the much talked about “Rise” commercial from Nike, a Cleveland filmmaker has been reported to have posted a video which incorporated some perspective from members of the Cleveland fanbase.
In the video, fans remind LeBron James that he quit on the city in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals against the Boston Celtics.
They also commented on his lack of loyalty and the video also played a clip of LeBron saying that his goal was to bring a championship to the city of Cleveland and how he won’t stop until it happened.
“It was all right,” LeBron James told reporters before the Miami Heat played the New Orleans Hornets on Friday night. “They could have done a better job.”
After being posted on November 4, the video as already amassed over a 1 million views on YouTube.
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
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UConn’s deadline to respond to NCAA allegations extended
The NCAA is giving Connecticut another week to respond to allegations that the school’s basketball program committed eight major rules violations. …
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UConn Huskies To Respond to NCAA Allegations: What to Expect
The last year and a half have not been pleasant for the UConn men’s basketball team.
In March 2009, Yahoo! Sports broke a story that accused UConn of committing major violations in their pursuit of recruit Nate Miles.
The violations centered on the actions of agent wannabe Josh Nochimson, a former student-manager for the men’s basketball team.
As a result of the Yahoo! story, the NCAA launched an investigation into the UConn men’s basketball program and delivered a list of allegations.
They are summarized as follows:
- Between June 2005 and February 2009, members of the men’s basketball staff violated the provisions of NCAA recruiting communication legislation by exchanging at least 160 impermissible telephone phone calls and sending at least 191 impermissible text messages to prospective student-athletes;
- During 2007 and 2008, Nochimson, representative of UConn’s athletics interests and then certified professional basketball agent, provided a prospective student-athlete with impermissible benefits. Included was the surgery on Miles in December 2007 as I reported.
- On Feb. 29, 2008, Beau Archibald, director of men’s basketball operations, provided an impermissible benefit to a prospective student-athlete;
- Archibald failed to deport himself in accordance with the honesty and integrity associated with the administration of intercollegiate athletics as required by NCAA legislation for providing false and misleading information to the NCAA enforcement staff and institution.
- Assistant Pat Sellars failed to deport himself in accordance with the honesty and integrity associated with the administration of intercollegiate athletics as required by NCAA legislation for providing false and misleading information to the NCAA enforcement staff and institution.
- In 2007 and 2008, members of UConn’s men’s basketball staff provided a total of 26 impermissible complimentary admissions or discretionary tickets to high school basketball coaches, individuals responsible for teaching or directing an activity in which a prospective student-athlete is involved, or a friend of a prospective student-athlete;
- The scope and nature of violations detailed in the first two allegations demonstrate between 2005 and 2009 that Calhoun failed to promote an atmosphere of compliance in the men’s basketball program and failed to adequately monitor the program to ensure compliance with NCAA legislation regarding telephone calls, text messages, and benefits provided by a representative of the institution’s athletic interests;
- Between 2005 and 2009, UConn failed to adequately monitor the conduct and administration of the men’s basketball staff in that it failed to (a) review the men’s basketball staff’s telephone records to ensure the staff was not making impermissible telephone contacts with prospective men’s basketball student-athletes; (b) monitor the conduct of Nochimson, which led to violations; and (c) review complimentary admissions and discretionary tickets provided by the men’s basketball staff to ensure the staff was not violating entertainment restrictions.
Key in its absence from the list of NCAA allegations is the phrase “lack of institutional control.”
As you probably know, the recruit in question, known by all to be Nate Miles, never played a game for the Huskies. He was expelled in October 2008 for violating a restraining order. This is good for two reasons. First, forfeiture of victories will not be one of the punishments. Second, the kid sounds like a creep and probably shouldn’t have been in the school in the first place, let alone on the team.
The university is going to formally respond to the NCAA in writing on September 3, 2010. Basically, they are going to show the NCAA that they take the charges seriously, admit some wrongdoing, and self-impose some punishment that will likely appease the NCAA.
How are they likely to respond?
The first part of the response will obviously be to point out that both assistant coaches named in the allegations have been dismissed. They will also point out that they have hired a well-respected former head coach to, among other duties, be in charge of compliance.
Both of these actions go to the “we take this stuff seriously” part of their answer.
UConn will probably admit to wrongdoing on most of the charges and then present a suitable punishment.
There is no question that recruiting restrictions will be a part of the self-imposed penalty. Limitations on off-campus recruiting, loss of some phone call privileges, and possibly the loss of a scholarship or two are all likely on the table.
The university will also likely seek to place itself on a probationary period of one to three years.
The allegations made by the NCAA are certainly serious. Nochimson was clearly swimming in a cesspool and doing his former school no favors. Miles, however talented and as events bore out, had no business at UConn. That said, I would be hard pressed to envision any sanctions or penalties other than those I presented.
The loss of multiple scholarships is generally reserved for big-league misdeeds, like those involving Reggie Bush and USC. We’re not talking about an active player being paid or a player receiving payment to attend the school (O.J. Mayo). We’re not talking about a player with essentially a phony transcript getting into college (Eric Bledsoe, UK). We’re also not talking about a pattern of behavior.
The notion that there will be a postseason ban or the loss of multiple scholarships over two or more years is just silly. There will be penalties, the NCAA will accept UConn’s response (naturally, they will take their time with that), and we’ll move on.
The biggest hit from these allegations will remain the bad publicity UConn has received. Unless Jim Calhoun is able to somehow engineer a deep NCAA tournament run this season (winning cures many ills), the publicity sting will be felt for several years to come in the area of recruiting.
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UConn given more time to respond to NCAA
The NCAA is giving Connecticut more time to respond to allegations that the school’s basketball program committed eight major rules violatio …
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Connecticut given more time to respond to NCAA allegations
The NCAA is giving Connecticut more time to respond to allegations that the school’s basketball program committed eight major rules violations. …
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UConn given more time to respond to NCAA (AP)
The NCAA is giving Connecticut more time to respond to allegations that the school’s basketball program committed eight major rules violations. The university was expected to respond by Aug. 20, but says the deadline is now Sept. 3. The school says the extension was based on requests by the coaches cited in the allegations of May 21.
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