I dont know if you heard, but the Giants won. The Giants defeated a mistake prone Packers team to land a chance to face the Niners in the NFC Championship game. Mike Vaccaro of the Post warns that its an avalanche heading to San Fran. Bart Hubbuch of the Post says despite Jim Harbaugh heaping praise on the Giants, the hope is that severe weather will give his team an advantage. Mike Lupica of Daily News writes that Tom Coughlin is now writing his place right next to Bill Parcells as the greatest coach in team history. Confidence, is riding super high for these Giants and uncharacteristically Tom Coughlin is allowing his players to feel and express how confident they are. So if its Michael Boley saying “we’re the better team” or Antrell Rolle saying “we won’t be denied”, Coughlin is now allowing his players to talk out their feelings and its been good. During the 08 playoff run, the storyline was how Tom Coughlin had changed for the better. He began becoming more communicative and caring towards his players. Not completely giving up his ways he added an extra dimension that allowed his players to see who he was as a man. It was one of the reasons that team worked. So keeping away from the obvious comparison, the Giants know that this season’s ride will have to come also at the expense of the 49ers magical season. Nobody, at the beginning of the season, expected Jim Harbaugh to lead this unit to where it is currently. But he has. Its been the consummate coaching job by a guy who’s quickly earning rave reviews. Especially a guy who came from college to the pros. He has a very good defense and an offense that isn’t all that great, but can create points when it needs to and has a tough edge about it. The Niners haven’t required a great performance from any offensive player but got it from Vernon Davis who is a match up nightmare as the Saints found out. Are the Niners capable of being beat? Yes but so are the Giants. No team in these playoffs are unbeatable like I’ve been saying. Each team has a fatal flaw so counting the Giants out now would be a mistake. My only worry is that people will jump on the Giant bandwagon and push the line in favor of the boys in blue. We’ll see if there’s any negative effect there on Sunday. By the way the weather is calling for extreme rain and winds. That benefits a good running game like the Niners and negatively affects the Giants passing game which has been their hallmark. Also ball security will be an issue. Niners and Giants were actively looking for the strip during their games and will continue to Sunday. It will be an interesting match up to say the least. More on this game as the week goes on.
In their annual MLK showing, everyone but Carmelo Anthony forgot to show up. Anthony’s 33 points were not enough to slow down the Magic say Frank Isola of the Daily News. Marc Berman says that the Knicks are not meshing well with both Melo and Amar’e even on an offnight for Superman. John Jeansonne of Newsday says that Carmelo Anthony had more of everything for the Knicks, but not enough to overcome the bad.
Its not to anyone’s surprise that the Knicks are not playing well against the bad teams in the league. They started a stretch against Philly at home, and since winning that game have lost their last three games against quality opponents which raises eyebrows. I said this before and I’ll say it again, judging the Knicks can’t be done till mid February or early March at the latest because we wont know how D’Antoni’s team will react to having another quality player in Baron Davis on the court. IF good Baron shows up, this team can patch up a lot of their problems pretty quickly and allows for Iman Shumpert to come off the bench. IF bad Baron shows up we can forget this season and pray that they convince the Suns to give up Steve Nash and he comes aboard. Its going to be a very tense next few weeks but D’Antoni and the Knicks deserve a few more weeks to allow themselves to get fully healthy and have their complete squad before we start handing out pink slips to coaches and begin charging up the trade machine to see what we can get for Amar’es contract.
Interesting article in the Houston Chronicle detailing Javale McGee’s performance yesterday in which his Wizards lost again, to the Rockets. During the game he threw an alley-oop off the backboard and slammed it home as if he were in practice and his defense was that he was trying to hype up his teammates. Minutes later they were trailing by 19. Whatever run he was trying to convince the team to have, he did so for the Rockets who blew them out. Johnathan Feigen said, that’s how teams become 1-13, they become about themselves. Michael Lee of the Washington Post says Flip Saunders defended McGee’s actions by saying that he wants to build up his confidence and so whatever he does to do that he needs to keep doing. MMM, okay coach.
As a fan of a team that routinely disappointed me over the years and only started getting expectations for winning again, I can tell you its demoralizing to see the difference between a good team and a bad team. A good team knows what it takes to win and knows it takes five guys playing in synch and rhythm to win. All of them individually have earned their right to play on a professional level, but all of them have earned teh right to play on a team. The Wizards are talented and they have the kind of talent that can go very far, but its clear that Saunders is not the guy to deliver that message OR to make sure that the message is being driven home. He’s defending McGee’s actions to protect him. Meanwhile, he’s doing nothing for his growth. McGee possesses one of the most athletic frames for a true center in this league. He can lead the league in blocks. He has some kind of idea when he’s on the offensive end. They have an all-world Point guard in John Wall waiting to break out. The problem is that they don’t have veteran leadership in that locker room and worse they don’t have a coach who will put his foot down. Saunders is so passive its not funny. The guy looks like he hasn’t slept in weeks and is waiting for the game to end so he can finally rest except he doesn’t. He goes home and watches hours of skinemax. The Wizards are a mess and until they get a coach who can hold these players accountable it won’t end. Also, naming Andray Blatche a captain is a HUGE problem. Apparently Rex Ryan runs this team too.
acebook
witter
The Lazy Eye of Sports 