i'm watching the game right now as it approaches half time, and it is the most fucking ridiculously biased piece of shit ive ever seen. Tim Duncan is 'fouled' by Stoudemire when he fades AWAY from the basket on nearly every play, then down the other end, Amare goes up for shots, gets hit in the face a few times, makes the shot, and gets no call. Then he spins around Parker and they call the foul BEFORE the fucking shot. I'm no Phoenix fan, so for me to be this angry it has to be pretty fucking stupid. And also, how has Bruce Bowen been not only allowed to play in the league for this long, but also be labelled a GOOD defender? What. The. Fuck. All he does is slap at peoples bodies and channel them into Nazr of Duncan. On top of this, the stupid commentators seem to be oblivious to the bias! Not once have they said anything about the refs or the calls they make. I dont understand why in America, the 'free world', no one is allowed to state their opinion on TV. This series is so fucked.

What's worse, is that ESPN Australia only has the rights to the western conference finals. No Eastern final, and no NBA finals.

how does that work out?

i see what you're saying in some ways, but like i said in the other thread, hard for me to feel sympathy for them when they just keep making mistake after mistake. and pull down a rebound for chrissake. it was terrible watching the spurs grab 4 offensive boards in a row during that stretch in the third quarter. does duncan have 20 yet?

oh yeah i totally agree. Phoenix makes some of the stupidest mistakes in the world. Like that 2 on 1 fast break where Joe Johnson passed it to Marion and then Marion just threw it out of bounds. That was a a sure basket, but they managed to fuck it up. And if Steve Nash distributed the ball for a change rather than going for an assist each and every time, they would have more of a chance. Amare went off in the last quarter though, he owned Duncan for a while there.

And regarding the ESPN Australia fiasco, i've rang them several times but they always say it's 'beyond their control' or some bullshit. It's not like in America where there are other channels where i can watch it, ESPN is the only channel available in the country that shows American sports, and even then, it shows more sports that are completely irrelevant to our culture, such as Nascar and baseball. And even when an NBA game is scheduled to be televised, chances are there will be some regular season baseball game on instead. When that Dallas/Phoenix game went into OT, right before OT started, they just cancelled the game and showed an Australian version of Pardon the Interruption, albeit, a replay from the previous evening. Basketball is one of the most popular sports here, and we don't even get TV coverage of the NBL, our own national league. It's so stupid.

I'm hoping that when Andrew Bogut goes number 1 on June 28th we might have a slight shift in the programming, but even then, it would only be slight. They showed a few Utes games during their NCAA run, so maybe we'll get lots of Milwauke or Atlanta games next season, depending on where he goes.

3 down, 1 to go.

Tony Parker is getting laid.

By Maxim's #1, no less.

in a Steven A. Jackson voice... "it's ova"

Stephen A. Smith?

ABC is televising the finals over here; since they are owned by the same company as ESPN, maybe they'll hook you guys up with late-nite replays or something.

Forget about Bogut, Luke Schshensher (sp intentional) is the saviour of Aussie hoops.

ESPN ain't hookin' us up with SHIT. I've researched. No replays, late-night, mid-eve, or early morn'. I checked with the cable dudes. NOTHING. It's seriously more annoying than a metrosexual Ian Thorpe at a fashion show pretending to be straight. And that's pretty annoying because he's on TV a lot when basketball could/should be on.

um..yeah

don't make death threats to stephen A on message boards.

just a warning.

Ok, anyone that begrudges nash the mvp is insane, as stoudamire would be looking at 15/8 games every night if nash wasn't turning him into a 40-pt/game scorer.

Amare is a fucking gun. The reverse pivot dunk over Horry and Duncan in the fourth was fucking crazy.

Not as crazy as a 4-1 victory, though.

Quentin Fucking Richardson.

Sorry, but I ain't buyin' that shit. Yes, Nash deserved MVP, but Amare proved in this series that he is THE baddest of the bad asses in the NBA. Nash didn't help him block Duncan's slam to win Game 4. Nash didn't repeatedly power through, up, and over Duncan, Nazr, Horry, and any other of the Spurs big men with authority.

Nash makes the Suns better as a team, but Amare is a bad motherfucker regardless of who's surrounding him. Dude is un. stop. able.

Now, for FT's fearless Final predictions:

If Miami, Spurs over Heat in 6.
If Detroit, Pistons over Spurs in 7.

Maybe it's just me, but if Amare puts his wrist on the rim and his palm is literally in the cylinder, shouldn't that have been a goaltend regardless of the huge degree of difficulty?

I'm not being bitter, I mean it like - isn't that the 'offensive interference' rule?

I was flummoxed about that one.

As for me, I have no Finals predictions - the three teams standing are all awfully good. I do agree that Miami likely comes in 3rd among this bunch, though.

Finally, I am amazed at the first post complaining about Game 5's officiating - if the Suns got gotten any more home cooking during the first half, David Stern would have been giving Amare happy ending massages during the timeouts. Even Bill fucking Laker loving Walton said the Spurs were getting jobbed by the refs. Amare's frequent 'obviously push the defender in the chest with my free hand before dunking' was the most constant and mind boggling offense.

- T

at this point i really don't care who wins the title. you know i'll be damned if the spurs get another title (sorry FT), as for the heat, i don't like shaq, and the pistons, well... go figure. blah!

GAH! Please don't tell me you're a kobe fan or i will send you 400 copies for Phil Jackson's book, copies of the trial testimony, and footage of him threatening to hit my friend because she was doing her job until you come around.



as always, I'm rooting for the east.

How can anyone not be a Shaq fan? Besides being one of the most dominant players of the last 10 years he's a funny motherfucker.

I'm pulling for the Heat.

GAH! well i'm a laker fan. i never liked shaq. even when he was a laker. and yes, i like kobe. i'm not as big of a fan as i used to be, i'm pretty damn brokenhearted about how he played last season. i'm also not very interested in the playoffs this year because i'm not down for either team.

so are you really going to send me 400 copies of phil jackson's book?

and for the record, my favorite nba player is allen iverson.

atta girl.

nah, Jackson's book is EXPENSIVE. but it does shed a lot of like on what the hell happened to your dynasty.

yeah he's a beast when he gets the ball 3 feet from the basket, but he's not got the moves to post up a guy and work him down into the block to get his own shot. nash puts him in a position to score by getting amare the ball close enough to dunk it, his newfound charles oakley-esque 13 foot jumper notwithstanding. i mean, i saw shawn kemp hit a three once, didn't mean that the motherfucker was dale ellis. and robert horry is older than you, dude, he's got the rings but he's certainly not now nor ever known as a defensive force in the post.

in other news, this piston's game has become "make-up call central".