An advice column for people who live with people who live for sports
What happened on Wednesday, November 19, 2014?
LeBron loses the ball and the game: The Cleveland Cavaliers had the ball, two points down, with six seconds remaining in their game against the San Antonio Spurs. Most of the time, that’s more than enough time for LeBron James to run down the court and get a good shot off. Last night, however, he stumbled a little while navigating around a couple Spurs defenders, and lost control of the ball. Game over, Spurs win — a familiar feeling for LeBron, who lost last year’s finals to the Spurs as a member of the Heat. Line: LeBron just lost the ball. Seems like that wouldn’t of happened the last few years in Miami.
Howard doesn’t play, Lakers win: The other nationally televised NBA basketball game last night was the Los Angeles Lakers at the Houston Rockets. The most compelling thing about the game was the potential of continued animosity between Kobe Bryant and Dwight Howard. Howard missed the game with a knee injury, so that storyline withered. The Lakers beat the short-handed Rockets. This is their second win in a row after losing nine of their first ten games. Line: The Lakers are on a roll! [said with a certain amount of irony because even two wins in a row only means they’ve won 1/4 of their games.]
Creighton upsets Oklahoma: One of the fun things about writing about sports is making LOTS of predictions about games. Because of a natural human tendency to ignore uninteresting things and remember interesting ones, this means that when I get something right, it’s more memorable than nine other times I get something wrong. I got this one right yesterday when I said to watch out for a Creighton upset. Indeed, they came from 18 points down to beat Oklahoma 65-63. Line: I told you so!
Running rules the day in college football: One of the fun things about college football is that because the level of general athleticism is just slightly lower than in the NFL, a wider range of strategies are viable. Take the game last night between Bowling Green and Toledo. Toledo won 27-20 while running for 325 yards and passing for only 63. That type of play distribution, slanted so heavily towards running, is unheard of in the NFL, mostly because it simply wouldn’t work. Line: 325 yards of rushing to 63 yards passing? And they won? Gotta love college football!
