Good And Bad in The Bay
Tough loss last night. Any game we have a chance to win on this brutal roadie we need to close the deal. Smarge in Nepal? Yikes. At some point this guy has to get back into the strike zone (although you could argue that was actually his problem last season).
Dubs/Cavs finals again. Four straight years. Is that a problem? Not if you’re a fan of one of those teams, I guess. But this is probably not ideal for the NBA if they are looking to keep fans buying season tickets to teams that apparently have no chance of ever seeing the finals.
I’m going with Dubs in 5 (assuming Love comes back). If he’s out I think we sweep them. Lebron can’t win a game completely alone against this stacked squad. I hate Cleveland fans and look forward to this wipe out.
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
Once again Giants leave bases loaded and don’t score. They’ve played Sherps tough last night included.
James 4:45 yesterday had it right—team that shot better won last night. Same thing did in Celts, jacking up 3s at home and praying they went in. Not a D’Antoni fan and Stevens disappointed me.
Eisenhower??? wow this is the guy responsible for getting CIA up and running, led by the Dulles brothers from the OSS and their fierce anti-communism. Results were usually US supported/looked the other way when the Trujillos and Somozas of the world brutalized their country as long as they repressed any leftists or indigenous movements. They helped establish training facility in Panama to do just that, provide military assistance to So/Central America dictators.
This happened around the world, the CIA covertly doing the bidding of Ike and other US presidents. The murderous machinations of the Dulles bros are legion, in Iran Nam Indonesia Congo Guatemala Phils et al.
I totally see your point, and I don’t mean to diminish atrocities. I did say there were some bad things about his presidency, but didn’t get specific. There’s some bad in all presidencies, even in Lincoln’s.
Agree Willie . . . None of these guys are clean. Thanks for sharing (catalyst for me doing some quick and dirty research, as well as refreshing my mind, about that period of time . . . Dulles brothers as you indicated were definitely not clean, e.g., on the payroll of United Fruit Co. and probably others). Ironically, Dulles was forced to resign by Kennedy and Kennedy was up to his neck in all sorts of plots, including the assassination attempts on Castro, bay of pigs, etc.
talk about the relevance of Edward Bernays! I’ve always thought Eisenhower’s bizarre farewell speech, the warning about the rise of the “military-industrial complex,” was a sort of declaration of failure. “I tried to be a moderate Cold War republican, but they took over!” he seemed to cry, as Nixon ascended.
True story. I attended HS one year in the Florida panhandle (southern Alabama with white (very white) beaches). My American History teacher was a football coach. One day he came to class with no lesson to teach, so he assigned us an essay (there, in our text books) by John Foster Dulles. Read it, he said. Then while the rest of us read that zealous tripe the two football players in the class sat close to the coach’s desk and laughed with him while he disassembled a revolver and, between jock jokes, carefully cleaned and oiled each piece.
Stephen Kinzer, first notable for Bitter Fruit, a history of the CIA engineered coup in Guatemala, published a book on the Dulles brothers. That looks like history worth reading.
Watched the Rizzo slide that took out legs of Pirates C who is outside batter box and about to throw the ball. Rizzo clearly went out of his way with no intention of getting to the plate. How is this legal? Eager to hear how this is addressed…did Pirates protest the game?
Maddon of course vehemently defended his player, what a tool. He also complained about so called Posey rule earlier as being wrongly implemented just because of one guy.
Lakers/Celtics was the same deal back in the 60s. They met 7 times in 9 years. And the Celts WON 9 times in 11 years. Funny thing is, the other 2 years were the SF Warriors in th4e finals replacing the Lakers.
I’m still trying to figure out how the W’s won last night. If Houston hits even 4 of those 27 straight missed triples, which would’ve been a whopping 14.8% FG percentage, they win that game. They just couldn’t buy a basket. And a lot those were basically wide open looks. The Warriors did what they needed to do, but benefited greatly from Houston’s ineptitude.
So how many of you are still on the Strickland is a closer bandwagon. Since 2014 I have been saying he will never be a closer. Giants definitely need one, and Malancon will definitely have to have multiple saves in a row for me to trust this guy.
Houston was gassed. Dead. To a man in all the interviews, the Warriors said Hou would wear down, and they did. Harden carried the load most of the game and he lost his legs. Ariza was gasping on the bench when he would come out. You lose your legs, you miss 3s. Simple as that. Ariza though was spectacularly awful. He gets the goat horns. 0-12 from the field, 0-9 on 3s. ZERO points in 42 minutes? Damn. That’s high voltage sucking.
The Warriors were in better physical shape. Thompson could have played another game. Steph played all but 45 seconds of the 2nd half but was still running and gunning. Draymond doesn’t wear down. KD stayed strong throughout, and actually saved his best for the 2nd half.
Scary to me s the ineffectiveness of our bench all of a sudden. We got 7 points from the backups. Amazingly, the Hou bench scored 3 points.
Say what you will about Gordon, but he was their MVP if they had won.
Gordon is a good player. Doesn’t mean I have to like him. The W’s certainly have their hands full with him whenever they play. Green was a little unsung in this series, imo. I’ve been hard in him in the past, but he was terrific in this series (overall) and just keeps doing all the dirty work. Maybe most importantly, he kept his mouth shut for almost the whole series, which is amazing in and of itself. He just played. He has huge energy and just never stops battling and his rebounding was phenomenal for the entire series.
Anyway, bring on the Cavs. On paper this looks like a huge mismatch. W’s in 6.
For me what Gordon represents is exactly what GS doesn’t have–someone who can come in off bench and shoot from perimeter/get to the rim and score. He’s an excellent FT shooter too. Hope they address in off season…tho I guess if you win as they should criticism gets blunted.
Part of GS problem with bench is sometimes they have Livingston Green and/or Igs Looney Bell on the floor and none of these guys can shoot and you don’t have to guard them beyond 15 ft.
Good point, Willie. Bell is going to have to develop some kind of offensive game. He was unwilling to shoot even when he came up with the ball in the paint. An EG type of player would be a nice bench upgrade for the W’s. I love Livingston, but his scoring can be as erratic as hell. He shoots a flat shot and when he’s off he’s really off. Iggy is very reluctant to shoot for any distance as well. Seemed like he was a pretty good 3-point shooter a few years ago.
I kept thinking after about the 12th missed 3 pointer that Houston would give up on the bombs and look to pass the ball more, and specifically find Capella in the post. Anything to try and conserve the lead and take time off the clock. Nope. Terrible coaching by D’Antoni in my opinion.
Yes! Often the cure for poor outside shooting is to attack hoop and get to the FT line. Usually couple makes there gets stroke back and sets tone. Clueless Celts kids did the same thing the other night with poor clock mgmt.
Really surprised all series Hou didn’t make more use of Capela who has way more skills and athleticism than Looney. Plus you make Warriors defend that position 1 on 1 and possibly get Green/Durant in foul trouble. Even if he misses he attack glass relentlessly and creates opportunities for putback or kick out to shooters.
I don;t know Capela very well but I don;t think he’s a very good passer.
That’s what was so crazy about these games, Wilcoe. Houston won playing our game (passing), and we lost playing their game (iso ball). The last 2 games, Hou got ahead early by attacking the rim. Both games, they went away from it once things got a little dicey. They played what I’ve heard now as what they call hero ball. Jack up that 3 and hope for the best. Defend the arc and that plan goes out the window.
I think Harden got too tired to attack.
Willie, how this team ended up with 6 centers that rarely/don’t play is baffling. Casspi I thought would be a good shooter to bring in, and he had some good games, but they dumped him. Sure he was hurt, but his shooting would be welcome at this point. We had non-existent bench games in these Hou games. Some of that is attributable to Iggy being out and not running the 2nd team, but really, Livingston has been a ghost.
The overall play in the playoffs by all teams is not all that pleasing to me. I hadn’t realized the refs are allowing dribblers to push off so much with their off-hand on drives. When did that start to be allowed so much? It makes for a lot of contact in the game now. I thought the NBA had done a pretty good job of getting rid of so much of that contact a few years ago. And now it’s back again. They need to address that in the off-season.
This next series should see the Warriors able to get out and run more. They can pretty much run LeBron out of the gym. He’ll stop getting back on transition defense because of fatigue. There’s no way he can hoist the Cavs to a championship over the Warriors. It’s hard to imagine how that would even happen. The Warriors would have to have such an epic collapse it’s hard to see how that would happen, other than a freakish rash of injuries. But the Cavs could get a bunch of injuries themselves.
And all the 3-point shooting in the NBA now. It’s great watching beautiful shooters like the Warriors, but a lot of the other teams are just a bunch of guys hoisting up shot after shot from beyond the arc, and clanking a lot of them.
I crack up when I see an NBA guy dribble to the basket and pick up the ball and take three steps. That used to be a travel, and still is at all the other levels, except for college now, I guess. I saw it in college games a few times this season. If you did that in a pick-up game, the other team would call traveling and never accept the three steps as being legal.
Kevin–Strickland hasn’t blown a save since April 18th. What do you want from your closer, complete perfection? Jesus, Strickland is way down on the list of problems we have right now. He’s been very good this year.
I have the Dubs in 5 as well…unreal the Rockets shot 44 3-pointers and only hit 7 of them…God remains a Warriors fan…
lulz . . .
There’s so much about the NBA game that bothers me. Including he things you mentioned. Travelling is the biggest. The clip from the playoffs a few years ago starring LeBron was hysterical. I think half of the transgressions were called. Dribbling is another. Guys routinely take 2-3 steps between dribbles, and carry the ball from one hip to the other. Carrying is a call you never hear anymore. Steph is a fairly big perp for that one.
But another annoyance is the calls that Harden gets for jumping into his defender. That’s another one they were supposed to stop yet didn’t. Forearming your way down the lane is a foul.
Foul-wise Bron and Harden are the worst at getting away with murder and whining about every call. I’d respect Bron and Harden a hell of a lot more if they didn’t piss, moan, cry, whine and flop at every opportunity. They bitch about every single play they are involved in. Granted, it’s league-wide, and Draymond is fairly stupid and whiny regarding calls, but at least he doesn’t act like a soccer player out there.
i agree with every word of this.
I was watching LeBron, who plays point now on the perimeter, get a screen and be switched on by one of Celts smaller guards.
He turns his back while he dribbles and backs the guy down not by pivoting and turning but by plowing into him like Shaq to get closer to hoop and create space. unbelievable…defender is in perfect position right in front of him and is shoved straight backward. no call
Yeah, that’s another thing. The shoulder turn to create space down low.
I think guys like L Bird must cringe watching Hou and a lot of today’s players. He always cautioned against over dribbling—you only dribble to create a shot or to pass off to someone else to get a shot.
Hou guys that run to corner and stand there and watch dribbler for 10-15 seconds…what kind of way to play is that? And then you have to run to other end and play D and rebound. I’d hate to play on or coach a team like that.
Then of course is the trickle down affect and you wind up with Trae Young types who dribble btw legs 6 times feint back and forth and shoot pull up 25-28 footers. Way too many kids think that’s good b-ball and emulate it.
A lot of Houston fans were bitching pretty hard about the officiating last night (like a lot of W’s fans were in 2016), but it seemed pretty bad at times on both sides to me. That was the definition of letting them play, but sometimes it’s just comical and inconsistent.
fuck them. Their players went 0-26 from 3-land during the game. That’s why they lost, not the refs
Absolutely. It’s hard to see how someone could see it any other way.
Consistency is the goal, but more often than not, it is fairly obvious which way the refs are calling a given game. Klay’s first minute was awful, but any one of those 3 could have been non-called. To call a game that tight that early is ludicrous.
I find it funny that Houston complains when they routinely out FT their opponents nearly every game they play. They were #3 in FTs attempted. Cleve (of course) is #2. Harden is the league-leader in FTA at 10.5 per game (727 for the year). WAAAYYY above everyone else. The only Warrior in the top 32 is KD at 15th at 404.
If the Warriors weren’t in I wouldn’t even watch the NBA playoffs. As it is,I’ve only been watching the 4th quarter when the game was close.
Just ask the 2002 Sacramento Kings about consistency.
Well, don’t get me started on that series. 🙂
Here’s a stat: in the infamous Game 6, the Lakers shot 27 free throws…..in the fourth quarter!
In the game, Mike Bibby got called for a foul because his face hit Bryant’s elbow. And so on and so forth.
The Kings had their chances in Game 7, so I’ve let it go over the years. But Game 6 has to be the worst officiated game in NBA history.
And the Bibby “foul” was at a crucial moment near the end of the game with the Lakers only up by one point, and it puts an exclamation point on the one-sided officiating in that game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPl_vgWbjSM
That was bad, and with the official looking right in that direction.
Man, I was pulling for the Kings in that series. I really liked that team (and despised the Kobe Lakers). One of the better tea,ms to never win a title, imo.
It would have been so huge for the Kings and their fans. To the Lakers, it was just another championship, ho hum.
Today, Roseanne Barr tweeted an incredibly racist statement about a black woman, and ABC has cancelled her show, even though it was a hit show this past season. Kudos to ABC for doing the right thing.
I think it was NBC.
I thought ABC because Disney was involved in the decision to cancel the show.
No, ABC. Part of the reason is likely that ABC is owned by Disney and it would have been a PR disaster for the parent company (which is associated with families, children, etc.) if they had looked the other way. Regardless, Disney was slammed in the market today (almost 2.5% loss).
My bad. It was ABC.
Where ya been, Clubber?
Man, OSF, Twinner woulda really given it to you for fucking up that network correction….
Fox wil pick up the show.
DiIdn’t Murdoch sell Fox TV to Disney?
he did, I just checked. Fox ain’t picking up that show
It’s complicated Flav, but Disney wants to acquire 21st Century Fox’s film and TV studios (worth $52 billion at the time the proposal was submitted and accepted by Fox). The arrangement covers the movie studio 20th Century Fox, the company’s TV production arm 20th Century Fox Television, Fox-owned cable networks (including FX and National Geographic), and the company’s stakes in international networks like Star TV and Sky (which Fox is planning to acquire full ownership of before the sale is completed).
Disney also will gain a majority control of Hulu in the deal, with Fox’s 30 percent stake giving Disney a controlling interest of 60 percent. Comcast and Time Warner will be reduced to minority stakeholders, with 30 percent and 10 percent stakes, respectively.
All of this shit is up in the air, as the deal is currently under review by the United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division.
Thanks for simplifying it…
By the by, with Disney’s offer up in the air – Comcast is considering a bid (much, much more likely to be approved by anti-trust regulators vs. Disney’s offer imo).
Belt’s on the verge of slipping from the top 10 in OPS. Time for some high-altitude XBHs. Lard knows the Shark will need the runs.
Tonight is game No. 55!
that put me in mind of Tim Lincecum. Turns out he was eligible to come off the DL yesterday, however, as one Rangers’ writer explained: “Lincecum has pitched in eight games at Round Rock with a 7.45 ERA and a 2.06 WHP. He has walked seven and struck out 10 in 9 2/3 innings so there is still some question if he is Major League-ready.” Well, let’s hope he makes it in time to come to Oakland with Texas in August.
Some current HR/RBI paces at the 1/3 point of the season:
Gorky: 18/27
Buster: 6/48
Hundley: 15/45
Belt: 33/93
Craw: 18/69
Longo: 24/81
Cutch: 9/60
Minaj: 0/36
Rockies broadcasters are saying they’ve never seen a foul ball go that far (in that direction). Also, they showed a graphic of Smarg’s maximum velocity for all his pitches – 92 MPH fastball.
hit 93 at least one time that I saw. Still, down from 95-96
They were referencing his last 7 starts since coming back on April 20th. Maybe he’s beginning to gain strength. Dunno.
Giants about 1/3 into the season, are only 3 games better pace at this point than last year’s disaster season…
Smarge is hurt I guess?
WTF? Had to take a call . . . What happened to Smarg? Injury?
Umm, I guess so . . . lulz
Rockies broadcasters are emphasizing they don’t know for sure, but did Smarg break a bat over his knee and injure himself?????
dunno, he didn’t look injured after that. Maybe he was mad he got pulled and did it? There is a shocking lack of info from the Giants announcers
Pav said that was his reaction after getting pulled.
Smarge is an idiot. He needs to just go back to the DL and get healthy, running him out there hurt is just killing us
Tight right shoulder per Rockies broadcast.
They’re not calling him an idiot . . . but very close to it – asking why anyone with a sore shoulder would break a bat over their leg. Calling it “not too smart.”
I sort of wish he’d bashed his own head with the barrel half, just to finish things off.
Gerardo throws 95 on the black, we will take that. But why did the Twins release this guy?
WTF is wrong with Specs tonight?
can you imagine Rodriguez’s family right now, watching this shit behind him?
We’re leading the NL in errors (44) now.
WTF was ‘Cutch doing there? He was right there and the fucking ball was right by his head
Frickin’ Keystone Cops out there. No idea why Cutch didn’t catch that.
At least “Rico” works fast.
If Cutch hurt his elbow out there it could lead to the return of Pence…
Lot of power from Mac, as that ball was almost in the dirt . . . He had to “dig” for it practically.
Cutch also didn;t come in on the base hit that got by Specs until AFTER it got by Specs, thus allowing the pitcher to score.
Fuck. We suck.
I had no idea we were only 3 games off the pace of last season’s record (per snarkk’s post above). Figures from watching this shit.
I think we sucked harder later in the season.
“Cutch can’t catch.” Say that 10 times fast….
Happy for DRod getting his first hit. He was doing so good before the Specs error.
Hey. Derek with the ribbie.
Great. Now he’s down?
God damn it.
Cutch can’t catch and . . .
They are both stealing our money . . .
Second bad outing in a row for the fucking lefty reliever.
Buster!
That was a long time comin’…
Bout time. He still ahs a few to hit to catch Gorkys
I’d still like to know where I can get the stylish SF Giant crucifix armband that Cutch wears…
Longo Dong.
Bam!!!
Damn!!
That should make the angle of the dangle chart.
Those fucking errors sure come back to bite.
Hopefully their version of Oshit and Okrap. Oburf…..
Opp-Oaf
Need some redemption Specs.
Close . . .
At least we have a game now. Anything and everything can happen in Nepal.
I think I’ve seen every single one of these that he’s done (since I started following him last August). He has a moment of clarity in this one, it’s kinda sad
lot of bombs tonite like to see SF get one with some guys on.
Worthless…
Fuck me silly is a pretty good line.
And it applies to Mc Cutcheon. Fucking Actionless is going to pass him up soon.
Shit, he already did. .247 to .236.
I had little expectation for Jackson. I had a lot more for Cutch. He is a huge disappointment.
He looks awful and out of place – like he wishes he never left Pittsburgh…
40 bombs already tonite half dozen games still going.
Sure could have used one from Cutch there. Maybe someone should remind him this is contract year.