Month: November 2016

That thrust Nicolas Laprovittola into the starting lineup as well as Dewayne Dedmon

Popovich described Dedmon as ¡°the star of the show for all four quarters with basic, solid, discipline basketball he played on the board and blocking shots that allowed us to stay in it.¡± Dedmon finished with six points and three blocks, while Mills scored 15 of his game-high 23 points in the fourth quarter.

Youth Derrick Rose Jersey Kawhi Leonard, left, and Patty Mills combined for 24 points in Wednesday’s fourth quarter, when the Spurs overtook the Mavericks in a 94-87 victory.

¡°He is playing great,¡± shooting guard Danny Green said. ¡°He has always played great for us, though. Hopefully he continues to play that well throughout the whole year because we are going to need that from him.¡±
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Leonard, meanwhile, knocked down just 5 of 16 shots for 21 points, inflicting the majority of his damage in the second half.

Both Celtics coach Brad Stevens and Boston big man Al Horford showered Detroit with praise for the way its offense was clicking. Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy called it Detroit’s “best offensive performance of the year,” and the Pistons — 1-8 on the road before Tuesday night — reveled in beating playoff-caliber foes on consecutive nights.

The loss spoiled another brilliant offensive outing for Isaiah Thomas, who scored a game-high 27 points for the Celtics. His most impressive moment might have been the one make that didn’t count.

The Pistons’ degree of difficulty was notably lower on most shots but that didn’t stop them from coming up with big makes every time the Celtics tried to generate some momentum.

“You have to give them credit because they hit some tough, tough shots,” Horford said. “I feel like our guys were there. The way they were shooting, there was just no room for error. We have to look at the film tonight and just see how we can be better and we can impact those shots because they had their way with us from the beginning. They just did.”

The only other area on the box score that left Stevens uncomfortable was seeing only five shots attempts for Horford, who hadn’t attempted fewer than eight in a game this season. Only 15 times in his 585-game career had Horford attempted five or fewer field goals when playing 30-plus minutes.

The Los Angeles market is attractive to both teams because of its size and built-in fan base

The Raiders have been working with the city of Oakland for over six years on their own proposal. With no public funding available, the possibilities in the East Bay are slim, at best.

The Los Angeles market is attractive to both teams because of its size George Fant Authentic Womens Jersey and built-in fan base. The Raiders called Los Angeles home as recently as 1994 while the Chargers began their existence in the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1960.

The NFL will be involved in any relocation process, no matter what teams or locations are involved. The league expects any franchise wishing to move to make a considerable attempt to build in its own market. The addition of the latest plan coupled with St. Louis Rams owner Stan Kroenke’s move to build an 80,000-seat venue in nearby Inglewood is making the NFL’s return to Los Angeles seem imminent:

Exec VP Eric Grubman on LA: “Two potentially viable projects pushing ahead increases the probability that something could get done.” Huge.

More from exec VP Eric Grubman on http://t.co/iLSuC0pR8d. Key point: “This is a potentially positive development with lots more work to do.”

However, the Jets also hold the sixth overall pick in the NFL Draft this April. The quarterback class is relatively weak, but there are two signal callers at the top projected to go early in Jameis Winston of Florida State and Marcus Mariota of Oregon. While many believe Winston will go to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with the top selection, there is debate on Mariota’s landing spot.

The GM revealed to the media during Wednesday’s press conference that the team will meet Germain Ifedi Authentic Womens Jersey with both Winston and Mariota at the combine, per Walder, and said they might select a quarterback with their first-round pick. If Maccagnan believes Mariota is the right fit, he could either hope the Heisman winner falls to No. 6 or make a minor move up to ensure the acquisition.

The Jets could also roll the dice in the second or third round and take a flier on Bryce Petty or Brett Hundley, much like former GM John Idzik did on Smith in 2013. In any case, it would appear Smith has a chance to win a camp battle.

The Red Wings’ offense still hasn’t found a groove, but next week’s four-game schedule should help

For those new to the Forecaster chart, here are some explanations: “O” (offense) and “D” (defense) matchup ratings are based upon a scale from 1 (poor matchup) to 10 (excellent matchup) and are calculated using a formula that evaluates the team’s season-to-date statistics, their performance in home/road games depending on where the game is to be played, as well as their opponents’ numbers in those Matt Moore Authentic Womens Jersey categories. The “Ratings” column lists the cumulative rating from 1-10 of that week’s offensive (“O”) and defensive (“D”) matchups.

Anaheim Ducks: We swear we are going to buy a billboard soon. Rickard Rakell needs to be owned everywhere. He’s back on the top line with Getzlaf and Corey Perry and scoring enough to make up for his lost time at the start of the season. Rakell has goals in three straight and has 11 points in 11 games this season. After a date with Carey Price to start the week, the Ducks travel through western Canada to pick on the defenses of the Canucks, Edmonton Oilers and Flames. Will Rakell still be on a goal streak after next week? If he can slip one by Price, we like the odds.

Detroit Red Wings: The Red Wings’ offense still hasn’t found a groove, but next week’s four-game schedule should help. The Stars, Islanders and — if they happen to catch Marc-Andre Fleury in a back-to-back set — Pittsburgh Penguins are all bottom-10 defenses for goals allowed per game. Henrik Zetterberg is being flanked by Anthony Mantha and Justin Abdelkader at the moment and his two wingers lead the team in shots this past week. But how about checking out defenseman Ryan Sproul? The rookie blueliner has five points in nine games including three on the man advantage.

If you’ve been on the fence about using the Flames’ new starting goaltender Chad Johnson, it may be now or never. Depending on how the back-to-back set is divided up this weekend, Johnson could end up starting four games next week. If he does well, you’ll probably be too late to scoop him up by the end of next week. If he does poorly, then the Flames will be looking for another answer or hoping Brian Elliott can quickly find his form.

Cam Ward’s numbers have improved, as expected given the performance of the team in front of him Michael Thomas Authentic Womens Jersey with the puck. But next week is ugly with the Rangers twice, the Boston Bruins and the Lightning. If you have another option, consider it.

Red Sox hope to win from losing

When Mookie Betts made his postseason debut last month, he did something in his very first at-bat that he hadn’t done in his final 78 regular-season plate appearances.

He struck out.

Baseball’s version of a solar Stephen Curry Authentic Jersey eclipse occurred Oct. 6, in the first inning of Game 1 of the Boston Red Sox’s ill-fated Division Series against the Cleveland Indians. Betts swung through back-to-back-to-back fastballs from Indians starter Trevor Bauer, only the 15th time in 731 plate appearances that he whiffed on three successive pitches.

Red Sox manager John Farrell reasonably chalked it up to nerves. And Betts wasn’t the only Red Sox player to come down with a case of good, old-fashioned playoff jitters. Fellow postseason first-timer Jackie Bradley Jr., a center fielder known for his booming arm with bull’s-eye accuracy, pulled two home-plate-bound throws up the first-base line.

“Now we know what to expect [in the postseason],” Betts Ted Ginn Jr Authentic Jersey said. “It’s going to be really important for the years going forward. We’ll know what to expect and how to handle adversity and how to go about the games and whatnot. It’s going to be definitely a positive.”

Said Bogaerts: “It was a great experience. A lot of pressure, but we have to learn how to control it, how to think in that moment. Just not overthinking a lot of stuff, trying to be in the moment and being focused.”

The Red Sox wouldn’t be the first team to learn how to win by losing.

Last year, the Chicago Cubs were humbled in a National League Championship Series sweep against the New York Mets in which young sluggers Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, Javier Baez and Kyle Schwarber combined to go 9-for-52 with 16 strikeouts. And Red Sox fans need not be reminded of the Aaron (Bleeping) Boone gut punch in 2003 that preceded the Curse-busting World Series exhilaration a year later.

But the comparison the Red Sox hope to follow is the Philadelphia Phillies’ recent run. Like the Sox, those Phillies were built around a strong core of position players. In 2007, in their first exposure to the playoffs, Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins and Shane Victorino went 9-for-43 with 16 strikeouts while getting swept in the NLDS by the Colorado Rockies.

That’s not to say Winston’s lower completion percentage is all his receivers’ fault

On the surface, Mariota’s basic passing statistics are superior to Winston’s. Mariota has a higher completion percentage, averages more yards per attempt and has a better touchdown-to-interception Vince Wilfork Authentic Womens Jersey ratio than Winston. But that doesn’t tell the full story. ESPN Stats & Info takes a look at the tale of the tape to see how both quarterbacks stack up statistically through Year 2 so far:

In his career, Winston has been pressured on 32.8 percent of his dropbacks, the sixth-highest rate in the league during that span. The league average is 27 percent. Mariota checks in just below that at 25.6 percent, which ranks him 24th out of 38 qualified quarterbacks.

“There’s something about the silver and black that Mexicans just love,” said Roberto De La Vega, 42, another fully outfitted Raiders fan. “They’re a team that is sort of magical.”

They call the Raiders, proudly, Los Malos. (The Bad Guys.)

And their fans were everywhere this weekend.

When a group of teenagers posed for quincea?era photos in front of the famous statue for the Angel of Independence, about a hundred fans took over the shot and began a “Raiders!” chant. When they heard the team would touch down at 6 p.m. on Sunday, they migrated to the Hyatt Regency to salute their arrival. When Hall of Famer Tim Brown was scheduled to sign autographs, they lined up early. And when an NFL Whitney Mercilus Authentic Womens Jersey official told them the session was still seven hours away, and that they should find something to do in the meantime, they basically said, “We’re good.”

This wasn’t just the first Monday Night Football game outside the U.S. These were two first-place clubs, making up the highest combined winning percentage for an international NFL game. This was a team nearby against a team with a giant local following, playing on a national holiday that observes a Mexican revolution. This was in the city with the largest population in the Western hemisphere.

The question looming over everything DeRozan does is whether he can sustain it

If DeRozan averaged 34 points across nine games in February, we’d note his hot shooting streak, but do little more than that. Since he started the year like this, though, it’s impossible not to wonder if he can carry on.

Nine games is a small sample size, and much too Rudy Gobert Authentic Womens Jersey small to predict another 73 games’ worth of results. DeRozan’s mid-range percentages are almost guaranteed to fall — 55 percent is just too high for that 8-to-24-foot range. Kevin Durant led the league from that area last year with a 49 percent mark on several fewer attempts than DeRozan is taking this year.

The Clippers are holding opponents to a league-best 40.9 percent shooting, a lesser Trey Burke Authentic Womens Jersey percentage than what Jordan shoots from the foul line (45.5 percent). That’s because DJ is one of the NBA’s best rim protectors.

Players attacking the rim while Jordan is manning the middle have made only 32-of-79 shots (40.5 percent), and his 20 blocks on the season are good for fifth-best in the NBA. That inside presence allows the Clippers to aggressively defend the perimeter, limiting opponents to just 22.6 three-point attempts per game, fourth-fewest in the NBA.

Defense leading to offense
“The defense is so good right now our offense is allowed easy baskets,” coach Doc Rivers said. “They’re angry when the other team scores.”

Los Angeles’ two-pronged defense makes it the second-best team in transition, behind Trey Lyles Authentic Womens Jersey only the Warriors in points per fast break play (1.25). The Clippers have six players shooting 50 percent or better in transition, and they’re even deadlier when they get into their halfcourt offense.

“In this sense, he was talking about five black men and their situation. Do I think he meant it any kind of way? I really don’t know. I don’t think he did. I would hope that he didn’t.”

Fantasy football cheat sheet: Start, sit and more tips for Week 11

Thursday night brought us a wild game between the Carolina Panthers and New Orleans Saints, and hopefully your fantasy team isn’t in total shambles heading into the weekend. For whatever reason, that Rob Sims Authentic Womens Jersey was a game that put a lot of people on tilt, and my phone can attest to that with a number of passionate text messages.

That’s OK, though. It’s just one game, and there’s a long way to go this week. Plus, if there was ever a week to be mentally strong, this is the one, as several of the most favorable matchups in Week 11 require you to believe in players who may have burned you several times in the past.

Despite four teams being on a bye in Week 11, there’s still a multitude of options to win your DFS contests this week. Here are the top values.

“When I’m running, I tend to see a lot,” he said. “There are a lot of running backs who see the first level, the D-linemen, and they can’t really see the second level [the linebackers]. Or they can see the first and second level but can’t see the third level. I feel I’m a guy who can see all three [linemen, linebackers and safeties].”

That’s how the chess game begins. Bell says he lets the offensive linemen handle the defensive line, and he tries to set up the linebackers or safeties with his eyes. If he’s running inside zone, he wants the linebacker to think he’s going outside or to a different hole.

“I never feel like I’m in a rush,” Bell said. “I’m controlling the pace. If I have the ball and hit the hole right now and get 3 yards, I feel like I can be patient, work for something, knowing I can still get the 3. It’s something that’s hard Ryan Broyles Authentic Womens Jersey to be coached on. I just feel I’ve perfected it over time.”

Bell has noticed linebackers trying to “mimic me” as if they know what he’s doing. But Bell said that’s the best time to trust his linemen. He tells them to block square to the ball, no angles, and he’ll do the rest.

There’s a good-teammate benefit to patient running, too. He’s never running into the backs of his linemen.

“Offensive linemen hate that,” Bell said.

Overall, Bell believes his patient personality away from the field translates to Sundays. He doesn’t overreact when his puppies make a mess of his house at home, and he won’t during a carry, either.

“That’s just who I am,” he said.

Jimmy Butler and his football are bringing the Bulls back together

Jimmy Butler has a companion with him on the road this season.

Since the Rio de Janeiro Olympics this summer, the Chicago Bulls All-Star swingman has packed a football with him on trips. The football, given to him by Pittsburgh Steelers All-Pro Antonio Brown, has made appearances in NBA arenas and practice facilities all across the country and is sure to be seen on the Bulls’ current six-game road trip, which Authentic Bilal Powell Jersey starts in Portland on Tuesday night and ends in Philadelphia on Nov. 25. For a team that struggled with unity last season, the football has become a symbol of what the Bulls hope will be a more cohesive group this season.

Butler, who also has a close friendship with Denver Broncos star wide receiver Demaryius Thomas, has built up his ideal football roster from within his Bulls squad. He believes Isaiah Canaan could be a “stocky corner” and he likes the arm Hoiberg has shown, but his starting point guard has made the biggest impression on Butler to date.

“I will say I think [Rajon] Rondo has the best arm Authentic Brandon Marshall Jersey on the team,” Butler said. “I got the best hands, by far. So me and Rondo got to work on my snowbirding and his leak out. So, it’s fun.”

Like Butler, Rondo — who played quarterback at Eastern High School in Louisville, Kentucky — believes he can play on the gridiron.

“If we play flag football, I’m definitely starting at quarterback,” Rondo said.

In trying to mature as a leader this season, Butler is helping his team grow closer with a simple gesture. His friends also have more belief in Butler’s football game than he does.

“I think he’s got what it takes to be a receiver,” Brown said. “I don’t know if he’s willing to get hit a lot. But he loves the game of football. He could do it if he wants.”

So you’ll have to excuse the veteran forward and many Bulls staffers if they couldn’t quite believe what they witnessed Tuesday night. It wasn’t just that the Bulls destroyed the Blazers from beginning to end, a 113-88 domination, it was the ease with which it occurred.

The fact that the Bulls were the ones setting the tone against a team that has owned them in this venue over the seasons was made even more impressive by the fact that Fred Hoiberg’s team was playing without Rajon Rondo (left ankle), Doug McDermott (concussion protocol) and Michael Carter-Williams (knee/wrist). The Bulls out-hustled the Blazers throughout the night and were able to continue riding the hot hand of Jimmy Butler.

The Knicks have won a combined 49 games over the past two seasons

Jackson, who is in his third full season with the Knicks, reiterated that he hasn’t thought about potentially opting out of his contract after this season.

“I have not entertained that,” he said. “I’m looking for this Knicks team to get back into a situation where they are competitive. Do I have to win a championship before I feel I’ve done the job I’ve been asked to do, which is to bring this group back to that competitive level? No, I don’t. We’re starting to make progress. I like a lot of the things we are doing here. But we’ve got more to do.”

“They’re moving forward in the right direction. [First-year coach] Luke [Walton] has them engaged, Brian [Shaw] is an associate head Matt Ryan Authentic Womens Jersey coach; they have a core group of guys that will get it done. It was never important to me to go back and be a part of that,” Jackson said. “Especially not now. I have this job, this commitment.”

The Jackson-to-the-Lakers speculation is fueled by his ties to the organization. Jeanie Buss, Los Angeles’ team president and part-owner, is Jackson’s fiancée. He also coached the Lakers for 11 seasons, winning five championships. It’s also possible that the Lakers may have a vacancy in the front office after the season.

“If [a lockout] was going to happen Matt Schaub Authentic Womens Jersey in December and everybody chose to walk away, there was no way I was going to sit in New York for three, four months when I didn’t have a job, because [the players] aren’t even allowed to show up to work,” Jackson said. “So, in that case, I would go back to L.A.”

Fans have a new hero. The players have a new leader. His name: Dak Prescott.

“Seasons are fleeting. Games become more precious. Chances for success diminish,” Romo said. “Your potential successor has arrived. Injured two years in a row now in your mid-30s. The press is whispering. Everyone has doubts. You spent your career working to get here. Now, we have to start all over.

“You almost feel like an outsider. Coaches are sympathetic but they still have to coach and you’re not there.

“It’s a dark place, probably the darkest it’s ever been.”

Romo spoke nearly five minutes and did not take questions. He never said the word “backup” but made it clear he has a new role — and it’s one he’s willing to accept.

Dawg (almost) bites man: Inside an enduring image from Georgia-Auburn rivalry

Nobody can say for sure whether the dog was acting out of playfulness or malice, but Auburn receiver Robert Baker was nearly bitten all the same 20 years ago when he encountered Georgia’s bulldog mascot Uga V.

The memorable 1996 meeting between Georgia and Auburn featured plenty of history. It was the 100th playing of the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry — a series that continues Saturday at Sanford Stadium — and it became the SEC’s first overtime game, with Brad Marchand Youth Jersey Georgia winning 56-49 after four extra periods. But two decades later, the game is perhaps best known for the moment where Uga stood his ground against the encroaching Tiger.

“The noise [from the crowd after Baker’s first-quarter touchdown catch] scared the dog and startled it,” said Uga’s sideline handler Charles Seiler, whose family has long owned the line of bulldog mascots. “Bulldogs are kind of bred to run and catch things, and in a playful way, I think the dog turned around and there was this big guy coming his way and so he lunged out at him. It was a good thing that I had the leash and that the leash was short or Uga would have lit him up.”

Eddie McDoom has become a Michigan fan favorite nine games into his career with the third-ranked Wolverines. The true freshman has whittled out a slowly expanding role for himself as the team’s jet sweep specialist from his spot at wide receiver. He’s won the attention of the Big House crowd thanks in equal part to his ability to leave defenders and the dust and, of course, a name made for football.

It didn’t take him long to figure out what they were yelling the first time he sped up the sideline for 19 yards in his college debut against Hawaii.

“I was just like, well, that’s pretty sick,” he said.

Morris McDoom was born in Jamaica and moved to Brandon Carlo Youth Jersey Florida shortly after his 18th birthday. He’s not exactly sure of the genealogy that produced his surname. He imagines that the Irish and English who came to the Caribbean had some influence on the spelling, which can be found on many islands in the area and in parts of South America’s northeast corner. One theory posits that the name is an anglicized version of a village in Guyana.

Belinda tried to research its meaning many years ago when she married into the family. But the best she could come up with was to laugh and say it just meant she was Doomed for life once their wedding made it official.

What matters more now for Michigan football, and perhaps the College Football Playoff race, is not where McDoom came from but where he is headed. And how fast he’ll get there.