Three quarters of two bad teams fighting over who could give the other the win, and one quarter of one good team getting hot and dissecting a bad one = win for the team that played the good quarter. And we are off the schneid.
It has come to my attention that my first attempted apology (Jane Austen) to men in general for my thread featuring pictures of Greg Ostertag posing sexy may not have had its desired effect. Despite clearly functioning as a road map to not only understanding women, but to being able to fake a decent knowledge of one of the great staples of female readership and hence convince MOS's of your sensitivity, there appears to have been some resistance to said thread by the hardest core of hardcore neandrathals. Well, guess you can lead a horse to water....
In any case, therefore, as partial apology for my first attempted apology for posting sexy pictures of Greg Ostertag for the ladies, I hereby offer up: Great Movie Badasses
(and upon further review of my list, and in view of the back to back, I think I may milk this one for two topics -- tongiht Great Movie Badasses (career), and tommorow Great Movie Badasses (single movie). At which point I shall have tilted the playing field back the other way and will be promptly obligated to do a thread on Chick Flicks or Bath Oil.
Artest ( C ) -- Might be the easiest grade of the first three, simply because Ron was one fo the few Kings tongiht who did not deserve two grades -- one for his play in quarters 1,2 and 4, and one for his play in the third. For Ron it was just a game of near irrelevance. Certainly on offense he did not matter at all. He was guarded well, but mostly he was just not needed with Brad hyped up and playing out of control. And so he rarely touched it, and rarely did anything with it when he did. Now on the other end, not so much. This was Ron Artest vs. Andre Igoudala (mostly), and not terribly surprisingly, the defense won on both sides. Ron did not completely dominate Iggy, but you don't have to -- Iggy is not a great offensive player. He did however bother him, and that's all it took to hold him to a mediocre 15pt night. Ron was surprisingly taken to task by Iggy in the first quarter, but did hit the buzzer beating three at the end fo the first to draw us back into it -- really his only offensive highlight. But thereafter he locked into Iggy and shut him down, and occcasionally harassed Demi Moore's boy toy as well. Gave a little help on the glass, but overall really was not terribly important this time out. Not terrible, but just a roleplayer.
Matt Damon -- Matt almost did not make this list, because he's really only played the one badass character, whereas most of these other guys are careerists. But Jason Bourne is a true badass, and there have been three movies now, so I decided it qualified. Bourne is pretty much a badass at everything he does, but of course its his abilitry to kick the crud out of guys in close that is the most fun (using an ancient Filipino martial artst style called Kali). In fact Bourne is such a badass that even though he's lost his memory and doesn't really know who he is, or often who you are, he'll go ahead and kick your *** anyway just on the off chance you deserve it. Now that's a badass.
Moore ( A ) -- This was maybe right here, the ultimate Mikki Moore game. Set up again and again by teammates for point blank dunks, follows, alley oops, stupid screams every time he manages to walk and chew gum at the same time, you know the drill by now, but this was Mikki Moore purified. Had a huge third quarter just running to the rim and recieving pass after pass, getting offensive rebound after offensive rebound (well, three at least). Did not rebound otherwise (5 on the night), only created one shot for himself the whole night (dropped one nice hook on Dalembert), but played kind of the ultimate roleplaying game for us. What he did requires not much talent besides knowing where to be on the court, but just by doing that he had a major impact on the game with 24pts on 10-11 shooting (and 9 of the 10 may have been dunks). Its why despite his limited skills, Mikki continues to have a role in this league whereas guys like Kenny Thomas or Reef cannot smoothly integrate into a system where they are not featured. Mikki did not make the game happen -- Brad did. But he was there again and again all night long whenever Brad or Beno or Cisco or whoever created something -- Mikki was the finisher, and the Sixers frontline looked helpless to stop it. I wanted to separate this grade from Brad's, but will do so only through these notes -- this is Mikki Moore here, and you may never see this sort of game from him again. Giving him less than an A for it would be kind of silly, even if he was not the best King on the floor tonight.
Clint Eastwood -- one of the all time great badasses. Seriously -- how many people has this guy shot on celluoid? Spaghetti Westerns, Dirty Harry, Josie Wales, Pale Rider, through Unforgiven...you see that squint, you'd best duck. Maybe my favorite singular moment was in Unforgiven, when after spending the whole dark introspective movie trying to reform himself and be a God fearing man, the bad guys finally ticked him off to the point where he just said screw it, got drunk, walked into the local saloon, and gunned down everything that moved before sitting down to have a drink. Then hops on his horse and rides off in the rain bellowing out to the whole town (the ones he hasn't already shot) that he'd kill anybody else who got in his way or disrespected his friend's corpse. Now that's a badass.
Miller ( A ) -- you know, in the early going this did not look like much. The lane was completely open with Brad back there in the first, and if you had asked me at the end of the half how he had played I would have shrugged. Hit some open jumpers, you know the rest. And yet you looked at the numbers and he was 5-6 from the field for 12pts 5rebs. Were the numbers deceptive? Or the perception defective? I do not know. But in either case he completely carved up the Sixers in amonster third quarter and completely resolved any gap between statistics and performance. This game was freakish -- we won our first road game, but you read it here first -- you will never see this frontcourt pairing domainatre a game like this again. Brad went for 25pts 10rebs 6ast on 9-12 shooting. Mikki 24pts 5rebs 1ast on 10-11 shooting. That was 49 points on 19-23 shooting combined, for one of the weakest frontcourts in the league (both in fact, and statistically). It was amazing. And Brad was the real engine. He seemed to hit every shot he took, and while he made a couple of bad passes, he just carved the Sixers up in the third with his passing. Dalembert can't play that style, Evans sucked, and their kid, Jason Smith, looked clueless. Throw int he fact that Mo Cheeks cannot coach and has not gotten the memo that Brad is best guarded by a SF, and there was no hope for the Sixers. You would call this a throwback game for Brad, except there has been no time in his career when 25pt 10reb 6ast games on 9-12 shooting were at all common. Just a great game by him, and finally delivered to us a road win.
Arnold Schwartzenegger -- I mean, just look at that picture (even if all the roids have made, er, certain parts of his physique not at all badass). Cartoonish? Sure. But still one of the most famous movie badasses of all time. Starting with Conan the Barbarian and Terminator, and running through movie after movie for 15 years (aside from that one unfortunate Arnie gets pregnant movie which I really should have used in my Movies They Regret Theme), he kicked ***, took names, dropped silly quips, and rarely had time for any of those silly girl thingies. He was every 11 yr old's dream badass. Might have peaked his badassness in the early film Commando, when he was such a badass that not only did he singlehandedly take out hundreds of automatic weapon toting guards while using bullet proof rosebushes for cover, but he gets shot in the shoulder, barely winces, rams a pole through his opponent's gut, and a few minutes later hoists his 10yr old daughter up onto the same shoulder and carries her out with a smile on his face. Now that's badass.
Salmons ( B ) -- had a good but not great first half -- missed a lot of shots, but was aggressive and only sporadically impeded. Finsihed with 11 points, and was a solid presence. But ironically played his weakest while we played our best. Let Willie Green get a little out of his control in the third, and at a time when everybody else was swinging the ball, insisted on a nmumber of selfish one on one drives, many of which ended up as turnovers. Came back to redeem himself a bit late, as as we were struggling he hit a three and made a layup to help us hold the lead against the sputtering Sixers.
Bruce Lee -- this is almost an "any questions?"? badass here. I mean, how many thousands of people does one man have tro beat down with nothing but his fists and some cheesy sound effects before he gets labeled a badass? I mean, admittedly they all stupidly came at him one on one. And admittedly somebody at some point should really have just broken out a gun and ended the silliness, but really...this badass beat up Kareem Adbul-Jabbar! Ok, maybe that one was not so impressive, but how about this: Bruce Lee is the only being in existence to ever confront fellow badass Chuck Norris, and live to tell about it. Now that's badass.
It has come to my attention that my first attempted apology (Jane Austen) to men in general for my thread featuring pictures of Greg Ostertag posing sexy may not have had its desired effect. Despite clearly functioning as a road map to not only understanding women, but to being able to fake a decent knowledge of one of the great staples of female readership and hence convince MOS's of your sensitivity, there appears to have been some resistance to said thread by the hardest core of hardcore neandrathals. Well, guess you can lead a horse to water....
In any case, therefore, as partial apology for my first attempted apology for posting sexy pictures of Greg Ostertag for the ladies, I hereby offer up: Great Movie Badasses
(and upon further review of my list, and in view of the back to back, I think I may milk this one for two topics -- tongiht Great Movie Badasses (career), and tommorow Great Movie Badasses (single movie). At which point I shall have tilted the playing field back the other way and will be promptly obligated to do a thread on Chick Flicks or Bath Oil.
Artest ( C ) -- Might be the easiest grade of the first three, simply because Ron was one fo the few Kings tongiht who did not deserve two grades -- one for his play in quarters 1,2 and 4, and one for his play in the third. For Ron it was just a game of near irrelevance. Certainly on offense he did not matter at all. He was guarded well, but mostly he was just not needed with Brad hyped up and playing out of control. And so he rarely touched it, and rarely did anything with it when he did. Now on the other end, not so much. This was Ron Artest vs. Andre Igoudala (mostly), and not terribly surprisingly, the defense won on both sides. Ron did not completely dominate Iggy, but you don't have to -- Iggy is not a great offensive player. He did however bother him, and that's all it took to hold him to a mediocre 15pt night. Ron was surprisingly taken to task by Iggy in the first quarter, but did hit the buzzer beating three at the end fo the first to draw us back into it -- really his only offensive highlight. But thereafter he locked into Iggy and shut him down, and occcasionally harassed Demi Moore's boy toy as well. Gave a little help on the glass, but overall really was not terribly important this time out. Not terrible, but just a roleplayer.
Matt Damon -- Matt almost did not make this list, because he's really only played the one badass character, whereas most of these other guys are careerists. But Jason Bourne is a true badass, and there have been three movies now, so I decided it qualified. Bourne is pretty much a badass at everything he does, but of course its his abilitry to kick the crud out of guys in close that is the most fun (using an ancient Filipino martial artst style called Kali). In fact Bourne is such a badass that even though he's lost his memory and doesn't really know who he is, or often who you are, he'll go ahead and kick your *** anyway just on the off chance you deserve it. Now that's a badass.
Moore ( A ) -- This was maybe right here, the ultimate Mikki Moore game. Set up again and again by teammates for point blank dunks, follows, alley oops, stupid screams every time he manages to walk and chew gum at the same time, you know the drill by now, but this was Mikki Moore purified. Had a huge third quarter just running to the rim and recieving pass after pass, getting offensive rebound after offensive rebound (well, three at least). Did not rebound otherwise (5 on the night), only created one shot for himself the whole night (dropped one nice hook on Dalembert), but played kind of the ultimate roleplaying game for us. What he did requires not much talent besides knowing where to be on the court, but just by doing that he had a major impact on the game with 24pts on 10-11 shooting (and 9 of the 10 may have been dunks). Its why despite his limited skills, Mikki continues to have a role in this league whereas guys like Kenny Thomas or Reef cannot smoothly integrate into a system where they are not featured. Mikki did not make the game happen -- Brad did. But he was there again and again all night long whenever Brad or Beno or Cisco or whoever created something -- Mikki was the finisher, and the Sixers frontline looked helpless to stop it. I wanted to separate this grade from Brad's, but will do so only through these notes -- this is Mikki Moore here, and you may never see this sort of game from him again. Giving him less than an A for it would be kind of silly, even if he was not the best King on the floor tonight.
Clint Eastwood -- one of the all time great badasses. Seriously -- how many people has this guy shot on celluoid? Spaghetti Westerns, Dirty Harry, Josie Wales, Pale Rider, through Unforgiven...you see that squint, you'd best duck. Maybe my favorite singular moment was in Unforgiven, when after spending the whole dark introspective movie trying to reform himself and be a God fearing man, the bad guys finally ticked him off to the point where he just said screw it, got drunk, walked into the local saloon, and gunned down everything that moved before sitting down to have a drink. Then hops on his horse and rides off in the rain bellowing out to the whole town (the ones he hasn't already shot) that he'd kill anybody else who got in his way or disrespected his friend's corpse. Now that's a badass.
Miller ( A ) -- you know, in the early going this did not look like much. The lane was completely open with Brad back there in the first, and if you had asked me at the end of the half how he had played I would have shrugged. Hit some open jumpers, you know the rest. And yet you looked at the numbers and he was 5-6 from the field for 12pts 5rebs. Were the numbers deceptive? Or the perception defective? I do not know. But in either case he completely carved up the Sixers in amonster third quarter and completely resolved any gap between statistics and performance. This game was freakish -- we won our first road game, but you read it here first -- you will never see this frontcourt pairing domainatre a game like this again. Brad went for 25pts 10rebs 6ast on 9-12 shooting. Mikki 24pts 5rebs 1ast on 10-11 shooting. That was 49 points on 19-23 shooting combined, for one of the weakest frontcourts in the league (both in fact, and statistically). It was amazing. And Brad was the real engine. He seemed to hit every shot he took, and while he made a couple of bad passes, he just carved the Sixers up in the third with his passing. Dalembert can't play that style, Evans sucked, and their kid, Jason Smith, looked clueless. Throw int he fact that Mo Cheeks cannot coach and has not gotten the memo that Brad is best guarded by a SF, and there was no hope for the Sixers. You would call this a throwback game for Brad, except there has been no time in his career when 25pt 10reb 6ast games on 9-12 shooting were at all common. Just a great game by him, and finally delivered to us a road win.
Arnold Schwartzenegger -- I mean, just look at that picture (even if all the roids have made, er, certain parts of his physique not at all badass). Cartoonish? Sure. But still one of the most famous movie badasses of all time. Starting with Conan the Barbarian and Terminator, and running through movie after movie for 15 years (aside from that one unfortunate Arnie gets pregnant movie which I really should have used in my Movies They Regret Theme), he kicked ***, took names, dropped silly quips, and rarely had time for any of those silly girl thingies. He was every 11 yr old's dream badass. Might have peaked his badassness in the early film Commando, when he was such a badass that not only did he singlehandedly take out hundreds of automatic weapon toting guards while using bullet proof rosebushes for cover, but he gets shot in the shoulder, barely winces, rams a pole through his opponent's gut, and a few minutes later hoists his 10yr old daughter up onto the same shoulder and carries her out with a smile on his face. Now that's badass.
Salmons ( B ) -- had a good but not great first half -- missed a lot of shots, but was aggressive and only sporadically impeded. Finsihed with 11 points, and was a solid presence. But ironically played his weakest while we played our best. Let Willie Green get a little out of his control in the third, and at a time when everybody else was swinging the ball, insisted on a nmumber of selfish one on one drives, many of which ended up as turnovers. Came back to redeem himself a bit late, as as we were struggling he hit a three and made a layup to help us hold the lead against the sputtering Sixers.
Bruce Lee -- this is almost an "any questions?"? badass here. I mean, how many thousands of people does one man have tro beat down with nothing but his fists and some cheesy sound effects before he gets labeled a badass? I mean, admittedly they all stupidly came at him one on one. And admittedly somebody at some point should really have just broken out a gun and ended the silliness, but really...this badass beat up Kareem Adbul-Jabbar! Ok, maybe that one was not so impressive, but how about this: Bruce Lee is the only being in existence to ever confront fellow badass Chuck Norris, and live to tell about it. Now that's badass.
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