NBA on Foxtel/Aussie TV 2012/2013

[Andrew]

Good news.

[koberulz]

Coverage kicks off Thursday, November 1 at 11AM EDST, with San Antonio vs New Orleans, followed by a double-header on November 3 featuring Miami vs New York and LA vs LA.

[Andrew]

Decent match-ups for the doubleheader. Not the best game to tip off the season with but could be worse, a top veteran team going up against the number one pick.

[koberulz]

League Pass has a free trial from five days ago, which they only just bothered to email me about, until November 7, but will automatically charge your card on November 8 instead of canceling like they did last year. Also, you apparently need a three-digit area code in your phone number, which makes no sense.

[koberulz]

Not the best game to tip off the season with

It's turning out pretty well, really.

[Andrew]

That it did, it turned out to be quite a fun and competitive game. Looking forward to the doubleheader tomorrow.

[Andrew]

Nets vs Heat tomorrow, Jazz vs Nuggets on Saturday.

[Phil89]

Ugh, Heat commentators...

"Laabraaan"

[koberulz]

I'm not sure which is worse, calling threes 'kabooms' or suggesting that the Nets have been horrendously inconvenienced by Sandy because they had to practise at their new venue instead of their practise facility.

[Andrew]

Not a whole lot of variety so far as we've seen the same teams quite a bit, while featuring the same team in both of the week's games is becoming something of a trend. That said, at least they're teams worth watching, with some good matchups producing some good games thus far.

[koberulz]

Yeah, three OKC games and two Memphis games in two weeks is a bit over the top.

EDIT: And two Boston games in the next week. WTF, ESPN?

[Andrew]

Probably seemed like a good idea after the Celtics rebounded last year and were one of the top teams in the East, going so far as the Conference Finals.

[Phil89]

Really annoying having local commentators instead of the ESPN/TNT guys. I'd rather enjoy the game than listen to them complaining that their team is not getting calls.

[Andrew]

I don't mind it sometimes. The Heat's SUN Sports crew are actually quite fair-minded, to name a positive example. It can get a bit grating with other local broadcast teams, though.

[koberulz]

So not only are they shoving the same team down our throats constantly, they're going out of their way to do so rather than picking one of the two ESPN games in the US, and forcing us to put up with Tommy Heinsohn in the process.

I'd go back to just watching the NBL, but that has Brendan Joyce doing commentary for games in which Daniel Joyce is playing. Which worked out about as well as you'd expect.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I've had enough of Tommy for the moment. I'm missing the NBA on ESPN crew.

[Andrew]

Nuggets/Hawks on Thursday, Lakers/Thunder on Saturday.

[Andrew]

Next four games:

Thursday December 13th: Mavericks vs Celtics
Saturday December 15th: Grizzlies vs Nuggets
Thursday December 20th: Nets vs Knicks
Saturday December 22nd: Bulls vs Knicks

[Andrew]

Doubleheader tomorrow, Heat @ Pacers followed by Lakers @ Timberwolves.

[Phil89]

Good win for the Pacers.

No Howard vs Love in the other game. Rubio is playing though. I haven't seen him play much due to the lack of Timberwolves games being broadcast.

[Andrew]

Timberwolves are making it interesting after getting blown out in the first half.

Also, looks like we've got another doubleheader next weekend.

[Phil89]

So for the second week in a row Bogut won't actually play in the game that ESPN has been using him to promote.

[Andrew]

Disappointing. Hopefully he can get healthy again one day.

[Dan's Brain]

Ah well, at least we got the Steph Curry show.

[Andrew]

We did indeed, it was well worth catching. As I said elsewhere, I was hoping that he'd break the record for threes in a game; he had a shot to do so at a higher percentage on top of everything else. It can't be said enough, for a regular season game that was a great one.

[Andrew]

Have to give credit where its due, they've been very good about giving us doubleheaders lately and the games have turned out to be pretty good ones to boot. Their coverage has certainly left something to be desired at times, but recently it's been very good in my opinion.

[koberulz]

Can't say I'm impressed with the first week of playoff coverage. The channel that spammed the fuck out of Bogut for no reason when he was playing on a completely boring team in completely irrelevant games then refuses to show any of his games in what will likely be one of the best first-round playoff matches? Who's running this?

No Clips-Griz either, and we're stuck with two Knicks-Celtics games (yawn)* and a Spurs-Lakers game (yawn). And even the Bulls-Nets game was over by half time.





*I'm writing this before I sit down to watch this morning's game, so this may sound stupid in hindsight, but even if it does you don't schedule the games after they're played, you schedule them before they're played, so it's still valid.

[Andrew]

With only 2-3 games per week during the first two rounds, their coverage does leave something to be desired, especially when it involves decisions like that. At least we get both Conference Finals series, I'll give them that.

[koberulz]

At this point I'd just be happy to see something resembling a basketball game. Surely that's not too much to ask?

[Andrew]

Game 4 of Bulls/Nets might've qualified. If they pick up any Nuggets/Warriors games, that'd be fantastic.

[Andrew]

Looks like we've got both Conference Finals series again this year.