what a fun night though. it's hard to imagine a scrawny, bald kid like nash could be a two time MVP. he got a standing ovation when he was introduced. the place was packed - 16,011 I believe. if that doesn't seem a lot to you the hockey games here in vancouver has a seating capacity of 18,000 so it was a great turnout. last time i went to the grizzlies game i believe there was roughly 13,000 people. but anyways, the teams were separated in two. in the east there was:
charlie villanueva
morris peterson
raymond felton
steven hunter
jamal crawford
denham brown
jason williams (the black one)
for the west,:
steve nash
michael finley (can't believe he was there
)
jackson vroman
nickolaz tskitishvili
felipe lopez
devin harris
there really was no clear cut winner. the final score was 177-164 for the west but they reset the scores to 0 in the beginning of the 4th because they wanted it to be more competitive (losers had to do 20 pushups, boo hoo.). the east won the 4th quarter session, but the west tallied more points if that makes any sense.
my analysis:
- i didn't keep track, but steve nash must've had at least 30 assists. watching him do shit with the ball was simply amazing. he didn't do much scoring in the first three quarters but he pretty much nailed 80% of the shots he threw up in the 4th quarter.
- charlie villanueva is a beast. enough said. i know colangelo is a mastermind but i really cannot fathom how they just let him go like that. the first quarter was his. spot up threes, pull up threes, fadeaways, windmills, alleyoops, you name it. please keep in mind this dude is 6'11, with handles and the shooting stroke of a guard. bucks fans are in for a real treat.
- jamal crawford didn't hog the ball which was a surprise. showed some nice crossovers.
- it was nice to see mo pete. he has a good stroke. must've hit at least 5 threes.
- i don't think i've seen anyone faster than raymond felton or devin harris. period. on TV, they're fast as shit. in person, they're even faster. i'm actually going to give the edge to harris on this one, this dude is an athletic freak with mad hops. he scored 22 points in the 2nd quarter, mostly on threes. he had a couple nice dunks too. felton, not to be outdone demonstrated his shooting stroke and ball handling abilities. in the 4th quarter he got trapped by three people but he managed to split it and fed villanueva for the dunk to put the game away.
- i can see why felipe lopez doesn't play in the nba anymore.
- vroman was a dunking machine tonight. haven't heard of him? neither have i until tonight. he can dunk though, that's pretty much it.
- tskitishvili is garbage. its really easy to hide your weaknesses in a pickup game where defense is not an option, but damn you could tell this guy just sucked. nonetheless, he probably had the highlight of the game. jason williams faked him out with some ball trick but subsequently got the ball poked away by skita. so there he was, on the breakaway. i don't know what the hell he was doing but i think he tried doing the michael jordan freethrow line dunk but he lost control of the ball midflight. lucky for him though, the ball still managed to bank off the glass. the crowd was laughing their asses off.
- it was amazing to see michael finley. i've been a big fan of him for years and to finally see him in person was unreal. he nailed an insane amount of threes and had a couple gentle throwdowns. you could easily tell age caught up to him as he wasn't able to finish (dunk) some wide open alley oops. he was still pretty damn good though.
- and finally, jason williams. dude was in great shape. if i remember correctly he didn't really have that much of a jumpshot back in chicago. his jumper was falling tonight though and so was his three point shot. he was able to spot up or create his own shot. obviously he wasnt as fast as devin or felton but he was still pretty quick. i don't think anyone knew who the hell he was during introductions but by the end of the night he got his recognition. one thing i observed though is he kinda developed an awkward posture. he had this subtle hunch which was probably from the motorcycle accident a while back. i hope someone picks him up though, he looked great.
and oh yeah, i saw nelly furtado. she was hot as hell!
, I'm losing faith in him.
though jumping from FT line? thats overdoing it.
. he's michael finley though, i had no idea he would show up with no namers and up and comers.
and what about the fat guy? did he break anything?
