Waiting until the crowds thin out. Watching basketball until then.
Monday: Orlando Magic at LA Clippers (7:30 PM PST on League Pass)
There’s only three games on the docket tonight, and they all suck something fierce. This late-night fete between the bumbling Magic and the wounded Clippers is the best one of the bunch. I’m planning on having this on as background noise as I cover my entire life in 409 and hope for the best. My apartment reeks of me. I need to scrub.
Tuesday: Golden State Warriors at Milwaukee Bucks (5:00 PM PST on League Pass)
The Homer Game this weeks pits my beloved (and surging) Golden State Warriors against the Milwaukee Bucks, who are also surging, but mostly in rage against each other. There’s not a lot to be happy about in Milwaukee, what with the bad team, the last-place standing in the awful conference, the bottom-feeder numbers in almost every statistical category, and the bitter fucking cold. It doesn’t help that Andrew Bogut, the guy they drafted first overall, and who they traded away after two acute injuries compromised his career, is playing some of the best basketball for a first-place team. Nor does it help that the guy they traded him away for, Monta Ellis, is playing some of the best basketball of his career for a different (but nearly as successful) team after delivering a season and a half of inefficient chuckery for the Bucks. Sorta makes you want to play six straight hours of Big Buck Hunter while getting tanked on Milwaukee’s Best in a dive bar somewhere. I can hear the Toby Keith now. I don’t miss the midwest.
Wednesday: Phoenix Suns at Minnesota Timberwolves (6:30 PM PST on ESPN)
Wednesday’s are always my longest day at work, so I’ll be in the mood for points and points only, motherfucker. After a dragging day on the job, nothing makes me more peeved than a boring-ass defensive slug-fest. I know defense wins playoff games. I know this. But it’s January. Just give me baskets, man. I don’t think these two teams are going to disappoint, but it’s sorta hard to tell with the Wolves these days. Their offense has gone a bit cold as of late; much of it having to do with outside shots that are no longer falling with any sort of consistency. With that in mind, I’ll be looking to see if the so-called “Bruise Brothers” are able to feast upon the Suns’ rather porous interior defense and stuff the stat sheet, or whether the Suns’ vaunted dual point guard lineup is able to exploit the Wolves ho-hum defense. Again: all I want is points. I’m a cheap date, especially on Wednesdays.
Thursday: Miami Heat at New York Knicks (5:00 PM PST on TNT)
Appearing before us like a mutated test-tube baby with two heads is this week’s TNT double header: Heat-Knicks, followed up by Thunder-Nuggets. The horror! The horror! What cruel God allowed for the creation of this atrocity??? Our goal will be to find something in this scientific monstrosity to love. I’m choosing to focus on the Grade-A self-flagellation that Knicks fans will inflict upon themselves (and others) on Twitter as LeBron James goes off on them at MSG, and as trade machine delusions focused around Melo and Chandler grow as numerous as stars in the night sky. That will likely be enough.
Friday: Dallas Mavericks at New Orleans Hornets (5:00 PM PST on League Pass)
This honestly is the game I’m looking forward to the most this week. There’s the Dirk vs. Davis factor, but that’s just the low hanging fruit. Mavs are starting to show a bit of shakiness; .500 in their last 10 games, and having dropped a few games in sorta bullets-in-the-foot fashion. The Pelicans could be gaining ground if they wanted to — the Wolves aren’t living the carpe diem life, either — but they can’t quite seem to put it together either. So who knows where these teams will be by this point in the week; perhaps fighting for the 8th seed, or even dealing with premature “season slipping away” narratives. I’m already thinking of excuses to get out of social commitments so I can watch this game.
Saturday: Brooklyn Nets at Toronto Raptors (4:00 PM PST on League Pass)
I will freely admit that I am all-aboard the Raptors bandwagon. I am of the opinion that the NBA is a better place when the Raptors are good, and it has almost nothing to do with the team itself. Everything about the Raptors total package is pretty cool right now. Raptor’s play-by-play dude Matt Devlin calls the game like a boxing match, describing jumpers and blocks like jabs and uppercuts. He’s played as big of a role as anyone in making the Raptors surge as exciting as anything this season. The Air Canada Centre has been bumping, as of late, and I’ve grown to appreciate the Raptors fan base, which is surprisingly pluckish and prickly, both in their reactions on the television and on social media. It’s all been a lot of fun. In a season that has undeniably been dimmed by untimely injuries to star players, and what seems to be a prevalence of uncompetitive games, the Raptors have been a compelling storyline. Hopefully they keep it up.
Sunday: Cleveland Cavaliers at Sacramento Kings (3:00 PM PST on League Pass)
Sunday’s will be mostly spoken for until the Niners are eliminated from the playoffs, but I’ll make some time to check in on this shit team slug fest. Not sure what it is about saving the bad teams for the weekend, but that always seems to be when I find the time to watch them. More than most other teams, the Cavs and the Kings seem to put the polar nature of human existence on brutal display. Both of these teams have seen their seasons greatly altered by just about every NBA-type distraction, from trades, to emotional outbursts, to coaching transitions, to untimely injury. In the mess, we have two borderline stars (of whom one likely will not be playing), a Rookie of the Year candidate, tons of available pieces who could help a contender, and a myriad of other crazy storylines. And every single one of them will likely be put on hold while I watch the Niners game. But I’ll have this on in the background I think.