By Jon Carlos Rodriguez
The Jazz is hungry for experience; the Pacers need to rough it up. We might have answers.NBA Fantaserye: Utah Jazz vs Indiana Pacers
Tweets of the Day: June 9
Ten years ago, “Manny Pacquiao coaching a team named Kia Kamao in the PBA” would’ve been a good punchline for a joke. Fast forward to today, Manny Pacquiao is indeed coaching a team named Kia Kamao in the PBA. We bid the People’s Champ good luck in his new endeavor—he’ll need it when he’s battling Tim Cone and Norman Black.
In other less surreal news, Gilas prospect Andray Blatche shows his passion for doing the laundry and Mario Chalmers, in lieu of buckets, delivers the most electrifying move in sports entertainment.
Christmas Day
After more than a 3-month hiatus, BuhayBasket is back not with a vengeance, but with fresher legs and the eye on the proverbial ball. Just like Steve Nash. Minus the Gatsby haircut, of course.
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Photo: Robyn Beck / Getty Images
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Speaking of Nash, who played in his second straight game in nearly two months, his side part orchestrated another Laker victory at the expense of the New York Knicks.
Nash dished out 11 times in another entertaining Christmas Day match-up (thanks NBA marketing execs!), which featured two MVPs-in-the-running in an epic scoring battle.
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Photo: Andrew D. Bernstein / Getty Images
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Kobe Bryant and Carmelo Anthony both dropped 34 points, but it was the Black Mamba emerging victorious, thanks to Dwight’s 14 and 12; Pau’s 13 and 8; and Metta’s defense.
Metta World Peace clamped down on Melo in the fourth—limiting him to “only” 7 points in the quarter—before fouling out with 1:58 left to play. He also chipped in 20 points.
Even Nash was impressed.
”This is what he’s been doing all year. He gets his hands on a lot of balls, pounds on the other team’s best guy. You can’t win without that type of effort,” he said of World Peace.
Without Metta, the gargantuan task of guarding Melo in the clutch fell on Kobe. Challenged accepted.
The Lakeshow escaped with a 100-94 win and a few choice words from Kobe to Carmelo.
“If you can’t trash talk with your friends, what type of relationship is that?” Kobe told reporters after the game.
The win was the Lakers’ fifth straight, and just like that, the Lakers is a .500 team once again.
In other news, the Heat beat OKC (again), Clips are on a 14-game winning streak, KG and Crash don’t like each other, the Rose-less Bulls suck, and Mike Brown is still jobless.
Just another Christmas Day in the NBA.