Dirty Birds Still In Flight

If you have read this blog for a longtime you know that the Dino Blogger is not a fan of the Atlanta Hawks. I have referred to they as the dirty birds. Well last night they gave an example of why I do not like this basketball team. Josh Smith in what had been a rough and heated(No Pun Intended) decided to try to practice for the dunk contest in the playoffs. He tried to do the dunk that Vince Carter did putting it through his legs. He missed the dunk and it only will add more fuel to the fire of what is becoming a nasty series. Every time you looked away someone was going down. Al Horford was taken out and you will hear no sympathy from me for him. I think he is reason the Raptors have gone totally off course. He was the guy that sent T.J Ford crashing to the ground and the Raptors have never been the same since. But back to the series, Dwyane Wade took a hard fall and from that point this game changed and the Heat got taken out of their game.

You had Toronto's own Jamal Maglorie trying to be tough guy and causing a lot of pushing and shoving. To be honest for those of you that are hockey fans out there, Heat and Hawks is the series for you. Lots of that non-sense that you see in hockey with push and shoving and general nasty stuff. If the Heat want to win this series they need to focus on playing basketball and forget about the nonsense. The Hawks are a team that lacks discipline and leadership. However if all this nonsense leads to the Hawks winning a series will anyone care how they did it? One last thing on the Hawks. If you have ever watched a regular season game from the ATL you have to be like me and shocked at where all these people came from. They must have had to have someone go through the area to dust off all those seats that are now filled for the playoffs.

Meanwhile the Hornets fell hard again. There have been a lot of bad loses to reflect back on in this Raptors season. One of them was against the Denver Nuggets. It cost Sam Mitchell his job. Did a over 50 point lose in the playoffs do the same for Bryon Scott? I don't think so. But it is clear that the Hornets have some major re-tooling to do. Denver beat them again in what was not as bad a blowout. But after being tied at the half the Nuggets rolled in the second half. Add another player to the list of people not named T-Mac that have advanced to the 2nd round. Carmelo Anthony was 0-5 in round 1. But he now can say he to is one up on T-Mac. That is unless you count the fact the Rockets may advance without T-Mac. But I don't think that counts does it. Besides if the Rockets lose in game 6 in Houston they may not advance anyway. Game 7 at the Rose Garden I am all over the Blazers. That is a big reason why I picked the Blazers in 7. That being said I picked the Hornets in 7 for an upset. Well not so much on that one.

Which D-12 elbow will hurt the Magic more. There was the one that landed on Sam Dalembert that got him suspended for Game 6 in Philly. There was the other one the injured Courtney Lee who was having a good series for the Magic. I think if the Sixers can not win this series they really have no one to blame. The Magic have given them chance after to chance to win this series. The biggest of those is this game 6 to extend the series to 7 games. Gortat as much as he may have a growing fan base. Not since Ivan" Polish Power" Putski was in the WWF has there been a more famous Polish person. Wait a second, there was Pope John Paul II, ok so make that most famous Polish person in sports. But there is no one in Poland and perhaps on the planet earth like Dwight Howard. After all he is Superman. If Stan Van Gundy can some how get the Magic a win we should demand they re-open the coach of the year voting. No Howard and No Lee is odds that seem very long for the Magic indeed. Blue and White Ignite cause Game 7 is coming soon to Orlando.

As far as the Raptors go not much to talk about for now. Bryan Colangelo is over in Europe on a scouting mission. The MLSE Board will met sometime in early May he will likely recommend that Jay Triano is kept on as head coach and they will ponder and agree with Bryan. So you can expect an announcement probably prior to the NBA Lottery happens. Colangelo has a lot of work to do this off-season. You talk to the casual fan and they have concluded that the Raptors Suck. It is hard to give people a logical explanation to say that they do not. Bosh or no Bosh and all the rest of it. Perhaps the most interesting thing will be the draft as Colangelo has made it known that he will be shopping for another pick in round one. Raptors also may be bringing in an old draft pick next year in Giorgos Printezis. He was traded for by Colangelo in the second round a couple years ago. It was a trade with the Spurs as I recall. He was on the Greek Roster for last season in the Olympic Qualifier and the Olympics. He did not see much time and is still just 23 years old. So he is not going to fix the Raptors. However he could be a small part in adding to the toughness that Bryan Colangelo made clear needs to be added.