In the PC era, teams have to drop nicknames that refer to lethal projectiles, but players can still don the names of deadly weapons. Here are some of my favorites.

Pete Maravich: Pistol Pete. His name was Pistol and he wore 44. He was packin’ every time he stepped on the court.

Steve McNair: Mac 9. If McNair has another couple of games like Monday night’s mess, he’s gonna be downgraded to a pellet gun.

Andrei Kirilenko: AK 47. The gun won’t cry if you don’t use it for a while.

Chuck Person: The Rifleman. Woulda been sweet if he had played for the Bullets.

Ron Jaworski: The Polish Rifle. He watches NFL game film through a high-powered scope.

Eric Piatkowski: The Polish Rifle. I say Jaws and Piatkowski have a Polish battle to the death… Last man standing is The PR.

Molly Bolin: Machine Gun Molly. Don’t know much about her but women’s basketball has devolved in the looks department.

Here’s a few that can be added to the list..

Steve Francis: The Rocket Launcher. Stevie’s gonna need to keep it pon lock as the 3rd or 4th option in Houston.

Hank Aaron: 44 Magnum. Go ahead, break my record.

Jayson Williams: Shotgun.

Bob Gibson: The .45. MJ got a little consideration here, but MJ’s 45 wasn’t reliable.

Kim Kardashian: The Bushmaster. The weapon you want if you need to lay down a lot of men.

Barry Bonds: Barry doing this:

Is like going from a .25 (24)

to a Desert Eagle.

 

Congrats to the Utah Jazz for moving on to the Western conference finals. The Jazz closed their series against Golden State with a 100-87 game five victory. Utah already defeated my Secret team, and now they’ve taken down Cinderella. These are my Utah Jazz highlights from the series:

•  Derek Fisher showing incredible fortitude and heart after everything he’s been through.
• Carlos Boozer opening the eyes of the people that didn’t know about him. He was serving people for the second straight series. 
• Jerry Sloan getting Utah to the Conference finals again. He’s never been coach of the year?!?!
• Deron Williams playing like a vet. Game 5 notwithstanding.
• Mehmet Okur, Paul Millsap, Matt Harpring, and Gordon Giricek playing their roles well.
• Andrei Kirilenko leaving his tears in the first round and causing havoc for Golden State’s offense.

I don’t know anybody that’s not impressed with Utah. When the Jazz got out to the hot start at the beginning of the season, a lot of people didn’t believe they were for real. I was one of those people. The lack of playoff experience from key players had me thinking Utah would flame out in the playoffs regardless of their record. I admit it… I was wrong. Another thing I was wrong about is Utah’s style of play. I didn’t get to see them too much this season so I assumed they were a slow it down, grind it out type of team. They can play that way, but they just proved in the G. State series that they can run up and down the court too.

As far as Golden State is concerned, what can I say? They pulled off the great upset in round 1, but seemed to be out of gas and definitely over matched in round 2. Baron Davis put the league on notice for next season, and Stephen Jackson proved that the Kings have to trade Artest just to put some miles between Jackson and Ron-Ron. The unfortunate thing is, G. State was in game 5 until they started acting like the 3 point line was an alligator infested moat protected by a 12 foot, 100,000 watt electric fence. I couldn’t believe how the Warriors would stop at the line and jack a three whether they were on a fast break or 1 second into the shot clock. The Warriors need to grow up too. All of the complaining, technical fouls, and cheap shots really put G. State’s nice postseason story in an ugly light.

So again, congrats to the Utah Jazz. The winner of the Suns/Spurs series is going to have it’s hands full in the conference finals.

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I’m not even a real Rockets fan and my stomach is in knots. Houston had the perfect opportunity to shutdown this series and they let it slip right through their hands.. Literally.. Turnover after turnover.. Bad shot after bad shot. It was like they said “hey we could win now, but let’s wait till we get home and share this with the fans”. At least that’s what I’m hoping they were thinking.

I tried to be as positive as possible about game 6 and I thought it was working… 75-74, Utah in the lead, Houston has the ball with 8:15 left in the game.. Things were looking really good. Then Kirilenko decided to wake up. Andrei blocked a Juwan Howard gimme layup, forced a T-Mac turnover, and blocked a McGrady drive to the basket. Even with all of that, the Rockets were still in good position down 77-76, 4:45 left in the game… Little did I know, Utah would go on a 17-6 run to close the game. So close. So frustrating.

Game 7. I don’t care what Tracy says, this is the biggest game of his career. This is his latest attempt to move on to the 2nd round so this has to be the most important game for him. Before this series started McGrady said it’s all on him. I’m gonna stick with that. Tracy, do this for you. Do it for Houston… And positively do it for my blog. A game 7 at home with the chance to shake off your playoff demons is all the motivation you need.

Rockets and Jazz game 6 play by play. Thank you ESPN.com

The Law of Attraction and the Houston Rockets. Thank me

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The Houston Rockets and Detroit Pistons both get a chance to push their series leads to 2-0 tonight. That’s fitting since they will be meeting up in the NBA finals. I love symmetry. Speaking of, check out this video of Olajuwon and Ming.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk0MPyiJBbc]

Props to whoever (kurtman31?? ClutchCity Productions) put the time in to put that together. I can never get enough of the “Dream Shake” HO (no Don Imus) put on David Robinson. Finding similar moves, blocks, and dunks for Yao and Hak had to take forever. Yao was a beast in game one… 28 points and 13 boards.. If he keeps that up he’ll have a ring like Hakeem too. As for the competition…..

I know you’re not supposed to kick a man when he’s down. I know your not supposed take joy in another person’s pain. I can’t help it though. Andrei Kirilenko cried. He CRIED. I’m not one of those people that says a man can never cry. If you lose a family member or some other hardship hits you, it’s cool to shed some tears. Crying at work?!? Well, that’s just soft. You can’t cry on the job, in front of all of your boys, over playing time. Want more playing time? Quit playing like crap. If players are gonna start crying over playing time then somebody better get Smush Parker a king sized box of Kleenex. Everybody knows about the deal Kirilenko and his wife have.. the “you get one sexy time outside of the marriage per year” deal.. And he’s crying? GTFOH. So..If you’re scoring at home, Larry Miller has argued with Derek Fisher, and now Andrei Kirilenko is crying. If I can get more people to stay positive about the Rockets the Utah Jazz might end up forfeiting the series.

JAZZ: Kirilenko cries over diminished role. Thank you Salt Lake City Tribune

Olajuwon and Ming, the same but different. Thank you Kurtman31 via YouTube

The Secret, The Law of Attraction, and The Rockets. Thank you ME

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