SCOTT JACOBS

Perhaps symbolic, San Antonio ditched their gray alts that they had worn at home all post-season, for their traditional whites on Tuesday Night. That was preceded by handing out black t-shirts adorned with their familiar, albeit boring ‘U’ Spur logo to all fans in attendance.

The AT&T Center looked more like a sea of darkness than a celebration, almost mockingly taking on Miami’s customary white outs. There was no gray to be found.

No sass, no sizzle, just straight forward. It was as if the Spurs organization said to their fans, tonight is a gift to ‘U.’

The Spurs hadn’t been back at home in the Finals since shredding LeBron James’ heavily over-matched Cavs in a forgettable Finals beat-down. That was 2007, a cool 6 years earlier.

The crowd hooted and hollered, ready to go, back in the ‘ship, with a marquee opponent on their court, in their den. This would not be a typical Tuesday night in the hoops-happy Alamo. (more…)

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SCOTT JACOBS

‘No Separation’ I kept tweeting, as the Spurs and Heat dueled in yet another back and forth affair at the AAA. It was the third quarter of game 2, and neither team had yet to establish a double digit lead in a wildly close NBA Finals. Instead of going for knockout punches, the teams exchanged jabs, sort of dancing around in the ring, trying to figure out each others next moves. It felt like we were headed towards another dramatic dead heat, as the third quarter ticked towards its final minutes.

And then it happened.

Wham. Bam. Pow. Boom. Like one of those old Mortal Kombat games, the Spurs were blitzed into oblivion, and by the time they awoke to try a comeback, LeBron James met Tiago Splitter’s wind-up dunk with the block of the year. The remarkable display of both strength and power led to a fast break on the other end, resulting in a game-clinching Ray Allen three, as the Heat moved off the brink of chaos and back into (some) control – even with the series now shifting to the Alamo for games 3, 4, and 5. (more…)

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SCOTT JACOBS

It’s all so surreal. Just three years ago, Miami wasn’t preparing for yet another trip to the NBA Finals. They were hoping, no, make it praying, that gutting their mis-matched roster would give them a chance to sign some stars off of the heralded 2010 free agency market. But they weren’t alone: a host of other teams had built up cap-room to plunge into the sweepstakes too, and nothing was a guarantee.

Miami had fizzled out of another post-season, a punch-less first round exit to the Boston Celtics, and there was a growing fear that Dwyane Wade had played his final game with the Heat. The idea of Flash bolting and leaving Miami with a bunch of cap-room and nothing else was a frightening thought. Miami would be stuck in the doldrums of the league. They’d be looking at a massive rebuilding project and 5-10 years of likely irrelevance.

Fast forward to present day, where the Heat are coming off their third straight Eastern Conference title – a pipe dream mirrored in delusion, not reality, not so long ago – and it’s amazing just how easy people take this for granted. (more…)

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SCOTT JACOBS

As the Pacers and Heat exchange body blows, in a series that for all intensive purposes has been air-tight, there sit the Spurs, enjoying their time off, letting their tired bodies rest. Probably enjoying every second that Indiana and Miami further expose each others weaknesses.

I’m sure Gregg Popovich is sitting there like a hawk, watching the game-tape over and over, taking good clean notes, and devising a game plan to attack, attack, attack what their next opponent doesn’t do well.

For Indiana their lack of bench depth has become a problem (they scored 8 points yesterday). They’re not a good three point shooting team (they’ve made 5+ threes in a game this series just once and are shooting 25-67 from distance overall) and as evidenced by Miami double teaming Roy Hibbert yesterday, they’re not the quickest in response to defensive changes (Plus, get Hibbert at the top of the free throw strike and away from the paint, and it throws Indiana’s rhythm way off). The Pacers are still a young team and they are really good at being really careless with the basketball for good chunks of time (18 turnovers yesterday). That has hurt them versus a Miami team that laps up turnovers and turns them into runs ahoy.

For Miami the lack of a healthy Dwyane Wade has gotten to the point where he’s — dare I say it — a liability? He can’t seem to cut, his aggression has been on the decline ever since game 3, and it’s gotten to the point where he seems disinterested in being a scorer. It’s baffling to see and depressing to watch. Tim Grover, Wade’s trainer, told me before the playoffs that Wade’s ‘mental process’ was in a good place, but double digit games without 20 points for a likely future Hall of Famer is not a good sign (and just look at his body language: does that scream ‘closer’ to you?) (more…)

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SCOTT JACOBS

Maybe they’re claustrophobic. Maybe they can’t stand being pushed up against the wall, backs turned, vulnerable for all the sports world to see. Maybe, they’re as caught up in their own greatness as we are (45-3 to close the year), convinced that the only team taking them down, is themselves.

And maybe, just maybe, after a flummoxing start to this 2013 Eastern Conference Finals series, the Heat have awoken into the super-power we know they can be, as they drowned out a deliriously excited Conseco Fieldhouse with a breath-taking display of basketball artistry.

Heat 114 Pacers 96.

This was hoops poetry in motion. This was Goliath playing to their frightening potential.

By far the most polarizing team in the Association – even 3 years after The Decision – you can’t deny the greatness we witnessed last night. But it wasn’t all on one guy, or two, or even three. This was a team win in every sense of the word. One that Miami seemed to desperately need, but to buy that ideology says you don’t know enough about the Heat’s mental makeup. (more…)

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The 2013 NFL season does not kick off until September 5th, but the Patriots are already one of the hotly tipped teams to do well next season.

This should hardly come as a surprise given their dominant stretch of success over the last decade plus (10 AFC East titles since 2001, 5 AFC Titles, and 3 Big Game triumphs), and despite coming up short to Baltimore in the AFC Title Game last season, New England will still be rated amongst the favorites for the conference crown, as well as the Super Bowl (which for the first time will be played in the northeast).

Despite the fact that the Broncos recently took over first place in the pre-season odds rankings, New England is still a strong contender to make another deep post-season run.

That quest for title #4 for Tom Brady and Friends will begin in Buffalo on September 8th, against a Bills a team with a new coach (Doug Marrone), new GM Doug Whaley), and a controversial new first round QB (E.J. Manuel) installed as the future guy — or perhaps the present? (Cut to a video of Kevin Kolb banging his head against a wall). (more…)

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SCOTT JACOBS

The cost of a name change?

Millions.

The value of nostalgia?

The Charlotte Bobcats are about to find out.

After spending months combing through the Charlotte market via intense market research, the NBA’s most-downtrodden franchise is prepared to shift their future through the city’s past. Mixed results be damned, the Hornets are coming back to Charlotte. Hello purple. Hello teal. Hello 90′s.

More importantly, hello (again) Hornets.  (more…)

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SCOTT JACOBS

Back in 2010, Grant Wahl published The Beckham Experiment, an in depth look at the bizzaro world of the world’s most polarizing soccer star. I had a chance to review the book and just a chapter or two in, I stopped reading.

It’s nothing against Wahl, or Beckham for that matter, it’s simply that like most Olympic sports, I don’t care a lick about soccer until the World Cup. It’s weird too: I grew up playing soccer, loved the game — wasn’t very good at it, but that’s another story — so you would think that I would have some kind of attachment to caring about the game on bigger stages.

For whatever reason, it just does not hold my attention.

And if anyone should hold the attention of a sports crazed country, it’s the tatted up Beckham, whose popularity transcends multiple countries. Sometimes it’s as if he had his finger all over the globe. Beginning with world’s most famous club, Manchester United, Beckham evolved from a futboler to a flat out superstar. Not to mention the fact that he won. Everywhere. That tends to get you a legacy.

When Beckham came to the states on the heels of a massive multi-year deal with the Los Angeles Galaxy, the idea was to change the (perception) game, that soccer had in America. And while the media buzz was palpable early on, especially before and during Beckham’s first game in 2007, the excitement on a national scale (under the label of big-time sports story), soon began to fade. (more…)

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SCOTT JACOBS

We live in a culture where playing through pain is not only the decent thing to do, but considered the honorable one. Maybe it’s the bloated contracts that our professional athletes in this country receive, which trigger this ‘you better run through a wall for our team and then some’ mentality in both franchise belief systems as well as fan psyches. (Maybe we also have the mindset that technology has become so amazingly precise, that we can prevent injuries from happening with impressive reduction rates; And if they do occur that we have the resources and equipment at our disposal, to fight off the physical traumas our athletes suffer to get them back out there as fast as possible).  Maybe, our athlete’s blood lust for competition is a drug within itself and drives our stars (and enforcers) and our role guys to put themselves in compromising circumstances.

Who’s to say what goes on between athlete, trainer, team, family, etc. But there is so much pressure, so much noise which surrounds their decision to play (or not play) that it’s fair to wonder who makes the decision when it comes to an athlete and his/her well being. (more…)

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MITCH BLATT

ESPN basketball commentator Chris Broussard is a Christian. Like many Christians, he holds fundamental views on some areas. As he noted on ESPN recently, his religious views compel him to consider premarital sex, adultery, fornication, and gay sex sins.

That last one got him in trouble.

When discussing Jason Collins’ coming out, he was brought on to analyze how NBA players and teams might handle it. Among his comments, he said, “Personally, I don’t believe that you can live an openly homosexual lifestyle or an openly premarital sex between heterosexuals, if you’re openly living that type of lifestyle, then the Bible says you know them by their fruits, it says that’s a sin.”

Naturally that has prompted allegations of anti-gay bigotry. But wait. Homosexual sex is just one of many things that followers of some religions consider as sins. Every religion has a moral code–and members of a society have moral codes, too.
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SCOTT JACOBS

Tim Grover is a world class sports trainer. But most people have probably never heard his name. Until now. Grover’s book RELENTLESS, recently hit bookshelves nationwide, and inside the super-star trainer spills what makes elite athletes psychological wonderlands. It’s a fascinating odyssey into the elite and few are prepared to be your guide quite like Tim. His first client was Michael Jordan. Today he’s the go to guy for stars like Dwyane Wade and Kobe Bryant. With the NBA Playoffs set to kickoff, it was the perfect time to chat with the man behind the stars.

Here it is, our entire interview with Tim Grover:

BY TOPIC:
Michael Jordan’s failures as an executive and owner 00:30
Kobe Bryant’s Rehabilitation 03:20
Derrick Rose’s Return 05:35
Dwyane Wade’s Injury Status and toning down his Physicality 08:20
LeBron James’ rise to Greatness 11:19
The impact of the 1 and Done rule 15:17
The No Star Nuggets 17:27
Why it hasn’t worked in Lakerland 19:18
How Tim got his start 21:48
His unique opinion on Tiger Woods 26:22

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