Derrick Rose’s status has been upgraded to day-to-day, from Nick Friedell of ESPN Chicago: “It’s day-to-day,” Thibodeau said of Rose’s situation. “Day-to-day. So whenever he’s ready, he’s ready. We just want him to continue to improve, focus on his rehab, and then when he’s ready to go we’ll all know. Everyone has to remain patient.”… “There’s a lot of people that have to weigh in on it,” Thibodeau said of the decision. “Obviously, [Rose] knows his body and everyone’s got to sign off on it. “Whenever he’s ready, he’s ready. Nothing has changed for us. For our team, I want them to continue to concentrate on improvement and our opponent. And for Derrick I want him to continue to concentrate on his rehab. We’re 60 games into this now, so I think going into the season we had a lot of question marks. I think we have more answers now. We figured out, I think, who we are. We’re headed down the stretch, we’ve got to continue to improve and then we’ll go from there.”
Mike Woodson blamed himself for not taking Carmelo Anthony out of the game before taking a spill to the ground, from Ian Begley of ESPN New York: “In Tuesday’s interview on “The Stephen A. Smith and Ryan Ruocco Show,” Woodson called Anthony’s injury “alarming” and admitted his decision to leave the star forward in the game was “stubborn.” Melo was hurt,” Woodson said. “For him to ask me to come out of the game before he actually took that spill made me realize that something wasn’t right. He’s never ever, ever, even hinted about coming out of the game [before Monday]. I play him too much in that regard. Melo’s a trooper — he’s a warrior, he’s a tough kid.” Woodson was asked during the interview why he chose to leave Anthony in the game after he requested to come out. “I should have [taken him out],” Woodson said. “Stubborn coach — I just didn’t.”
Dwight Howard said he could have sat out the first four months of the season, from Mike Bresnahan of Los Angeles Times: “Looking back on it, I could have sat out the whole season until now and starting playing now, but I just felt like we had such a great opportunity,” he said. “Some of these guys, their windows for winning are very small, and I just wanted to get back and try to do whatever I can to help this team, knowing that I wasn’t in great shape. My body wasn’t all the way there yet.”… “Sometimes I have gotten beat up for it, but that’s fine. I’ll take all those hits and I’ll keep moving,” Howard said. “People watch games and they see me playing so they think it’s all good. It’s just a time thing. I’ve just got to keep going, keep pushing myself and it’ll get better.”
- Howard also mentioned how Phil Jackson has been a mentor to him despite not being his coach, from Dave McMenamin of ESPN New York: “Here’s the quote from Dwight Howard today, talking about how he and Phil Jackson keep in touch … “I’ve had people really just help me out,” Howard said. “Guys like Phil [Jackson], he texts me and he understands how it is to come off back surgery. He just said it takes a full year to recover, so you can’t beat yourself up over the things that have happened this year.”
Rudy Gay didn’t like the Grizzlies owner’s decision to move him, but said he needed a change (contradicting much?). Marc J. Spears of Yahoo Sports has details: “”You have to give me a chance to see if I’m worth that,” Gay told Yahoo! Sports… “With [new management], I don’t think anybody’s comfortable,” Gay said. “They’re rookie owners. They come in there and they want it their own way, and you can’t blame them for that. But it’s a player’s league.”… “I needed a change,” Gay said of the trade. “I needed a new situation. A new task. I needed a new task with something I could grasp, something I could take over. I need to be challenged. I was challenged in Memphis, but it was tug of war at times. Here I’m being challenged and they’re seeing what I’m made of.”
Deron Williams is playing without anymore pain, according to Brian Lewis of New York Post: “During the week when Williams was sidelined with inflammation in both ankles, he did a three-day juice cleanse that removed toxins from his body and gave him energy. He also received his third round of cortisone shots and PRP injections, and the results have been both successful and dramatic. “My ankles don’t hurt,’’ said Williams, whose Nets play the Bobcats Wednesday night at Charlotte. “We finally got the injections in the right spot, and I feel a little bit better. I can actually go up and down stairs. I can run around with my kids. I can go to the playground with them. I don’t hurt every time I take a single step, so yeah, I feel a lot better.’’… “I can dunk,’’ confirmed Williams, whose only attempt of the season came on Nov. 23 in Los Angeles, when he got emphatically rejected by Clippers forward Blake Griffin, fell and hurt his right wrist.”
Amazing! This blog looks just like my old one!
It’s on a totally different subject but it
has pretty much the same layout and design. Excellent choice of colors!
I watched the Table Tennis clip. I used to play for many years at TT clubs and tournaments and received some lessons, regarding correct form, from a National Coach.
It looks like both players are using Tournament-type rackets (can’t buy in stores). They are both decent beginner levels (Jeremy about 1000 and Daryl about 1100 rating), but both could use about 1 year of training to be competitive against mediocre tournament players.
Jeremy’s serves are illegal, he favors his backhand way to much, has no backswing in his stokes (to create speed), and hasn’t learned how to hit on the top surface of the ball, to create more spin. However, with his long arms and athleticism he has potential to learn correct form and get better fast.
Daryl has one underspin service, that he doesn’t seem to vary, so it can be put away off of the service, but Jeremy has no training in how to do it. Daryl has a weak backhand and although he knows how to get some spin on his forehand, he needs to have more backswing in his stoke. Daryl should be standing more to the backhand side of the table, because the opponent could win points just by hitting to his backhand.
There are some nice TT videos of top players, at the end of this video.