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Author Archive for Jonathan Somers-Harris

TLN Pre-Season Perspective: Interviewing Indy Cornrows

Published by Jonathan Somers-Harris on September 23, 2008 in Pre-Season Perspective. 11 Comments

Hey Guys,

We’re counting down the days till the start of the new season, and it’s about time for everyone to be making predictions. This year, instead of just doing one prediction, I decided to go out and interview one blogger for every NBA team.

The bloggers whose opinions we will be graced with over the next few weeks are the best of the best, as all of them have featured in Yahoos Ball Don’t Lie basketball blog’s Blog Association, where Kelly Dwyer has been profiling the best team-centric NBA blogs out there. If you have any inclination of increasing your knowledge about the NBA, these are the blogs you need to read and subscribe to. (I know I will be!)

Today, we are honored to interview Tom from Indy Cornrows, one of the best Pacers blogs out there. Alex was was gracious enough to give up some of his time to answer some questions regarding the Lakers and the Bucks .

Continue reading ‘TLN Pre-Season Perspective: Interviewing Indy Cornrows’

TLN Pre-Season Perspective: Interviewing Brew Hoop

Published by Jonathan Somers-Harris on September 20, 2008 in Pre-Season Perspective. 6 Comments

Hey Guys,

We’re counting down the days till the start of the new season, and it’s about time for everyone to be making predictions. This year, instead of just doing one prediction, I decided to go out and interview one blogger for every NBA team.

The bloggers whose opinions we will be graced with over the next few weeks are the best of the best, as all of them have featured in Yahoo’s Ball Don’t Lie basketball blog’s Blog Association, where Kelly Dwyer has been profiling the best team-centric NBA blogs out there. If you have any inclination of increasing your knowledge about the NBA, these are the blogs you need to read and subscribe to (I know I will be!).

Today, we are honored to interview Alex from Brew Hoop, one of the best Bucks blogs out there. Alex was was gracious enough to give up some of his time to answer some questions regarding the Lakers and the Bucks .

Continue reading ‘TLN Pre-Season Perspective: Interviewing Brew Hoop’

TLN Pre-Season Perspective: Interviewing Cavalier Attitude

Published by Jonathan Somers-Harris on September 18, 2008 in Pre-Season Perspective. 47 Comments

Hey Guys,

We’re counting down the days ’til the start of the new season, and it’s about time for everyone to be making predictions. This year, instead of just doing one prediction, I decided to go out and interview one blogger for every NBA team.

The bloggers whose opinions we will be graced with over the next few weeks are the best of the best, as all of them have featured in Yahoo’s Ball Don’t Lie basketball blog’s Blog Association, where Kelly Dwyer has been profiling the best team-centric NBA blogs out there. If you have any inclination of increasing your knowledge about the NBA, these are the blogs you need to read and subscribe to (I know I will be!).

Today, we are honored to interview Amar from Cavalier Attitude, one of the premier Cavs blogs. Amar was was gracious enough to give up some of his time to answer some questions regarding the Lakers and Cavs.

Continue reading ‘TLN Pre-Season Perspective: Interviewing Cavalier Attitude’

Jonny’s Prediction Update [Results]

Published by Jonathan Somers-Harris on June 19, 2008 in Jonny's Take. 5 Comments

First off, big thanks to all those participating in the first the Lakers Nation’s Post-Season Prediction Fantasy League. Don’t forget that the winner will be getting a special prize from the sponsor of “EJ’s Neat-O Stat of the Night.”

They will also get a surprise package in the mail from the guys from TLN.

Special thanks to all those who stuck with it till the end, and to all those who remembered that it was okay to post on varsityoptimism’s preview too. Haha. We’ll definitely be looking to bring this back for the regular season, only its going to be revamped, reloaded, and it’s going to bring Los Angeles a Championship, I guarantee it!

Now, without further ado…

Continue reading ‘Jonny’s Prediction Update [Results]‘

TLN’s Finals Preview: Lakers vs. Celtics [Game 6]

Published by Jonathan Somers-Harris on June 16, 2008 in Jonny's Game Preview. 101 Comments

In lieu of varsityoptimism, I won’t be doing much in the way of my normal preview (the superstitious side of me believes that that was the reason we won Game 5, and therefore this must continue on to Game 6. Haha!). instead I will post more questions than normal and hope that you all answer them when you really should be doing other things.

“The Celtics are going to be very sorry they didn’t close out the Lakers. You don’t give cats like Kobe extra lives to come back and kill you. Big mistake by the Celtics.”

-LakerTom

One of the great minds that troll the LA Times’ Lakers Blog has, beyond making an excellent pun on the term cats, made a very astute observation that condensed everything that I was going to write about Kobe into three sentences.

So instead, I though I’d ramble on about Phil Jackson instead…

Continue reading ‘TLN’s Finals Preview: Lakers vs. Celtics [Game 6]‘

TLN’s Finals Preview: Lakers vs. Celtics [Game 4]

Published by Jonathan Somers-Harris on June 11, 2008 in 2008 Playoffs and Jonny's Game Preview. 78 Comments

Putting Kobe on Rondo? Brilliant (Why didn’t Phil do this earlier?).

Kobe defending Eddie House the same way he defended Rondo? Not so much.

As much as we laud Kobe as a great defender, he does not do screens well. To be fair to Kobe, if the screen involved Garnett then in most instances it was an illegal one… but still.

LD2k posted an article from RedsArmy (a Celtics blog), which claimed that Pierce>Kobe, and I wanted to get my two cents in.

The main claim of the article was that Pierce has similar career numbers to Kobe but shoots a better percentage, and that this was being exemplified in the Finals (this was before Game 2).

It’s certainly an interesting debate. I personally don’t think there’s much merit to the discussion though… Not to take anything away from Pierce (he’s a fantastic talent) but as far as statistical similarities go, Shareef Abdur-Rahim (I know, who?) is a career 18/8 guy but nobody compares him to Gasol even though Gasol is also a 18/8 guy.

Continue reading ‘TLN’s Finals Preview: Lakers vs. Celtics [Game 4]‘

TLN’s Finals Preview: Lakers vs. Celtics [Game 2]

Published by Jonathan Somers-Harris on June 7, 2008 in Jonny's Game Preview. 74 Comments

If for whatever reason you did not watch the game/did not hear what had happened, Paul Pierce went down with an knee injury that suspiciously sounded like the same injury that happened to Bynum, except he came back out a few minutes later and was able to play the rest of the game.

Some people are calling it a Willis Reed moment, some are calling it “touched by an angel,” but most everyone will agree that that moment when he returned was the moment the Celtics regained courage and took the game back from the Lakers.

I’m here to tell you that’s Bull.

Continue reading ‘TLN’s Finals Preview: Lakers vs. Celtics [Game 2]‘

When Phil Jackson Whistles

Published by Jonathan Somers-Harris on June 7, 2008 in Articles. 6 Comments

Ever wondered why the Zen whistles during games? Find out here…

ESPN: During Game 1, the arena was loud. The music in the stadium was, I swear, several decibels louder than your normal stadium music, and the fans weren’t silent either.

Yet through the cacophony, all the way across a massive arena, even up in the rafters, one noise was clear as a bell.

Phil Jackson’s whistle.

When he inserts his pinkies in the corner of his mouth and blows, I have to believe you can hear that thing a mile away.

Before I arrived at the Finals, I had already received the following e-mail from coach Mark Dunning in England:

Here is a challenge for you: Having observed Phil Jackson for many years now, it has always puzzled me why, several times during a game, he sticks his fingers in his mouth and produces that shrill whistle of his.

Now, I’ve tried to analyze this, he does it on defense and on offense, but it appears that it has no response reflex from the players at all!

What’s going on here?

Continue reading ‘When Phil Jackson Whistles’