***OFFICIAL 2012 NBA PLAYOFFS THREAD***

Every time Breen, or any NBA announcer shouts "from downtown!" I'm reminded of this piece by Hunter S. Thompson: The Curse of Musburger

My grudge against Brent Musburger has been smoking on a personal back burner for many years -- since the early 1980s in fact, when Brent was covering the NBA Finals for CBS-TV, and it involves the word "downtown."
That is when Musburger changed the language of sports forever when he kept repeating this ignorant notion that any basketball player firing off a long 3-point shot is shooting from "downtown." (Celtics announcer Johnny Most might have coined the "downtown" trademark in the 1960s, but it was Musburger who beat it to death.)

I still hear in my dreams his wild gibberish every time Michael Cooper or Dennis Johnson drilled one of those long flat-line 3-pointers.

"From way downtown!" Brent would scream. "Another one from Downtown!"

It drove me mad then -- & it still does every time some fool blurts it out. It was quickly picked up and adopted by a whole generation of half-bright TV commentators every night of the bloody season. It has become part of the Lexicon now, & it will not be easy to correct. In gyms & Coliseums all over America (even in Greece or Korea), wherever basketball as we know it is played, there will be some howling jacka$$ braying, "From way downtown! Another 3-pointer! Is this a great country, or what?"

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It is the Curse of Musburger.
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The Dude said:
Every time Breen, or any NBA announcer shouts "from downtown!" I'm reminded of this piece by Hunter S. Thompson: The Curse of Musburger

My grudge against Brent Musburger has been smoking on a personal back burner for many years -- since the early 1980s in fact, when Brent was covering the NBA Finals for CBS-TV, and it involves the word "downtown."
That is when Musburger changed the language of sports forever when he kept repeating this ignorant notion that any basketball player firing off a long 3-point shot is shooting from "downtown." (Celtics announcer Johnny Most might have coined the "downtown" trademark in the 1960s, but it was Musburger who beat it to death.)

I still hear in my dreams his wild gibberish every time Michael Cooper or Dennis Johnson drilled one of those long flat-line 3-pointers.

"From way downtown!" Brent would scream. "Another one from Downtown!"

It drove me mad then -- & it still does every time some fool blurts it out. It was quickly picked up and adopted by a whole generation of half-bright TV commentators every night of the bloody season. It has become part of the Lexicon now, & it will not be easy to correct. In gyms & Coliseums all over America (even in Greece or Korea), wherever basketball as we know it is played, there will be some howling jacka$$ braying, "From way downtown! Another 3-pointer! Is this a great country, or what?"

BUY THE BOOK

It is the Curse of Musburger.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Nice piece....I do love Mike Breen though. Not nearly as much as Jeff Van Gundy (I think he's the most entertaining sports commentator in the game right now), but those guys are one heck of a team. Bang.

 
The referees were fine tonight. It's hard to get every call right, so the closest you can get to being good is to be consistent, which the refs tonight, were for most of the game.

​


 
The Dude said:
Every time Breen, or any NBA announcer shouts "from downtown!" I'm reminded of this piece by Hunter S. Thompson: The Curse of Musburger

My grudge against Brent Musburger has been smoking on a personal back burner for many years -- since the early 1980s in fact, when Brent was covering the NBA Finals for CBS-TV, and it involves the word "downtown."
That is when Musburger changed the language of sports forever when he kept repeating this ignorant notion that any basketball player firing off a long 3-point shot is shooting from "downtown." (Celtics announcer Johnny Most might have coined the "downtown" trademark in the 1960s, but it was Musburger who beat it to death.)

I still hear in my dreams his wild gibberish every time Michael Cooper or Dennis Johnson drilled one of those long flat-line 3-pointers.

"From way downtown!" Brent would scream. "Another one from Downtown!"

It drove me mad then -- & it still does every time some fool blurts it out. It was quickly picked up and adopted by a whole generation of half-bright TV commentators every night of the bloody season. It has become part of the Lexicon now, & it will not be easy to correct. In gyms & Coliseums all over America (even in Greece or Korea), wherever basketball as we know it is played, there will be some howling jacka$$ braying, "From way downtown! Another 3-pointer! Is this a great country, or what?"

BUY THE BOOK

It is the Curse of Musburger.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
I'm like that with at the dish or on the bump in a baseball game.

 
Po Belini said:
Lyons in the Sea of Red. said:
The two phantom fouls on sefalosha were some quality officiating.
Click to expand...
What one? The one at the end where Battier grabbed his head instead of boxing him out?
Click to expand...
They called that on Shane. I watched it, and it's in the play-by-play on ESPN with 44 seconds left in the 4th.

I saw earlier in the game where Sefolosha had a breakaway dunk that he missed, they called a foul on Chalmers. The replay showed that Chalmers didn't even come close to touching him, but they called the fould because he missed the dunk.

I wouldn't want to be an NBA ref because it's too physical and too fast to see everything perfectly. To think that ALL the calls go one way is beyond ridiculous. It's almost like watching WWE anymore. Whoever sells it the best, wins.

(That's probably my last post in here, because I most likely won't be watching the games anymore. The NBA sucks.)

 
Po Belini said:
Lyons in the Sea of Red. said:
The two phantom fouls on sefalosha were some quality officiating.
Click to expand...
What one? The one at the end where Battier grabbed his head instead of boxing him out?
Click to expand...
LOL he had two breakaway dunks where there was hardly any contact, just flat out lost the handle both times, and got a foul called.

 
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