#I just think sometimes about the tnt game where they were mean to the opponents rookie and it was like

[lenacopperleaf]

God I hate national broadcasts so much.

What I want from national broadcasts? The same kind of energy when I was at the wild game. Just a Little avs fan hanging out with a season ticket holder seated next to me. We shared things about our teams that the other person didn’t know and were nice and complimentary to the other team. That’s what I want. None of this “this team was spanked last night” or “I don’t know if I’d have confidence in Georgie about the west” nonsense that tnt’s been spouting.

This is what local broadcasters thrown together could bring us-a better national broadcast world

[junker-town]

Channing Frye on the Lakers, Bucks, and what it’s like to be broadcaster

Bucks-Lakers is the marquee matchup of the week in the NBA.

A Q&A with the former NBA veteran on the start of his broadcasting career and the two best teams in the NBA.

SB Nation had the chance to sit down with TNT’s Channing Frye ahead of Thursday night’s Lakers vs. Bucks game.

SB Nation: You dabbled in media as a player, but did you always know you’d want to get into broadcasting in some form or fashion after you retired from the NBA?

You know what, I grew up around it. My Mom worked for Channel 12, NBC, out in Phoenix. So I’ve sort of just been around it, and in all honesty I just like to talk. I think the game is amazing. The game imitates life, with the drama and the growing up of players, and so for me to be able to translate that—to show how amazing the game of basketball is and how good of a product the NBA is—it’s kind of my pleasure.

Even though I’m retired from basketball, I have an opportunity to do some things at Turner, NBC Sports, and my own podcast. But I started the [Road Trippin’ podcast] basically for the free wine. Richard [Jefferson] wanted to do it for the reps, and he said here, be our first guest. So I said ‘well I’m not coming up unless you give me a bottle of wine.’ And then it just became our thing. We’d always have a bottle of wine. I think the best stories are told with friends, sitting at a dinner table and just kind of talking about life, man.

Your show, Handles, is a bit non-traditional. Did you have any other offers in media after you retired, and how did you land in this particular job?

I did have other offers, and I thought, for me, if I’m going to go into this arena, if I’m gonna go into this new field, why not go into it with something that I would want to watch, something that I’m interested in that probably hasn’t ever been done before?

Right now I look at people, rarely does anyone just watch the game anymore. They’re looking at social media. What’s going on. I want to see who dunked on who. So why not create a show that’s based on that? Why not be a part of a show that takes in everything that happens during a game, whether it’s someone getting crossed, someone’s outfit being atrocious, or somebody having 50 points? We’re both celebrating and joking around about the drama that happens on Wednesday nights when there’s 10 or 11 games going on.

Do you ever have a fear of being too critical?

Sometimes. But I always say this: Anytime I write something or say something, just know—my teammates can vouch for me—I would say that to that person’s face. I never talk about a player personally, I just don’t think that’s fair and I don’t think there’s a place in media to talk about a player personally, but if I want to talk about your game yeah, I’m gonna be extremely critical of you based on that one game. But at the same time I just want to see good product out there.

Now if you take that personally, either you’re sensitive or or don’t know me and don’t know my voice of, like, if I go ‘dude that’s a trash shot’ I’ll go back to the film and if you want to explain to me why it’s not...you coming down five times, not passing the ball to your teammates and jacking up five bad shots is bad basketball, and there’s no if ands or buts. These are facts. You know? Where if I said ‘Hey, it just doesn’t look like you have energy,’ that is a fact. It does not look like you have energy or passion on the court! Now we can go look at what I saw, and you can say ‘Hey, I’m just not that type of guy,’ OK cool. I’m wrong. I have no problem being wrong. I love it when somebody goes ‘Channing you’re wrong’.

And one example, I was talking about the Houston Rockets and I said ‘Hey I think the Houston Rockets are gonna lose in the first round this year,’ and one of the big-time Houston Rockets fans goes ‘nope because we went to the Western Conference Finals, blah blah blah, this is what the percentages say’. I said ‘Listen, OK...you’ll lose in the second round’.

I don’t mind arguing back and forth with people who have actual information. But when you say ‘Oh Channing you suck,’ well no I don’t suck because I don’t play anymore. And two, it’s just like when you come at me, that means you don’t have a rebuttal to my question or my statement with actual numbers.

Have any players confronted you from something you’ve said on the air?

No. Heck no. No, no, no, no, no. At the end of the day, the only people I really talk about, honestly, are players I’ve played with. And they know me. What you’re getting on Twitter is me sitting on a bench, just with a lot less cuss words. Honestly.

if I saw somebody getting dunked on, for sure on the text chain I would have those gifs and memes up immediately on the airplane, win or lose. Because at the end of the day, whether you win or lose, you prepare to win, and you have a 50/50 chance of winning that game, no matter how how hard you play. So if you take yourself that seriously after the game, then you have some other issues.

As a basketball fan and someone who’s competed with and against so many of the guys who will take part, what interests you the most about tonight’s game between the Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Lakers?

Well, I’ll say this, whether people know it or not, we’re in the age of the big man. At the forefront was Dirk Nowitzki, Pau Gasol, obviously Arvydas Sabonis, and even Yao Ming: Skilled big men who can pass, shoot, defend multiple positions and score on the block.

You look at some of these lineups that both of these teams can put out there, you have God knows how many All-Stars at the three, four, five positions. You have Hall of Famers. You have MVPs. It is going to be a battle. Both coaches are definitely amazing and top of their class at getting their teams prepared. So I’ll be interested to see what happens, like, can Milwaukee shoot better than the Lakers can play defense? Who’s Giannis gonna guard? Who’s gonna guard Anthony Davis? Is LeBron gonna guard Giannis? [The Bucks] can mess around and play a lineup of Robin Lopez, Brook Lopez, [Ersan] Ilyasova, Giannis, and Eric Bledsoe. That’s huge, and they all work within that system, because they’re all skilled players. That’s what’s gonna be exciting, to see where the league has evolved to, to now your superstars are seven-foot tall ball-handlers, shooters, passers, shot blockers, everything. I think it’s great for the league.

You’ve played in Finals preview matchups during the regular season when you were in Cleveland. What can you learn about your opponent that’s meaningful in a matchup like that?

Yeah, it’s all mental. You want to see which guys shine bright. I’ll just say for me, my scouting report would be: the Bucks are a system team. Giannis makes them go. I want to make Eric Bledsoe beat me. At the end of the day, Eric Bledsoe has to get 25-plus points to beat me. I’m not gonna let Brook Lopez take over in the fourth quarter on the block, getting fouled, grabbing rebounds, and shooting threes. I want them to play one-on-one basketball, because I just don’t think they’re successful that way.

But then on the other side if I’m the Bucks, I want anybody else, except for Bron and AD to beat me. I want to see what Kuzma’s gonna do against my defenders. I want to see, is Rondo gonna score? Are they gonna throw it to Dwight Howard or JaVale McGee to score? For them, I want them to run their sets all the way through and slow the pace of the game down.

Did you expect the Lakers to be this good this early?

This early? No. I did not. Did I expect them to be good? Heck yeah. Heck yeah. Any team with LeBron and AD, if you’re anywhere close to .500, somebody needs to get fired.

Which team is easier to score on?

I’m gonna say the Bucks. I think the Bucks, defensively, are built to play the percentages. They stick to their principles, they stick to their rotations. Where the Lakers just have dudes that are just like, ‘lock him down’.

Who’s the best player in the world right now?

[Deep sigh]. I don’t think there’s one. But I would say, of the four best players, three of them are in this game. I would say Anthony Davis, LeBron, and Giannis. And then the fourth would be James Harden. Fifth would be Luka.

What about Kawhi?

He hasn’t done it this year. He has championship remorse right now.

So you can’t separate LeBron, Giannis, and AD?

Listen, at the end of the day. If you have any one of those three players, and you’re not vying for a championship, that is your fault as a GM. For not putting better players around those guys. Honestly. If you have any three, and you’re not going for a championship, there’s some problems.

[placetobenation]

Welcome to the first ever “This Week in the WWE” with yours truly. Before we get into the historic week that was in sports entertainment, let me give you a blurb about me. I am an avid pro wrestling fan dating back to seeing Jimmy Snuka vs. Don Muraco (and yes, Pete Doherty) at the old Boston Garden in Boston and the epic King of the Ring series in Providence. But, not only was I a watcher of then WWF, but also Georgia Championship Wrestling, World Class Championship Wrestling, the NWA, Mid-South, WCW and yes, even Southwest Championship Wrestling. So, yes, we’ve seen the industry weave in and out of many different forks in the road. I’m a huge HBK fan (who isn’t?!) and since I’ve worked in tv & radio for 30 years, I love thinking outside the box and creativity. But, enough about me. Now, it’s onto the 2019 scene and beyond.

Before we get into the specific shows, let’s look at the landscape. Any wrestling fan with his or her head not buried in the sand knows how huge a week this was for not only WWE, but also the upstart All Elite Wrestling league as well as the entire industry. For the first time since 2001 and the Monday Night Wars between RAW and WCW’s Nitro, there would be a live competitor on TNT to WWE in the form of AEW’s Dynamite vs. WWE’s NXT on Wednesday night. In addition, for the first time EVER, the WWE would return to broadcast TV on FOX with Friday Night Smackdown, meaning a new gateway to mainstream fans is open should WWE take advantage of it. For comparison sake, a really good show on cable TV can do two million viewers. That same really good show on broadcast TV would expect to double that many viewers in order to be successful. The number one show on broadcast TV, Sunday Night Football on NBC, just did 15 million viewers with the Cowboys vs. Saints last Sunday night. 

Competition is good for EVERYONE and especially the fans! We get to watch and enjoy it all! Don’t get sucked into you have to “be” with one side of the other. Watch it all. WWE, AEW, Ring of Honor, New  Japan, MLW, House of Hardcore and any number of your favorite indy promotions! It will only make the individual companies strive to get better or get out of the game. The strong will survive but along the way, we should get many, many, MANY memorable moments. 

So, let’s get to it. I’m not going to give you “five star (or any star) ratings.” That’s not my thing. I will tell you what I think they got right and what went off the deep end as well. 

Monday Night RAW – Season premiere on USA Network

Results:  Sasha Banks defeated Alexa Bliss  Raw Tag Team Title Match: Champions Robert Roode & Dolph Ziggler defeated Heavy Machinery  The Viking Raiders defeated The Good Brothers Ricochet defeated Cesaro  US Title Match: Champion AJ Styles defeated Cedric Alexander  Lacey Evans defeated Natalya  Universal Title Match: Champion Seth Rollins vs. Rusev went to a no contest What we loved:  An absolute epic destruction of Rey Mysterio, JR and his son Dominic by Brock Lesnar to start the show. Lesnar’s heel stock soars! Tag teams! Loving the chemistry with Roode & Ziggler. Heavy Machinery is downright entertaining, I’m digging the AOP vignettes too. There better be more than a one week payoff there when they debut in the ring! One question though, do Gallows and Anderson really need to lose every week? 

The Fiend! What’s not to love about Bray Wyatt’s alter ego. I would love to see him start terrorizing more than just babyfaces and legends though. Be more arbitrary. After all, that would make more sense as to why he gets a Universal Title Shot at Hell in the Cell PPV without ever having a tv match, wouldn’t it? 

What we hated:  Where was Seth Rollins during that beatdown? The company’s supposed #1 babyface doesn’t come out to save Rey and his son? Makes too much sense, doesn’t it? Talk about your missed opportunity!

While we always enjoy a dose of the Southern Belle, Lacey Evans, I don’t need a weekly diet of Natalya in a match we’ve seen three or four times over now. Put them in different settings, different opponents if you want to continue the feud. They both have it in them. Ditto for Ricochet vs. Cesaro. All four deserve more creativity. 

Bobby Lashley & Lana? Seriously! I’m all for pushing the TV-14 envelope, but that lengthy make out session that renders Rusev useless during a Championship match was a tinge long even for Vincent Kennedy McMahon’s teenage tendencies! You knew it was just a fork in the road en route to The Fiend getting to Rollins to end the show. Which begs the question, why wouldn’t Rusev save Rollins again after doing it earlier in the night? He’s already out there! I know, I know. Too much common sense. 

MEH:  Team Flair vs. Team Hogan on MIZ TV. Sure, it’s a way to pay off some legends of the past for the Saudi Prince on Halloween night with a 10-man tag match featuring captains Randy Orton and Seth Rollins, but haven’t we seen this one before in TNA? I hope they find a way to showcase a few seldom used stars as part of the five-man teams to give them the rub to catapult them after the event. Let’s hope no physicality with the legend captain however! We don’t need to see that!

NXT on USA Network

Results:

NXT Championship: Adam Cole defeats Matt Riddle Io Shirai pins Mia Yam Johnny Gargano wins over Shane Thorne NXT Women’s Championship: Shayna Baszler taps out Candice LeRae Pete Dunne defeats Danny Burch NXT Tag Team Championship: The Undisputed Era pins Street Profits

Bravo! For its Virgin Excursion, live for two hours on the USA Network, the men and women of NXT blew the doors down on a night in which it went head-to-head with the debuting AEW Dynamite on TNT. Sure, the rating/viewer numbers show that AEW won the battle (1.4 million viewers vs. 891,000 viewers according to Nielsen), the pure enjoyment and success showed through. 

From Adam Cole retaining his NXT Championship against Matt Riddle, despite a fractured wrist, to Shayna Baszler winning a back-and-forth-balls-to-the wall war over Candice LeRae to the Undisputed ERA staving off the Street Profits in the NXT Tag Team Championship main event, the effort, pacing and sheer athleticism was there. 

What we loved:  All of it! No down time, no mic time fillers and a few surprises to boot! 

Finn Balor IS NXT! A nice surprise as the former NXT Champion returns to Full Sail to challenge Cole. It’s time for Ballor Club to shine again instead of getting lost in the main roster shuffle. 

Tommaso Ciampa returns. Yes, Mr. Cole has a lot of his plate. Can you imagine a future tag team match with Ciampa, Balor, Johnny Gargano & more facing the Undisputed ERA? Sign me up NOW!

What we hated: 

Nothing. Although in today’s age, perception is reality. While I love NXT’s Full Sail crowd, a mainstream audience vs. AEW’s larger arena crowd may make some think of NXT as small-time. Trust me, it’s not. 

Friday Night Smackdown – Season premiere on FOX

Results:

Charlotte & Becky Lynch defeated Bayley & Sasha Banks via submission  Non-Title Match: Seth Rollins vs. Shinsuke Nakamura went to a no contest  Career vs. Career Ladder Match: Kevin Owens defeated Shane McMahon  8-man tag team match: Braun Strowman, The Miz, & Heavy Machinery defeated AJ Styles, Robert Roode, Dolph Ziggler, & Randy Orton Lumberjack Match: Roman Reigns defeated Erick Rowan  WWE Title Match: Brock Lesnar defeated Champion Kofi Kingston

What we loved: 

Amazing set! Best of the Smackdown series with a nod to the arches from yesteryear!

Kevin Owens and a ladder = success. If we don’t have to see Shane McMahon sweat his way through a WWE event anytime soon, it will be a blessing!

Daniel Bryan. Is it me or do I see a swerve coming Sunday at HIAC? I don’t want a babyface Bryan just yet! Give me a Survivor Series with Team Bryan vs. Team Reigns. 

The “non-PG” Rock with The Man. C’mon, how could you not love a double dose of calling King Corbin the “Super Tough Dude” to get an STD chant. Priceless!

What we hated: 

The quickness of the end to Kofi Kingston’s title reign. 10 seconds? Seriously?! He deserved better. I agree with putting the title back on Lesnar now that Smackdown is on FOX, he’s more mainstream and can attract more eyeballs, especially if he’s actually going to appear more often. But, to just dismiss Kofi to get to the surprise of Cain Velazquez coming out with Rey Mysterio, JR. to challenge Lesnar to pay off Monday’s attack is wrong. The question now is can they get mainstream fans to care about a Lesnar-Velasquez feud after their “real” encounter in MMA in which Lesnar got his ass handed to him. 

Did you really think we were going to get something good out of the champion vs. champion match other than The Fiend showing up to attack Rollins? Clear as day, my friends. At least give me something before the expected comes. And yes, I know you have to build up to the PPV match, but again, don’

An 8-man tag for less than 3 minutes? Why bother. Sometimes less is more and yes, jamming 8 stars with nothing to do in order to kick off a Strowman-Tyson Fury incident seems a stretch. I applaud trying to get the boxing audience to cross over, but there are better ways to do it. Especially, if the now pay off comes next on RAW on the USA Network. I guess the split won’t actually occur until the Draft starting October 11th on FOX. 

Bonus what we loved: The 24/7 Championship! The twists and turns continue as Marshmello (yes, the DJ!) wins and loses the Title in a WWE.com exclusive. Someday soon, I can see FOX and former Steelers QB Terry Bradshaw winning it on FOX! The Truth and Carmella are brilliant with the comedy that I hope continues with this Championship. It’s OK to have some fun in sports entertainment! 

Thanks for letting us share our thoughts! Shoot me an email at jcrowe567@gmail.com. We’d love to hear you comments and suggestions! You can also check out my blog, The Crowe’s Nest as we delve into more pro wrestling, sports entertainment and the World of Sports. My apologies ahead of time – I AM a Patriots and Red Sox fan! If you’re not down with that, I’ve got TWO WORDS for you…. NEW ENGLAND!

[flauntpage]

Sixers Notes: Dirty Play and a Philly Special Reprise

All quiet on a Friday afternoon, as the Sixers still don’t have a second round opponent to prepare for.

The Bucks knocked off the Celtics on Thursday night, setting up a game seven in Boston tomorrow.

Sixers fans should probably want Milwaukee for home court advantage alone. The Celtics might be a lame duck squad playing without Kyrie Irving, but they’re better defensively and have the better coach and better crowd. Khris Middleton probably isn’t gonna continue to shoot 59.5% throughout the playoffs, so I’d think the Sixers could limit the players around Giannis and probably squeeze through in six.

But I digress. We can talk about that on Sunday.

Today the Sixers took it easy, some players doing a light workout and others just resting up. Brett Brown spent the morning going over round two preparations with his staff.

“We get in early,” the head coach said. “We communicate throughout the night. We share our ideas as games unfold. I spend a lot of time with the people who help me manage the offense. I spend a lot of time with the people who help me manage the defense. I break the staff up, very much like an NFL team with special teams, etcetera. Then we study analytics, and it’s just very holistic, it’s very compartmentalized. It lets me manage. It lets me sort of go to parts of the game that you have to be responsible for and coach and be aware of.”

Brown says it’s a vanilla approach so far, since the Sixers are playing the “wait and see” game.

“Each of those areas that I’ve said, and there are more, are responsible for helping me study and delivering a plan and us beating it around, where ultimately you come out of a room with a game plan,” he continued. “As I’ve said many times, I’ve learned, sometimes in hard ways, that you really need to get a game plan’s foundation correct. You don’t want to be second guessing or pivoting out of massive changes in game four. The objective is to lay the ground work, do your home work, come up with a game plan, and a plan B, for sure, but you can’t be too off-point with a game plan or you end up chasing. That ends up being confusing for players, especially for young players. That’s the mission. That’s what goes on and that’s what’s been going on since we beat the Miami Heat.”

Dirty play?

Speaking of Miami, I read a bunch of stuff online about how dirty they played in round one, Twitter takes such as, “well I really hate this team now,” or “they deserve to lose because their style is an affront to basketball.”

Nonsense.

The players don’t believe that. They all know each other. The fraternity of NBA players and coaches is very small. If you go back and watch the final whistle of game five, both teams immediately went to their counterparts for hand shakes and hugs and whatnot. The “dirty play” thing, I think, is the construct of people who don’t play sports or never did. Sometimes you get a petulant head slap (Dragic) or a frustration foul (Johnson), but Robert Covington went for a late shove in that series and Joel Embiid got Dragic with an elbow, too. I didn’t hear too much about that from Sixer fans.

Brown was asked Friday if he felt like Miami went “over the top” with some of their actions.

“No, in a crazy way I love it,” Brown replied. “What I do though, understand, and this is, I thought a step towards what we learned, but look at Ben Simmons’ reaction to Dragic hitting him in the back of the head. He didn’t react. He easily could have, as a young player, and possibly there could have been suspensions if you overreact. He did the somersault in mid air and landed on his back (the Richardson stumble and undercut). Justise Winslow crushes Joel’s mask. There’s physical play and people having to break each other up, but we didn’t cross the line. I think it’s a major testament to our team and our young players that they were able to play in an incredibly physical, ‘back at them’ way, with no back down, yet do it in a way that sort of belies their experience. They were highly competitive but they did it in a poised and mature way, and you need all of that in the playoffs.”

Here’s Simmons walking away after the Dragic slap:

I asked Brown where he draws the line between “physical” and “dirty.”

“Sometimes you can’t draw the line; sometimes they do equal each other,” he said. “I just feel like we know what that looks like. We feel like we play with the marching orders and the mantra that you’ve heard me talk about since I got the job. If you walked into the back of our weight room and locker room you’re gonna see the verbiage – Philly edge, Philly hard, Philly real. What’s that mean? All of my signage and messaging to the players in a video session, you would see those three things every day with how we sort of do coaching edits. And we have versions of what an edge is, what hard is, and what real is. I think that we walk our line well. We don’t feel like we cross the line, but this is Philadelphia, this is a blue collar city. I’ve said since we all met that I want the personality and the spirit and style of play to mirror that of the city. I think we’ve done that and I think we’ve done it in a way that hasn’t crossed lines and I hope it’s for the reasons we’ve taught and talked about.”

Philly special, part two

Not sure if you saw this clip floating around, but JJ Redick got really involved with a drawn-up play in game five:

Coach Redick?

pic.twitter.com/QL2D03bX81

— NBA on TNT (@NBAonTNT) April 25, 2018

Brown appears to taking Redick’s words into consideration ala Doug Pederson and Nick Foles, and he was asked about that video clip today, and how often it happens.

“Not often, but when they do (speak up) I always listen,” Brown explained. “They play the game, they see it, they feel it. And when JJ wants to change a little bit of an angle and says, ‘two plays ago, they did this, I think I can do this instead of that,’ more times than not I’m going to say, ‘fine.’ Right? You see it, you feel it, you play it, let’s do it. That’s just the communication I want to have with my guys. I respect my guys. If I don’t think it, we won’t do it, but more often than not, when somebody has something to say, for sure we’ll listen. Oftentimes we’ll do it.”

You want Philly Philly?

Yea let’s do it. 

Sixers Notes: Dirty Play and a Philly Special Reprise published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/