Larry Brown Sports

Mark Jackson complained after the Golden State Warriors’ 107-100 loss to the Denver Nuggets on Tuesday night that Denver sent “hitmen” at his best player, Steph Curry.

“[They] tried to send ‘hitmen’ on Steph [Curry],” Jackson said after the game.

When asked to elaborate, Jackson did.

“There were some dirty plays earlier. It’s playoff basketball, that’s alright. We owe them. Make no mistake about it: we went up 3-1 playing hard, physical, clean basketball. Not trying to hurt anybody.”

During the first quarter with the Nuggets up 9-5, Curry was running down the lane as the Warriors were about to set up an offensive play. As he was going down the key, Kenneth Faried tried to trip him. Curry has been battling an ankle injury during the series, so one could argue he was being targeted in the foot.

Then in the second quarter, Kosta Koufos fouled Curry twice as he was trying to shoot a shot from the wing. Curry pushed Koufos back in response and pointed at the big man.

About two minutes later, Andrew Bogut stepped in as an enforcer and pushed Faried in the throat, likely as retaliation.

According to Rusty Simmons of the San Francisco Chronicle, the players disagreed on who’s targeting whom.

“They come out of nowhere, trying to throw elbows,” Curry said.

“They play dirty every night. They’ve targeted me,” said Faried.

Memo to Faried: you start it, Golden State will finish.

Game 6 on Thursday should be a fun one. Since it’s in Oakland, I would imagine it would be tougher for Nuggets players to get away with those plays in front of the opposing fans. I also expect the Warriors to close out the series.

We all know technology is fun, but people really need to learn not to use it to send pictures of their funny business to people who they cannot trust. If you want to send dong pictures to your wife, by all means. Chances are she’s not going to share them with the entire internet. And if you go through a nasty divorce and she decides to, oh well. That’s the risk you took. But if you’re a former NBA player turned well-known analyst like Mark Jackson, it’s probably best to not act on impulse and engage in this sort of behavior.

According to The Smoking Gun, an ex-stripper named Alexis Adams was arrested this week along with her alleged accomplice, ex-convict Marcus Shaw. Adams, who is now 28, has been accused of trying to extort a six-figure payment from Jackson in return for nude photos he had sent her roughly six years ago when they had an affair.

Jackson and Adams met at a strip club in New York when Jackson was working as an announcer for the New Jersey Nets with the YES Network. Jackson said he was first approached by Shaw in April. Shaw showed Jackson a folder that he said contained the photos and a CD which he said held recording of voicemails he left Adams back when they were seeing each other. Shaw claimed he purchased a storage container for $3,500 and found the pictures and voicemails.

According to the report, Shaw claimed he wanted money to “fix his teeth and get his car out of an impound lot.” Jackson eventually gave him $5,000 but decided to contact the police when the extortionists got in touch with his wife of 22 years.

It’s a shame it took this story so long to come to light. Otherwise, people like Brett Favre, Greg Oden, and Mike Hamlin would have had a chance to learn from Jackson’s lapse in judgment.

H/T The Big Lead
Photo credit: Greg Smith-US PRESSWIRE

When a player like Jeremy Lin comes out of nowhere and goes from bench player to one of the best point guards in the NBA — wait, never mind. That doesn’t happen. Anyway, Warriors coach Mark Jackson is one of the people who let Lin slip through his fingers. Nobody saw it coming, so you can’t really blame Jackson. Don’t let them fool you — the Knicks were about to cut Lin, too. That does not mean, however, that the fans don’t let Jackson hear about it.

“(Lin is) playing with great confidence and is not afraid of the moment,” Jackson said during an interview with 95.7 The Game in San Francisco. “That’s one thing I knew coming in. He was a guy that would compete and get after it. I’m happy for him because at the end of the day we have a point guard in Steph Curry. I was at Starbucks yesterday and a guy asked me about Jeremy Lin and Steph Curry and I asked him who was a better player. He paused and because he took the pause I just told him thank you, have a great day. Enjoy your cup of coffee.”

Curry is certainly more proven than Lin, who has only performed at a high level for six games. That being said, is Jackson saying he had to make a choice between Curry or Lin? It was either cut Curry or cut Lin? Of course not.

Again, I don’t blame Jackson and the Warriors for letting Lin walk. The type of spark he has given the Knicks was impossible to predict. But Jackson is reaching a bit by comparing him to Curry. With the way Lin has been playing, any team in the NBA would welcome him regardless of who their other guards are. Jackson probably shouldn’t be bragging about winning that mini-argument.

The Dallas Mavericks have reached the Finals of the NBA Playoffs, and their depth has been a big reason why they’ve had so much success. Though they only have one superstar in Dirk Nowitzki, their strength is that they have eight other solid-to-good players on their roster. One of whom is backup center Brendan Haywood, who despite playing only 18 minutes per game is extremely valuable because he gives Dallas another sturdy defensive presence in the middle. Apparently ESPN analyst Mark Jackson doesn’t see it that way.

When starting center Tyson Chandler committed his third foul early in the third quarter of Game 1 against the Heat, Haywood checked into the game. Play-by-play man Mike Breen said it’s been a nice benefit to have a guy like Haywood available off the bench. He then related a story about how Heat exec Pat Riley made a recruiting visit over the summer to Haywood at his home in North Carolina. Haywood signed with the Mavs instead, thinking he was going to be their starter until they locked down Chandler.

Upon hearing the story, Jackson was incensed.

“What has this League come to?” Jackson opined. “I’m not going to see Brendan Haywood at his house to recruit him. Come back to me, Coach Riley.”

Jeff Van Gundy asked in surprise, “You don’t think he deserves a visit?” Jackson responded by saying Haywood should have to meet them halfway.

Read The Rest of the Story…

In case you haven’t heard, the NBA’s new stance on technical fouls is completely absurd.  Referees have been instructed to hand out technical fouls when players make aggressive hand gestures, demonstrate on themselves the way they were fouled, complain to an official about a call, walk a long distance to argue a call, and inquire about a call excessively (even if done in a civilized tone).  If that sounds like a joke to you, I’m afraid it’s not.

Although it’s only the preseason, we’ve already heard a ton of complaining about the new rules.  Refs have been fully enforcing them, and it remains to be seen if the authoritarian style of ruling will die down a bit in the regular season or if the zebras are just trying to mark their territory before the feast.  We’ll soon find out.

ABC color commentator Mark Jackson has an interesting take on the new technical foul rules.  Rather than focusing on the negatives that come along with being T’ed up, Jackson points out that great free throw shooters could benefit from it.  “If I was a guy like Reggie Miller I’d love the rule because it would add three or four points a night to my scoring total from technical fouls.”

I’m going to take the liberty of saying Jackson is joking, but with the way things are headed his thought may not be that far-fetched.  If the Kevin Garnetts and Ron Artests of the world are getting slapped with more Ts than they’re used to, the Ray Allens and Chauncey Billups will be sitting back and improving their resumes.