Wednesday, May 27, 2009

2008-2009 Pacer Awards

A couple of weeks ago the NBA awarded the Pacers own Danny Granger with the Most Improved Player Award. He narrowly edged out Devin Harris, who had a breakout season after being handed the keys to the Nets offense. Obviously this is old news, but with the madness of the Pacer-less playoffs and my general laziness, I have not felt too inspired to write about something that I have known all season to be true (that Danny Granger is deserving of whatever accolades the NBA sees fit to give him).

Upon receipt of the award, Granger quickly pointed out his own shortcomings, namely his lapse in defensive intensity after being asked to bear the load for the Pacers’ offense. "I don't want to just be a better (defender) but definitely an elite one," said Granger. "I really had modeled my defensive game a lot after Ron Artest when he was here. He was a phenomenal defensive player. I kind of got away from it the last two years.” Thankfully defense is the only thing that Granger is modeling after Ron Ron.

So now, two weeks after the Pacers received their ninth major NBA Individual award, I couldn’t help but notice that there are many other things awards-worthy for the 2008-2009 Pacers team. Without any further adieu, here are the other Pacers deserving of awards, in no particular order.

TROY MURPHY:
THE STATISTICAL ANOMALY AWARD



He was in the top 3 in 3pt% (#3) and rebounds (#2), and he was fourth for most double-doubles in the season with 49. This combination of skills does not happen. Especially not by someone who looks like Ross Gellar.

MIKE DUNLEAVY JR. :
MOST INJURED PLAYER



He played 18 games this season. He had season-ending career-threatening surgery to remove a bone spur from his right patellar tendon, and he admits that his knee injury has been a problem for about 10 years. O’Brien doesn’t think he’ll be back until after the All-Star Break. This would have troubled me more if the Pacers didn’t have the recipient of the next award, and if Dunleavy wasn’t a Star Trek/BSG Hater. You are no longer my friend Mike Dunleavy Jr.

BRANDON RUSH:
BEST SECOND HALF



For Brandon, this season was all about confidence. As a rookie he started off shaky and his minutes shrank, but once he landed the starting 2 spot after injuries to both Mike Dunleavy Jr and Marquis Daniels, his production took off. On one weekend he had back-to-back 29 point games, and it seriously felt like he couldn’t miss. He is the most athletic Pacer and he is being groomed to be Granger’s running mate on both ends of the court. If he reaches his potential I have no doubt that he will turn into something special.

JAMAAL TINSLEY:
BIGGEST ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM/BEST STARBURY IMPRESSION



Yup. He’s still here. He’s owed $14.7 million over the next two years, but Larry Bird is adamant that he will not play a single minute for the Pacers. They hope to trade him over the summer, but it could get ugly.

ROY HIBBERT:
GREG ODEN AWARD:



I like Hibbert. He’s got length and athleticism and he has a touch. If only he could move his feet better and stop fouling as much as Greg Oden. If he can learn to stay on the floor for more than 15 minutes, and if he had some defensive help at the 4 then the Pacers front court might actually become legitimate.

BIGGEST/BEST MISTAKE EVER:
PACERS MOUSTACHE COMPETITION



Despite turning the every white Pacers player into some variation of pornstar or cowboy, the moustache competition was a nice sign that there was some sense of locker room camaraderie that didn’t have anything to do with strip clubs, guns, or drugs. Too bad it turned out to be a half-hearted commitment. Imagine if ALL the Pacers had kept their moustaches for more than a couple of weeks. THE ENTIRE LEAGUE WOULD’VE BEEN TALKING ABOUT THEM. They would’ve gotten into the Sportscenter Top 10 plays on a nightly basis due to the power of their moustaches alone. Unfortunately the Pacers came to their senses and shaved their moustaches before it became too big of a deal. Hence, I was only able to find three pictures of the offending facial hair. Wiggy's picture was already modified when I found it, although I admit his likeness to Daniel Plainview is pretty spot on. According to Troy Murphy they also called Jeff's moustache "The Predator" because you wouldn't want to leave your kids around a guy with facial hair like his. That's pretty spot on too.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Calvin and Hobbes' NBA First Round Playoff Analysis

Now that the first round of the playoffs is over I figured I'd chime in with some analysis. However, rather than reiterate what everyone already knows about the playoffs (ie Lebron and Kobe are great, Detroit, San Antonio, and the Jazz are done as we know them, Byron Scott is so fired, etc), I decided to translate my thoughts on the first round of the postseason with the help of Calvin and Hobbes, a comic strip that I've read and reread religiously since I was 8. With all apologies to the brilliant Bill Watterson, here are the Calvin and Hobbes strips/images which sum up the first round of the 2009 NBA Playoffs. Please don't sue me for copyright infringement. Also, apologies for the crappy scans.

EASTERN CONFERENCE

Cleveland (1) vs. Detroit (8)



Result: Cleveland wins series 4-0

Boston (2) vs. Chicago (7)

Games 1,2,4-6



Game 7



Result: Boston wins series 4-3

Orlando (3) vs. Philadelphia (6)



Result: Orlando wins series 4-2

Atlanta (4) vs. Miami (5)




Result: Atlanta wins series 4-3

WESTERN CONFERENCE
Los Angeles (1) vs. Utah (8)


Result: Lakers win series 4-1

Denver (2) vs. New Orleans (7)



Result: Denver wins series 4-1

San Antonio (3) vs. Dallas (6)



Result: Dallas wins series 4-1

Portland (4) vs. Houston (5)



Result: Houston wins series 4-2

Oversimplified? Of course! Contrived? A little.

But cmon. It's Calvin and Hobbes!

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

DG4MIP...sigh...



Now that the playoff race is over I turn to the only ray of hope left in the Pacers 08-09 Season, and that is the NBA Awards. The day for voters to submit their decisions for who deserves those awards is tomorrow, so I’m coming in a little late for this, but what the heck. I’m only one man and I’ve been too depressed since the Pacers lost to the Hawks last week to care.

Obviously the only person on our team that is in contention for an award is Danny Granger for Most Improved Player, and this is far from a lock. His main competition is Devin Harris, Kevin Durant, Brandon Roy, Nene, Thaddeus Young, Rajon Rondo, and Roger Mason Jr. The ESPN Poll of voters has DG edging Harris out by one vote, but who knows.

If you doubt that DG deserves the MIP or need more info on why he deserves the MIP then:
1. Why the heck are you reading a Pacers blog?
2. Shame on you
3. You should check out this site.

The site is a nice tribute to our go-to guy, and it’s very interesting to note that Granger is fourth in 4th Quarter scoring only behind Lebron, Kobe, and DWade. Remember that Chris Broussard article when Granger talked about not being mentioned in the same tier as them? This is one stat where he can be.

There is one strange thing on the site though. If you go to the “Danny’s Gear “ tab you can buy a DG33 jersey, a warmup, a hat, and a dog bowl. Bentley’s Dog Bowl for $18.69.

That’s right. A dog bowl.

This begs a couple of questions: Why a dog bowl? Are there many Danny Granger fans that own a dog? Who the hell is Bentley? And why is his dog bowl a piece of Pacers merchandise on the Danny Granger for MIP website? I don’t know the answer to any of these questions.

I google searched “Bentley” “Dog” and “Pacers” and the best I got was this

I don’t know what the heck that is.

Oh well.

I tried to think of a cool slogan for Granger for MIP a la Kevin Love's Miracle Glass Cleaner, but I couldn't because I'm stupid. All of my ideas had to do with Assassins and Hitmen and Ninjas, and we all know that those things don't campaign for anything. They just kill you real good. Which kind of makes sense for a Most Improved Player Campaign, but is also infantile.

This blog entry doesn’t really have a purpose I guess, but neither does the Pacers last game against the Bucks tomorrow.

Good Luck to Danny. He deserves the MIP.

P.S. A better post is coming. Don’t worry.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

The New Heroes

The public has always placed their heroes on pedestals.

It is a position that is out of reach, a place to look up to and aspire to, and there’s a reason for that. In the traditional sense, heroes don’t belong in the realm of mortals because they transcend such distinctions. They belong above the crowd, behind a wall of mystique that ensures the public that yes, these people are better than us, and yes they deserve to be viewed as such. Their legends are built around the principle of mystique.

NBA players are no different. They fly on a different plane of existence, with explosive dunks and silky smooth reverse layups. They are cut from a different cloth that bulges with toned cores and bulging biceps -- a culture of sculptured physiques that show man at his best, his most powerful. The typical NBA athlete knows this, and aloofness abounds in the Association as a result.

The best carry themselves as if they are the best. They put their game faces on like masks and that is what the public sees – the fierce scowls of competitive fury, the fist pumps that defy the heavens, and the earth shattering displays of strength and athleticism. When we watch Superman sky for a block, the King slice through the lane like a freight train, or the Big Aristotle throw down on all who stand in his way, we don’t see mortals. We see heroes. Not-of-this-earth, larger-than-life, and inaccessibly talented heroes.

That was before Twitter.

These days, pedestals are being ripped down. The heroes are coming down from their gold-laced cloud-fortresses to walk amongst the people, and perceptions are changing. But is it for the better?

There was a time when the public’s exposure to an NBA athlete’s personality was limited to newspaper blurbs and canned post-game interview responses. These small slivers of personality (or lack thereof) became accepted and more or less expected, and only occasionally would tempers flare enough to get the occasional sound bite of humanity (Practice?!?). Apart from these outbursts of emotion though, our heroes knew exactly what to say when the camera lights came on. Everything was filtered. Of course, that was before the internet.

Most famously, Gilbert Arenas started the NBA blogging revolution by being one of the first Triple A NBA guys to blog candidly and publicly. Others followed suit, but Gilbert was always the most recognizable NBA name in the blogosphere. He is a candid personality unto himself: irreverent and honestly arrogant, Arenas never seems to filter himself. But despite that he understands his position as an NBA star: after seeing a kid mimicking Rip Hamilton’s free throw routine, he devised his own three-dribble, three times behind the back routine so that kids would copy him, a story he acknowledges himself. This kind of honesty and self-realized idolatry brings about the question of whether or not we as fans want our heroes to be so candid. If there is no curtain to hide the humanity, can we really view our heroes as invincibly as we once did?

Last Sunday LeBron James was on 60 Minutes. He was calm and composed, offering Steve Kroft measured answers to every question asked. The result was a careful distance from being too exposed, but it was an honest distance. It was as if LeBron bought into his own regal image, laughing heartily at his own jokes, walking through Akron like Dr. Manhattan floating through a world he is elementally a part of while managing to transcend beyond it; in every sense, he played the invincible and untouchable hero. He was born on a pedestal.

If Gilbert’s blog tore down the curtain around the pedestal, then Twitter is beating the pedestal with a sledgehammer and setting fire to the debris.

Charlie Villanueva (CV31) is getting reprimanded for tweeting at halftime.

Mark Cuban (mcuban) is getting fined for complaining about refs through tweets.

Paul Pierce (Paulpierce34) is giving away tickets with secret rendezvous and passwords.

Shaq (THE_REAL_SHAQ) is taking pictures of himself while sleeping and posting them.

Baron Davis’ beard (BoomsBeard) is giving regular updates on his relationship with Baron Davis (Baron_Davis).

Jerry Sloan has no idea what I’m talking about.

With all this self-induced and self-censored exposure, the curtain is coming down around the mystique of some of the NBA’s most notable personalities, and while stars like Kobe and LeBron have not yet jumped on the bandwagon, would we really want them to? John Krolik of Cavs: The Blog puts it this way in response to LBJ’s 60 Minutes interview:

There’s still a sense that the LeBron we’re allowed to see is manufactured, but when…players are Twittering away our respect for them, segments like this one remind fans that we don’t mind seeing a manufactured image every now and then if we sense it was made with good intentions.

So that’s the conundrum. On the one hand, there are uberstars like Kobe, LeBron, and Dwyane Wade who refuse to come down from the pedestal, so focused they are on their basketball image. And then there’s Shaq (who I only started really liking after following him on Twitter) and Baron (who has nothing better to do on the Clippers). Some people would argue that players such as these are not the true upper echelon heroes of the NBA, and some of those people would argue that their presence on Twitter is evidence of this (after all, what kind of hero would have time to dally in 140-word phrases?), but this is simply not true. Twitter has created a different kind of hero.

These pioneering Twitters are becoming true heroes of the people. When I see a tweet from THE_REAL_SHAQ complete with a twitpic of any sort I get more excited than any post-game interview. It’s like a brief and fleeting connection with the Diesel, like he’s showing me a secret window into his life. I click the link and I get to see Shaq’s newly shaven beard, him sitting in a barber’s chair, or him driving down the 405 complaining about traffic. Not even Craig Sager can claim that kind of immediate intimacy.

It is a completely different kind of exhilaration that in no way takes away from the luster of seeing the real real Shaq slam it home on the hardwood. If anything it adds to it. When I see Shaq play I root for him like I root for a friend -- If he wins tonight maybe he’ll tweet funnier tweets! -- I think to myself, an effect that could never be achieved before Twitter. It is an amazing feeling of interconnectivity, and I appreciate Shaq’s basketball play all the more because of it. For all the NBA Players I follow on Twitter, my respect for them is a respect bred from a sense of camaraderie as much as it is a respect of their skill.

Obviously, Shaq is unique in his ability to entertain. He has personality and humor. He is a walking quote machine. He was built for Twitter.

Can you even imagine what a Kobe Bryant tweet would sound like?



I just tried. It’s impossible, and there’s a reason for that too.

It really is all about image and personality. Just like there are those who are reluctant to give in-depth interviews, there are those who do not wish to be in the public eye more than they have to be. Twitter can occasionally feel incredibly trite and ridiculous and in that sense it can definitely be an image-destroyer. There are thousands of tweets that I simply don’t care about, and sometimes those tweets come from NBA athletes. But it is by no means a condemnation of Twitter itself. Twitter is just another platform.

For some NBA stars, it can be another pedestal. But it’s like a pedestal with a cool rope ladder that allows backdoor access for the cool kids who know the password. It’s a secret club where I can pretend to be friends with Shaq and BDiddy and Andrew Bogut (yes, I would be friends with Andrew Bogut, shuttup), a club where Mark Cuban thinks he can criticize refs, and Charlie Villanueva passes notes during halftime. After all, what’s wrong with wanting to be friends with some of your heroes? If the curtain comes down and we like what we see, why not?

But Krolik is right. There are some times when we do like seeing something more than a hero.

Sometimes we like to see legends. Some legends don’t fit in under 140 words.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

TJ Leaners, MurphDog Comebacks, Stitches, Brad Miller, and Muppet Basketball...Oh My!

We’ve seen it before, but that shot had no business going in.

I don’t know how many times TJ Ford will have to hit a contested jumper with the game on the line before I can start trusting that it’s a legitimate shot. That’s gotta be at least his third of the season. The man has no fear. Can you say 21st Pacer game decided by 3pts or less (We’re 9-12! Woohoo!).

It was a big win (in some circles), an exciting win, and lots of weird stuff happened. MurphDog came back from a sprained MCL by surprise while Foster sat with a mysterious foot injury. Josh McRoberts took Foster's place and played out of his mind, coming off the bench to score 10 points in 18 minutes.

Despite playing with a lot of energy, I still think that Josh looks like a muppet. It’s not so much that he actually looks like a muppet (although he kinda does); it’s more that he looks like a muppet if were to imagine a muppet playing basketball.



Granger also knocked heads with Kirk Hinrich in the third minute of play, and both required stitches above their eyes. Oddly enough, both guys came back and combined for 7-7 shooting after getting sewn up.

Granger finished with 31 pts, 4rbs, 2blks while Hinrich had 20pts, 7rbs, 7asts. MurphDog had another double-double with 15-12, while DRose also had a pretty good game (big surprise against the Pacers D) with 24 pts, 11rbs, and 6asts. Furthermore, Tyrus Thomas solidified his place in Roy Hibbert's nightmares with two more stuffs against our woeful big man, who hacked his way to 5 fouls in 17 minutes. As a side note Brad Miller’s old-man pump fake worked 10293801985 times and he managed 14 pts, 8 dimes, and 5 rbs.

Regardless of Miller’s sorcerous trickery, all that matters is that the Pacers were able to overcome a 5 point deficit with 2:45 left. This was capped off when Granger hit the go-ahead three-pointer with 42 seconds left, putting Indy up 105-103. Then Ben Gordon hit a jumper of his own with 38 left, tying the game and setting up TJ Ford’s signature crazy and for-all-intents-and-purposes-ill-advised leaner that ended the game 107-105.

Now the Pacers sit 3.5 games behind the Bulls with 7 games left.

The math still adds up, but it’s a pretty long shot.

At least there isn’t as much pressure on us as there was/is on the Suns…

Monday, March 30, 2009

Where do we go from here?


For the ailing Pacers, a season of “What ifs?” is slipping into the realm of “What now?”

With a close loss to Chicago on Saturday and another injury to add to the list in Troy Murphy’s sprained MCL, the Pacers’ slim playoff hopes are fading considerably. There are eight games left in the season and we continue to sit 4.5 games back from the Bulls and the final spot in the Eastern Conference Playoffs. Although six of our eight remaining games are at home, we’ll have to beat Chicago, San Antonio, Atlanta, Detroit, and Cleveland to have any chance of making the playoffs. With any luck at least Cleveland will be on cruise control when we finally play them, but that won’t even matter if we don’t win Tuesday’s game against Chicago. The mathematics say a playoff run is possible, but to what end?

What if we DO beat all those teams and make it to the playoffs? What if Troy Murphy does come back from what has been described as an excruciatingly painful injury before the end of the season? What if a playoff berth does mean extra revenue for the cash-strapped club? Would it really matter? Would that cash-flow really extend past the first round? Would we really be able to make a showing against the Cavs?

What if?

Ugh.

At some point the towel will have to be thrown in. Although I’m not ready to give up YET, I promise that if we lose this next game on Tuesday it is done and finished. The Pacers will be lottery bound and liking it.

But no matter what happens in regards to the playoffs, the eternal question of any lost soul must be asked: What now?

The future of the franchise has obviously been placed on the shoulders of Danny Granger, and personally there are no shoulders in the NBA besides Lebron, DWade, Kobe, and CP3’s that I would rather have this franchise rest on. But does Granger belong in the company of such talent?

Heck no. Not yet anyway.

Last week, ESPN’s Chris Broussard wrote an article highlighting Granger’s underdog status because of the Pacers lackluster performance this season:

Is a guy who puts up huge stats for a bad team as good as his numbers?


Being able to reconcile the space between a player's stats and his team's record is a big part of what separates championship-level talent evaluators from the recycled masses. All sorts of x factors come into play: Who is the guy scoring against? How does he get his points? Is he effective in crunch time? And the consensus on Granger, not just in front offices, but on sidelines and in locker rooms as well, is that he's legit.

Danny Granger is efficient. Even as Granger acknowledges the lone-wolf theory—that on a poor team someone is bound to post impressive stats—he is quick to add a corollary: "Some say it's harder to score on a bad team because everybody's loading up on you."

…Granger's shooting percentage of 43.2 isn't blistering, but it's within percentage points of (Joe) Johnson's as well as Kobe's in both his last season with and first season without Shaq.

But still, the stigma is there. It’s pretty well known that Granger has improved by 5 ppg in each of the four seasons he’s played in the NBA, but can that trend continue? Exactly how high is Granger’s peak? The coolest thing about Broussard’s article is how honestly it portrays Granger as an underdog, and how Granger himself accepts that label. He knows that he is not yet at the level of Kobe and Co., and that’s what drives him.

"It's not an indictment of him that the Pacers aren't winning," says an Eastern Conference scout. "But if he's your best player—which he is in Indiana—you're in trouble. You're not going to win at a high level." One West exec, referencing the NBA's most heavenly duo, puts it more poetically but just as bluntly: "Granger can be a Scottie to somebody's Mike. He just can't be Mike."

… "I'm about 70% of the player I can be," (Granger) says…"I can definitely be the No. 1 guy on a really good team," he says without a hint of doubt. "People can say I'm not good enough, and I'll just keep proving them wrong—and smiling inside."

Read the rest of the article (what little I didn’t steal) at:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?id=4018165

If Danny himself is to be believed, then the future is looking bright.

But not even Kobe, Lebron, or even MJ can do it all themselves.

If Danny’s surrounding cast can stay healthy, the Pacers will be a legitimate run and gun threat next year. Although they are in position for a lottery draft pick in an admittedly weak draft class, they are also in possession of young talent that has potential, a lot of which was on display this past weekend.

Brandon Rush had back to back 29 pt games, finally relishing the starting 2 spot and doing his best Danny Granger impression. Against both Chicago and Washington, his teammates were setting him picks at the top of the key and on the baseline, and over and over again he would pop up and knock down the J with a confidence that he’s never shown until now. It’s not just jumpers though – he shows flashes of athleticism on drives, and O’Brien himself admits that Rush is the Pacers’ best athlete. If teams pay too much attention to Danny, then Rush has shown this past weekend that he can make them pay.

Even The Roy Hibbert Project is showing SOME progress. After getting blocked by Tyrus Thomas 102930185 times on Saturday, Roy came back with 12 pts and 8 rbs in 16 minutes of play. The catch of course is that this was against the Washington Wizards, annnnnd Roy fouled out halfway into the third quarter. So you know, he’s still a project. But he’s OUR project.

These guys are the Pacers future. And when Dunleavy, Daniels, and Murph come back, we’ll have a team brimming with depth and range. The starting five of Jack, Rush, Granger, Murph, and Hibbert, backed up by TJ Ford, Marquis Daniels, Dunleavy, Jeff Foster and Rasho? Plus a draft pick? That’s a pretty legitamate rotation if you ask me. Just don’t start thinking about the What ifs.

(Can they stay healthy? Do we have too many redundant wing players? Are the Pacers moving?)

Stupid future. You know so much more than me.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

A Reunion of Sorts



Last night brought together a bunch of guys who had not been together in a while, but had been together before. Doing things. Like playing basketball.

Two former Pacers walked into Conseco as the enemy – the aforementioned Jermaine O’neal and Reggie-disciple James Jones. Two NCAA Championship Jayhawks also met on the court for the third time this year, Brandon Rush and Super Mario Chalmers, this time with Rush actually playing considerable minutes. Even the current Kansas Jayhawk team (currently in the Sweet 16 awaiting their matchup with MSU) showed up to “cheer” on their former star players. The camera cuts to the team in the stands however, reflected the current Jayhawks’ vast indifference to anything to do with the Pacers, even if the guys who won their school a championship were playing in the game. In the NBA. Silly college kids.

There was even a mini Marquette reunion: Travis Diener and Dwyane Wade used to run the Golden Eagles backcourt, and their coach at the time Tom Crean, who now coaches at Indiana, was in attendance as well. The only Golden Eagle missing was The Steve Novak Experience, doomed to be the best-looking white man in Clipper land:



Steve Novak: See?! I AM the best looking white man in Clipper land!


So basically everybody in attendance knew everybody who was playing and that was that.

Obviously, the most publicized reunion (mostly by me, but hey, nobody else is paying attention) was the return of Jermaine O’neal, and JO made his return last night to the tune of 13pts, 2rbs, and 3 blks. When his name was called for the Heat lineup he was met with a surprising spatter of boos amongst mild appreciative applause from the usually respectful Conseco Fieldhouse crowd. C'mon guys show some love.

Not even Danny Granger showed any love – he took it to O’neal on his first touch and squeaked a layin around JO’s block attempt. Heck, Granger even blocked a Jermaine O'neal put-back attempt! Meanwhile, Roy Hibbert learned respect after getting stuffed twice trying to dunk on JO, which was as amusing as it was heartbreaking to watch.

But O’neal was hardly the story for the game.

The REAL story was that despite holding The Flash to 21 pts on 5-24 shooting as well as having a 6pt lead with 1:39 left, the Heat still had a shot to win at the buzzer with a WIDE OPEN DWade three that hit every part of the rim before popping out. Yup, like they always do the Pacers wanted to make it interesting by playing (and thankfully winning) their TWENTIETH game decided by 3pts or less, bringing their record in such games up to 8-12. God forbid we let the Spurs catch up to that mark, who have now played EIGHTEEN games decided by three or less, FIVE of which have come in the last 12 days (they are a more respectable 11-7 in these games). Haha. At least we can compete with the Spurs in something.

Overall it was a decent win as only the Pacers know how to win.

Danny Granger finished with 28pts, 3 steals and 2 blocks, and oh yeah - UdonisFreakingHaslem went 9-10 for a stretch, finishing 9-12 18pts, 14rbs. Jeff Foster also had a season-high 16rbs, but those were all stolen from Troy Murphy who sat with a strained MCL so they don’t really count (Just kidding! Jeff Foster is the ORB OG!)

Come back Trooooy! I need your rebounds in order to stay alive in my Fantasy Playoffs!