Smush Watch (Opening Night at Denver)

In easily the greatest game of his NBA career, Smush Parker helped the LA Lakers beat the Denever Nuggets last night, 99-97 in overtime. While the big national story is that Kobe hit the game winning shot, the big story in my world is that in 41 minutes (of a game which he started) Smush scored 20 points on 8-12 shooting (3-7 from three point range), had four rebounds, 6 assists, and ZERO turnovers. More importantly, Smush was on the floor during all the important moments of the game, and he even hit a huge three pointer late in the game to cut the Nuggets lead to one with 40 seconds left, while they were triple-teaming Kobe (who chucked like Costanza most of the night).


Andre Miller can't escape Smush. More on that later. 

Like I said yesterday, the game was on ESPN which meant that basketball legend, Bill Walton, was the color analyst. Normally, Walton hates everyone but the best of the best, and while he didn't warm to Smush early because of some soft defense, he cnaged his tune as the game progressed. Here's some of what he said:

- Midway through the 3rd quarter he said: "Smush Parker has become the greatest player in this game tonight, and that includes Kobe Bryant and Carmelo Anthony.

- After Smush forced Marcus Canby to change his shot on a fast break which led to a Kobe block, he said: "Smush Parker is the reason why Kobe Bryant was able to block that shot, and he should get the credit for his hustle."

- Down by 4 with 40 seconds left, Smush hit what Walton called "a cold blooded" three pointer to cut the lead to one, which led to him saying: "Devean George and Smush Parker are the unsung heros for the Lakers tonight."

The greatest moment of the game (excluding Kobe's game winner) was Smush's dunk on Andre Miller with over 9 minutes left in the 3rd quarter. While the dunk itself might not match up with his dunk on 4 LaSalle players at Fordham in 2002, or his reverse dunk on three St. Bonaventure players later that year in terms of flair, if you consider the situation this was his greatest official dunk of all time (not including streetball). The dunk was so great that it was #6 on SportCenter's Top Ten Plays last night. Here's what SportCenter anchor, Scott Van Pelt, said about the dunk during the highlight of the game:

"To the 3rd quater now, and speaking of getting loose, how about Smush Parker? Lookout! Oh, ANdre Miller, have some of that! This is how we do at Fordham, son! Don't jump with me! You can see Miller kinda laughing like, 'man, son, who are you?'"

If you didn't get the chance to see it, I recorded it, and here are the step by step pictures off my TV of the dunk:


Here's Smush (top middle) getting the bounce pass from Lamar Odom... 


...and he sizes up Andre Miller... 


...takes off... 


...and "posterizes" the Nuggets' point guard. 


"Man, son, who ARE you?" 


Here's... 


...the dunk... 


...from another... 


...angle.  

I know that all of those annoying pictures don't do the dunk justice, but it really was something special when I saw it happen live, which I proved to myself when I sreamed as loud as I could at close to 1 AM ET, completely forgetting about the new born baby next door. If all of you out there want to experience that same baby-waking emotion, then there's still time to jump on the Smush Parker bandwagon because he and the Lakers are on once again tonight at 10:30 ET, except this time on TNT. Tonight, they're playing the Suns, a team that Smush was briefly on last season. Hopefully, he can make the Suns regret that they decided to keep 2005 NBA MVP, Steve Nash, instead of him as their starting point guard. It's payback time.

Here are some other articles where Smush's greatness is mentioned:

This first one is about Phil Jackson from espn.com, and Phil kind of hints that he knows Smush is on his team.

This one is a recap of last night's game on nba.com, and Smush is actually quoted towards the end of the article.

Here are rotoworld.com's thoughts on Smush performance.

Finally, here's a link from the LA Times website from a couple weeks ago that probably won't work for you unless you're registered (I'm not registered and I was able to read it so who knows?).

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In other news, The Bob Hill Experience has been cancelled because I have no idea how to track his career as an assistant coach. Here's the best I could come up with, which, as you could imagine, the network immediately shot down:

The Seattle SuperSonics lost last night to the Los Angeles Clippers 101-93. Bob Hill wore a dark suit. The End.

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Finally, here are the lyrics to a rap song about this upcoming NBA season that was played on ESPN before SportsCenter last night. I believe the song is called "Why We Watch," because that is the phrase that ESPN is using for their NBA telecasts this year. In terms of hilarious sports themed songs with players' names mentioned in the lyrics, this NBA song ranks just above the "Who Let the Mets Out?" parody of "Who Let the Dogs Out?" during the 2000 playoffs, but just behind the classic Eagles themed, "My Philadelphia Eagles Put Your Hands Up!" (which samples the Rocky theme) of a couple years ago. Since you can't hear this song, let me tell you that it was probably written by fourth graders, and consists of two people shouting out random things in no particular structure for no particular reason, while footage of whatever player they just mentioned being shown on the screen. Just so you know, I'm typing all of the random shouting in CAPS. Also, my favorite parts are the Ron Artest line, the Mavericks question, and the Flip Saunders exclamation. Enjoy!

Why We Watch
by two Fourth Graders

Phil Jackson reunites with Kobe
HOW SWEET!
Big Shaq and the new look Heat you can't beat
Who gonna win it all?
Who got the will to compete?
Heard the Spurs got Finley
That's the word on the street
Will the Suns be able to rise and who are they?
Gotta go hard for four months without Amare
LeBron's new teammates tighten their laces
RON ARTEST!
Yeah, back with the Pacers
Houston's Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady
The deadliest combo
Will the Mavericks ever make it to the Finals?
KG leads the T'Wolves
C-Melo the Nuggets
WATCH OUT!
Slam dunks and raining buckets
A good fit in Philly man it gets no better
To answer all your questions
IVERSON AND WEBBER!
Who's gonna walk the walk not just talkin' the talk?
FLIP SAUNDERS IN DETROIT!
LARRY BROWN IN NEW YORK!
Jason Kidd and Vince Carter goin' hard for the Finals
Try to get back and tack back
Who's gonna win the title?
E-S-P-N
N-B-A
That's why we watch
SportsCenter

I have it all recorded if you ever want to watch. Please, please, please ask me to see it next time you're at my house. Please.