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May 15, 2006
Goodbye, Farewell and Amen or "a la maison blanc"
The Final West Wing: Not bad. It could have been so much worse.
(Think of an entire hour of Jimmy Smits. And then vomit.)
At least we saw Jed. And the napkin was cute. Yes, I got a little teary when Keb 'Mo was playing and they were packing up the Bartlet oval. That was good.
Pardoning Toby, good.
CJ being asked to comment by the reporter we always saw, good.
Charlie walking out of the WW, good
Josh and Donna in bed, good
All Jed scenes, good
But it was choppy, like being on the high seas in a storm on a piece of wood. Too much Smits. NO FUCKING RICHARD SCHIFF YOU BASTARDS!!!! Rob Lowe basically did a walk-on. Josh and Donna didn't speak to each other.
It died a long death, but it is finally over. May it rest in peace.
Posted by emily at 2:45 PM | Comments (0)
May 8, 2006
Show Me Your Tay-Tay Love
Piston prevents King James from staging a Palace coup
BY MITCH ALBOM
Detroit Free Press
AUBURN HILLS, Mich. - Everything about Tayshaun Prince is quiet, from his soft steps to his low, thin voice, which sometimes needs to coaxed from his lungs like toothpaste from a tube. He could come home after midnight and not wake anyone in the house. If an NBA player ever took the nickname "Whisper," he'd be the one.
LeBron James is all noise. He can't help it. Every step he takes is sponsored. Even in his TV commercials, he plays multiple characters - too big to fit in one role. At 21, he is the next coming of the Next Big Thing, and is arguably the most popular athlete in his sport. His nickname is, humbly, King James.
On Sunday afternoon, the Prince had to guard the King.
"The poor guy," Prince's coach, Flip Saunders, lamented, "he always has to take whoever the best player is . . ."
Well, who was the poor guy Sunday? Prince outscored LeBron, out-three-pointed LeBron and out-blocked LeBron. And this Game 1 blowout victory was best defined by a moment in the second quarter, where James was heading for a lay-up and Prince flew in like a prehistoric bird and swatted the ball away with wicked authority.
And then, on the other end, Prince hit a long three-pointer to put the Pistons up by 17.
The Cavaliers called time.
They could have called a cab.
Prince trumps King.
Witness that, LeBron.
Wait till you hear his comments
"He never saw me coming," Prince, 26, would later say, matter of factly, of the block that sent a jolt through the Palace. "It was kind of a bad pass. ... It gave me time to get back to him ... It was a perfect situation for me. ..."
This, remember, is Prince talking, not LeBron's coach.
But that is typical of this humble, laconic forward with the long arms that seem to sway like a wooden puppet's from his thin, high shoulders. He led Detroit in scoring Sunday, and yet you easily could have overlooked it. In fact, when that time-out was called after his dagger three-pointer, you saw everything you needed to see about No. 22.
He didn't walk to the bench banging his chest. He wasn't whooping up the crowd. Instead, he stepped gingerly around his teammates like a man wading through a parade. His eyes were down and his mouth open, the way kids have their mouths open when they are playing and something captures their attention. He took his seat and he listened to what was being said.
The next boastful move from Tayshaun Prince will be the first.
Even when he has plenty to brag about.
"Can you talk about the job you did on LeBron?" he was asked after the 113-86 thumping as the second round started.
"The task is tougher on my teammates," Prince said, "because they have to be ready to help ...
"If he gets the ball off the glass, gets the rebound and goes full court there's no stopping him. . . . .You gotta just try to deny the ball as much as possible. . . .
"I thought we did a poor job, myself and my teammates, of letting him get into the paint a little too much . .. but those things happen with a superstar like him. . . ."
Wow. You would have thought the Pistons lost by 10, instead of winning by 27.
His impossible missions
But that's Prince. You won't ever see a commercial where he plays multiple characters, You won't ever see a commercial where he's the star of a video game. With those raised shoulders and those unblinking eyes, he seems to be caught in mid-shrug, the posture of a guy who doesn't see what all the fuss is about.
And that suits him. Remember, Prince, only in his fourth season, has been assigned, in playoffs past, to cover Kobe Bryant, Dawyne Wade and Manu Ginobili. And in his quiet way, he is already in the film footage pantheon for swooping playoff blocks on Reggie Miller and Allen Iverson.
Now you can add Sunday's block on James to that resume. LeBron didn't score a point in the second half of this game. He finished with 22, well below his 35.7-point average in Round 1 against Washington, and two points fewer than Prince's career playoff high Sunday of 24.
Will it be that way in Game 2? Maybe not. But in a game where Prince was supposed to be lucky just to catch a breath while guarding James, he instead hit all four of his three-point baskets, added three rebounds and two assists, and looked at times like the younger of the two men.
"I was just trying to came out and be aggressive," he said.
Mission accomplished. In the tunnel after the game, Prince stood talking to a few friends, a baseball cap turned sideways on his head. No entourage. No Nike crew. No boasting. In a royal court, his last name would put him one notch down in the pecking order. But on the basketball court - at least for Game 1 - this Prince was King For A Day.
Posted by emily at 1:12 AM | Comments (0)