Sports Rundown

A few random sports nuggets:

First nugget regards The Nuggets, whose season opener I saw on Wednesday. They looked pretty good offensively. Linas Kleiza had the game of his career, bombing 4 straight 3's at one point and looking like the second coming of Steve Kerr, only taller and with less hair and a much sillier name. That probably won't happen again, and they're going to have to get more inside scoring, which shouldn't be too hard since Nene, K-Mart, and Camby combined to go about 2-for-327, from my unofficial recordkeeping. Iverson looked great, racking up like 14 dimes to go with his mid-20's points. 'Melo had an extremely quiet 30-something. He made scoring look ridiculously easy.

But lordy lord, this team really can't play defense. I know that the Suns, in particular, give up a fair number of fast break baskets, because D'antoni preaches not to foul on what is bound to be a successful fast break, as fouls slow down the game and reduce fast break opportunities. But the Nuggets seem to have no such plan in mind, it's more of a 'playing defense is so hard' mentality. I see them easily getting to 50 wins, with an average margin of victory being something like 116-107. But that is just a receipt to get killed by the Spurs again in the playoffs.

Second nugget having to do with Football Armageddon, a.k.a. Patriots/Colts on Sunday. Certainly the most hyped regular season game in quite a while, and deservedly so. The Patriots have been on a mission so far this season to dismantle the rest of the league, while the Colts have quietly put together a completely dominant 7-0 start coming off a championship season. It is remarkable that a defending champ, after starting 7-0, is getting points at a home game (the line opened at Patriots -5), but that's more a sign of how remarkable the Patriots have been than anything. The Colts are the only team in the NFL that would be getting less than double-digits to the Pats by now.

I don't entirely buy into the whole TMQ-style 'Good vs. Evil' plotline for this game. The Pats are certainly grumpy about having their last 3 championships tainted by the fact that they were caught cheating, and are on a mission to show how good they can be. I have no use for Belichick as a human being - he is a bitter, sulking baby who completely lacks confidence and faith in himself, as evidenced by how little class he conducts himself with in the public sphere. Dungy is certainly a better man. But it's impossible to argue with the statement that Belichick is the better coach.

As for the running up the score question, I have no problem with it. When I played Ultimate, and we were getting beat down by a much better team, I expected them to continue to play hard until the game was done, and I expected the same from my team when we were playing someone much better. It's an insult to your opponent to do any less, in my experience.

The way they continue to celebrate unnecessary touchdowns as if they were playoff game-winners is certainly classless, and if the Redskins had started blitzing the living hell out of Brady and taking very physical, maybe even cheap, shots at him, I would not have minded that either.

So, all that said, of course I'd rather have the Colts win. The Pats have taken on Yankees status at this point, where if you cheer for them without being a native, or at least longtime, fan, that is clearly evidence that, while you may still have a soul, it is malfunctioning and should be taken in for a tuneup.

However, in my heart of hearts, I can't predict a Colts win, for one simple reason. In thinking about possible outcomes of the game, I can definitely imagine a close Colts win. I can definitely imagine a close Pats win. I can also easily imagine a Pats blowout (14-plus point) victory, whereas under no set of circumstances do I see the Colts winning by that margin.

So, I would have to say that 'the odds' are absolutely in favor of the Pats.

Third nugget has to do with my contractual obligation to mention the NHL at least once per season, so I will say that it appears that the Avs might be okay again this year, as they are having quite a good opening stretch, particularly at home. Also, I saw on a bumper sticker downtown that the Red Wings suck, so apparently they are not as good this year. I will now not mention hockey for approximately one more year.