By Sam Rubenstein

Listen, it’s 6 P.M. the day after, and I can’t shake my feelings of anger over the latest Giants debacle. I went to the gym this morning to get some of the aggression out, and that was just a little band aid. We have our company softball team postseason banquet in an hour, and there will be Giants and Mets fan contingent there. You could see grown men crying. Oh, and when I say banquet, they invited people to a steakhouse, but it turns out that was a joke, and it’s a bar and chicken fingers, mozarella sticks, etc. Sneaky. Onto the awards.

Games played Friday night: There was the return of Vince to uppermost echelon form with 32, 7, and 6 for the Nets against Cleveland, the team that eliminated them last year when Vince didn’t deliver under the pressure of earning his next mega contract with a statement series (ha ha. Ooops!). I remember going to the game in that series last year when Vince got stripped by Eric Snow to lose the game and thinking to myself “That was a playoff game?” And I will echo what Holly said this morning, yahoo putting +/- in the boxscore is great! Varejao played 25 minutes and was a -23 for Cleveland. That’s not good for a highly paid intangibles guy. But none of that makes anyone the Player of the D.A.Y. Brandon Roy had another huge night for Portland in an upset win over Utah, but not quite the upset you think, cause Portland is on a run and their record is almost as good as Utah’s. Honorable mention to Baron Davis for leading Golden State over the Lakers in a come from behind win, with a tip of the cap to Kobe missing key moments with his injury. But it’s Dwight Howard with 33 and 18 in Charlotte on a game that ESPN randomly decided to cover like the Super Bowl. Sticking with the +/- thing, Dwight was +12 and his opponent, the guy who many considered he was “a toss up” with at draft time, Emeka Okafor, was -19. Dwight’s having a big year.

Games played Saturday: Orlando lost to Memphis, but Dwight had 31 and 20 the night after that 33 and 18. Philly upset Cleveland, and LeBron is out of sync or at least a little rusty since the injury. I love how it was Nazr Mohammed who injured him, and now he’s not even on the Pistons anymore. Joe Dumars is the world’s greatest genius except for the Darko thing, which was the exception that proves the rule. LeBron can’t even find the guy who hurt him and take out his anger out on him when the Pistons and Cavs meet up. Very nicely done Joe. For the Player of the D.A.Y., I will defer to the “biggest game” of the night. The Spurs beat the Nuggets on the boards, even with Duncan only playing 20 minutes. It was Fabricio Oberto with 21, 13, and 5, hitting 10 of 11 shots. San Antonio is as undefeated at home as Boston is. Are there degrees of undefeatedness? Huh? Moving on.

Games played yesterday: Honorable mention to Kobe. I get nervous everytime the Lakers play late on Sunday night (which seems to be every Sunday night) cause of the possibility of the 81+ point game which would blow up the entire work day and change everything. He had good numbers in a win over the Clippers, but I have to give it to Brandon Roy, leading Portland over Denver, which gets to play the role of weekend Player of the D.A.Y. victim. A final note on +/-, in that game Allen Iverson shot a very good 50% with 11 of 22 shooting, hit 13 of 15 from the line, 6 assists, 3 steals, 3 turnovers which isn’t that many for all of his touches, scored 38. He was a -12. Hmmmmmmm… I don’t know how perfect this perfect stat is.

Softball party time!