Player of the D.A.Y.

By Sam Rubenstein

Ah… life. Not to get into too many details here, but a tree attacked me on the street yesterday and I have a cut on the side of my head, and it all happened while I was waiting for the AAA guy to give my car it’s second jump in less than a week, right as one of my oldest friends that I never get to see anymore was walking to a tutoring job on that block. He’s a playwright by the way.

So, once again, Player of the D.A.Y. catch-up.

Games played last Thursday: Big showdown of Western Conference powers, the Mavs and the Spurs. Wait, are the Mavs a front-runner? Or are they on the way down and out? Really tough to tell this year. Anyways, Tim Duncan had 31 and 15. Manu is actually the Spurs leading scorer this season, but Duncan is still who he is. Check out the new issue to see what political heavyweight I compare him to. Hint: Not someone running in the current election. And no it’s not Mike Bloomberg.

Games played last Friday: Happy Leap Year! Portland put an end to the Lakers winning streak with balanced contributions from Brandon Roy, Lamarcus Aldridge, and Jarret Jack, but I give it to Chris Paul for getting skills challenge revenge against Deron Williams and the Jazz.

Games played Saturday: Congrats to my friend Kevin, whose wedding I attended that night. I had as much fun as Andre Iguodala did exposing the “Still figuring it out” Suns, pouring in 32. Dwight Howard put up a 20-20 against the Knicks, which led to Eddy Curry’s awesome passive aggressive Isiah bashing “Dwight has a great coach” comment. Well played, Eddy.

Games played Sunday: Uh, this would be Kobe. Amazingly, I think I sprained a ligament in my pinky while this game was going on, not in tribute to Kobe’s finger or anything, but a funny coincidence. It’s on my left hand, my “Shift key” finger. I’m trying go righty with the shift key, but it feels weird. By the way, Holly once told me that she wished she could cut off her pinky and give it to Kobe to use while his is injured. That is… more commitment than I ever have had to any athlete on any of my teams.

Games played Monday: Deron Williams had 20 assists in a win over old Jason Kidd. But, Dirk exacted TEXAS JUSTICE on Kirilenko. Funny tie-in here, that friend Kevin I mentioned earlier once got robbed by a particularly shady boss and he had to take him to court. The case was so preposterous, they wanted to film it for one of those daytime court shows called “Texas Justice.” It didn’t happen, and he never got paid. But the payoff was this paragraph. Sucks for him, congrats on the wedding though!

Games played last night: Holly documented Kobe bailing out the Lakers, but Pau had a big game too. And it was only the Kings they were playing. Golden State rang up 135 points on the Hawks. This is funny, but right now they are in pretty similar places, standings-wise. The Warriors are clinging to the 8th seed by 2 games, while the Hawks are one game out. The Warriors now have 13 more wins than Atlanta. Eastern Conference, you suck. Chris Bosh didn’t play in the most playoff-y game of the night, the Raptors-Magic. I’ll give the award to Amare in a win over Portland, because he seems to be the only Phoenix player not going backwards. Grant Hill and Shaq on the same front-line. Wow, that would be an automatic W in Live ’95, which was 12 years ago.

Tonight LeBron comes to MSG to take on the Knicks behind their new head coach. Jake and Russ will be there. Good luck getting out of there early tonight Coach Supranowitz!