Take that, Shaquille (aka, the NBA thread)

[Ghoulish Delight]

Mostly, I wanted to talk about the best sequence of plays of the season last night in the Laker/Heat game.

Lakers rookie Andrew Bynum, the youngest player ever drafted in the NBA at 17, now 18, came in to give Chris Mihm a rest. And who does this 7ft. kid have to guard? Shaq, of course. One of of Miami's fist posessions after he came in, there was a missed shot. Bynum was in position for the rebound, but Shaq made a strong power move over him, knocking Bynum off balance and slamming the ball home. It was an impressive play from an impressive player, the kind of thing that really humbles a kid...right?

Not so fast! On the Lakers' very next possesion, Bynum gets the ball at the to of the key with his back to Shaq...and them makes a spectacular fake to the middle, only to spin around, leaving Shaq glued to his spot, and embarasses him with a dunk of his own!

He was justifiably excited. Unfortunately, he did kinda mar the whole thing by letting his excitement get the best of him. As he came back down on defense, he gave Shaq an uncalled for elbow to the ribs, prompting Shaq to give him a pretty good smack to the shoulder. A double tech was (correctly) called. That kinda took some air out of what he had just done.

But still, one electrifying sequence of events.

You can see it if you go to www.nba.com/lakers and click the "video" link under the summar of last night's game. It starts about 35 seconds into the video.

On another note, I was being driven insane last night by the coverage of Shaq and Kobe. Gotta love the ridiculousness of saying over and over and over and over and over that Shaq shaking Kobe's hand and hugging him should end the constant focus on their feud. Yes, that's why they continued to not shut up about it. And then, they said that at their last game Shaq "refused to even mention Kobe's name in his post game interview." Ummmm, no. Shaq refused to answer an inane question that had nothing to do with basketball. The stupid reporter asked him about why he didn't say hi to Kobe...and Shaq just said nothing. Best post game interview I've ever seen.