Houston Meltdown

Still in awe that the Houston Rockets lost against the Los Angeles Lakers. It was a good game, but the officiating is really bad! NBA clearly needs Lakers for their own benefit! Questionable calls every time, favoring the Los Angeles Lakers. But Lakers did a great job to be honest, after Kobe went down, players stepped up and did gave more energy than before. They are all playing inspired Basketball.

(Photo credits to: Houston Rockets fanpage)

Even with the disappointment because of their loss, I still believe in them. They're the youngest team in the league right now so they still need a lot of learning to do. They've proven they can beat the toughest teams and I believe they can do it against last years finals' runner up, the Oklahoma City Thunders. It would be really interesting since James Harden will play against his former team!

Focus: playoffs #beatOKC!

Here are the game results on the last day of elimination:

BOS 90 - TOR 114

DET -99 - BRK 103

ATL 92 - NYK 98

CLE 98 - CHA 105

ORL 93 - MIA 105

PHL 105 - IND 95

WAS 92 - CHI 95

UTA 70 - MEM 86

NOH 87 - DAL 99

MIN 108 - SAS 95

PHX 98 - DEN 118

HOU 95 - LAL 99

LAC 112 - SAC 108

GSW 99 - POR 88

Here are the final team standings for both Western and Eastern Conferences:

EASTERN CONFERENCE:

1. Miami

2. New York

3. Indiana

4. Brooklyn

5. Chicago

6. Atlanta

7. Boston

8. Milwaukee

WESTERN CONFERENCE

1. Oklahoma City

2. San Antonio

3. Denver

4. LA Clippers

5. Memphis

6. Golden State

7. LA Lakers

8. Houston

Keep the Faith.

Paolo

The Daily Report

Since I am really inspired with the blog of my blog-icon The Professional Heckler, I was inspired to do a daily recap of everything that happened during the day. But my daily focus are just Sports, News, Technology, Music, and Entertainment. :] I will do my best. :]

SPORTS

Basketball

NBA

Are the Lakers peaking at the right time? Lakers won against Portland Blazers with Kobe Bryant scoring 47 points on their win. MVP chants are heard on the court of Portland. Kobe has been playing tremendously well and you can really see that he wants to be on the playoffs. Props also to the support of Pau Gasol and Dwight Howard. Lakers are now 1 game ahead of Utah Jazz.

Here are rest of the results:

ATL 124 - PHI 101
MIA 103 - WAS 98
MIL 103 - ORL 113
DET 111 - CLE 104
BKN 101 - BOS 93
PHX 102 - DAL 91
NOH 110 - SAC 121
SAS 86 - DEN 96
MIN 95 - LAC 111

PBA

TV5 will still air PBA games even though their contract with IBC ends on May.

Their contract with IBC will end this May but MVP has no plans of renewing it. He said that it was too expensive. I think it will be better if the games will be shown on TV5 as it will also help them to solidify their sport block timeslots, PBA fans are loyal viewers. But one thing is for sure, we will be seeing PBA on our television until the end of the conference.

Volleyball

After losing their first game, Arellano bounced back to win their game against the struggling but very sneaky University of San Carlos. Danna Henson of AU was named as the best player of the game by scoring 17 points. Arellano University def. San Carlos: 25-19, 25-18, 18-25, 22-25, 15-8

On the second game, Ateneo De Manila University still proved that they can defend their title by winning in four sets against the powerhouse San Sebastian College lead by their Thai import Jeng Bualee. Not surprisingly, Alyssa Valdez was on her usual form and scored 25 points. Ateneo leads their bracket with 2 wins and no defeats so far.

Next games of Shakeys VLeague will resume on Saturday, April 14 with games between UST and DLSU-D (2pm) and NU vs ADU (4pm)

Good news to all volleyball fans! We can now watch the games on our televisions!

Shakey's V-League will air on GMA News TV.

Fans of the much-followed volleyball league can now watch the games' telecast starting April 15, 1pm after noon-time newscast Balitanghali."

(c) GMA News Online

ENTERTAINMENT

SURVIVOR

Michael got eliminated. Interesting scene was Malcolm getting the idol of Reynold on the tribal council surprising everyone. In the end, it did not matter as Malcolm did not receive any vote.

FHM

The FHM 100 Sexiest of 2013 voting has now begun. You just need to log on to FHM to cast your votes. It was Sam Pinto who was named the sexiest woman for the past 2 years.

Still figuring how will I sum up everything on a short note so that it won't get boring. :] that's all for tonight!

Keep the Faith.

Paolo

Rising Stars: Houston Rockets

I am a self-confessed Houston Rockets die hard. From the time of Tracy McGrady, Yao Ming, Trevor Ariza, Luis Scola, Aaron Brooks until the resurgence and additions of Chandler Parsons, Carlos Delfino, Greg Smith, Omer Asik, Jeremy Lin and James Harden. I'm Houston Rockets all the way! #RedNation

What made me support the Rockets? They are strong, but they don't realize their full potential yet. They win big games, they lose easy games. I like that they acknowledge that they still have a lot of things to learn but you can see the big potential of this team. Being the Youngest Team in the NBA today, (avg of 24.9 years old) you can just see the bright future for this team. There is now way but to go up from here.

The Houston Rockets are currently at the 7th seed with a record of 43-34, and 1 game behind 6th seed Golden State Warriors with a record of 44-33. I believe they can be on that 6th seed come playoffs. This will be a very good improvement for the team. 

It has been 4 years since the last playoffs of the Houston Rockets, the last was where they were beaten by the Lakers, 4-3 in a best of 7 game series. I still don't know what will happen to the Rockets if they will be facing either Oklahoma or Denver. Both great teams and very strong on both offense and defense, but one thing is for sure. Rockets will definitely not give up easily. 

What are our chances? Let us look at the stats:

POINTS:

Leading the team is James Harden with 25.8 points per game, making him the 5th best scorer.

Chandler Parsons:  15.3 ppg
Jeremy Lin: 13.2 ppg
Carlos Delfino: 10.7 ppg
Omer Asik: 10.3 ppg

Pretty solid offense for the Rockets, we can also acknowledge the court presence of Greg Smith, Francisco Garcia and Terrence Jones who are providing really great support.

REBOUNDS:

Omer Asik: 11.6 rpg (3rd)

Rebounding is not the strongest skill of the Rockets, I would like to see improvements on this skill of the game.

James Harden, Greg Smith and Thomas Robinson are the ones supporting Asik on rebounding.

ASSISTS:

Jeremy Lin is the guy for the assists. He averages 6.1 apg making him the leading Rockets in assists. James Harden and Chandler Parsons averages 5.9 and 3.1, respectively to back up Jeremy Lin.

STEALS:

James Harden once again leads the team with 1.8 spg, with Jeremy Lin come close to 1.7 spg.

BLOCKS:

No surprise, its Omer Asik with 1.08 bpg. Greg Smith comes second with 0.51 bpg.

Summary:

It is really James Harden almost doing it all. He is the heart and soul of this team. He is the leader of the team. With Jeremy Lin and Chandler Parsons providing equal leadership on and off the court, there is no doubt that this trio of Lin, Parsons and Harden are the trio to beat come playoffs.

With few more games to go before playoffs, I am excited on what will happen next! But one thing  is for sure, I am with #RedNation all the way!

Next game of Rockets will be against PHX tomorrow.

Credits to: Google and NBA.com for the photos. :]


Keep the Faith.
Paolo

Not just another ballgame: Volleyball

It is still clear that Basketball is still the #1 sport in the Philippines but one sport is eyeing to be on that spot: VOLLEYBALL. With the recent success of the UAAP Women's Volleyball Tournament Finals, it is very nice to see that a lot of people are appreciating Volleyball much more.

                                                            (Photo credit: Spin.ph)

The success of Volleyball did not come on silver platter. They started from scratch. From the times where the venues are open for the public but only a few get to see the games, and now that you even cannot buy a ticket for a game because it is sold-out. It is really a sweet victory for the sport of Volleyball.

Now that the public seemed to notice the sport more, there are just some things that I would like to point out:

1. It's good that we support UAAP Volleyball. Particularly Women's Volleyball. But I think we should also give the proper credit and the much-deserved attention to the Men's Volleyball as well. I know that with the Men's game, the pace is much faster, shorter plays, and maybe that is what the crowd isn't used to see. There are a lot of great players on the Men's side too.

2. NCAA. Yes, UAAP is the bigger league but if we love the sport in general, we should also learn to appreciate other leagues which involves the sport. It is really saddening to see that the Finals of Men's and Women's of NCAA was not really supported well by the fans and even left the venue empty-handed. The combined crowd of the 3 games of the NCAA finals couldn't even match the number of crowd for the Game1 of the UAAP Finals.

3. Lastly, I would like to give credit to the players. If not for their excellent training, hardships and sacrifices this wouldn't be a success. They are the main reason why this sport bloomed to a new level. They proved that Volleyball can indeed be an exciting sport and can be easily learned.

What can you say about the success of the Philippine Volleyball?

*Next article related to Volleyball will be for my Top Volleyball Players :)

Keep the Faith!

Paolo

twitter.com/iampaolov