NBA 2012-2013 Season Opening Day Schedule

All you diehard basketball fans, the wait is officially over! There are 3 games scheduled on opening day to treat fans with exciting basketball action after the close of the previous season, which saw the Miami Heat team, spearheaded by coach Erik Spoelstra, took home the crown. This will be a memorable match up to kick off the season knowing that these two teams competed for the Eastern Finals Conference crown last season.

For the first game, the Washington Wizards will be going up against the Cleveland Cavaliers. Then, the Miami Heat (the defending champs) will hold off the Boston Celtics in front of their home crowd. For the third game on Wednesday, October 31, the Dallas Mavericks will go up against a revitalized Los Angeles Lakers team.

Here is how the rest of the schedule will for the opening week of NBA 2012-2013 season:

October 31, 2012

Memphis Grizzlies at Los Angeles Clippers 
Denver Nuggets at Philadelphia 76ers
Indiana Pacers at Toronto Raptors
Houston Rockets at Detroit Pistons
San Antonio Spurs at New Orleans Hornets
Sacramento Kings at Chicago Bulls
Dallas Mavericks at Utah Jazz
Golden State Warriors at Phoenix Suns
Los Angeles Lakers at Portland Trail Blazers      

November 1, 2012

New York Knics at Brooklyn Nets
Oklahoma City Thunder vs San Antonio Spurs

November 2, 2012

Denver Nuggets at Orlando Magic
Indiana Pacers at Charlotte Bobcats
Chicago Bulls at Cleveland Cavaliers
Houston Rockets at Atlanta Hawks
Milwaukee Bucks at Boston Celtics
Portland Trail Blazers at OKC Thunder
Sacramento Kings at Minnesota Timberwolves
Utah Jazz at New Orleans Hornets
Miami Heat at New York Knicks
Detroit Pistons at Phoenix Suns
Memphis Grizzlies at Golden State Warriors
Los Angeles Clippers at Los Angeles Lakers       

Credits to NBA 2012-2013 Game Schedules to: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/schedules/weekly/today/?xid=sbnation


  

Euroleague Regular Season Week 2 MVP: CSKA’s Sonny Weems

Image: Euroleague.net

The second week of action in the Turkish Airlines Euroleague 2012-2013 Regular Season has wrapped up. And in the first overtime game of the season, CSKA prevailed over its competition as forward Sonny Weems showcased the best performance out of any player in the league this past week.

Thus, Weems ends up with the MVP honors, thanks to his career-best performance and fifth overall for any player that had suited up for CSKA Moscow throughout the team’s stint in the Euroleague. Weems’ performance came at the heel of a nailbiter road win for CSKA wherein the game closed out at 76-71. He put in 8 points during the final three minutes of play along with 6 crucial free throws that helped to secure the win for his team.

At the end of the game, Sonny Weems had registered a total of 30 points with only 4 misses on the field. In addition, to his 30-point performance, he also grabbed 3 rebounds, had 6 steals, and drew 6 fouls from the opposing team. This helped to bring in a total of 38 points for his performance index ranking on week 2 of Euroleague regular season.

Other contenders for the Euroleague Regular Season Week 2 MVP award were Anadolu Efes Istanbul’s Jordan Farmer (performance index rating of 36) and Asseco Prokom Gdynia’s Lukasz Koszarek (performance index rating of 26).

Meanwhile, Jordan Farmar also led the league in assists during the course of the Thursday and Friday games in the Euroleague. Farmar had 9 assists during their win against defending Euroleague champs, Olympiacos Piraeus. When it comes to rebounds, Elan Chalon’s Shelden Williams was the champ this week. He grabbed 13 rebounds, the highest this week, despite their loss to Alba Berlin.

Check out this blog for more updates on Euroleague games as the regular season continues to progress.

PBA Philippine Cup Schedule: Week of October 22 to 28, 2012

A week of basketball action has come to a close and now another one is set to begin. The action at the PBA games get tougher by the day. And if you want to know about your favorite team's fate in the upcoming weeks, you should not miss a single game. 

With the Halloween about to come, the league is also reaching its final stretch of games before taking a few days off to commemorate the holidays. Here is a complete lowdown on the schedule of games in the PBA for week of October 22 to 31, 2012. 

October 24, 2012

Barako Bull vs Talk 'N Text - 5:15 PM

Rain or Shine vs San Mig Coffee Mixers - 7:30 PM

October 26, 2012

Alaska Aces vs Air 21 Express - 5:15 PM

Petron Blaze Boosters vs GlobalPort Batang Pier - 7:30PM

October 27, 2012

Rain or Shine vs Talk N Text - Victorias City, 6:30PM

October 28, 2012

Barako Bull vs San Mig Coffee Mixers - 4:15 PM

Alaska Aces vs Brgy Ginebra San Miguel - 6:30PM

October 31, 2012

San Mig Coffee vs GlobalPort Batang Pier - 5:15 PM

Barako Bull vs Meralco Bolts - 7:30PM

Make sure to mark your calendars with the PBA games schedule for this coming week so you won't miss the action at the PBA 2012-2013 Philippine Cup!

Euroleague 2012-2013 Regular Season Week 1 Results

The new season of Euroleague has officially kicked off last October 11, 2012. Hence, the wait is over for Euroleague fans who are excited to see which teams will make it to the Euroleague Final Four and be crowned as champs!

Euroleague Week 1 Thursday Recap

Starting off in Group A, BC Khimki Moscow suffered its first defeat of the season at the hands on Fenerbahce Ulker Istanbul via a 92-80 rout last October 11. Emir Preldzic, the MVP for week 1 of the 2012-2013 Euroleague Regular Season, raked in 20 points to help out his team's cause. But the team also got a fair amount of support across its players like Bo McCalebb, Omer Onan, and Oguz Savas. As for BC Khimki, Zoran Planinic led them in the offensive department with 17 points. The poor 25 percent shooting of the team did not help their cause to kick off the season in a winning note.

In another Group A match on Thursday, Mapooro Cantu suffered a 13-point loss to Union Olimpija in an 84-71 game. The win from Union Olimpijia was made possible thanks to the efforts from Dylan Page and with three other teammates scoring in double digits (namely Jaka Blazic, Aron Baynes, and Sasu Salin).  

The first game of the season was kicked off by a Group D match between CSKA Moscow (last year's runner up) versus Lietuvos Rytas Vilnius. Head coach Ettore Messina's CSKA squad ends up with the win in a close game with a 75-73 finish. Sonny Weems was the highest scorer for the Russian squad after raking in 14 points in nearly 27 minutes of play within a 5/8 field goal shooting percentage. Helping him out in the scoring duties were Nenad Krstic and Viktor Khryapa, who each scored 12 apiece for their team. Meanwhile, Renaldas Seibutis carried Rytas' on his back with 19 points in 32 minutes that he played on the court. But the Russian powerhouse seemed to be too much for the Lithuanians to hold off.

Other game results on Thursday are as follows: 

Elan Chalon-Sur-Saone beats Asseco Prokom via an 81-74 game, making their Euroleague debut memorable. Meanwhile, Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv inks their first win of the season after beating Unicaja Malaga, 85-80. In Group C, Zalgiris Kaunas and defending champs Olympiacos Piraeus each earn their respective wins over Cedevita Zagreb and Caja Laboral Vitoria, respectively, during Thursday's schedule of games.

In Group D, Spanish champs Regal FC Barcelona took an easy win in front of their home crowd at Palau Blagrana as they went up against Brose Baskets Bamberg, winning 72-60.  

To get more highlights from the Thursday basketball action at Euroleague Regular Season Week 1, view this:

 

Euroleague Week 1 Friday Recap

Spanish powerhouse Real Madrid went up with the Greek powerhouse Panathinaikos Athens in their respective debuts this season, but it was the Spanish team that came out victorious in this matchup in Group A. Rudy Fernandez was all fired up with 23 points in this game and 2-time Euroleague Rising Star awardee Nikola Mirotic chipped in 18 points to help out his team's cause despite an equally strong debut for Big Sofo with 23 points.

Here is a breakdown of the Euroleague Week 1 results for Friday's games per group:

Group B:

Alba Berlin outdid Montepaschi Siena in their first meeting last Friday as they went away with a 92-82 victory. David Moss helped power his team to victory with Kristjan Kangur sharing 13 points. They successfully defended their first win against a rallying Alba Berlin team, which had six players scoring in double figures.

Group C:

Emporio Armari Milano beat Andalou Efes Istanbul by 5 points (winning 80-75) last Friday as the two teams completed the remaining game for Group C on Friday. Ioannis Bourousis was the leading scorer for both teams with 23 points in 26 minutes on the floor.

Group D:

Besiktas JK Istanbul defeated Partizan Belgrade in an 81-65 match, led by the 25-point scoring from Patrick Christopher. On the other hand, Vladimir Lucic is the best scorer for Partizan at 18 points.

To check out the highlights of the games on Friday, check out the video below:

Be sure to check us again for more updates and news on the ongoing Turkish Airlines Euroleague 2012-2013 season.  

PBA Philippine Cup 2013: Meralco Bolts Predictions

Last Philippine Cup was a roller coaster ride for Sol Mercado and the Meralco Bolts, as they finished with an 8-6 record, which only got them to the quarterfinals, then got sweep by the Petron Blaze Boosters in two games.

For the offseason, the Meralco Bolts made quite good improvements on their backcourt by drafting an exciting player, defender, and good rebounder Cliff Hodge, and a strong big man Kelly Nabong. The inclusion of Ronjay Buenafe to the lineup is also a good improvement for the Sol Mercado and Mark Cardona.

Everything seems to be in the right place for Meralco, until their trusted big man, Asi Taulava,opted to leave the team and play in the ABL. Suddenly, the Bolts frontcourt became a doughnut – a hole in the middle. Taulava is one of the league’s premiere big men, and his toughness in the pain and veteran leadership has been the anchor of the team for years. The team then scrambled to fill the hole with Carlo Sharma by trading their prospect Jason Ballesteros.

3rd Overall draft-pick Cliff Hodge Image: Interaksyon

Now the keys for the Meralco Bolts are:

How will the dribble-drive offense work without Asi?

Mercado is a tested and proven PG, we’ve seen it in his years in ROS and how he contributed in Smart Gilas 2.0’s successful run in the Jones Cup this year. He’s a power guard, he can drive past any defender, and break the defense and look for different scoring opportunities from there. But Asi was a vital part of that system, as he set good picks and rolls to the basket real nice. The backcourt (Cardona and Buenafe) though can do whatever they want in the wings, as Sol can easily find them.

Production in the pain

The dribble drive offense made tons of scoring opportunities for the Bolts, especially for Asi, as Sol can easily use his pick to break the defense and drop the ball to him, or Asi scores through putbacks from missed lay-ups. Now I don’t think they can do this with Jay-R Reyes or Sharma. These guys aren’t natural back-to-basket centers, and obviously not as tough as Asi in fighting for position in the paint. Good thing they have Cliff Hodge, this guy always finishes strong.

Two-man team no more

Mercado and Cardona are the two main guns of the team, but they should now steer away from relying too much on their duo and make good use of their resources. Buenafe can hit the three and drive to the basket. Hodge is a great all-around player; he can score, defend, and even pass the ball to the right person for higher scoring percentage. Marc Borboran is a long and athletic defender who can also finish strong, and Reynel Hugnatan is a tested player in the paint. But these guys need to step up their games to help Mercado and Cardona from the scoring load.

Clearly, Meralco got some firepower in the backcourt this season. But their revamped frontcourt is yet to be tested. Cardona needs to quit playing one-on-one isolations and use series of picks more before asking the ball from Mercado. If the dribble-drive offense works, then this team has a good chance for another quarterfinals spot, but I don’t think they can go 2 rounds past that. There’s just not enough firepower and dominance in the paint for this team this season. But I could be wrong, especially with Cliff Hodge in their line-up.

Read more Cup Predictions

Alaska Aces

Air21 Express

Rain or Shine Elasto Painters

Petron Blaze Boosters

Barako Bull Energy

San Mig coffee Mixers

Barangay Ginebra San Miguel

Talk 'N Text Tropan Texters

GlobalPort Batang Pier

Underrated Players and Their Superstar Counterparts

Andrea Bargnani = Dirk Nowitzki
Season Stats 2011-2012:
Andrea Bargnani: 19.5ppg 5.5rpg 2.0apg 43.2%
Dirk Nowitzki: 21.6ppg 6.8rpg 2.2asp 45.7%

What Andrea fails to achieve?
MVP, Championship ring and Finals MVP

What's their big difference?
Andrea and Dirk have similar skill set which made them an effective NBA players. Though Dirk stays healthy most of his career and Andrea miss most game last season where in his team loss most of those games without him.

Also Dirk shots more winning shots, crucial shots and unbelievable fade away shots which brought him to the label SUPERSTAR.

David Lee = Amare Stoudemire
Season Stats 2011-2012:
David Lee: 20.1ppg 9.6rpg 2.8apg 50.3%
Amare Stoudemire: 17.5ppg 7.8rpg 1.1apg 48.3%

What David fails to achieve?
Carries team to Playoffs, Multiple All Star Appearance.

What's their big difference?

If you remember, the New York Knicks let David Lee go to free agency even though he was a Double-double machine. The Knicks was just not committed to him for some reason. Mybe because Lee is white thus he don't get enough that attentions. Outside of that, Amar'e plays in a team where he is the main guy or one of the main guy where in David's role in the team is just being a team guy but able to produce numbers like a star. Though Amar'e is more athlethic than Lee. To be a STAR, the brand of being a player which is trying to be that guy or assert his self is what make the difference between Amare and Lee. 

Josh Smith = Lebron James

Season Stats 2011-2012:
Josh Smith: 18.8ppg 9.6rpg 3.9apg 45.8%
Lebron James: 27.1ppg 7.9rpg 6.2apg 53.1%

What Josh fails to achieve?

3 time MVP, Championship ring and Finals MVP.

What's their big difference?

Though no one can really match Lebron but what Josh Smith done is being underrated and he even miss the All Star line up last season even though he strive as an all around player for Atlanta just like Lebron. 

Kevin Martin = Kobe Bryant
Season Stats 2011-2012:
Kevin Martin: 17.1ppg 2.7rpg 2.8apg 41.3%
Kobe Bryant: 27.9ppg 5.4rpg 4.6apg 43%

What Kevin fails to achieve?

Multiple All Star Appearance, MVP, NBA Championship ring and Finals MVP.

What's their big difference?

Though both can light up the score board at will, no one can match the game of Kobe. Kevin Martin's don't get that recognition as a premiere scorer. The key in order to stick a label superstar on your name is you have to make big shots after big shots after big shots and be one of the Leagues top scorer. Just like Lebron, no one ever comes close to them.

Jose Calderon = Steve Nash
Season Stats 2011-2012:
Jose Calderon: 10.5ppg 3.0rpg 8.8apg 45.7%
Steve Nash: 12.5ppg 3.0rpg 10.7apg 53.2%

What Jose fails to achieve?
All Star appearance, assist leader and 2 MVP.

What's their big difference?

Jose Calderon is criticize due to his poor defense and devalue him as an NBA player but the truth is he can play as good as Nash. He have the vision and Basketball IQ as Nash but only he is not as clutch and determine as Nash.

Whose your Underrated = NBA star? 

Written by Fritz Castro

PBA 2012-2013 Philippine Cup Schedule: Week of Oct 8 to 14, 2012

image: www.pba.ph

The PBA 2012-2013 Philippine Cup Conference is currently underway. The competition is already on its second week and fans who have missed the action on the first week have some catching up to do because there has been some tough competition in the league so far. To ensure you won't miss a game this week, here is a list to the schedule of games for the rest of the week.

 

October 10, 2012 – Wednesday

Alaska Aces vs Meralco Bolts

Barako Bull Energy Cola vs Petron Blaze Boosters

October 12, 2012 – Friday

Talk N Text Tropang Texters vs Global Port Batang Pier

Rain or Shine Elasto Painters vs Air 21 Express

October 13, 2012 - Saturday 

Brgy Ginebra San Miguel vs Meralco Bolts
 

October 14, 2012 - Sunday 

Barako Bull Energy vs Alaska Aces

Petron Blaze Boosters vs San Mig Coffee

Courtesy of www.pba.ph

PBA Philippine Cup 2013: Alaska Aces Preview

Maybe the most improved team in the PBA 2012-13 season in terms of youth, experience, and depth of the roster. The Alaska Aces roster really captured my interest this year. Man they got LENGTH! The dawn of the new era of “Gatas Republic.”

For years, Alaska has been regarded as a family-friendly and a very wholesome team. Just pure basketball, no elbows being thrown, technicals called, and trash talking in the court. But that will all change this year as they acquired their second overall pick from SSC Calvin “The Beast” Abueva.

In my past post about winners and losers of the Tenorio trade, I talked about how Alaska got the trade right by acquiring youth and experience with last year’s top pick Jvee Casio and proven veteran guard “Cebuano Hotshot” Dondon Hontiveros. And with Cyrus Baguio, Mac Baracael (G/F) and Brandon Cablay, Alaska is quite tough in the backcourt for speed, athleticism and outside shooting.

But they’re not done yet. Alaska also has the lengthiest front court. Sonny Thoss will have his usual starting minutes at the Center spot and will be backed up by a decent post defender Samigue Eman. The PF position is stacked with reliable veterans such as Nic Belasco, Tony dela Cruz, both can play the post both offensively and defensively and shoot outside and behind the arc.

Now the questions for Alaska are:

Should they tame or unleash the beast?

 We all know what San Sebastian basketball is all about – physical. He can easily get 20-10 in NCAA any game he wants to. He can drive strong to the basket and finish. He loves the open court basketball. However, Abueva, sometimes, is too physical that he’s in the borderline of playing pesky and being dirty. Hailed as the beast, he has his own shares of technical fouls and flagrant fouls with that style.

Abueva is a terrific talent, but will coach Luigi Trillio run his triangle with him? Or will he let Casio run the offense and make Abueva as an option.

How will the new Triangle Offense work?

Coach Tim Cone’s triangle is a tested and proven system, and it was badly missed by Alaska for the past seasons. Now, Coach Luigi Trillio takes over and introduces his own kind of triangle. Alaska will have a whole season to familiarize it, and with Casio and Hontiveros on board, along with big men that can play outside, they have all the good pieces to surround Sonny Thoss.

Clearly, this team is a dark horse this season. Their fate depends on how their system works for them. If Casio can play their system right, then they have a good chance in the top 4. But it will surely take a while for this team to fully embrace its new system. Plus, Abueva is still stuck in NCAA. They may struggle at first, but they’ll surely be an exciting team to watch this season.

Read more Cup Previews

Air21Express

MeralcoBolts

Rain or Shine Elasto Painters

Petron Blaze Boosters

Barako Bull Energy

San Mig coffee Mixers

Barangay Ginebra San Miguel

Talk 'N Text Tropan Texters

GlobalPort Batang Pier