The Commercial Appeal put together a moving video montage to go along with MGMT’s dedication of “Pieces of What” to the Alabama tornado victims at Beale Street Music Fest Friday night. (Also, note the “Heart, Grit, Grind” shirt Andrew is wearing.)
http://www.commercialappeal.com/videos/detail/110429bsmfmgmt/
Frank Murtaugh says it’s a great time to be a Tennessee sports fan.
Major-league sports remain a novelty in Tennessee. Not until the NFL’s Tennessee Oilers kicked off at the Liberty Bowl here in Memphis on August 31, 1997, could the Volunteer state call a big-league team its own. (Historians will recall the Oilers beating the Oakland Raiders in overtime to welcome this new era.) On October 10, 1998, the expansion Nashville Predators dropped the puck for the first regular-season National Hockey League game in a state where, for generations, ice had been the exclusive partner of tea. Then, of course, on November 1, 2001, the Memphis Grizzlies hosted the Detroit Pistons at The Pyramid. The NFL, the NHL, and the NBA … oh my.
Cut to the present and we find what can rightly be called the greatest month in Tennessee’s professional sports history. For the first time in the franchise’s 16-year history (the last 10 in Memphis), the Grizzlies are playing in the second round of the NBA playoffs. And for the first time in the Predators’ 13 years of skating in the state capital, Nashville has landed in the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Before Griz fans scoff at the notion of three hours spent watching men slap a rubber disk around an ice rink, they should consider the drama unfolding in the Predators’ series with the Vancouver Canucks (the Western Conference’s top seed … sound familiar?). Saturday night in Vancouver, Nashville scored with 67 seconds left to force overtime, then won, 2-1, on a Matt Halischuk goal almost 15 minutes into the second overtime. The victory tied the series at a game apiece and seized home-ice advantage for the Preds.
Need stars? The Predators’ Pekka Rinne and the Canucks’ Roberto Luongo are two of the three finalists for the Vezina Trophy, given each year to the NHL’s top goaltender. And here’s a quick intro to the Canucks’ Sedin twins for the uninitiated: Henrik led the NHL in scoring for the 2009-10 season and won the Hart Trophy as league MVP. This season, his brother Daniel led the league in scoring and is a finalist for the Hart. Someone please calculate for me the odds of two men who shared a womb taking turns as scoring champ in a major professional sport.
Barring a Predator (or Canuck) sweep of the next three games, next Monday — May 9th — will be the day the Volunteer State can officially wave a new flag for sports fans in North America. On that night, Nashville would host Game 6 in its series with Vancouver. On the same night, here in Memphis, the Grizzlies will host Game 4 of their series with the Oklahoma City Thunder. Two major-league sports, two playoff series, 200 miles apart in a state where, just 15 years ago, college sports was king. Knoxville can merely gaze west with wonder.
* Sometimes wisdom can be found in speaking — or hearing — the obvious. After the Grizzlies’ win over San Antonio in Game 4 of their series on April 25th, Memphis coach Lionel Hollins was asked by Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated if the Grizzlies had entered the series thinking they were the better team. Hollins replied, “They won 61 games and we won 46. But it doesn’t matter who was the better team in the regular season. In the playoffs, you have to be the better team in a series.” Does the regular season matter when a team that fights for a top seed can be dismissed from the playoffs by a team that finished eighth in its conference? It matters as much as the money spent to attend those games matter. It matters as much as the myriad numbers and statistics tell us it matters. But when it comes to which team will prevail over a best-of-seven battle, no. The regular season means nothing. Hats off to Hollins for making sure his young team knew that.
A son is forced to move back in with his parents and is miserable. Jack Waggon sets him straight.
Dear Jack,
About a month ago, I was laid off, and not long after that a tree wrecked my place during one of the storms. I had to move back in with my parents.
I moved out when I was 18, right after I graduated high school, because I couldn’t wait to get away from my parents. It wasn’t easy. I lived in a bunch of really crappy apartments and went though about a hundred lazy, slobby, worthless, crazy, thieving, and sometimes psychotic roommates. I worked two and sometimes three jobs just to make rent. My parents never tried to help me out, and I wouldn’t have taken their help if they had offered it. We barely spoke for about three years.
Lately things have been getting almost okay. I had a stable group of two roommates in a decent rental house in a pretty good neighborhood. My relationship with my parents was getting better – you could almost call it normal. I thought I had won their respect. They never expected me to amount to anything. My mom recently told me that she thought every day I’d call begging to come back home.
That day finally came, but not through any fault or failure of my own. They welcomed me back and said I could stay as long as I needed. I moved into my old room and stored my stuff in their garage.
It wasn’t three days before it was like nothing had changed. My dad has started treating me like I am 17 again, laying down rules that I have to follow as long as I’m living under his roof. He asks me three or four times a day if I’ve found a job and interrogates me on where I’ve applied. My mom is harassing me about cleaning my room and helping out around the house. I’m paying rent, by the way, but it doesn’t matter. I paid rent when I was 17, too.
My roommates have found a place to live and have replaced me with a new roommate. I don’t blame them, because they still have jobs. I’m looking, but there isn’t anything out there like what I was doing before, certainly not making the kind of money I was making. I’ve had a few job offers, but the pay is barely more than I’m getting from unemployment. Today my dad asked me how much longer I plan to stay. He wants his garage back. I’d love to leave, today, but I’ve got nowhere else to go. Why can’t they just leave me alone and give me a chance?
Frustrated
Dear Frustrated,
Parents sometimes see their adult children, not as adults, but as the same helpless little brats too stupid to pull their pants on the right way, because most of the time that’s exactly what you are. Not all of us are strong enough to accept our obsolescence in the lives of our children, so the only way we can keep feeling needed is to keep treating you like a child.
You sound like you once had the backbone to stand up to them, walk out the door, and make your own way in the world, once upon a time. You did it once. Do it again. You’re older and smarter now, so you won’t make quite as many mistakes.
Plenty of people have to start over in life, often from scratch. I’ve done it six times that I can recall. It isn’t fair, but life isn’t fair. You may not be able to go back to where you were right away, no matter how much time your parents give you to get back on your feet. You might have to start all over, working low wage jobs and living in crappy apartments with psycho roommates. But isn’t that better than having to kiss the ass of the man who wants his garage back more than his son?
Got a problem? Let Jack Waggon set you straight: jack.wagg@gmail.com
The Grizzlies started their second-round series against the Oklahoma City Thunder the same way they started their first-round series with the San Antonio Spurs: By stealing Game 1 on the road — and home-court advantage along with it.
And they did it in much the same way: By riding their Big Trains — the frontcourt tandem of Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol. In Game 1 against the Spurs, the Randolph/Gasol combo notched 49 points on 19-25 shooting, with 23 rebounds. Today in Oklahoma City: 54 points on 21-33 shooting, with another 23 boards.
But the comparisons end there.
This was a more surprising win: The Grizzlies had been looking for the Spurs for at least a week and had clear, significant match-up advantages in the paint. With the Spurs’ best player, Manu Ginobili, out for the first game, the Grizzlies were well positioned to open the series with an upset.
This time, the NBA schedule-makers had put the team at an apparent disadvantage: Despite being the final team to advance from the first round, the Grizzlies were scheduled in the first of the second-round games. Roughly 36 hours after leaving FedExForum following an emotional series clincher against the Spurs, the Grizzlies tipped off in Oklahoma City — with very little prep time — against a Thunder team rested and waiting for them. It was a recipe for a letdown — mental exhaustion would have been understandable, even expected.
The Memphis Grizzlies took the first game of their second-round series with Oklahoma City, 114-101, Sunday afternoon.
Zach Randolph led Memphis with 34 points, as the Grizzlies led all the way, turning back several OKC runs in the second half. Visit Beyond the Arc for complete Grizzlies coverage and analysis. Game Stats.
The Grizzlies’ second-round series with the Oklahoma City Thunder tips off at noon today. With very little time to work through this match-up, a quick, instant-reaction take on how this series may shape up:
1. What does the first-round tell us about these teams?
As impressive as the Grizzlies were in upsetting the top-seeded San Antonio Spurs, the Thunder might have been even more impressive with their five-game dismissal of a surging Denver Nuggets team.
Both the Grizzlies and Thunder come into this series with their “A” game clicking: For the Grizzlies, that means frontcourt duo Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol, who combined to average 36 points and 21 rebounds while physically controlling the series. For the Thunder, that means dynamic perimeter duo Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, who combined to average 56 points a game in an uptempo series against the Nuggets.
As with the Spurs series, this will be a battle of “inside” vs. “outside.” Inside prevailed for the Grizzlies in the first round, but this time the team faces a younger, more dynamic opponent that seems to be peaking at the right time.
2. How meaningful was the regular-season series?
Not very. The Grizzlies won the season series with the Thunder 3-1, but all the games were in single digits, two featured injured Griz star Rudy Gay, and, most crucially, none of them featured the Thunder’s new starting center, former Celtic Kendrick Perkins. The Grizzlies’ road win at Oklahoma City, in overtime, was one of the most memorable games of the season, played without both Rudy Gay and O.J. Mayo, and featured perhaps the greatest performance — on and off the court — of Tony Allen’s career:
But it’s probably not worth investing much faith in the regular-season results of this match-up.