The 82-game NBA season ended with a gentle thud last night as the Bulls failed to secure the sixth spot in the East while the Spurs latched onto #3 in the West.  The Great Bennydini will be angered by this turn of events.

However, you can now express your joy in the NBA’s second season with your own SPORTSbyBROOKS NBA playoff matchups in convenient chart form:

Eastern Conference

• #1 Cleveland We’ll Be Shouting ‘BOOBIE!’ as Much as Possibles vs. #8 Detroit Ballast Jettisoners
• #2 Boston Can We Borrow a Dead Guy’s Knee for KG Like We Did for Curt Schillings vs. #7 Chicago Sixteen Guards and Whaddya Gets
• #3 Orlando Dwight Hasn’t Figured Out a Costume Change to Make Him a Point Guard, Toos vs. #6 Philadelphia So Glad We’re Paying Elton Brand $18 Million in 2012-2013s
• #4 Atlanta Name Three Players vs. #5 Miami Name Twos

Western Conference

• #1 Los Angeles Kobe Clubs Baby Seals with Portuguese Water Dogs Wrapped in Veals vs. #8 Utah Deron Williams Falls Asleep Every Night Clutching a Copy of His Tear-Stained Contract After Failing to Find an Out Clauses
• #2 Denver You’ve Got to Be Kiddings vs. #7 New Orleans Seriously, Aren’t These in the Wrong Orders
• #3 San Antonio Flashbacks vs. #6 Dallas Hey, At Least We Haven’t Traded for Shaq Yets (Note: the above series has been moved to CBS and the Hallmark Channel as per FCC regulations around programming for the elderly.)
• #4 Portland Maybe Next Years (But Don’t Tell Joel Przybilla’s Grandma We Said So) vs. #5 Houston There’s Also a Regression Analysis to Prove Shane Battier Makes the Best Damned Mojitos in Texas

As always, it’s the gift you didn’t even have to ask for.  Or didn’t want to.

Major League Baseball tried yet again yesterday to provide another round of gifts to Jackie Robinson, who has been feted nearly as often as Frank Sinatra since his death. Yesterday, every player in baseball wore number 42 in his honor to avoid the embarrassment of 42 wearer infighting last year.

However, since MLB continues to be a bit short in providing affection through monetary donations, at least a couple players did their best to pursue great achievements on Robinson’s day.  Tim Wakefield took a no-hit bid into the eighth inning in Oakland before noted hater Kurt Suzuki ended the fun with a base hit.

Ian Kinsler followed up on this attempt with his own success: 6-6 at the plate with a cycle attached.  If the opposing team last night (the Orioles) happened to be your sleeper team this year, you may want to check just how deep that sleep is.

Speaking of deep sleep, former Illinois governor (and current Illinois chew toy) Rod Blagojevich apparently didn’t feel it necessary to stop at meddling with the affairs of Tribune Co. when he didn’t get his way.  He also sent a note to Cubs manager Lou Piniella to recommend a lineup change in 2007.

S’funny; we don’t remember Blago being so receptive to a lineup change at the state level earlier this year.  Perhaps he isn’t a big fan of having his moves micromanaged by impotent whiners who never held the position dictating his actions from afar when they’ve never been in the trenches, y’know?

Speaking of, what say we peek around the Internet with a gentle tap-tap-tapping of bullets on your window pane while you consider the effects of an on-campus bar in Redmond, WA, on Windows 7 development…

• “I actually raced Jackie Robinson on ice skates…” - Vin Scully
• If you already didn’t have much respect for Louisiana lawyers after finding out Harry Connick, Sr. was the DA for the Parish of Orleans, you won’t be surprised by this Louisiana Bar Exam question riddled with Hornets player names.
• Walkoff walk!
• Kobe Bryant and Elmo beatboxing.  Look… to misquote David Mamet, that’s why they call it ‘video’:

• Congratulations on playing all 82 games this season, Grant Hill.  Also, congratulations on getting your wife, Tamia, a spot at All-Star Weekend and various local charity events in Arizona.  Strong season all ’round.
• Now that the WALL STREET JOURNAL has a sports section, expect to see sabermetric notions exposed to a larger audience.  That might explain why the guy in the cubicle next to you suddenly wants to talk about batting the pitcher eighth.
• Best of luck with the dissertation, PhDribble.
• Presumptive #1 NFL draft pick Matthew Stafford will be on Jimmy Fallon’s show Thursday, but Fallon won’t bring him out until three other picks have been introduced.
• We suspect the last time an angry bear was used to sell hockey tickets involved Bruce Vilanch and the Los Angeles Kings, but this isn’t so bad, either:

• The fellow forced to endure “God Bless America” at (old) Yankee Stadium has set his lawsuit sprinkler to get everyone soaked with paperwork.  We hear they’re making Yankees fans kneel before sod during the song in the new place.
• The NCAA doesn’t want you to not play in the College Basketball Invitational.  Not at all.  It would just hate to see anything happen to your program, is all.  It’s a nice program.  Lots of nice buildings and people and such.  The NCAA would just hate to see anyone put out.
• Fare thee well to Merle Harmon, an itinerant broadcaster for the Milwaukee Brewers, Texas Rangers, New York Jets (during Super Bowl III), and baseball in general.  He died Wednesday at age 82.

The 49ers are desperate — desperate! — for a starting quarterback. So when it comes to Matthew Stafford, perhaps the closest thing to can’t miss QB in this year’s draft, why does it seem like they’re doing everything they can to come up with an excuse to not take him?

From SPORTS ILLUSTRATED comes a look inside the combine, and San Francisco’s team psychologist’s meeting with Stafford. The word out of 49er camp is that he was too reticent to talk about his parents’ divorce. But can you really blame a 21-year-old kid for not wanting to discuss his personal issues with someone he’s known for a matter of minutes?

Read more…

With the NFL Draft approaching, the Detroit Lions are still looking to trade the first pick but aren’t finding any takers, and aren’t likely to. It’s not that they aren’t interested in Georgia quarterback Matthew Stafford, it’s just that they would rather trade down and take him because quarterbacks are expensive enough, but when you take them number one overall they get really expensive.

Considering that the position is the hardest to predict success for in the NFL, it’s a lot of money to invest in a player that’s more likely to be a bust than a success. So what can they do? Do they just pass on Stafford and take a safer pick? They could, but that would be a bit of a cop out. No, if the Lions have balls they’ll just opt not to pick anybody.

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Yup, Greg Oden hurt his foot less than three minutes into his first regular season game against the Lakers. That’s not a punchline to a joke, but the sad truth. He played through the first half before throwing in the towel. ESPN.COM reports that Oden suffered a mid-foot sprain, which sounds like a made up injury you would use to get out of work, but apparently you can get if you are made out of peanut brittle.

Not that Oden was tearing the joint up. His stat line for the game: 0-4 from the field and five rebounds in 13 minutes.  Which puts him about on par with the rest of the Blazers, as they were thumped by Los Angeles 96-76. As for Oden…he has a trip to the MRI machine scheduled for later today, or as he calls it, “The Mother Ship.”

Having a much better NBA debut was Derrick Rose, who scored 11 points and had nine assists as the Bulls stuck it to their ex-coach Scott Skiles by beating the Bucks 108-95. Meanwhile, that clanging you heard in Boston was LeBron James rattling free throws all over the place against the Celtics. He missed four of eight free throws, all in the fourth quarter, and Cleveland fell 90-85.

Here’s some more of last night’s news, but be forewarned: Bud Selig says that he has the power to suspend this after six links.

• CBS analyst Gary Danielson thinks that Texas runs a “junk offense” and that Georgia’s Matthew Stafford would be putting up Colt McCoy-type numbers in that offense, says the AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN. No SEC homerism there at all.
• The man who saved the NBA during the lockout in 1999, according to the DETROIT NEWS? Not David Stern. Not Billy Hunter? Nope, it was Michael Curry.
• Relax, says the DENTON RECORD-CHRONICLE: it turns out that those 15 North Texas football players tested positive for recreational drugs, not steroids. Which is great, because we wouldn’t want their run at an 0-12 season to be tainted.
• The AP has a tip for Eli Manning - don’t let the defense read your lips when you call a play on fourth down. It kind of helps them know what to do.
• The SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS estimates that only 20,000 people will be on hand to see Stanford take on Washington State this Saturday, even though the Cardinal are 3-0 at home this year and fighting for a bowl berth.
• Even after having beaten the Chargers in a thriller on Sunday, the NEW ORLEANS TIMES-PICAYUNE says that Saints coach Sean Payton was less than thrilled with the experience of playing in London.
• The BOSTON GLOBE reports that Patriots’ nose tackle Vince Wilfork is going to be getting called to the Principal’s office - in this case NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell - for his blow to the head of Broncos’ QB Jay Cutler. Wait, I thought the Patriots were perfect schoolboys who never, ever committed any penalties?
• Will the expansion Seattle Sounders get more from signing Swedish star Freddie Ljungberg than the LA Galaxy did from David Beckham? Arash Markashi of SI.COM thinks so.
• Why would Isiah Thomas apparently continue to lie about his alleged sleeping pill overdose? The local police chief speculates to NEWSDAY it might be because of his contract. “If he takes drugs or whatever they may not owe him the $18 million. I have no idea.”
• Remember when Joe Tiller said that Rich Rodriguez was a “snake oil salesman” after Purdue lost a big recruit to Michigan? The DETROIT FREE-PRESS says that there’s really no bad blood there. Really.

Teams that were supposed to win won, and players that were supposed to perform performed, as the day’s early games seemed just an appetizer for the big OSU-Michigan and Texas-Mizzou tilts.

(The closest Vandy came to stopping Moreno all day).

As Knowshon Moreno goes, so goes the Georgia Bulldogs. Vanderbilt found that out the hard way, falling to UGA 24-14 in the early slate’s only matchup of ranked teams. Moreno trampled the Commdores for a season-high 172 yards, touching the ball on more than a third of Georgia’s snaps. Freshman AJ Green, who is becoming one of Matthew Stafford’s favorite targets, had 132 yards and a touchdown.

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