Month: December 2015

Witnessing The Greatness Of LeBron James

On December 7, 2015

Count me as a believer.

It took me a while, but I saw the light.

LeBron James is THAT dude.

Don’t get me wrong: I always knew LeBron was a special player. If you asked me to name the best player in the NBA right now, I’d waffle between him and Steph Curry before ultimately deciding on LeBron. When all is said and done, LeBron could be one of the greatest players in NBA history — if not the best.

Here’s the thing about great players: They have the ability to take over the game at a moment’s notice and leave you truly to fawn over their talents.

Such a thing happened this past Friday night when the Cleveland Cavaliers visited Smoothie King Center in New Orleans to play the Pelicans. I was in attendance as part of the stat crew (running stats to the owner’s box after transcribing quotes from Cleveland coach David Blatt’s pregame press conference.

Through a little more than three quarters, it appeared as if New Orleans had the game well in-hand. The Pelicans drained 3-pointer after 3-pointer and a one-point deficit at halftime turned into an 13-point advantage early in the fourth quarter.

Then LeBron flipped the switch.

Play	Score	Time	4th Stats
Layup	83-94	6:23	4 pts
Free Throw	84-94	5:44	5 pts
Free Throw	85-94	5:44	6 pts
Layup	87-96	5:01	8 pts
Layup	89-96	4:31	10 pts
Assist on 3	92-96	4:02	10 pts, 1 ast
Layup	94-98	3:01	12 pts, 1 ast
Layup	96-98	2:39	14 pts, 1 ast
Free Throw	97-98	2:39	14 pts, 1 ast
Jumper	99-98	1:47	16 pts, 1 ast
Layup	101-98	1:15	18 pts, 1 ast

Just like that, LeBron dominated and gave his team a three-point lead in a matter of five minutes, eight seconds. By the time the fourth quarter ended, LeBron scored 23 points in that 12-minute span alone. LeBron finished with a game-high 37 points, in addition to eight assists and seven rebounds.

To show the other side of the narrative, LeBron also had a chance to win the game if his jumper fell with 0.09 seconds left. It didn’t. Many have criticized LeBron for his lack of late-game heroics, but he’s made some more often than not.

The Pelicans eventually won the game in overtime 114-108 and let it be known that a team can always beat one individual, but that individual can be fun to watch.

Kickball Recap 5: From Right Field, With Love

By Tyler Mayforth

On December 3, 2015

In Kickball

One out stood between us and the third seed in the playoffs.

For us to have any hope at making the championship, that’s the seed we’d need.

Coming into Wednesday, which was the final day of the regular season, we were in sixth place — but as fate would have it, the playNOLA Kickball scheduling gods smiled favorably upon us. Since an earlier game got rained out, we had a doubleheader lined up against the teams in third place and fifth place. Plus, we owned the tiebreaker over the team in fourth, so if we handled business the path was clear for us to jump three spots on the final day.

Well, only two players showed up from “Drunk & Looking To Score,” so we won the game by forfeit and waited around for the second game of the twin bill against “Late Night Pizzas.” The hour gave us valuable time to bond as a team and I must say that “Black Balls” is a solid unit despite being comprised solely of free agents.

Fast forward to the game and it was a back-and-forth affair the entire time.

Our opponent jumped out to a 3-0 lead, then we swung back to tie it up.

We inched ahead 6-3, then our opponent rallied to even the playing field.

Finally we got some separation when it counted (read: top of the seventh inning) and scored four runs to go up 10-6.

We got two outs pretty easily in the bottom half of the frame, but then they pushed across another run to make it 10-7 and had runners on second and third before we could blink. So you could say the pressure was on.

The next kicker drilled a sinking line drive into right-center field, right where I was standing. Knowing I had to keep it in front of me, I charged to nab it off the short hop and fired a throw to first hoping two things: that it wouldn’t bounce off the first baseman’s hands and I’d be able to record the final out. Sure enough, it was a bang-bang play at first and the gracious referee called the runner out.

Game over.

Third place secured.

Celebration commenced.

Bring on the playoffs.

	AB	H	R	1B	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB
Game Stats	3	2	1	1	0	1	0	2	0
Season Stats	14	9	8	4	3	2	0	6	1