To echo Bawful's thoughts from earlier, Merry Christmas, Bawfulites! I already have to work a half-day at my Clark Kent job tomorrow, so you're getting the weekend post early. Deal with it. To make it up to you, here's some Youtube goodness!
1) A Christmas tradition courtesy of In Living Color (i.e. when the Wayans were still funny)...
2) As a fan of both horrible movies and Mystery Science Theater 3000, no Christmas would be complete for me without a viewing of the dubbed Mexican trainwreck of a late 1950s film called, creatively enough, Santa Claus. And since I know many of you have a similar sense of humor, I feel the need to share the joy of Santa being covered in a deluge of chain letter scam mail and riding a sleigh pulled by horrifically creepy robot reindeer that will eat your soul while you sleep. Embedded below is part 1 of the entire movie -- Here is the Youtube playlist for the full movie.
3) Well, it's not technically Youtube, but it's still a streaming video. Merry Christmas from the Nyets! (h/t JE Skeets)
Oh, and one brief note to hurt your brain: the Chinese language police have banned the acronym "NBA". They instead want you to use a non-English version of the word to keep the language pure: “Mei Guo Nan Zi Zhi Ye Lan Qiu Lian Sai.” Seriously.
Worst of the Night in Pictures:
Nationally Televised Thursday Games:
Spurs at Magic, TNT, 8pm: Because you so want to see the Hedo Deja Vu Magic get the snot beaten out of them by the Spurs. Ball.
Heat at Suns, TNT, 10:30pm: Alvin Gentry had this to say about Vag Carter: "He's still a little sore and there's no reason to rush things. We want him healthy before we run him out there." Yeah, good luck with that, Coach.
Meanwhile, D-Wade has a sore knee.
All The Other Thursday Games:
Bucks at Kings, 10pm: Let me put it this way for you. There is a damn good reason why this game is not being nationally televised.
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No games Friday
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Nationally Televised Saturday Christmas Games:
Bulls at Knicks, ESPN, 12pm: The lack of Joakim Noah makes this game (unfortunately) a little more interesting.
Celtics at Magic, ABC, 2:30pm: I know the Celtics have been running their offense through Paul Pierce while Rondo's injured, but maybe they should put Shaq at the point. I mean, he can conduct the Boston Pops -- why can't he conduct the offense for his team?
Heat at Lakers, ABC, 5:30pm: I'm just going to give you this link with the headline used by the Business Insider Sports Page guys: "Here's The (PowerPoint) Presentation LeBron James Used To Get Sponsors For His Birthday Party." The best part? LeBron is spelled wrong (they used non-capitalized Bs)
Nuggets at Thunder, ESPN, 8pm: It turns out the "death in the family" that Carmelo experienced the other day was his sister, who leaves behind four children. That's absolutely heartbreaking. My condolences to the Anthony family.
Frail Blazers at Warriors, ESPN, 10:30pm: How fortuitous! ESPN knew nobody would be paying attention to a game this late anyway, so why not put on one that will be fairly meaningless and good for dozing off while watching. So here comes NBA scheduling to the rescue with the Frail Blazers battling for an eighth seed, and the Warriors battling to not be the worst team in the league.
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All The Sunday Games:
Suns at Clippers, 3pm: Remind me again, why did the draft lottery have to send Blake Griffin to Donald Sterling's mess of a franchise? It's just not fair for anyone!
Timberwolves at Cavaliers, 6pm: The only reasons to care about this game: the Timberwolves are just exciting to watch as they are horrible, plus there is an ever-present possibility of Kevin Love transforming into the Incredible Hulk and pulling down 35 rebounds.
Also, be sure you check out Kevin Love's Christmas gift guide.
Bulls at Pistons, 6pm: Sadly, these are not the Bad Boys Pistons. These are just the Bad Pissed-Ons.
Hawks at Hornets, 7pm: Okay, let's see. Hornets have good defense, bad offense. Hawks have slightly less good defense, slightly less bad offense. I guess those factors balance out and this becomes a halfway good game in theory?
Grizzlies at Pacers, 7pm: This game, on the other hand, can never be "good" under any circumstances. It might be close, but it will never be "good."
I also appreciated the description used on Sports Pickle: "The essence of the Washington Wizards in a 10-second highlight. Watch this 288 times and you have a whole Wizards game."
76ers at Nuggets, 8pm: According to this piece, "the Sixers, who usually hold a mandatory team meeting on the second day of back-to-back games, instead held a voluntary one" after their ass-whupping by the Celtics and Bulls. They did this because they got beaten down so badly that they just wanted to forget about it and move on. That one moment sums up the entire Sixers season.