Celtics-Lakers 2010: Game Six…

Ok, I’ll say this upfront: I think that there will be a game 7, but I hope not.

Garnett starts the scoring off of a fast break off of a miss by Bryant 3…but Bryant ties it.
Ray Allen: nice stroke early. Fisher: nice flop early.

Sloppy pass; 9-6 Lakers. The Lakers are hustling all over the place. Nice lay up by Allen; pass by Rondo, 3 point play.

9-9 early. Allen buries a 3! 12-10, Celtics. Mr. Bryant: 12-12.

Ok, 14-12 Lakers, Rondo gets fouled but will probably miss both. Good, he wasn’t shooting. Bryant a difficult shot.

It is 18-12; sloppy pass by Pierce was intercepted.

Half way: Allen has 8, so does Bryant. All the Laker starters have scored. Only Allen, Rondo (2) and Garnett (2) for the Celtics.
But Ray Allen is 3-5; that is a good sign.

Perkins got hurt; that is a bad sign (defense, rebounding).
Bryant another ridiculous 3. 21-14.
23-16; good flop by Gasol and the referees bought it.
26-16 early; this one is a rout.
Ooops, Pierce breathed on Gasol…foul.

Bryant 11, Artest: 8. That is the bulk of the damage.

Sloppy pass by Pierce again. Gads, this is horrible.
Bad quarter; 28-18 Lakers. Lakers: 60 percent shooting, Celtics 40. 12 rebounds for the Lakers, only 5 for the Celtics; this has been a butt kicking.

Even their back ups are hitting; this one is over. 30-20.
The Lakers can’t miss; 32-20.

Horrible turnover by Robinson. Celtics are ice cold and not rebounding.
3 fouls on Wallace. Ugly.
The starters are back in, save Pierce who hasn’t played well as yet.

The onslaught continues unabated. No block out; 40-23. The Celtics look lethargic. Rebounds: 22-7.

Gads, even the Laker scrubs are hitting 3s…20 point lead.

29 points in the first half with 1:32 to go. This is absurd.
Celtics: shooting 34 percent. Will they get to 30? 51-31 Lakers at the half. 51 isn’t a ton of points, but the 31 is beyond horrible.
Rebounds: 30-13 Lakers. Gasol 8, Bryant 7, Odom 6. Any two of these guys together have more than the Celtic team.

Perkins is out (knee injury).

Only ONE Celtic besides Perkins, Allen and Pierce has made a field goal.
No offense. Bad passes.

They can’t even hit a lay-up.

The Celtics are playing harder. But right now, the Lakers are getting every roll; the Celtics zero.
But right now, the Celtics are in a position where they need every roll…and that means you are going to lose.

Still, the effort is better.
70-51. The Laker bench has 21. Celtic bench: 0. What a reversal.

Rondo bricks two free throws..what else is new. But the Celtics are hustling…and still missing shots. 73-51. Time to get the starters out, I think.

76-51 at the end of 3. Again, 76 is not a lot of points but 51 is pathetic. The Lakers don’t even need to score in the 4′th to win the game.
49.2 percent for the Lakers, but only 36.5 for the Celtics.

Oh well, this is total domination.

10 minutes to go, so Rondo is the only starter.

Now they put in Pierce and Allen with 6:30 to go; the announcer thinks that Doc Rivers is letting them try stuff for game 7.

Question: will the Celtics even get to 70 points? 89-67. Yes, 89 isn’t a lot of points. SIXTY SEVEN????

(photos from yahoo)

15 June 2010 (am)

Workout notes Yoga, weights and a 3 mile walk over the Bob Michael Bridge.
Weights: pull ups (regular, 10, 10, 5, hands facing toward each other: 8, 7, 7, 5, 5). Dumbbell military presses, seated: 20 x 40, 15 x 45, standing: 5 x 50.
Dumbbell rows: 10 x 40, 10 x 40, 10 x 45. Machine (supine) 10 x 45 (3 sets). Pull downs: 10 x 137 (3 sets), incline bench (8 x 135, 2 sets), Smith Machine squats (3 sets of 10 with 135, each set followed by 20 toe raises on a plate), butt machine (2 sets of 10, forgot the weight), rotator cuff exercises.

There weren’t many people there, but many were very strong. Janice was there too, doing squats in her “loose” spandex.

The walk was unremarkable.

Shoulder: didn’t inhibit my weight workout; slightly sore from the swim.

Posts I’ve been happily distracted by a math problem; I hope to do my extension of it today.

I’ll post a couple of items though:

1. Bumper sticker that I saw: “the minds that created the problem won’t be the ones that solve it.”

2. Mano Singham is writing a series about liberal democracy (one in which minorities have rights) and religion.
Example: the United States has a liberal democracy. Why? Well, say if the state of Illinois voted on a referendum to require, say, everyone to go to church, it would be illegal under our Constitution even if the referendum passed with 90 percent of the vote.

So, he wonders what would be good ways to ensure that other governments don’t turn into elected theocracies. He says this:

Liberal democratic values can flourish only in those countries where religious beliefs are weak or non-existent. As long as religions and religious authorities are kept out of power, then democracy can exist. The problem of religion in liberal democracies is what to do when religious groups threaten to use the processes of democracy to take over the power of government and then impose their religious practices on everyone. When confronted with this possibility, you are forced into a choice between allowing undemocratic forces to exploit the democratic process to force everyone to live in a theocracy with its denial of basic freedoms of democracy, or using undemocratic means (such as banning religious parties) to prevent such a theocratic takeover. Neither of these outcomes is desirable since liberal democracy dies either way.

Is there a solution? I believe that the best thing to do is to not let religion gain a foothold in the first place. The only way to do so that is consistent with liberal democracy is to use our freedom of speech to show that religious beliefs are false, the idea of rights and values given by god makes no sense, and that no reasonable modern person should take religion seriously. If we can do that and make religion less appealing, then it becomes highly unlikely that religious political parties will ever gain power. After all, it is unlikely that any political party today that bases its platform on the sayings of Greek gods will win any elections because those gods have been discredited. It is not necessary to ban the worship of Greek gods or throw its believers in jail because believing in such gods is now seen as ridiculous.

He goes on to point out some of the troubles that accommodationists are having: they want to keep religious freedom but they are reluctant to criticize religious ideas. Think about it: if there really were a deity that punished a whole country because the people of the country allowed for “witches to live” or for certain religious crimes to go unpunished (e. g., “sorcery”), you’d enforce the bans on those practices, wouldn’t you?

Of course we do nothing of the sort; a belief in the type of deity described in the Bible is absurd.

14 June 2010 pm

Workout notes
Swam 1800 yards as follows: 5 x 100 free on 2, 10 x (25 3g or 5g, 25 free) on 1:10, 10 x (25 free, 25 back) on 1:10, 250 in 4:23 (slow), 50 back.
Walk: 3 miles, 39:40; 1 mile easy, 1 mile in 12:3x via 200 quicker, 200 easy, 1 mile in 13:2x, all on the Bradley indoor track. Rotator cuff exercises.

I admit that I spent the day doing math and watching a lecture on black holes.

Posts moved for a while

I am posting on my blogger blog until this software glitch gets corrected.

Today’s post is here (NBA, educational issues)

Celtics-Lakers Game 5, 2010

Yes, it is intense; Boston 41-37 with 2:42 left in the first half. How is this breaking down?
Lakers: 38 percent shooting, but few turnovers (5) and good free throw shooting (7-9 from the line), and 4-8 from 3 point range.
Boston: 67 percent shooting, but 9 turn overs and only 2 free throws.
The Lakers are staying in it by not making mistakes and getting to the line.

So it is 45-39 at the half.
Bryant has 10, Fisher 9. Celtics: Pierce 15, Rondo 10, Garnett 8.
Boston leads in rebounds 20-16, but turn-overs are keeping the Lakers in the game.

Second Half
Bryant has hit some difficult shots and back to back three pointers.
It is 58-49 Celtics; make that 60-49. Paul Pierce is on fire to match Bryant.
Pierce has 22; Bryant 20; 10 in the second half.

It is now 62-53 Celtics; Bryant has 14 points in less than a half a quarter. Pierce has 9.
Make it 64-53. Bryant buries a ridiculously long 3. 64-56. Bryant has 17 points.
Oh goodness, Bryant actually missed a shot!

Garnett makes a tough shot and draws the foul. 67-56 Celtics, even when Bryant going crazy. 67-58.
69-58; Allen banks it in.

It is now 71-58 Celtics, but Byrant has ALL of the 19 Laker 3′rd quarter points. I’ve never seen anything like this. Bryant has 29, no other Laker has more than 9.
Celtics: Rondo 12, Garnett 15, Pierce 24.
2:30 is left in the 3′rd.

The Lakers have cut it to 10 but the Celtic bench is in. It ends 73-65.
64.7 percent for the Celtics, 40 for the Lakers. But the Lakers are 7-11 for 3 point shots and 10-15 for free throws; the Celtics only have 5. Note: the Lakers have 10 more shots on goal, so to speak.

4′th Quarter
78-69; Bryant still taking hard shots and making them. He has 31; Pierce has 26 and just got hammered while driving to the basket; this one is getting physical. Even Ray Allen and Derek Fisher got double technical fouls (not the norm for those two).

Bryant another tough shot. 79-71. But Allen answers on a great pass.
Rondo is getting a ton of rest; Nate Robinson is playing well.
Allen and Fisher got a double foul. 4 fouls on Ray Allen, but this is the 4′th quarter.
Another foul on the Celtics. Perkins gets it but doesn’t draw a technical.
Now Bynum gets the same call on the other end; it is being called consistently.

81-75 Celtics; time for a time out.
Rebounds are almost even 29-28, in favor of the Celtics. This one will go down to the wire, I think.

A rare Laker turn over, fast break and 85-75, Celtics. Rondo has had some valuable rest and looks quick.
Lakers get sloppy; jump ball….4:25 are left.
Rondo a spectacular tip-in. 87-75 Celtics.

Bryant has foul number 5; drive it at him!

87-75 Celtics with 2:55 to go.
2:25 to go; 87-77 Celtics. Too much time is left.
But Gasol (who has only 9) missed his first free throw.
87-78.
1:41, loose ball foul on Perkins (4); Lakers get free throws.
Laker foul but Perkins is shooting; 87-79. Oh boy. But he has shot 73 percent this series. Yes, he bricks both; 1:40 to go but the lead is only 87-79.

Bryant makes a ridiculous 3 point shot attempt; they call Ray Allen for the foul so 3 free throws for Bryant.
This will cut it to 5.
87-82; this is as close as it has been; the Celtics can’t go into a shell right now.
Wild shot with the clock winding down; Celtics got the ball; 87-82 with 1:05. They still can’t go into a shell.

Jump ball with 47 seconds.
Phil Jackson: “they know how to lose in the 4′th quarter”.

43.3 seconds to go. Big miss from the line; second big miss; 39.9 and the Lakers blew a big chance; 38 seconds to go and the Celtics up by 5 and with the ball. Big lay up, 89-82 Celtics; Lakers get a lay up off of miss; have to foul and missed fouling Rodno. 91-84. Lakers make a lay up and with 8.9 seconds to go, Garnett has two free shots. 92-86 with 8.9 seconds to go…still not over.

Two misses…this one was close. The Celtics now lead 3-2.

Final: Bryant 38, Gasol 12, no one else with double figures.
Celtics: Pierce 27, Garnett 18, Rondo 18, Ray Allen 12.

(photos from yahoo)

13 June 2010 (pm)

Last night: shoulder ache. time to change the weight workout; possibly slowly build up swimming again? The shoulder feels good at the moment.

Workout notes very routine workout (2:09 worth of walking; this measured about 8.8 miles or so which included 4 West Peoria track miles); this was done at an easy pace.

Humor

Barbara is not happy with me here. Why? Two hints: 1. I have a camera. 2. She had just turned around. Enough said.

Boxing I watched boxing on Comcast. The summary of what I saw can be found here (Fightnews). There are good photos here (Ringside photos).
In junior welterweight action, Gabriel Bracero outboxed a game and competent Julius Edmonds, winning all six rounds on all cards. But Edmonds did land his own punches; just not enough to win any single round.

In a action packed superflyweight division fight, Takashi Okada won a unanimous 4 round decision over McWilliams Arroyo. The scores were 39-36, and 38-37, 38-37 for Okada. I had it 38-37 for Okata giving him the first two rounds (10-8 for round because of a knockdown) and Arroyo the final two (hotly contested) rounds. This fight was difficult to score; both men landed a ton of punches, moved well. It appeared that Arroyo had the advantage from long range whereas Okada won the close in fighting.

The main event featured WBO light flyweight Ivan Calderon against to 10 challenger Jesus Iribe. On my card, Iribe won the first two rounds, landing the more telling shots in round one and knocking Calderon down in round 2. But the rest of the way, Calderon used the ring well, constantly circling, coming in and landing sharp combinations, then getting out of harms way.

Iribe could only land at most one blow at a time. In fact, Iribe was so frustrated by missing his shots that he got a bit wild and the heavily Hispanic crowd would loudly shout “Ole!” at his misses (what they say when the bull misses the bull fighter). Note: Iribe is Mexican; Calderon is Puerto Riccan.

I’m sure that the boxing purists loved it; frankly I prefer the heavy hitters who have both power and skill (e. g., the old Mike Tyson, or Evander Holyfield.

Anyway, surf to the Ringside photos link if you like the shots; they are really good. Here is a thumbnail sample:

Science
Scientists tend to be precise people. Read Professor Moran’s critique of a science article in the New York Times.

So, will providing more funding for basic science research really help the economy? Actually, the evidence for that claim is weak, at best. But not all benefits will be realized economically in the near term future (say, this decade). There are other good reasons to fund basic scientific research.

Books: I probably won’t be buying Hitch-22, at least not at full price and not until my current reading list has been pared down. Yes, I like some of Christopher Hitchens’ ideas and yes, I liked God is Not Great. But, IMHO, his ideas are more interesting than he is.

12 June 2010 (pm)

President Obama on doctor pay for Medicare patients.

Richard Dawkins on Alan Turing

Hat tip: Friendly Atheist

Religion: perhaps unfair, but this got taken down by youtube (someone else’s copy) So you know how that goes.

Animal Camouflage: excellent example.

Robert Reich: one thing that President Obama can try with PB.

12 June 2010: Random

From our back yard. This one is a juvenile and has taken up residence in our back yard. We usually have a couple per year.

Science fun
Via Cosmic Variance:

How many of these equations do you recognize?

I see:

The chemical balance equation for Helium fusion
Maxwell’s electrodynamics equations
The Einstein relativity tensor
Gravitational attraction equation
Wave equation
Incompressible fluid flow equation
Fourier Transform
Dynamical systems equation
Carbon dioxide to Oxygen then back to Carbon dioxide via photosynthesis equation
scattering relation for subatomic particles (decay)
energy balance relating energy, potential energy and kinetic energy

Do you see any others?

Other issues
This photo of slave children is haunting.

Read the discussion here.

Fails:

Parenting FAIL.

Person writing a column fail: The first (“worse”) is hilarious:

Too many don’t see a problem with ignorance in this extreme.

12 June 2010: sweat edition

Workout notes I powerwalked (bent knee fast walking) a local trail race today; it was three miles (sort of) and featured: hay bales (small ones), tires (to be run through football style), a long beam (balance beam width, but on the ground), army crawl (under plastic mesh, not barbed wire), train tracks (about 400 meters worth) and, yes, a long side!

This was done at the Wild Life Prairie Park.

Distance: 3 miles. Time 29:27 Place: 80/175 (remember it was a running race). But do you want a hoot?

MALE AGE GROUP: 50 – 54
1. Ollie Nanyes 50 Peoria Il 29:35 9:52
2. Joel Allen 54 Peoria Il 35:02 11:41
3. Denis McNamara 54 Brimfield Il 35:30 11:50

FEMALE AGE GROUP: 50 – 54
1. Tena McNamara 50 Brimfield Il 29:01 9:41
2. Sally Masear 53 Washington Il 31:48 10:36
3. Charli Gregory 50 Washington Il 34:49 11:37

MALE AGE GROUP: 55 – 59
1. Eric Swartz 59 Henry Il 34:23 11:28
2. Mike Stegman 56 Brimfield Il 35:04 11:42

FEMALE AGE GROUP: 55 – 59
1. Jeannie Blane 56 Brimfield Il 32:46 10:56
2. Deb Clay 56 Peoria Il 34:52 11:38

MALE AGE GROUP: 60 – 64
1. Dave Losby 64 Peoria Il 24:53 8:18
2. Terry Shields 62 Galva Il 28:54 9:38
3. Robert Archer 63 West Peoria Il 33:12 11:04

Yep: three human beings over 50 who finished faster than I did, and I was walking (albeit with a bent knee). Reason: as people get older, they become more reluctant to try off-beat stuff like this (though there are exceptions).

As far as my race: each mile was faster than the one before: 10:26, 10:18, 8:42 (?) Oh well, trail races have only approximate distances anyway. What I did notice was I passed scores of people throughout; there were lots of newbies who didn’t understand trail racing; they saved nothing for the hills.

I didn’t pick up my award as I wanted to get in a weight lifting workout afterward.

Weights: In jumbled order: 9 sets of pull-ups (50 total; varied my hand placement), 3 sets of pull downs, 3 sets of dumbbell military presses (10 x 45, 10 x 45, 6 x 50 standing (ugly)), rows (3 sets with dumbbells, 3 on the lying down machine), incline bench 10 x 135, 10 x 135, 8 x 135, 2 sets of 10 twists, lat pull downs (3 sets of 10 with 137), 1 set of leg curls, 3 x 10 squat (Smith Machine) with 135; went deeper and followed with toe raises, 20 yoga leg lifts, rotator cuff set (30 reps each on cables, 30 reps on the two light dumbbell exercises)

While lifting, I learned something about leverage.

In the past, when I’ve used the machine for rows, I’ve used this one (doing both arms at once):

I used 190 pounds on this one.

Today I used this one

And ended up using a single 45 pound plate, even though the motion was about the same.

Why? Look at how long the lever is on the second machine; you get very poor leverage as the weight is far away from you and from the anchor point. Hence you can get a good workout with substantially less weight.

Blast from the past
This is a shot of the first weight room that I ever used: Tachikawa Air Force base gym. I was right next to the middle school.

This was taken about 37 years ago. In the bench press, I am stronger now than I was then (I was a freshman in high school at that time) and can do more pull-ups. But I am about 100 pounds weaker than my lifetime best bench press (310 was my PB), even when my shoulder isn’t achy.
(photo: David Burke)

11 June 2010 Posts For the Day

Humor
I wonder what this person had been searching for…

Funny, but this could have been her male friend’s or husband’s car.

Spandex: someone out there is even worse than I am!

Education Do you want to know what makes modern students snowflakes? Check this out…graduation exercises for pre-K. Yes…even worse than that.

Science Studies have been done on the type of change that we humans notice (visually). Some of the test videos are featured here; I failed in spectacular fashion.

Do you want to see a non-solar system planet orbiting a star? Here is is..

Go here for the details of how the photo was made and the science behind it. Note that this system is in it’s infancy (only a few million years old)

Depression and suicide Does having a higher IQ make you more likely to take your own life? Studies differ:

Two studies by Martin Voracek seem to uphold the notion that more intelligent people are more likely to commit suicide. Voracek looked at national suicide rates and average IQ, and found that countries with higher average IQs also had higher suicide rates. But a study released last week suggested the opposite might be true. A team led by G. David Batty looked at military conscription records of over 1 million Swedish men, and found that those with higher IQs were significantly less likely to be admitted to a hospital for a suicide attempt than those with lower IQs. Even after adjusting for socioeconomic status, education, and a variety of other factors, those in the top 10 percent of IQ scores were about four times less likely to attempt suicide than the bottom 10 percent. The researchers considered men with schizophrenia or other psychoses separately, and found no correlation between IQ and suicide attempts—the relationship between IQ and suicide only held for men who were otherwise relatively mentally stable. The research was published in the British Medical Journal. While it’s statistically possible for both the Voracek and Batty studies to be valid, these seemingly contradictory results suggest that the roots of suicide are more complex than the responses to a standardized test. [...]

But this finding is highly ironic:

A team led by Sebastian Schneeweiss looked at the medical records of over 21,000 adolescents aged 10 through 18 during the year following the onset of antidepressant therapy. They found that regardless of which antidepressant the children used, rates of suicide attempts were similar. The research was published in Pediatrics. Earlier research had found that adolescent usage of a particular class of antidepressant, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) such as Prozac, led to more suicide attempts than in adolescents who received placebos, suggesting that it was indeed the treatment, and not the illness, that led to suicide attempts. Lopez-Duran says that the effect may due to the fact that antidepressants all lead to more activity and increased self-confidence, which might make acting on a suicidal impulse more likely.

So, can the treatment be so successful that it kills the patient? Interesting.

Politics
The Republicans “stand up to” science. This isn’t a surprise; after all, much of their base believes things such as the world is 6000 years old.

Robert Reich: points out that the lowering of personal debt isn’t really going to help the economy; only getting a middle class to have enough money to spend will.

Baloney. The reason so many Americans went into such deep debt was because their wages didn’t keep up. The median wage (adjusted for inflation) dropped between 2001 and 2007, the last so-called economic expansion. So the only way typical Americans could keep spending at the rate necessary to keep themselves — and the economy — going was to borrow, especially against the value of their homes. But that borrowing ended when the housing bubble burst.

So now Americans have no choice but to pare back their debt. That’s bad news because consumer spending is 70 percent of the economy. It helps explain why we so few jobs are being created, and why we can’t escape the gravitational pull of the Great Recession without far more government spending.

It’s also a bad omen for the future. The cheerleaders are saying that for too long American consumers lived beyond their means, so the retrenchment in consumer spending is good for the long-term health of the economy. Wrong again. The problem wasn’t that consumers lived beyond their means. It was that their means didn’t keep up with what the growing economy was capable of producing at or near full-employment. A larger and larger share of total income went to people at the top.

So in the longer term, it’s hard to see where the buying power will come from unless America’s vast middle class has more take-home pay. Yet the economy is moving in exactly the opposite direction: Businesses continue to slash payrolls. And the hourly wage of the typical American with a job continues to drop, adjusted for inflation.