i watched kazaam today, and yes, it really is as bad as people make fun of it to be. i still think most of the people making fun of it are doing it without watching the movie, but now i've seen it. honestly, the reason it sucks is because the dialogue between the kid and shaq is terrible; improve the dialogue and the movie could've done THAT much better(i'm being totally serious; the idea for the base of the movie isn't that bad, if you think about the other rediculous plots seen in a lot of movies). dialogue aside, the fact that the kid's TEACHING shaq to do hip-hop and the fact that sha-er-kazaam doesn't know anything about culture(i thought 3,000 year old genies would be able to observe stuff and not like act like a couch potato; how can you be a genie that can do hip-hop, but not understand culture?) kinda pushed it over the edge.

...

but other than that it was kinda interesting. emphasis upon "kinda." now i just need to hope somebody dumps at the library a copy of "steel" or whatever that other movie was called, where shaq plays the black dude in dc comics who carries a hammer and acts like a replacement to superman.

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ok, game 4 ECF looks REALLY good. considering that rodman got 18 boards total, 12 alone in the 1st half(plus he was coming off the bench on this pistons team), i really like watching this one over and over to learn how to rebound. i would like to consider offering up this weekend to watch 2 of these games, but the playoffs are starting, and that could mean warriors are playing(who knows when the next time warriors make the playoffs? can't take anything for granted). maybe next weekend.

also, while dumars wasn't exactly on fire, you start to see him demand the ball more and more in this game, recognizing that he could beat hodges and vincent(i think, basically the other point guard who was a white guy) at will, since jordan thought it was more important to guard isaiah 1-on-1. you start to see his ability to create by himself a bit more. i love his post into his spin move, it looks so quick.

i didn't notice pistons really start to apply "the jordan rules" until game 5 and then 6(maybe game 4 as well), that was when they thought it was worth it to give him double teams at will, right when he caught the ball. reason was simple; i've now watched all of the ECF games, and game 3 was clearly the best i saw of jordan during the pre-phil jackson years. he scored 46 pts, led a HUGE chicago comeback, and nailed a jump shot beating dennis rodman with help coming too late from isaiah thomas to finally break the tie and win the game for the bulls, 99-97(i faintly recall joe dumars saying something somewhere else that after jordan scored 46 pts on them, the pistons vowed to never let him do it ever again). but you see how it finally worked in game 5 and 6; game 5 pistons mustve forced at least 25 turnovers on the bulls. game 6 they probably got around 20 as well. and you actually see jordan TIRED coming to the end of game 6(OMG! no way!), missing 2 free throws in a row, having to put ice on his groin injury, etc.

FYI, game 5 jordan scored only 18 pts, because he wasn't aggressive with the ball; everytime he was double-teamed immediately, he passed the ball. the commentators couldn't understand it, but one of the color commentators stated that a possible reason was that jordan never takes a really bad shot. i actually have to agree. for all of jordan's incredible offensive skills, he shot over 50% total in his career, something like that. his shot placement is incredible, that's why he never shot 3s unless he was acting as a spot-up shooter. that doesn't mean he won't take shots with 1 guy draping over him if he knows he can beat him, but it's more like he will take shots if he beats one man and the help from another is coming late. but he won't take it if he's got a double team on him immediately, because it will just result in a turnover. after watching all the dvds, i don't think i ever saw mj ever take an ill-advised shot, that's why there were a lot of times he would beat his man, drive, go up for the shot, hang, see the double-team coming at the right time, and seeing he could not draw the foul or make a good shot, rather than force the shot, he made a pass back out before he touched the ground(not in the sense of passing to create oppurtunities, but to preserve possession of the ball).
on the other hand, in modern-nba equivalents, kobe while his talents bear the most similitude to mj(the other being dwyane wade), he's known for MAKING the most ill-advised shots; fadeaway 3s with double teams draped over him, for example. i mean, kobe makes those type of shots more than anybody else; but his fg% is considerably lower than jordan's. kobe's sorta like the nba's answer to brett farve.

game 6 btw showed how much class the chicago fans had; with about a minute left, and the pistons having the series in the bag, everybody at chicago stadium rose up to applaude the bulls until the buzzer sounded(they weren't supposed to make it all the way into the ECF, and then push the series with the pistons to 6). contrast that to today's fans, which would probably get up and leave early if that was the case.

oh yeah, one more thing; jordan made one of his really infamous and1 layups in game 6; i had always thought he did this one during the 91 season when they swept the pistons and won the championship, but i guess i was wrong, y'kno the "steal, he kept it inbounds..." *tweet* "OOOHHH..." "this is one for the books hubie; i've seen him do some really impressive things but never something like this"

'89 pistons may have been offensively deficient in terms of points scored, but they were unselfish. a typical pick-n-roll situation with their starting 5 would be laimbeer setting a screen for isaiah, then fading back. isaiah beats and passes to laimbeer, who refuses to keep the ball, and immediately whips it over to dumars on the other side of the court, who is usually open by then. dumars nails the jumper, or gives it up once more, by this time aguirre is WAAAY open in the corner for a 3.

now i'm going to have to watch the remaining 4 games vs the lakers, and see just how good joe dumars shined when he didn't have to lock down a player's calibur such as mj.

(btw i was at target today, and found them selling wheaties with bill russell on the cover. nice. the picture of him wasn't blocking a shot or curtaining a rebound though, but going up with his infamous left hook.)