western conference blues

i miss the middle of december.

i don't miss the 4 hours of daylight. i don't miss law school finals. i don't miss stressing about shopping for gifts. what i miss is the jazz sitting at 3rd in the western conference, and being able to root for crap western conference teams to beat playoff-contention western conference teams. i miss then watching those games when they jazz weren't playing, excited at the prospect of the jazz opening up a 5-game gap on fourth place by virtue of a miraculous sacramento victory.

don't understand what i'm getting at? take a look at the current west standings (team - games back):

1. spurs - 0.0
2. lakers - 6.5
3. mavericks - 7.5
4. thunder - 9.5
5. hornets - 9.0
6. jazz - 11.5
7. thuggets - 12.0
8. blazers - 14.0
9. grizzlies - 15.5
10. suns - 17.0
11. rockets - 19.0
12. warriors - 19.5
13. blake griffen - 20.5
14. kings - 27.0
15. pesky t-wolves - 28.5
    

i was looking at tonight's matchups, trying to figure out what western conference scores i could be watching (aside from the jazz, of course) tonight while i suffer through my 8 pm - 10 pm AWR class. those games include (1) DAL/NYK, (2) MEM/MIN, (3) NOH/OKC, (4) POR/DEN, (5) MIL/PHX, (6) CHI/LAC. let's break those down, shall we?

1. DAL/NYK: no-brainer here. let's go knickerbockers.
2. MEM/MIN: i was about to say "barring a total meltdown by the jazz," but then i remembered we're in the middle of one. anyway, utah should make the playoffs. memphis should not. i've got my eyes on minnesota, even though they waived gaines a few weeks ago. also i hate all things gasol.
3. NOH/OKC: two teams above the jazz right now, and the only two within immediate striking distance. can they both lose? sadly, no; it makes sense to ask for the hornets to win this one, since we're in a better position to beat them should we meet in round one. at least the deron-CP3 matchup has favored utah traditionally, anyway.
4. POR/DEN: another tough one, two teams capable of beating us and both near us in the rankings. i'm pushing for portland for a few reasons. first, they're 3.5 games behind the jazz compared to denver at only half a game. second, denver's entire team is a collection of the biggest dicks on professional sports. i can't name a single guy on the team who isn't a total prima donna. third, wes matthews.
5. MIL/PHX: guess this one is totally unimportant. nash is fun to watch. so is jennings. let's go milwaukee.
6. CHI/LAC: i hope boozer and rose both choke on pieces of glass flying from an exploding backboard courtesy of blake griffen (boozer can have serious injuries as a result, i just want rose i don't want injured so much as just to be not better than deron anymore; actually what i want is d-will to be playing better than rose). and then i hope ronnie price windmill-dunks mid-backflip with laser beams shooting out of his eyes.

i guess it wasn't really that tough to make those calls. eh, not rewriting a post with better content. maybe tomorrow.

love me for trying.