Tampa Events

Ireland got the shaft in the recent World Cup qualifier when French star 's obvious handball wasn't called by the referees. The controversy led to this week's Gillette Fusion Power blog post by , recalling some other terrible officiating from other sports. Here's a sample:Jeffrey Maier’s Catch: If replay existed in 1996, no one would know who this stupid douchey Yankee fan that reached over the fence was. Instead, his fan-interference home run helped propel the Yanks past the Orioles in the ALCS and to the beginning of their ’90s dynasty. No one has heard from the Orioles since..

What up y'all? Hope that you guys got to see our game against OKC last night because I almost did something that I’ve never accomplished in my 11-plus years in the NBA.

I nearly recorded my first triple-double in the NBA ever. It was just my second game back from the suspension and my legs were kinda getting heavy out there again, but I was able to get 17 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists. Just one assist short!!!! We were all trying to pick up the slack with out injured and the nine assists tied a career-high for me.

I haven’t had a triple-double since back in high school in Texas and that was with blocked shots, so I don’t even really count that. It would have been so much cooler to get my first triple-dub in the league.

What makes it even weirder was that I didn’t even play in the fourth quarter because we were up so big. But I did almost get back in the game. Some of the guys on the bench were trying to get Coach Van Gundy to put me back in the game, but I understand what he was doing keeping me out when we were up 30.

When the lead fell to 18, coach sent me and to the scorer’s table to check back into the game. On one hand, I wanted to get back in to try and go for the triple-double. But on the other hand, I was kinda stiff after sitting on the bench, so I was OK not going back in.

It’s all good, not getting the triple-double. There will be other chances for that to come. This was about me trying to shake that rust off as quick as possible, I kind of struggled in my first game back on Monday because my legs got tired and my shot was flat.

We all know that have a HUGE game coming up on Friday in Boston, and I really wanted to shake the rust off before we played the Celtics. We’ll be going back there for the first time since last spring when we won that Game 7 on their homecourt.

I feel like that’s going to be a statement game for us to show the rest of the NBA how good of a team we really are. The Cleveland game last week was like that, and it killed me not being back for that game.

We know the Celtics are going to be trying to get some revenge against us, but we’ll be ready. It’s a really big game for us to show the rest of the league that we’re still one of the teams to beat in the Eastern Conference. And hey, you never know, I might get a triple-double in that game!!!

Well, I gotta get outta here. We got practice to get ready for Boston later today and then we fly out this afternoon for Beantown. Ya’ll be sure to check us out on ESPN Friday night and drop me a line when you can. Later.

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