哈哈

帕吉特称尤他爵士一直对比赛用球充气过多

前尤他前锋Padgett日前称尤他爵士队一直往比赛用球中充入过多气体使球变得很硬，以此降低对方的投篮命中率。 前些天网队中锋Krstic在尤他灌篮后说他感觉“自己的手指快断了”

Padgett following the bouncing ball
Thursday, January 26, 2006
BY DAVE D'ALESSANDRO
Star-Ledger Staff

LOS ANGELES -- Forget Artest, Isiah and Kendra Davis. The NBA has a real scandal that is about to blow, and Scott Padgett has the skinny:

Utah cheats, he says.

In fact, the Jazz has been cheating for years.

Come again?

"They have an offense geared toward the layup, so they want your jumpers bouncing out," he explained. "The whole time I was there (1999-2003), the balls were hard. I'm gone now, and the balls are still too hard. They overinflate them, I'm telling you."

Padgett was smiling as he spread this malicious gossip because, well, he knows that nobody really cares. But shooters care. Especially shooters who clanged two wide-open shots from downtown at the Delta Center, as he did Monday night -- on a team that shot 2-for-21 overall from international waters.

"I'm not levying a charge, it's the truth," he said. "Ask anybody."

Actually, if you ask Jacque Vaughn, another Jazz alum, he makes a noise with his lips that sounds like a truck backfiring and walks away quickly.

"Or just look at their stats -- their field-goal defense at home and on the road," Padgett suggested.

Actually, they're a .500 team at home, and a .500 team on the road.

"I'm telling you, if one of those balls hits you straight on, you're breaking a finger," Padgett said. "I dislocated one here (right pinkie) and one here (left pinkie), and both happened when I was in Utah."

Actually, referees are supposed to ensure that each game ball is filled with seven to nine pounds of air ... but come to think of it, Nenad Krstic got a ball-jam Monday night, and thought he broke his finger.

"See, it's not a conspiracy theory," Padgett said triumphantly. "It's strictly fact-based."

An L.A. media contingent surrounded Vince Carter before the game and asked him to clarify his remarks about Kobe Bryant's 81-point game last Sunday. Carter, who thought he already made it clear that the achievement was great for the league and not so great for kids to try to emulate, was flummoxed to learn that he had been criticized by TV sportswriters and Phil Jackson.

"I wasn't trying to put down what was accomplished," Carter explained. "What was said was that kids who think they can score 81 in a high school game, they can't. There's only one guy who can do that -- besides Wilt -- and he already did that. They think they can be Kobe Bryant, and they can't." Cliff Robinson has played 16 seasons, and reached the playoffs 15 times. Clippers cornerstone Elton Brand has played six full seasons, and has never sniffed a playoff game.

Simple explanation: "I've been fortunate to be on some good teams," Robinson said. "His teams haven't had the talent to push them over the top. But this year, they should make it." Today marks the second anniversary of Lawrence Frank's becoming Nets head coach, and it's Carter's 29th birthday.
--
FROM 61.49.221.*