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Steve Nash’s Chinatown Soccer Showdown

As far as pickup games go, tomorrow night’s match-up should go down in history. Steve Nash has organized a charity soccer match called “The Showdown in Chinatown” that will feature all-star participants like the NBA’s Jason Kidd, Baron Davis, David Lee, Leandro Barbosa and Raja Bell, along with professional foot-ballers Thierry Henry, Claudio Reyna, Steve McManaman, and Robbie Fowler.

We’ll have to put off watching that TiVo’d episode of Pros vs. Joes for another night, because there’s no way we can pass up an opportunity to see Henry dangle the dignity out of David Lee. The event takes place tomorrow night at 5:30 p.m. in Roosevelt Park on Chrystie St. between Rivington and Stanton. Watch the videos after the jump to get a preview of Nash’s soccer skills.

Popularity: 28% [?]

Quantum Hoops Has Balls And Brains

In the game of life, Ayo! Scott has never taken an L, so he can’t really fathom taking 240 losses. That doesn’t mean it can’t happen—to someone else. Quantum Hoops, a tremendous documentary that comes out on DVD today, follows the bookish 2006 California Institute of Technology basketball team as it attempts to break a streak of more than 240 consecutive losses in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (that’s 21 winless years).

Director Rick Greenwald and narrator David Duchovny take viewers way back to Caltech’s early years, when the Beavers (named for “nature’s engineer”) were as athletically gifted as they were academically. They then show how the demanding academic institution, which boasts numerous Nobel prize winners among its faculty and alumni, became a joke in Division III athletics (and not a Beaver joke, mind you). Two years prior to filming, the basketball team lost games by an average margin of more than 60 points.

Between the burden of history, rigorous workloads, and the fact that basketball is a diversion for these brilliant student-athletes, there’s little reason to assume anything will change. But somehow, a team of “nerds” that fields more valedictorians than players with high school hoops experience begins to chip away at the margin of victory until eventually it’s losing legitimately competitive games. In what is an ulcer-inducing rollercoaster climax, the Beavers play their final game of the season hoping to get the elusive “W.” Whether you identify with brainiacs, love underdogs, or have simply felt the sting of losing, Quantum Hoops will make you geek out. Check the trailer below.

Popularity: 29% [?]

Dirk Nowitzki Gets His Jaw Tapped

On Saturday, during the New Orleans Hornets’ 104-92 win over the Dallas Mavericks in game one of their first-round playoff series, four-year NBA veteran David West tested the manhood of nine-year vet Dirk Nowitzki. After a whistle had been blown, the Hornets’ power forward—displeased with receiving an inadvertent elbow to his lip from a man who listens to David Hasselhoff—walked up to the Mavericks’ seven-time All-Star and All-NBA superstar and had a few words with him. Then West finger banged his face before referees separated them.

Publicly disrespected by a relative nobody, Nowitzki did nothing, which lead former pros Magic Johnson and Charles Barkley to suggest that it made him look soft. Maybe he is soft. Or maybe the big German recognized that his value to his team is much higher than West’s and that retaliation might get him suspended and cost his team the series. Or maybe he’s on some Wayne/Juelz shit and just couldn’t feel his face. Decide for yourself after the jump, where some pimp-slap-happy sportscasters review the incident.

Popularity: 84% [?]

Where the NBA Playoffs Happen

Complex’s quick thoughts on all the first-round match-ups popping off this weekend.

WESTERN CONFERENCE

Los Angeles Lakers (1) vs. Denver Nuggets (8)
(Sunday, 3:00 PM ET, ABC)
Complex Sez: The state of Colorado tried to take Kobe down with a rape charge. Think he remembers?

New Orleans Hornets (2) vs. Dallas Mavericks (7)
(Saturday, 7:00 PM ET, ESPN)
Complex Sez: If the Mavs lose in the first round again, we’re betting Dirk disappears into the Australian outback again to run wild with the dingoes for the rest of his days.

Popularity: 84% [?]

Kobe Is Back On Top!

With a 124-101 thrashing of the Sacramento Kings Tuesday in their final regular season game, Kobe Bryant’s Los Angeles Lakers (57-25) secured the number-one seed in the NBA’s Western Conference Playoffs. A complete asshole might make a reference to Bryant’s 2003 sexual assault charge and say he’s back on top (but only a complete asshole). After the jump, we recount the saga of Kobe’s long, hard road back from the bottom.

Popularity: 85% [?]

Captain Knick: Broomsday

The Knicks feel dirty while getting swept by the Celtics.

It seems like it was just last year that three of the NBA’s marquee franchises were stinking up the joint while planning big off-season fishing trips. Oh wait, it was just last year. Since then, the Boston Celtics, Los Angeles Lakers, and New York Knicks each pulled off big trades that were supposed to turn them around (Boston acquired KG and Ray Allen; L.A. stole Pau Gasol; New York admitted head case Zach Randolph to the asylum). Now the Celtics (65-16) and Lakers (56-25) are the cream of their respective conferences and favored to win the title, possibly in an epic clash between the two. The Knicks (23-58) are fiddling with their poles and feeling fishy.

Last night, the Celtics reserve players gave Ew York a Boston creampie, sweeping their season series with a 99-93 defeat while the stars rested for the playoffs. With a season-ending loss tomorrow night to the Indiana Pacers, the Knicks would tie the franchise’s record for L’s caught for the second time in three seasons. As a Knick fan, I’m Celtic green with envy. And vomit. After the jump, see highlights from the 45-point November blowout that signaled just how different the Knicks and Celtics seasons would be.

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Dirk Nowitzki’s Shot At Redemption

Dirk Nowitzki is doing his best to shake a monkey off his back. Last night, Nowitzki hit a clutch three to beat a talented Utah Jazz team and put the Dallas Mavericks (50-29) back in the playoffs, where he might regain the ability to show his face in public.

A year ago, after posting a dominating regular season record of 67-15, 2007 NBA MVP Nowitzki and the one seed Mavs were embarrassed in the first round of the playoffs by the eight seed Golden State Warriors (Ay Bay-Bay), a team that had just barely made the postseason. The basketball equivalent of a younger brother giving his older brother’s woman the Jamaican accordion led many to question Nowitzki’s leadership and manhood. The big German questioned himself, too (though not his manhood, as far as we know). He disappeared into the Australian outback on a backpacking trip to hide from the world.

Now, with a new teammate—onetime superstar point guard Jason Kidd—and an eighth straight season of 50 wins and a playoff appearance, it’s possible that Nowitzki could shed his shame. Then again, the Western Conference is a beast, and beasts can only be tamed by bestiality (or so we hear). Soon we’ll know if Nowitzki is ready to shake that monkey off and give it some stiff German discipline. Watch Dirk’s clutch performance from last night after the break.

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Hype Check: Eric Gordon, CBGBs & Batman

The media shoves so much down our throat these days that it’s hard to know when to believe the hype. Can you help us out? Each week we’re going to be asking you, the readers, to vote on what’s gonna live up to expectations and what’s gonna flop.

Will Eric Gordon smash the NBA? Will Bobby Brown’s son find his own perogative? Will the new John Varvatos store in CBGBs piss off or please punk rockers? Will Batman: Gotham Knight bring John Wayne back? Let it be known after the jump.

Popularity: 86% [?]

Captain Knick: Presidential Sweet

How can you not feel confident about Donnie Walsh? Jim “Coke Residue” Dolan always makes smart hires.

Former Indiana Pacers exec and New York native Donnie Walsh is replacing Isiah Thomas as Knicks team president. It’s got to be a wee bit prickly for Zeke to be replaced by the man who gave him his first coaching job. Walsh hasn’t yet stated whether he’s going to fire Zeke from his posts as the club’s coach, GM, and chief operator of sexual harassment, saying that he wants to first sit down with him and have a “meaningful basketball discussion.” Here’s to hoping the discussion centers around how hard the doorknob should hit him on his way out. As far as Walsh goes, he gets the benefit of the doubt, for now (I mean, the Pacers he just left have a wildly successful 31-43 record). Speaking of ineffectual employees, it’s time for one final 2007-2008 reading of the Eddy Curry Vagin-O-Meter, after the jump.

Popularity: 84% [?]

Kevin Love Is Gunnin’ For That #1 Spot

Heads up! Adam Yauch (a.k.a. MCA) from The Beastie Boys has created a new documentary called Gunnin’ For That #1 Spot, where he follows 8 of the nation’s best high school ball players while they play at the Rucker in Harlem. Amongst them is Kevin Love (now playing for UCLA), who we get to know in this early preview of the flick. The movie hits theatres on June 27, but check out a trailer after the jump…

Popularity: 87% [?]