Steve Novak got some solid stretching in.

[MU Chi_IL]

In the NBA, and life, it's all about getting your reps   
By Bill Simmons
Page 2

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/081126&sportCat=nba


"They come out of the huddle. The first sign of trouble: Three-point specialist and 12th man Steve Novak has entered the game for the Clippers. Why? I have no idea. This is a Dunleavy speciality -- throw the coldest bench guy in the game in the biggest possible spot. With the Spurs still trickling on the court after the timeout, we watch in horror as Novak is STRETCHING to get himself loose. He's stretching! He looks like a 45-year-old guy who just got called into a Thankgiving touch football game. That's followed by a 20-second timeout, which gives Novak time to perform an impromptu pilates session at the top of the key. At this point, I would have bet my life on a Novak airball to end the game. And thank God nobody took the bet, because this is the play they ran:

Ball goes into Baron near midcourt. He dribbles left and hands the ball off to Ricky, who's coming the other way and stops. A couple of problems here: First, Ricky might be the worst swingman in the league right now. (Look at his stats. He's an abomination. He's 29 years old going on 47. Through 13 Clipper games before he was mercifully benched, Ricky was shooting 27.2 from the field and 27.3 on threes. At least he's consistent.) I guarantee in the Spurs huddle, Popovich never said the words, "Look, be careful with Ricky Davis, don't let him beat us!" You can imagine his delight as Ricky killed time at midcourt. Meanwhile, the clock was dwindling. 5 ... 4 ... 3. The fans started screaming in horror. This was like watching a little kid wander into traffic.

At the two-second mark, Ricky passed to Baron Davis, who had just sprinted a lap around halfcourt -- going from the top of the key to the left corner, then under the basket, then to the right corner, and now he was popping out in front of the Clippers bench. Normally, this would have been an awesome play if, you know, Baron Davis didn't have to run a halfcourt lap in five seconds. I don't even think Usain Bolt could do this. So Baron catches the pass and has to immediately hoist up a three while flying full-speed the other way after having broken the world record for "fastest halfcourt lap ever." As the pass is heading towards Baron, Tim Duncan -- one of the smarter players of all time -- realizes that, "Hey, there are only two seconds left, as soon as Baron catches this, he has to throw it up." So he jumps out on Baron.

Now Baron catches the ball with his body going 35 miles an hour away from his own basket and two players jumping at him, one of whom is 6-foot-11, and rushes up a 25-foot 3-point shot. You're not going to believe this, but it didn't go in. It didn't even hit the rim. The good news was that Steve Novak got some solid stretching in."

[TallTitan34]

The first sign of trouble: Three-point specialist and 12th man Steve Novak has entered the game for the Clippers. Why? I have no idea. He looks like a 45-year-old guy who just got called into a Thankgiving touch football game.

SUCK IT BILL SIMMONS!

http://i273.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vid273.photobucket.com/albums/jj229/marquettetitan34/novak-1.flv

[Mayor McCheese]

I don't think Bill Simmons was talking bad on Steve Novak... I think its against the idea of throwing a guy in for the final 8 seconds who hasn't played all game, and that he needs to stretch is the reason why you don't put him in... I couldn't stop laughing at this story.

[strobl2]

Does Novak usually even get to play at all.

[jce]

That entire article was one of the more funnier things I have read in awhile.