First Quarter: I gave up watching Ninja Warrior for This?!

The Jazz better give me a show. I was watching fishing boat captains named Nagasaki run through obstacle courses or face "muddy disgrace." One of the contestants came straight from work (a gas station) and had to run the whole obstacle course in his work uniform. That was dramatic.

Interesting subplot: Whom will Bruce Bowen attempt to injure first? My money is on Deron Williams, I suspect anyone else would either break bones that would stick out of the skin and have the potential to cut Bowen (AK), would be a sure-fire bet to pop a zit in his eye and blind him for the rest of the series (Boozer), or probably smell too awful to get near enough to hurt him. (Okur).

Fisher giving the team a pre-game pep talk. The word's retinal blastoma weren't mentioned once. I fail to be inspired.

Fabricio Oberto is a starting quality NBA center for a contending team? Really? Oh wait, we start Derek Fisher at shooting guard I guess I can't criticize.

I hate the ABC camera angle where they inexplicably decided "the standard camera at half court angle has worked for 20 years, let's shake it up with a weird angle where you can't see the whole half court anymore." This is almost as bad as ABC ditching the NBA on NBC music that was composed by John Tesh.

Aw Crap. I have the Pussycat Doll's "Right Now" song stuck in my head. I think I might consider suffering an aneurism in order to get that out of my head in a timely fashion. This is almost as bad as the time I had the Teddy Ruxpin theme music stuck in my head for a solid year between 1989-1990.

Gregg Popovich wearing his spring pastel suit. Very trendy.

Francisco Oberto just missed a free throw by rocketing the ball straight at the back of the rim. That thing came off the rim so fast people in the first row were diving to shield their small children.

Jerry Sloan just silently dropped the F-Bomb on the sidelines. That moves him into the #2 spot for F-bombs by a coach all time. #1 is Bill Fitch, who, from the games I watched, pretty much holds an unbreakable record.

Kirilenko guarding a player that exclusively hangs out in the corner and shoots three pointers. That makes sense given that he's most useful as a help defender.

I've been live-blogging too long. Madame Kicky has decided to eat my lunch. Goodbye Yakisoba! I hardly knew ye!

Utah currently shooting more free throws than San Antonio in San Antonio. 0.0% of NBA fans believe that is sustainable.

20 seconds after typing that Boozer picks up his second foul. It's fun being prophet of the obvious. I predict Sloan will wait too long to call a time-out in this game.

Dear God, they're playing the Pussy-Cat dolls again. If only this game was on TNT. Even if they played the song over there, we'd get the benefit of seeing Barkley dance to it or something.

The Desperate Housewives advertisement is ridiculous. I'm vaguely missing The Closer already. Although nothing could make me miss Tyler Perry's House of Payne.

Madame Kicky (who is currently writing a paper and thus barely paying attention) comments "They have got to stop saying penetration!"

This seems like a good time to show you all the hard-hitting questions Matt Harpring answers on his website:

From Dari: I'm from Indonesia. I wonder, do you know where Indonesia
is?

Thank you, Dari. I appreciate your question in many ways. Yes,
I know where Indonesia is. I've kept track of emails that I've gotten from
fans who live outside the USA. So far my count is up to 48, including The
Philippines, Algeria, Turkey, Portugal, Brazil, Bolivia, Russia, Croatia,
Greece, ... and many more. Someday I'd like to put up a "flag and
fans" web page. It is really nice to know I have fans around the
world! Matt Harpring #15

See guys! Matt doesn't just work hard on the court. He also works hard at his basic geography!

Uh oh guys. Robert Horry is in the game. Start putting on your Rip Hamilton face masks.

Utah makes a "plays hard" substitution by bringing in Harpring for Kirilenko.

Utah is 3-14 from the field. Shockingly Fisher has taken no shots.

Despite the fact that San Antonio has 3 white players on the court, the announcers have already resorted to making "vanilla" jokes about the Jazz. In related news, I think they just called the Pistons "nappy-headed hoes."

San Antonio went on a 11-0 run at one point. There was no time-out by Sloan. All hail prophet of the obvious!

This Kia commercial features more clutch shots than the Milwaukee Bucks made all season.

Mark Jackson refers to himself as a horrible defender. Somehow manages to not bring up his insistence he should have started over John Stockton.

Ginobili's bald spot is hypnotizing. How has he not become the Rogaine spokesperson yet?

I'm convinced that Duncan only has two expressions: 'completely expressionless' and 'stunned you called that foul on me.'

Popovich comments that Horry does the "little things that win games." Apparently inciting near brawls that get key players on the other team suspended is now part of the fundamentals.