I made a mistake, it's Points, then goal differential, then goals scored, then head to head. But we are up 1 against Ghana on goals scored, so if we do tie on goal differential, we're in unless Ghana scores 3 more against Portugal than we do against Germany, I think.

I'm pretty sure that's spot on. Ghana needs to put up a differential against Portugal that's > 2 +/- our differential against the German team, or equal to 2 +/- that differential, but while scoring two goals plus whatever we score in the Germany game.

Feels like that now, but shit, it was a comeback after an early Portugal goal. They got to play with the advantage for 60 minutes, and the US still tied it. That's not a bad result, especially considering our two competitors are -2 and -5 in goal differential (relative to the US). And they'll both be playing…

The US is in the best spot currently, but for the fact that we have to play Germany, who still aren't guaranteed a berth. We have the best non-Germany goal differential at +1 (Ghana's a -1 and Portugal's a -4). We beat Ghana outright, so we're up on them if the goal differential is equal.

Dammit.

Not much of a pollyanna, are you, cowgirl?

Ask your wife.

neither is yours.

The Clippers might have a shot, but they seem pretty handcuffed, both by the ongoing ownership turmoil and by their current cap situation, they have every guy who got minutes other than Turkoglu and Hollins for next year, depending on a few player options.

That first one is bunk.

I think that's what he's saying, but even if he's not, you don't really get to talk shit on the guy who wrecked your season. It's one thing to say stuff about guys in the ECF who you don't play in the post-season, but to say anything not-positive about the guy who dominated you in the WCF, it just looks pissy.

You don't get to say, "Well that's just cause your team is so smart" when the guy who wrecked your shit wins Finals MVP. He might be right, but it doesn't matter, because nobody would bother saying that if it wasn't sour grapes. That guy murked him in the conference finals, picked his pocket, bodied him, and held his…

It's a decent stat, but the rather arbitrary "first 400 games" is some junk. Someone gets an idea for a stat: "Mike Trout has 75 runs and steals!", find everyone who's done that early on, then pick another stat + whatever time window they need to make it a 1st.

I was thinking Spurs at first, but that's not quite as exciting as if he were on the Dubs. A semi-small-ball lineup of Curry-Thompson-Iggy-Lebron-Bogut would be ridiculous on offense, surprisingly great on defense.

Oh god, if he was on the Warriors, it might be the one team to win basketball internet.

Nah, Bosh would be fine. He's a good guy, and he's been willing to change his game pretty dramatically to fit with the Heat. Battier, too, was totally a spiritual Spur.

Hey, we can agree about the rings thing. I think it's a crap argument too, because this is a team game forever and ever, amen. That's the whole idea. Jordan's team was a 50 win team without him. He's the guy who took the most shots, and he was a ridiculously efficient offensive player and a great defender, but he…

True, true. I just dislike the way people seem to look at the best player on the team before looking at the team as a whole, and the implication that some other guy (Jordan) could've magically pulled 20 more points out of his butt night in and night out playing alongside the same cast.

Nobody could have, though. Look, the guy scored 28 on 18 shots, 57/52/80, with 8 boards, 4 assists, and 2 steals. The 4 TOs were a problem, but they didn't have anyone else to handle the ball. Wade/Cole/Chalmers were turning it over at a way higher rate, and not scoring anywhere close to Lebron. He was the best player…

Jordan would've made the Heat team play hockey, and they'd become superhumans, and he'd dunk from the FT line in ice skates and score 50 points a game on 20 shots, 10/10 from 3. And he'd make Wade a 70% 3pt shooter and 5 inches taller and as good on D as Pippen and Rodman put together.