Around the Horn -- Various Sports Commentary

Liverpool FC
Dirk Kuyt. Fernando Torres. Peter Crouch. Andriy Voronin. Ryan Babel.

That’s a pretty mean strike force when you think about it. But Ryan Babel, like Steven Gerrard is being asked to play a different position. Is the transition easy?

No it hasn’t.

When Thierry Henry moved from Monaco to Arsenal, Arsene Wenger had him move from the right wing to center. In Henry’s case, it took a season to work and when he got going he got going. Henry ended up as Arsenal’s all-time leading goal scorer.

With regards to the young Dutchman, give Ryan Babel time.

Miami is Feeling the Heat
Pat Riley, though, is not afraid to direct the criticism at his biggest star, Shaquille O’Neal. From the Palm Beach Post:
“He’s got to stay on the court,” Riley said. “He’s averaging 5.5 (actually 5.3) fouls per game. He’s forever always on the bench at some time when we need him on the court.
“I’m going to probably get to the point when he gets a couple of fouls on him I’m not going to play him. Like if he gets three, or if he has four fouls, I might (not) play him.”
Yikes!

Big Game. Big Complement.
The young and upcoming Atlanta Hawks beat another 60-win club in the Phoenix Suns. Granted that Amare Stoudemire sat down for the third straight game, the Suns still have a powerful line-up.

Steve Nash offered no excuses, “We finally ran into a team that’s more athletic than ours.”

The Big Three aka B32K (or Jesus Saves the Celtics)
The Garden’s rocking. It’s second consecutive sell-out of the year. And the Boston Celtics are 3-0. As fun as it is watching the B3-2K score in their 20’s. My eyes drifted to the bench scoring….27 points. That’s under 25% of the total 119 effort. And James Posey was injured.

It’s still the honeymoon period, hommes.

23 for Da Kid who is now Da Man
26 for the Captain
22 for Jesus

In their first game, KG was the man.
In their second win, Jesus saved them.
As for their third, the Truth was told.
And so the Boston Celtics are the hottest story in the NBA.