Announcement

Collapse

The Rules of Pacers Digest

Hello everyone,

Whether your are a long standing forum member or whether you have just registered today, it's a good idea to read and review the rules below so that you have a very good idea of what to expect when you come to Pacers Digest.

A quick note to new members: Your posts will not immediately show up when you make them. An administrator has to approve at least your first post before the forum software will later upgrade your account to the status of a fully-registered member. This usually happens within a couple of hours or so after your post(s) is/are approved, so you may need to be a little patient at first.

Why do we do this? So that it's more difficult for spammers (be they human or robot) to post, and so users who are banned cannot immediately re-register and start dousing people with verbal flames.

Below are the rules of Pacers Digest. After you have read them, you will have a very good sense of where we are coming from, what we expect, what we don't want to see, and how we react to things.

Rule #1

Pacers Digest is intended to be a place to discuss basketball without having to deal with the kinds of behaviors or attitudes that distract people from sticking with the discussion of the topics at hand. These unwanted distractions can come in many forms, and admittedly it can sometimes be tricky to pin down each and every kind that can rear its ugly head, but we feel that the following examples and explanations cover at least a good portion of that ground and should at least give people a pretty good idea of the kinds of things we actively discourage:

"Anyone who __________ is a liar / a fool / an idiot / a blind homer / has their head buried in the sand / a blind hater / doesn't know basketball / doesn't watch the games"

"People with intelligence will agree with me when I say that __________"

"Only stupid people think / believe / do ___________"

"I can't wait to hear something from PosterX when he/she sees that **insert a given incident or current event that will have probably upset or disappointed PosterX here**"

"He/she is just delusional"

"This thread is stupid / worthless / embarrassing"

"I'm going to take a moment to point and / laugh at PosterX / GroupOfPeopleY who thought / believed *insert though/belief here*"

"Remember when PosterX said OldCommentY that no longer looks good? "

In general, if a comment goes from purely on topic to something 'ad hominem' (personal jabs, personal shots, attacks, flames, however you want to call it, towards a person, or a group of people, or a given city/state/country of people), those are most likely going to be found intolerable.

We also dissuade passive aggressive behavior. This can be various things, but common examples include statements that are basically meant to imply someone is either stupid or otherwise incapable of holding a rational conversation. This can include (but is not limited to) laughing at someone's conclusions rather than offering an honest rebuttal, asking people what game they were watching, or another common problem is Poster X will say "that player isn't that bad" and then Poster Y will say something akin to "LOL you think that player is good". We're not going to tolerate those kinds of comments out of respect for the community at large and for the sake of trying to just have an honest conversation.

Now, does the above cover absolutely every single kind of distraction that is unwanted? Probably not, but you should by now have a good idea of the general types of things we will be discouraging. The above examples are meant to give you a good feel for / idea of what we're looking for. If something new or different than the above happens to come along and results in the same problem (that being, any other attitude or behavior that ultimately distracts from actually just discussing the topic at hand, or that is otherwise disrespectful to other posters), we can and we will take action to curb this as well, so please don't take this to mean that if you managed to technically avoid saying something exactly like one of the above examples that you are then somehow off the hook.

That all having been said, our goal is to do so in a generally kind and respectful way, and that doesn't mean the moment we see something we don't like that somebody is going to be suspended or banned, either. It just means that at the very least we will probably say something about it, quite possibly snipping out the distracting parts of the post in question while leaving alone the parts that are actually just discussing the topics, and in the event of a repeating or excessive problem, then we will start issuing infractions to try to further discourage further repeat problems, and if it just never seems to improve, then finally suspensions or bans will come into play. We would prefer it never went that far, and most of the time for most of our posters, it won't ever have to.

A slip up every once and a while is pretty normal, but, again, when it becomes repetitive or excessive, something will be done. Something occasional is probably going to be let go (within reason), but when it starts to become habitual or otherwise a pattern, odds are very good that we will step in.

There's always a small minority that like to push people's buttons and/or test their own boundaries with regards to the administrators, and in the case of someone acting like that, please be aware that this is not a court of law, but a private website run by people who are simply trying to do the right thing as they see it. If we feel that you are a special case that needs to be dealt with in an exceptional way because your behavior isn't explicitly mirroring one of our above examples of what we generally discourage, we can and we will take atypical action to prevent this from continuing if you are not cooperative with us.

Also please be aware that you will not be given a pass simply by claiming that you were 'only joking,' because quite honestly, when someone really is just joking, for one thing most people tend to pick up on the joke, including the person or group that is the target of the joke, and for another thing, in the event where an honest joke gets taken seriously and it upsets or angers someone, the person who is truly 'only joking' will quite commonly go out of his / her way to apologize and will try to mend fences. People who are dishonest about their statements being 'jokes' do not do so, and in turn that becomes a clear sign of what is really going on. It's nothing new.

In any case, quite frankly, the overall quality and health of the entire forum's community is more important than any one troublesome user will ever be, regardless of exactly how a problem is exhibiting itself, and if it comes down to us having to make a choice between you versus the greater health and happiness of the entire community, the community of this forum will win every time.

Lastly, there are also some posters, who are generally great contributors and do not otherwise cause any problems, who sometimes feel it's their place to provoke or to otherwise 'mess with' that small minority of people described in the last paragraph, and while we possibly might understand why you might feel you WANT to do something like that, the truth is we can't actually tolerate that kind of behavior from you any more than we can tolerate the behavior from them. So if we feel that you are trying to provoke those other posters into doing or saying something that will get themselves into trouble, then we will start to view you as a problem as well, because of the same reason as before: The overall health of the forum comes first, and trying to stir the pot with someone like that doesn't help, it just makes it worse. Some will simply disagree with this philosophy, but if so, then so be it because ultimately we have to do what we think is best so long as it's up to us.

If you see a problem that we haven't addressed, the best and most appropriate course for a forum member to take here is to look over to the left of the post in question. See underneath that poster's name, avatar, and other info, down where there's a little triangle with an exclamation point (!) in it? Click that. That allows you to report the post to the admins so we can definitely notice it and give it a look to see what we feel we should do about it. Beyond that, obviously it's human nature sometimes to want to speak up to the poster in question who has bothered you, but we would ask that you try to refrain from doing so because quite often what happens is two or more posters all start going back and forth about the original offending post, and suddenly the entire thread is off topic or otherwise derailed. So while the urge to police it yourself is understandable, it's best to just report it to us and let us handle it. Thank you!

All of the above is going to be subject to a case by case basis, but generally and broadly speaking, this should give everyone a pretty good idea of how things will typically / most often be handled.

Rule #2

If the actions of an administrator inspire you to make a comment, criticism, or express a concern about it, there is a wrong place and a couple of right places to do so.

The wrong place is to do so in the original thread in which the administrator took action. For example, if a post gets an infraction, or a post gets deleted, or a comment within a larger post gets clipped out, in a thread discussing Paul George, the wrong thing to do is to distract from the discussion of Paul George by adding your off topic thoughts on what the administrator did.

The right places to do so are:

A) Start a thread about the specific incident you want to talk about on the Feedback board. This way you are able to express yourself in an area that doesn't throw another thread off topic, and this way others can add their two cents as well if they wish, and additionally if there's something that needs to be said by the administrators, that is where they will respond to it.

B) Send a private message to the administrators, and they can respond to you that way.

If this is done the wrong way, those comments will be deleted, and if it's a repeating problem then it may also receive an infraction as well.

Rule #3

If a poster is bothering you, and an administrator has not or will not deal with that poster to the extent that you would prefer, you have a powerful tool at your disposal, one that has recently been upgraded and is now better than ever: The ability to ignore a user.

When you ignore a user, you will unfortunately still see some hints of their existence (nothing we can do about that), however, it does the following key things:

A) Any post they make will be completely invisible as you scroll through a thread.

B) The new addition to this feature: If someone QUOTES a user you are ignoring, you do not have to read who it was, or what that poster said, unless you go out of your way to click on a link to find out who it is and what they said.

To utilize this feature, from any page on Pacers Digest, scroll to the top of the page, look to the top right where it says 'Settings' and click that. From the settings page, look to the left side of the page where it says 'My Settings', and look down from there until you see 'Edit Ignore List' and click that. From here, it will say 'Add a Member to Your List...' Beneath that, click in the text box to the right of 'User Name', type in or copy & paste the username of the poster you are ignoring, and once their name is in the box, look over to the far right and click the 'Okay' button. All done!

Rule #4

Regarding infractions, currently they carry a value of one point each, and that point will expire in 31 days. If at any point a poster is carrying three points at the same time, that poster will be suspended until the oldest of the three points expires.

Rule #5

When you share or paste content or articles from another website, you must include the URL/link back to where you found it, who wrote it, and what website it's from. Said content will be removed if this doesn't happen.

An example:

If I copy and paste an article from the Indianapolis Star website, I would post something like this:

http://www.linktothearticlegoeshere.com/article
Title of the Article
Author's Name
Indianapolis Star

Rule #6

We cannot tolerate illegal videos on Pacers Digest. This means do not share any links to them, do not mention any websites that host them or link to them, do not describe how to find them in any way, and do not ask about them. Posts doing anything of the sort will be removed, the offenders will be contacted privately, and if the problem becomes habitual, you will be suspended, and if it still persists, you will probably be banned.

The legal means of watching or listening to NBA games are NBA League Pass Broadband (for US, or for International; both cost money) and NBA Audio League Pass (which is free). Look for them on NBA.com.

Rule #7

Provocative statements in a signature, or as an avatar, or as the 'tagline' beneath a poster's username (where it says 'Member' or 'Administrator' by default, if it is not altered) are an unwanted distraction that will more than likely be removed on sight. There can be shades of gray to this, but in general this could be something political or religious that is likely going to provoke or upset people, or otherwise something that is mean-spirited at the expense of a poster, a group of people, or a population.

It may or may not go without saying, but this goes for threads and posts as well, particularly when it's not made on the off-topic board (Market Square).

We do make exceptions if we feel the content is both innocuous and unlikely to cause social problems on the forum (such as wishing someone a Merry Christmas or a Happy Easter), and we also also make exceptions if such topics come up with regards to a sports figure (such as the Lance Stephenson situation bringing up discussions of domestic abuse and the law, or when Jason Collins came out as gay and how that lead to some discussion about gay rights).

However, once the discussion seems to be more/mostly about the political issues instead of the sports figure or his specific situation, the thread is usually closed.

Rule #8

We prefer self-restraint and/or modesty when making jokes or off topic comments in a sports discussion thread. They can be fun, but sometimes they derail or distract from a topic, and we don't want to see that happen. If we feel it is a problem, we will either delete or move those posts from the thread.

Rule #9

Generally speaking, we try to be a "PG-13" rated board, and we don't want to see sexual content or similarly suggestive content. Vulgarity is a more muddled issue, though again we prefer things to lean more towards "PG-13" than "R". If we feel things have gone too far, we will step in.

Rule #10

We like small signatures, not big signatures. The bigger the signature, the more likely it is an annoying or distracting signature.

Rule #11

Do not advertise anything without talking about it with the administrators first. This includes advertising with your signature, with your avatar, through private messaging, and/or by making a thread or post.
See more
See less

The all new 2012/13 Area 55, G2 Zone & PTO thread....

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Re: The all new 2012/13 Area 55, G2 Zone & PTO thread....

    AREA 55 NEWS YOU CAN TAKE TO THE BANK!!!!!!!!


    Salutations 55ers!

    Tonight at 8:30 P.M. we confront Miami on our home floor. The game will be sold out, the crowd will likely be lively and liquored up, and I’m hoping the noise level will reach 125 decibels or more (125 being the threshold for pain to the ears). The Heat have been very quiet since we stole home court from them in Miami. They know that if the Pacers take the next two games here in Indy, their Playoff hole will likely be so deep that even their coddled star, LeBron “The King” James, will likely be unable to pull them out of it. The pressure on both teams – us to maintain, and them to regain, home court advantage will be intense.

    Area 55 and G2Zone have to bring it as never before. The next two games in BLF are the culmination of everything that our twin fan sections exist for. Our noise has to be constant, loud, and telling. No lulls. No let-ups. No lapses.

    Mark Boyle, the Pacers radio voice, mentioned in Game 2 that the Miami crowd always got quiet when the Heat were down. The Knicks crowd, in Madison Square Garden, occasionally booed the Knicks when they struggled and went down to us. It amazes me that this can happen in the context of the Playoffs. It amazes me that the Heat and the Knicks have fans like that.

    We, by contrast, are different. We love our guys. And now, at long last, we have the opportunity to demonstrate to every basketball fan in America that will be watching tonight’s game just what a crowd from a rust-bucket, small-market town can bring for its team in our, by NBA standards, tiny little arena.

    Many players and pundits have said that the noise level in the old Market Square Arena used to be the highest in the NBA. Some say that the noise heard now in BLF pales by comparison.

    Let’s show the whole world tonight that they’re wrong. Let’s show them how much we love our team and just how much we want them to succeed and win.

    Remember this tonight:

    The Pacers carry our state’s name on their shirts. They represent our home city’s proud pro basketball tradition. But they are more than that.

    They are guys that have worked in our food kitchens, autographed our kids’ jerseys, sponsored our blood drives, and put backpacks on our kids’ shoulders. They are good guys. They are like us. Diligent, hard-working, tough, resilient and strong.

    Like us, they are built, not bought. They have done things the right way. They are humble, not arrogant. Quiet guys and not media gods. They are self-developed and not artificially created.

    They have represented us well. They are very young, but they have come from basketball nowhere in a short three years to bring our city to the brink of an Eastern Conference Championship.

    The Pacers mirror us. They have become a part of us. The Pacers are us.

    Let’s make sure that we, as fans, let our guys know tonight that we know that. Let them know that we appreciate them. That we love them. That we treasure everything they’ve done for us. That we support them in their effort and in their quest to bring us, and themselves, even more.

    MEET THE ENEMY! GENUFLECT BEFORE THE KING!!!!

    A brief introduction to Rings and Things: http://tinyurl.com/6okowp9

    LeBron James is perhaps Akron, Ohio’s most famous citizen (unless you want to count Harvey Firestone, the founder of the Firestone Tire & Rubber Company or Art Fleming, the first emcee of the TV quiz show “Jeopardy!”).

    As a tyke, LeBron grew up a basketball prodigy, happily dribbling the roundball, ingesting steroids from his mother’s mammaries, and when not doing television interviews, hating the city of Cleveland.

    True, LeBron’s home town, Akron, is located a mere 40 miles from Cleveland -- but as most Buckeye Staters know, these two towns are worlds apart in terms of their level of sophistication and culture. As LeBron once said of Cleveland (while musing on the halcyon days of his royal youth):

    “It’s not far, but it is far. And Clevelanders, because they were the bigger-city kids when we were growing up, looked down on us. … So we didn’t actually like Cleveland. We hated Cleveland growing up. There’s a lot of people in Cleveland we still hate to this day.”


    And, I might interject here, many in Cleveland still hate LeBron.

    See, LeBron grew up a Basketball-Jonesy type of kid that, on finishing high school, decided to take his beloved momma’s advice (and that of his public relations guru, the world’s only ape possessed of a PhD) to eschew college and take his talents to the NBA in search of the big bucks. Unaware of his secret hatred for Cleveland, that city’s team, the Cavaliers, naively drafted him. Clevelanders embraced The Young Lord, anointing him as their “The King” and hoped in the depths of their depressed Midwestern hearts that he would take their squalid town - lowly, polluted, rust-bucket Cleveland - to the nether-reaches of NBA titledom.

    LeBron, at first, seemed amenable to the deal. After getting drafted, he took the money Cleveland gave him and, for a time, buried his festering but still clandestine hatred of that city and its snobby, Akron-disdaining citizenry. He buried that hatred for six or seven NBA seasons – basically until his contract was about to expire. During that time period he even managed to take the lackluster Cavaliers to the Playoffs a couple of times. But, for all The King’s efforts and try as hard as he might, he was just never quite able to get that coveted Big Kahuna of all Kahunas - an NBA Championship Ring.

    This troubled and frustrated “The King.” Sure, he was the king in Cleveland and the royal treasury was full. But without a Ring, in the NBA scheme of things, The King was really only minor royalty – an uppity nabob, a nattering princeling, a mere satrap, and not really, as James Brown might have said, “The King of ‘Em All, Y’All.”

    LeBron looked at the Cavalier players around him – mediocrities like Mo Williams and Anderson Varajao – and concluded that it might take him quite a long while, if not forever, to make it to NBA nirvana-land and get a Ring.

    Also, The King, himself, had developed a troubled personal history of going into a disappearing act during the 4th Quarters of Cleveland’s Playoff games. Crunch time was tough when everybody had to count just on him to pull a tight game out and the King had nobody else to throw the ball to. It's hard to get a Ring for a King when The King's got no help!

    So, in 2010, The King’s time had come. His contract with the Cavs was about to expire and The King was about to become that most liberated of all NBA fauna – a “free agent!” In a flash, a burst of an idea stole into The King’s supple and chemically-enhanced brain: He needed help! Without “help,” he’d never, ever, be able to get a Ring anytime soon in Cleveland. No. For sadly, despite all his elite athletic prowess, The King wasn’t like a Shaquille O’Neal, a Tim Duncan, a Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, or a Michael Jordan. He’d never be able to put a supporting cast as bad as Cleveland’s on his back and get himself that all-important Ring!

    So The King realized he had to make a “Decision!”

    See, there was this other guy out there called “D-Wade.” D-Wade played on another NBA team that was a lot like Cleveland. It was called the Miami Heat. D-Wade was a pretty good player too. And, just like The King, D-Wade had earned no Ring and was going nowhere Playoff-wise with Miami. D-Wade wanted a Ring too.

    See, in Miami the favorite urban sport is sniffing cocaine and despite all D-Wade’s flair, basketball there is basically a sideshow -- something played in a big local arena but viewed only by white-suited drug lords who showed up (infrequently at that!), usually around 30 minutes after tip-offs, and generally only to admire one another’s suits and cut illegal drug deals.

    And there was still another guy with The King’s problem. This one was a funny-looking guy, who was going nowhere with a team called the Toronto Raptors. His name was Chris “CB4” Bosh. Bosh was supposed to be a pretty good basketball player too, but his team, the Raptors, basically stunk. CB4 was unhappy in Toronto. He’d recently had his nose broken, was malingering a lot on the bench, and the fan base were growing impatient with him and calling him “soft.” Chris didn’t like the weather in snowy Canada either. And his prospects of getting a Ring in Toronto were almost as dim as that city’s wintry skies. But, like The King, Chris was a “free agent” too!

    Now, thought The King, wouldn’t it be neat if he and D-Wade and CB4 all got together someplace – say Miami – and made all nice and played their basketball together. Why then they’d have a “Great Team!” Then the three of them could “help” each other and get lotsa Rings!

    There were other factors to consider too, of course. Like “happiness.” Was LeBron really “happy” in Cleveland – a city that Akronites like him always inwardly despised and where one of his teammates, Delonte West, was rumored to then be having an affair with LeBron’s mom (the esteemed Queen Mother)?

    “Happiness,” after all, is important. A King needs to be happy! And Cleveland was just Cleveland. The King, despite the worshipful adulation of the city’s fans, really didn’t owe Cleveland or its fans anything. Kings never owe their realms anything. Kings owe nothing to anyone but themselves. That's just the way royalty works.

    So all these factors began to percolate like festering farts in The King’s royal brain. The King pondered these factors. He “thought” about them. He consulted with The Queen Mother. He consulted with his public relations man, PhD Ape. He started consulting secretly with Pat Riley, the Miami Heat’s General Manager.

    Rumors that The King was doing all this “thinking” and “consulting” got out to the newsies too. ESPN started talking about it. Pundits started talking about it. Cleveland started talking about it. Everybody started talking about it.

    And the talking started using big, university-type words that The King, who never attended college, had never even heard before. Words like “synergy” and “osmosis” and “Triple Entente.” And all the talking and big words boiled down to the possibility that The King, D-Wade, and CB4 –might all just take a slight pay cut and use the thing called “free agency” to get together someplace -- someplace nicer than Cleveland and Toronto. Someplace like maybe New York or, even better, a nice warm place like Miami. That way, y’see, The King could get his “help” and, together with D-Wade and CB4, The King could win lotsa Rings and then he could be "happy!"

    Of course, before making such a move, LeBron had to really think about it. A royal “Decision” always requires beaucoup royal thinking. It also requires somewhere appropriate to announce “The Decision” once it is made – a grand and noble venue, like in an hour-long nationally televised program. So LeBron set one up!.

    But there was drama too! Ah, there was so much to consider: There were all those prior pronouncements and promises that The King had made to Cleveland’s management and its fan base. Stuff like:

    "I got a goal, and it's a huge goal, and that's to bring an NBA championship here to Cleveland. And I won't stop until I get it."


    Many philologists, grammarians, and other learned people that are tasked with interpreting the meaning of words had parsed prior statements like this from The King and concluded that they meant something. Many thought that these royal words meant that, despite The King’s “free agency,” His Noble Highness had actually promised to remain with his subjects in his royal Cleveland domain and labor on longer, at least for as long as it would take to bring Cleveland an NBA championship.

    But The King knew his earlier royal pronouncements and promises to Cleveland were just one factor to consider. There were yet other more important ones. There was The King’s long-simmering, Akronite hatred of sophisticated, snobby Cleveland and its citizenry to remember. Such early slights still rankled The Anointed One The King had a great memory and he just couldn’t forget them.

    And there were those nagging personal issues too. As mentioned, one of The King’s nobles, a Cleveland player named DeLonte West, and The King’s royal mom, The Queen Mother, had been getting it on. This bothered The King’s concentration and had caused a worsening in The Royal Shot, particularly in 4th Quarters. That, in turn, translated to even more lost Playoff games for The King. And, of course, there were also those elusive butterflies of an NBA Ring and The King’s general “Happiness” to consider too.

    Anyway, when all was said and done, The King had to make up his mind!

    So “The Decision” was made. And The King announced it. And guess what? Cleveland lost.

    As The King put it:

    “In this fall… this is very tough… in this fall I'm going to take my talents to South Beach and join the Miami Heat.”

    The King wasn’t really too worried about local Cleveland fan reaction to The Decision. He knew that his loving Cleveland-based subjects would sympathize and understand "The Decision." Their King, after all, had a need for True Happiness. Sure, The King’s royal coffers contained millions and his subjects adored him. But money and fan adoration aren't everything a King needs. A King needs Rings!

    Yes, the King needed more! The King had an immediate and burning desire to start acquiring the many, many NBA championship Rings true Kings acquire! And getting "happy" and getting Rings was just not possible in Cleveland. True fans of The King would know this. True fans of His Highness would empathize. True fans of The King would simply say “Bon Voyage, O Mighty Anointed One!” and wish their beloved King their very best as he went elsewhere to quest for lotsa Rings!.

    And, when all was said and done, it wouldn’t really be “goodbye” to Cleveland. LeBron’s departure would really be more like an “Auf Wiedersehen!” See, as The King pointed out, his subjects could always watch His Royal Progress on their little TVs and, what's more, The King would continue to keep one of his royal palaces in Akron, just 40 miles away, so his subjects would know he always sort of remained close by. So it wouldn’t be like The King would be totally gone. All would not be lost! Clevelanders could still worship their beloved ruler whenever he happened to be visiting his Akron palace! The King put the prospects of future contacts with his Cleveland fan subjects better than I do here:

    “You know, [the Cavs’ fans] can have mixed emotions, of course, but it's going to be a lot of emotions not understanding why. And then you're going to have the real friends who love me for who I am. For me being from Akron, Ohio, and loving Akron, Ohio, it's always home for me. I'm still going to live there, always be home. And Akron, Ohio is always home for me and that area.”


    And as The King predicted, his true fans (the ones with his best interests at heart!) took his departure well:

    http://tinyurl.com/292zf59

    http://tinyurl.com/ny8ydzx

    http://tinyurl.com/jwv2uc2

    http://tinyurl.com/klj9jeq

    http://tinyurl.com/l3c2r4r

    http://tinyurl.com/m98tkcs

    The Cavs’ management understood too, and despite his abdication, bade their departing King lachrymose best wishes and gave him a profound and heartfelt adieu.

    http://tinyurl.com/24f3uw6

    Well, you all know the rest of the story. The King DID take his act to Miami where he honed his skills and after an initial bump in the road (A Finals loss to Lord Dirk of Nowitzki), eventually flopped his way to an NBA championship in 2012.

    Yes, The King now has a Ring! And Miami suddenly had a “Great Team!

    And you know what? The King is still The King, only in South Beach and not Cleveland. And The King’s royal story has a happy ending!

    The End!

    Postscript: Strangely, there are some in Cleveland that are pulling for the Pacers tonight. I wonder why?

    GO PACERS! GO AREA 55!
    Last edited by IndyHoya; 05-26-2013, 01:30 PM.

    Comment


    • Re: The all new 2012/13 Area 55, G2 Zone & PTO thread....

      AREA 55 NEWS YOU CAN TAKE TO THE BANK!!!!!

      Salutations 55ers!

      We couldn’t get it done Sunday and the Heat are now up 2-1. Their strategy now is to have LeBron post low and dare us to double him while his underpaid bit players throw up threes. On Sunday, Udonis Haslem, left uncontested, awoke and got hot. LeBron hit 4 or 5 baseline hooks. Battier, Bosh, Allen finally started contributing and all hit 3s.

      PG had his first bad game. The Pacers missed 14 free throws. And the refs let Miami foul and flop with impunity. Everything went wrong for us. It was one of those games.

      Now it’s Game 4. Frank Vogel is no dope. He’ll have a strategy planned to try to cope with the Heat. But we all know that BLF has to be a lot more of a home court for our guys than it was Sunday in Game 3.

      Truth told, I’m really very upbeat about our chances tonight.

      We ordinarily rebound from bad games. Our team is pretty steady and won’t let what happened to them Sunday carry over into tonight. My guess is that tonight’s game will bring us a much stronger Pacers effort and also a more focused home crowd. The loafered polo-shirt types that came to Sunday’s game on a lark following a day of tanning at the Track will not be so much in evidence tonight. The fans tonight will likely be more local basketball people coming to BLF to back the Pacers. The checkerboard Speedway featured T-shirting scheme that worked so poorly Sunday has been abandoned. It’ll be another Gold Out - something that will serve to unify the crowd and that has brought us good things in the past.

      Joey Crawford’s officiating crew (Crawford, Ronnie Moll, and Derrick Stafford) will be calling the game. This is a plus. Crawford’s no great shakes, but he’s impartial. We’ll likely see a better and more evenly officiated game than we got from the bozos on Sunday. Moreover, CBS has belatedly picked up on D-Wade’s act and is now rightly calling him on all his slimy fouling and flopping (See the article here: http://tinyurl.com/ns6n3nm). This is also a plus because games are not refereed in a vacuum.

      Therefore my best guess is that we should see a lot more basketball tonight, and a lot less of the extra-curricular cheap shots and acting from Miami than we’ve had to go through previously. I think that too works in our favor.

      We have to once again be loud and strong for our guys. We need to get the crowd into it too.

      So here’s how we do it:

      1. We have to be in our seats at least 10 minutes before tip-off. We need to start chanting before the game even starts. Get your food and drink before-hand. We all have to be on one page tonight. We can’t go down 3-1 at home to the Heat

      2. Our chanting needs to be focused and in unison. The guys in front have to start it and the people in back have to be watching and listening to see what the chants are. We also have to be smart and listen for the organ and the drum-line so that we are in sync and aren’t running counter to something else going on from a noise standpoint in the arena.

      3. Our chants have to be simple and constant. We need to get the crowd into it. The crowd won’t understand what we do if it is too difficult to follow.

      4. We need to be extremely vocal when the Heat are shooting free-throws. This is especially so when their dirtiest players (Chalmers, Haslem, Battier, Cole and Wade) are at the stripe. This is our one opportunity to tell a nationwide audience who and what these slimeballs really are. Let’s really give it to them!

      Remember: Tonight’s game is very, very big. Everyone has to leave it all there tonight. We can beat Miami. We’ve done it once (very nearly twice) and the latest countervailing Heat win does not a whole Playoff series make. If we can pull even with Miami tonight, our guys are right back where we were when this whole series started. Then I like our chances.

      We can do this!

      To paraphrase Mark Twain, the rumors of our Playoff demise have been greatly exaggerated. I expect that this will become a little more apparent to the world of professional basketball tonight.

      GO PACERS! GO AREA 55!
      Last edited by IndyHoya; 05-28-2013, 11:33 AM.

      Comment


      • Re: The all new 2012/13 Area 55, G2 Zone & PTO thread....

        Originally posted by IndyHoya View Post
        Our chanting needs to be focused and in unison. The guys in front have to start it and the people in back have to be watching and listening to see what the chants are.
        Joe, I can loan you one of our Talking Bigheads with the dry erase board and give you a marker if that would help, but I would need to get it back after the game, and it would need to be under your supervision the whole time you have it. Look for me in the atrium before the pre-game show or stop by the G2 Zone if you want one.

        Comment


        • Re: The all new 2012/13 Area 55, G2 Zone & PTO thread....

          My boss in Denver just emailed me to tell me that "he's a flopper" had him rolling every time he heard it on the broadcast.

          Good job, G2 and A55!
          BillS

          A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
          Or throw in a first-round pick and flip it for a max-level point guard...

          Comment


          • Re: The all new 2012/13 Area 55, G2 Zone & PTO thread....

            Some love for the Area55 and G2 guys and gals.


            http://www.cbssports.com/nba/blog/ke...-make-mistakes
            You know how hippos are made out to be sweet and silly, like big cows, but are actually extremely dangerous and can kill you with stunning brutality? The Pacers are the NBA's hippos....Matt Moore CBS Sports....

            Comment


            • Re: The all new 2012/13 Area 55, G2 Zone & PTO thread....

              AREA 55 NEWS YOU CAN TAKE TO THE BANK!!!!

              Salutations, 55ers!

              OK. I don’t really have much to say. The Heat now lead the series 3-2. If we win tonight, however, the series goes to 3-3. Then it’ll be gut-check time in Miami. Guess who the pressure will drop on then? It won’t be on us.

              Nope, this thing isn’t over yet. Not by a long shot. What’s more, I’m even predicting a decisive Pacers win.

              Why?

              All year our guys have responded real well after a loss. We usually learn from our miscues and bounce back big time. I don’t see why tonight’s game – being as important as it is – should be any different.

              Second, the NBA, belatedly, has tossed “The Birdman” for his blindside assault on Tyler Hansbrough in Game 5. The Flagrant One that the Striped Ones charitably awarded him for that has since been upgraded to a thoroughly merited Flagrant Two. The Birdman’s wings will be clipped and, instead of being the “Free Bird” his neck tat-ware extols he’ll be left to defecate in his cage during tonight’s game. Oh, and BTW, the technical that the refs gave TH as a consequence of Birdman’s violence in Game 5 has been rescinded. That doesn’t mean much now, but at least Tyler won’t have to pay the mandatory fine that ordinarily goes with any NBA technical foul. With Birdman out, that means that when Chris “Avatar” Bosh gets in his typical foul trouble, the Heat won’t have anybody capable to spell him. Result: More rebounds for us.

              Oh, and I might mention this: In case you had any lingering doubts about the general lack of class that has come to characterize the Miami Heat, there’s this little gem: The Heat team actually awarded Birdman the ball from Game 5 as a reward for his cheap shot on Hansbrough. This is more of the same hubris, in-your-face arrogance and general sense of impunity that accompanies just about everything that is Miami. My guess is the Pacers will remember this deliberate insult tonight.

              We need to remember it too, 55ers. Respond accordingly.

              Thirdly, we’re at home again. This is our turf. Our fortress. Our Temple of Doom. We’re really good in BLF. Funny things happen here to foreign invaders too. In his last visit, LeBron got Teed up and accumulated 6 common fouls. You’d never see that occur in Miami or really anywhere else. I like to think our chanting, the Gold Out, and all the focused crowd noise that was present in Game 4 had something to do with the atmospherics that so frustrated LeBron and made him look so less regal and kingly.

              Let’s see to it that this gets reprised tonight.

              Finally, some of the Pacers – notably George Hill and Lance Stephenson - have a lot to prove. I look for both of them to be in full attack mode and have really big games. Their play in Game 5 was a big aberration. Watch them respond to the challenge tonight.

              Nope, this isn’t over yet by any means. If I didn’t hate the Heat so much, I’d almost pity them for what is going to happen to them tonight.

              Let’s bring it again big time, Area 55! Let’s help make sure this thing goes 7 games.

              GO PACERS! GO AREA 55!
              Last edited by IndyHoya; 06-02-2013, 11:27 AM.

              Comment


              • Re: The all new 2012/13 Area 55, G2 Zone & PTO thread....

                http://www.pacersarea55.com/ Auditions are here! I figured since nobody else posted it I would.

                Comment


                • Re: The all new 2012/13 Area 55, G2 Zone & PTO thread....

                  YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES
                  "Nobody wants to play against Tyler Hansbrough NO BODY!" ~ Frank Vogel

                  "And David put his hand in the bag and took out a stone and slung it. And it struck the Philistine on the head and he fell to the ground. Amen. "

                  Comment


                  • Re: The all new 2012/13 Area 55, G2 Zone & PTO thread....

                    Originally posted by Sandman21 View Post
                    YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES
                    Congrats, Sandman. Glad to have you back where you belong. Did the Dynlachts make it? Didn't hear.

                    Comment


                    • Re: The all new 2012/13 Area 55, G2 Zone & PTO thread....

                      Originally posted by IndyHoya View Post
                      Did the Dynlachts make it? Didn't hear.
                      I traded emails with JoeyD yesterday. He got the call a few minutes before I did.
                      "Nobody wants to play against Tyler Hansbrough NO BODY!" ~ Frank Vogel

                      "And David put his hand in the bag and took out a stone and slung it. And it struck the Philistine on the head and he fell to the ground. Amen. "

                      Comment


                      • Re: The all new 2012/13 Area 55, G2 Zone & PTO thread....

                        Aww sandman...traitor! Lol

                        Comment


                        • Re: The all new 2012/13 Area 55, G2 Zone & PTO thread....

                          Originally posted by Miller_time04 View Post
                          Aww sandman...traitor! Lol
                          All about bringing balance to the best homecourt advantage in the NBA...

                          Besides, its one less competitor for you to get a G2 spot this year.

                          And never fear, the G2 Gameday will be put into good hands once the field gets set.
                          Last edited by Sandman21; 08-16-2013, 10:51 PM.
                          "Nobody wants to play against Tyler Hansbrough NO BODY!" ~ Frank Vogel

                          "And David put his hand in the bag and took out a stone and slung it. And it struck the Philistine on the head and he fell to the ground. Amen. "

                          Comment


                          • Re: The all new 2012/13 Area 55, G2 Zone & PTO thread....

                            Originally posted by IndyHoya View Post
                            Congrats, Sandman. Glad to have you back where you belong. Did the Dynlachts make it? Didn't hear.
                            I made it, so I'm finally officially a member of Area 55! Very excited. Will certainly be different sitting up there this year, having been an ex-officio member first of Area 55 and then G2. I feel like I have a veteran's track record and 55er IQ, though I clearly only have rookie status. The wifey didn't make the cut, but we'll buy her in if we have the opportunity as in year's past, and she's also thrilled to be back in the section that started it all.

                            Glad to hear that so many familiar faces will be back, including you Joe Murphy! Of course, will miss the folks that sat around us in G2. Will have to find someone else to share the all-you-can-eat popcorn with now, but that's a good problem to have.

                            Comment


                            • Re: The all new 2012/13 Area 55, G2 Zone & PTO thread....

                              Seems like a good time to retire last seasons thread and start a new one. Since there now is a new group of area 55 members we should probably start the conversation anew. Congrats to both last seasons G2 zone members and Area 55 members for their dedicated service to our team and on a very successful season.


                              Basketball isn't played with computers, spreadsheets, and simulations. ChicagoJ 4/21/13

                              Comment

                              Working...
                              X