As the Indy Star’s Mike Wells points out “the Pacers were without three starters and Marquis Daniels, who had 28 points, was throwing up at halftime because of his battle with the flu,” leading the visitors to suffer the indignity of allowing 72 second half points to the Knicks (32 of ’em coming from emerging All-World candidate Nate Robinson) in last night’s 124-199 loss. As such, head coach Jim O’Brien (above, left) made it very clear he was in a hurry to get the fuck out of Dodge. Either that, or he had to make it downtown to Paul’s Place before they turned the grill off.
Pacers coach Jim O’Brien was asked a question I couldn’t fully hear by a reporter about 75 minutes before Monday’s game against the Knicks.
“It depends on what kind of mood I was in,” O’Brien responded to him.
O’Brien was in one of those moods – a sour one – after their four-point loss to the Knicks at Madison Square Garden.
Just when I didn’t think O’Brien could beat his 41-second postgame interview session in Milwaukee in December, he takes two questions and spends a total of 22 seconds addressing the media before walking away.
O’Brien’s abrupt exit had one New York reporter yell out, “Thanks a lot coach,” as he walked away.
O’Brien obviously isn’t one that takes losing lightly. He cut an interview session short when he walked out the room at Conseco Fieldhouse last season after being asked about not believing moral victories following a loss.
There was the question of why O’Brien had Jeff Foster taking the ball out? Why they couldn’t stop Nate Robinson from scoring 32 points in the second half?
None of that got asked because O’Brien was in no mood to discuss things.
While Seth from Posting & Toasting reminds us that Larry Hughes fared no better in his home debut as a Knick than in his shoot-first-ask-questions-later stint on Sunday in Toronto (“shooting contested jumpers when you’re admittedly rusty is downright moronic”), of equal concern is the prospect Walt “Clyde” Frazier might be blissfully unfamilair with the cinematic history of Will Ferrell.
Will Ferrell attended tonight’s game, and if you know anything about Nate Robinson, you’ll know that he goes apeshit for Will Ferrell. The two exchanged “shake and bake” fist pounds all night.
Speaking of which, when Mike Breen explained that the “shake and bake” phrase to which Nate so often alludes is from Talladega Nights, Clyde responded “Really!? I thought he got it from me!” How Clyde manages to be so cool with so little sense of pop culture is beyond me. Maybe what makes him so cool is that he’s still stuck in 1970.