“It’s hard out here for a pimp…”

Starting Five

1. “In a loss in OKC, the Lakers showed they can compete against the West’s elite…” That’s the subhed on ESPN.com’s lead story this morning. Chico, please. We caught much of last night’s game and here are a few items that may contradict that assertion:

A) Oklahoma City scored a season-high 71 first-half points.

B) From the 3:29 point of the first quarter until the 6:43 mark of the fourth, the Lakers were never within seven points of the Thunder. During most of 33-plus minutes, they trailed by double-digits.

Valiant comeback? Yes. Dogged tenacity. Uh-huh. But Kobe is now playing hurt (elbow stinger), Dwight Howard either has been playing hurt or he’s chosen to emulate Albert Pujols’ first two months in an Angels’ uniform, and Steve Nash has been reduced to being a spot-up perimeter shooter. He’s not Steve Nash; he’s Steve Blake. And the Lakers already have a Steve Blake. And this isn’t Nash’s fault. You cannot execute the pick-and-roll when no one picks. Or rolls.

You want to know what’s wrong with the Lakers (and this is just one of many problems)? The greatest assist man of the past decade, Nash, had four assists last night — and that still led the team.

2. An “alternative to ESPN”, Fox Sports 1, plans an August 17 launch (which, if you’re keeping score, is one day and 59 years after Sports Illustrated launched, one day and 43 years after Bonnie Bernstein launched, and one day and one year after this site launched). The first name lined up to host a show? Regis Philbin, who will turn 82 in August. This conforms to Rupert Murdoch’s edict that no host of a Fox Sports 1 program be older than he is (Murdoch turns 82 on Monday).

Again, we implore Fox: Get Paula Faris. Get Mary Carillo. Let Charles Davis be the Charles Davis I know off-camera. Go after John Buccigross and Linda Cohn, who have tremendous chemistry at ESPN and are somewhat taken for granted in Bristol. Have a Party of Five cast reunion (this has nothing to do with sports; I just want to see Scott Wolf and Jennifer Love Hewitt have another deep talk, preferably with one of them wearing a low-cut blouse; also, we’d love to know how our contemporary, Paula Devicq, has aged).

3. The Gaza Marathon, scheduled for April 10, has been canceled. Why? Because Hamas has ruled that women be banned from participating. Rule No. 3 of marathoning: If Hamas has anything to say about how the event is organized, you are better off not registering for it (women were not allowed to compete in the Boston Marathon until 1972,  so the Middle East is not actually “light years” behind the USA culturally but rather 41 years behind).

4. Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, 58, succumbs to cancer. Venezuela, which is in South America, which in the southern hemisphere (unless you are a member of Cartographers for Social Equality [Didn’t you love when “The West Wing” got goofy?]) is a leading producer of both oil and Miss Universe pageant winners.

 

5. The Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches an all-time high , closing at 142543.77 (a quick finance lesson, kiddies: The Dow Jones Industrial Average is nothing more than the sum price of 30 publicly traded corporations that have been chosed to comprise the DJIA based on their size and influence; the choice of companies is mostly arbitrary and it is outlandish that the wealthiest company on earth, Apple, is not among this group of 30. Moving on….) even though unemployment is still hovering up near 8%, there’s a Sequester taking place, and the Angels only gave Mike Trout a $20,000 pay raise this season.

Be very wary.

Reserves

Brian Crashman? It’s just too easy. The Yankee GM broke his leg while skydiving earlier this week. Between this injury and Curtis Granderson’s on his first at-bat of spring training, writing portents of the doomed 2012 New York Yankee season is like looking for phallic symbols in a sausage shop.

Real Madrid (Cristiano Ronaldo’s side) knocks out Manchester United (the Yankees of Europe) in the UEFA Champions League round of 16. For Ronaldo, who started out with Man U., it was a bittersweet homecoming (he vowed not to celebrate if he scored a goal, and he held to that). If you’re not familiar with Champions League, it’s basically a 32-team tourney of the previous years’ European League champions (and a few invited guests) that is conducted around the regular-season schedules of those teams. It’s also a great way for Americans to survive winter afternoons on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Suddenly, with the return of Ryan Kelly, Duke looks like the best team in the country.

Justin Timberlake will be hosting Saturday Night Live for a fifth time this week. He’s entering Baldwin/Hanks/Martin territory.

Jack Cooley will never forget his final moments in a Notre Dame uniform at the Purcell Center…

Remote Patrol

Chicago Bulls at San Antonio Spurs

9 p.m., ESPN

No Rose. No Parker. But you do get to see arguably the NBA’s best team and inarguably its most overlooked, plus Tiago Splitter.

 

 

.