The Daily Huddle (1/7)

Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Huddle. Yes, I know these haven't always been daily recently and that's because sometimes there's not much that I care to write about, and sometimes I have things I'm doing semi-late at night and don't feel like writing that late. So what I am going to do is just post them whenever I want to, because I do this for my own enjoyment and fun. I certainly hope that you enjoy reading my stuff and I hope that I give you a little chuckle or you at least go follow me on Twitter (@ScottVan23). But at the end of the day, I blog because I think it is fun. I'll stop boring you and get into some minor stuff from today in the NBA, one MLB piece of news that may or not be that important, and I'll discuss events from January 6th because Man City and the Celtics both won and those are my teams.

Without further ado, let's get into it.

Yesterday (1/6)

Manchester City played Manchester United in the semi-final of the Carabao Cup. I say it just about every time I mention any soccer matches, I don't know much about soccer but I am trying to learn and I love beating United. I love rivalries. Even if it's two teams I don't really care about, I love watching rivalry matchups for any sport.

The final result was 2-0 City, which grants us a spot in the Carabao Cup final for the fourth year in a row, and I believe the sixth time in the last seven years. I've said this before also, it is my understanding that the Carabao Cup isn't a huge deal, but playing for a trophy is always a good thing. So even though this doesn't move us up the table in the Prem, I am happy with a good win over United yesterday. John Stones scored off of Phil Foden's lovely free kick in the 50th minute. It was a pretty great ball from Foden that Stones was able to get his thigh on and slide it just past Henderson. That goal was much needed, not just because it was 0-0 at the time, but also because I wasn't very happy with how we played in the first half. Being able to take a lead early in the second half took a lot of weight off of me and the team. Fernandinho scored a great goal in the 83th minute just to solidify our position. City had a good chance just before it, and as De Bruyne walked over to take the corner, I tweeted about how I would love a goal off the corner kick, and we got one.

The ball came in, got bounced around a bit and found Fernandinho just indie the 18 yard box, and he hit a great low shot to the bottom left corner for the nail in the coffin goal, if you will.

As I said, Man City moves on to the Cup final, where we will see a very good Tottenham Hotspurs team in April.

Also Juventus beat AC Milan, which I think was a big game for Serie A. I had three issues with this match though. #1 Ronaldo didn't score, #2 Bonucci didn't score and #3 Zlatan didn't play. Other than that, I loved this match because Juve, along with Man City, helped me win 3.1 units on a soccer parlay I had placed.

The Boston Celtics faced off with the Miami Heat last night as well, and they also helped me win some money! I watched this game with a few friends who are also Celtics fans, and we all had a bet on them so it was a fun night. Marcus Smart hit a 3 on the opening possession to cash any and all 10-1 bets anyone may have placed on him to hit the first field goal, so that was great. The Celts came out with a strong first quarter, giving them an eight point lead by the end of it. The second quarter was perfectly even between the two teams, at 19 a piece. Boston came out of the locker room at halftime a little cold I'd say. Miami had tied it up heading into the fourth quarter. This game was back and forth down the stretch and I was sweating pretty bad. Carsen Edwards played more than I would've liked him to in the second half, but with Teague and Kemba still out I sort of get it after Waters' bad performance on Monday. Tatum and Brown combined for 48 last night while Butler and Bam lead the Heat combining for 39, but the real story here is P Rabbit! Payton Pritchard, the young rookie from Oregon that the C's just drafted just keeps getting better and better. Smart misses a layup with less that a second left in a tie game. He probably was fouled and it didn't get called, but that's not the point. P Rabbit swept in, grabbed the rebound and lays it up and in for 2 with 0.2 seconds left on the clock! the Heat call a timeout and can't get a shot of in time, giving Pritchard his first game winning bucket of his career!

The kid is a lot of fun to watch and I hope he can stay in Boston for a while.

Now let's get into the stuff from today

MLB

I don't really follow too much of the MLB, I'm a Red Sox fan during the season, but don't pay much attention during the offseason. The only reason I heard about this 'news' is because I was listening to Barstool Radio today and they discussed it on one of their shows and it seemed like it was a big deal. The New York Mets acquired Francisco Lindor from Cleveland in a trade that I don't know much else about. I believe that Lindor is one of the better shortstops in baseball today and I'd guess Mets fans are starting to get pretty happy with their new ownership. Again, I don't know if this is huge news or not, but the Yankees fans and Mets fans that I heard on radio today made it seem like a huge deal, so I felt like including it.

NBA

There are still NBA games going on as I write this, so I'll cover the two that have finished and then I'll add any impressive stats thus far for the games that are being played currently.

The Nets hosted the 76ers today without Kyrie and KD. I had the Nets moneyline in this one, and was never really worried about it. I looked at it and thought, 'the Nets are at home and the 6ers are on a back to back, even without KD and Kyrie I think they win this outright," and they did, which was awesome. Joe Harries lead the Nets with 28, 6 and 4 coming off the bench and LaVert added his own 22 points to the mix. On the other side of the ball, Shake Milton lead the team with 24 and Embiid had himself a double double with 22 and 12 rebounds. I don't know how shocking this is to anyone else, but all 12 of Embiid's rebounds tonight came on the defensive end. I guess it isn't that crazy, but it seems kind of weird to me that their star player at center couldn't get a single offensive rebound. He probably would've lead the team, or even game, in points if he grabbed a few offensive rebounds down there. Either way, the 6ers stink and the Celtics are better than them. Nets win 122-109.

The other game that completed so far was the Cavs and the Grizzlies. I took the Grizzlies' team total UNDER at 107 today, and the final score was 94-90 Cleveland wins. I had this game on in the background and was getting a little nervous that overtime was coming and I was going to lose my bet, but the Cavs hit some free throws down the stretch to keep it out of reach for the Ja-less Memphis team. Andre Drummond played pretty well tonight for Cleveland with 22 points and 15 boards. He looked really good in the last couple minutes when I needed him the most, so shoutout Andre Drummond.

Nothing too exciting coming from the other three games from tonight. It is halftime in two of them and almost half time in the third. The only number I care about from those right now is that Damian Lillard has 26 points at half. On pace for 50+ if this game stays close and he gets good minutes in the second half. They are up 19 right now against the Timberwolves, who I'm pretty sure are kind of bad, especially without KAT, so I wouldn't be surprised if Dam stays under 40 tonight.

Final Thoughts

Nothing else to really touch on here. I think I am going to try to write a NFL Wild Card Weekend Preview blog sometime tomorrow. I'll give a little prediction and some reasoning and maybe a few bets for all of those games as well. Keep your eyes peeled for that!

See you next time for another edition of the Daily Huddle!