Happy Thanksgiving from Basketbawful

On behalf of Basketbawful and Greg Ostertag, I would like to wish everybody a very happy Thanksgiving.

Before succuming to food coma, I would like to personally give thanks for:

The ongoing failfest in South Beach, which last night included three ant-clutch free throw bricks in the final 34 seconds by Dwyane Wade and LeBron James. The Heat have now lost three in a row, have fallen to 8-7, and the Countdown to Failure is down to three...with 67 games to go. Even in a world where the Clippers exist, this is almost too bawful to be true.

The Timberpoops choking away a 21-point lead to the Spurs, the out-of-fucking-nowhere emergence of Darko Milicic (22 points, 8 rebounds, 5 blocked shots), actual AP lines like "[Kevin] Love and Milicic owned Duncan" and for Darko quotes like "We're just not enjoying playing basketball in the fourth quarter. It's kind of like we're scared to win. I don't know why."

Brandon Jennings' ongoing shooting woes (1-for-10 last night and 38 percent on the season), pre-trade deadline John Salmons (6-for-14) and the fact that "Fear the Dear" now describes the general feeling of angst among Bucks fans.

Reggie Evans giving it up for the common man: "You have so many people who go out there and work so hard from 9 to 5 to make an honest living and buy a Raptors ticket. They want to come here and see somebody work just as hard as they do in the real world. A lot of times, they appreciate it more to see a guy go out there and bust his butt. That way they get their money's worth when they see the Raptors play."

Philly's 3-12 record (1-8 on the road) and Doug Collins' ongoing Coach of the Year candidacy: "It's tough for us to come down and throw the ball in the post and calm the game down because we don't have a post presence without [Elton Brand, who was serving a one-game suspension]."

The Mavericks continuing to churn out impressive regular season wins -- against the Thunder on Oklahoma City last night -- in preparation of their inevitable meltdown in the playoffs.

The Pistons continuing to live down to their "Destination: Doom!" ESPN the Magazine comic book cover by dropping to 5-10 thanks to a 105-84 loss to the Grizzlies, not to mention unintentionally funny back-and-forths between coach John Kuester ("We had eight quarters and played well in six of them.") and Ben Wallace ("I don't count quarters. I count wins and losses. We're just not winning as much as we are losing. I'm not going to get into how many quarters we played well.").

The Warriors thudding back down to earth, as comically illustrated by their 111-101 loss to the previously 3-10 Rockets.

Deron Williams' ongoing ownership of Chris Paul -- Williams is now 12-3 against the Hornets with Paul in the lineup -- and the Hornets making coach Monty William's "Looking at our record, it might be fools' gold" comment look like prophecy by losing two in a row after last night's 105-87 thumping by the Jazz.

The Phoenix Suns, who built a 50-27 second quarter lead against the Bulls -- who were playing the second night of back-to-back games on their annual Circus Trip of Horrors following a tough loss to the Lakers -- but eventually losing 123-115 in double overtime.

New York's five-game winning streak -- coming against the Kings (4-9), Warriors (7-8), Clippers (2-13) and Bobcraps twice (5-10) -- because now it's going to create unrealistic expectations the Knicks will totally fail to live up to when the schedule catches back up to them.

The NBA's inexplicable decision to feature a Thanksgiving day double-header of Wizards-Hawks and Kings-Clippers. FAN-tastic.

Happy Turkey Day everybody!