The Warriors tried everything humanly possible to throw away Game 6 and possibly the series against the Nuggets Thursday night, somehow escaping an epic choke job with a 92-88 victory.  After the game, TNT showed a brief clip from the Golden State locker room of analyst Reggie Miller joining Warriors coach Mark Jackson.  Folks are mildly up in arms about seeing an analyst and coach together in such a celebratory mood, but remember that Jackson and Miller were teammates for a long while in Indiana.

What is noteworthy about this clip is Reggie Miller swearing and having it get past the Turner censors, although I think Mark Jackson is more effective at stamping out foul language than whoever is behind the switch at TNT.

And, randomly, it caught the attention of one of the authorities on swear words - Samuel L. Jackson.

Did I hear "where all that Shit came from" outta Reggie Miller?!!!

— Samuel L. Jackson (@SamuelLJackson) May 3, 2013

Why is there a ladder in his avatar anyways...

H/T cjzero

Montreal Canadiens center Lars Eller is currently in a hospital after suffering a concussion, facial fractures, and dental fractures after a brutal hit from Eric Gryba of the Ottawa Senators.  So what does the Ottawa Sun do?  Put a picture of a stricken Elder lying on the ice in a pool of his own blood!  Oh, and they also add the oh-so-clever caption "First Blood Sens" after a 4-2 Ottawa victory.

There's questionable tabloid newspaper covers.  There's tasteless tabloid newspaper covers.  Then there's this.  How something like this gets published is just baffling.  Concussions and head injuries are something we should TOTALLY be writing punny headlines about, you guys.

H/T Jesse Spector

Days after blowing up Twitter and creating quite the controversy by suggesting that female reporters shouldn't be allowed in men's dressing rooms, Don Cherry defended his stance during the first intermission of the Leafs-Bruins playoff game Wednesday night on CBC, stating that "things that go on in the dressing room when the women are in there are disgusting."

Cherry alluded to a Cathal Kelly column in last week's Toronto Star, in which Kelly referenced a recent incident in the Boston Celtics dressing room at Air Canada Centre.  "I watched a Boston player briefly dance around the room with a long, Styrofoam roll pad between his legs as a young woman tried to interview Jeff Green," wrote Kelly. But the strange thing is that Kelly actually took the opposite side of the argument in his column.

Grapes then attempted to cite recent polls that revealed the public agreed with his stance, but he was jumping all over the place. His point was that he's not alone here, and he's right about that.

But why should women who are willingly entering rooms be banned? They're adults and it's their choice, right? Cherry is right in that there are clearly some bad apples in pro sports locker rooms who are rude and sexist and disrespectful, but his solution is to punish those who are already being victimized. As Ron MacLean said in the above exchange, "the players have got to obey the law." 

So if anything, pro sports teams and leagues should crack down further on the athletes, rather than altering the system and ruffling feathers in order to placate those who are at fault.

ESPN officially unveiled the SEC Network today and as you can already tell, Bristol's footprints are going to be firmly entrenched with the conference.  The SEC has dominated the college football landscape for the past several years and is in line for a huge cash influx in launching their own network, following in the footsteps of the Big Ten and the Pac 12.  But while the Big Ten Network has Fox as a partner and the Pac 12 is independently owned, the SEC Network has hitched its wagon to ESPN and Bristol machine is firmly promoting this as an ESPN network.  Here are the three major takeaways from today's announcement:

Atlanta Falcons cornerback Asante Samuel was taking his turn going through the Bristol Car Wash today, appearing on a multitude of ESPN programs.  When he reached the SportsCenter stop, things got awkward.  Anchor Chris McKendry brought a quote from Samuel to his attention regarding Jason Collins and gay players coming out.  While Samuel's original quote doesn't necessarily cause warning sirens to go off, it's a bit clumsy.  His sentiment is basically that Collins' sexuality should be kept to himself, which is a viewpoint that doesn't really take into account the fact that Collins feeling the need to keep his sexuality a secret is the problem to begin with.

Given the chance to expound upon it only led to more confusion and head-scratching.  Video via Ride the Pine...

Gus Johnson returned to Fox's soccer coverage Wednesday (albeit on FX for some reason) for the Champions League semi second leg between Barcelona and Bayern Munich.  It was Johnson's first soccer telecast in almost two months.  Before the game I wrote it was the beginning of the most important stretch for Fox in their hopes of transforming Johnson into America's voice for soccer.  Later this month Johnson will announce both the FA Cup Final and the Champions League Final and he will need to be ready for primetime by then.

After two months away, Fox and Johnson needed to show soccer fans signs of improvement and some rays of hope that the long-term vision of the network is worthwhile.  If not, Fox and Johnson risk losing the trust of soccer fans moving forward as the network takes over World Cup rights.  Unfortunately, there was little for Fox to be optimistic about as Johnson again struggled with the basics including player identification and pronounciations.  Who would have ever thought we'd see the words "Gus Johnson" and "boring" in the same tweet.  Usually Twitter angst is saved for the likes of Chris Berman and Tim McCarver but yesterday it was an internet cult favorite in the unyielding crosshairs.  As always these are Real Tweets from Real People...

As the Chicago Bulls are battling with the Brooklyn Nets in their first round playoff series, whispers are growing into a full blown debate regarding whether or not Bulls PG Derrick Rose needs to come back after missing a year with a devastating injury. As other Bulls players play with injuries and Rose has been "medically cleared" the pressure is mounting for Rose to return to the court even though he's clearly not ready in his own mind.

Now, in some kind of publicity ploy, CBS Radio Chicago is trying to stir up fans' angst by having them write "open letters" to Derrick Rose to use on their airwaves. What, you thought they were actually going to send these letters in sacks of mail to Rose's house?

Vancouver's Green Men are some of the most famous hockey fans in the world.  Their entertaining antics the past few seasons have drawn attention on both sides of the border as the Canucks have made multiple deep runs in the postseason.  But two men are not fans of the Vancouver Green Men and their playful banter - Sharks announcers Drew Remenda and Randy Hahn.

During last night's Sharks-Canucks playoff game, the visiting announcers had a super cool, super original way to make fun of them... by basically throwing every insult blockheaded people throw at bloggers.  Via Puck Daddy...

In the Canadian sports media spectrum, TSN is the funny guy and CBC is the classy guy. Proof of that came again on Wednesday night as "Hockey Night in Canada" launched into its NHL playoff coverage with a well-produced video montage juxtaposing history with modernity. 

"The Who" certainly doesn't hurt, either. If that doesn't give you goosebumps or make you at least a little fired up for hockey, nothing will.

[The Pens Blog]

All Times Eastern

College Baseball
Florida at LSU -- ESPNU, 7:30 p.m.

College Baseball Live -- ESPNU, 6:30 p.m.

College Football
College Football Live -- ESPN, 3:30 p.m.

College Lacrosse
Big East Tournament, Philadelphia, PA
Semifinals
Notre Dame vs. Syracuse -- ESPNU, 4:30 p.m.
Georgetown vs. Villanova -- ESPNU, 10:30 p.m. (same day coverage)

ECAC Tournament, Geneva, NY
Semifinals
Denver vs. Fairfield -- Fuel/Fox Sports Net, 5 p.m.
Loyola (MD) vs. Ohio State -- Fuel/Fox Sports Net, 8 p.m.

College Softball
Texas Tech at Baylor -- ESPN, 8 p.m.