Kritik und Lob » but men still coach. (Costa Rican coach

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- When Nicolas Batum was asked for his input on the Charlotte Hornets potentially trading for guard Marco Belinelli, his response was swift and definitive.Do it right now, Batum excitedly told his head coach Steve Clifford.Batum believes that with the addition of Belinelli, center Roy Hibbert and guard Ramon Sessions -- along with the return of Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, who was limited to seven games last season due to a shoulder problems -- the Hornets will be better than the team tied for the third-most wins in the Eastern Conference a year ago. Yes, even after losing Jeremy Lin, Al Jefferson and Courtney Lee to free agency.We replaced all of the things we lost with other people who bring something different, Batum said Monday at media day. I hear people are saying we got worse. I dont think so. I think we got better.Clifford and his staff have a knack for bringing in players who are coming off disappointing seasons and resurrecting their careers.Marvin Williams has flourished in his two seasons in Charlotte.Batum, Lin and Lee all had breakout seasons in their first year with the Hornets and parlayed that success into huge free agent contracts this past offseason.Batum signed a five-year, $120 million deal to stay with the Hornets. Lee got a four-year, $48 million contract from the New York Knicks, while Lin played so well in a reserve role he got a three-year, $38 million deal -- and an opportunity to start -- with the Brooklyn Nets.While Clifford downplayed the impact of the coaching staff, Hornets point guard Kemba Walker said thats only because his coach is humble.Cliff has that effect on guys, Walker said. He knows how to talk to guys and he knows how to get guys to take their games to another level. Hes done it with me and a lot of other guys.Williams said Clifford and his staff excel at taking players strengths and using them on the court.They never ask you to do anything you are not comfortable doing or not used to do doing, Williams said. They want you to do what you do best and I think that is why guys are so successful here, and that guys want to play for him.The question this year is can they do the same for Belinelli and Hibbert, who are coming off disappointing seasons.Since shooting a career-best 43 percent from 3-point range in 2013-14 with the San Antonio Spurs, Belinelli hasnt seen as much action the past two seasons starting only 16 games. Hell still be a reserve in Charlotte, but it is clear Clifford is ecstatic the Hornets were able to get Belinelli from the Kings in exchange for their 22nd pick in the draft.Im a huge fan of Marco, Clifford said. The thing I like about him is he has played his best in the biggest games and he can do a lot of the things we lost offensively with Jeremy and Courtney.Hibbert was an All-Star in 2012 and 2014 with the Indiana Pacers, but averaged just 5.9 points and 4.9 rebounds per game -- well below his career averages -- in 81 starts last season with the Los Angeles Lakers.Hibbert said as free agency was approaching he had hoped to land with the Hornets, but figured the team would re-sign Jefferson. When Jefferson signed with the Indiana Pacers, Hibbert told his agent to get him to Charlotte, where he could work with assistant coach Patrick Ewing, whom he considers an uncle because hes known him since he was a teenager.Hibbert refused to put the blame on anyone other than himself for his sagging numbers, but feels like hes about to turn things around.The onus rests on me to go out there and play with effort and energy, Hibbert said. And I feel like this is the best situation to me to do that. Im ready to go out and help this team win and as a byproduct of that hopefully I can back to play at the level I was before.Clifford said he doesnt feel like the 7-foot-2 Hibbert has lost anything physically, and expects that hell compete with Cody Zeller for a starting spot at center playing alongside Walker, Batum, Kidd-Gilchrist and Williams.I think he is hungry and the way we play will benefit him, Clifford said. Cheap NFL Jerseys Wholesale . LeBron James and Chris Bosh didnt need any more. Williams scored 11 points in 10 minutes, Alan Anderson scored 17 points, and the Brooklyn Nets finished the exhibition season with a 108-87 win over the Miami Heat on Friday night. Wholesale Soccer Jerseys .B. -- The Baie-Comeau Drakkar took over sole possession of first place atop the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League on Thursday with their sixth straight win. http://www.wholesaleauthenticcheapjerseys.com/ . Robinson finished with 17 points, all but two in the second half, and Lawson had 14 after halftime and finished with a game-high 11 assists as the Nuggets handed Dallas its first home loss in eight games this season. J.J. Hickson led Denver with 22, and Kenneth Faried added 10 points and 10 rebounds. Cheap Jerseys China . The parade and rally were held to celebrate the Saskatchewan Roughriders 45-23 win over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Sunday in the CFLs championship game. China Jerseys NFL .J. -- Marty Brodeur beat the Pittsburgh Penguins yet again. RIO DE JANEIRO -- The outstretched arms of the iconic Christ the Redeemer statue are visible, if only just, from the upper reaches of Maracana Stadium in the Olympic host city. But it was divine inspiration on a far less grand scale that Brazilian players were seeking during a soccer quarterfinal against Australia in Belo Horizonte.In that moment, their tournament future at the mercy of penalty kicks, one player kneels with hands on her thighs and head bowed. Another stands and stares skyward with eyes closed, arms across the shoulders of teammates. Two players hold their hands to their faces in what looks like a mixture of prayer and apprehension. In the middle kneels Marta, the star, something close to pain on her flushed face, as a generations best player waits to see if her teammates can absolve her of failure.A place in the Olympic semifinals is a lot, but much more was on the line in that moment.Most national teams in some way serve as representatives of their countries. That may be true of this team, too, but its more discernible role is as the representative of womens soccer to Brazil.The development of womens soccer depends a lot on everything that involves the womens national team, Marta explained during the buildup to the Olympics.After playing to a 0-0 stalemate over 120 minutes Friday against Australia -- the team that eliminated it sooner than most expected in last years FIFA Womens World Cup -- Brazil survived a penalty shootout in the most unlikely manner. Marta, the fifth player to shoot for her team, was the first to see her shot saved. If Australia had made its next kick, Brazil would have been out. Instead, goalkeeper Barbara made the first of two saves and Brazil won in eight rounds.The reward is a place in Tuesdays semifinal, in front of what is expected to be close to a sellout in the massive Maracana -- with a capacity of more than 70,000.Like most Olympics, the event raises questions as to the need for lavish spending on facilities that may go unused when the rest of the world leaves town. Also visible from the Maracana are some of Rios favelas -- buildings and people tightly packed together in these neighborhoods of poverty and violence. Staging an athletic spectacle such as the Olympics necessarily comes at the expense of the part of the local population most in need of investment.Yet in a stadium that has been part of the Rio landscape for decades, albeit recently remodeled, the Olympics can leave something that lasts long after the world departs. A gold medal for the Brazil women, still two wins away, could leave a generation empowered to play a game and much more. But perhaps only if they win -- the one thing they have not done in a major tournament.I think that, generally speaking, the results that we have gotten -- two Olympic silver medals, a runner-up finish in the World Cup -- those have been our best moments for the womens national team, Marta said before this tournament. I think in a certain way that has woken people up and has made them look at womens soccer differently. I think the individual player distinctions weve received, like Formiga, Cristiane -- I dont name myself among them. Everything as a whole has led to something positive and has helped womens soccer as a whole to improve.To reach the gold-medal game thatt will be played Friday in the same stadium, Brazil must get past the Swedish team that ended the gold-medal reign of the United States in a quarterfinal shootout.ddddddddddddBrazil met that task once when it crushed Sweden 5-1 in group play. But that was also the last time Brazil scored in this tournament. A scoreless draw against South Africa to close group play was followed by the stalemate against Australia.Sweden played an open game in the first meeting and was punished by a team that was faster, more athletic and just as skilled. It played a defensive game against the United States and was rewarded for it. Coach Pia Sundhage left little doubt Monday that the mistakes of the past would inform her plans for the present. Brazil will have to solve Swedens numbers massed in defense and do so with limited rest after the marathon in Belo Horizonte. Brazil may also have to do so without the attacking skill of Cristiane, whose status remains in doubt after an injury against Australia.For all of that, Martas first appearance in the Maracana in nearly a decade is both sociology and soccer, that idea again captured both by the enormous crowds that watched the women in Manaus and Belo Horizonte, and by a recent photo of a young fan with a Neymar jersey?-- the name of the Brazilian mens star crossed out and replaced by that of Marta.Asked about the cultural importance of the game, Brazilian coach Vad?o mentioned, via a translator, the difficulty girls still have playing the game in organized settings. Brazil is not hostile to womens soccer in the way it once was, but a culture, any culture, changes slowly.At one point Monday afternoon, a member of the local staff at the Maracana walked over to inform media members that the Swedish coach would be 20 minutes late. In doing so, the staffer more than once used the pronoun he in reference to Sundhage. It could easily have been a slip of grammar, but it was no less likely a slip of tongue reflective of the culture.As is the case of Vad?o or the coach of the Colombian team, the other South American representative in the womens tournament, women play but men still coach. (Costa Rican coach Amelia Valverde is one of the rare exceptions in Latin America at the international level.)So it was that Sundhage reflected on her own journey to the Maracana, two years after she led the United States to the gold medal game in Wembley Stadium. It was a remarkable set of circumstances considering the soccer world when she was a girl.Its funny, when I was a girl I dreamt to be a professional player, Sundhage said. There werent such thing as girls football, even. Then I dreamt to be a professional coach. And there werent anything like a professional coach.That is how generations of girls in Brazil must have felt, must still feel. Vad?o talked Monday about the Maracana being more than a stadium; it is part of the Brazilian culture. And yet girls have so rarely seen women playing on its field.When the conditions are equal, Vad?o said, the results can be equal.Given enough time, perhaps that change is inevitable. But Brazils escape in Belo Horizonte gives it an opportunity to bring about change that much sooner. ' ' '