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Welcome to Friday’s Morning Mashup. For the latest news, start at our WEEI.com home page or click here for the top stories from our news wire.
FRIDAY’S BROADCAST HIGHLIGHTS:MLB: LA Dodgers at Milwaukee, 8:39 p.m. (FS1)NBA: Boston at Toronto, 8 p.m. (ESPN, NBCSB)NBA: Golden State at Utah, 10:30 p.m. (ESPN)NBA: Oklahoma City at LA Clippers, 10:30 p.m. (NBATV)NHL: Minnesota at Dallas, 8 p.m. (NBCSN)
AROUND THE WEB:
-- Chris ‘Mad Dog’ Russo is not happy about how networks schedule the start times of MLB postseason games and went on a very angry and loud rant about it on his Sirius XM show.
“Because the NFL controls the message! They control their television! They tell the network what time the game is on!,” Russo continued. “I understand that nobody else can play that game with the networks, the NFL can because of TV ratings. It makes it harder for the NBA and the NHL and baseball. But this is ridiculous! 2:25 a.m.! And when it’s convenient for baseball, they’ll make the Dodgers fan go to a day game on a weekday in a postseason spot! ‘Hey, we gotta put the Cubs in primetime, screw it, you play at 1:00!’ They don’t care! But when it’s not, when it’s the other way, they’re going to give you, when they do something stupid like this, they’re going to tell you, ‘Well, we want the Dodgers fan watching at 6:09 on the West Coast.’ You can’t have it both ways! You cannot!”
And he kept going:
“Think about it! If you’re a Milwaukee Brewers fan living in Wisconsin,You went to bed on it! It’s 1:25 there! School night! Geez! One-twenty-five! And something else I screamed about on here today, and I’ll do it again; how are the games on Saturday, the two games, if we get them, Game Six Houston, Game Seven in Milwaukee, which we could get, why are those games on at 5 and 9? Did you know that? Did you know the times of those games? Red Sox play at five, and the Brewers play Game Seven at 9:09 on Saturday night! All right, it’s a Saturday night, I can deal with a little later, but 9:09? What, are you worried about the Alabama-Tennessee game on CBS? Nobody cares! That’s ridiculous! Put the Red Sox at three and put the other game on at seven!”
Interesting Russo would call out the MLB while he works for the MLB Network but he really should be doing their scheduling.
-- The Lakers lost 128-119 to the Trail Blazers in LeBron James’ debut with the team on Thursday night and James said after the game the team chemistry will take some time to develop.
"Um, not as fast as you guys think it's going to happen," James said. "I always kind of compare it to like instant oatmeal. It is not that fast. It takes a while to get to where you can close your eyes and know exactly where your guys are."
The Lakers started the game missing their first 15 3-point shots and finally made their first one in the third quarter. James did his part with 26 points, 12 rebounds and six assists in the loss but praised the team’s ability to battle back despite the slow start.
"I liked our fight to get back in the game," James said. "We were down double digits. I liked the way we competed at times. I liked the way we shared the ball at times, as well. Those were all positives."