Battle of New York No Contest, World Cup Draw Today

Well, the Battle of the Boroughs lived down to expectations, as the Nets were completely abject on their home court and the Knicks won 113-83. Andrea Bargnani got ejected after jawing at Kevin Garnett. You know things aren't going well in Brooklyn.

Elsewhere, the Bulls handled the Heat by 20 in Chicago, handing Miami their 2nd straight loss. Their next game in at Target Center on Saturday. Great. An angry Heat team. Dwyane Wade missed last night but will likely be available against the Wolves.

The Grizzlies continue to struggle, as they dropped to 9-9 on the season in a 20 point loss to the Clippers, who made more half of their three pointers. No Gasol is no good for Memphis, plus Tony Allen missed last night's game as well.

Frankly, it was not a great night in the NBA, as all three games were decided by 20 points or more.

Kevin Love is away from the team following his grandmother's death. Whether he will be back in time for tomorrow's game remains unknown (to me, at least).

Let's get to the important thing today:

World Cup Draw
10 am Central 
ESPN 2 and 3

This should be a standard embarrassing FIFA production, with a bunch of old guys in suits, uncomfortable "celebrities" and scantily clad women worked in somehow because Sepp Blatter likes that sort of thing.

Still, by the end, we'll know the groups for the 2014 World Cup, and that's news. It seems to me that this is a strong field top to bottom; usually there are a handful of teams that aren't anywhere near the quality of the best 32 teams in the world but qualify anyway; not so much this year.

Difficult to see too many "easy" draws.  As for the U.S., they got a favorable group in 2010 and took advantage; I'm not counting on the same this time around.

Today in History

1768: First edition of the Encyclopedia Brittanica published in Scotland. 
1865: 13th amendment to Constitution is ratified
1877: Thomas Edison makes first sound recording
1969: Altamont

Today's musical birthday is Peter Buck, best known as the guitarist for R.E.M. He was born in 1956

This thread is open like Joe Hart's goal.