Stump the Stiffs: Manchester City vs Manchester United

Futbol, the world’s sport. For me personally, I’ve never got into the European professional leagues (nor the American ones for that matter) but no doubt the World Cup holds a special place in my heart, even if team USA has a snowball’s chance in hell at best of winning the tournament. When it comes to the English Premier League I admittedly know very little. An English friend of mine roots for Chelsea and so therefore I root for Chelsea as well and by “root” I mean I will be mildly pleased if I see on twitter that they are performing well. Outside of that though, there’s not much analyis I can provide. However, even in my very limited knowledge I do know that Manchester United versus Manchester City is a big deal for the city of Manchester and for Premier League fans in general. That means it’s a big enough deal for Stump the Stiffs to add it to the lineup.

In the realm of basketball, I won’t lie, we’ve got a rough line up of games and the match ups are in general pretty lop sided or an even match of pretty awful teams. Nevertheless, StS must go on. For our combatants this week the Stiffs Staff continues to bring the heavy hitters with none other than the king of Thornton, Jeff Morton. The Stiffs commenters are not to be out done so they’ve brought in long time commenter AllDayMudiay aka Artimus Mangilord. Finally, in search of some international flavor to help with the international special pick, the Nuggets subreddit has brought in /u/aliendeg from Canada by way of Poland. Pick time!

Jeff Morton (@jmorton78): The Raptors are the second best team in the west, and at this writing the Celtics are in the fourth position. This is a big game. Considering Jae Crowder is injured, I give the advantage to the Raptors. Suns at Lakers is truly a crap-fest game. Ugh. Give me the Lakers just barely, although I’m really enjoying Devin Booker lately. Lakers though. Kings at Pistons…good god. What’s with this slate of games? Give me the Pistons, just barely. The Kings are a mess and I’m just waiting for the next DeMarcus Cousins implosion. Trail Blazers at Pelicans will be better. The Pelicans have been playing better as of late, but I don’t think they have enough to overcome Damian Lillard and the Blazers. Give me Portland. Manchester City vs Manchester United………. oh who the hell knows. Give me Man U.

AllDayMudiay: The top teams in the East’s Atlantic division square off and unfortunately the Raptors are too far ahead of the Celtics in the standings for this game to have more significance, though the latter team is fighting for anywhere from the third to seventh seed. The point guard play will be intriguing, but in the end the Raptors eek out the win on tired legs with the support of the home crowd. Suns at Lakers features the two Pacific division, as well as Western conference, basement dwellers. The Suns would be hard pressed to catch the Lakers this late in the season in the race to the bottom and come into the City of Angels on the second night of a back-to-back. The Lakers reward the home crowd with a win despite Kobe Bryant’s best efforts on his "Last Crusade" to drive the tank off a cliff.

The Pistons cling to the last playoff spot in the East while the Kings are as dysfunctional as ever, managing to free fall past our Nuggets in the lottery standings. The Pistons correct course after the recent thrashing at the hands of the Bullets, coming away with the win despite recent difficulty beating the Kings, as a petulant Boogie gets frustrated early by Andre Drummond. Against my better judgment, I foresee Anthony Davis showcasing his cat-like reflexes as the Pels feast on the Trail Blazers following Gerald Henderson’s damning statement on Oregon radio that, “(he) doesn’t trust cat people… cats are creepy to (him).” Oh no you didn’t. I went back and forth on this Premier League matchup and finally decided to flip a coin… the damn thing came to rest on its edge! With any luck, my boy Bastian Schweinsteiger sees the pitch as he works back from injury and the Man United squad dominates the Man City blue.

/u/aliendeg (@aliendeg): 2 of the top 3 players with dreadlocks are injured. Raptors keep winning without Carroll but Celtics haven’t won yet since Crowder injury. Brandon Knight is back and even if he is not good enough to be the first PG on a playoff team, he can still win games against crappy teams. Kings are dying, nothing’s there, 8 losses in last 10 games. #FreeBoogie. Pelicans have nothing to stop Blazers back court. United are obviously more determined – it’s their only way to play in Champions League next year and even if Manuel Pellegrini gave up on City after their announced hiring Pep Guardiola, Citizens are still the better team with world class strikers and can easily dominate United in the middle of the field.

And there you have it! Reddit once again playing fast and loose with the picks. We'll see if it pays off. If you'd like to participate please reach out to Russ Hamilton (@rscotham) for the commenter side and Alec Gwin (/u/IdRatherBeLurking) on the Reddit side. We've only got a few weeks of the competition left so if you want to participate before the Fall let your voice be heard now!

If you're keeping score:

Stiffs writers: 49-51

Stiffs commenters: 55-45

Nuggets Subreddit: 52-48

(That last week might have been for the Stiffs writers as Gallo's injury was for the Nuggets…gonna be tough to close the gap with so little of the season left)