Basketball

While the East goes into multiple Game 7’s

The West is all set with Denver/Dallas and Lakers/Houston. I think Denver/Dallas will be closer and Lakers/Houston will have no viewer appeal.

Cleveland will have such a long layoff from match play that they may be rusty coming into the next round.

I think both the Game 7’s in he East are going to take a tool on whoever makes it out of the round and will get chomped away by their next opponent.

Lakers/Denver for the West.

Lakers move on to the next, while Sharks fizzle out

I am so glad the Lakers did not have to go back to Utah for a possible game 6. This gives them a few more days of rest and I hope Luke Walton can come back quickly. Houston will be a tough opponent, never mind the past record and Portland has somewhat owned Lakers in Portland so it will be tough no matter what. Looking forward to the next matchup.

On the home front, the Sharks were a bust once more. I don’t know what it is about them in the regular season and what happens in the post season. They just do not work at the same intensity level as the regular season. Complacency? You betcha! Now my care level in the NHL is close to ZERO!

Detroit/Celtics and Spurs/Lakers

How cool will it be if it ends up being a Lakers/Celtics finals??

I don’t know who to cheer for or even against in the Eastern Conference.

Of course, no need to mention who I support from the Western. Go Lakers!!

Nadal still king of clay and San Antonio will be kings soon

It was a relatively busy sporting day for me today, starting with an early morning DVR-ed version of the French Open finals, mid-morning DVR-ed Canadian GP (on Fox, thanks a lot!) and then the Game 2 of the NBA finals in the evening.

I watched the first one almost completely. I could not resist the “30-second skip” on the DVR for some of the boring points in the match, though there were not too many. Nadal is too strong and Federer has only himself to blame for not winning this one. He (Fed) had so many break chances, and if he had converted even a fraction of the chances he had, the story would have been completely different.

But he did not, and Nadal continues his mastery of the French Open. Can’t believe he has not lost a single match at the French Open!!

And then it was on to the F-1 race. Frankly, I am not surprised why I have not missed F-1 so far this year. There is no real “hero”. Excluding the new kid Hamilton, there is really no positive storyline this season. Maybe it is the transition season from Schumy to the next generation, and I certainly hope that is the case, but frankly, Alonso and Massa are just too boring. Kimi has some color and a wild background to make things interesting but after the first race, he has steadily disintegrated and has shown that the last couple of years may not have been McLaren’s fault but actually his.

Of course this Canadian GP was quite eventful and Kubica’s crash was simply unbelievable. With that big a crash, for him to survive and be quite ok in the hospital, shows how far the technology and protection mechanism has come to in the past many years.

In the end it was the new hero in F-1 who won a convincing race – Lewis Hamilton. Congratulations to him, and all the best for the rest of the season!

And finally, the NBA finals. The Spurs are looking just too good and too methodical to create too many problems for themselves this year. Horry is going to get another ring in his collection and the Spurs are going to be the true dynasty in the NBA today.

The Warriors win! The Warriors win!!

I am so excited that the Warriors knocked off Dallas tonight!!! I am more excited of course that Dallas lost than that the Warriors won, but both happened, so I am happy!

Isn’t Golden State a fun team to watch? It is unbelievable – you just cannot blink when they are playing (well). Long passes, big threes, fast ball movement.

Awesome, awesome, awesome!

(btw, I called it!)

Phew…at least Kobe is going to stay with the Lakers

Not that it was not a forgone conclusion after Phil Jackson went and Shaq was traded, but now it is official – Kobe Bryant is going to stay with the Lakers.

I know a lot of people fall under the ‘anti Kobe’ and ‘pro Shaq’ category, but hey, as a Lakers fan, it is nice that at least one of the two superstars is going to stay.

Now, Kobe will feel what he had and what he took for granted – those easy passes to Shaq for dunks are not going to exist anymore. Do the Lakers have a center?