Three lessons from the football weekend

Another entertaining football weekend is in the books. The story of the weekend for me was how 3 common football and sports theories were played out right in front of my eyes. These are well-founded theories that have been around forever, but you still see several games where you can't clearly connect the play on the field with these theories and the teams also routinely overcome some of the mistakes and eliminate the effect of these theories. Take for instance the theory that penalties are a killer. It's no breaking news that it's not a good thing if you are moving backwards instead of forward on a football field, but players do commit these penalties sometimes because they are convinced they can overcome it. Most penalties are just mistakes, some are emotional acts, but players do cross the line intentionally at times because they kind of know the down, distance and the score and they think their team can overcome it when it's all said and done. The Oakland Raiders are a good example of this. They have always been notorious for their penalties, but lately, they also have a better record in games in which they commit a lot of penalties than their cleaner games. Weird stat and it sure doesn't give the Raiders much inspiration to play disciplined football.

But the Arizona State Sun Devils were not as lucky as the Raiders on Saturday night against the dangerous Oregon Ducks. The Devils had their hands full against the Ducks on the road, but their many mistakes and bad penalties didn't help the cause. Lesson 1 from the weekend was a particular sequence in this game which in my opinion clearly took the game away from the devils and handed it to the ducks. It was towards the end of the second quarter and ASU was driving down for a score eating good chunks of yards every play. They were already leading 17-14 and were poised to go up 24-14. Brock Osweiler completed another pass to Gerell Robinson to Oregon's 22 and they were almost in the red zone. That's when Robinson committed a stupid penalty and killed the Devils. He got up after the catch and kicked the defender who was on the ground. The penalty took the ball back to Oregon's 37 and Osweiler's next pass was intercepted. Oregon scored and went into the half leading 21-17 instead of trailing. The momentum shifted for good. Robinson's penalty didn't make Osweiler throw the interception, but I strongly believe that this interception would not have happened if the ball was on the 22 yard line instead of back at the 37.

Oregon's speed is just too much and it's just amazing to watch that offense. It's even hard to track the ball on TV as they fake, shift, move and option you do death. They are impossible to beat at home and they always play much better in the second half. All things considered, ducks probably would have put the devils away anyways, but I clearly saw how a stupid penalty can change the momentum, kill a drive and finish a team off prematurely. When I saw that penalty, I became one of those alums you see at the stadium yelling at players saying things like "I pay your scholarship, get your act together you idiot". That always cracked me up and now I was feeling the same anger at Robinson. He had a good game statistically, but he screwed up big time with that penalty. That was a great lesson on penalties and how and why they hurt. Too bad ASU had to suffer through it.

The second lesson of the weekend came on Sunday in the form of an interesting game between the niners and the lions. This game was as good as advertised and the niners won a big one on the road. Conventional football wisdom always says you win with rushing, defense and by playing the field position. This is exactly what the niners did all game. Jim Harbaugh is all about playing conservative, disciplined football and he did the same at Stanford too. Alex Smith and that passing offense is not reliable, but I was still surprised how committed Harbaugh is to his philosophy and how he followed it to a tee from start to finish despite various situations where it would have been easy to start chucking the ball all over Ford field. Many teams win with defense and rushing, but the discipline with which Harbaugh has his team playing right now is pretty striking and impressive. He deserves all the credit in the world for having the niners at 5-1 with basically the same team as last year. It's impressive to see his football philosophy built around defense and rushing considering he was a pretty good quarterback.

Speaking of Harbaugh, he was also the man behind the lesson number 3 from the weekend. Coaches and front office types are constantly asked to stay in their shoes so as to not take attention away from the players and the game on the field. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is the best example of this as he is constantly accused of talking too much, getting in too much trouble and taking away from his team. Coincidentally he lied low last year and the Mavs won the championship. Harbaugh proved to be that guy this weekend when, after the game, he got carried away and gave an excited pat on the back and an aggressive hand-shake to lions coach Jim Schwartz. Schwartz exacerbated the situation by chasing Harbaugh as if he was going to fight him, but Harbaugh definitely broke protocol and misbehaved to start it all off. Both men were at fault, but an important lesson for Harbaugh is that he definitely took attention away from the team and the game. "Handshake-gate" has been the story on sports radio and TV all day across the nation. Even in the bay area, people are forced to talk about it instead of celebrating one of the biggest wins for the niners in many years or talking about the potential for this interesting team. Neither coach got fined and I am fine with that. You can't fine people for bad etiquette. But Harbaugh made a mistake and hope he now understands that he has to save his emotion for the locker room. This is a clear proof of how distracting such behaviors can be.

Theo, the "curse slayer"

Theo Epstein is apparently going to the Chicago Cubs. Can you imagine this guy's potential legacy if he wins a championship in the north side of Chicago? Can he kill the Cubs' curse after doing all of that in Boston? He would be the first official curse slayer in the history of sports. He went in as a kid to run the Redsox with his moneyball philosophy and won 2 championship. He became the proverbial "he doesn't have to ever pay again for a drink in that city" guy in Boston. But it's amazing how much of a pressure-cooker Boston is and how short people's memory are. After the historic collapse in September, I don't want to say people wanted him fired, but he had a bunch of problems on his hands. To be fair to the Bostonians, may be it was more a function of the collapse than people forgetting the 2 championships Theo brought home. Whatever it was, Theo has decided to move on. I can see why he would want to go to Chicago because the opportunity to do this at another storied franchise like the Chicago Cubs is unique. Also, even if he wins more championships in Boston, the payoff will not be what it was in 2004. So it's time for Theo to try something new and fresh. I am sure both teams will be fine as Boston will probably try to retain his deputies and continue with the program. The Cubs on the other hand can use Theo and his program. It may not guarantee them a championship, but I am sure Theo will take them closer to one.

On the field, the baseball playoffs have been interesting, but probably not the most watched. With the North Eastern teams like Boston, New York and Philly eliminated, I am sure the TV ratings are not pretty. But some games have been thrilling. Too bad the DBacks couldn't win on the road, but it took the Brewers 10 innings to eliminate them in game 5. Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder were just too much for the DBacks the entire series. I would like the young Brewers to march on and win it all, but I don't know if I can handle their stupid "beast mode" after every big play. There have been many stupid sports celebrations, but this might be the worst! It's interesting how more and more of the MLB playoffs have moved to cable, much like what happened with the NBA a few years back. NFL seems to be marginalizing all other sports on TV. A Milwaukee-Detroit World Series would be MLB's worst nightmare from a TV ratings perspective and we might just get it. Detroit did lose game 4 today in 11 innings and is now trailing 3-1 to the Rangers. Nelson Cruz is killing them. He has homered in 2 11-Th innings in this series. What are the odds of 2 games going 11 innings in a 7-game series and featuring the same guy homering in both 11-Th innings? Bud Selig would say "only in baseball" and he might even be right, but I am not sure if anybody except Bud is watching these games.

The best news for MLB might be the NBA lockout. NBA seems to be committed to it's self-destructive ways and the league just canceled the first 2 weeks of the regular season. It took more than a decade for the league to recover some of it's lost popularity after the previous lockout and Jordan's retirement, and another lockout is the worst thing they could do at this stage. Thanks to LeBron's talents the last few years at Cleveland and then his stupidity surrounding his "taking his talents to south beach", NBA regained some of it's viewership. The playoffs last year was especially interesting because people had a set of villains - Miami Heat, to root against and they watched the show on TV. Now, the NBA decides to throw it all away by pissing off it's customers. Mainstream America, for the most part, hates NBA and it's players for whatever reason. Some of it is justified, but some of it is just perception and prejudice. But the point is, NBA cannot afford to anger and distance them further. NFL possibly can get away with it, but NBA can't. NBA's owners seem to be oblivious to this and are hell-bent on getting a good financial deal. They should be committed to getting a good deal, but I wish they had the common sense to be committed to not losing even a single game as well. That's apparently too much to ask and now, nobody cares that the NBA is locked out. Hopefully, some of us will care if and when they start playing again.

All this means more time for NFL and college football. There are a couple of states in the union doing great right now - Wisconsin and Michigan. Detroit is especially having a whale of a time in sports. The Detroit Tigers are in the ALCS, the Lions are 5-0 after many years of abject failure and even the Michigan Wolverines are 6-0 and are ranked pretty high. Same story in Wisconsin. The Brewers are in the NLCS, Packers are the only other undefeated team in the NFL with a 5-0 record and the Wisconsin Badgers are 5-0 and ranked 4-Th in the nation. Life is good in the mid-west. Both the Lions and the Packers are in the same division and they don't play their first game until Thanksgiving. I can't wait for that game. Should be a great one after years of bad Detroit football on turkey day. We may be looking at 2 undefeated teams that day or may be 2 teams with a combined 1 or 2 losses. There are other markets seeing a football revival as well. It always feels good to see small market Buffalo do well. Bay Area is enjoying a good season too as both the Raiders and the Niners are looking good after many years. Just like the Packers and the Lions, the Raiders and the Chargers don't play until late in the season and I expect those 2 games to be great and meaningful too. Who would have thought the game of week 6 would be Niners (4-1) at the Lions (5-0). Acid test for both maturing teams, but I expect the Lions to win at home. In college, ASU is going to Oregon for a matchup of ranked teams. Nobody beats Oregon at home. ASU's only hope might be that Oregon's RB LaMichael James might miss this game with an injury. It's a challenging game for the Devils with or without James. Lets see how they handle the pressure.

Al Davis will be missed

NFL's week 5 started with the sad news of Al Davis passing away. He was an one man show with the Oakland Raiders and was one of the most controversial figures in all of sports. What made him interesting was that he was one of a kind and also the last of his kind. I suppose that's redundant because one of a kind by definition means there's nobody else like him, but it's also worth mentioning he is the last of his kind because you won't see sports owners like him anymore. He was a football lifer who became an owner. Ownership groups are becoming more and more corporate as it takes hundreds of millions of dollars to own teams these days. Most owners are Home Depot CEOs or Bank One co-founders. They may have a pure football guy in their group as a minority owner and even let him be the managing general partner and the face of the franchise. But the days of pure football lifers like Al Davis becoming the all powerful, majority owner of a major sports franchise are long gone. Davis was the owner, GM, head scout, head coach (in hiding) and the primary decision maker for the Raiders for several decades. It's hard to imagine the Raiders without Al Davis or a setup like that in the sports landscape moving forward.

The Raiders lost all of their identity last Saturday and they have to recast themselves now. For better or for worse, Al was the heart, soul and face of the franchise. He did not have a lot of success the last decade or so and has been facing severe criticism both within and outside the Raider nation with many of his decisions. The worst move in my opinion was letting Jon Gruden go after he revived the franchise coming off a few horrible years. Instead of holding onto the only guy who was able to manufacture any success in Oakland in recent years, Al traded him away to Tampa Bay and it came back to bite him the very next year in the Super Bowl. Even Al's famous slogans like "commitment to excellence" have become the butt of ridicule over the last few years. But with all that said, the man deserves a lot of credit for his body of work. He has seen a lot of success during his career and he built the Raiders brand all by himself. He was always independent, ingenious and relevant. Love him or hate him, you could never ignore him. He was never afraid to be in an island and challenging the NFL power structure was his past-time. I found it funny how he was always the only one or may be one of 2 or 3 owners who consistently voted against many proposals in the ownership meetings. He had a mind of his own and you were either with him or against him.

All that aside, Mr. Davis's real contribution as far as I am concerned is how forward thinking and color and gender blind he was. He was a pioneer when it came to hiring black coaches, recruiting from little known black colleges, giving breaks to Hispanic coaches and hiring women executives. He was consistently ahead of the curve on each of those progressive issues and in some cases, he was ahead of the world around him by 20 or 30 years! It's funny and sad at the same time that the NFL is still struggling to create opportunities for black head coaches while Al Davis hired one in 1989. That's what I will remember the most about the man. Al was definitely a maverick and dominated every aspect of the Raiders. He did have a giant ego and some things like the problems he had with Marcus Allen made him look petty. His drafting the last decade have made us all scratch our heads many times and made us wonder if he was holding onto football a little too long. But the progressive and minority-friendly program he ran singularly makes him an impactful and unique legend in the sport controlled by good-ole, billionaire boys.

The Raiders won the game last weekend at Houston on the last play. The game was close and could have gone either way, but winning it was the only way the Raiders could have honored their owner. It was also fitting that Sebastian Janikowski and Darrius Heyward-Bey - 2 of the most controversial and confusing Al Davis draft picks from the last decade, made significant contributions in the victory. It's been really interesting to see how coach Hue Jackson has been using Janikowski's legs this season. His ability to kick long field goals is having a significant impact both on the games and the way Jackson approaches certain situations in a game. May be the godfather was right in making the polish cannon his 17-Th overall pick in the 2000 draft. Speaking of Jackson, he has been very emotional all week since the news and understandably so. He was another one of those Al Davis hires and he seems to be doing pretty well right now. The Raiders are 3-2 and both Davis and Jackson deserve a lot of credit for what this team is doing. With Davis now gone, nobody knows who is going to or who can run the football side of the Raiders. A lot is going to fall on the shoulders of Hue Jackson and that's way too much for a first year head coach to handle. Hope the Raiders figure it all out soon.

For now, all the talk in the Bay Area is still about Al Davis. Mr. Davis, as he liked to be called, will be sorely missed.

Playoffs are here

Baseball playoffs are here and this is definitely a fun time of the year. We get to share our attention between the baseball playoffs, college football and the NFL. Baseball is not exactly the most popular or fun sport during the regular season and I don't spend a lot of time watching those games. But playoff baseball is riveting and usually a lot of fun. I am looking forward to it this year since the Arizona Diamondbacks have made it. Also, the exciting and strange way in which the regular season ended by eliminating the Boston Red Sox and the Atlanta Braves has definitely help raise the interest in this post-season. The Red Sox were leading the Rays by 9 games for the wild card in early September and still managed to lose it with just one strike to go in the season. They lost a one-run lead in the 9-Th and ended up losing to the Orioles 4-3. The Sox went 7-20 in September to achieve this meltdown. The Rays on the other hand came back from a 0-7 deficit in their final game to beat the Yankees 8-7 in 12 innings to win the wild card. That was an amazing and unbelievable sequence of events that put the Rays into the playoffs! The Braves went 9-18 in September to lose their playoff spot as well on the last day to the Cardinals. Both wild card races had spectacular finishes and historic collapses. Now we have the Rays and the Cards in the playoffs and no Braves or Red Sox. Braves will be fine, but some big names are going to lose their jobs in Boston.

As for the playoffs, the fun starts tomorrow with the AL games. Justin Verlander and C.C. Sabathia are the headliners for day 1. That should be a fun matchup. The D-Backs kickoff October baseball on the first of the month and Ian Kennedy will take on Yovani Gallardo in Milwaukee. The Brewers have home-field and that can be a challenge for the snakes since the Brew-crew just does not seem to lose at home. Both teams have solid pitching as most playoffs teams tend to do and the Brewers have MVP candidates Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder in their lineup on top of that. That should make them the favorites, but thats why they play the games - to defy logic and numbers and to create new records. A lot rides on Kennedy in game 1. In the other NL contest, Philly should be an overwhelming favorite over the Saint Louis Cardinals with that pitching. Halladay goes in game 1, but it doesn't get any easier for the Cards after that as Cliff Lee and Cole Hamels will attack them just as effectively as Halladay. The Phillies should be the favorites to win it all with that pitching, but again, there's a reason why we actually play the games. Just so that the Dbacks can upset the Phillies and then the Yankees! I am sure this playoffs will throw us a few more astonishing moments just like the ones we saw yesterday when the Sox and the Braves wrapped up their historic collapses. Bring it on!

Football weekend is almost upon us. Pittsburgh crushed 16-Th seeded South Florida today to set the stage for a fun college weekend. ASU has re-entered the top-25 with an impressive win over USC last weekend. They should continue that trend when they host Oregon State. The big games of the weekend are Alabama-Florida, Clemson-Va Tech and Nebraska-Wisconsin. Thats a great way for Nebraska to start their life in Big 10 with a visit to the 7-Th seeded Wisconsin. Madison will be ready for that. SEC football at the swamp is always fun and they will welcome Alabama this weekend. UCLA at Stanford will be a fun, late night, Pac-12 contest as well. In the NFL, Patriots at Oakland promises to be one of the great match ups along with Detroit at Dallas and Pittsburgh at Houston. All 3 games featuring surprising teams in Oakland, Detroit and Houston that have not been in the playoffs the last few years, but have all looked good the last 3 weeks. The headliner will be the Jets at Baltimore, but the real action might be in those other 3 contests. The Raiders can definitely shock the Patriots since they can run the ball. Run DMC is an absolute monster and the Pats are going to have issues stopping Darren McFadden. Brady will be a handful for the Raiders as well and the team that commits the fewest mistake should take this one. Not a path-breaking theory, but I think it's going to be the case with this one given the Raiders tendency to commit mistakes and penalties. If they stay in their shoes, they have a shot.

Moneyball

I watch my share of movies, but am not a big movie guy. I don't think I have ever been as excited for a movie as I am for Moneyball. The movie is finally out, many years after the book and has actually gotten great reviews. This is the movie about the Oakland Athletics and Billy Beane, my favorite GM in the game. I read the Moneyball book years back and it was definitely a page-turner. I expect this movie to be equally good and hope it doesn't make me cry! I miss those Oakland teams and how good they were with those big 3 - Hudson, Mulder and Zito. They had a small payroll, actually very small. But they also had those pitchers and Eric Chavez, Miguel Tejada and what appeared to be a very sturdy farm system. All of the big 3 and Chavez and Tejada were drafted by the A's and they also had Rich Harden and Joe Blanton coming up. And don't forget closer Houston Street, shortstop Bobby Crosby and outfielder Nick Swisher - all guys homegrown and pretty good. Beane always went out and made some great mid-season trades to rent players for the stretch run. And he would let him walk after the season and accumulate more draft picks for more moneyball picks.

The book explained that strategy among many others. It explained the A's love for walks, OPS and college players. It also explained why they thought high-school prospects are risky, bunts are bad, and defense is over-rated. It all made sense to the A's fans when the book came out because they were witnessing all this in real-time. The team was full of home-grown, young, cheap talent drafted by A's and they were winning big. The book credited all this to A's love for sabermetrics and A's trust in numbers and statistics. It also ridiculed traditional drafting techniques, scouts and old-school GMs and that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Fast forwarding to the here and now, many of those people are taking a lot of pleasure from the troubles Beane and the A's are in. Very surprisingly, all of Beane's magic seems to have evaporated. May be it's bad karma! The A's teams since 2007 have been bad, uninteresting and boring. They have really not even showcased any top, young talent to be stolen by the richer clubs. They seem to bring up young players, but none of them seem to really stick out. There was a lot of hope for their pitchers this year after last year's performance, but they seem to have all taken a step back.

The primary problem for Beane is that the entire league is now into sabermetrics and the Moneyball book is a big reason for this. Between the book and the championship success of the Boston Redsox - another moneyball team, the rest of the league seemed to have followed suit. Billy Beane was not the first or the only one to rely on stats back in the day, but the book promoted him as a genius and popularized the concepts. This has led to all the other teams following suit. Many scouts and GMs are upset with Beane because they were all offended by some of the scenes in the book. The primary criticism of Beane is that he never won anything big - the A's have not even been to the World Series under his watch. The other complaint is that the book (or the movie) doesn't give much credit to the top talent they had - the big 3 pitchers especially. Their point is, the top talent they had were all high on most people's draft boards, with or without moneyball and hence Beane can't take much credit for those. Most of the true "moneyball" picks on the other hand, have not done much in the big league. I used to wonder about that myself as the book spent entire chapters on certain players as if they were surefire diamonds in the rough that the A's and A's alone spotted. But I have not heard of those players at all since then. So the critics say the A's were successful because of Hudson, Zito and Mulder and not because of moneyball or Beane's genius.

As always, the truth is somewhere in-between. To be fair to Beane, he did pick most of those star players and they may not have been entirely moneyball picks, but I am sure Beane followed some of his drafting policies on them as well. Secondly, I think the whole point is how he was winning an unfair game and you can't dismiss all that just because he never won the big one. Boston did win big because they backed up the moneyball numbers with the most important numbers that matter - zeros on the paychecks making up that big payroll. Theo Epstein is also a moneyball guy and Beane actually recommended him when Boston was hiring after Beane turned that job down himself. I wonder if it was a bad decision on the part of Beane to have rejected that offer in retrospect. At that time, the theory was, Beane with those resources will be more scrutinized and will look less like a genius and of course, it was also going to be hard to handle that crazy east coast media and the RedSox pressures. But Theo erased the curse of the bambino and brought a championship to Boston. He will never have to pay for a drink again in Boston. If Beane had won that ring - no guarantee he would have, he would be an even bigger star just because of the name recognition. Epstein was just a kid back then and he earned his stripes with that ring. Beane on the other already had the stripes. The stripes would have only gotten brighter, thicker and deeper. Hope he doesn't regret that decision and end up going to Chicago where they are looking to hire a GM to erase their own curse and Beane is on the shortlist of candidates.

Beane does deserve credit for revolutionizing the game to some extent. He was one of the early adopters of sabermetrics and the moneyball idea has definitely "crossed the chasm" now. It's mainstream to the point the A's can't work the system anymore. Beane in some sense shot himself in the foot with the book and also his success in general. Most of his critics are just bitter and they are being sadistic in enjoying his recent struggles. Moneyball definitely had it's share of good ideas and he deserves credit for it. They have to learn to give the devil it's due. Sure, the book does mock the traditional scouts and the baseball hierarchy - sometimes unnecessarily, but thats just the arrogance that personifies the whole jock and sports culture. Beane is just an ex-jock and his critics should cut him some slack. He is now facing an uphill battle. All of his competitive advantage is gone as richer teams are doing what he is doing, but with a lot of cash that the A's don't have. He has also learned to incorporate more traditional techniques these days as he has realized pure moneyball can't do it alone. Plus, I am not even sure what the Oakland A's want these days as a franchise. They are dealing with stadium issues, potential moves etc. Sometimes I wonder if they are self-destructing for a reason - to force a move or a new stadium or something. That would be sinister, but thats all part of the business of sports. Whatever it is, I wish Beane the best of luck, I hope he stays with Oakland and I expect him to be back with a decent product on the field soon. It's time for him to re-invent himself and if anybody can do it, he sure can.

If Beane leaves the A's, there is always the option of hiring Brad Pitt as their next GM!

Thank the honeymoon

When somebody is new at their job, we always use the term "he is still in his honeymoon period". San Francisco 49'ers coach Jim Harbaugh had a classic honeymoon moment last weekend. The niners were leading and playing really well against the Cowboys when they stalled at about the 37 yard line and settled for a 55 yard field goal with over 11 minutes to go in the game. The kicker nailed it, but the boys committed a penalty - the kind of penalty that would typically be considered back-breaking. These are the penalties that gives life to a stalled offense and drags the defense back on to the field and asks them to now defend an even shorter field. It was a 15 yarder and offered the ball to the Niners offense at the 22 yard line. Harbaugh surprisingly declined the penalty and instead decided to tag it to the kick-off. I was shocked to say the least. Sure, it was a long field goal, but it was a 15 yard penalty. Even if the offense didn't move an inch from there, it would have given the niners a 39 yard field goal, which you would assume is pretty easy to convert in this day and age of HGH enhanced athletes. If it was a 5 yard penalty, it would have been a different story. The worst case scenario would have been a retry on a 50 yard field goal and who knows if the kicker converts again. But he declined a 15 yarder. This decision basically meant Harbaugh had no faith in his offense. The only way this penalty was going to hurt the niners was if the offense either fumbled the ball, threw an interception or got sacked way behind or sacked multiple times and gave it's kicker another long field goal. All things a decent offense and an average QB can avoid.

Bad things can happen and does happen to NFL offenses every Sunday, but you can't play or coach scared. There is a difference between being conservative and being scared and Harbaugh was scared in this case. He was scared to put the ball in his offense and Alex Smith's hands. He was scared that his offensive line was going to screw up. All valid concerns given the talent on that side of the ball, but if you can't accept the ball on their 22- yard line, you have bigger problems. Being conservative or even scared is not going to save your season in that case. To be fair to Harbaugh, Brian Bilick on TV was not sure if he should take the penalty either. The logic was that you don't take points off the board. I am sure there is some unwritten rule somewhere for coaches on this and thats why Bilick was very familiar with it. But Harbaugh followed the rule to the T. The niners went up 24-14 at that point and the Cowboys went onto tie the game and won it in overtime. Interestingly, Harbaugh was scared for his offense and his team losing the game, not for his job. From a job security perspective, it was safer to take the ball back because a turnover then would have been Alex's or Gore's fault and not his. By making this decision, it was all Harbaugh's fault. Thats a level of cunning he doesn't have to resort to in his 2-Nd game as a head coach and hopefully never. But it is also because this is just his second game, that he gets away easy. He better be glad he is still in his honeymoon period because if Mike Singletary or Mike Nolan had done this closer to the end of their coaching tenure, the niner faithful would have roasted them over the coals.

This game also made a hero out of Tony Romo and rightfully so as he came back with a broken rib and played real well to put the boys over the top. He went from goat to a hero just like that and all the toughness questions were erased overnight. Thanks to his honeymoon, Harbaugh is not facing too many tough questions either. The niner faithful is still busy scheming how to get Alex Smith out of town! Across the bay, the Raiders are also dealing with the aftermath of a tough defeat they snatched from the jaws of victory. They let the Bills score in every possession in the second half to the tune of 35 points and lost a game they were dominating in the first half. Jason Campbell played real well even without 3 of his top receivers and his top TE. I don't ever remember the top 4 pass catchers being hurt and out. Good for the Raiders, none of them are that good anyways! They seem to have replaced them rather easily. The Bills and Ryan Fitzpatrick are playing great right now. Next week's Bills-Pats contest should be an high-octane affair and might surprise us just like last week's Bills-Raiders. In Carolina, Cam Newton continues to impress. He threw for more than 400 yards again. I am glad I predicted it will happen again, though I didn't expect it so soon against the world champions. He is hosting the Jaguars this Sunday and Blaine Gabbert is going to start for the Jags. That an interesting storyline for the weekend for sure. Arizona Cardinals lost a tough one on the road, but the overall outlook for the team still looks good. Kolb is doing well and the Rams are not doing great. So the Cards can easily make it to the playoffs if they don't self-destruct.

Overall, the Lions, Redskins and the Bills are looking better than expected and the Rams, Chiefs and the Colts are looking worse than expected. Week 3 will clarify things much more. Bring on week 3!

Tom and Cam define week 1

I don't know what was more ridiculous. Tom Brady throwing for 517 yards or Cam Newton throwing for 422 yards. Where's the defense? What happened to the theory that offenses take longer than defenses to get into the groove, especially coming off a lockout shortened training camp? Brady shredded the Miami defense Monday night and he didn't even need Chad Ochocinco to do anything. It was beautiful to watch Brady throw those pin-point passes that hit his receivers in stride every time. Whether he is making passes at a super model or throwing passes to Wes Welker, I guess Brady knows what he is doing. I don't care how many more rings he accumulates, I will rank Brady second only to Peyton Manning, but I have to say, he is an elite quarterback and he was totally on-point Monday night. This league is definitely becoming more and more QB, offense and pass friendly and I am not complaining. You can't breathe on a quarterback these days and the corner-backs can't do much of what they used to do a decade back. All of that is beginning to show in the numbers. Brady threw for 517 yards and there is talk of him eclipsing Dan Marino's single season record for yardage (5084 yards) this season. Of course both Brady and Manning have already surpassed Marino's single season TD record. Too early for such discussions this season, but with the new NFL, I wouldn't be surprised if Dan the Man loses more of his records. Week 1 featured 5 games where both QBs threw for more than 300 yards. Thats almost 1/3-Rd of the league. Thats not counting Kyle Orton and Matthew Stafford who also threw for 300+ yards in their respective games.

The most surprising QB performance was Cam Newton's 422 yards. The rookie from Auburn was supposed to be so mediocre in year 1 that even a star WR like Steve Smith was barely drafted in most fantasy leagues. Their passing offense was supposed to struggle as Cam was expected to suffer through a steep learning curve despite his amazing physical tools. Coming into the NFL, he didn't look ready, but he showed us last weekend why the Panthers spent their first pick on him though there was some talk of other QBs possibly being more ready for the NFL than him. All last week before the games, most experts picked Cincinnati's Andy Dalton to have a better game than Cam in week 1, but they were not even close to being correct. Cam looked like Michael Vick without the dogs and was throwing long darts all over the field. He also ran for a TD and at 6'5", 248 pounds, this guy is going to be something else if he keeps this up. Of course thats a big question mark because he did all this to the Cardinals defense. I would like to think he is that good and the Cardinals defense is not that bad for selfish reasons, but I am afraid the truth is somewhere in-between and the Cardinals defense might just be that bad. We will know more this weekend as the super bowl champs will try and contain Cam and they should do a much better job than the Cards. It was good that Kolb and the Cards won their first game together, but the story of that game was definitely Cam Newton. Does he have another 400 yarder in him this season? Looking at the league right now, I have to say yes. Either way, I will be watching what he does rest of the way.

Some of the bigger games last weekend gave us some interesting results. The Baltimore Ravens pummeled the Pittsburgh Steelers much to my delight and sent the reigning AFC champion running for cover and searching for answers. Nothing good came out of that game for the Steelers except a new Tomlinism - "There is a fine line between drinking wine and squashing grapes. Obviously last weekend we were grape squashers.” I don't even know what that means, but it sounds so cool! Sunday night game between the NY Jets and the Dallas Cowboys was interesting for just one reason. Both QBs did exactly what their reputation would suggest. Mark Sanchez didn't seem to do much, but he won a big game as always. He should be the most unimpressive QB with the most impressive wins against better QBs. As for Romo, it was the same story as always - great for 3 quarters and major mistakes when it mattered most. QBs always get too much credit or too much blame for victories and defeats. Case in point - Mark Sanchez. He gets a lot of credit though the Jets mostly win despite him, not because of him. But Romo truly lost that game for Dallas. He fumbled at the goal-line once and then threw an interception with less than a minute to go in the game. He forced the ball to Dez Bryant, who was limping and covered by Darrelle Revis, one of the best corners in the world. Sometimes, Romo just gets blamed for the loss, but this time he earned it. I think his problem is simple. He doesn't take ball security in the clutch seriously. He needs a shot of seriousness injected into him in the 4-Th quarter to cure his nonchalance. He has to learn to protect the ball all game, but 10 time more securely in the 4-Th. Lets see how the boys respond against the Niners next week in Jim Harbaugh's second game as the head man in San Francisco.

Crazy, good stuff

We are just 2 weeks in to college football and a game into the NFL and we have already had multiple reminders of why we love our football. Saints-Packers on Thursday was everything you, me and the NFL wanted (times 10) out of the season opener. Drew Brees and Aaron Rodgers put on a show and the Saints almost pushed the game into OT on the very last play. A high-scoring, fun game devoid of offensive mistakes that stayed close till the very last play. Could Roger Goodell have scripted a better season opener to emerge from the lockout? Don't think so. Exciting game, but if I were a fan of either of those teams, I would be a little concerned about the defense. Granted, they were both going against a great QB and good offenses, but it didn't look like they can stop a whole lot of teams. The Saints especially looked really weak on defense as Rodgers did whatever he wanted. I will reserve judgment for another week so that I can see these defenses in action against another team, but neither defense looked to be of Super Bowl quality on Thursday. Thats great news for fantasy owners with Brees on their roster. I think he might have to have an even better season than expected for the Saints to be any good. The fun will continue Sunday with Pittsburgh-Baltimore and Dallas-Jets being the headliners. Philadelphia at Saint Louis and Detroit at Tampa Bay are the other intriguing match-ups. Well, it's week 1. Each and every match-up looks appetizing to me. Everybody is ready to roll. Especially Adrian Peterson and Troy Polamalu - the 2 veteran superstars who were given huge extensions the day before the season.

College football was not a slouch either in it's week 2. ASU started off a fun weekend with an OT win over Missouri on Friday. Great win for Pac-12 and good exposure for ASU as they try to creep up the top-25. Of course it would have been an awful game for ASU if they had lost. They gave up a 14 point lead and almost lost the game in regular time. Luckily, they won it in OT after making it a nail-biting affair. Michigan and Notre Dame played an amazing game like they always seem to do lately. They combined for 3 TDs in the last 2 minutes and Michigan's stud QB Denard Robinson sealed the deal with a TD pass with 2 seconds to go. Tough loss for the domers as they were leading comfortably at one point in this game, which was the first night game at the Big House. It was a great college game between 2 storied programs in an awesome atmosphere. Instant classic in front of 114,00 fans, college football's record crowd. Michigan's rival, Ohio State scraped past Toledo 27-22 and Texas survived BYU 17-16. South Carolina and Georgia played a fun one in Athens as the Ole' ball coach won on the road and added on to Mark Richt's pain. Auburn upset Mississippi state 41-34 in the other marquee SEC match-up. Speaking of the SEC, it continued it's dominance over the Big 10 today as Alabama crushed Penn state and Joe Pa 27-11. Out west, Oregon bounced back from their loss at LSU with a win against Nevada as they dropped 69 points on them. Cal, Stanford and USC, all won their week 2 match-ups as well. USC won the first ever Pac-12 conference game. They beat Utah 23-14. Cal won a good one against Colorado but it was a previously scheduled non-conference game and won't count in the conference standings. Interesting twist.

Aside from the great action on the field, the other big news in college has been the conference re-alignments that has the Big 12 pretty much disintegrating soon. First, Pac-10 added 2 teams including Big-12's Colorado. Now, Texas A&M is trying to bolt to the SEC. Call me a traditionalist, but I don't like too much change in such matters. I miss my Pac-10. I always liked the geographical integrity of our conference. It was all West coast though Arizona is not technically a state on the Pacific coast. Now, thats all gone. I guess Utah and Colorado still qualify as "West coast", at least in the eyes of some East coast honks, but all geographic logic are under threat as the SEC is now getting Texas A&M and Pac-12 might still bring in Oklahoma, though the conference is denying that possibility. Hope we don't end up with Boston College in Pac-16 and the BYU in the SEC in 2015! There is now a threat of a lawsuit and all kinds of rumors in Big-12 and unfortunately, Pac-10 was the initiator of all this confusion. I am still amused that Pac-10 had issues with the almighty dollar because they were nestled away in the West coast with late night games and not so committed fan base in some schools, but they are the ones growing. They were apparently not generating the same revenues as some other football-crazed conferences, but they went and poached from Big-12 instead of the other way around. I guess tradition and the Pac-10 label is still strong enough to help them breakup other conferences, with or without top-of-the-line revenue. Utah and Colorado should help the Pac-12 because it brings 2 entire states on board and those states will tune into football as not much else happens in those hoods. The only good news for the NCAA with regard to re-alignment is that it takes attention away from all the scandals that dominated the college football's off the field newswire. Of course the action on the field is compensating for everything off the field.

Lets get this party started

Today is Christmas day for most sports fans. NFL is back after a tumultuous off-season where we were even threatened that the season may be locked out and we may start losing games. Luckily, better sense prevailed and here we are, on schedule for game 1. The compressed training camp is done, pre-season is all wrapped up, our fantasy teams are all drafted and ready to roll and we are ready for a phenomenal season opening game - Green Bay versus New Orleans. NFL did a lot of things wrong this off-season, but I don't think they could have come up with a better season opener. Even a Green Bay - Chicago matchup, which I am sure they considered given the rivalry and the playoff last year, would not have us all juiced up quite like this matchup. Drew Brees and Aaron Rodgers on the same field is what will remind us of why we love the NFL. Elite QBs make the NFL and these two are as good as it's going to get in the NFL these days, especially since the native New Orleanoian and the sheriff of all QBs, Peyton Manning seems to be in real danger of missing the entire season. I will definitely miss watching Peyton - he is one of my favorite players to watch in the NFL. It will also be interesting to see how the Colts do. Kerry Collins is old, but can surprise you once in a while. Lets see how he does with this cast of characters. Peyton's injury is definitely the biggest news in the NFL right now and rightfully so.

But, tonight is all about the Packers, their ring ceremony and a contest between 2 elite QBs, offenses and teams. They are after all the last 2 Super Bowl Champions and they have not fallen off too much like some Super Bowl rosters tend to do, especially 2 years removed like the Saints. Thats the strength of having a good QB. You can stay on top regardless of what happens around him. In fact, I would give the Packers a great shot at repeating this year. Though that doesn't happen that often anymore, this year could be different. Shorter training camps mean lesser chances of those last to first teams, rags to riches stories. Even if some teams upgraded their talent significantly, they may have problems putting it all together due to the shortened off-season. So good teams with continuity may do even better this year and the Super Bowl champion is obviously on top of that shortlist. Plus, as good as Aaron Rodgers has been so far, he is still getting better. Watch him do some amazing things this season now that he is totally out of drama queen Brett Favre's shadow and has a championship ring of his own. Thats going to remove a lot of his inhibitions and unleash him. Philadelphia seems to boast of a dream team, but thats going to be a Miami Heat story all over again, only with a slightly more likable cast of characters. Not to digress, but how badly did LeBron and Heat screw up if I am saying the Eagles with the dog killer Vick are a slightly more likable bunch?

I see Philadelphia, Atlanta and tonight's opponent New Orleans as Green Bay's primary threats. I like what Kolb brings to my team, the Arizona Cardinals and I am sure they will be good. But not sure if they can make it to that top-tier. In the AFC, I like the Baltimore Ravens and the New England Patriots to be up there and the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New York Jets fighting them for the top spot. Peyton's injury pretty much eliminates the Colts. It's not just the talent that he takes away, but the way that offense is structured, it's all him and without him, even a talented replacement will take a while to figure out what to do. Peyton Manning is the NFL equivalent of "throw the ball into LeBron and get out of the way" strategy. Football is a lot more structured and coached than other sports, but Peyton pretty much is the one exception to that rule. He took a box of chocolates onto the field and picked one out every play and only he knew what and how to pick it. Now Collins will have to learn the bag of tricks and learn it in a hurry. The Houston Texans have been trying to win the AFC South for 3 years now and they may get their wish this season. Unfortunately, even they may not enjoy this tainted victory as much as they would have liked to without the sheriff watching over that division. Long story short, I like a Packers-Patriots Super Bowl with the Packers winning it all.

NFL is king and today is another proof of that fact. Even President Obama had to play around with the timing of his address to the nation because of the NFL season opener. Even the President cannot compete with a nicely thrown Drew Brees spiral. Fantasy football is a major part of the reason for football's popularity and I can't even imagine what would have happened to millions of American males if the lockout had eliminated a couple of weeks of football, let alone the whole season. May be we would have invested all our energies in college football, which is not a bad plan B, but it aint no NFL. The college season always gets us in the mood by kicking off first. Last weekend was fun since it reintroduced us to football after a challenging 7 month period. There were some good upsets as usual and Notre Dame losing is always fun, but the college season doesn't really kick into top gear until week 3 or 4. Arizona State won last weekend, but they are playing one of the few ranked match-ups this week. They are hosting 19-Th ranked Missouri and hope to improve their own 23-Rd rank. Of course I am going with the USA today ranking because thats the only one ASU has broken into. Coincidentally, Arizona will be going against the 9-Th seeded Oklahoma state and let's hope the Wildcats don't surprise us and themselves by pulling off an upset. Whatever happens, we will be watching and we are all collectively happy to be talking, reading and writing about football again.

Welcome back NFL! We sure missed you

600 is the new 300

When it comes to our age, people these days say things like "30 is the new 20" and "60 is the new 10" etc. Some of this is just idle chatter, but some of it does make sense due to changes in our lifestyles, priorities, development in health sciences, and workout habits. This is a good thing. The story is the same with home runs. 600 home runs these days doesn't get you the respect and attention it got 30 years back. This is not a good thing and Jim Thome has the rampant use of steroids and other performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) in baseball over the last 2 decades to thank for it. Thome just hit his 600-Th home run and nobody seem to care. Thome has stayed relatively clean in the eyes of people, but who are we to judge? These guys are all considered guilty until proven innocent because of the extent of the use of PEDs and the spate of shocking revelations over the past several years. It is what it is and I don't blame the fans or the writers for the way they are forced to think on this issue. It's baseball's fault that they never instituted any drug testing for decades.

Writers may take their time debating whether or not Thome belongs in the hall and delay his induction. MLB is exclusively to blame for this predicament. They knew there was a big problem for years and still had their blinders on for a decade or two. Is this fair to Thome? Of course not, assuming he is clean. But he only has his league's management and to some extent, his player's union to blame. Haven't we all been in that situation? Where our managers and our company's executives mismanage everything and end up adversely affecting our careers, earning potential, and the company's bottom-line and future. It's the same with MLB, NFL or the NBA. Baseball's executives and the player's union mishandled the PED issue and underestimated it's importance to the average fan and now, everybody is paying the price. Thome has to deal with the fact that 600 is the new 300. Thome is past his prime and also has a low-key personality and that contributes to his relative anonymity as well. But his feat would have definitely been celebrated way more if not for the specter of PEDs hanging over every baseball feat these days.

On the field, the Diamondbacks are leading the NL West ahead of the World champions Giants and I think the young team has a great shot at holding onto that prime spot through the season. They are different from the Pittsburgh Pirates who have declined rapidly towards the depths of the NL Central standing. The Brewers are on a roll and dominating that division right now. In the AL, the Central is tight as always with the Tigers owning a small lead. The Yankees and the RedSox are all tied up, but both will be in the playoffs - one of them as the wildcard. This is normal for those 2 teams. Few years back, this is when Bob Costas would typically start complaining about how bad an idea the wild card is. That train has long left the station and we don't hear Costas anymore on that topic, but his point is still valid. Yankees and RedSox should be involved in a heated pennant chase right now, but instead, they are humoring us with a mildly amusing and marginally relevant fight for the division. What we get in return for this diluted pennant chase is a whole bunch of teams fighting for the 2 wild card spots every year and a potential Yankees-RedSox ALCS contest. That would be Christmas, New Year and election day all rolled into one for the East Coast media.

Kolb in da house!

The only thing better than football being back in our lives is having a QB back in our team. As a closet Arizona Cardinals fan, I am used to mediocrity and failure more than success and excellence. Kurt Warner changed all that for a couple of years, but then the Cards went back to where they belong once Warner retired. As bad as Matt Leinart was and as much as I hated him, it still was a bad idea to let him go last year just because they had no other option. As soon as the lockout was lifted this week, there was a flurry of activity around the league and I was glad the Cardinals triggered one of the bigger moves right away. They traded Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie and a second-round pick to the Eagles for Kevin Kolb. They then signed him to a 5 year 63 million dollar deal. Big money for a new QB.

Did they pay too much for Kolb? Probably. Is Kolb still unproven for the most part? You bet! But you are nothing without a QB in this league. You might as well stay locked out. And the QBs don't come cheap. You either pay for promise or pay a rookie similar money and wait for a year or two hoping he turns out to be a Sam Bradford and not Alex Smith or Matt Leinart. I would rather pay for promise and somewhat of a known entity like Kolb instead of gambling on a rookie in the draft who has taken just as many NFL snaps as me. It was also important they did this now because Larry Fitzgerald is a free agent next season and there is no way he resigns without a good QB. So I am perfectly fine with this trade and this is one more reason I am looking forward to this NFL season.

The Eagles were involved in the other big splash too. They signed Nnamdi Asomugha as if DRC and Asante Samuel were not enough in that secondary. They now have 3 stud corners and given all that talent on offense, they are now promoted to a title contender status - may be even ahead of the Packers. They just need to take care of DeSean Jackson and they will be a great team this season for sure. The Raiders, the other team I like, are a losers here but they never had a realistic shot at retaining Asomugha anyways. The Patriots are working the phones as always. They got themselves 2 huge gambles and if it works out, watch out for the hoodie. Lets hope Chad Ochocinco and Albert Haynesworth are not a "programmatic non-fits". I absolutely love all this NFL chatter.

Locked out!

It's been more than a month since I blogged. This should be the longest break I have taken in a long time. If you were wondering why, it's because I have been locked out by the NFL and the NBA. Just kidding! But I do have less to talk about like most sports fans these days because of the dual lockout. All we have is baseball right now. The NL beat the AL in the all-star game and it was good to see a bunch of new faces. MLB is going through a changing of guard as well with some of the stars getting older and of course with the steroids removed from the system for the most part, a few stars have disappeared from the horizon as well over the last few years. Now, the second half of the season starts and as always, the playoffs will be fun.

My rooting interests these days are confined to rooting against the Yankees, RedSox and the Giants. Looks like all the teams I like are all doing bad and all the teams I don't are doing good. So I am reduced to a little bit of sadistic hatred. Baseball is interesting, but some divisions are too predictable. It really heats up towards the playoffs and then they get our attention for a month or so. Given the situation now with the NFL, they may even get our undivided attention. While speculation is rife that NFL is close to a resolution, the reality is, it aint over until the fat lady sings. The new CBA should be in place soon, very soon, but the average fan is not too bothered right now. They have no interest in getting into a dispute between millionaire players and billionaire owners.

Fans will be bothered if and only if NFL starts to miss games. Hopefully, it will not happen and this lockout will be a distant memory soon. Fans care even less about the NBA's lockout. NBA is just coming off a great playoffs featuring a great villain in LeBron James. All that goodwill will be lost in no time if the NBA loses games next season. Fans will cut some slack for football because it's so much more part of their lives, but they won't for NBA. The sad part is, the NFL owners are just posturing, but most of the NBA's problems are real. They may have a protracted fight and a real lockout in-season. Thats just all bad news if you are a NBA fans. Let's hope it doesn't happen. But first things first. Lets hope NFL gets unlocked soon.

Everything and more is riding on this game 6

This game 6 of the NBA finals is it! I can't remember a more important, historically relevant, pivotal game in the recent past of the league than this one, Two games come to mind, but even those 2 got to be important in hindsight. I had only a faint idea of the importance of those games before or during the game unlike today. Both involved the LA Lakers and both were Western Conference final games. The first was the Portland Trailblazers' epic 4-Th quarter meltdown in game 7 against the Lakers in 2000. This game had the potential to alter history. This was the year when the Kobe-Shaq championship run started and it wouldn't have if not for the Blazers choking away a comfortable lead in the 4-Th quarter. This Portland team was loaded and arguably more talented than the Lakers with Pippen, Sabonis, Steve Smith and Rasheed Wallace starting and Detlef Schrempf, Bonzi Wells, Brian Grant and a young Jermaine O'Neal coming off the bench. They were championship contenders that year and they would have won it all if they had gotten past the Lakers. That could have potentially started a Blazers dynasty and nipped the Lakers run in the bud. It might have even accelerated the Kobe-Shaq divorce and the NBA might look a lot different now, but the jail-blazers blew it all that day.

The next pivotal game was towards the end of that Lakers three-peat - Kings-Lakers game 7 in 2002. This was the game that followed the infamous game 6, but by losing game 7, Kings lost a golden opportunity to win a championship and start a run of their own. Again, they were legitimate contenders and possibly more talented than their southern Californian counterparts who were coming off a back-to-back championship. But their inexperience in game 7 (and the NBA referees in game 6) accelerated the end of a special era for the Kings. The Sacramento faithful will never forgive the NBA for that game 6. I could add another Western Conference final game to this list - the Suns V Spurs game 4 in the 2007 series where Robert "the devil" Horry hip-checked Nash onto the sideboards and Amare and Diaw got suspended for game 5 due to the ensuing altercation. This changed the whole complexion of the series and my Suns might have lost their only shot at a championship for many years to come. But I still left it off the list because who knows what would have happened in games 5 through 7 even with Amare and Diaw playing in game 5. I would like to think the Suns would have won game 5 and the series, but you never know.

Here comes game 6 tonight in the 2011 NBA finals. The Mavs have 2 shots to win this series, but seriously, would you be willing to put your 5 bucks on the Mavs winning game 7 on the road? I am not. Though if anybody can do it, this Mavs team can. They have the experience and Nowitzki to make that happen. Whoever replaced all of the blood in Nowitzki's veins with ice-cold water from Antarctica should be the MVP of this series. Nowitzki has been unbelievable throughout the playoffs! With all that said, you don't want a game 7 on the road against a team with Wade and LeBron, especially Wade. Thats what makes this game 6 the most important game ever, at least until game 7 that is! If you hated "The Decision", if you think it was stupid to "take my talents to south beach", if you were appalled by LeBron's public dumping of the Cleveland Cavs in favor of the sexier Wade and Miami, if you thought it was disgusting for the big-3 to come out of WWE-style smoke and celebrate even before winning a pre-season game - which even Wade now agrees was stupid, then you absolutely want the Mavs to win game 6. If you are like me and conform to the widely held belief acknowledged even by a whining Wade earlier in the season when he said "the world is a better place, the Heat is losing", then this is the game you want the Heat to lose. You don't want a game 7.

This game is for more than all the marbles as I see it. When he went to Miami, LeBron said "Not 1... Not 2... Not 3... Not 4... Not 5... Not 6... Not 7" referring to the number of championships they might win. This is a distinct possibility if they win their first ring this year itself. That statement sounded preposterous even halfway through the season and I still maintain that they are even lucky to be in the finals in year 1, but it becomes very real if they clinch their first ring right away. Success breeds more success and with this talented group, just their uptick in confidence after a ring this season will be an enormous addition to their repertoire. And more talented veterans will flock to them to win a sham ring and retire as a champion. Once that train starts rolling, it's hard to stop much like the 2000 Lakers. On the flip-side, a defeat tonight (and in this series) puts more self-doubt in the Heat. It might even derail the big-3 and Bosh trade rumors might start sooner than later. It will also give the necessary opening to young teams like the Bulls and the Thunder to grow and challenge the Heat both in the East and in the finals. Thats very important because those teams are almost there, but not quite. I don't think a victory tonight for the Mavs helps them a lot in terms of their future given their age, but who cares anyways! This series is all about the Heat. Nobody cares about the Mavs - we are just rooting for them!

It's amazing how even the markets that have traditionally been Dallas-haters are all pulling for them only because they hate the Heat. And Wade and LeBron's stupid coughing video before game 5 didn't win them any new friends either. There has never been a more polarizing NBA team than these Miami Heat and there is this sense of joy in people when the Heat lose or when LeBron struggles that is almost universal. Never has a superstar gone from most beloved to most hated in such a short-time and that too not because of issues involving sex, hookers or wives. Now LeBron is trying to turn that around and reclaim his most-beloved spot again and it starts with tonight's game. Thats why this game is so important for those on the other side. If you are one of those guys or girls who believes the integrity and the moral fabric of this culture is dependent on LeBron losing, then you want him to lose game 6. Game 7 is too risky and Nowitzki's shoulders are too slender for us to place the weight of the World on it on Tuesday. But that game 7, if it ever happens would be one of the most entertaining and engrossing NBA game in ages. May be since 2002, when the NBA "fixed" game 6 to force the aforementioned game 7 between the Lakers and the Kings. These finals have already been one of the best series and many bet that the NBA wants a game 7 and will get it. Time will tell, and we don't have to wait a long time, just a few hours before this question is answered. I personally want and expect the Mavs to win tonight.

Best of 3

The NBA finals is now down to a best of 3 series. Thats good news for the Dallas fans since the Mavs won game 4 to tie things up. But the bad news is, they got to play 2 of the 3 in Miami. Not the toughest place to play, but these are still finals games on the road and are no joke. May be the Mavs look for some poetic justice here. In 2006, they chocked away the home court to Wade and the Heat. They came from ahead to lose after a 2-0 start to the series. May be now, they win it all in Miami on Wade's home court and erase some bad memories. They had a lot of complaints back then about some serious home-cooking served by the referees to D-Wade. Dallas thought they couldn't even breathe on Wade without being whistled for a foul that entire series. Some agreed that it was the best treatment a superstar got from the NBA officials since MJ retired. The scary part for Dallas is that Wade has really stepped up his game lately in these Finals. And going back to Miami, he will be a load to handle in those games 6 and 7. Mavs better be prepared.

As Wade asserts his influence on his team and this series, LeBron has faded into the background and almost the oblivion in game 4. 8 points in game 4 is not king-like for sure. He is getting a lot of attention in the media and also some trash-talking from DeShawn Stevenson. I don't know why DeShawn is yapping and adding fuel to LeBron's fire. He did the same back in his Washington days and is now compensating for his boss Mark Cuban, who has surprisingly gone quiet this playoffs. Now the media is talking about this game 5 as being the biggest game of LeBron's career. He is expected to come out firing on all cylinders. Honestly, I find all this criticism a little over the top. Granted, the standards for LeBron are high, but isn't this the whole point of becoming the "big 3", so that one of them can afford to have nights like this? Especially when the other 2 are going great like Wade and Bosh were in game 4 - Wade had 32 and Bosh had 24. This is not the same as LeBron scoring 8 for a Cleveland team where he was the only scorer.

Actually, I expected a lot of such nights for LeBron with the Heat. I thought LeBron would be their best player all-around, but Wade would be the premier scorer for them. It turns out that I under-estimated LeBron's effectiveness as a scorer. He surprised me by becoming option number 1 for the Heat throughout the season and leading them in scoring by more than a point over Wade - known as a more prolific scorer. I guess he raised the bar higher for himself by being such a consistent scorer throughout the season and this is not the time to be dropping just 8 points! It would be interesting to see how he responds. The media is putting all sorts of pressure on him, but Wade has got it going right now and the last thing LeBron should try and do is hog the ball to save his image. This game 5 might very well be decided on how Miami and LeBron react to these criticisms. As for Nowitzki, he will be there for Dallas in game 5 - sick or not, fever or not. And he will be very interested in finding out which LeBron shows up just like us. This finals just keeps getting better!

Dallas needs to heat up and Sabean needs to chill!

If you are a Dallas Mavericks fan, I don't know if there's a more hated and frightening athlete than Dwyane Wade. After owning the Mavs completely during the 2006 finals, Wade is again putting on a show in these finals. Wade and LeBron have been sharing the leadership role and the limelight throughout the season for the Miami Heat. But it became more and more LeBron's team as the season progressed and he was impressive during the earlier round of the playoffs. Now, it's almost like Dwayne Wade telling him "step aside son. These are the finals and I got this". I don't know if it's because it's the finals, a stage more comfortable for Wade than to LeBron or is it because it's the Dallas Mavericks, but Wade is dominating right now. Mavs fan would kill him if they could. He won game 2 pretty much on his own. Nowitzki did all he could, but Wade has got much more help around him and the talent once again showed. On some days, Heat just have too much talent on offense and that's all they need. Can you imagine double teaming Wade only to see the ball goto LeBron James? As if that's not enough to give a defense nightmares, LeBron can then swing the ball to Bosh if he gets closed out. Bosh is a terrific offensive talent himself and he is option number 3 on this team. This scenario played out exactly like this towards the end of game 2 and Bosh nailed an important bucket. Nowitzki kept the Mavs rolling all by himself, but fell one makable jump-shot short.

The series is at 2-1 in favor of the Heat and I would be stating the obvious if I mention that the momentum is on their side now. They won home court back and they now know that the series will go back to Miami. So they won't get eliminated on the road and Dallas has to win 1, if not 2 at Miami. One is hard, but doable. 2 is almost impossible considering that it also mens they will have to win game 7 on the road. The win in game 2 no doubt makes Miami the favorites now, but these 2 teams are so close! This has really been a great and competitive finals and it will continue to stay that way. Both game 2 and 3 were decided by 2 points and it's hard to say which team is better and by how much. Miami is clearly the more talented team, but they have enough weaknesses too. So Dallas clearly has a shot and they have to focus on winning games 4 and 5 at home. The games in Miami will be difficult but then again, who said winning a NBA championship is easy? Nowitzki better stay ready to continue his brilliant run. He needs help and Jason Terry better give it to him starting tomorrow. This series will be difficult for Dallas without a solid contribution from Terry. Kidd, Barea, Marion and Chandler can help too, but it's been Terry sharing the load at the offensive end for several years now, he can't disappear now. Dirk needs him and if his threes start falling, this will be a different series altogether. Miami is shooting the long ball better than Dallas right now and that's not a winning blueprint for Dallas. They need to shoot the 3-ball better and it starts with Terry. Otherwise, the only interesting discussion coming out of these finals would be who is better and more important for the Heat - Wade or LeBron? Many pundits are leaning towards Wade these days.

In other sports news not related to the NBA finals, Shaq retired. He will be missed. I was not a big fan of his game nor his teams, especially the Lakers, but I was a big fan of his quotes. The best might have been "“Our offense is like the Pythagorean Theorem. There is no answer.” He was truly funny. He had a unique personality and sense of humor. He was dominant on the court and charming off it. He really had a shot at winning more than 4 rings, but 4 is his final tally. Hard to call him an under-achiever, but he was to some extent given his enormous physical tools. I am sure he will be on TV soon. I wonder if he unseats Barkley as the most edgy and funny personality on sports TV. It may be real fun to see them both in the same studio booth. In MLB, I was surprised by the vitriolic reaction of San Francisco's GM Brian Sabean to Scott Cousins plowing into Buster Posey at the plate and ending his season. I know the Giants need Buster and Sabean is just sticking up for his guy, but for him to say he wouldn't mind if Scott Cousins never played another game again was too hateful and classless. First of all, Cousins did nothing wrong. May be the MLB needs to do more to protect the catchers and eliminate those collisions, but thats unfortunately part of the game today and has been going on for 100 years! Cousins didn't do anything that hundreds and thousands of baseball players before him didn't do. There are some idiots in rec-league softball who try to level the catcher! So chill out Sabes, I always thought he had an "holier than thou" attitude and he took that to a whole another level with this stupid interview. I am glad he is getting reprimanded and is forced to apologize for his idiocy.

Mavericks sitting pretty

They always say you learn more from your losses than your victories and I was counting on that when Dallas lost game 1 at Miami. For some reason, I felt like it was a good thing for the Mavs. Dallas has this vibe of a veteran, mature team that learns and adjusts game to game. They also have the depth to switch things up and Rick Carlisle is a thinking man's coach. He is not headed to the hall of fame yet, but I consider him to be under-rated. Also, game 1 was on the road and the Heat are a young team prone to letting things get to their head and can act immature at times. I think both Wade and LeBron still have these youthful tendencies and that shows from time to time. They don't possess the killer instinct of a Kobe or a MJ and don't effectively step on the throat of the opponent when the opportunity presents itself. All this led to my belief that the Mavs are going to be fine after the game 1 loss and even be better for it. I thought they will learn from it, adjust, and come out with a more aggressive game plan for game 2.

Of course, all my theories looked shaky when the Mavs were trailing by 15 with around 6 minutes to go in game 2. This is a close series between 2 equally matched teams and the Mavs were doing very well in the first half. But then the Heat went on one of it's runs and the Mavs suddenly were staring at a 15 point deficit and some early celebrations from the Heat. Here is the amazing thing about this Dallas team and Nowitzki. They never give up. They have supreme confidence and never panic. They did to the Heat what they did to the Thunder earlier in the playoffs. They focussed a little more on the defensive end, unleashed Nowitzki on the offensive end and chipped away at the lead. Next thing you know, the lead was gone and the Heat didn't know what to do. When LeBron and Wade start hoisting long 3's, you know you have a shot at winning. They have become decent long-range shooters, but still thats not their game. As a defense, thats exactly what you want them to do. LeBron has been making more of these shots in the clutch than in the past, but still he is "settling" anytime he attempts those and we saw a few of those in that 4-Th quarter of game 2.

Mavs finally outdid themselves when Nowitzki kept scoring and killed the Heat down the stretch. At least they needed overtime during their comeback against the Thunder, but Nowitzki finished things in regulation here. May be it was the Heat's premature celebration that fueled this run. Whatever it was, it wasn't pretty for the Miami Heat or it's big 3. Jason Terry did his best to give the Heat a shot at redemption when he left a 3-point shooter wide-open, but Nowitzki erased that mistake in a hurry at the other end. It was either that or he was going to erase Jason Terry off the face of the Earth after the game! Thats how angry he was after Terry's defensive brain-cramp. Reminded me of Nowitzki publicly yelling at Terry after Nash nailed a 3 to tie a playoff game for the Suns back in 2005. But Nowitzki is a lot more mature these days. He didn't show any emotion on the court, but apparently was hot in the huddle during the timeout. Terry seems like a good guy, but it's funny how he always finds himself in the middle of something interesting.

Now the series goes to Dallas for 3 straight games. It has traditionally been hard for teams to win all of those 3 middle games. The reason for that is very simple. It's just hard to beat a good team 3 times in a row and more often than not, good teams make it to the NBA finals. It can happen if there's a big talent differential between the 2 contending teams. But thats not the case here. So I expect Miami to steal one game out of the 3. Then the series becomes even more interesting and Miami would have won home court back at that point. Thats when home court is truly relevant because game 6 and 7 would be at home and it's almost impossible to win game 7 on the road. If anybody can, it's this Dallas team with the experience and depth. Still if I were Dallas, I wouldn't want to "take my talents to South Beach" for that game 7 on the road. So this is basically a 4 game series for Dallas now where they have to win 3. Doable for sure and thats why that game 2 win was big. But game 3 is also equally big. If Heat comes back and wins game 3, momentum is right back on their side and probably will never return to Dallas again. But if the Mavs win game 3, then the pressure builds on the Heat and Dallas can really work it.

When it's all said and done, I think Dallas takes it in 6.

Cuban or LeBron

The NBA finals that most people did not expect and I personally did not want is here. Either LeBron James or Mark Cuban - two of the most polarizing figures in all of sports, will win their first championship. Of course, Nowitzki, Kidd, Marion, Bosh and a bunch of others are also in line for their first ring. But those kids are not as polarizing as the two principals in this contest. In fact, I personally don't mind some of them winning a ring and would actually like them to. Case in point, Kidd and Marion. I would be happy for those 2 if they win. Nowitzki is not too "hatable" either. My only regret about him winning a ring would be that he would have it before his buddy Steve Nash, who the Mavs and the Cubans let go. This ring will never vindicate that stupid move, but some people in the media and Cuban would try to spin it that way. Being a Suns fan, it's really the Nash angle that makes me hate on the Dallas in this context. Otherwise, they are definitely the team to root for in the finals for all of us who didn't appreciate the big-3 coming together and LeBron dumping Cleveland through the "decision".

The Nash-Dallas discussion is very nuanced and I feel compelled to get into before these finals. First and foremost, shame on Robert Sarver and the Suns management that the Suns have still not even made it to the Finals with Nash. It's not Nash's fault that Cuban and Nowitzki have gotten to the finals twice without Nash while the Suns management has just refused to invest and improve the team. In fact, by letting a blue chip talent like Amare walk last off-season, they have made sure Nash will probably not win a championship, at least not with the Suns. When Nash first moved to the Suns, they were better than the Mavs and then the tide turned when the Suns ownership stopped feeding the beast - the core of that great 2004 Suns team. Cuban on the other hand has not showered money like he used to when he originally bought the Mavs, but he has definitely tried to improve the team and has spent the money when and where required. This has kept Nowitzki well-fed with solid talent all around. It's ridiculous how deep this Dallas roster is.

Secondly, when Cuban traded for Kidd, it was an implicit acceptance that the Nash decision was a mistake and that he had to go back to a legitimate assist machine in the form of Jason Kidd. Granted, you could argue that Kidd is a better defender than Nash, but that was not the driver in Cuban getting him. The Dallas system and Nowitzki needed a legitimate point guard and Cuban made a mistake by letting Nash go and he made it right by getting Kidd back. Last but not the least, one could even argue that the Mavs could have done better with Nash and the rest of that roster Cuban has built over the last 6 years. The catch this year was Chandler anyways! So who knows where Cuban and Nowitzki could have been with Nash around them. So given all these dimensions, it would be hard for me to digest a Dallas championship. There is a little sadist in every one of us that doesn't want to see certain teams and athletes win, especially their first championship. I hate the Lakers but I was counting on them to beat the Heat even if the Heat got past everybody else. It was so much more important to stop the first championship for the Heat than to stop the 6-Th for the hated Kobe and the Lakers.

Now that we are stuck with this finals match-up, who do I root for and who do I think will win? After all the drama of the last off-season and the totally unexpected gang-up of 3 of the most sought-after free agents of the 2010 class, I just cannot bring myself to root for the Miami Heat. They signify everything thats bad about the way free agency in the NBA should be managed. Granted, they came together to win, but this is just not the way to do it. And if they win this year in their first season together, it's just too easy! I can't even imagine how arrogant these guys will be next year if they win it this year after all the drama and losing streaks. I still maintain they are not championship material. LeBron is, but the Heat as a team are not. They are just catching the league on a down year when the Celtics and the Lakers have both mysteriously took a step back while the Bulls and the Thunder are on the way up, but not all the way up there yet. So I don't want them to win. Do they have a shot? Of course they do. With LeBron and that defense they play, I can totally see them winning it all. But the Dallas Mavericks are slightly better and Nowitzki is balling out of his mind. So the Mavs will hoist the Larry O'Brien trophy. I also want them to win, I think.

Bad Guys 3, Good Guys 1

The teams that I don't like and don't want to see win the NBA championship are both leading their respective series 3-1. I am part of the group that doesn't want to see the Heat win. It is indeed a "have" versus "have-not" bias plus the whole anti "Decision" sentiment, but the reality is, the Heat are not even that good. I feel like they are catching the NBA during a proverbial "down" year and are doing really well to take advantage of it. At one point, it seemed like they had no shot at winning it all. But then the Celtics self-destructed by trading away Perkins for younger pieces. Great job Danny Ainge! All that KG, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen really needed in their mid 30's is an in-season rebuild of a championship caliber team! Not only did the Celtics give up size and toughness with that trade, it also completely ruined their chemistry and derailed a good looking season. So after Aingle removed the Celtics from the path of the Heat, all that was left was a young and upcoming Bulls team in the East. The Bulls are playing great and Derrick Rose is insanely talented, but that whole operation is inexperienced and immature. Their future looks bright and all they need is another offensive piece, but they clearly can't handle the pressure of an Eastern conference finals yet.

Ironically, this assessment of inexperience should have been true for the Heat themselves - a brand new team with 3 superstar pieces figuring out how to play each other under an young, inexperienced coach. But the Heat have a couple of things the Bulls don't. One, they have 3 stud offensive pieces as opposed to just one for the Bulls. Secondly, LeBron and Wade have experienced this stage and beyond individually, if not as a team. You can clearly see that they are a lot more comfortable than Rose at the end of games. Rose is still learning these playoffs and the rest of the Bulls team is of no help sometimes. They are neither talented nor experienced. The Heat on the other hand are better off on both accounts. The only issue was, they were supposed to take a year or two to build chemistry. But it seems like a championship is within their grasp right here, right now. The only thing worse than these 3 dudes winning a championship is them winning it right now in year 1. That makes LeBron's predication of 6 or 7 championships realistic. Thanks to Ainge and the total collapse of the Fakers, they can smell the trophy. The only thing on their way now are the Dallas Mavericks - the traditionally soft and under-acieving Mavs.

Unlike the Heat, the Mavs are legitimately good, but they are also benefitting from the inexperience of their talented, but young opponent in the Thunder. The Thunder gave the game away yesterday after leading by 15 with 5 minutes to go. It's the type of defeat that can crush a team for a couple of years! Nowitzki has been unbelievable in this series and the playoffs. Durant's game is very similar to his, but Nowitzki's experience is now trumping Durant's youth. The Mavs are a collection of old, talented and decent dudes that we can get behind, but I just can't because of the fact that they are one of Suns' major rivals and I don't want them winning a championship while Nash is languishing at home. It would legitimize Cuban's stupid decision with Nash and thats why me and most Suns fans have a huge problem with the Mavs winning. But they will be the favorites against the Heat and they may be the lesser of the 2 evil. Nowitzki sure is playing like he deserves a championship and those 4-Th quarter shots he made in game 4 against some good defense were unbelievable. We live in a "what have you done for me lately" culture and hence feel like this playoff performance by Nowitzki is one of the best ever. I am sure many legends including MJ and even Kobe and Shaq over the last 10 years have had runs like this that is not fresh in our memory. But I can't remember a stretch where a defender gets appreciated for great D on a superstar like Nick Collison is right now, but still get torched routinely for 40 points on 60% shooting! Thats how good Nowitzki has been this series - unstoppable with or without good defense.

Time to mentally get ready for a Mavs-Heat finals. The Mavs have home court this round and there is no way the Thunder win all 3 remaining games with 2 of them at Dallas. At least the Bulls have 2 of the 3 at home. So I sill have some hopes for Da Bulls.

Roller Coaster

The Eastern conference finals in the NBA is tied at 1-1 while Dallas just went up 2-1 in the West. The road team won the 2-Nd game in both the series to even things up and "steal home court". I didn't think any home court was really stolen since both these series are going to see a few more road wins. The teams are too close and they are not mature or strong enough to take all home games. So the home court in either of these series is going to be helpful only in game 7. Until then, I expect a roller coaster ride in coasts. As if to prove my point, Dallas went into OKC and took game 3 away. Where's the home court now? The experts will now start talking about how pivotal game 4, and then 5, and then 6 are. Of course, game 7 will be in Dallas and I can't see how the young OKC team will win that if it gets that far, which I think it will.

The Durant-Nowitzki matchup is real fun, but the defense in the Bulls-Heat series suggests that one of those 2 teams will hoist the championship trophy when it's all said and done. The Heat do look and feel like a championship caliber team right now. The way they play defense just adds to their 2 great individual talents and makes them very formidable. Bulls play equally good defense, but they don't have a LeBron or Wade to shoulder the offensive load. If the game is close, they need a flawless 4-Th quarter from D-Rose to win the game and thats going to be hard against the Heat defense. They need Boozer to step up to ease some of the pressure on the offense. If Udonis Haslem starts playing like it's 2007 again, the Bulls might be in trouble unless Boozer neutralizes him and then gives them some more. I think the Bulls have decent talent, but not the experience.

In the West, Nowitzki won the first game 48-40 against Durant. These 2 guys are just awesome to watch. Nowitzki's shooting in this series has been amazing so far, except for the first 3 quarters of game 3. And that dunk by Durant in game 2 deserves to be you-tubed if you have not seen it yet. Scott Brooks put Westbrook on the bench and won game 2 with his subs and Durant. Thats a talented bench he got there and my man James Harden is bringing it. That guy can ball and is not intimidated by the setting at all. Brooks needs Westbrook in this series, but Westbrook needs to scale down his shooting, which is easier said than done. He got Durant, he doesn't have to shoot every-time down the floor. The problem with OKC is that they are still young and inexperienced and it shows. There were a couple of 3-point attempts late in game 3 that made you scratch your head. One was by Westbrook and another by Daequan Cook which were both horrible shots to begin with. But they were both not even close and that says a lot about the way these kids are handling this stage. Unfortunately, experience can't be taught and you can only hope these guys will relax, settle down, slow down and make better decisions.

But the story of the series so far has been Nowitzki's shooting. The dude is unbelievable. This year has been a MVP type season for him and the proof was in those games he missed during the regular season. Mavs lost most of those games and looked like the Clippers. Too bad the voters will never give him a MVP ever again because of what happened in 2007 when he won the MVP and the Mavs exited in the first round of the playoffs. Since then, he and the Mavs have never been able to shake the "soft" image. But there is nothing soft about Nowitzki right now. He is dominating and carrying the Mavs all by himself. Even in game 3, when he didn't shoot that well, he made all the clutch shots in the 4-Th quarter just as OKC nudged back within 6. If you are an OKC fan, Nowitzki's jumper is the scariest thing for you in the World right now even after a 7 of 21 shooting night in game 3. Durant didn't shoot any better in game 3 and that has to change if the Thunder wants to win this series. They also need to give the ball to the Sun Devil Harden a little bit more.

New Boyz

The NBA playoffs look and feel different right now. Except for Dallas, the other 3 surviving teams are new and young outfits. Seeing LeBron there seems very familiar, but he is now wearing a new jersey. Thunder and the Bulls are young and these 3 teams are all going to be around for a while. They might have replaced the likes of Spurs, Lakers and the Celtics. It would be great to see a Thunder-Bulls finals signaling a new beginning in the NBA. I am not sure about the TV ratings of such a series, but these 2 teams aint bad at all. I am definitely in the anti-Heat camp and am pulling for the Bulls all the way. I want them to win and I think they will win. They took care of game 1 rather easily, but their maturity will be tested in game 2. The Heat are still a collection of 2 superstars and one star whereas the Bulls are a real team. Whatever it is, I want the Heat to lose. I have always been a Laker-hater and this was the year I thought I would rather have them win instead of the Heat. But just when I needed them, the Lakers let me down and got eliminated a round or 2 earlier than expected.

Phil Jackson and the LA Lakers were swept in shocking fashion by the Dallas Mavericks of all teams. I don’t know how many people picked this upset, but if somebody claims they called this, the odds are, they are probably lying. The Mavericks are perennial softies who do a lot of great things during the NBA regular season, but are usually guaranteed to under-achieve when it matters the most. The Lakers on the other hand are the 2 time defending champions with a lot of skill, size and playoff moxie. They under-achieve during the fall months and are usually unstoppable in the playoffs. They turn on the proverbial switch when they want to and then they turn the lights off on their playoff opponents. This looked like a mismatch on paper, but little did we know it was mismatch going the other way!

These 2 teams have been perennial contenders and playoff regulars, but for some reason, they have never met in the playoffs after 25 long years. The Mavericks slept through the entire 90’s, but I find it hard to believe that they never ran into the Lakers during the Nowitzki era. That’s some strange luck of the draw. The Western conference has featured some heated and stable rivalries over the last 10+ years in this whole Kobe, Duncan, Nash, Nowitzki era – Suns-Spurs, Suns-Lakers, Spurs-Lakers, Spurs-Mavs, Suns-Mavs and even Utah-Lakers. For some reason, the Mavs had never met the Lakers in this era and now I wish they had met them every year. The Mavs ripped the Lakers’ hearts out and stomped on it. The Lakers have way too much talent for then to let this happen to them. You had to wonder sometimes where was Kobe?

Kobe is on the downward slope of the career and this is the year the slide officially starts. He is still awesome, but you can feel a slip. The first stage of the slip manifests itself as follows. The athlete will still dominate with all the talent in the World, but he or she can’t do it as consistently as they used to. Kobe is exactly there now. It’s hard to see him play and pinpoint exactly what he is lacking or what is it that he used to do that he can’t anymore. But he just can’t do all the things he used to (and still can) for 48 minutes on a day-to-day basis. He is Kobe for stretches of the game and Latrell Sprewell for the rest. I was shocked when Steve Kerr casually mentioned in an interview that Kobe is not a superstar anymore, but he is still a star. That’s what a sweep will do to you.

In any case, the playoffs are not about the Lakers anymore. I can only hope the Thunder and the Bulls prevent the Mavs and the Heat from winning

Lakers may be winning 2 series

The Lakers are winning their series against the Hornets 3-2. It's following a known pattern as the Lakers first lost home court and then seized it back. Then the home teams have won 2 "must-win" games. CP3 was awesome in game 4. This playoff series has been a comeback tour for CP3. The last couple of years, he has taken a step back for some unexplainable reason - both him and the Hornets after looking like the team of the future in 2008 when they extended the Spurs to 7 games. He was not super-dominant through the regular season either and the season of course started with him demanding a trade. He should have been the consistent league leader in assists the last couple of seasons, taking over from MP3 Steve Nash, but Nash is still the top dime-dropper. Paul is a distant 4-Th. But this playoffs have given him the stage to excel and boy did he do that in game 4! Of course the series came back to LA and Kobe dropped a couple of rim-rattling dunks. Now the Hornets may win game 6 and lose in 7 or I would not be surprised if the Lakers finish things off in 6 as well. Thats typically how the NBA cookie crumbles.

There has been a couple of odd cookies in this playoffs so far as well. While I expected the Celts to win, the sweep was surprising even with the Knicks injuries. Of course the Bulls win should have surprised nobody. The Heat and the Thunder are doing good as well while the Mavs and the Blazers are involved in a street fight. The odd-ball surprise is the continued trouble the Spurs are in against the upstart Grizzlies. While the Spurs have been fading fast late in the season, home cooking during the playoffs is supposed to cure a lot of ills. But it seems like they are going to suffer the ignominy of losing to the 8-Th seed in the first round. Those upsets are few and far between and the Spurs are the last team I would expect to suffer through that. They still have 2 home games, but they have to win all 3 games to avoid the upset. Looks like Zach Randolph is going to have the last laugh and may be come up with a Dikembe Mutombo type moment after the upset. Or may be he may just light up a joint right there on the court after the win!

The other upset could be the Hawks over the Magic. This is another series where the real winners might actually be the LA Lakers! In the rich get richer World that the Lakers typically live in, there is already rampant speculation that Dwight Howard will bolt the Magic and end up with the Lakers. That would be the perfect, late-career side-kick for Kobe and possibly a great future focal point for the Lakers once Kobe fades away, though I am still not entirely sold on Howard. A defeat in this series will only push Dwight Howard away from the Magic in a hurry, if not towards the Lakers. Of course, my favorite coach Stan Van Gundy will probably lose his job too, but Howard is clearly the bigger piece here. The Hawks are honestly going nowhere, but they may take the Magic down with them. The Magic fans would be really disappointed if they lose Howard to the Lakers after losing Shaq to them many moons ago. But thats exactly how the media is drawing this up. Not sure if the Lakers want him that bad or if thats what Dwight Howard is dreaming about, but the media is actively brokering this marriage. And a first round playoff exit for the Magic will be the perfect engagement gift.

Playoffs for real

The NBA playoffs often has a very predictable cadence and rhythm to it. This is primarily because these series are all 7 games long and more often than not, the better team always comes out on top in a 7-game series. Sure, we always say the playoffs are all about match-ups. But the better team can usually overcome a couple of match-up issues and they will win at the end. The longer series is really fair - given the long, grueling regular season that is the NBA. You don't want a fluke victory to decide the champion after such a long regular season. So demanding the teams to show consistency over a 7-gamer makes perfect sense, though the sudden-death elimination format is really fun and we totally enjoy that in the NCAA tournament and even the NFL. The NBA playoffs are a lot of fun, but you can predict certain games at certain points in this 7-game series rather easily.

For instance, most people probably knew the Lakers are going to win game 2. No team, especially a good one like the Lakers, will lose game 2 at home against a 7-Th seed in the playoffs to go down 0-2. You may ask how did they lose game 1? That would be a great question and Chris Paul is the short answer. But once that game went down, you knew for a fact the Lakers are going to seal game 2. Lakers won't lose in round 1, but even if they do, the Hornets have to beat them in 6 or 7 games and that game 2 belonged to the Lakers. This is what I mean by "predictable cadence" to the playoffs. The only unpredictable part of that game was the dominance of Bynum. He led the Lakers in both points and boards and that may be the best news for the Laker-fan. Health is really wealth with this dude.

The same formula worked for the Spurs-Grizz as Ginobli returned and the Spurs tied the series up. The Spurs are probably more in trouble than the Lakers. They have been visibly aging and fading towards the end of the season much like the Celtics and they may lose the series against a lively Memphis team, but it's not going to be easy for the Grizzlies. It's amazing what this team has done without Rudy Gay, but it's going to end in 7 games against the Spurs. It's funny that the first and second seeds are tied 1-1 in the West while the 3-Rd and 4-Th seeds seem comfortably placed. Of course, I like the saying the series doesn't start until a road team has won. So the Thunder and the Mavs can't get too complacent.

In the East, Celtics - the other old team, has survived the 2 home games. They are up 2-0, but not an impressive showing at all. Carmelo did anything he wanted against the Celtics except win. Now he goes back home and the Knicks should win at least a game. It will be hard for them to win the series without a healthy Amare and Chauncey, but it will be interesting to see how efficient the Celtics are against this team. The top 3 seeds in the East are all up 2-0 and my prediction for a superior Eastern conference playoffs might be happening in the next round. Bulls are going to be hard to deal with, but who better to challenge them than the talented Heat and the veteran Celtics? Of course playing the Pacers in the first round is not going to prepare the Bulls for the real playoffs. Who let the 37-45 Pacers into the big dance? The bottom of the East is still the L-East.

The Phoenix Suns are 3 games better than the Pacers and they have been eliminated from the playoffs for a while in the West. They lost interest and motivation and lost a few more games and are still better than a couple of playoffs team in the L-East. I guess thats how the cookie crumbles. Thanks to the horrible management of Mr. Sarver, Nash is at home while his arch nemesis Mavs are as good as ever and his old coach and running mate are also playoff bound in New York. What a feel good story for Nash and his fans. Speaking of running mates and a "predictable cadence", I expected a loss or two early for Wade and LeBron in this, their first playoff run as a team. But their first round opponent, Philly, is so horrible that the losses have not happened yet. Then again, a word of caution for these 2-0 teams - playoff series really begins only when a team loses a home game.