Unanimous!

Stephen Curry has impeccable timing and a flair for the dramatic. He had one week for the ages. He came back from his injury on Monday and after looking rusty through the game, just took over and dominated the overtime to the tune of 17 points in 5 minutes. That flurry clinched game 4 for the Warriors and hence the series. They sure could not have won that game without Curry. Van Gundy was wondering during the previous game if Curry and Dame were just about the same and I guess he got his answer. Seventeen points in 5 mins became the biggest news in sports right in time for his MVP coronation the next day. The voting ends with the regular season - it's the regular season MVP after all, and nothing would have changed, but we might have heard some murmurs about Curry's MVP'ness if he was still injured and the dubs were doing well without him when the announcement came out. How valuable can he be for the league if his own team barely misses him? It's not a fair question because this is one of the deepest and versatile teams in the league and it's a credit to that team that they can manage without him. But some talking heads are stupid enough to misconstrue this playoff run as proof that Curry is not all that he is made out to be. Curry put an end to all that talk even before it started by showing up, setting a historic OT record, and totally showing the world what he can do even when rusty.

Even Charles Barkley on TNT was left speechless. He bumped this Curry performance over LeBron's 29 out of the last 30 points against the Pistons in the 2007 playoffs. I saw both live on TV and I have to say, despite me being a bigger fan of Curry than LeBron at this point and any possible recency bias, I have to give a slight edge to the 22-year old LeBron's performance in 2007. May be I am spoiled by the 15 to 20 point scoring binges Curry and even Klay routinely go on with this dubs team. Regardless of how we rank these, we are lucky to be watching these exemplary performances. I do have to say it's easier to enjoy this type of greatness when we support the team and the player or at least are neutral and have no dog in the fight. I can't even imagine how the Portland fans felt when Curry went that crazy! I guess owner Paul Allen's expression said it all. Blazers did fight all the way to the bitter end as it took another awesome dagger 3 by Curry at the end to wrap up game 5 at home. He did it on the night he was presented with the MVP in front of the home fans. It was an unanimous MVP award and deservingly so.

There were a few murmurs about the unanimity of his selection. Tracy McGrady somehow took that as a sign that the league's talent is watered down. League's talent level fluctuates. Of course when Michael Jordan was playing, the peak was at it's highest and then when he retired, the peak dropped. But then again the depth of top talent might be a different story to analyze.  I don't know if I have all this calibrated except to say MJ was the best ever, and neither has Tracy McGrady. There is a little bit of a dip in the talent right now as LeBron, Wade, and Carmelo are beginning to slow down and Kobe and Tim Duncan are completely done. The younger ones like Dame Lillard, Wiggins, KAT, and Anthony Davis are barely developing. There is still ample talent in it's prime and Durant and Westbrook come to mind along with LeBron. But Curry is the best of the best right now and there can be no argument against his unanimous selection. It's not his problem that some nut-job reporter or 2 in the past years screwed up unanimous selections of Shaq and others. All we can say now is, Curry's unanimous selection is well deserved. He led the league in scoring, which is the primary MVP stat, and also steals per game. The team won a record-setting 73 games.

Playing for the best team - check. Best player in the best team - check. Best player in the league right now - check. Most exciting player in the league - check. A ridiculous, record-setting 405 3-pointers in a season - check. Thats an unanimous MVP to me. Not sure what more TMac wants. LeBron then came out and said a few things about the differences between the best player in the league and the MVP of the team, etc. I was a little confused and I am not even sure if he was dissing Curry, but these things are always going to be misconstrued and it is being interpreted as anti-Curry, at least in the Bay. There seems to be some resentment of Curry's accolades among players and ex-players and it's hard to understand. MVP votes are cast by the writers. They are a key stake-holder and so are the players, coaches, and fans. Each group has their own perspective and we have to respect them all. But I do think the player's perspective is too skewed in favor of athleticism, one-on-one skills, and individual scoring ability. Curry is not the raw athlete that these players are used to looking up to. The players are good in judging things like the dunk contests and I am happy they are not voting for the MVP. No wonder they voted for James Harden - a player who doesn't even try to play defense, over Curry in their poll last year. The coaches' and even the writers' perspective works better for awards like the MVP and the writers unanimously picked the right one this time.

All this doubting and chatter make it doubly important for the dubs to win it all this year to legitimize Curry's awards as well as the 73-win record. That chapter continues next week with a fascinating series against the Thunder.

Dame Dolla on Fire

Stephen Curry was not available for the Warriors this weekend for game 3 in Portland. But there was somebody who looked awfully similar to him on the court who was scoring at will. Unfortunately for the dubs, it was the Blazer's Damian Lillard. I am a big Dame Dolla fan. The kid from Oakland who wears 0 for the O always plays well against his home town team. He is not the shooter that Curry is - nobody is, but when his three is falling like it was in game 3, he is not that different. He has the handles, quickness, and even plays a more traditional point than Curry. And he showed us in this game that he can also take and make long-range, off-the-dribble threes like the MVP. Even Jeff Van Gundy on ESPN was very impressed by his off-the-dribble shooting and was loudly wondering if Lillard and Curry could be traded for each other without either team missing a beat. Thats high praise for Dame. Klay is a good defender and he tried his best to contain Dame, but he had no shot on this day. This is how folks must have felt defending Curry all season. 

Aside from the Oakland angle, Damian also has the "all-star snub" chip on his shoulder, especially against Curry and Klay who were both western all-stars ahead of him.  That explains the Blazers faithful yelling "over-rated" at Klay during the game. Dame and CJ are also in the running for the best back-court in the league crown that firmly belongs to Curry and Klay today. Mix in the narrative of Klay being a 2-way star and shutting Dame down in game 2, you had a potent cocktail that probably drove Dame sky high in game 3. He showed up, stepped up, and locked up a win. Now the Curry injury saga is back again on the front-burner. It's amazing how good the Warriors are that they can stage manage their best player's return even in the second round of the western conference playoffs. With each win, people assume Curry will be rested one more game and with each loss, people wonder if Curry will be inserted into the next game. Lets see if we finally see the MP3 in game 4. 

Curry-Klay versus Dame-CJ is going to be a fascinating rivalry for years to come. But then again, such projections about future greatness are always a hit or miss. Reminds me of a game in 2003 between the dubs and Suns featuring a young Gilbert Arenas, Jason Richardon, and Antawn Jamison on one-side and a young Amare Stoudemire,  Stephon Marbury, and Shawn Marion on the other. Everybody was talking about how this might be the two young, fast, fun teams of the future. The dubs couldn't retain Arenas and that was the end of that short-lived era. The Suns let go for Marbury too, but they did improve with Nash. But a rivalry, it was not.  I was salivating about a LeBron-Wade rivalry before LeBron killed it and became Wade's Scottie Pippen for 4 prime years. Ironically, they might renew their rivalry in the senior citizen mode in the next round if Miami wins against Toronto - a big IF. The Cavs have looked really impressive after 2 straight sweeps. Their 3-point shooting has become more of a news in the playoffs than even the Warriors, who are without Curry's threes so far. 

It's going to be an interesting matchup if the Cavs and dubs meet in the finals again. The Cavs are a very different team from last year and both teams are going to be shooting threes all night. You would think nobody can beat the dubs in that game, though the Cavs are becoming a trendy pick for the championship. They have definitely looked good and the big-3 are finally playing with some confidence and chemistry. Ironically, LeBron is shooting bricks, but the rest of the team is shooting lights out. Plus LeBron does so many other things, he still is the king. The Spurs-Thunder series seems headed to 7 games with the Thunder winning tonight behind Durant's 41. I still don't trust the Thunder to win the series, but they have enough talent to stretch the Spurs. It pains me to say I don't trust Westbrook. How can an incredible athlete who plays that hard inspire so little confidence? Two words - decision making. Westbrook is hard-headed and a bad decision maker. Him and Durant have not really learned to play together after all these years, not to mention all the other talent on the roster. It's a weird style the Thunder play built around those 2 super-stars and I don't see it surviving past his round.

Body Blows in the NBA

One of my buddies calls basketball a deceptively dangerous sport that's more brutal on our bodies than most other sports. He is somebody who played both tackle football and basketball and I have to respect his opinion. The last couple of days in the NBA playoffs are indeed proving him right. Freak injuries to various parts of the body have taken out 3 out of the top 10 talents in the league. First, Curry slipped on a sweat spot on the floor and twisted and banged his right knee on the floor. This was in game 4 when he had just came back from an ankle issue after a 2 game break. He is now out for at least 2 weeks with a grade 1 MCL sprain. For a 12 hour period on Monday after this news came out, the Clippers suddenly looked like a legitimate contender and the biggest beneficiary of the dubs' misfortune. Warrior fans spent all day debating if the dubs can beat the Clips without Curry. The Warriors probably can't handle the Spurs or the Cavs without Curry, but they definitely had a shot against the Clippers especially with home court. Part of me was excited to see them duke it out with the Clips without Curry. Clippers can win it, but I think these dubs would drag them to 7 games. The  fans wanted the Clippers-Blazers series to go 7 games because that would give Curry more time to recover. He is probably looking at a return for game 4 or 5 in the next round if the recovery goes per plan.

But late Monday night, the Clippers' world turned upside down. They lost their leader Chris Paul to a freak injury and a broken hand when it got stuck in the opponent's jersey. Blake Griffin then followed him out with a quad injury. Bye bye season for the Clippers. Now the Dubs fans are rooting for a Clippers to win another game so the Blazers get extended to 7. It's probably going to be Warriors-Blazers in the next round. That won't be easy, but it's not the same as facing a fully-loaded Clippers team. So it looks like even when they lose Curry for a couple of weeks, the Warriors get a lucky break in the form of a suddenly depleted Clippers team. Their path to San Antonio looks much better now especially given the way they dispatched the Rockets tonight by 33 points to take that series in 5. The Blazers back-court will be a load to handle, but the dubs have to be favored in that series even without Curry. In fact, it probably gives the Warriors more time to rest Curry. Vegas agrees as the Warriors dropped behind the Spurs as a favorite right after Curry's injury. But they were bumped ahead of the Spurs again when CP3 and Blake got hurt. The expectation is, Curry will be back for the Spurs series anyways and the upcoming round got a lot easier for the dubs with the unfortunate Clipper injuries.

If you include Avery Bradley, round 1 of these playoffs has taken down 4 key players in brutal and weird injuries. This round is beginning to wind down in a hurry though. The elite teams are already resting as we speak. Cavs and Spurs swept their way out of round 1 and the dubs and Thunder wrapped it up in 5 games. With today's surprising road win for Charlotte and the sadly predictable road win for Portland, those 2 series should be wrapped up in 6 as well. That leaves the Celtics-Hawks and Pacers-Raptors series as the possible 7-game thrillers. The East has 4 playoff teams with an identical 48-34 record and not surprisingly, the Eastern match-ups have been more competitive in round 1. The Hawks and Celtics continue their series tomorrow in Boston. The Celts should win this one to force game 7, but we all know the real winner tomorrow will be the NFL. The draft is here and let's get ready to welcome the next set of millionaire celebrities into our televisions. It's going to be interesting with all the late movement at the top of the draft. We will have 2 QBs go back-to-back at the top like Winston and Mariota last year. These 2 kids will join a few infamous QB pairs like Bledsoe-Mirer, Manning-Leaf, Couch-McNabb, and Luck-RG-III. Of course the jury is still out on Winston-Mariota and hope they and the kids coming in tomorrow don't stick to this one good, one bust trend with these pairs.

There are a couple of interesting reads in the NBA that I would like to recommend. If you have some time to kill, I strongly recommend Sam Hinkie's leaked 13-page resignation letter to the Philadelphia 76'ers (http://espn.go.com/pdf/2016/0406/nba_hinkie_redact.pdf). The other article of interest is about the evolving role of point guards in the NBA (http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/sports/wp/2016/04/15/its-a-point-guards-game/). This article is especially sweet for us Suns fans as Jerry Colangelo was instrumental in some of those successful rule changes when he was the Suns owner. And coincidentally, Steve Nash and the Suns were also the first team to show the world how to play a fun, winning brand of basketball by exploiting those rules and start a trend that has changed the game forever and for the better.

Talent gap in the first round.

NBA playoffs are always fun. While a couple of 1-8 or 2-7 match-ups every year ends up being predictable, individual games typically tend to be close even in those series. Not so much this year. Through 24 games over a week of these playoffs, there have been only 7 games been decided by less than 10 points and only 4 games by 5 points or less. Ironically, both the first seeds have been involved in 1-point games, but these playoffs have been one big blowout-fest otherwise. This is pretty unusual and it seems to be because of the larger divide between the good teams and the lower seeds. The top 4 seeds in the West is way better than the lower seeds. The East is better than it has been in the past top to bottom, but even there, the top seeds seem to be much more improved than the lower seeds. The popular playoff cliche is, a playoff series has not really begun until the road team wins. Cleveland and San Antonio won game 3 on the road on Friday and are all set for the sweep. Outside of that, only the Raptors-Pacers and Mavericks-Thunder series have seen road wins so far. Even reigning champs Warriors are still looking for a road win.

Speaking of the Warriors, the biggest news in the sports world the last week has been Stephen Curry's bum ankle. He now says he is playing in game 4 on Sunday. There was added concern when he left game 1 because of his history with ankle issues. It's hard to say whether he was really unable to play or if they were being extra cautious with him and coincidentally, may be also deservedly extra disrespectful of the Rockets who didn't look good at all in the 2 games in Oakland. Athletes always say "I could have played if it were a playoff game" and here is a situation where it looks like the Warriors are resting Curry even through round 1 of the playoffs. Nobody seems to be concerned for the Warriors in this series even with the Rockets winning a close one in game 3. Some folks are still saying Curry should be rested in game 4. A resting Curry in the playoffs is a fascinating concept, but a hurting Curry is not. It did look like he tried to play game 2 and couldn't. So may be he is really hurt bad. We don't know yet, but game 4 should tell us a lot. The dubs played a mistake-prone and sub-par game Thursday and lost the game, but since they still almost won anyways, the Warriors are still heavily favored, with or without Curry in this series. But its in their best interest to wrap this series up soon. It's not smart for the dubs to give the Rockets any life, hope, or energy. Rockets' bench didn't even celebrate Harden's game winner in game 3 and the dubs probably don't want to make them feel any tighter or better.

In other news, the NFL draft is almost here. NFL will again dominate the proverbial sports pages next week. Both Rams and the Eagles traded their way up to the first and second spot with an intent to draft a QB. Curious decision by 2 teams in a year with decent, but no slam-dunk QBs at the top.  I can't think of 2 teams trading their way to the top of the draft in the recent past. Looks like QBs will indeed go 1 and 2 and that could be a big problem for the San Francisco 49'ers who might also have some interest in a QB at 7. There are rumors that the Kaepernick trade with Denver is all but done pending the Niners scoring a good QB in the draft. Let's see if thats the deal or Kap's salary negotiation with the Broncos is still the hangup. I like Jared Goff, but not too convinced about the other QBs in this draft. Good for them all anyways to be this sought after. In a shocker of a NFL move, the Carolina Panthers let go off their top corner, Josh Norman. He was franchise tagged and for some reason, they untagged him and cut him loose. We are now deep into free agency and it's not like they needed the money to pay a bunch of top notch free agents still around. They actually have cap room and they can always cut him loose next year even if they can't agree on a new contract. Strange decision indeed and will hurt the Panthers' already questionable shot at another Super Bowl run. Washington has jumped in and signed Norman for a tonne of money. Again, Niners lost out on him. Thats becoming a theme these days.

Big night in the NBA

The last night of the NBA regular season is usually a drag for most fans. There may be a 8th seed or 2 at stake that a couple of mediocre teams would be fighting for. There could be some jostling for seedings up and down the playoff standings. For the most part, the playoff teams that have nothing to play for are waiting for the playoffs to get here and are happily resting their stars. And then there are the lottery teams and their fans who are typically checked out already and are looking forward to the NFL draft! But the 2015-16 NBA season finale today was unique and special. It was a truly historic night with two landmark events happening in Oakland and LA. The Warriors were going for 73 wins to break an amazing and improbable  record for the all-time regular season wins in Oakland while Kobe Bryant was playing his last game in LA to wrap up a legendary 20-year career.

The Bulls record of 72-10 stood for 20 year, but I really thought it was one of those rare records that will stand forever. After all, it was a Michael Jordan record and probably one of his most impressive at that. It's hard to surpass MJ in anything and for the Warriors to do it this year after a championship season is an amazing story. Their coach Steve Kerr is one lucky dude. He won 72 games with the Bulls as a player and is now a 73-game winner as a coach. The Warriors put the Memphis Grizzlies away in style to end the season 73-9. They played 82 games and did not even lose double digit number of games. First team ever to not lose double digit games through an entire NBA season. I am not a big Warriors fan, but even I can list all their losses off the top of my head - @Milwaukee, @Dallas, @Denver, @Detroit, @Portland, @LA Lakers, @San Antonio, Boston, and Minnesota. Thats because they have lost so few games.

These Warriors are a very likable bunch playing a fun style of ball. Curry is the biggest star in the sport today and is must-see TV. They have had a rock-star like following all season long and when you score a 73-9 season, there are many secondary records and numbers that are equally impressive. They never lost back-to-back games all season long. They never lost to the same team twice. They went 34-7 on the road, which is not too shabby and they started the season 24-0. The only thing more impressive was the other landmark that was reached tonight. Curry ended the season with 400+ made threes. Thats almost 5 made threes a game! That almost sounds normal for Curry, but it's hard to do. Curry had nearly as many threes this season as entire teams like the Milwaukee Bucks! A historic night indeed for the dubs. Now they have to seal the deal in the playoffs to truly enter the "best team ever" discussion. One interesting conversation going around the airwaves this week is, who wins the series if the 72-win Bulls team hook up with the 73-win Warriors? Bulls will probably win since they will matchup real well with this dubs team and are superior defensively.

While the Warriors were beating world records in Oakland, Kobe was wrapping up his career in LA with a vintage Kobe performance! He dropped 60 points on 50 shots with a really dominant 4th quarter. Lakers have been dreadful this year and Kobe has not been much better. But with the whole word watching, Kobe elevated his game to the legendary level one last time. He walks away with a 60-point game. Only Kobe can do that and the oldest ever to score 60. I am not too fond of Kobe and the Phoenix Suns have had many interesting contests against him not to mention some daggers he stuck in us back in the day. But I do feel a special connection to his career because NBA is my favorite league and he was part of my sports experience for 20 long years!  It is indeed an end of an era and when Tim Duncan retires, this era is officially dead and it will be another stark reminder that I am getting old. Love him or hate him, Kobe's talent was undeniable and is a true basketball legend. His final game garnered a lot of attention, especially in LA. Nosebleeds were selling for $700, even more than the $350 in Oakland tonight. Court-side seats at staples were going for 25K. As Kobe got close to 50 points, that game started pulling even more eye balls away from the dubs record-setting game, which was a blowout by then. Folks at Staples center thoroughly enjoyed his 60 point performance and went home poor, but happy.

All in all, two great stories in the NBA tonight. The only nit I would like to pick is, Kobe and LA stole some of the spotlight from the record-setting night in Oakland and vice-versa. It was hard to keep up with both games at times. But it was truly a magical night in the NBA.

Season of Records and Streaks!

It's just Thursday and it's been a tremendous sports week already. Monday featured a buzzer-beating victory by Villanova in the NCAA championship game against the storied North Carolina Tar Heels. It was a high level game with a perfect ending, at least for Villanova. No cigar for Roy Williams this year.  Jay Wright finally wins one as a head coach after 15 solid years at Villanova. Nothing succeeds like success and when you win the championship at the highest level, you are looked and treated completely different. Wright probably got himself another 15 years of job security with that win. This week also saw the Major League Baseball kick off their season. Being an even year, all eyes are on the SF Giants and they are looking good at 3-1. Both my teams, the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Oakland Athletics, are not distinguishing themselves in any meaningful way yet. But this is a marathon and not a sprint. Hope they string some victories together soon.

Amidst all of this, the NBA regular season is winding down in style as there are quite a few streaks, records, and associated stories in play. The Warriors went from comfortably heading towards 74 or even 75 wins to now making the pursuit of the Bulls 72-game win record a nail-biting affair. They have to win out their last 3 games to get the record and this is only because they lost to the lowly Minnesota Timberwolves after leading by 15. It's one thing to lose to a well-coached, playoff-bound Boston Celtics team, but quite another to lose to the TWolves at home. That gave the dubs 2 losses out of 3 home games after starting the season 36-0 at home. Never has a late season loss with no playoff consequence made so much news, but when you are chasing one of the most difficult records in all of sports, such a loss rightfully becomes the main topic in the sports world. Talking heads blamed the Warriors' problems on tired legs and wondered if the pressure of this pursuit is taking a toll on their season.

Whatever the reason is, head scratching turnovers are this Warrior teams' Achilles' heel. They are in the midst of a real bad turnover stretch the last few weeks and their execution is not what it was when they were blowing everybody out by 30. Their offensive efficiency and 3-pointing shooting may still be good, but if they turn the ball over 12 extra times and give up 15 points off of those, you are looking at a 25+ point swing if you factor in all the shots the dubs missed taking because of them turnovers. Thats how they end up in a tight ball game in the 4th quarter these days. May be they are physically tired and mentally exhausted, but they need to stop this live-ball donation program if they want to win the championship. They won a big one today against a near full-strength Spurs team. There were a few ugly turnovers again, but they overcame those and dominated the Spurs. They have 2 more against the Grizzles, but the road game against the Spurs on Sunday is going to be the main event. Spurs themselves have a shot at a 41-0 home record, which is pretty sweet, and it's hard to predict what Pop will do with that game. If he doesn't rest his stars, Dubs will be in a fist-fight and may have to settle for a loss and a 72-win season.

Winning 72 NBA games in a season is a massive achievement, but after all this, it will feel like a failure for this Warriors team. They are so close and we will know in just 3 games if they wrap it up.

Then there were 16

The first weekend of March madness was fun as always. Between the first round and the second round and the unexpected high of an upset to the disastrous low of a season-ending loss, the tournament can be a dangerous roller coaster ride for some of these cinderellas. Northern Iowa rode this roller coaster hard and learned the harsh lessons of March the hard way. They probably hit the best buzzer-beater of the NCAA tournament so far to win their first round contest against 6th seed Texas. Not a huge upset seedings wise, but definitely an upset and the relative size of the schools and the programs made it a more impressive as well. Northern Iowa was suddenly a fan favorite and then they took on the 3rd seed Texas A&M on Sunday. They were leading by 12 points with 44 seconds to go and probably their traveling assistant was looking for hotels to stay next weekend for the sweet 16 games. Then a series of unfortunate incidents made sure the UNI kids blew this lead away inexplicably. They did weird things like trying to throw the ball off of a defender right underneath the basket as they were falling out of bounds and twice, gave the ball and a layup to a Texas A&M player on a platter.  It was indeed sad to see the small town kids blow a 12 point lead in regulation and then lose in double OT, but thats how the cookie crumbles in March sometimes.

The other cinderella that had the opportunity to make a big noise was 14th seed Stephen F Austin. They had 6th seed Notre Dame on the ropes in round 2, but lost on a tip-in at the end. While the UNI guys were blowing their lead away, Wisconsin hit a buzzer beating 3 to punch their ticket to the sweet 16. That was a fun 7 over 2 game. Gonzaga, a 11,  is the lowest seed left in the tournament and are looking good. They get to play Syracuse, who eliminated Middle Tennessee State, another cinderella that shocked the world by upsetting Tom Izzo's highly favored Michigan State. The sweet 16 field is set and for all the attention and excitement that the upsets and cinderellas generate, the higher seeds always seem to bubble up to the top. The only question then becomes things like which 5th seed goes deep versus which one goes home. In some ways, March madness is the most unpredictably predictable event. It was a fun weekend with a lot of close games, buzzer beater, upsets, and one ridiculous comeback. Now the games are fewer and the stakes are higher. Lets hope the level of drama stays the same.

In the pros, the Warriors are 63-7 and the chase for 72 is getting very interesting. They lost to the Spurs and the way they lost was more of a news than the loss itself because the Spurs needed this game way more than the dubs. The Spurs forced Curry into a horrible shooting night and the Warriors scored a mere 79 points. Coach Pop and the Spurs definitely know what they are doing on the defensive end, The Warriors, to their credit, stayed close and almost stole the game despite the horrible offensive performance. I don't know if we learned a whole lot from this game except that if these 2 hookup in the playoffs, the series is going to be legen ...wait for it.... dary as Barney Stinson would say. Both teams showed they can play defense. Both teams showed they are true contenders. Curry showed he can have bad games too. He had another mediocre game yesterday to wrap up the road trip and there is a lot of talk about tired legs right now. The record is indeed putting undue pressure on the team. 72-10 is too cool to ignore and at the same time, these guys can sure use some break before the playoffs. Lets see how Steve Kerr plays this. The Warrior season continues with another great Western Conference matchup against the Clippers tomorrow.

March Madness

March madness is a lot of fun. One of the things in my bucket list is to take both Thursday and Friday off during the first week of the tournament and park my rear-end in a Vegas sports book all weekend. Just the ability to wake up and start watching basketball games at 9 AM is priceless. And then the games come at you one after the other. You get a mix of everything. Low scoring basketball followed by high scoring ball. NBA bound stars in one game. No name shorties in another. Upsets followed by blowouts, not necessarily in the games you expect them in or in the ways your bracket want them. It goes on and on and ends past 10 PM Pacific time. What can be better than this? I usually don't have any dog in this fight and ASU rarely gets into this fight anyways. But the fun part is, you can root for a different dog every 2 hours. The highlight of today was a couple of 12 seed over 5 as always. Both Yale and Arkansas-Little Rock won thrilling games and two 11 seeds won as well with Wichita State getting extra credits for beating up UofA. A little disappointing for me as a Pac-12 honk, but I just can't bring myself to cry over the Wildcats losing.

I was impressed watching Brandon Ingram of Duke as I have an added vested interest in following the top NCAA talent this year. With the Phoenix Suns firmly headed to NBA lotteryville, I am motivated to keep an eye on the top college talent coming out. Suns' record is on track for the 3rd pick and it's very crucial they pick up a stud to pair up with Alex Len and Devin Booker who are both giving us Suns fans a lot of hope lately. Of course the ping pong balls will decide that in a couple of months more than anything else. For now, let's hope for more fun on day 2 of the tournament and into the weekend. The weekend also features Golden State Warriors at the San Antonio spurs. If ever there was a time to bust out the overplayed cliche "irresistible force versus an immovable object," this would be it. The dubs and the Spurs are 61-6 and 58-10 as of today and are 32-0 and 34-0 at home respectively. Will the home team Spurs win this game and if they do, how easily do they win? Can't wait to find out amidst all the basketball binge watching on tap this weekend.

Sheriff of Omaha

The Sheriff is done. Peyton Manning has made it official. He has retired as expected after a brilliant career. His best move today might have been ending the retirement presser with "Omaha." He made that word synonymous with quarterbacking with his crazy audibles and that Nebraska town should thank him for the strange connection he created. They should nominate him as a honorary sheriff if not their mayor for one day. I will miss him. We will all miss him. He was one of the most prolific passers in the history of the game and kept us company on Sundays for 18 years! Between him and Kobe retiring next month, it truly is an end of an era for us sports fans. These 2 guys have been entertaining us for almost 2 decades and they were a huge part of my youth and life as a sports fan. Kobe was more a thorn on my side and I was never a fan, but I always liked Peyton. I loved his play as well as his Colts teams. In his games against the Pats and Brady, I was almost alway rooting for Peyton. Speaking of the Manning-Brady rivalry, we should all be happy we were part of it. It was an historic rivalry between 2 true legends and we will be talking about it for decades. It's the NFL's version of Bird V Magic and we are going to miss it starting 2016.

As a pure QB, Peyton is definitely top 3 in the history of the game anyway you look at it.  I am a huge Dan Marino fan and I still think he is one of the best QBs ever. Marino owned every single passing record in the books for several years before the game changed. Brett Favre then erased Marino from the record books for half of those records and now, Peyton has surpassed both Marino and Favre to own almost all of the passing numbers that matter. Peyton is this generation's Marino with a couple of rings to boot. He was a passing savant much like Marino and it was pure joy to watch their mastery of the position. We can count the rings all we want, but football is a team sport and the best passer doesn't and cannot win the ultimate price every year. Make no mistake about it, Marino was the best passer and Peyton is his successor who may have taken the craft a step further. Marino never won the big one and Peyton's playoff record is also considered shaky. But Peyton does go out on top with a ring, his second, and with a resume that is rich and complete. Two championships are better than one, though this last year might have come with a huge cost for Peyton.

Peyton's play in 2015 finally slipped to the point where he was nothing more than a game manager. There was the HGH allegation from Al Jazeera and last but not the least, somehow his Super Bowl victory brought the "mooning of the personal trainer" incident at University of Tennessee back to the front pages. The fact that our media didn't care about it for 20 years and brought it back in time for his retirement as soon as he won the Super Bowl tells us all we need to know about our corrupt media.  What Peyton allegedly did was reprehensible and I wish he had paid for it 20 years back. I guess better late than never. In any case, his play on the field through those 20 years was mostly amazing. He was a true professional and a perfectionist and we can learn a lot about how we should run our careers by watching and reading about these high achievers. He is a football junkie and the game will definitely miss him. Hope we see him back as a QB coach or may be even a head coach down the road. Most legends can't coach, but I think Peyton can. But he will have a lot of money making opportunities in his retirement and let's see what route he picks. We don't know any of these guys personally and we sure can't tell if he was a good or a bad guy, but he was a truly great QB. I still rank him higher than Tom Brady. As a pure passer, it's either him or Dan Marino at number 1. Thanks for the football memories, Peyton!

Speaking of number ones, the Golden Sate Warriors laid an egg yesterday in LA against the Lakers, one of the worst teams in the league. But they did win at home today to score the all-time home winning streak record with 45 straight. Thats more games than an entire NBA season and it's one more mind-boggling record for these dubs. This was another one of those records held by MJ's Bulls. Losing road games unexpectedly to bad teams seems to be the Warrior's thing, though they are undefeated against the good teams. Curry is still putting up ridiculous numbers and despite the turnover problems of the last two games, they are in a good spot. They are still on track to break the Bulls' 72 win record. They are now 56-6 and amazingly, they are still only 3.5 games above the Spurs. Thats how good the Spurs have been, but nobody cares thanks to all the attention on the Warriors. The Spurs won't win 72 games, but they may win 68 to 70 games. That would be something if two teams win 70 games. We should all watch and enjoy this unique season.

Cruisin' and Cookin'

Warriors are 52-5 and are 4-1 in this road trip, a trip that was supposed to be the toughest challenge remaining for them this regular season. The trip started ominously as they were blown out at Portland by Damian Lillard and his wrath at his all-star snub. But the dubs straightened the ship the very next day at the Clippers, a game that was expected by some to be the first loss of this road trip. They are back to cruising now and Curry is hot and steaming. He had a back-to-back 42 and 51 point games at Miami and Orlando with the Miami game also featuring a couple of clutch shots at the end. Media is running out of superlatives to describe Curry and this Warriors team. He won the MVP last year and it wouldn't be hyperbole to say he deserves to win both the MVP and the most improved player awards this season. The guy is 27 and is already widely recognized as the best shooter in the history of the game and rightfully so. There was a sequence in the game tonight when he pulled up in the middle of the shot clock to take a 3 pointer 3 feet behind the arc. A horrible shot for anybody else, but Warriors announcer on TV Bob Fitzgerald was actually shocked he missed an "open look!" Thats all you need to know about the shooting prowess of Curry. There are no bad shots, period.

All this leads to the prime time game this weekend to wrap up the roadie. Dubs are playing the Thunder this Saturday night. Since the dubs are 4-1 in this trip already, this game may or may not impact their historic chase of 72 wins, but this will be a fun game nonetheless. Thunder has been in a bit of a funk with home losses to the Pacers, Cavs, and a loss tonight at the Pelicans. But what better way to right the ship than to beat the the league leading defending champs?  Plus Durant always has monster games against the dubs. Speaking of Durant, the Bay Area sports radio and media doesn't have a lot of burning issues these days when it comes to Warrior talk. So the major topic of discussion is whether or not to sign Kevin Durant in the off-season when he becomes a free agent. Supposedly, Durant is interested in the Warriors and the question is, whether the Warriors should want him or not. Life should be real good if you are seriously considering saying "no" to a top-5 NBA player in his prime! Life is good if he even wants to come to your team because, these days, super-stars like Durant only go to good teams they hand-pick. But how many teams can even consider saying "no" to him? The Warriors are winning 70+ games without Durant, so there is a legitimate reason to wonder if they should stay away from him and focus on chemistry and continuity instead. Nice to have such "first world problems." 

My message to the Warrior fans is that they shouldn't even sweat this Durant thing. The dubs ownership and front office know exactly what they are doing and will make the right call. Whether it is firing coach Jackson, or hiring coach Kerr, or refusing to trade Klay for KLove, they are batting .1000 for a couple of years straight. My early gut feel on this, I think they are going to get Durant. This ownership group is super-aggressive and they won't stop short. Secondly, Harrison Barnes is demanding a lot of money anyways and you might as well invest just a little more and get a Durant if you can. Durant's game and personality is not a bad fit for this team or for any team for that matter. There is only one ball to share, but these guys can figure it out. It will be an amazing roster, though it's hard to even imagine how much better a 72-10 (or better) team can get! This reminds me of the Lakers team with Shaq, Kobe, Malone, and Payton at the end of Malone and Payton's careers, except Steph, Klay, Draymond, and Durant will be way better because all 4 will be barely entering their primes this summer. One strong reason to do this if you are dubs front office - we always talk about team's windows closing. Actually, more times than not, other teams pass you before your window closes. Not that the dubs are in danger of their window closing anytime soon, but signing Durant extends it indefinitely. More importantly, it keeps him away from their competition, whether it is OKC or the Clippers or some other team, and prevents those teams from passing the Warriors.

Will the 20-year old record survive the next 30 games?

The most amazing and crazy thing about the Bulls all-time record of 72-10 that MJ and the boys engineered back in 1995-1996 is that a team like this year's Warriors could be at a ridiculous 48-4 and we still can't be 100% sure that they will break the Bulls' record. That's how special that season was. It is probably one of the most underrated record in all of sports. Playing .878 ball over a 82 game season is near impossible. The Warriors are currently ahead of that pace and are winning at a blistering .923 pace. They have to go 25-5 rest of the way to break the record or 24-6 to tie it. It would have to be a robust .833 or .800 ball respectively in case you are scoring at home. Thats what it's going to take even after playing .923 ball for the first 50+ games. These are just ungodly numbers. Will the Warriors break the record this season? I think they will and it's a tribute to how good this team is that it doesn't even sound like I am going out on a limb to say this. Some folks may actually be surprised if they don't make it happen because, suddenly, the Bulls record doesn't even sound that difficult to these fans given the dubs impressive run so far.

But there are a couple of potential roadblocks for the dubs. Key injures are of course the obvious one. Also, their schedule has some tough stretches like the 6 game roadie they are starting this week post all-star break. Nothing fazes this team, but @Clippers, @Hawks, @Heat, and @Thunder can be a challenging stretch even for them. Their schedule is back-loaded and more than half of their remaining games are against the 7 teams right behind them in the brutal Western conference playoffs standings today. Of course more than half of those teams are no match for the dubs, but they also play the Thunder and Spurs 5 times rest of the way. You can't put anything past a team that's 48-4 and they are definitely not scared of anybody. With all that said, nobody will be shocked if they miss the 72-10 mark. It's easier to win a championship than going 72-10. That was definitely true at the beginning of the season and even today, I will still give the record a slight edge over winning the championship on the difficulty scale.

This Warriors chase will actually keep us entertained and carry the second half of the season. It is a big deal. We will hear about it a lot and rightfully so. Some people have blamed the Warriors' excellence for taking some of the drama out of this NBA season. That may be true in some NBA towns, but the chasing of the record will put the Warriors and the NBA increasingly under the spotlight come March 10th or so. Should be a fun second half after a great All-star weekend. I meant All-star Saturday because the actual game on Sunday was garbage. Something has to be done to make the All-star game watchable.  As stupid as the MLB's idea to award home field in the World Series to the winning side of the All-star game was, it is looking better and better with every inane Pro Bowl and All-star game in other leagues. The 3-point contest and the dunk contest on Saturday night were both great. Thanks to the star power of the splash brothers, the 3-point contest seemed like the headliner the last couple of years. But Aaron Gordon and Zach LaVine walked in right after and put on a dunk show for the ages. They brought back the dunk contest to relevancy. It was real fun and good luck to those 2 youngsters in their careers.

Suns' own Devin Booker made it to the final round of the 3-point contest with the splash brothers. This kid is special and hope he keeps getting better and saves the franchise. Protect the shield, Devin!

Denver 24 - Carolina 10

It does feel good when you are right. Especially when you pick the underdog to win the Super Bowl and it happens. Denver took care of the Panthers like I had predicted behind the stellar defense. That defense was the only reason I had picked them. I did not intend any disrespect for the Panthers nor any respect for Peyton Manning. I was really impressed with that defense against the Pats in the AFC championship game. It's not that the Pats never lost this season. In fact, they lost quite a few games late in the season and traditionally, Peyton Manning led teams have had great success against these Pats in the AFC championship games. But it was the way Denver beat the Pats that was impressive. They throttled Brady and the offense and won with very little help from their offense. That has not happened all season especially when Brady had both Edelman and Gronk at his disposal. I knew Cam Newton was in trouble. He is good, but he is no Tom Brady.

It's hard to believe that a Peyton Manning led team won with him throwing just 23 times for a mere 141 yards on a paltry 13 completions. Thats a game manager if you ever need one. Peyton Manning is a completely different QB than he was 10 years back, or even 3 years back. It' is tough to see his wobbly passes. Most of his passes looked like a pick-6 the moment it left his hand. Von Miller and the Denver defense literally carried their legendary QB to his second Super Bowl win cementing his legacy. Nobody has won 2 Super Bowls with 2 different teams. Speaking of legacy, how about his boss John Elway? Not that he needed any more validation after his 2 rings as a player to be considered Denver's most important civic treasure, but this championship absolutely elevates him to an entirely different planet. It's not that easy to win the Super Bowl both as a player and an executive. On top of that, he didn't just happen to be at the wheel driving this thing, he made some tough and hard turns.

Elway's decision to break the bank and get Peyton to Denver despite his health concerns was a brilliant move. He let go of Tim Tebow at the height of his popularity and also let go of coach John Fox before this season. Poor John Fox. He has coached both these Super Bowl teams at different times and doesn't get any credit for either. Elway's decisions have been money and he got 4 playoffs, 2 Super Bowls, and one championship out of Peyton Manning. Thats the best he could have hoped for when he brought him to Denver. Now, nobody can touch Elway for another 15 years. Winning a Super Bowl is a life changer and a big deal. It usually gets 5 years of job security in this rough NFL for a head coach and 8 to 10 years for an executive. But given Elway's special place in Denver, he doesn't have to worry for another 15 years. Sun Devil's own Brock Osweiler doesn't look half bad and he might lead the Denver to several more playoffs as a QB. Drafting him was not a bad call either by Elway.

On the flip side, losing a Super Bowl should be a big disappointment. Making it to the game is a big achievement indeed, but it doesn't come with the same perks and job security as winning does. Losing coaches don't get a whole lot of job security because the expectation is that they have to get back and win the big one soon. Just look at the job security Mike McCarthy or John Harbaugh have as opposed to Jim Caldwell in Indy. As for the QB, Cam Newton won a well-deserved MVP, but had no shot against this Denver defense. There is also a lot of criticism of his behavior and attitude towards the media in the post-game presser. It was not ideal, but doesn't bother me a whole lot. But he did surprise me with how tired and stressed he looked during the game. I have never been a professional athlete and I can't imagine how these guys feel when they play in the Super Bowl. They all talk about how anxious and excited they are through the week and can't really sleep the night before or for many nights leading up to the big game. That can't be the best way to go into the biggest game of your life.

Cam definitely looked gassed at times and resembled a 39 year old QB in the game, not Peyton. It looked like a combination of stress, anxiety, and possibly nerves. May be he didn't sleep well either. But I was most surprised by the fumble late in the game when he didn't jump on that ball and held back instead. I definitely don't know what happened there. He is one of the toughest running QBs in the league and I can't believe he was afraid of the contact. There is no explanation I can think of. At the end of the day, it was not Cam's Super Bowl. It was Von's. Lot of folks also say this was a boring game due to the lack of offensive brilliance and exciting offensive plays that have dominated the last few Super Bowls. I disagree. The game was close until very late and the Panthers were not really totally out of it. I was thoroughly entertained and found the drama gripping. Good job by the host city too managing a great Super Bowl. Now, it's time to put a bow on the NFL season. Bring on the off-season -- the only time all 32 teams have a shot and hope.

Denver 23 - Carolina 20

The Super Bowl has been dissected and analyzed in every which way the last 2 weeks including various talking heads pontificating on contrived racial issues around people's perception of Cam Newton. Thats what happens when we don't have a football game for 2 weeks after almost 5 straight months of non-stop NFL mania. Media has to keep their 24 hour sports chatter fed and happy and every angle of this game has been over-analyzed. We are all now ready for the game and glad it's less than a day away. I will spare you all the details of my line of thinking, but I am going to go with my gut and a little bit of my heart and say Peyton Manning walks away into the sunset a Super Bowl winner. My head says the Panthers could easily blowout the Broncos if a couple of early breaks go their way during the game. They are absolutely known for creating those early breaks and jumping on teams. Given Manning's recent performances in the Super Bowl, that might very well happen here. But I do like the narrative of Manning retiring a champion much like his GM John Elway. It's too good to pass up!

Aside from my gut feel and a marginal rooting interest in Manning's legacy, I do think there are legitimate football reasons to like the Broncos. Their defense is legit. I was very impressed with what they did to the Patriots couple of weeks ago both strategically as well as on the field. The Panthers offense and the MVP Cam are no joke and their balance on that side of the ball with their ability to both run and pass will be a major challenge for any defense. But I think Cam can be bothered by the Denver D and if they force him into a mistake or 2, the Broncos will be in business. Of course, everybody expects Peyton to be the one to be forced into mistakes given how he is more of a weak-armed, game manager these days. This Peyton is not the same player we saw 10 years back, but he can still do some damage, especially if you give him 2 weeks of rest and preparation time just like the Super Bowl schedule just did. Peyton also looked decent early in the game against the Pats, though the Pats defense is no comparison to the Panthers. I think there is enough juice in that right arm and if he doesn't choke like he does sometimes, he will give the Broncos D and their running game an opportunity to help him walk into the sunset in style.

Long story short, I am expecting a nip and tuck game with the Broncos upsetting the Panthers 23-20 in a close one. Thats my story and I am sticking to it.

Suns of Anarchy

The most depressing thing in sports right now is the plight of my beloved Phoenix Suns. They got into the news this week the only way they can, by firing their head coach Jeff Hornacek. The cute story of an old-time, classy, and quiet Suns player coming back post retirement to coach the team came to a sad and horrible end in the middle of his third season. There is a saying in business, "don't let your success kill you." To some extent, thats exactly what happened to Hornacek. He started his coaching career with a 48-34 record in 2013-14 when nobody expected anything out of the team. The Suns at that time were coming off a disastrous 25 win season and had a joke for a coach in Lindsey Hunter. They were barely one season into the post-Nash era which was one challenging and horrible season as expected and they had fired Alvin Gentry mid-season to replace him with Hunter. 

Horny was not expected to do much in year one, but he turned the team around overnight behind 2 exciting guards. Suns continued to play an entertaining brand of fast-ball similar to the previous regime and Horny was also surprisingly winning games. But unfortunately, 48 wins in the wild west gets you nothing except a few less ping-pongs in the draft lottery. In retrospect, this unexpected early success screwed everything up. Instead of debating Andrew Wiggins versus Jabari Parker in the summer of 2014, Suns fans and the front office was now dreaming about playoffs and free agents like LeBron James and championships. And then GM Ryan McDonough did something that to this day makes no sense to me. He went out and signed 5'9" point guard Isaiah Thomas to go with the other two PGs he already had on his roster - Eric Bledsoe and Goran Dragic, who were both actually good and were the engine behind the 48-win team. 

That was the beginning of the end. Why in the world did he need a 3rd small guard? There are a lot of legitimate rationalizations of this decision including the messy contract situation of Bledsoe and Goran, but the IT signing is the singular reason I believe McDonough will and should lose his job. I trace all of the current problems to that one decision. It went south fast from there and I hate Isaiah Thomas to this day for that. Poor guy, none of this was his fault and all he did for the Suns was play hard. But McDonough bringing him in was a big mistake. Not only did the Suns not have enough shots to go around, they didn't even have enough dribbles to go around with these 3 guards. This pissed Dragic off and he wanted out. They were not winning enough games either to even match the previous year's 48. They had to trade the Dragon and that was a bummer. Not only was the dragon a good baller, he also provided us an emotional connection to the Nash era of the Suns. 

McDonough also traded IT and brought in Brandon Knight. We were in the midst of another reload and all these moves were neither here nor there. The team was a mess. We can't blame owner Robert Sarver either because they have been willing to spend the last 2 season and have been chasing big name free agents. But stars like LaMarcus Aldridge are not biting. Signing the aging Tyson Chandler in the hopes of landing LaMarcus was another huge gamble that looks bad now. This season started with a lot of hope and went downhill in a hurry. We then had towel-gate-2 as another mediocre power forward threw a towel on the face of a Suns ex-player and current head coach in the midst of a horrible season. Unfortunately, Kieff is still with the team and it's the coach who is gone. Not quite the Anige-Horry ending yet. I hope they get rid off Kieff soon despite his great game under coach Watson tonight. 

Now we are in this mess with Earl Watson coaching the team. Part of me thinks he is Lindsey Hunter redux, but part of me also thinks he looks like a classy and smart man and hope he succeeds. There are rumors of the team wanting Nash coaching the team next year, but I think this idea is a non-starter. Nash doesn't look ready to tie himself down with a coaching gig. The Suns are 14-36 right now after starting the season 7-5. They may not win 25 games this year and this feels like the Suns' worst season in my memory. The 2012-13 disaster will always give a tough fight for the worst season award and the one silver lining we got this season is Devin Booker. This 19 year-old gives us some hope. The upcoming off-season will be very interesting - high draft pick and lots of cap money that stars may or may not take. McDonough is considered a smart, young GM, but I wouldn't be too sad if he loses his job. Much like Hornacek, McDonough has earned his firing with everything that has happened in the last year and a half. Bring on the off-season already!

Napalmered

If you are a fan of any team, that team's losses in the playoffs can be pretty frustrating. The further the team advances in the playoffs, the more the losses hurt as the expectations grow higher with every round of the playoffs and consequently, the fall is harder. And every team has to fall and fail in every league eventually except one champion. I have seen many highs and mostly lows being a fan of the Phoenix Suns. Comparatively speaking, I am not as emotionally attached to the Arizona Cardinals as I am to the Phoenix Suns. But their loss against the Carolina Panthers was still one of the most frustrating losses I have seen. Carson Palmer single-handedly lost this game for the Cardinals. He didn't lose by making a big mistake at a crucial moment, but rather by not showing up nor playing with any level of consistency or quality. The Cardinals were basically napalmed by Palmer.

The final score was a horrible 49-15 in favor of the Panthers and they seemed to dominate every aspect of this game. It's not just the Cardinals offense and Palmer that had troubles. Their defense wasn't much better either. Despite all of that, the most frustrating part of this game for me was, it was a very winnable game for the Cards. Even late into the second quarter with the Panthers having scored a couple of times and Palmer having fumbled once already, the Cards still had a legitimate shot at winning this game. David Johnson was running pretty effectively, Cards had scored once, and even forced the Panthers into a couple of 3 and outs. With less than 6 minutes to go in the first half and the score at 17-7, Patrick Peterson committed a costly mistake. He fumbled the punt return after one of the few Panther's 3 and outs and that was a punch in the Cardinals' gut. Panthers pushed it to 24-7. Peterson redeemed himself by intercepting Cam Newton in one of the subsequent possessions and returning it all the way to Carolina 22. But then Palmer followed that up right away with a break-breaking interception in the end zone - a horrible throw forced into double coverage. That was pretty much the ballgame.

The second half was quite an abuse of the Cardinals with more turnovers from Palmer. The bottom-line was, ugly Palmer showed up instead of the good Palmer we have been seeing all regular season. This game confirmed everybody's worst fears about Carson Palmer -- that he is not a big-game player, he is not a clutch performer, he makes big mistakes at the worst moments etc. He proved all of those theories right. I have always been a fan of Palmer and thought that the public perception and injuries have been pretty unfair to him. But after this game, I am a believer in all the haters. I even heard one talking head say Palmer was considered a one-read QB in USC who can be easily confused and they simplified the offense big-time during his Heisman season. The skeptics are right and he can't recover from this performance. God help the Cardinals next season.

In the AFC championship game, the Broncos pulled a Pats and outsmarted them with a brilliant game plan. I thought they had the Pats confused the entire first half on both sides of the ball. They have incredible talent on defense and got to Brady at will. But the way they bottled up Edelman was brilliant and they also had a great plan on offense. Now we have the sheriff in his final Super Bowl. He has an opportunity to walk off into the sunset as a champion like his boss Elway. Broncos will face the Panthers in what should be a close Super Bowl. Brady has dominated Manning 11-6 in their personal series, but that includes a 2-3 record in the playoffs, including losses in their last three postseason meetings, all in the AFC Championship Game. Seems like Brady beats Manning except in the AFC Championship games. Goes to show how all these stereotypes that the media builds are just that - stereotypes. Football is the ultimate team game and even a Brady or a Manning need a team around them, not to mention home-field to win.

We will definitely miss the Brady-Manning rivalry. That was a long-running, high-profile, yearly event, the kind of which we may never see again.

Instant Masterpiece!

There are instant classics and then there was the Cards-Packers game last Saturday night. I don't think the term instant classic does this game justice. This was an instant masterpiece. The game featured 2 crazy hail-marys at the end of regulation to send it to OT and an exciting 75-yard play to start the OT. This little commentary will tell you all you need to know about this game. I was re-watching the 4th quarter and with around 4 mins to go in regulation, with all of the end of the game and OT drama yet to play out, analyst Cris Collinsworth already says "I have never seen anything like this game!" And then all the mayhem happened! The reason he said that was because the game already had some wild twists and turns. There was a pick-6 by Patrick Peterson called back in the first half. Also, when Cris made that comment, the Cards had just scored a go-ahead TD where Carson Palmer's pass was tipped in the end zone and somehow the ball ended up in the hands of Michael Floyd. Thats a pass that could have easily been intercepted if the ball had bounced a different way. That drive also featured a couple of passes by Palmer that could have and should have been intercepted and returned to the house the other way.

Palmer didn't have a great game. He was up and down and kept the Cards fans on pins and needles the entire game with every pass he made. But at the end of the night, he made enough great plays to win the game. Fitz was his amazing self as always and dominated the OT to single-handedly carry the Cards home. The big 75 yard pass play in OT was a beauty by both Palmer and Fitz. Aaron Rodgers made some amazing plays as well in that last drive to send the game into OT. I can't believe he completed two hail-mary TD passes at the end of games this season. For all the enjoyment this game gave us Cards fans, if the result was any different, this would have been one of the most painful losses. I am not sure if I would still be calling it a masterpiece. A-Rod completed a 61 yard pass on 4th and 20 from his own end zone with 50 seconds to go in regulation. I encourage you to do a search on Google for "4th and 26" and you will see a play from the 2004 divisional round where Donovan McNabb completes a 4th and 26 pass to Freddie Mitchell to keep a late-game drive alive against the same Packers. The Eagles forced OT and eventually won that game. To this day, thats a signature play and a painful memory for the Packer fans. If the Cards had lost this game, us Cards fans would have had multiple A-Rod plays painfully etched in our memory forever. But the Cards survived those plays behind Fitz's own signature moves.

For the second playoffs in a row, Aaron Rodgers lost in OT where he didn't even get to touch the ball. As excited as I am about this game and happy that the Cards won, I agree with Clay Matthews that they have to change the OT rules. Few years back, NFL changed the rule to make sure a field goal in the first drive of OT didn't end the game right there. That change was good, but didn't go far enough.  Now, a TD in the first drive in OT ends the game. The logic being, football is a team sport and the defense has to do it's job and prevent the TD to be able to continue the game. I don't agree with this and both offenses deserve at least one shot. NFL has a hard salary cap and super star QBs like Aaron Rodgers are paid handsomely, every dollar of which they richly deserve. This means such teams may not have enough money to build a strong defense as much as they may want to. Point being, different teams have different philosophies of team building and different strengths and weaknesses. If a team doesn't have a good enough defense, today they will probably lose the game if they lose the coin flip in OT. Thats not right.

Forget whats right and whats wrong. Purely from a business and entertainment perspective, how does it make sense for the NFL to decide a big playoff game in overtime with Aaron Rodgers, one of the legendary players in the history of the league, standing on the sidelines and not even being allowed to participate? Thats like Cleveland Cavaliers playing the OT of a game 7 in the NBA playoffs and the result being decided by the bench players of the Cavs with LeBron just standing on the sideline and not getting a chance to touch the ball. NFL better fix this. I will add this though. The college type OT rule is better, but it is also flawed. In that scheme, the team playing second has a huge advantage in that they know exactly how much to score and are in 4 down territory the entire way. The team playing first on the other hand, has to pick between a field goal or a TD as they get close to field goal territory. May be we should just have a 10 minute OT period and let the chips fall where they may at the end of it.

This is a good topic for the off-season, though I doubt if the NFL will touch this. For now, the Cards march on and don't have to explain a bunch of crazy events from this game. I loved Bruce Arians throwing on 2nd down towards the end in an attempt to completely keep the ball away from Aaron Rodgers. The throw fell on the ground and they ended up giving A-Rod an extra 35 seconds. A QB like that can do a lot of damage, whether you give him 90 seconds or 120 seconds. So I was fine with them going for the kill there. But if they had lost, that would have been the talk of the town. It turns out it was Palmer's call based on what he saw at the line. Arians would have still had to explain that call, plus he would not have thrown Palmer under the bus if they had lost. All of this is moot now since they won. Now they get to play the scary looking Panthers in Carolina. Panthers dominated the first half against the Seahawks and barely held on to win the game in the second half. Broncos and Pats won at home too. There were 4 good games last weekend, but the other 3 pale in comparison to the masterpiece theatre that was the Packers-Cards featuring the prestigious thespian Larry Fitzgerald.

Get well, Mort. The rest is mere details.

This was an eventful and action-packed sports week with many ups and downs, but the latest news is a bit of a downer. ESPN NFL expert Chris Mortensen announced he is suffering from throat cancer and is taking a sabbatical. I don't know him personally, but he comes off as a decent guy on TV and I am going to miss him. These guys actually spend more time in our living rooms than some of our dear friends and we develop an attachment towards them whether we like it or not. This is a sad news and I wish Mort a speedy recovery. Hope to see him soon in his bus tours across the NFL training camps. A lot happened between last week's wild card weekend and the bad news from Mort. The NCAA championship game, a NFL move to LA, and a bunch of interesting head coaching hires in the NFL.

It turned out Vegas did get the Wild Card weekend right with all 4 road teams winning. I got 3 of the 4 games right with Aaron Rodgers and the Packers putting me in my place in Washington. It wasn't even close for the Washington no-namers. To be fair, we might have gotten the games right, but 2 of those 4 were coin-flip games. Seattle was incredibly lucky that Blair Walsh missed a game-winning chip shot field goal. Adrian Peterson had a costly fumble in this low-scoring game first and then supposedly didn't rush to the right to set Walsh up at his preferred right hash for the game ending field goal. He cut back left hoping for a first down. He fell a yard short of the first down and won't have an opportunity for a meaningful carry for another 8 months. The dangerous Seattle team gets to live another day.

The Cincinnati Bengals lost in an even more excruciating way than the Vikings as a series of unfortunate events gave 30 free yards and the game on a platter to the Pittsburgh Steelers. A questionable penalty called on the troubled Sun Devil Vontaze Burfict and a bone-headed penalty by Pacman Jones ended the Bengals season and almost got Marvin Lewis fired. He survived, but paid the ultimate price for signing talented nut-jobs like Pacman. Sometimes, these players hurt you at the most inappropriate moments. Pacman sure was incited by Pittsburgh Steelers' coach Joey Porter, who is no choir boy himself, but such excuses don't win games, smart, disciplined plays do. Bengals have to start all over again next season without their OC Hue Jackson, who is now the head coach upstate in Cleveland.

Now on to the divisional round, which is arguably the best football weekend of the NFL season. The Arizona Cardinals will be hosting the Green Bay Packers for the second time in 4 weeks. They crushed the Packers the first time around, but the Packers looked a lot better last weekend at Washington. Aaron Rodgers can always become a serious problem for any defense, but I still think the Packers have not improved that much in a month to pull off the upset on the road against a potent team. They will make this much closer than last time, but the Cards should win. I expect the same with the Pats - a close game with the home team winning. Chiefs are rolling and I won't be surprised if they win against a shaky Pats team. But if Brady can't beat Alex Smith, hoodie will figure out a way to.

On Sunday, the lucky Seahawks are going into the Panthers. I have no idea who will or even who I want to win in this one. I am always up for a good Seattle loss and they are a dangerous team for the Cards to face if the Cards do make it to the NFC Championship game, but if Seattle wins they have to come to the desert. I don't mind the Panthers winning, but that means the Cards will be going to Cam's house and deal with the dab and the nene. Leaving my and Cards preferences aside, this is an amazing matchup and anybody's game. The Hawks are good on both sides of the ball, but they looked beatable last weekend. Their run ends here and the Panthers will finish the job that the Vikes started. The Steelers-Broncos game is also hard to predict only because of the injuries to Big Ben and Antonio Brown. With them healthy, I would have no hesitation in picking them to beat Peyton Manning, who looks more ready to shop for Centrum silver than play in the NFL playoffs. But I give the Broncos and that defense a slight edge at home against a hobbled Big Ben and a Brown-less Steelers.

On the coaching front, aside from the Browns hiring Hue Jackson, Dirk Koetter (Bucs), Ben McAdoo (NYG), Adam Gase (Dolphins), Chip Kelly (Niners), and Doug Pederson (Eagles) have all landed on their feet and grabbed one of the top jobs in America. The most fascinating among those hires is Chip Kelly in San Francisco for his second shot. The ownership and front-office that had issues with Jim Harbaugh is hiring another guy with a questionable personality. On top of his personality, he is also known to have issues with managing players his way. The jury is still out on his unique, up-tempo offense and the Niners have Colin Kaepernick, who they were expected to get rid of, but might fit the aforementioned offense a lot better than most other QBs. Do they now keep him? How will this all shake out? We will find out in the next 6 months. Niners also have around 50 mill in salary cap as well.

The other big news this week was the St. Louis Rams getting the approval for their LA move. How ironic is it that Stan Kreonke, the guy from Missouri who was brought in as a minority owner by the LA owners when the Rams moved into that region is now spearheading the move out of St. Louis back to LA. It's a smart business decision and he is not even asking for a whole lot of public funds in LA. Looks like he will sink 1.8+ billion of his personal money into this stadium. He will make enough money in return for years to come, but the real returns will be in terms of the equity and his franchise's value. If the Clippers are worth 2 bills in LA, god knows how much the Rams will be worth in 5 years with that spanking new stadium in Inglewood.  Good for Stan and as always, the fans lose, despite the city of St. Louis promising public funds. To quote someone in St. Louis, "we are throwing money at the stripper and she is throwing it back in our face."

It's Stan's business and he can do whatever he wants, but sports teams are civic entities and there needs to be better checks and balances on uprooting a team from it's city. NFL does have strong bylaws and wordings around encouraging teams to stay in their communities, but those seem to be just words. None of that really matters when cash-money comes knocking. Now, San Diego is supposed to work it out with the Rams and move in to those new digs. That leaves the Raiders out and they are back to square one. They don't have a lease in Oakland as of today and San Antonio is back in the picture. Raiders owner Mark Davis keeps talking about Raider-nation as if it's some form of an universal entity not bound by any geographic boundaries. The Raiders do have bit of a distributed following due to their multiple moves and catchy colors, but can he be any more disingenuous and delusional? He is trying to convince us that Raider fans are a thing with or without Oakland. Thats his way out of town, if he needs one. The Raider fans in Oakland are not too bothered either because they are either too cool to care or they are convinced the Raiders have nowhere to go and will stay back, at least for a year or two. Let's hope for the best here. I am sick of the business of sports treating the paying fans as the least relevant entity in the World.

I would be remiss if I don't mention the NCAA Championship game last Monday. Alabama won over Clemson in an instant classic. I was really impressed with Clemson QB Deshaun Watson. Alabama's Jake Coker kept pace with him and it was amazing to see how many big plays this game featured on both sides of the ball. Nick Saban is not quite the legend that Bear Bryant is, but his resume is already better. He is playing in a more competitive era with a playoff. It's hard to believe that Bear Bryant actually lost his final bowl game and still won a couple of championships back in the day. It was indeed a different time and place and Saban is already at 4 rings versus Bryant's 6 at Alabama. Saban has one more from LSU. He is indeed a super legend in the making.

Bring on the Cards-season, AKA post-season!

There is always what you think is going to happen and then there is what you want to happen. The title of this article probably give it all away, though I am not sure what part of that is what I think versus what I want. My Super Bowl pick is Arizona Cardinals over the New England Patriots, a matchup supposedly America also wants based on a recent poll on the most exciting potential Super Bowl even over the Seahawks-Pats possibility that was awesome last year. I may be biased in favor of the Cards, but they are definitely capable and poised to make a deep run this post-season. It won't be a walk in the park - it never is, especially if they play like they did in week 16 against the Seahawks, but they didn't have much to play for then and they did show us they are way better over the previous 15 weeks. So I am going to cut them some slack. As for the Pats, they have been in a funk too, but I can't imagine the other AFC wannabes unseating Brady and Belichick this season. Thats my prognostication, but thats neither here nor there this weekend because the Super Bowl at Levi is a month away. The first round of the playoffs is kicking off today and these two teams are not even playing this weekend.

The wild card weekend is the best weekend of the NFL playoffs in a lot of ways. We get two games on Saturday and two on Sunday. The divisional round also feature 4 games, but then the well-rested big boys come out and blow fools out sometimes. Wild card weekend on the other hand usually features good, but not great teams and they typically give us closer games. This year's version lacks a little bit of sex appeal due to some new teams and injuries, but the games may be even crazier than usual. This is illustrated by the fact that all four road teams are favored to win this wild card weekend! I am not a gambling junkie, but I really doubt if the lines look like that often. Let's see if Vegas got it right this time, but here are my picks.

Kansas City Chiefs @ Houston Texans: This is probably the toughest game to pick. It involves two teams that have turned their season around and are rolling into the playoffs, but the Chiefs' transformation is a lot more impressive. Neither team has a hall of fame QB and that always makes it hard to dissect, but I pick the Chiefs to win this one on the road. We don't get to see Arian Foster or Jamaal Charles, but we will see a good game here.

Pittsburgh Steelers @ Cincinnati Bengals: Andy Dalton has been ruled out of this game and I am not even sure if it's a bad thing given his past post-season performances. All kidding aside, the Bengals will miss him and the Steelers should steal this one. Big Ben and Antonio Brown need to be on their A Game, but they are capable of an A+ game any given day. Ben has not consistently been A+ this season, but has been good enough to put the fear of god in most opponents. They are actually a trendy Super Bowl pick due to that reason. I won't go that far, but the Steelers should win this AFC North matchup, a division which more than any other seem to throw an intra-division wild card contest year in and year out. Those 3rd rivalry game of the season are always fun.

Seattle Seahawks @ Minnesota Vikings: Last week, the Vikings went into Green Bay and rudely snatched the NFC North title from the Packers. What do they get in return? A home playoff game and a lot of money for their owners, but possibly a loss to the surging Seattle Seahawks. They probably would have been better off losing a close game and the division last week and going back into Green Bay this week for a wild-card matchup on the road. The Seahawks look scary good on offense and their defense has not dropped off that much. Russell Wilson has absolutely played at a MVP level the last half of the season and he has reinvented this offense behind his arm and Doug Baldwin's legs. I doubt if any amount of Minnesota cold can stop them. I want the Vikes to win, but Seahwaks will win this one.

Green Bay Packers @ Washington No-Namers: Why are the Packers, who started the season 6-0 and have Aaron Rodgers playing QB, going into Washington to play a wild-card game on the road? This defies explanation except the obvious cliche "football games are won in the trenches." The Packers offensive line has been offensive much like their opponent's nicknames that I try to avoid. This O-line has made Rodgers look shaky and Eddie Lacy look fat! I can't believe I am saying this, but Rodgers is going to lose to Kirk Daniel Cousins this weekend. The Washington players and their leader Cousins might be penny pinchers and cheap off the field (what a cute story that is), but their offense has been prolific and confident on the field. I can't see this Packers team dominating them on either side of the ball. Rogers need to play at a hall-of-fame level to win this one and he absolutely can, but I am picking the No-Namers to win.

There you have it. Four more teams will be gone fishing in a couple of days and lets start the countdown to the Super Bowl.

NFL pre-post-season

The first couple of weeks of the post-season is the best time of the NFL year, but it always has an ominous beginning. Black Monday, right after the final Sunday of the season is when all the under-performing coaches are usually fired. This is the big news for a few days before the actual post-season games start. The timing of the firings was actually slightly better this year for their families since it happened after the new year. Sometimes, black monday falls right in the middle of the holidays. Much like black Friday after Thanksgiving, black Monday is starting earlier and earlier these days. Few coaches got fired Sunday night, not to mention Chip Kelly losing his job a week earlier. All in all, 6 coaches have left the building so far this year.

The teams looking for a new coach now are Cleveland (whats new?), San Francisco (again), Tennessee (after firing Whisenhunt mid-season), Miami, Philadelphia, and the New York Giants (after Tom Coughlin's "resignation"). The surprisingly smart decision came from the usually dumb Jim Irsay, the Colts owner. Common sense seems to have prevailed in Indy as they decided to re-sign and extend coach Chuck Pagano despite reports all Sunday claiming he will not be back. Apparently Chuck and general manager Ryan Grigson have agreed to settle their differences and work towards a common goal, which is to use Andrew Luck's immense talents to win a Super Bowl instead of wasting his prime away.

Ironically, San Francisco is looking for a new coach again in less than a year. If only they had brokered a working relationship between Jim Harbaugh and Trent Balke much like the Colts did this week, they might be in a much better position than where they are now. Out of all these teams, the Niner search might be the most intriguing only because they are looking for an upgrade in less than a year and have to make a splash to justify all that has happened in the last year. Many interesting names - some old and some new, are in the running for all these jobs including Sean Payton, who will cost some draft picks, and Mike Shanahan. Even Mike Holmgren's name is back in the mix for the Niners' job. For some of these rebuilding teams, the hiring of the coach may be the high point of their off-season. Good luck to them!

I can't believe the 2015 NFL season is already over. I took a break from blogging after last year's Super Bowl and the next thing you know, we are staring at the 2016 Super Bowl in a few weeks. I missed writing about a lot of interesting things in the sports world including the Golden State Warriors winning a NBA championship. That was the least likely event when I stopped blogging in Feb 2015. May be I should stop again next year and hope my Phoenix Suns win the championship.

Pats 30 - Hawks 20

It's been a while since I had the time to blog. Been a busy couple of months, but is there ever a better time to jump back in than around the Super Bowl? Actually, last week would have been better with the "deflate-gate" controversy in full swing. Supposedly, we are expected to stop talking about it and talk only about the game instead. Why? It was a legitimate topic that came up organically last week saving us from all the manufactured Super Bowl hype. I would rather discuss deflate-gate than the media generated "story lines" about these 2 teams, neither of which I am too fond of. How much more of the designer angles like "low draft picks" Brady V Wilson or Pete Caroll's stint in New England would ESPN have subjected us to if not for this scandal? Those stories are interesting if you care about the teams. If not, deflate-gate is as good as it gets.

The controversy itself feels very juvenile at one level, but the fact that this Patriots regime is entering the "repeat offenders" territory makes it very interesting. If the NFL can indeed prove that the Patriots did tamper with the ball, which of course is a BIG "if", hoodie will be in deep trouble given his past history with spy-gate. Thats exactly why Belichick and the Pats are so vociferously and aggressively denying the allegation. If convicted, punishment will be severe. Saints coach Sean Payton, who was suspended for a year for bounty-gate, will have a lot of opinions for the league office on the appropriate punishment for the hoodie. Lots of people are arguing that deflating the ball is not a big help for Brady or that the Pats are good enough to win without it etc. Thats not the point. The point is, if you are deflating the footballs after the refs have checked and approved them, you are cheating. Why would anybody do it if it didn't help? There are some parallels I see here with the steroid controversy with baseball, especially with Barry Bonds. Not that deflate-gate is that serious, but some people said the same type of things about Bonds and steroids. "He was always good", "He didn't need PEDs" etc. The counter argument is pretty simple. If it didn't help, why did he take it? Thats why Bonds is still not in the Hall Of Fame.

As for the Super Bowl itself, I think this controversy will only drive the Pats even more, as if they need any extra motivation. Brady and Belichick are getting up there age-wise and it's all about legacy for them at this stage of their careers. They have lost their last 2 Super Bowls and I am not sure if Russell Wilson can channel his inner Eli Manning and subject the Pats to a third Super Bowl loss. I am afraid the Pats win this one easy, 30 - 20. The Seahawks have to show up better than they did in the first 55 mins of their game against the Packers to even have a shot. If they show up with that weak sauce, they truly run the risk of getting blown out.  This Patriots team is not an amazingly dominant team by any stretch of the imagination, but they have a decent defense, a good running game that they turn on and off at will, and Gronk. All of those things typically cause serious issues for the Seahawks as if dealing with Brady and Belichick is not challenging enough. It might be a mistake to pick against the Seahawks after what they did to Peyton Manning last year and Aaron Rodgers last week, but I am going to do it. The Pats get it done in the big game even with the rightly inflated footballs.