NBA for real

After one of the most riveting regular seasons in recent NBA history, the playoffs, A.K.A the real season, kicks off this weekend. This year's playoff version looks even more appetizing than before. Dame Lillard and the Blazers gave us a couple of great games against the Warriors last year. They play the dubs in round 1 this year. Dubs, the presumptive favorites, are even better this year and should win this series, but the Lillard-Curry matchup is always fun to watch. The best matchup of round 1 is of course Thunder V Rockets. The 2 MVP candidates and former teammates in Westbrook and Harden will go at each other. I expect this series to go 7 and won't be surprised one bit if the Thunder win it in a upset. Not to digress, but speaking of the Thunder, I can't even imagine how their fans feel about their one-time core of Durant, Westbrook, and Harden, which is now completely dismantled with all of them  playing at MVP level in different cities. All OKC has left is the mercurial Westbrook, but at least they got him and he went nuclear this year. He gave us a season for the ages just like Curry did last year.

Of course the other upset result could come in the Jazz against the clippers matchup. As great as the Clippers have looked recently, they may have their hands full with the Jazz. There isn't a lot of intrigue in the East in round 1, but it's coming. A potential Washington-Boston second round matchup and a Cleveland-Boston Eastern Conference Finals are both very welcome. Eventually, I expect a Cavaliers-Boston tussle in the East and LeBron will make it to the finals again despite Boston having home court. When it's all said and done, may be we will be staring at the rubber match in the Warriors-Cavs finals trilogy. But the Cavs can't take anything for granted. Time for them to wake up from their slumber and turn on all the proverbial switches. We need a good finals to cap off this brilliant season. The season itself was great for several reasons, but the defining story of the year was of course Russell Westbrook averaging a triple-double and beating the record for total number of triple-doubles in a season. I never thought I would live to see somebody do it. He is unquestionably my MVP. Harden has been great and has more wins, but if a man averages a triple-double, just give him the MVP.

There are even some murmurs against the very basis and hype surrounding the concept of a  triple double. I personally love the stat. I think it's a simple and effective indicator of versatility and well-roundedness in a player. While we are in the topic of awards, I would also give Mike D'Antoni, the coach of the year award for what he has done with Harden and the Houston Rockets. Speaking of D'Anoni, Phoenix Suns, the team he coached during it's most recent heydays, missed the playoffs again. Despite that, this is one of the most exciting times in the recent Suns history. The team is loaded with real young talent. Devin Booker dropped 70 on Boston and that put him on the map nationally. He is only the 6th player in the history of league to score 70. He is in the most improved player conversation for this year. He may be a MVP candidate soon before we realize it. And the rest of the Suns roster looks very promising too. Plus, they should get a top 5 pick this year and that should help keep the momentum going. Booker will represent the team at the lottery for the second year in a row. I can't wait for the BBC show - Booker, Bender, and Chriss, to take off. May be it will be BBCC show if they also get Lonzo Ball in this year's draft. The possibilities are endless for this young team.

First things first though. Bring on this year's playoffs for us to enjoy.

Shameless!

The Oakland Raiders decided to move out of Oakland to Las Vegas last week. It was a sad day in the Bay Area. It was a day the locals were hoping will never come though it always seemed imminent. The Oakland stadium issue and the relocation threat, especially the LA story, has been hanging over the Raiders’ head for years, maybe even a decade. But it still feels like this relocation came quick and fast in somewhat of an unexpected way. That’s because the Raiders didn’t seem to have the money or the clout with the NFL to make a move happen. Cities like LA couldn’t muster any realistic plan for years and the NFL didn’t seem to want the Raiders back in LA anyways. As bad as the stadium and the financial realities were at Oakland, the fans were still hoping the Raiders are stuck there by default. And when Las Vegas came calling, it looked like an unrealistic negotiation trick at first if not a circus act since sports leagues have religiously avoided Vegas. And then the Vegas plan hit a couple of snags as well. But they eventually came up with the money and the requisite NFL vote to move them happened fairly quickly after that. Oakland is understandably shocked and upset.

The real culprit here might be the NHL. They seem to have opened the flood gates as far as putting a pro franchise in Vegas goes and they made it infinitely easier for the NFL to follow suit. I do think the holier than thou, pretentious snobs in the NFL might have hesitated to go to Vegas if they were the first sports franchise moving there. Of course, everything has a price and when Vegas came up with $750 million, NFL owner’s jaws and probably their draws dropped and they sold their soul in a minute. The Raider are expected to still play in Oakland for 2 or 3 more years since this thing came so quick and there is no landing spot for them in Vegas until the new stadium gets built. Unlike the Rams or the Chargers, the Raiders get to play in the same old city for better or for worse until the new behemoth gets built in Vegas.

The net-net of this is, 3 NFL teams have moved geographies in about a year or so. What kind of a league is this? The sad part is, NFL is neither apologetic nor ashamed about any of this. Sports teams are civic entities. A huge part of their customers and supporters are spending money on them because they belong to Oakland or Boston or Phoenix in their eyes. It’s not just another business along the lines of a Google or a Pepsi. People don’t search on Google because it is based out of Mountain View and I don’t even know where Pepsi is headquartered. Whereas everybody associate the Raiders with Oakland, Cowboys with Dallas etc. This is why billionaire owners of these teams shamelessly go to the city asking for money in the first place. Google and Pepsi are not asking for public funding for building their cubicles and conference rooms. Sure, cities do lure the corporations sometimes with tax breaks, cheap land, etc. for the jobs, but it’s only sports team that ask for straight cash (as Randy Moss would put it) from their host governments to run their core business. 

So, what are you, NFL? Are you a civic entity or a business? You have no right to ask for money from Vegas or Oakland or anybody else if you are a pure business. If you have the gall to ask for hundreds of millions of dollars from a city, have some decency and morality and show some concern for the local fan-base, your primary paying customer who have supported you for decades! You can’t have it both ways. And don’t even try to turn the argument around and say if the teams are a civic entity, cities like Oakland must pay public money. They don’t have to because the city will and can still will go over and above and help its sports team, the civic entity, in many ways. They can give you some land, invest in some infrastructure, and public transportation around the stadium etc. The idea of public funding to the tune of 100’s of millions of dollars for a sport stadium is a big no-no and such an outdated idea. Out of the many things you have to love about California, the fact that it’s the hardest state to get public money for sports stadiums is a true badge of honor. Even a sleepy suburb like Santa Clara barely voted to fund the stadium for the Niners, an incredibly beloved and popular team in the area. And look how that’s working out. There are all kinds of challenges and controversies in the city as they are still figuring out some of the financial details many years since the shovel hit the ground.

Asking for public funding and black-mailing the hometown is pure greed on the part of these billionaire businesses. And of course, who is going to stop now if cities like Vegas are stupid enough to line up and scratch a 750 mill check. Vegas has so many tourists and hotels that they can generate a lot of money by charging us tourists for this stadium grant. At the end of the day, we are going to be paying for it when we travel to Vegas. The whole thing is a racket and it made a little more sense when mom and pop were running the sports team in a prosperous America and didn’t have much money to refurbish an old, dilapidated home stadium. It doesn’t make any sense in today’s economic climate in our country to donate tax dollars to a 10+ billion dollar sports league just so that they could build better and newer stadiums every 3 months to generate more millions for themselves.

The fact that our richest and also the greediest sports league, the NFL, has uprooted 3 teams in a year from their hometowns and treated their paying customers like garbage tells you all you need to know about the National Football League. They should be ashamed of themselves if they have even a shred of integrity, which of course they don’t. Only the Dolphins owner seems to get it as he was the lone dissenting vote against the Raiders’ move. The other leagues are no saints, but at least the NBA made sure the New Orleans franchise didn’t ditch that town after hurricane Katrina. Maybe NFL was a little nice to New Orleans too, but NBA I thought was also very dignified and decent in the way it handed the Sacramento Kings. At one point, they were all but gone to Seattle, but the stakeholders worked some magic to pull it back.

NFL is apparently not into such feel-good stories. The only story they feel good about is going to the bank and cashing the checks. I like Draymond Green’s idea suggesting the fans should boycott the Raiders in Oakland. I total agree, but like my cousin pointed out, it’s just April and we are all already waiting for the first NFL Sunday. He says nobody is boycotting anything and I agree with that take too. NFL is king right now, but not for long if they continue in this arc. NBA is coming hard and fast! All of this reckless greed will catchup to the NFL sooner or later. But sports today, unfortunately, is the last surviving legal monopoly in our economy. They can and often do get away with murder and the Oakland Raiders are the latest casualty. On the bright side, at least the Oakland Athletics seem serious about staying in Oakland and there is new momentum on their stadium front since the Raiders news broke. The city might even pitch in. At least baseball gives the city 81 dates of jobs and beer sales as opposed to the measly 8 dates that the NFL brings to a 2 billion-dollar stadium.

Warriors in trouble?

Nothing is guaranteed in life or sports. Warriors are figuring that out. Durant's knee injury is a scary situation for sure. It's amazing how in a second things can change completely in life and sports. Of course, it's not that serious for the dubs yet. Durant is supposed to come back for the playoffs, actually much earlier than that. But the Spurs as usual are on their tail and the fear for the Warriors is losing home court in the playoffs. Winning the regular season looked like a foregone conclusion for the first 4 months, but now looks shaky since they lost back-to-back games for the first time in forever since Durant's injury. That was one of the coolest records in their run and they have now lost to the Wizards and Bulls back-to-back on the road. Of course this was a tough road-trip anyways and they still have to adjust to life without Durant. Still, the amber-light is on, if not the red-light and that is totally understandable when you lose a top-3 talent in the league like Durant. Even a deep, talented Warriors team cannot move on without any impact.

But the Warriors will be fine as long as Durant comes back relatively healthy in time for the playoffs. After the initial bump, they should be able to compete and win in the regular season like last year without KD. It will be interesting to see if the Spurs get past them, but what does that even mean in the long run? The Spurs had the second spot last year in the West and had home court against the Thunder and didn't even get past that second round series. So if both the Warriors and the Spurs do make it all the way to the Western Conference Finals, I am not sure how big the home court is going to be. But just the prestige and optics of being the best in the West and the league is important and losing that is not good for the Warriors. You have to be aggressive and go for the crown at every point in sports. Things change constantly and I always say, the window doesn't close but others just surpass you before you realize it. As great as the Warriors have been this season and as young as their core is, they can't take anything for granted for this season or the future and they have to get the best out of every game.

Speaking of windows and challengers, the NBA trade deadline had a great start and a quiet end. Boogie Cousins addition to the Pelicans has a potential to be landscape changing. It has not worked out for them in it's first week, but there is too much size and talent there to write them off. In fact, given the Pelicans are chasing the 8th spot in the playoffs and the Warriors weaknesses against interior size, people were immediately trying to project how a Warriors-Pelicans first round matchup will play out. Would the Warriors be in trouble? I don't think so, but may be if the Pelicans can add a piece or two to those big guys next year, it can have a big impact in the West. And then the Durant injury happens. You realize how fickle and intensely competitive and challenging success in sports can be in sports. Everybody is coming for the crown. Can Curry and Durant hold the fort for the Warriors for a few years like LeBron or Kobe/Shaq or MJ? Time will tell. Even the Suns with the emergence of Booker and with yet another top pick coming up next year will be a threat in a couple of years. Nothing wrong with that!

The GOAT Bowl

Pats coach Bill Belichick said after winning the Super Bowl that they are actually 5 weeks behind the other teams in preparing for the 2017 season. And I don't think he was kidding or being cheeky. Hoodie don't do cheeky. That statement and attitude is a microcosm of what makes these Pats great. You don't become the Goat (greatest of all time) without that kind of passion, desire, work ethic, and professionalism. Both Hoodie and Brady cemented their legacy with their 5th ring and removed all arguments against anointing them the Goat in their respective jobs. As if winning 5 Super Bowls is not enough, Brady also embellished his resume with the way they won this game.

The team in general and Brady in particular had to play a perfect rest of the game after after falling behind 28-3 and they did just that. 43/62 for 466 yards passing is an amazing stat-line for any QB on any given Sunday, but is an even more impressive performance for a Super Bowl, especially in a comeback win. These 2 Goats never have to pay for anything ever in Boston. One guy can run for the mayor of Boston and the other for the Governor of Massachusetts and probably win the election with a 95% landslide. Of course, we can guess their political leanings and that coincidentally was one of the storylines for the game. A lot of liberals on Twitter were rooting against the Pats just because Trump said he is rooting for the Pats since they are his friends. Thats neither here nor there.

Coming back to the game, there are many astounding numbers and weird stats that paint a picture of the Falcons' collapse, but one thing in particular stands out for me. With a 28-20 lead, the Falcons had a first-and-10 at the Pats 22 with 4:40 to go in the game. They were well within field goal range and they could have literally taken 3 knees, wasted almost 2 minutes or drained all of Patriots timeouts, and gone up 11 points. Game over! That was how close they were to the championship. Instead they played on, moved backwards thanks to an untimely sack and a penalty, got themselves out of the field goal range, and gave the ball back to the Pats with decent time on the clock. They absolutely came from ahead to lose this one. I can't even imagine what the football fans in Atlanta are going through this week.

That was one of the most heart-breaking, soul-crushing losses ever. They had that game in the bag. The Lombardi trophy was almost ready to be packed and shipped to Atlanta. Even their owner Arthur Blank and his wife had come down to the sidelines ready to celebrate. And then everything went wrong. The play calling of offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan and game management of MVP Matt Ryan has come under a lot of criticism and rightfully so. Between the deep drop on 3rd-1 and not milking the clock pre-snap late in the game and taking a sack in field-goal range  and not running the ball in the second half and not involving Julio Jones enough, the Falcons made more mistakes in a little more than half a quarter than they had probably made this entire season.

The Falcons defense actually played much better than I expected. They got to Brady time and again and looked great. But they got tired and slowed down late in the game. This was due to 2 reasons. The Falcons D has always had issues in the second half of games, which is a sign of a tired team with questionable depth. Plus, Atlanta scored easily in the Super Bowl early and were out-snapped and out-possessed by the Pats in a big way despite the score. This meant the Falcons D was on the field forever and that caught up to them. Matty Ice didn't make enough plays late in the game and that was the difference. Sure, baby Shanny could have called a better game, but the MVP just needed a play or two to wrap this up and he didn't and couldn't. Devonta Freeman was amazing running the ball, but he might have also missed his assignment on that key strip sack.

Atlanta's offense was good and effective early, but dropped the ball in the money quarter. This made for an horrible loss for them, but an immensely entertaining Super Bowl for the fans. The great run of close Super Bowls continued as this one went to another level with the first ever overtime.  It is definitely in the running for the best Super Bowl ever and that catch by Julian Edelman is the best catch ever in a Super Bowl in my opinion. It is better than the David Tyree catch that helped the Giants beat the Pats. The Julio Jones' catch was no slouch either and would have been the story if the Falcons had won. This was a Super Bowl for the ages. I don't know where we go from here. Next year's may be a letdown even if it's a nail-baiter.

I definitely expect the Pats to be back in the Super Bowl next year and for several more years until Brady retires. They are now the Goats in the NFL and I think they are going after MJ. A sixth ring will put Brady in Michael Jordan's zip code and firmly in the conversation for best athlete ever in all of sports . In reality, winning 6 in the NFL is way harder than winning 6 in the NBA. The only blemishes on his resume are the 2 Super Bowl losses, both to Eli Manning. And of course the spy-gate, deflate-gate controversy puts a small asterisk on his resume as well. But history might look at it completely differently. Fifteen years from now, both Hoodie and Brady may be celebrated as ruthless competitors who were not afraid to cheat. Thats not necessarily a bad thing in sports. This is not war. But don't say that to those 2. They are probably already preparing to fight in 2017 for their 6th ring. We will see them again on the field in less than 211 days and thats fine by me.

Best Ever Super Bowl!

The only thing standing between Tom Brady and Hoodie and the title of unquestioned GOAT - Greatest of All Time, is an inexperienced Atlanta Falcons team. Usually, the only thing worse than Drew Brees on the road is Matt Ryan on the road. Of course the Super Bowl is at a neutral site and not in Atlanta. A healthy Julio Jones is an oxymoron as much as the term "Atlanta defense." With all that said, I absolutely love this Falcons team. Matt Ryan is a legitimate MVP candidate. He had the quietest "38 TDs, 9 Ints, almost 5000 yards, and almost 70% completion percentage" season I can ever think of. Part of it is, every grand mother throws for 5000 yards these days. But the major reason for them flying under the radar was,  people did not recognize the Falcons or Matty Ice as legitimate contenders this season until Thanksgiving. But the Falcons didn't care and they kept on winning. Julio stayed relatively healthy and was unstoppable as always. Their RB tandem is a real force and both Devonta Freeman and Tevin Coleman can play the thunder or the lightning role with decent effectiveness. Their defense has improved through the season and can do some things well. They are a great team and a very deserving NFC champion.

Sure, Aaron Rodgers would be have a been a comforting name to bet on if we wanted to slow down the Hoodie-Tommy juggernaut. But then again, who except Eli Manning has ever slowed down those two. Falcons and Matt Ryan are the best challenge to this version of the Pats right here, right now. For people who tend to look at history with some reverence, the thought of the present day Pats challenging the best ever is a tough pill to swallow, especially if you are a left coast fan with connections to the Niners dynasty, Bill Walsh, and Joe Montana. Brady and Hoodie have a legitimate argument for best ever already since they have been to 7 Super Bowls in the parity era. But winning the 5th will remove all doubts. Hard to accept for folks like me who view these Pats through the prism of tuck-rule, spy-gate, and deflate-gate. But you have to give the devil it's due. These guy are good. Actually, they are great. And they are the best ever. No disrespect to the Falcons, but the dirty dirty will have trouble finishing this. I am curious to see what things Hoodie takes away from the Falcons offense as he is always known to shutdown the opposition's top option or two. He will do something and bother the versatile and potent Falcons' offense just enough to win this thing. We are just a couple of days away from anointing the best ever in the NFL. Move over Joe Montana, Bill Walsh, and Chuck Noll.

New England Patriots 31- Atlanta Falcons 27

Sequels Galore

Last week was one of the great football week over the last several months. First, the college football championship sequel was as good as I had expected it to be. Deshaun Watson and Clemson did what I was hoping as well as expecting from them. Alabama is as legit a team and as solid a program as they come in college football today. They brought everything they had and then some to the table, but I was expecting that the talent and experience of Watson would be the difference maker and would be able to handle it all. That’s what happened, though the Alabama D made it difficult for the kid. The game came down to the last seconds and Watson finished Bama off with a 2-minute drive like an elite NFL QB. I like him at the next level and would draft him high, but then again, we fall easily for great college QBs and some of them don’t translate to the next level. I would trust the GMs on this one instead of making my own call. I liked QBs like Michael Vick and Geno Smith coming into the NFL. Didn’t expect much from Cam Newton or Tim Tebow at the next level. As you can tell, I was right with Vick and Tebow and not so much with Geno or Cam. It’s a tough call and I am definitely not qualified to make it. But I will keep an eye on Watson on the projections of experts like Mel Kuiper, who should be out and about soon.

This college game came right after the start of the NFL playoffs, which had an underwhelming run over the wild-card weekend. Even the much-anticipated Giants-Packers game was a dud, though it’s never boring to watch a great QB like Aaron Rodgers play. He impressed us in the wild-card game and gave us a performance for the ages last weekend in the divisional round in what was one of the best football games I have watched in a long time! The word instant classic is often over-used in sports, especially in the 24-hour ESPN-classic era where they will repeat the so-called classic game just 4 hours after the final buzzer. But this one was a hyper-instant-super-classic. ARod is carving an amazing niche for himself and his career is shining brighter than ever. We all know that his talent has been on display for many moons now and we have seen him do amazing things on the field. He has also been one of those guys with immense confidence in himself and walks the cocky-v-confidence line expertly. Of course, it’s easier to act like the boss once you win a championship. That Super Bowl ring brings you all kinds of credibility that you can’t enjoy without it. And that’s true not just for star players like ARod or Curry or LeBron, but also GMs and coaches too. I always half-joke that the coaches get a free pass for 5 years after a championship and GMs, probably 10 years. Talented players get a pass anyways.

The thing that is really adding onto the legend of ARod is his cool and calm leadership. Few years back, he asked the media and fans to R-E-L-A-X after a bad start to a Packers’ season. And then the Packers had an amazing rest of the season as he had predicted. He had a similar moment this season as the Packers were looking mediocre and struggling in their division, but Rodgers then said they can run the table and save the season. Boy, was he prophetic! They have not lost since. Not only did they run the table, they did it primarily due to ARod’s amazing play. He spoke and then he delivered. That momentum continued well into this Dallas game and it looked like it was over at half-time with the Packers leading comfortably. The only blemish on ARod’s play in this game, probably his entire second half of this season, was an inopportune pick he threw in the third quarter right after Dak threw a horrible pick to give the Packers the ball. Packers could have put the game away in that drive, but instead, handed Dallas the ball back and gave them a lot of life. Dak played great from that point on and was actually the best part of this loss for Dallas. Their future with the new triplets – Dak, Zeke, and Dez, look great.

There were moments in the early parts of the game when I was telling myself, “I know Dak earned this and he has to go through this right of passage. This experience can only help them down the road. But this is the kind of game where Dallas probably needs Tony Romo to hang with Rodgers.”  Dak looked much more impressive later in the game and almost negated my Romo argument. Mind you, I was not saying that Dallas should have started Romo or even put him in mid-way through the game. I was just saying Romo would have played better in this game at this particular juncture of their respective careers. But Dak was not the problem as he tied this game, giving Dallas a chance to win. Dak kept pace with ARod. There were 3 game-tying or tie-breaking field goals in the last 2 minutes of the game. I can’t remember ever seeing something like that. After Dak drove the Boys down for a game-tying field goal, ARod worked his magic with just 35 seconds left while all of us were getting ready for overtime. The final play for the Packers, which led to the game winning field goal, was typical ARod! He scrambled left, danced around forever, and nailed a pass to a spot where only his TE Jared Cook could catch and barely stay inbounds. Cook made a great play to complement Rodgers’ genius.

The other hero for the Packers was Mason Crosby who nailed 3 pressure-packed, 50+ yard field goals in the final seconds, including one that was nullified by a Dallas timeout. That one was right down the middle while the next one that actually counted looked headed wide-left before sneaking in to deprive us of overtime. For a moment, when that ball looked headed wide-left, I thought this may be another heart-breaking OT loss for the Packers. They have had some rough go-arounds and hard luck in the playoffs since they won the Super Bowl 5 years back. They have had impressive seasons and ARod has been mostly great, but playoff dominance has still eluded them lately. That may be over this year as ARod is playing at an HNL (‘hole ‘nother level!) and they look every bit like the proverbial team of destiny. GB and Dallas played a great playoff game just 2 years back that GB won at home. That was the famous “Dez Bryant catch/no-catch” game and this year’s edition was even better. This game was another sequel that didn’t disappoint. The Atlanta-Seattle game was also a sequel from 4 years back, but Atlanta repeated the result this year with an impressive win that was not as close as the earlier one. Seattle was not great this year and they deserved to lose. Of course, both these NFC divisional match-ups and the NFC championship game next weekend are also re-matches from this regular season, which is also great.

Atlanta on the road next weekend is going to be tough for the Packers, though Dallas had the best record in the NFC. I can’t wait for that game! Good luck to the Packers and ARod as there is nothing in the NFL quite like watching a great QB play. Matt Ryan is probably the MVP of this season, but ARod is looking legendary right now. A Brady-ARod (much like the Peyton-ARod) Super Bowl has been eluding us and we need it this year. Brady and the Pats dispatched the Texans last weekend as expected and their real test only starts this weekend with the Steelers coming to town. Can Le'Veon Bell dance and find holes against a hoodie defense is a question I am eagerly awaiting to answer. Pats don’t have a great defense, but they have great coaches who seem to be able to scheme their way to success more than anybody else. What do the Pats do against the killer Bees is a great story for this week. The Steelers rode Bell to the AFC championship game with a win at Kansas City in another great game last Sunday. We finally got 2 great games on Sunday after a week and a half of playoff futility. The Steelers sneaked past the Chiefs in a game where the Chiefs scored all the TDs. Steelers moved the ball up and down and stalled every time, but scored enough field goals to win. Nonetheless, we got a good game and we also got a Steelers @ Pats game we want. Bring it on!

Another sequel that was hyped up was the Cavs at the Warriors game in the NBA on MLK jr day. The dubs took care of business at home and crushed the Cavs. Not much to say here except that we now wait for the finals. We hope these 2 teams make it and continue this rivalry and the sequels. LeBron doesn’t think this is a rivalry and I don’t know why he is so insecure about it. It is every bit a rivalry and the only one of any relevance in the NBA today. A third straight finals will cement it, but nothing is guaranteed in the brutal west. The great Warriors still have to get past the Spurs and/or the Rockets to get to the Finals. Along the way, they may run into the dreaded Westbrook too if the Thunder pull off an upset in the early rounds of the playoffs. All of this will make for an exciting playoffs, but I will trade it all for the Cavs-Warriors version 3. This time, hopefully no injuries and suspensions.  I wouldn’t mind a Spurs-Warriors western conference finals too along the way. That has been eluding us over the last 2 great dubs season as well. After the Packer-Cowboys game last weekend, I am shooting for the moon in the playoffs in all sports!

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