Ortiz Heats Up, Goes 1-5

How bad are things for David Ortiz? He went 1-5 last night and actually raised his batting average! Ortiz, we need to find a new nickname for this guy because "Big Papi" doesn't work anymore, came into last night's game batting .185. By going 1-5 with 3 K's, his average actually sparked up to .186!

I wish I could say I feel sorry for the guy and the Red Sox, but Nah!!!! I fucking love it! I'm not going to bring up PED's, steroids, no Manny hitting behind him, being an average player when he was with the Twins, etc. Whoops! Just did. Sorry. No, not really.

This guy is a mess. And I love it! Maybe it was a good thing that guy tried to bury an Ortiz jersey in the new Yankee Stadium. And maybe it was a good thing the Yankees spent X amount of dollars to dig up that jersey. The Yankees are in first place and everyone's hitting homeruns at the new Yankee Stadium, except Lil' Papi.

Maybe the "Mendoza Line" should now be referred to as the "Big Papi Line"?

Yankees Still Rolling, Set MLB Record

On a night where Joba Chamberlain had the best game of his career, the first place New York Yankees set a MLB record. That record? 18 straight games without an error. During that span, the Yankees are 14-4.

A big part of that record can be credited to Mark Teixeira. Not only does Teixeira bring consistency at the plate, by he also brings a gold glove to first base. The Yankees really haven't had a solid first baseman since Tino Martinez.

While exorcising the demons from the 2007 playoff "bug game" in Cleveland, Joba returned to the scene of the crime and Progressive Field was littered with birds and the infamous midges.

Chamberlain got to work right away retiring the first 11 Cleveland batters he faced. Joba also had the longest outing of his career pitching 8 innings. For the night, Joba gave up 2 runs, 4 hits, 5 K's and 2 walks. He also hit 97 mph as he approached 100 pitches.

But the biggest play of the game was Joba's defense. With runners on first and second and nobody out, Kelly Shoppach bunted a ball that popped up toward the third base line. Joba quickly jumped off the mound and made a full body dive to catch and ball and land on his stomach. Joba got back up and fired the ball to second for the double play. After the play, Joba did his signature fist pump. It was an amazing play!

Mariano Rivera came on and worked a perfect ninth for his 11th save and the Yankees have now won 15 of the last 19. The scary thing? This team is only getting better.

Derek Jeter extended his hitting streak to 15 games and has upped his average to .311. Guess he's washed up. Teixeira also extended his hit streak to 14 games.

Another Job Well Done By Barkley And TNT

Notice in the "Gone Fishing" picture-that's Lebron's puppet in the upper right and Lil' Penny in the left.

TNT's NBA coverage is outstanding! These guys are worth staying up for.

And will someone tell Rashard Lewis that his team is going to the NBA Finals, not the Eastern Conference Finals again.



The "not used to being on the big stage" Orlando Magic fans show their class by throwing a T-Shirt at Ernie Johnson.


You have to admire Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith's on air chemistry. Barkley is so right.





That's AI in the water and Jay Cutler on the right.

Lakers Show Championship Form, Head Back To Finals

After LA lost Game 2 at home, I really thought they'd have a lot of trouble getting by Denver. Since that Game 2 loss, the Lakers took 3 out of the next 4 from Denver and are heading back to the NBA Finals.

The Lakers have the most talented team in the NBA, but throughout the season, their toughness and consistency had always been questioned. LA had not won back to back playoffs game since winning Games 2 and 3 in the semifinals against Houston. After winning Game 4 in LA, many assumed the Lakers would do their usual and take the next game off and head back home to clinch Game 7. However the Lakers came back to Denver and jumped out to a big early lead and never took their foot off the gas.

Kobe Bryant made sure that wouldn't happen as Mamba had another typical stellar game with 35 points, 10 dimes and 6 boards.

After being dominated by Denver in front court the first 4 games, the Lakers finally got dominate play in the paint from Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom. Gasol had one of his best playoff performances last night with 20 points, 12 rebounds and 6 assists.

Odom came out of his playoff conference finals hibernation with solid back to back games. Last night Odom put in a 20 point, 8 rebound performance. It was this type of play from Odom that Lakers so desperately need if they want to win the franchise's 15 title.

And LA couldn't have shot the ball better. On the road in one of the most electric atmospheres in the NBA, the Lakers shot 57.3% from the field, 56.3% from downtown and a perfect 24-24 from the line. LA's bench was also huge, getting 40 points off the bench.

Overall, a total team effort.

As for the Nuggets? Well, I guess a lot of people, myself included, were a little bit premature in wanting to put Carmelo Anthony's name with the likes of Lebron, Kobe and King James. After dominating the first two games, Melo cooled off. Last night, on his 25th birthday, Melo scored 25 points, getting 12 from the line, and shot only 6-17 from the field.

Now the Lakers must wait and see whether they play the Magic or Cavaliers. If it's Orlando, LA will get home court advantage in the Finals, but the Lakers were 0-2 against the Magic in the regular season.

If it's Cleveland, the Cavs will have home court but LA was 2-0 vs. Cleveland.

No He Didn't!

No matter how great Reggie Miller was throughout his career, he never led his team to a championship. A lot of thanks to Michael Jordan. I will never forget the play in the 1998 Playoffs against Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls.

Miller robbed Jordan worse than Bernie Madoff on this no call offensive foul. I still cannot get over this no call. Miller was notorious with this kind of play throughout his career.

And last night calling Game 5 of the Orlando/Cleveland Eastern Conference Finals, Zydrunas Ilgauskas was called for a touch foul on Dwight Howard. Miller claims "You just can't shove a guy, this was an easy call, done right in front of the officials, I mean what an easy call."

Watch the two videos. The first, Reggie Miller getting away with the obvious push on Jordan. The second, was Miller calling last night's Game 5 for TNT.

Magic Put A Choke Hold On Cavaliers, Go Up 3-1

Hold up on producing more of the Kobe/Lebron puppet commercials, as much as I love them. And the Vitamin Water "Great Debate?" Gatorade might want to go after Dwight Howard and Carmelo Anthony. So far the winner of the advertising sweepstakes might have to be T-Mobile, although I don't know one person who subscribes to T-Mobile as their carrier.

I'll tell you right now why Orlando is so good and have dominated Cleveland in the last 3 plus years. Orlando's game plan is basically playing 4 guards/small forwards and one dominate big guy. The Magic try to work the inside game with Dwight Howard, if he's double teamed, they can kick the ball out to where they seem to have 2 to 3 guys wide open. If you don't double team Howard, Superman will eat you up. See the overtime period in last night's game.

And with Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Anderson Varejao, the Cavaliers basically start two centers. On the defensive end, neither Ilgauskas or Varejao can take on Howard one on one. And with Orlando's other 4 players on the floor being so quick and athletic, Ilgauskas or Varejao will caught inside and never make it out to defend the 3. We've seen Varejao in Game 1 get burned by having to come out and try to guard Rashard Lewis's game winning 3.

And with the smaller lineup, the Magic are able to quickly get back down the court and halt any fast break points for the Cavs.

And speaking of Rashard Lewis. Lewis has turned into Robert Horry in this series with his clutch shooting. It was Lewis who hit the dagger 3 in Game 1. And it was Lewis who hit the biggest shot of the game in last night's Game 4. With Orlando down 98-97, Lewis hit a turn around 3 to put the Magic up 2 with 4 seconds left.

The play of the game occurred right before that shot. Mickael Pietrus missed a 3 and Delonte West failed to secure the rebound as both he and Howard fell to the floor and the ball went outbounds giving Lewis and Orlando one more shot.

And Pietrus has been amazing off the bench. If there was a "6th man of the playoffs," it would have to go to Pietrus who had 17 off the bench.

With Shaquille O'Neal sitting courtside, it has been Stan "Master of Panic" Van Gundy who has done a tremendous coaching job. In overtime last night Mike Brown decided to go small and defend Orlando's outside game leaving Varajao guarding Howard one on one. Howard had his way in the overtime with 10 points, 8 of the 10 coming on dunks or layups.

How was Mike Brown the Coach of the Year? He played Lebron James the entire second half and overtime, giving James no rest. Brown never seemed to call a play on the offensive end, giving the ball to Lebron and basically telling Lebron, "Your the coach, you need to do everything. You see Van Gundy running up and down the sideline motivating his team and Brown just stands there looking lost in space, not even breaking a sweat.

Yeah, Lebron carried the team again with 44, but James also had 3 turnovers in the last 3 minutes of regulation and 3 more turnovers in OT. Some one else needs to step up for Cleveland.

All 4 games have been really competitive with 3 of the 4 games coming down to the last shot. Cleveland has lead at halftime in 3 of the four games, but have crumbled in the second half. The Cavaliers have been known for their defense, but have a hard time getting a stop when they need it.

And we all credited the acquisition of Mo Williams, but he's failed to show up in this series and when Cleveland needs him most. After guaranteeing victory last night, Williams went 5-15 from the field and didn't score after the third quarter.

Williams and Delonte West were a combined 0-6 from downtown.

Hey, let's face it. Maybe Cleveland isn't the team we thought they were. They had a dominate regular season, but they beat up on the inferior competition and won the games they were suppose to win. They were 1-2 against Orlando. 0-2 against the Lakers. 1-1 vs. Houston. 2-2 vs. Boston. There's 7 of their 16 losses. They did go 2-0 against Denver but both those games were earlier in the season when the Nuggets hadn't quite gelled yet.

And Cleveland was 2-2 against the Washington Wizards, a team that only won 19 games.

Now Cleveland has their backs to the wall and now must win 3 straight against a team they've only beaten 4 times in the last 3 years. Orlando is a team that lives and dies by the 3. They've definitely been living so you would think there due to cool off. History and stats are greatly against Cleveland, but you can never count out a Lebron James team.

These playoffs may just be the best ever.

Melo Continues To Struggle But Nuggets Even Series

Top to bottom, Denver's roster is just better than LA's. Carmelo Anthony started the game 0-10 from the field. He didn't hit his first field goal until 1:00 left in the first half. It was his first field goal since the second quarter of Game 3!

But the Nuggets still led 52-45 at half.

Melo finished with 15 points, 9 from the charity stripe and shot just 3-16 from the field. But Denver's supporting cast was solid. The Nuggets had 7 players in double figures and their front line continued to dominate. Denver out rebounded the Lakers 58-40, and 3 players had at least 13 boards.

The difference in this game was the bench scoring. Denver's bench outscored LA's 42-24 in their 120-101 Game 4 victory. J.R. Smith had as many points off the bench as the entire Lakers's bench.

I told you J.R. Smith was due to explode as he scored 24.

The Lakers don't deserve to win a title. I've always said they're too soft and don't consistently play to their potential. Throughout the season, they've had trouble holding big leads and they seem to take nights off. They got what they wanted, a split in Denver. But when you're considered to be one of the favorites to win the championship, can you really be happy with a split?

That kind of attitude and play will catch with you in the Playoffs.

Charles Barkley was dead on when he said the Lakers make him sick, saying he would have easily have won a title with that much talent.

The Lakers just seem to lack a killer instinct.

It is now a three game series with the Lakers getting 2 of the 3 at home. The series is definitely in LA's favor. But think about it, Denver has been the dominate team in 3 of 4 games. Heck, if Denver could inbound the ball down the stretch, they could have swept this series.

The play is really starting to get physical in the playoffs and more fouls are being called. Sunday night in Game 3 of the Orlando/Cleveland series, there were 58 fouls and 86 total free throw attempts.

Last night's Lakers/Nuggets game, there were 55 fouls and 84 free throw attempts. A lot of foul shooting is slowing down the pace of the games and could hurt what has been a spectacular postseason.

In the Western Conference Finals, the fouls have been consistent, but the number of free throws has risen each game, in part due to all the technicals.

Here's a breakdown of the personal fouls and number of free throw attempts from each series.

Western Conference
-- ------------PF -- FTA
Game 1----- 52 --- 59
Game 2----- 56 --- 72
Game 3----- 55--- 76
Game 4----- 55--- 84

Eastern Conference
--------------PF--FTA
Game 1-----34---31
Game 2-----49---51
Game 3-----55---86

Look at the Eastern Conference Finals! We've seen an incredible jump from game to game.

One other note...I'm sure it's happened many times before, but I can't stand the cocktail servers who patrol the front row at NBA games. I'm just waiting for a ball, or better yet player to come crashing into the front row and taking out a server with a tray full of drinks. It's not the server I care to see make a fool of themselves, but I would love to see a tray of beer get spilled on bunch of rich folks sitting courtside.

It was close last night. One of the refs barely bumped into a server who spilt one drink on the floor. There was at least a 5 minute delay in the game.

A-Rod After 17 Games

It has already been noted, after A-Rod's 5-5 day, his batting averaged mushroomed from .189 to .259.

In 17 games back, the Yankees are 13-4 with A-Rod. A-Rod has 17 RBI's and only 15 hits. 7 of his hits have left the field. And he's nearly drew as many walks as hits with 13 BB's.

And as for the Yankees's 19 hit parade yesterday, not one of them went the yard! Does that say something about the new Yankee stadium?

Ameriquest Field in Arlington is second in the AL to Yankee Stadium in homeruns per game. There have been 87 homeruns in the new Yankee Stadium, 3.78 a game in 24 games.

Ameriquest Field is averaging 2.90 homeruns a game, 61 total in 21 games...Hmmm....

Robinson Cano, Melky Cabrera and Johnny Damon are all batting over .300. You know it's just a matter of time before A-Rod and Mark Teixeira are there. And even the washed up Derek Jeter is currently batting .284 with a 9 game hit streak.

And the Yankees have also set a franchise record with 12 consecutive games without an error. I guess everyone's right when they say Jeter's defense is poor and he's losing his range at SS.

Once A Douche, Always A Douche

We all know what an idiot Jonathan Papelbon is. I really gave up on the douchebag last summer when he said he should be the closer in the All Star Game at Yankee Stadium.

And last Saturday, Papelbon blew his first save of the year at the hands of the NY Mets and a backup catcher. Omir Santos hit a two run homer in the ninth to give the Mets a 3-2 lead. In 36 career games, it was only Santos's 2nd career homerun.

In the bottom of the ninth, a NY Post photographer was just doing his job and snapping a photo of the player most responsible for the loss.

Papelbon screamed at the photog, "Don't take my f- - -ing picture!"
And proceeded to throw a towel at him.

Come on! I'm sure Papelbon and Red Sox fan will claim that Papelbon was just showing his competitive nature. Say what you want, but this was typical childish behavior from Papelbum.

Going into Saturday's game, Papelbon was 11-11 in save opportunities with a 0.95 ERA. Since then, his ERA has blossomed to 2.57 after allowing a two run homer to the Twins's Joe Mauer and nearly blowing another save yesterday.

A-Rod "Pretty Accurate" On His Last 5 Hit Day

In his first game back in Arlington since confessing Texas as the scene of the crime, Alex Rodriquez was showered by boos and then went 5-5. A-Rod raised his average .70 points from .189 to .259.

After the game, A-Rod was asked about his 5 hit game. He said it felt good and claimed his last 5 hit game was also in Arlington against the Yankees. That would have meant his last 5 hit game was before 2004.

I guess that's "pretty accurate." So much for A-Rod's memory. His last 5 hit game was April 18, 2005 with the Yankees against Tampa Bay. A player doesn't have a 5 hit game everyday. I would think when a any player accomplishes such a feat, they never forget it.

But hell, A-Rod thought the period of his steroid usage, 2001-03 was "pretty accurate."

Witness!

With just one second remaining on the clock at Quicken Loans Arena, I sat in utter disbelief. How can the Cavaliers be down 2-0 after a dominant season and playoff run? And on their home court!

Hedo Turkoglu had been a hero for the Magic again. Turkoglu had just given Orlando a two point lead and a seemingly 2-0 series lead. Only one second remained and Cleveland, a city miracles had forgotten about, needed just that.

Lebron's winning three was one of those classic moments in sports that makes you jump off your seat and yell. One of those moments that reminds us all why we love sports.

That shot changed the series. And the last two years, there have been two instances where I jumped up and down and screamed out of control. The Giants' improbable Super Bowl victory and last night. It was one of those moments where years from now you'll remember exactly where you were when you witnessed that shot.

That shot brought back so many Michael Jordan memories-the Craig Ehlo shot, the the Byron Russell shot. Lebron's shot will go right up there with every miraculous Jordan moment. It will be up there with every other Playoff buzzer beater-Magic Johnson's running hook shot to beat the Celtics and all of Robert Horry's buzzer beating, series clinching shots.


Lebron has taken the weight of Cleveland, the NBA, the Playoffs, his team, sports in general, on his shoulders and has thrived like few others. And he loves it.

And wow! How about these playoffs! That's two games in a row the Eastern Conference Finals have given us a last second shot to win the game. Just two nights ago we saw Mo Williams attempt an impossible shot to win Game 1. Williams got a great look and nearly drained it. Last night Lebron hit the winning shot in the exact spot Williams had missed.

This series could be 2-0 in favor of either team. But thankfully it's tied and we can only hope for 5 more games half as exciting as the first two.

That shot killed Orlando. Instead of having a choke hold on the series, their confidence and momentum have got to be shot. They played unbelievable basketball in the first two games. Orlando battled back down 23 on the road in the toughest arena for an opposing team to play in. They held Lebron in check the final minute last night. James turned the ball over twice in the last minute. And after all that, the series is tied.

Just when Orlando had swung the choke artist reputation off their backs and over to the Cavaliers, that shot changed everything. I can't wait till Sunday.