I would enjoy the NBA first round a lot more if any of the games meant anything. It is a rather distinct irony that baseball, a sport in which the best team doesn’t even always win in a seven game series, has a five game series in its first round (which, by the way, is basically equivalent to the second round of the NBA playoffs, thanks to the smaller number of teams!) yet the NBA playoffs, which has a first round made mostly of gigantic mismatches, stretches its first series’ out to seven games. In other words: it really doesn’t matter that Denver beat San Antonio in game 1, nor does it matter that Golden State beat Dallas in their game 1. This is like the inevitable beat down every superhero takes at the hands of the villain before eventually rising one last time to conquer evil. Unfortunately, in the NBA scenario, we are teased by the villain getting beat down once before inevitably coming around to wipe out the team everyone is rooting for (I defy you to find one person not from San Antonio rooting for the Spurs—other than Skip Bayless, who clearly doesn’t count for anything).
The only good thing about the NBA playoffs is they allow sportswriters and pestiferous bloggers to take all the time in the world. Usually, I have to rush an article out to keep up with relevancy—not so with the NBA playoffs. I started the previous paragraph before the Nuggets-Spurs game began, and finished it after the game was well out of reach of the Nuggets. And it still completely maintains its relevancy, because as I point out in aforementioned first paragraph, the first game simply doesn’t matter.
But two games sort of does, and the Heat are finished. Don’t give me that nonsense about their comeback win from a year ago. Not only was that perpetuated by the refs calling fouls like Dwayne Wade was the last fertile man alive and we had to keep him from being harmed at all costs, but Miami was simply a better team last year. None of their players got any younger, including Shaq, who seemes to have burned out keeping this team relevant after Dwayne’s injury. And regardless of Dwayne’s health, without having Shaq draw double teams, Wade is no longer the unstoppable force he supposedly was last season. (He wasn’t. it was Shaq, once again. It’s just that Shaq passed out of the triple teams so Dwayne Wade got the stats—and the fouls—instead of the big Diesel.)
So anyway, that series is over, and the team I have been rooting for from season’s beginning is headed to the second round. Yep. Write it down, my predictions always fail.
I must say a Detroit/Miami matchup would likely please fans more, so the refs
could still get a call from David Stern telling them to turn this puppy around, but I think if the commish did that, even the gullible, dupable masses of the United States of Asininity would cry foul—oh the irony.
Anyway, Detroit/Chicago should be a good series, but unfortunately my team likely won’t come out on top. Because as mediocre as they are, Detroit is still better than Chicago.
It is somewhat odd that the conferences (or leagues, in the case of baseball) are so sharply weighted to one side in all of the three major sports. The AFC clobbers the NFC in the NFL, the West is far better than the East in the NBA, and the AL is monstrously better than the NL in the MLB. I haven’t been around forever so I don’t know if one conference is always this dominant in all three sports, but these are certainly not just minor edges. I mean, the AFC is to the NFC as filet mignon is to feet wrapped in leathery burnt bacon. Same goes for the other leagues.
I make fun of bad commercials quite often in my blog, whether they be sports related or entirely non-sports related. So I figure I will give credit to those who are credible by pointing out the “fave 5” commercials, starring Charles Barkley and Dwayne Wade, are hilarious. I’m not sure who thought of something so simple yet so amusing, but whoever it was deserves to have their names up there with the equivalent of the West, AFC and AL of marketing. Look them up on Youtube. They are progressively funnier as they go along.
Anyway, the Yankees are in the process of getting themselves spanked yet again, so I'll have to wait to talk about baseball. Until next time...
"You got wings?"
~The Sports Maunderer~
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3 comments:
Here is the startling thing. Do I know who Dwayne Wade is? No. Charles Barkley? Yes. He strangled a guy a few years back and has since developed one of the ugliest swings in the game of golf. Just shows my age and relative knowledge of basketball.
Back in my day, we had a team called the Bulls. They were good. Too good, so then they had to "retire." I use the term loosely because Jordan came back a few times. Oh well.
Yeah, basketball was far more interesting when the Bulls were going. The only suspense in the playoffs was the number of games Jordan would let the series go on before geting serious and winning the thing (by the way, more often than not, it was 6 games. heh)
But come on Daniel, you don't know who Dwayne Wade is? I mean I know you live under a proverbial rock, but I thought the Dwayne Wade overhype machine had gotten even there...
Nope, it's missed the rock. LeBron James, however, I am fully aware of. He's got great commercials featuring a little kid him, old him, older him, and regular basketball him. Good stuff.
Now if only Yao Ming or Manute Bol could actually put out some good commercials.
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