U.S. defeats Spain for the gold

The United States men's basketball team just finished a perfect Olympics with a fabulous 118-107 victory over Spain, giving the Americans their first gold medal in a major international tournament since the Sydney Olympics in 2000.

Let me extend one final [thank] you to NBC for its horrendously confusing schedules. When I checked its online listings late last night, I saw that the gold medal game would run from 1:30 to 3:30 a.m. Mountain time. (Even put in my cable company and everything.) When I woke up at 1:30 Mountain time, you guessed it, the U.S. was holding a 69-61 halftime lead and I'd missed Dwyane Wade's impressive first half. Great. Of course, NBC's Olympic website still says the game starts at 1:30.

At least we got the matchup I wanted. Last week I got an e-mail from my brother, a missionary in Spain, who was ecstatic about the United States' 37-point victory over them in the opening round. He said that ever since he got there he's had to hear the Spanish jawing about how their team, which won the 2006 World Championships, is better than ours. Now it's his turn to gloat.

Anyway, the second half got off to a terrifying start for fans of the U.S. Spain quickly cut the lead to four points, then held it in the four-to-six range for several minutes as they out-hustled and out-shot the Americans, who were struggling to get any decent looks. The game had all the feeling of a classic upset, where the underdog just kept hanging and hanging and wouldn't go away. I began to worry that, despite how well they'd done to this point, my fears about our team's makeup were actually well-placed.

The U.S. built the lead to as much as ten late in the third, but lost it almost as quickly. A three-pointer by Spain's Rudy Fernandez cut the lead to 91-89 with 8:13 remaining in the game. But that's when Kobe Bryant, long considered the missing ingredient from our last few international teams, took over.

Bryant drove down the right side for a tough shot to put the lead back to four. The next time up the court, he drove and found a wide-open Deron Williams on the left, who canned a three. Bryant next found Dwight Howard down low for a power dunk, then responded to another Fernandez three with one of his own to make the lead nine points with just over six minutes to play.

Just before the three-minute mark, Kobe hit another three and was fouled shooting. He just stood at the three-point line, brought up his finger, and shhhed everybody. This is exactly the kind of thing that normally makes me hate the guy, but tonight I finally get why Lakers fans love him so much. Naturally, he made the free throw for the four-point play.

The U.S. made some more free throws at the end, but the outcome of the game was no longer in doubt. The Americans finished with a high-scoring victory (225 points in just a forty-minute game, remember) and brought the gold back where it belongs.

Postscript: This will be the last post on this blog. Thanks for reading!

Phelps wins 8

Michael Phelps just won his eighth gold medal of this Olympics, and the 400m medley relay was the seventh race he won with a new world record.

It was such an incredible meet, especially the finishes to the 400m free relay and the 100m butterfly, that it's hard to put in perspective. (With his win over Crocker in '04, with his amazing .01 touch this year, and with his leg of the 400m medley relay just finished, I think Phelps swimming the butterfly for one hundred meters is officially my favorite thing to watch in sports.) The closest I can do to giving this justice is to think of what Mark Spitz said last night on NBC about how the greatest athletes know how to win. I've never been dominant enough at anything to know what that phrase really means, but it's as close as I can come to describing the zone some athletes get in where any victory is possible.

What's amazing is how unsurprising Phelps' triumph was. Yes, my faith faltered during that 100m butterfly, but for most of the week it felt likely that Phelps would win gold eight times. Only one other athlete has lived up to such high expectations in my time as a sports fan, and that was Michael Jordan in his last years on the Bulls. At first I thought Jordan deserves the edge because he did it night in and night out over a period of years, but then I consider Phelps' performances in the 2004 Olympics and 2005 and 2007 Worlds and I'm not so sure. Have you ever seen anyone else this good?

Thoughts on the Olympics' first week

I woke up early this morning to watch the U.S. beat Spain live in basketball, one of the few live events I've seen this year. (Which reminds me, I screwed up again on the 200 IM, accidentally checking Phelps' Wikipedia page for his career medals breakdown before the race was shown live in Mountain time. Thanks again, NBC!)

Anyway, the Americans—or Redeem Team, as they are so cutely called this year—dominated the Spaniards with superior athletic ability. Fittingly, Coach K had us looking like a Duke team, except like one from the late-90's, when they were good: they combined pressure defense and exquisite ball movement. Carmelo continued his torrid shooting with four threes, and Dwyane Wade especially continued his great play. LeBron James was good today but overall my opinion of him is almost down...he's still a little too prone to the what-the-heck-are-you-doing-type plays where he pulls up for a three when it's far from the best shot. However, he pulls some of them off, too, and has had some sick blocks already in the tourney. It has been a blast watching the U.S. team and I feel much better about our gold medal chances.

I watched the team competition in women's gymnastics, but not the individual all-around. After watching Nastia Liukin in the team competition I wasn't remotely surpised by her gold medal win; she was awesome under pressure. Even though I couldn't care much less for her sport it's always cool watching people come through like that. I felt bad for the telegenic Alicia Sacramone, who hurt the U.S. team when she fell off the balance beam, but as a fan was kind of annoyed by how rattled she was by it. I almost knew she'd make a big mistake on the next event, the floor exercise, where she fell again. For once, though, I was grateful for the tape delay, because I checked online to make sure we were just getting silver, then immediately went to bed. I also realized that by the next Olympics I will be way too old to call even the older gymnasts attractive ever again.

Does anyone remember the quote-unquote scandal of the American track-and-field guys showboating in Athens? Shawn Crawford and Justin Gatlin were winning the 100m semifinals, and one of them (I think Crawford) turned to the other one and started waving at him to go by. NBC announcer and former Denver Nuggets forward Tom Hammond laid into them for what I guess he thought was bad sportsmanship, but which I thought was just two guys fired up in the moment. Anyway, so tonight in the 100m final Usain Bolt slowed near the end to celebrate early, too, spreading his arms out and thumping his chest. I didn't hear a single negative word about it, nor did I want to. Combined with the public perception of the last few Dream Teams, it made me wonder, do Americans hold each other to a higher standard, and if they do, isn't that kind of stupid?

I can't decide whether I liked or hated the swimming announcers. On one hand, I liked the insight and how they were willing to make predictions, or tell me that some team leading a relay didn't really have a chance because the rest of their team was weak or whatever. And they were always right on that stuff. However, they had this weird way of trying to manage my expectations that felt annoying. Outside of Phelps, I liked watching the whole U.S. men's team and the women, too, at least when Katie Hoff wasn't cranking her goggles tight an inch deep into her skull. I especially liked watching Dara Torres, who first competed in the L.A. Olympics (!) and almost won gold in the 50m free tonight. It's cool to see a veteran getting it done like that.

Microsoft Silverlight, the plug-in for watching video on NBC's Olympic website, slowed my work and home desktops to a crawl and delivered intermittent choppiness on both streaming events and replays. The framerate smoothed out on my MacBook under both Vista and OS X, so there is hope if buying a new computer just for the Olympics makes sense to you. Still, I got the sense that the video experience was precisely engineered to be watchable, but also just bad enough that TV would always be preferable. I am pretty glad to be able to catch some stuff live, though. I hope in 2010 things look better and we can watch everything live.

NBC, on the whole, has been awful so far. The tape delay is absolutely killing me, and I saw the results to the men's 100m track final today about fifteen times on the Internet before it was televised. As always I love the replay of that race from the camera that glides alongside them...that always looks so epic. But for nights when I could be watching Michael Phelps live, but instead am stuck hearing about the mating habits of panda bears, I give out only one grade: F-.

I got David V'd

Today I was discussing with commenter David V about how'd he accidentally learned the results of the men's 4 x 100m freestyle relay yesterday before he'd seen the race on TV. At first, I didn't even believe him that the race wasn't live, thanks to some annoyingly deceitful tactics from NBC. (If my fact-checking is accurate, they did it again tonight. The "LIVE" graphic was up in the right-hand corner through the men's 100m backstroke, in which Americans Aaron Peirsol and Matt Grevers went gold-silver. But judging from the times on NBC's website (which say the event took place at 10:31 a.m.) and online world clocks (which say it was about 11:30 a.m. in Beijing when I was watching) the race was tape-delayed here by about an hour.)

One reason I didn't believe him was that I'd thought I'd checked ESPN.com frequently before the race Sunday night but had seen nothing of the American team's victory. I couldn't imagine what ESPN could have to gain from not spoiling NBC's surprise, other than not pissing off their own readers, which would actually be kind of sweet. I had to know if they put it up before the broadcast. My curiosity got the best of me tonight and I went to the site before when I thought the race would be televised and immediately saw the main story, that Phelper had won his third gold in the 200m free.

However, I couldn't (and, as far as I can tell, still can't) watch the video online yet, and I somehow miscalculated and missed watching it live. So I feel kind of screwed but can't tell for sure. Since I missed it, I guess it's possible NBC really did show it live...anyone know what's going on here?

As a postscript, I really liked a quote from another cool New York Times article about the Olympics and American swimmer Branden Hansen:

“In the United States, we raise the bar so high on ourselves,” Hansen said. Then, referring to Michael Phelps, he added, “Now to even be noticed, you’ve got to win eight gold medals. The poor guy’s swimming his mind out. And everybody’s saying, ‘Okay, one down, seven to go.’ Let him enjoy the one. You don’t know how hard it is to get on the blocks and do what he’s doing.”

Let him enjoy the one. I love that. There is such a small margin for error in the Olympics. We see this when we watch someone who barely qualified at trails make the finals of an event, or we hear about some veteran who missed out four or eight years ago for the smallest-sounding reasons. The one that always gets me is when a world-record holder can't quite break through for gold. Considering all that, it's amazing Phelps has even gotten as far as he has already, especially in a sport that lends itself so well to specialization.

U.S. wins men's 4x100m free relay

Some of my favorite and most dramatic American wins in the last two Olympics have taken place in the pool.

In 2000, swimmers Gary Hall, Jr. and Anthony Ervin tied for the gold in the splash-and-dash 50m free over a field including Russian Alexander Popov, who'd won the gold in the event in both 1992 and 1996. (Don't think Popov was over the hill: he'd set the world record in the event a few months before the 2000 Olympics.)

In 2004, Michael Phelps trailed U.S. teammate and world-record holder Ian Crocker by a body length at the turn of the 100m butterfly, but chased him down for the gold and set a new Olympic record.

Neither was as cool as what just happened.

* * *

The 4 x 100m free relay was billed as a showdown between the United States and France, but the color commentator, whoever that is, seemed awfully sure the Americans didn't have a chance.

It seemed odd, considering the United States team had set the world record in the race the day before with their B team. But France's talent in the top-three spots was sure to beat the Americans' overall depth. Well, sure to the French, at least.

"The Americans? We're going to smash them. That's what we came here for," said 100m free world record holder and French cleanup hitter Alain Bernard before the race.

Someone from France was talking trash about the U.S. before one of Phelps' races? The cynic in me wondered what NBC had slipped Bernard to say that. The drama was almost too good to be true.

The announcers were in agreement that whoever won the race would have to beat the fresh world record handily, and they were absolutely right. The top five finishes in the race all would have broken the world record set the day before.

Anyway, Phelper led off for the Americans, but the team trailed Australia when he came out of the water. Garrett Weber-Gale was second and kept us right in it, but I started to wonder how we would ever make our move. During Cullen Jones' first fifty meters, the gold medal began to look all but out of reach as France's sprinters began to pull away.

Bernard jumped into the water ahead of American anchorman Jason Lezak, who only needed to chase down that world record holder to win it. He wasn't losing any distance on the first fifty, but it still seemed like the U.S. would lose the event for the third straight Olympics. On the swim back, though, he turned it on like no one has before, catching Bernard at the very end and touching eight-hundredths of a second earlier than the Frenchman. Lezak swam his hundred meters in 46.06 seconds, the fastest-ever split in this race. And the U.S. team just went crazy.

I love the Olympics.

* * *

I am a huge fan of Phelps, one of the dominant athletes of his generation, and watched hours of gymnastics tonight just to be sure to catch his races. I'm just a little afraid I'll be sick of hearing about him by the end of the Games. After the race, NBC showed Lezak's finish, all right, but also kept emphasizing how much Phelps had been cheering, and how excited he was when he saw the U.S. won. Hey, they're all excited. I just sensed that the story of the 32-year-old Lezak, who'd been on the silver and then bronze-winning relay teams in Sydney and Athens, would have been more interesting. In any event, Phelps qualified for the 200m free finals about an hour before leading off the relay, and you can watch him compete for gold in that race Monday night (American time).

UPDATE: You can catch video of the race at NBC's Olympics site, though it will prompt you to install Microsoft's Silverlight plug-in.

Favre traded to Jets (I think)

In a move that must be breaking hearts across Wisconsin, the Green Bay Packers have traded quarterback Brett Favre to the New York Jets. It's a sad finish to an avoidable saga.

We never found out the answer to the most important question: why wouldn't the Packers take Favre back? He had them a home game from the Super Bowl just a few months ago, right? I didn't just dream that, did I?

My impression based on the news of the last few days is that Favre was willing to stay in Green Bay (and even compete for his job, which is lame), but that the Packers were ready to move on. I'm going to assume that's true. I've heard many reasons why the Packers were so eager to go forward without Favre, and most of them had two things in common: they involved Aaron Rodgers, and they were incredibly stupid.

Common was the contention that the team owed something to Rodgers, who has, after all, endured three years on the bench despite a sparkling career quarterback rating of 73. This is so absurd it's practically offensive. Where to start with the rhetorical questions. Okay, first off: does every Packer who sits for three years get an automatic starting job? Don't the Packers at other positions who risk injury and unemployment on every play deserve a front office that will build the best team possible? Did the team perhaps already reward Rodgers for his three years of service with a paycheck? Does the franchise really owe Rodgers more than its three-time MVP and one-time Super Bowl champion? Does Rodgers really "deserve" not to wait as long as, say, Steve Young?

(On the flip side, does Favre really "deserve" the starting spot? Um, YES, if he's the best quarterback on the roster (something it sounded like he was willing to prove). We're talking sports! Isn't it a meritocracy?)

Another idea that while keeping Favre around now will help the Packers in the short term, it will only infuriate Rodgers and spur him to leave at the end of his contract. Um, so what? It's no big loss. Besides, even if Rodgers really is a star, they'll tear up his deal and give him a new one that keeps him in town before he even hits free agency. When was the last time an awesome quarterback switched teams? (Um, not counting tonight.) It never happens.

Also, the Packers had plans already! And those plans didn't include Brett Favre, who said he was retiring! Seriously, I don't get this. Putting Favre in your plans makes you a much better football team. Don't you think the rest of the team craves the stability that would bring? Imagining myself in a young player's shoes, I'd much rather have a shot to prove myself with the Hall of Famer throwing to me, rather than some bonus baby who could be erratic and make me look bad.

I also think the issue has become clouded because Favre has fallen out of favor with many football fans for a few reasons. One, he gets a ton of pub out of proportion with the kind of player he's been the last few years (though he was great during last season specifically). Fine, whatever, I hate hype, too, though this guy is a legit legend. Many people are also saying Favre has been a jerk about this whole thing and put the Packers in a tough spot. In my book, he hasn't been nearly as big of a jerk as so many players have been. I mean, set aside the truly controversial guys (Leonard Little, anyone?). But if Barry Bonds wasn't enough of a jerk to lose his shot at 755, then Brett Favre definitely wasn't enough of a jerk to lose his starting spot in Green Bay.

Also, I keep seeing people suggest on the Web that the league or Packers should somehow be able to force Favre to stay retired. After all, he made a decision. And you're not allowed to change your mind in life! It is funny how many people saw Favre's return coming even when he announced his retirement, even if they meant it in jest.

Anyway, as I've said before, I feel terrible for Packers fans. But I feel terrible for all NFL fans now. First of all, the whiny bastards who keep announcing how sick they are of Favre now have to hear about him more. Actually, that part makes me happy. But why does Favre have to go to the Jets of all teams?

The Packers were 13-3 last year. The Jets? 4-12. I enjoy raining on your parade, Jets fans. Let's be realistic: there is no way Favre takes you to the Super Bowl, so why even bother? Also, Super Bowl III aside, I've always thought of New York's AFC sqaud as one of the lamer franchises in the league. Forget the past; can a 4-12 team have much of a roster? Who's Favre going to throw to, Al Toon?

It all adds up to some incredible lameness. The Packers won't be any good, the Jets won't be any good, and Favre will eventually leave the game unsatisfied. The Packers were a flawed team last year, but give 'em Brett for one more year and who knows what happens? Guess we'll never get to find out.

Reason No. 123 to Love the Broncos

A Few Seconds of Panic, Stefan Fatsis' new book about his time with the Broncos as a kicker before the 2006 season, includes on its one hundred sixty-second page the following awesome quote:

This year's per-team salary cap is $101,866,000, and the Broncos will come as close to that number as possible. Fully funding the team was a condition Shanahan set when he became head coach in 1995; a few years earlier, he had spurned an offer from Bowlen for reasons of internal politics and authority.

Bowlen says he wouldn't do it any other way. 'I'm not going to be judged on how much money this organization made,' he tells me one day. 'I mean, [f], that doesn't even enter the equation. Zero. It's, 'How many games did he win? How many Super Bowls did he win?' There's not a lot of things that I really want other than winning Super Bowls. I mean, what do I want, a bigger house? No. More space in Hawaii? Own my own jet? I mean, none of that makes a hell of a lot of sense to me at this stage in my life.'

If the Nuggets' cheaping out on Marcus Camby has bothered you half as much as it has me, then Bowlen is surely a breath of fresh air. With as much as I complain when some owners let me down, let me say how much I appreciate what Bowlen's ownership has meant for my favorite team over the past two-plus decades.

* * *

I just finished reading A Few Seconds of Panic, and without spoiling anything, let me just say that if you're a serious Broncos fan, it's an absolute must-read. The book chronicles Fatsis' attempt to turn himself into an NFL-caliber placekicker despite being in his early forties. In other words, it's half semi-serious attempt, half awesome insider's look.

If you're reading the book just to hear about the Broncos, as I did, know two things going in. The first is that, focusing on the 2006 camps and preseason, it's already a little dated, as key players on the team include guys like Jake Plummer. This didn't bother me at all. (If anything, it made me miss Plummer, and the book reconfirmed my feelings on him and the still-developing Jay Cutler.) The second point is that the first few chapters are mostly about Fatsis and very little about the Broncos; believe me when I say the payoff is worth the wait. Broncos lovers will love this book.  HPS recommended.

Rod Smith retires

Longtime Denver Broncos wide receiver Rod Smith, a team leader and one of the last remaining links to the franchise's Super Bowl victories, is retiring.

He leaves as the team's all-time leader in receptions, receiving yards, and touchdown catches.

Smith was amazingly athletic and emerged as John Elway's go-to deep threat in the 1997 season, after which the team won its first championship. But I'll always remember him for his work ethic and attitude.

Smith wasn't drafted, but he worked his way up through the Broncos' organization, going from the practice squad to the punt returner to the No. 1 receiver in just a few years. His rise was somewhat overshadowed by that of his running mate, Ed McCaffrey, who had a similar story, coming from nowhere into NFL stardom. Together they were the toughest tandem in the league, neither ever flinching over the middle, and both serving as outstanding run blockers. McCaffrey was a little more popular during Denver's fantastic run and had better commercials (McDonald's vs. Blackjack? Come on), but Smith surpassed him, Lionel Taylor, and everyone else on his way to becoming the best Broncos wide receiver ever.

When I think of Rod Smith, there are two plays that come to mind. The first was his 80-yard touchdown catch in Super Bowl XXXIII against the Falcons. He and Elway made it look much too easy to be memorable under other circumstances, but I remember spending most of that halftime trying to throw a similar touchdown past my friends' neighbors. Smith didn't make the Pro Bowl until 2000 for some reason, but he was on top of the football world that night.

The second moment is more symbolic of Smith's career path. It came in a 2004 regular-season game against the Carolina Panthers, a game the Broncos won by three. Early in the third quarter, the Broncos went for it on a fourth-and-goal at Carolina's one-yard line. Jake Plummer threw an interception to Julius Peppers, who looked to have an easy touchdown. Instead, Rod Smith chased Peppers down from the far side of the field and tackled him at the three-yard line, giving Peppers a 101-yard non-scoring return. The Panthers went on to score, but the effort fired up the Broncos.

I've been looking and looking and the quote I can find from Smith is, "I owe it to the other guys that are out there to play hard and do anything," but I remember him saying of the play that it could have been the last of his career and he wouldn't have wanted it to end without doing everything he could. As cheesy as it sounds, it was one of the coolest things I've ever heard an athlete say.

Thanks to John for the tip.

A small collection of cool Rod Smith quotes can be found here. I remember enough of these to think the list is generally legit.

I mean, I really hate the A.L.

That is all.

Nuggets begin to implode

They haven't gotten rid of Carmelo Anthony—yet—but the Nuggets have begun the disassembly of their dynasty of okay teams that make the playoffs, then lose quickly.

This ESPN.com headline says that the Nuggets traded Marcus Camby to the friggin' Clippers for a second-round draft pick, but the story seems to suggest that the Nuggets gain only the option to swap picks with the Clips in 2010.

I can remember the last time the Clippers wanted to win more than the Nuggets did. It was just a few years ago. And it sucked.

Camby is aging, but he's a solid center, a position very difficult to fill. Last season he averaged nine points, thirteen rebounds, and just over three-and-a-half blocks per game. His blocks average led the league, and his rebounds per trailed only Dwight Howard.

At least we didn't let Camby get away for nothing, right? Except he's not a free agent, and a second-round pick is nothing. The option to trade for such a pick is even less, and if the teams continue in these directions, our pick'll be higher than L.A.'s is anyway.

It pisses me off so much that the Nuggets' decisions are being made by some cheapskate when the choice so clearly hurts the team's chances of winning. Of course, Nuggets fans are hardly the only ones who suffer. Some teams, the Clippers being the prime example for as long as I can remember, almost never try to win.

And we're left with questions.

1. What the heck would you buy a friggin' basketball team if you didn't want to dominate? Seriously. I get that rich people like money, and I'm no businessman, but aren't there much better opportunities for profit? And if your friend owned a terrible team, would you ever stop giving him crap for it? Sure, being a pro sports owner is a pretty exclusive club, but who's impressed with you if you refuse to let your guys get it done on the field?

2. Do paying customers have to put up with this? Absolutely not. I'm all about team loyalty, and I'll bleed orange until I die, but life's too short to care more about a team than the owner does. Shoot, I stopped following the Rockies in part because I felt management wasn't really trying to field a contender. And then I looked like a pretty big frigtard last year, didn't I?

2. How fair is it to blame Carmelo if the Nuggets disappoint next year? Against the Lakers our porous interior defense was exposed, and we just made it much worse. Some West powers would just destroy us now. Mr. Anthony would be completely justified in blasting the team publicly for this move. However, since he just got a DUI and everyone in Denver's, um, uncomfortable with his image, the team would win the PR war by default and he'd just be made out to look more selfish. Which, I'm sure, is why they traded Camby now. I guess the onus is on Iverson.

"Thanks" to Blaine for the tip on the bad news.

Obama to accept at Invesco

I can't put into words how much it's going to bother me when Barack Obama accepts the Democratic nomination for president this year at Invesco Field, home of the Denver Broncos.

Do what you want to the military, the tax code, and the health care system, Mr. Obama, but leave the Broncos out of it.

I am a lifelong Republican, but I love the Broncos much more than I do any political party. And this isn't just about Obama being a Democrat. Sports are supposed to bring us together, while political parties—notwithstanding the Downy-soft coverage of Obama—often do little but tear us apart. I wouldn't be happy about John McCain doing this, either. The only candidate I could support in such a move is John Elway, if he ever makes the long-rumored move into politics, since he built the house anyway.

Realistically I know the presidential race is more important than football, that the studium is publicly funded, and that there's no other venue in Denver that can match the new Mile High, home to just one of the Broncos' playoff victories. (I'm so relieved that this can't take place at the real Mile High Stadium.) And of course Obama was going to give his speech in the Pepsi Center to start with, which is the home of both the Nuggets and the Avalanche, and that wouldn't have been much better. But I hate to see such an honorable building reduced to this. I'm not saying it's rational, just that it really pisses me off.

The NFL's Best Quarterbacks, 2008

I usually make this list right after the playoffs, but I keep putting it off this time. Unfortunately, now that I haven't watched football in months, I'm going to forget someone. (Peyton who? Oh, crap!)

Anyway, for the third straight year, here are my top quarterbacks in the NFL. (Links to the lists for 2006 and 2007.)

Honorable mentions: There are few who deserve recognition, but 37-year-old Kurt Warner (Cardinals) and 38-year-old Jeff Garcia (Buccaneers) turned back the clock with very good performances last season.

12. David Garrard, Jaguars. Garrard completed just nine passes in his team's playoff upset over the Steelers and, like any decent former backup, got way too much credit last year. But he did put good numbers in the team's loss to New England, and threw just three interceptions in twelve games last year. He's also mobile enough to be a threat. I don't expect him to remain here long-term, and considered putting Warner in his place.

11. Eli Manning, Giants. The younger Manning played out of his mind for a stretch late last year, and knocked off two legends (Brett Favre and Tom Brady) in the playoffs. Most importantly, he forever justified his place as a No. 1 pick by winning the Super Bowl.

If Favre or Brady had beaten him, though, he wouldn't sniff this list. His career statistics paint a rather ugly picture, earning him relatively-low marks in completion percentage and yards-per-attempt even as he throws piles of interceptions. I am very intrigued to see how he plays this year.

10. Philip Rivers, Chargers. Rivers remains an impressive young talent, though it's tough to say exactly how good he is since he's always had the luxury of LaDainian Tomlinson in the backfield. His rating dropped almost ten points last year (92.0 to 82.4), though most of his numbers, save an increase of a half-dozen interceptions, were pretty steady. Can he move up another level this year?

9. Jake Delhomme, Panthers. I'm a big fan of Delhomme, who puts up good numbers but is also consistent in the clutch. The biggest concern here is that he played in only three games last year due to an elbow injury that required surgery, but he's expected back for this season.

8. Donovan McNabb, Eagles. I didn't expect McNabb to place so highly, but his last four years have been fine statistically. In 2007 McNabb finished with a terrific 19 touchdowns against seven interceptions, while putting up numbers in other categories that suggest he's less comically inaccurate than before. He's clearly put in a ton of work. He also has plenty of big-game experience, not all of it good.

7. Carson Palmer, Bengals. Palmer threw twenty interceptions last year, but was great otherwise and airs it out like few others in the league. He's accurate and can throw the deep ball with ease. He lacks mobility and any real clutch success, but I'm willing to give him another year or two before I break out the pitchfork.

Four through six on this list are all pretty close together, and this is around where Brett Favre would fall if he decides to return.

6. Drew Brees, Saints. Brees is immobile and perhaps even a little short in stature, but has made himself into one of the best passers in the NFL. He was second only to Brady in passing yards last year.  The next step, of course, is a nice playoff run, though the Saints aren't loaded around him.

5. Tony Romo, Cowboys. We're all a bit sick of Romo still after the whole Jessica Simpson thing last year, and certainly Brees elicits more pleasant feelings. Yet Romo continued his meteoric rise with a second gold-plated year last season, and by the numbers, he gets the edge over Brees.

He has a terrific arm. He isn't quite fearless, but he makes some gutsy throws that put him among the second-tier of the very best passers around. Now can he please have a good playoff game before he retires?

4. Matt Hasselbeck, Seahawks. Hasselbeck bounced back with a terrific year in 2007 and showed he wasn't finished after an injury-plagued 2006. I put him this high on the list because I trust him more in the clutch than I do the last two guys, though he also puts up great statistics.

The Big Three?

3. Peyton Manning, Colts. This was going to be the year I finally give Manning his props and anoint him No. 2 behind Brady, thus making up for 2006, when he wasn't even listed. That was the plan...before I looked at the evidence.

The thing with Manning is, he doesn't bring a lot to the table outside of his numbers. He's not very mobile, and the Colts' first-round upset at the hands of San Diego last year suggest he's still not the most reliable guy under pressure out there. What he has is a fantastic arm for both power and accuracy, which gives him a statistical edge over almost anyone.

So let's compare him to a not-so-mythical Quarterback X:

• Completion percentage: Manning 65.4, QB X 65.3
• Yards per attempt: Manning 7.84, QB X 7.81
• Touchdowns: QB X 32, Manning 31
• Interceptions: QB X 11, Manning 14
• Rating: QB X 104.1, Manning 98

Manning beat this man handily in things like completions and total yardage, but that's because Manning gets more opportunities to throw. Like Quarterback X, Manning has one Super Bowl ring, but X is much faster and almost six years younger. Thus Peyton stays in third.

2. Ben Roethlisberger, Steelers, a.k.a. Quarterback X. Coming off a down season that followed a severe motorcycle accident, Roethlisberger responded with a terrific 2007. His career has gotten off to an amazingly fast start, and I hope he and No. 1 get to face off in the playoffs a few more times in their primes. He may be the most talented player on this list.

1. Tom Brady, Patriots. Still the best of the best, hands down. Brady surely ate his words after a Super Bowl in which the Giants held his offense to just 14 points. Definitely a disappointing game, but it came after a season in which he threw a record-breaking 50 touchdowns against eight measly interceptions. He had a rating of more than one hundred in eleven different regular-season games. For his career, Brady has three Super Bowl rings, two Super Bowl MVP awards, and the NFL MVP award he earned after last season. Can anyone compare?

2008 Dream Team

USA Basketball just announced its team for the 2008 Olympics.

The roster, broken down by positions:

C: Dwight Howard
PF: Chris Bosh, Carlos Boozer
SF: LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Tayshaun Prince
SG: Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, Michael Redd
PG: Jason Kidd, Chris Paul, Deron Williams

One question remains: could we have put one more swingman on the team? We definitely need more scoring at the 2 and the 3. (Yes, that is a joke.)

To me this roster shows what we've learned from our past few Olympic teams: absolutely nothing. I especially like the choice of Tayshuan Prince, which is clearly just a nod towards the general direction of the idea of building an actual "team". Don't get me wrong; there's a ton of talent here. But so much of it cancels other players out. For example, I love Carmelo (see below), but does a team with Kobe, LeBron, and D-Wade really need the scoring he brings to the table?

Having three point guards is actually justifiable, because you have a starter and a backup even if someone goes down. Plus, unlike in past years with guys like Scottie Pippen, none of the twos and threes on this team can really cover at point. Overall, though, this team is very perimeter-heavy.

I worry about the lack of inside depth. Some jerk might tell you this is a wise move because international ball is different or something. Well, that's the whole reason we need inside power! It's one area where the U.S. can still have an advantage. Unfortunately Amare Stoudemire withdrew himself from consideration, and I think Tim Duncan said before that he's done with international ball. Still, what about a David West or even Antawn Jamison? I'm not a huge Tyson Chandler fan, but he makes some sense, too: what will this team do if Howard gets in foul trouble against a team with some inside presence?

I worry that this edition of the U.S. Olympic team will still be too inclined to go one-on-one and doesn't have a good balance of depth. I've always rooted for the U.S., even when it was somehow considered unfair to send our best players (where did that come from, anyway?). This team will be no exception. I hope they get the gold, but I wonder. What do you think?

Nuggets not trading Anthony (?)

I don't know whether to be excited or horrified.

Calvin Andrews, the agent for Denver Nuggets star Carmelo Anthony, said today that the team has assured him that they will not trade Anthony.

Anthony has been the subject of trade rumors since the Nuggets' season ended with a quick first-round playoff exit. In his five seasons with Denver, the team has never made it past the first round of the playoffs.

To put that in perspective, the team didn't even make the playoffs for eight years before Anthony arrived, part of a span in which the team reached the postseason only twice in thirteen seasons.

That's why I'm only slightly disappointed the Nuggets haven't done better, even with the addition of future Hall of Fame guard Allen Iverson. The scars of an 11-71 season (1997-98) run deep.

The reason I'm scared, though, is this sentence from the article:

Anthony, who does not want to be traded, is bothered by his name being mentioned in rumors and upset because the Nuggets have not come out publicly and denounced a possible trade, the sources said.

Makes sense to me. And now that I think about it, the Nuggets still haven't come out publicly and denounced a possible trade. I can't help but wonder if the team is trying to keep its options open. (After all, if they do trade him but only lied to 'Melo and his agent, who's really going to care?)

I absolutely do not want the Nuggets to trade Anthony. He's 24, scores in bunches, and is improving his all-around game, particularly his rebounding. Because of age (he's almost nine years younger than Iverson), he's the most valuable/important player on the Nuggets' roster. Think about it: he'll be the age Iverson is now in 2017. There's no way the Nuggets can get fair value for that many (potentially) prime years.

Furthermore, though Iverson recently decided not to opt out of his contract, it runs for just one more year. If the Nuggets trade Carmelo and don't get better, would Iverson even consider re-signing with Denver?

The Nuggets of the nineties were as bad as they were in large part because of the terrific players they let get away. Please don't take us back to the way we were.

I close with two quotes about Carmelo. First, the remarkably-optimistic words of Bill Simmons, who wrote recently:

Before the Nuggets trade Carmelo Anthony this summer -- and it sure seems like we're headed that way -- they better take a long look at the way Pierce performed in these playoffs. Then they should remember how many ups and downs Pierce had over the past few years, how many times Boston fans wondered if he'd ever "get it," how many times he acted like a kook or a head case and how many times they discussed trading him. (During the summer of '05, they had a deal in place with Portland for the No. 3 pick and Nick Van Exel's contract that Pierce squashed after the trade was leaked to the media. The guy Boston would have taken with that pick? Chris Paul. A fascinating "What if?") In my humble opinion, if 'Melo ever matures as a person and a player -- and that seems like a fair bet -- he could have the same all-around impact on a contender that Pierce had on these 2008 Celtics.

Or, as Pierce himself told the Denver Post:

"Well, I never have gotten a DUI," Pierce said Saturday with a smile, "but I guess you can say there were similarities. A 6-8 forward who can go inside and outside. Still learning the game. He's still a young player and has a lot more room for improvement. The way he's looking, the way he started his career, he can be a lot better than me when he's all said and done."

Flashback: Game 6, 1998 NBA Finals

The tenth anniversary was Saturday, but the DVD of my favorite NBA game ever didn't come in the mail until today. That game was Game Six of the 1998 NBA Finals, Michael Jordan's last game as a Chicago Bull.

(Quick sidenote: you may remember I already did a tenth-anniversary retrospective on the Denver Broncos' first Super Bowl win. And in a few months I could write a look back on Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa's home run record chase. Has any year in sports ever come close to 1998?)

So I just re-watched the game and this is my report.

1. I knew this game was a classic, but forgot just how classic until I saw the NBC logo's feathers lighting up right before the "NBA on NBC" music kicked in. Yes, I bought a version of this song on iTunes a couple years back, but there's nothing quite like the original in context. (For the record, the song is by John Tesh and is called "Roundball Rock".)

2. Our announcers for the game? Bob Costas, Doug Collins, and yes, Isiah Thomas. Could there have been a better trio? Absolutely.

3. Some pregame stuff: I'd forgotten, but Utah had won Game Five in Chicago to force this Game Six back in Salt Lake. Karl Malone had scored 39 points, while Jordan had shot just 9-of-26 from the field. Worth mentioning after I just ran Kobe through the ringer, though to be fair, Jordan didn't play like that three games in a row. Also in Game Five, Jazz reserve Antoine Carr had hit five shots in the second half, so the announcers talked about him throughout Game Six like he was going to come in and do it all again.

While announcing the starting lineups, the Utah PA guy called out Karl Malone as the 1996-97 NBA MVP. I know you can't say that during the year the guy wins it, for obvious reasons, but didn't they learn their lesson about upsetting Michael the year before? It was sort of funny because Jordan had already received the 1997-98 MVP award, too.

4. Though it's considered a more-recent trend, the Bulls started two foreign-born players in the game: Toni Kukoc and Luc "Skywalker" Longley. With the Breakfast Club (Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and Ron Harper) making up the other three, Dennis Rodman starts the game on the bench. Apparently this was normal because no one says anything.

5. The first quarter had a few interesting moments. Early on, Costas plugs NBC's website, and they show a screenshot of it running on a museum-piece version of Internet Explorer. Noteworthy is that the shot contained no ads. This was back when people just coming to your website was supposed to make you money somehow.

As for the game, Rodman checked in and quickly tangled with Malone for a rebound, followed by Malone immediately falling to the floor. Yesterday I was discussing the new flopping rules with co-workers and we agreed that Vlade Divac is the grandfather of the problem. But after watching Malone in action for a night, I'm tempted to change my vote. He fell several times in this game for no apparent reason. (Divac was around throughout the '90s, of course, but I recall he wasn't notorious until he was with the Kings.)

It's also worth pointing out how young everyone looks, especially the guys you still see occasionally—Jordan, Malone, and Phil Jackson. Okay, Jackson never looked young, but younger. Jordan was 35 and Malone was 34 at the time. Both were considered old then but they really didn't look it.

In the first half, the Bulls were called several times for illegal defense. (At the time, of course, zone defense was against the rules.) Chicago's defense in Game Three, as I mentioned a post ago, held the Jazz to the lowest scoring output in the shot-clock era. But I remember the broadcasters during Game Four showing instances of when Chicago had played illegal defense in that third game. I mostly remember Pippen setting up just below the foul line when he was still supposed to be above it. It was fascinating how such a small change could throw off the offense of one of the NBA's best scoring offenses so badly. Of course, there was probably more to it, but it's a textbook example of how complaints about officiating end up shaping how games are called later in a series.

6. Most notably in the first quarter, Pippen left the game with a lingering back injury. Before he left, the announcers wouldn't stop talking about how much pain he was in. Throughout the rest of the half we keep hearing that he's stretching so he can try to get back and play.

7. Stylistically Malone was a bit unique, and still no one plays quite like him. In this game he did some post moves that were more like drives, and also took a few runners. He always kept his legs under him on the running shots, something no one else does. And, believe it or not, in their twelfth Finals game together he wasn't letting Rodman get under his skin. With his terrific Game Five, it almost makes you wonder how it would have gone if the teams had played in the Finals one more time. Then again, he wouldn't exactly close out this game well...

8. Early in the second quarter (I think), Howard Eisley hit a long three as the shot clock buzzer goes off that gets waved off, though he definitely got it off in time. Harper later made a basket in the fourth that probably should have been waved off, but wasn't.

Later in the second, Phil Jackson argued vehemently that Malone should have been called for traveling on the other end, though the Bulls now have the ball. Jordan then gets called for traveling. Malone catches the ball on the other end, travels egregiously and scores, but all anyone said is how hard Malone is to guard when he catches the ball that close to the basket.

9. Also in the second, Costas makes a brief mention of something written by some guy named Skip Bayless of the Chicago Tribune...kind of cracked me up.

10. Jordan finished the first half with 23 points. He barely dribbled and was incredibly decisive with the ball. Though he's blamed for all the one-on-one that happens today, in this game it really doesn't feel like he's dominating the ball because he chooses his move so quickly. On defense, you'd say he was playing very lazily except he's never caught napping. Jordan was definitely conserving his energy, and in this game he raised it almost to an art form.

11. Pippen started the third quarter, and ended up grimacing through most of the rest of the game. He was used mostly as a decoy on offense, though he would go on to hit some key baskets in the fourth.

12. Two exchanges between Collins and Thomas in the third quarter were interesting, especially when I found myself siding with Thomas. At one point Luc Longley got beat, I think by the Mailman. Collins said Longley's just not quick enough to guard him. Thomas immediately jumped in and said that Longley was not guarding Malone smart enough. Later Chris Morris checked in to the game, and Collins suggested Carr wasn't checking in so he could be fresh for later. Thomas said he wouldn't mess around with Morris and would just play Carr now. Good points if you ask me. And let's not forget Collins talking earlier in the series about how he'd give the Jazz a day off after their horrible performance in Game Three.

13. One of my favorite moments from the Utah-Chicago rivalry, and I didn't even know it was in this game: Rodman and Malone get tangled up as the play continues at the other end, then knock each other to the floor three times. Eventually Malone got the call and two free throw attempts. Meanwhile Bryon Russell was bumping Jordan, who gives him a hard shot to the chest with his shoulder. Russell pushed Jordan, who stareds jawing at him. Great sequence.

14. It's at this point I notice that NBC shows WAY fewer graphics than we are used to today. It's almost shocking. Even the clock and score are rarely shown. And they NEVER use ridiculous camera angles, but occasionally have great shots of the action from different vantage points on the replays. It totally makes the game the focus, and I love it. However, I'm now so used to seeing the score that it's almost unnerving. Sort of like how I always knew the yardage to go in football until the yellow line came along.

15. Jordan took two hard shots on drives in the third. He made no effort to sell it and, aside from Malone tripping over himself, almost no one in this game did. Part of that might just be that these were two veteran teams and that the pace of the game was sort of slow to begin with. Jordan had 29 points after three, but Costas points out that he had hit just one of his last nine shots. Around this time he mentioned that Jordan had played the most minutes and in the most games that year of any season in his career.

16. The epic fourth quarter stands out the most. Early in it, Rodman got the ball to the left of the top of the key, and sunk a 20-footer. He ran up the court with his hands up and asked, "Who knew?" On the next play, someone passed to a cutting Adam Keefe, who completely blew an open dunk. He complained that he was fouled, but even Costas admitted he should have made the shot.

17. With about seven and a half minutes to play, Jordan was at the line and hits two free throws. They had to stop after the first as the camera focused on Jordan chewing gum. Costas told us the game was stopped because of an offensive sign. But remember, Jazz fans are all class!

On the other end, Costas said Rodman was the only one to protest the sign's removal, and I can't tell if he's kidding.

18. With four minutes to go, the Jazz were in control. The Bulls kept tying, but the Jazz kept going ahead. Jordan had missed three shots in a row.

19. Make that four, but when Hornacek tried to push a long pass to Russell, Jordan jumped and intercepted it. It was 81-79 Utah with three minutes to play. Jordan passed the ball in to Rodman, who's cutting down the lane but is called for an offensive foul. Jordan argued that Rodman was catching the ball and should have been allowed to land. He's ticked but not losing his head. At this point Jordan had 37 points on 13/32 shooting.

20. The next time up the floor, Malone scored on a long jumper off the pick-and-roll. Jazz 83-79. Jordan gets fouled on the other end and makes both with just over two minutes remaining. Stockton missed. Russell grabbed the rebound, but threw the ball away to Pippen. Jordan missed on the other end.

21. On the next trip down, Stockton passed in to Malone on the left block. Rodman slapped it away and the ball went out of bounds. He and Jackson argued the call but I can't understand why. On the replay, though, it looks like Stockton may have discretely swiped the ball away from Rodman and tipped it out. Pretty crafty if I saw that right. Stockton took and missed a three-pointer and Jordan got the rebound. He immediately took the ball up and drove baseline on Russell, but Stockton jumped in front and was called for blocking. Jordan hit both free throws to tie the game at 83 and was then eight for eight from the line for the quarter.

22. The Jazz take the ball up, and Stockton passes to Malone on the left block again. Pippen comes over to double, but Stockton runs around to the right side, where he catches a pass from Malone and hits a huge three to put Utah up 86-83. The Bulls call a timeout with 41.9 seconds to go. And that's where the fun begins.

23. Pippen inbounds the ball to Jordan at the Jazz logo, and Jordan immediately drives right for a lay-up to cut the lead to one.

24. The Jazz run a play to set up Malone on the left block again. This time Hornacek (Jordan's man) is in the key to set a screen on Rodman. Unfortunately for Utah, that decision leaves Jordan in the key. He stays for a split second, then quickly slaps the ball away from Malone for the famous steal. Malone falls to the ground for no apparent reason, but to his credit at least gets up quickly.

25. The Bulls don't call timeout. Instead, Jordan takes the ball up, drives on Russell, pushes a little, and then pulls up for the winning shot. He hits it. Utah calls a timeout with 5.2 seconds left.

It's hard to tell how much of a difference the push made. At first it was barely noticeable, and Russell falls pretty far, but with Jordan's coordination it's possible he pulled off a decent shove while on the move. I recall thinking when watching the game live that Jordan had posed for a second on the shot, but I later read that he was just following through because his shots had been short. (And, indeed, they had been.)

26. The Jazz inbound to Stockton, who has to shoot his three just a little too fast and misses. The Bulls win. Again. With Pippen's injury and Jordan's obvious fatigue it called to mind Tiger's recent win in the Open, only more impressive.

Jordan would go on to play for the Wizards, of course, and his star has diminished a lot the last few years, but he'd definitely given himself an ending straight out of Hollywood. He finished with 45 points, a sixth ring, and a sixth NBA Finals MVP award. And that, my friends, is as good as it gets.

And now it's time to watch the Flu Game.

Celtics win the NBA championship

The Boston Celtics just won the NBA Finals with one of the most dominant performances in a closeout game in any sport ever.

The final tally had the Celtics winning by 39 points, just shy of the all-time record for winning margin in any Finals game. The Chicago Bulls beat the Utah Jazz by 42 in Game Three of the 1998 Finals (a game in which Utah was held to the then-lowest scoring output of any team in the shot clock era).

Paul Pierce just won the Finals MVP award after his tenth season, fitting for the man who slipped so famously to the tenth pick in the draft. He was outstanding in the Finals, getting to the line at will and playing with incredible poise throughout.

The best part of any championship, though, is watching the long-time veterans who finally broke through. For Boston, that was Ray Allen (26 points on 12 field goal and 3 free throw attempts) and Kevin Garnett (26 points, 14 rebounds,  four assists, three steals, and a block), both of whom turned back the clock with vintage performances. It was awesome to see them play so well, especially Garnett, who played poorly in Game Five and has received so much criticism in his career (some from me). Now instead he'll be remembered for his ferocity, intensity, and consistent team mindset. It was a relief that Allen continued shooting so well even after getting poked in the eye.

As far as the game itself, the most impressive part was how Boston never let off the gas. No matter how big a blowout is, there's always a moment when the loser starts making it interesting...except for tonight. Sometimes teams with leads that huge even lose. As a Nuggets fan, I learned not to relax when the team blew a 70-34 lead to the Jazz once in the late-'90s. But tonight I never had reason to doubt, and though the bench cleared out, the intensity didn't. The Celtics dominated completely. They got it done as a team, though several other individuals had memorable nights (like Rajon Rondo's 21 points, seven rebounds, eight assists, and six steals, or James Posey's "You KNOW these are going in" three-pointers).

Mike Breen just said the Lakers are a young team and will be back next year. (I know the league has already decided next year's Finals matchup, I just didn't know they'd announced it.) I'm not so sure about their returning to the Finals, especially the way their star played his way out of the "best player in the league" discussion. (Of course, he didn't really, but like KG says, "Anything's possible!")

And I can't wait to read the Sports Guy tomorrow. What a terrific game!

Woods wins Open

Tiger Woods won the U.S. Open in dramatic fashion today, defeating Rocco "The Mediator!" Mediate in the playoff.

Woods and Mediate went back and forth on the first eighteen holes today, but neither could pull away. Mediate was up by one stroke going into the 18th, but Woods made birdie to force sudden death, which is much less frightening than it sounds.

To us, anyway. It did look to be a little much for Mediate, who looked simply worn out as he walked out to his ball on the sudden death hole, though he hadn't blinked all day before that.

Woods had an opportunity to win with flair when he nearly sunk a long putt for the championship. He knocked it in on his short second attempt, then won the Open when Mediate couldn't sink a difficult putt of his own.

The win gave Woods his 14th major victory. Jack Nicholson himself is just four ahead. It's widely believed, and has been for years, that Woods will break the record easily before all is said and done.

What that means is that the moment may not be fully appreciated when it arrives. Setting a career mark like that requires so many key attributes—skill, of course, but also mental toughness, longevity, and a level of personal commitment rare even among superstar athletes. And what it really requires is winning a major tournament nineteen times in your career, enough to mean you can't let a single opportunity slip through your fingers.

Woods, of course, is the complete package, but it's impressive that even despite his gifts his march towards immortality is paved with victories like today's, when his knee hurt and his challenger refused to back down. The physical demands of golf are so small compared to many other sports, but playing nineteen playoff holes clearly requires a serious amount of concentration. And Woods delivered.

Rick Reilly, now with ESPN, wrote before the tournament that the Open meant less to Tiger than to Phil Mickelson, in part because Tiger's place in history is already secure. Reilly, like many of those rooting for Mediate today, almost seems to be taking Tiger's eventual career totals for granted. But part of being the best ever, as Woods aspires to be, is winning like Tiger Woods even when you don't feel like Tiger Woods or when you're not quite swinging like Tiger Woods. If or when Woods does break Nicklaus' career record for majors, don't forget that though this tense victory counts only as much as the others, it showcased the passion that got him the rest in the first place.

Lakers win Game Five

The Lakers just pulled out a sloppy Game Five win over the Celtics. The Celtics lead the series 3-2.

From what I saw, a.k.a. the second half, the Lakers were sort of lucky to win, but the Celtics certainly didn't play well enough to close out a championship series on the road.

I think it would be inaccurate to say the Celtics relaxed after their huge comeback a game ago. It was more that they just blew the opportunities they had in this game to take control. The biggest example came with 2:31 remaining, with the Lakers leading 95-93. Pau Gasol, going for an offensive rebound, went over the back on Kevin Garnett. So Garnett got two foul shots and a chance to tie the game, but he missed both. It was stuff like that. Boston's defense was solid enough, but their offense needed work.

The Lakers played solidly enough to defend their home court. Kobe Bryant had another poor shooting night, finishing 8-for-21. (And he made his last two shots, meaning at one point he was identical to the previous game's 6-for-19.) He did poke the ball away from Paul Pierce, then caught a long pass from Lamar Odom for a breakaway dunk, at a key point late in the game. Nevertheless Michele Tafoya was unashamed to praise him in the postgame interview for being the man who made the win possible.

The rest of the Lakers played all right, I suppose. Lamar Odom appeared ready to throw down with James Posey at one point in the fourth when Posey fouled him hard after a whistle; sort of reminded you which of the pair had had the focus to win a ring already. Pau Gasol did a terrific job maintaining his obnoxious, whiny look when he didn't like a call. So grating. Derek Fisher was solid and fills his role well, but he wasn't exactly shooting the lights out in the fourth quarter. If both teams give the same effort in the next game, which I sort of hope doesn't happen (this wasn't really a great game to watch), the change in venues could be enough to yield Boston the championship. While all I really want is a trophy presentation Tuesday night, hopefully Game Six is more entertaining.

P.S. It's friggin' hilarious in my book that "Knick" Bavetta reffed tonight's game and the Lakers won, but there was absolutely nothing fishy about the officiating.

Did the Celtics just win the Finals?

The Celtics are up 3-1 now, but as Bill Russell told me during the 2001 Finals, every game's a new game.

So in other words, no, they haven't won it all yet.

But Boston made a huge move towards winning the NBA championship with a win tonight at the Staples Center. They fell way behind, down at one point by 24, but made enough clutch baskets to keep the pressure on L.A., and eventually to take control of the game and win.

There was Eddie House's jumper to take the lead. James Posey's three to extend it. Ray Allen had a pair of fabulous drives, the first a reverse lay-up, the second a late-in-the-shot-clock left-hander that his defender, Sasha Vujacic, saw about two minutes before the sound reached him. Kevin Garnett connected on two big shots when he made power moves going left. And Paul Pierce hit that beautiful jumper from the top of the key over Kobe Bryant, as well as three crucial free throws at the end.

Before the Celtics completed their comeback, it was amazing how symmetrical the series was. Each team cruised to a pretty easy victory in its first home game, then blew a huge lead in its second; only Boston held on to win Game Two, while the Lakers couldn't do the same tonight.

Though all five Lakers starters finished in double figures, the team couldn't sustain its pace for the whole game, in large part because of lackluster bench play. Vujacic and Jordan Farmar, two shooting specialists, were a combined 2-for-15, for example. But it wasn't just the subs. Bryant scored just 17 points on horrendous 6-for-19 shooting. For an MVP, that's awful.

Anyway, it was a terrific game. Of all the games I wanted to turn off after one quarter (when it was L.A. 35, Boston 14), this ended up as one of the best. Even if you don't like the Celtics, it's nice that they won, because it's absurd that the supposed road team actually has homecourt advantage over the first five games.

Plus, after seeing that clip at halftime where David Stern said the poor old NBA is going to have to reinvestigate and reinvestigate, even though one key ref has said he was never questioned in the first place, I was craving some good basketball news. Tonight's comeback by Boston definitely filled the bill.

Lakers take 1-2 series lead

Have you ever heard the saying that it's not a series until a team wins on the road? If not, good for you, because it's stupid. By that logic, the Hornets-Spurs second round series this year, which went to seven games, was not a series until the Spurs won Game Seven. In other words, it was not a series until it was over.

In any event, the home teams have won the first three games of the NBA Finals, but still plenty has happened. Boston struck first, taking Game One by ten points. Paul Pierce went down (briefly) with an injury, and it appeared the series was over, but he came back, hit some memorable threes, and his team cruised.

In Game Two, the Celtics appeared well on their way to a blowout before the Lakers almost stole the win. It was one of the craziest games ever. I've never seen a team give up such a brain-dead easy basket as Leon Powe's coast-to-coast dunk and still threaten to win the same game in a championship series. I still can't make sense of it.

Finally, tonight in Game Three the Lakers returned home and defended their home court. Boston's offense was terrible, but give credit to the Lakers. Not sure if they mentioned it on the broadcast for a nine hundredth time, but it helped a lot when the Lakers had Kobe on Rajon Rondo. That made it hard for the Celtics to defend Kobe in transition!

I actually liked the Celtics' chances after a quarter, when they'd faced down the Laker onslaught and remained firmly in a game, but the offense never got on track. Ray Allen shot very well, but Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett certainly didn't, going a combined 8-for-35 from the floor. I feel bad for Cagey but he really has no excuse for not shooting better. Also, I saw quickly why the Sports Guy hates when Sam Cassell plays so much—it's like Sam wants the Lakers to win.

Kobe played well, not perfect but well, and the fact that the Lakers won despite such an unimpressive showing from other key players is a bad sign for the Celtics. But the biggest upset for me so far is how wrong I was about this series—I do care about it, and so far it's shaping up to be a good one.

Tim Donaghy's new claims

I quite enjoyed ESPN's halftime coverage of the disturbing claims found in a letter written by the lawyers of disgraced former NBA ref Tim Donaghy. Stuart Scott presented the brief-but-necessary research that let us know which series were probably being discussed (the Lakers-Kings in 2002 and the Rockets-Mavericks in 2005). Jeff Van Gundy responded with a little editorializing and his confusing-as-ever distinction between NBA officials and NBA referees, but he made a fantastic plea for more transparency in these affairs. And the network didn't edit any of the self-satisfaction out of David Stern's response.

ESPN.com also has a good article and legal analysis up on the situation.

All caught up now? Good. What bothers me most about the situation is that Stern can afford to speak so smugly, because he knows the fans have short memories.

Of course there's no way I can prove any official corruption. But the 2002 Western Conference Finals between the Lakers and Sacramento Kings, which the Kings led 3-2 before losing the series, was the absolute worst officiating I have ever seen in my life. It was complete and utter garbage, and whether or not it was rigged, the NBA should be ashamed for ever allowing it to happen.

I was rooting for the Kings, and yes the Kings were floppers, and yes I hated the Lakers even more then than I do now. None of that matters. If you don't remember the series, you'll just have to trust me that L.A. got every single call those last two games. I don't remember any specific examples (it's been six years), but there are some in the article. Also, Ralph Nader, who would never do anything just for the attention, called for an investigation.

The irony? The referees were so bad in that series that since it happened, I take almost no complaints about refereeing seriously. Sure, your team might have it rough...but as the Kings proved, it can always be much, much worse.

You can say the Kings blew the series and frankly, that's true. They allowed Robert Horry to knock down a game-winning three at the end of Game Four. Despite the refs, they had a chance to win Game Seven, and only point guard Mike Bibby stepped up and played well. In the end, they still had a shot, and they lost.

I disagree with the implication that that makes any and all reffing errors excusable, though. Clearly the Kings weren't going to be a dynasty either way. But the peak for teams in many sports is to be good enough to win just one title—take the recent Pistons or Heat championship teams, for instance. Maybe the Kings were only good enough to beat the Lakers once, and maybe the Nets would have beat them in the Finals. None of these excuses or rationalizations affect the truth, though many fans will repeat them anyway. I don't get it, but people make excuses for leagues, especially in retrospect. I remember hearing once from a Michael Jordan supporter that Jordan was so good that he earned the bad calls that went his way, such as when he pushed off Bryon Russell to win his sixth championship and no whistle was blown. Hey, I love Jordan, but that's insane.

In 2002, I felt the league wanted the Lakers to win, but then as now I had nothing but circumstantial evidence. The Lakers were the two-time defending champs, and the franchise's resurgence was good for the NBA, as far as that goes. The league certainly favored them the next year, when they extended the first round of the playoffs in the middle of the freaking season because the Lakers looked like they'd only last a round.

I would love for some sort of investigation to prove that the league conspired to help the Lakers win, if only to confirm my suspicions. Of course, that won't happen, in large part because no one else in the country cares.

All I remember from 2002 is being so distraught that I couldn't watch the NBA Finals. That was a definite first since I'd started following the NBA. Like in baseball, the playoffs in basketball are the best part, and the NBA's, where the brightest of stars could have such an impact, always seemed like the purest for me. And they've never been the same since.

Finals prediction

The T.V. says L.A., but my heart says Boston in six.

Why is the everyone so sure about the Lakers? The Lakers do have Kobe Bryant, who is the best...shooting guard of the decade, maybe? Bryant has three rings, but Allen Iverson has won three scoring titles, won an MVP trophy, and been the star of a Finals team during the '00s, so it's at least close between them.

Bryant, who really ought to switch back to jersey number 8, is the undisputed best player in the series. The team with the best player almost always wins the Finals. Take last year's Spurs, or the Heat before that. Or the Lakers with Shaq. Or the Bulls with Jordan. Throw in Phil Jackson, the best coach in the series, and it looks like L.A. should get by easily.

The Lakers are missing only one ingredient: an outstanding No. 2 guy. I don't know if they need one, but championship teams typically have at least one other good clutch player. Like Shaq with the Heat, The Admiral/Tony Parker with the Spurs, Kobe with the Lakers, Scottie Pippen with the Bulls, and various other name players throughout history. Yes, I would take all of there guys over Pau Gasol. Of note are the 2003-04 Detroit Pistons, who didn't have the best player in the Finals, but who had a lineup of five outstanding No. 2 guys.

The Celtics fit the typical championship mold worse than the Lakers do, but are still an impressive team. They have a pair of stars in Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce. Garnett, like Kobe, will end up in the Hall of Fame. He's one of the few professionals with a truly well-rounded game: Garnett can score, rebound, and defend, and is also a talented passer. He's also a ferocious competitor and the consummate performer who gives his all in every game. His biggest failing is the bizarre need to goaltend every shot taken after the whistle; like Pete Rose sprinting to first after a walk, it's something I just don't get.

Pierce is a more conventional modern star whose strength is his scoring. He takes a lot of three-pointers for someone with his percentage (.363 career), but he can get hot. He can rebound and pass, but doesn't post especially-high totals in either category. I'm intrigued by how he'll play defensively in this series as well.

The Celtics do have some advantages, though. They have better depth than the Lakers, whether it's the three other capable starters, or reserves like James Posey. The Lakers seem to have a bunch of guys who can do exactly one thing (usually it's shoot) and Luke Walton, who is a credit to fundamental basketball, though not in quite the same way Tim Duncan is.

Plus Boston was awesome this year, with the best record in the league and an outstanding scoring differential. They won nine more games than the Lakers and won the average game by three more points. And they had a terrific defense this year, which won't do much to bottle up Kobe but which can easily frustrate the rest of his team.

So yeah. That and I'd hate to see the Lakers win.

Bonus programming note: I'll be out of town for a few days and probably won't be back posting until about Game Three or so, but feel free to comment here as I plan to respond.

Celtics-Lakers: I Might be the Only Guy Who Doesn't Care

The NBA Finals are set, and in several days they'll even begin. The match-up, of course, is a classic: the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers.

The Celtics and Lakers have met in the Finals 10 times. The rivalry is best-known today for Larry Bird and Magic Johnson's encounters in the 1980s, though they only faced each other for the championship three times, with the Lakers winning twice. But the Bill Russell/Sam Jones-era Celtics faced the Lakers seven times in the Finals (including in 1959, when the Lakers were still in Minneapolis), with the Celtics winning every single time. And yet Jerry West is the guy who ended up with the "Mr. Clutch" nickname and his silhouette on the NBA logo.

West did win the first-ever Finals MVP award in 1969, which made sense, because even though the Lakers as always lost to the Celtics, at least they dragged it out to seven games that time.

That series is one of my favorite Finals ever. Though the Celtics had beaten the Lakers in the Finals the year before, they were getting old: it would be the last season for Russell and Jones. The Lakers had the homecourt advantage for Game Seven and, anticipating a victory, owner Jack Kent Cooke had thousands of balloons hanging from the ceiling, waiting to be dropped when the Lakers won. The Celtics, as proven as proven winners come (Russell already ten rings at this point; Jones had nine) were incensed and jumped out to a quick lead. Though the game was close at the end, the Celtics held on to win the championship. See awesome quotes from Red Auerbach in this story on NBA.com, and from Bill Russell in this Wikipedia article. (There's no source for those quotes that I can see, but I swear NBA.com used to have an awesome interview with Russell where he talked about that series and the balloons, but I can't find it.)

That's history. And Bird and Magic you know about, too. (I think I heard Bird say once that he considered Philadelphia to be Boston's true rival in his early years, though.) Terrific players, outstanding teams, and fantastic games. This year what do we get? Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett.

No disrespect to those players—actually, yeah, a very slight disrespect intended. Garnett's fierce, a great worker, and one of the most memorable players of this era; Kobe perhaps even more so. But has either one reached the Bird/Magic level of greatness, let alone the Russell stratosphere? With a ring or two of his own, Kobe could perhaps belong in the picture near Magic, though let's see him earn it first.

Will Kobe get that ring? The odds are probably in his favor. The Lakers have the best player and coach in the series, a formula that's helped the Bulls, Spurs, Lakers, and Heat win titles in recent years. The only recent exception is the Detroit Pistons, who interestingly were aided by Kobe's selfishness/overconfidence, though I don't anticipate that being a problem this year. There's a ton on the line for Kobe—only the validation of his whole career, if the Lakers win—and he'll relish the opportunity.

The Celtics have a chance, too (they won more games than the Lakers this year), and I'll be pulling for them like crazy. I think a lot of their hope comes down to what Paul Pierce can accomplish. He's a talented enough player, and a basketball junkie by all accounts, that he could be the X-factor Boston needs to counter Kobe. He's surely fired up for his big chance, as well. I hope to see Garnett play well on the game's biggest stage, too. But that won't make him Kevin McHale.

This could be a terrific series; just don't expect the franchises involved (the laundry, as Jerry Seinfeld would say) to have much to do with it.

Letdown of an ending

The Los Angeles Lakers narrowly escaped with a victory over the San Antonio Spurs in Game Four of the Western Conference Finals tonight, and by "narrowly escaped" I mean that they did everything they could think of to blow the game.

I tuned in during the fourth quarter, a period in which L.A. had semi-sizeable leads (seven to nine points), but couldn't make them stick.

The Lakers took a final seven-point lead with just under a minute remaining, but Manu Ginobili hit a three, Kobe Bryant forced a shot (believe it or not), and then Tim Duncan found Tony Parker downcourt for a breakaway lay-up, or technically a breakaway goaltending call on Lamar Odom. Anyway, the Lakers missed a couple of shots on their next trip but wisely used up most of the shotclock, leaving the Spurs down two with about two seconds left.

Brent Barry caught the ball, then took a long and lame three-point attempt to lose the game. Afterwards he lifted his hands up in shock that the foul wasn't called and for a second, I could understand why people say the Spurs are babies.

Except Barry was completely right. He had caught the ball and pump-faked, drawing Derek Fisher off his feet. Fisher came back down on Barry's shoulder, and Barry fired up the long shot in hopes of earning some free throw attempts.

Some people say refs should swallow their whistles at the end of a game and let players decide the outcome. These people are frigtards. Fisher's landing wasn't incidental contact (no way Barry could have taken a normal shot with that going on). Even if you believe in ignoring contact like that normally (and again, why would you?), letting a defender foul like that with so little time left clearly gives the defense a nigh-insurmountable advantage. It's really dumb that Fisher got away with it. (Yeah, I know, I missed it the first time too, but I was nine hundred miles away.)

I don't know that the Spurs can really complain, though. Well, sure, they can complain all they want. But if they can't defend their championship, they should at least be able to defend their home court. The game was disappointing because the Spurs' comeback was very impressive right up until the end. They weren't really getting a majority of the bounces or calls or anything; they just kept playing solid D and getting just enough opportunistic baskets to keep it interesting.

Hopefully the Spurs can turn things around on the road, but their previous road performances this playoffs don't leave much room for that hope. I still have some, though it's fading. And as a Nuggets fan, of course I still hate the Lakers for now, but does anyone out there really want to see Kobe win the title and get some measure of vindication for chasing Shaq out of town? (I call it just a measure, though I don't expect ESPN to.)

If you're short on Kobe-hatred, you should do what I did this morning and read the SI.com piece about how much he likes to win. While it's billed as an eye-opener as to how much this particular star athlete enjoys victory, the article merely reminded me how annoying the man is in the first place. Wow, Kobe likes to win how much? (So much!) that in high school he once chased a teammate into the hallway to yell at him for missing a shot in a drill. What leadership! What competitive drive! What an egomaniacal buffoon?

Give me a break!

I originally intended to post this under a more innocuous title like "Programming Note" or something...more on that in a second.

Yesterday at work I was watching TV when I stumbled upon SportsCenter, a popular athletic highlights show that is not so well-known that my computer thinks I've spelled it correctly. Anyway, one anchor, Mike Greenberg, asked baseball analyst and former New York Mets general manager Steve Phillips his opinion on Alex Rodriguez's return to the Yankees' lineup. (Rodriguez had missed three weeks with a strained quad.)

Seconds later, my jaw dropped. I don't remember Phillips' exact response. But I do know he said something along the lines of us having a situation here where the greatest player ever was returning to a team.

Immediately I had two thoughts: first, I have to blog about this, and second, he didn't really just say that, did he?

It's so dumb that I seriously did sit and wonder. Because the greatest player ever was Babe Ruth, and every kid in America who likes baseball knows this. Ruth could hit, field, and run. Let's take hitting: Rodriguez is 141st all-time in batting average, 108th in on-base percentage, and 12th in slugging percentage. Ruth? Ninth, second, and first.

Almost forgot. He could pitch, too. Ruth won 94 regular-season games with a career ERA of 2.28, and was 3-0, 0.87 in three World Series games. What does that give him, like six tools?

More to the point for Yankees fans, Ruth won the World Series seven times (four with New York). Rodriguez has never won a championship.

But forget all that. A-Rod will probably go down as the best player of this era, now that Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens have fallen so far out of public favor, and since other competitors for that title, like Greg Maddux, Ken Griffey, Jr., and Albert Pujols, never played for the Yankees. (I know Rodriguez looks a lot better than Maddux and Griffey right now, but let's see how things wind down for him.)

But best player ever? A-Rod wouldn't just have to beat Ruth for that title; he'd also have to be better than guys like Williams, Mays, Aaron, Mantle, DiMaggio, and Wagner, for starters. Since they play the same sport and therefore count, don't forget Cy Young and Walter Johnson. As baseball talks about its own history so much, you can't say all these guys just slipped Phillips' mind.

About the best that could have been said about A-Rod is that he was going to be the best shortstop ever before he moved to the Yankees and switched to third baseperson. I think I agree with this line of reasoning, and I've always thought he was a better fielder at short than Derek Jeter. I certainly thought he was going to surpass Honus Wagner or whoever else at short. But greatest player ever? That's just stupid.

Oh, and the reason I'm more sure now that Phillips said this is another reason I love the Internet. I Googled to see if anyone else heard what I did, and at least one guy did. I'm serious, it was so bad that I really wasn't sure, which is why I was going to de-sensationalize the headline, but this is good enough for me.

Catching up

So, it's been a few weeks. What I've missed:

1. Jay Cutler has diabetes. Articles list several prominent athletes who've had the disease and been successful, including guys like Bobby Clarke, Jackie Robinson, and Gary Hall, Jr., who I liked a lot even though I only saw him compete in sprints once every four years.

From the USA Today article:

CBS4 in Denver caught up with the Denver Broncos quarterback, and was told the disease has affected him for 'at least six months.'

'I was losing weight, didn't have a lot of strength,' Cutler said. 'You could tell, just the way I played. Some of the throws that I made didn't have a lot behind them.'

That sort of makes it sound like he'll be much better this year now that he's healthy. And that makes sense if the disease held him back down the stretch. The thing is his game-by-game statistics don't paint the picture of someone who was worn down at the end of the season; instead, he had some of his best (and worst) games then. No doubt it must have been hard on him, but statistically, he wasn't a trainwreck because of the illness. So who knows. Of course, I expect him to be better this year (and statistically, he was way better last year than I give him credit for), but mostly just as a natural result of experience and growth.

2. Troy Tulowitzki tore a tendon in his left quad after starting the season in a serious slump. He's out for a few more weeks but the Rockies still haven't recovered from a slow start. I feel bad that I haven't watched them this year, but not that bad.

3. Kobe Bryant won the NBA's regular-season MVP award. Many have referred to it as a lifetime achievement award, that Kobe just got the trophy because he's been the best player in the league for so long.

This is ridiculous on many levels. First, Kobe has not been the best player in the league for as long as people have said he is, and I'm not sure he ever has been. Second, there were many qualified candidates, and Kobe was definitely one of them. Did someone clearly deserve the award over him? LeBron James had better, almost beautiful numbers (30 points, 7.9 boards, 7.2 assists), but his team won only 45 games. Kevin Garnett's team won 66, but Garnett was 45th in points per game and 22nd in rebounds: not even close to typical MVP-caliber. Chris Paul's team finished just one game behind the Lakers, and he brings a ton to the table, but does any sane person really take him over Kobe in a must-win game? (I think this is important in basketball, where one player can have a bigger impact than in, say, football.) Paul scored much less than Kobe and piled up assists, which are a stat I consider kind of lame. So it's not like he was obviously better, especially when you consider Bryant's versatility. (Also, if Garnett and Paul are in the mix, I'm not sure why Tim Duncan isn't, but no one even mentions him.)

Compare this to, say, Karl Malone's MVP award after the 1996-97 season. Malone had good numbers, over 27 points and nearly 10 rebounds per game. But Michael Jordan was ridiculous that season, winning the scoring title once again with 29.6 points per game, grabbing almost half-a-dozen rebounds per game, and remaining clearly the most-feared player in the league, especially in pressure situations. Jordan's Bulls team won 69 games, which would have tied the record for most wins in a season had the Bulls not broken the old record one year before with 72. Jordan was obviously the class of the world, but Malone got his first MVP trophy. Now THAT was a lifetime achievement award.

However, the idea of a lifetime achievement award isn't anathema to me, at least not entirely. I mean, if the race was really too close to call between Kobe and Chris Paul, I don't have any problem with the tie going to Kobe since we already know he'll go down in history, and because he's already gotten it done for a few years. I like looking at lists of past winners and seeing names like Abdul-Jabber, Chamberlain and Bird as award winners. I don't feel the same way about Dirk Nowitzki, Steve Nash, and maybe even KG winning it the past few years.

4. Man, am I glad the Spurs have fought their way out of that 0-2 deficit. I was feeling pretty awkward there for a sec.

Vote Obama in '08!

There are very few publicity stunts a presidential campaign can use to get on the front page of Hole Punch Sports. One of those would be practicing with my favorite college basketball team, the North Carolina Tar Heels, and Democratic hopeful Barack Obama did exactly that yesterday.

(The other way might be to straddle the fence and pretend to love two teams in the same sport equally, as one certain politician does so offensively in that story. It's just wrong.)

Judging by the behind-the-back dribble in Obama's YouTube mixtape, by this time next year our President might have better handles than I do. (But then that's probably true even if John McCain is elected.)

In all seriousness, I think it's awesome that Obama is so into hoops. His love of basketball was the subject of a recent story on HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, which is available on YouTube and which I recommend watching if you have the time. The segment spends some time talking Obama playing the sport growing up and even shows a bit of him playing in a recent pickup game. (The biggest question from that is how he ever gets his compact jumper off in traffic.)

My favorite part comes at about the 5:41 mark, when they tell the story of when Obama's future wife had her brother (Craig Robinson, now the head coach at Oregon State) play basketball with Obama to see what kind of guy he really was.

Personally, I think this is a FANTASTIC way to evaluate someone. Dead serious. Like Robinson, I think you can tell a lot about a guy from how he plays basketball. If he's selfish, if he's cool, if he's a jerk—I've never played with someone whose personality traits weren't in some way reflected by their playing style. (Have you?) And if anything in the interview bugged me at all, it was when Obama only partially agreed with the idea.

The second-best part is near the end, when Gumbel asks Robinson to evaluate Obama's game on racial lines. The answer was pretty funny.

Basketball's important enough to me that Obama's love for it would make it the biggest thing I've ever had in common with a president (if he wins, natch). Don't know if that will make me vote for him. But if Obama wins and a puts a hoop in the White House, like he suggested, that would be pretty sweet.

NBA News

1. The Spurs beat the Suns 4 games to 1 with a win last night. And thus one of the two interesting first-round series is over. Remember when people were saying this could be one of the best opening series ever? Idiots.

2. With the Boston Celtics up by almost 20 in the fourth, the other good series feels like it's losing its luster. I really hope the Hawks can pull out Game Six.

3. We only have to wait until Saturday for the second round to start with the Spurs-Hornets series, which makes the playoffs feel less stretched-out than usual. But the next day (Sunday) could feature a bunch of first-round Game Sevens. I'm sorry, but that's just weird.

4. The Dallas Mavericks fired head coach Avery Johnson today. The franchise has clearly underachieved in the postseason, especially since blowing a 2-0 lead in the 2006 Finals. They won 67 games last year, but lost in the first round. This season the team traded for Jason Kidd but couldn't recapture their elite status.

Until the bizarre story of a player-run practice after Game Four came out, I didn't think Johnson was on the chopping block. But at least the actual firing was entertaining:

Johnson got the news during a meeting at his condominium Wednesday morning. Donnie Nelson, the team's president of basketball operations, was there, while team owner Mark Cuban joined via cell phone from Chicago.

The Mavs come to your home to fire you? That's nice; you have to respect any organization with that kind of class. And joining in on a cell phone call sounds kind of, I don't know, tacky, not a word I'd ever expect to apply to a guy like Cuban (end sarcasm). Seriously, though?

I also love that even though Don Nelson's son is running the team, and even though the elder Nelson laid the smack down on the Dallas franchise a year ago, Dirk Nowitzki's still smack-talking his former coach like this:

'You don't basically want to go back to the Nellie days where we just run and gun and have fun, and you get scored on every time down,' Nowitzki said.

With the team they have in place, you have to wonder whether this is the first of many moves for the Mavericks.

5. But hey, Nuggets coach George Karl will be back.