Skip to main content

Magic up 2-1

Wow. Wow! The Orlando Magic just took a 2-1 lead over the Cleveland Cavaliers with a ten-point win in Game Three of the Eastern Conference Finals.

I didn’t think Orlando had a prayer in the series, and told a reader I expected the Cavs to win in five. I’m still not sure Orlando will win, especially when the refs are willing to call a foul on Dwight Howard’s last-minute block of LeBron James, perhaps the cleanest block I’ve ever seen (more in a second). At this point I just really want someone to break up the Cavs-Lakers Finals, which is a pretty bad place to be as a fan. I mean, obviously I want the Nuggets to win it all, but if they can’t I just hope someone crashes the league’s party.

The Magic sure do play funny on offense with a lead, though. They kept going for the dagger three instead of a) a good two or b) trying to kill any clock. It was like a football team passing every down with a four-point lead or something. I was afraid they were going to blow it.

And really, I hate complaining about the refs, but I also hate how it feels like the underdog has to do more than just outscore the favorite. About that block: LeBron is pushing the ball up the floor and you know he’s going to pull up for three (the Cavs were down eight). Dwight Howard comes up behind him and blocks the shot. Absolutely clean. I mean almost every block has some kind of body contact, but Howard didn’t touch James at all. Of course, there’s a whistle anyway. So LeBron got three free throws with 36.1 remaining. It wasn’t enough to change the game, but it totally could have been. (Charles Barkley, thankfully, kept saying it was a terrible call, asked if anyone noticed the seeing-eye dog next to the ref, and said that someone needs to review the tapes and give technicals for obvious flopping.)

One more note on the officials: I also hate watch the players complain to the refs, but if some star really does get suspended for picking up a seventh technical and that turns around a conference finals or the NBA Finals, really, whose best interest is that in? This is the lamest running subplot of the playoffs. I really, really hope none of these series come down to that.

Comments

John said…
Right now I will take anything to watch David Stern's head explode at a not-Lakers v. Cavs Finals. The Magic really are surprising me-last time I checked, they have none other than El Busto, Tony Battie, on their roster. But they have a bunch of guys who can stretch the defense with the 3 and a complete beast in the middle with Howard, which is a combination that can win in the postseason.

The officiating in the Orlando-Cleveland series has arguably been worse than in the Denver-LA series - which is saying quite a bit. It's almost like the refs can't believe what they are seeing or can't believe that Howard is that good on defense.
5:43 AM
Mike said…
El Busto! I knew there was some nickname I wanted to use but couldn't remember it for the life of me. Thank you for recalling that. That is awesome. Man, the Nuggets used to suck.

The refs have been horrible in the playoffs in general in a lot of ways, as they often are. But the Cavs really need to step up their game or they're gonna get bounced.
8:18 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

And now that it’s gone, it’s like it wasn’t there at all

I never thought this blog would last longer than Jay Cutler's career with the Denver Broncos. He was a talented young prospect so good that the Broncos, a powerhouse organization only one game removed from the Super Bowl the season before, traded up to get him—or, in other words, a player whose upside was so huge, the team sacrificed its present to get his future. And now? He's gone . How did it come to this? * * * Often I'll play devil's advocate with a move like this; you know, I'll try and explain how it makes sense from the other side of the table. Today, during the most disastrous Broncos offseason in memory—and the draft hasn't even happened yet, so settle in—I just don't have it in me. I don't think move is really defensible from a football standpoint. But what the heck: as the article above says, the Broncos are sending Cutler and a fifth-round draft pick this month to the Chicago Bears for quarterback Kyle Orton, Chicago's first-rounder in t...
11 comments
Read more

Who cares?

So we finally got done with the NBA playoffs after nearly two months of stretched-out play, and tomorrow's the draft. I really couldn't care less. I'm so burned out on the sport. Sadly, there's nothing else going on worth mentioning, so we might as well get into it. (Yes, baseball, Pugs, but I haven't really started following that this year yet, sorry.) Would the NFL hold its draft five days after the Super Bowl? Of course not, and not just because the league doesn't want to distract from the highlight of its annual calendar, the Pro Bowl. Of course, the NBA's situation is a little different. College play ended two and a half months ago, and the teams want to get draftees ready for the all-important summer league play (because the kind of guys that need the summer league always end up players). Not that when college basketball is over is relevant, anyway-the league is overrun by a bunch of high school players "just months removed from their prom" (...
12 comments
Read more

Did CU ever win the Pac-12?

In 2010, I bet a college buddy of mine (who longtime readers may remember as the only other contributor to Hole Punch Sports) that CU’s football team would not win the Pac-12 in the next 15 years. Guess what? It’s time for me to gloat, because I was right. Why we were doomed Back in the day, a lot of people made the argument that CU should join the Pac-12 because we’d get so much more TV money there. Of course, given college football is the answer to the question, “what if you had a sport where multiple teams were like the Yankees, and you created a whole universe of haves and have-nots?”, then yeah, you want to be aligned with some of the haves. But the question in my mind wasn’t, “will CU be better off with more money?” That’s an obvious yes. The question I asked was, will CU be any more competitive in their own conference if they’re competing against teams who are also getting more money? I couldn’t see why they would be. The mathematical angle Legend has it that Cowboys runn...
2 comments
Read more