Elway turns 50!

Today is John Elway’s 50th birthday. (Thanks to Adam Schefter and my friend David for pointing this out.) In his honor, let’s look back on some of his greatest moments.

Elway capped his career with a second straight Super Bowl win and an MVP performance over the Atlanta Falcons.

Here’s a cool list of moments in video form. I love watching Elway immediately give T.D. props for Super Bowl XXXII.

We can’t discuss Elway without The Drive. (And Pat Bowlen was so much cooler in his fur coat days.)

I posted it a couple years ago, but Rick Reilly once did an exceptional profile on Elway that’s worth a read today.

Dexter Manley read this play like a book:

What the heck, another one from that Super Bowl loss:

How about when Elway started turning it around in his last AFC Championship Game, flipping the routes in a crazy wind?

Elway was and always will be my favorite athlete in any sport. The two Super Bowl wins that capped his career are the coolest sports story of my lifetime. The XXXII highlights still give me chills.

I would kill to watch that game again. Seriously, NFL, I got at least $100 with your name on it if you’ll put it on a DVD.

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On a side note, given that I don’t watch sports anymore, I don’t plan to post anything on this blog for at least a month. Maybe more. We’ll see how excited I am when the NFL rolls around. I’ll still be on HPE occasionally, so just drop these blogs in Google Reader or something and don’t bother checking here. Thanks for reading!

The Greatest Game Ever Played

Last night’s NBA Championship Game was lamer than Yahoo! Answers, a disappointment in quality of play, memorable moments, and result.

Kobe Bryant was horrible offensively. He nearly choked, settling for awful shots and firing a jaw-dropping 6-for-24 from the floor. Since his team won the title, though, clearly he did enough, I guess. It’d be interesting to see what the reaction to his game would have been had the Celtics won, though he’d probably get a free pass, like he did in 2008. Though I think the refs called the start of the game fine, they weren’t giving him calls that he usually gets, though it’s his job not to get frustrated.

The box score vindicates no one else; did anyone have a good all-around game? Kevin Garnett played great for the most part, but only had three rebounds. Pau Gasol turned it on in crunch time, and grabbed eighteen rebounds (nine offensive!), but for an elite big man he sure got swatted a lot in the first half. Rajon Rondo was good, and his late three nearly huge, but the Lakers were able to play off him in the closing minutes because he’s not a confident shooter from distance. He’s been called one of the best players in the league, but he won’t truly be until he develops his shot. Paul Pierce inspired confidence, but he didn’t quite have it last night and forced a few shots. Rasheed Wallace was solid in his role and hit that three, but could have kept the Lakers off the boards more. Ron Artest played as well as Lakers fans could have hoped. The ambidextrose Lamar Odom pleased me with his confidence from beyond the arc, where he was 0-for-3, but somehow finished with the game’s highest plus/minus rating.

I thought the coaches were pretty even: each was okay, at best. Neither tried anything risky, and neither could get his team’s offense going.

In such a rare game, where anyone can step up, win his team a title, and be remembered forever, I expected someone out on the floor to rise to the occasion. It’s a little sad that it didn’t happen.

In the dark before the darkness meets the dawn

The Lakers simply blew out the Celtics last night. Ideally you’d want to bookend a series with the kind of wins L.A. had in Games One and Six, but all last night’s win did is set the stage for what should be an epic Game Seven (Thursday, 7 p.m. Mountain, ABC).

I had secretly hoped for the Lakers to win last night; we’ve had only one winner-takes-all NBA championship game since Michael Jordan stopped playing baseball. So, as bad as the news from last night was, tomorrow night should be outstanding and historic.

The human drama is compelling; I’m jealous of everyone who gets to play in this game. Rajon Rondo could become a legend. Kevin Garnett could give us an Elway-in-XXXIII performance and make everyone forget how much they criticized his previous crunch-time efforts. Kobe Bryant could finally prove, to me anyway, that he’s as great as they say. Lamar Odom can show us all how far he’s come with his candy addiction. The list goes on. All I’m hoping for is a game that lives up to its billing.

U.S. ties; Celtics inch ahead

This weekend I caught the U.S. vs. England World Cup game, and the last minute and a half of the Lakers-Celtics game. I'm not sure which took longer. Here are some random and unorganized thoughts on each:

Soccer is like baseball with a clock. Well, baseball off steroids, anyway. There are a lot more, "hey, something could happen" moments than there are times when things actually do happen. It lends a certain tension to the proceedings; we went nuts when the U.S. goal trickled across the line. And the final minutes were tense, but not quite like normal American sports, because you never really know when the next scoring chance will develop.

That said, the clock is huge. I love that the game starts moving, keeps moving, and ends in a timely fashion. Baseball has a huge problem with this. When it's a great playoff series (like Yankees-Red Sox in the Pedro Martinez era), I don't mind, but otherwise I start to wonder about how much of my life is ticking away watching pitchers throw to first base.

Soccer is quite good on TV, and almost great. The problem is the camera angle; for any extended action they have to pan the field because the ball can move so far so quickly. They tried showing a few seconds of the game in a close-up and it got confusing really quickly. But the slow-motion replays of slide tackles or Landon Donovan shaking a defender were great. I particularly liked the first half shots of Tim Howard, the U.S. goalie, shouting at his teammates. Like basketball, the minimalist uniforms showcase the emotional side of the game. I don't expect I really will, but I can see why people get into the World Cup now.

However, I'm sure the announcers wish they could have criticized the Americans' lone goal a few hundred more times.

Speaking of Howard, he was outstanding, and kept getting better as the game went on. He and England's Steven Gerrard (all over the place in the first half) were standouts. That's impressive because outside of Jozy Altidore's breakaway scoring chance, I'm not sure I could tell you what anyone else did.

And the Celtics took Game Five for a 3-2 NBA Finals lead. My favorite part was the Garnett-to-Pierce-to-Rondo lob-toss-lay-up that kept the Celtics' lead up late. Kobe got on my nerves even more than before. I don't understand how a guy who gets as many breaks as he does can be so mad at the refs all the time.

Apparently I underestimated the Celtics and especially Rajon Rondo. Here's hoping they finish the job Tuesday...but a Game Seven would be sick as well.

Boston ties NBA Finals at 2-2

So today was a crazy day. CU is joining the Pac-10, which now joins the Big 12 and Big 10 in having eleven teams. I don’t care for the move and feel particularly annoyed at the potential loss of the rivalry game with Nebraska.

USC finally got busted. Thank you! Finally, justice is served against all those 2004 stars who are still on football scholarship with the school. And Pete Carroll’s going to have a tough time getting his next job. (Oh, wait.) Actually, I did get to tell a missionary in my ward today who is a big USC fan about the two-year bowl game ban, and that was kinda fun. (I can’t even describe how self-conscious I was writing that last sentence.)

Most importantly, the Boston Celtics beat the L.A. Lakers to even the Finals. I have mixed feelings. I didn’t see the end of the game, but I saw Rasheed Wallace’s Morey Rule three-pointer with about six minutes left in the fourth. I’m excited. Boston has energy throughout their lineup, which L.A. can really lack. On the other hand, I keep having these flashbacks to the Nuggets evening it 2-2 last year against L.A. before getting steamrolled. So I am cautiously optimistic.

This post is a bit lame; please help by adding your salient comments below.

Celtics Strike Back

I missed the second half last night, leaving just as the third quarter started and thinking the Celtics would waste Ray Allen’s historic shooting night. In retrospect, I gave up way too soon. Go Boston!

Well…crap.

Excited for an HPS comeback? I was, but I have nothing to say after last night. I’m pulling for the Celtics, obviously, and they were dominated pretty much start-to-finish. Other than Sheed’s straight-up block of Pau Gasol I didn’t see much to get excited about. (Oh, and I liked Doc Rivers’ $100/person motivational gimmick.)  How much of a shot does Boston even have left in this series? Is it time to give up hope? I’m just hoping the Lakers get cocky and let up, which is totally possible.

Highlights if you want 'em: