Hole Punch Sports

1. Hey, it’s been a while! The Spurs swept the NBA Finals. I was wrong about my six games prediciton. Tony Parker was Finals MVP. Third non-American to do it. (Hope I’m saying that right.) What I thought was interesting is that the first two, Hakeem Olajuwon and Tim Duncan, both played for the U.S. Olympic team. 2. Some sad news out of Atlanta today : apparently police want to talk to Pac-Man Jones of the Tennessee Titans about a shooting that might have involved people he knew. I’m just sad because nothing was beaten to death more than Pac-Man Jones jokes, especially among sports bloggers. Seriously, one “making it rain” joke in the comments and I’ll ban you from here for life. (For the record, it doesn't sound like anyone was seriously hurt.) 3. What else…here’s a weird story on SI.com . Delta Airlines is going to have a plane with a picture of Hank Aaron on it. (Apparently Delta is based in Atlanta, though I always think of them as the airline who thinks everyone should fly thro...

Oh, hail yes. Check out the cover of All-Pro Football 2K8.

Championship days are great. Tonight the San Antonio Spurs and Cleveland Cavaliers tip off in Game 1 of the NBA Finals (7 p.m. MDT, ABC). Two teams with two of the biggest stars in the league. If you can't get excited about this, you don't like basketball. But I guess you already knew that. It should be an interesting matchup of styles, one the Spurs will eventually win in six games. The Spurs have been to the Finals before and won, while the whole "over .500" thing is still pretty new to the Cavs. The Spurs feature a big man who can be dominant on both ends in Tim Duncan, while the Cavs are led by a dynamic and versatile perimeter offensive star in LeBron James. The Spurs have a number of wildly overrated role players, whereas only one Cavalier will get credit even if they win it all. (Of course, San Antonio's supporting cast really is better than Cleveland's.) Shoot, even the boring star (Tim Duncan) follows the rules of modern capitalization, but the flashi...

The Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Detroit Pistons handily on Saturday night, putting the Cavs in the NBA Finals. The Cavs won Game Five behind a remarkable effort from LeBron James, who scored 48 points. In the closeout game, he put up "just" twenty with fourteen rebounds and eight assists. But the leading scorer was rookie guard Daniel Gibson, who was quite the hyped player himself coming out of high school. Gibson scored 31. Good for the Cavs and good for LeBron. Sure, it was a down year for the East, and the Pistons must have thought it was a best-of-three series, but it's still an impressive accomplishment at his age. I think the Spurs will make short work of the Cavs once the Finals finally start (Thursday!), but it's at least interesting now. What really strikes me, though, is the Pistons. The Pistons defeated the Lakers in the 2004 Finals, which was fun to watch as a Laker-hater but just a bizarre series in retrospect. It was the Lakers' last few games with...

Yesterday's Denver Post had some choice words for Alex Rodriguez, who yelled something during a pop-up recently in a game against the Toronto Blue Jays Wednesday (yes, this is all a few days old). Rodriguez ran from first base toward third base on a high popup. He shouted "Hah" - his version - or "Mine!" - Toronto's version - causing Howie Clark to pull up and let the ball drop for a critical RBI single. The Blue Jays blasted A-Rod's play as "bush league," and all but guaranteed he will get hit with a pitch when the two teams meet again. How unfair! The poor Blue Jays, getting picked on by the big mean man like that! I've never played baseball. I don't mean I never made it to the major leagues. I mean I have literally never played a real game of baseball (the nine innings with all the players sort of thing). So I'm the ultimate outsider. But this really couldn't bother me any less than it does. What's all the fuss about? Po...