Sportscolumn Blog

1. A bloody good game
The incredible upset of Dallas by Golden State in the first round was undoubtedly the best series of the 2007 postseason, well, until now. With the Mavericks out of the picture, San Antonio and Phoenix are now the two best teams (record wise and otherwise) remaining in the playoffs and on Sunday they put on a memorable show as the Spurs squeaked out a 111-106 victory on the road. It was a physical contest but you don’t have to take our word for it, just take a look at the reigning MVP and his bloody beak that was running like a faucet til the final buzzer after he had a good old fashioned meeting of the minds with Tony Parker in the fourth quarter. But Parker gave the Suns more headaches than headbutts as he torched Phoenix for 32 points on 14-of-22 shooting to go along with eight assists. Throw in 33 points and 16 boards from the Big Fundamental and it’s going to be tough for almost any team to compete. Ah, but Phoenix is not just any team and despite losing their MVP in the late, critical moments of the game, they still almost grabbed the first game. Whew, hold on tight because that was only Game 1 and we just might see six more of these bad boys.

2. Winning is the best medicine

LeBron James had a really bad cold with all the usual symptoms before Cleveland took the court for an early tip against New Jersey in Game 1, but you wouldn’t have known it by the way he played. He must have taken a couple of Dayquil; you know, the daytime, non-drowsy, congested-stuffy head, sore throat, cough, aching, fever so you can get trough the day medicine. King James even felt good enough to hit the final shot of the game with 32 seconds remaining to give the Cavs an 81-77 victory and a 1-0 lead in the series. The score might have been close but the rebounding battle was completely dominated by Cleveland as their starting frontcourt outrebounded the Nets starting big men 39-9. 30 rebounds; wow! The last time that happened in a playoff game was on May 9, 1979 (Washington at San Antonio, 47-16).

3. Van Gundy Out?
Tracy McGrady said that all the pressure, as well as the blame, of the Rockets first round series against Utah was to be placed squarely on his shoulders. Well, it’s sounding like coach Jeff Van Gundy might be the one who takes the fall for Houston’s home floor loss in Game 7 which knocked them out of the postseason. Van Gundy has only been with the Rockets for four years but in that time they have failed to reach the second round three times, and for the second time under JVG the Rockets have blown a 2-0 lead in a series. Now, four years might not seem like a long time but in today’s NBA it’s more or less an eternity. In fact, only two coaches have been with their teams longer than Van Gundy has been with Houston: Jerry Sloan has been with the Jazz since 1988 and Gregg Popovich has been roaming the SA sidelines since 1996.

Sunday’s Player of the Day: Tim Duncan @ Phoenix 40 min, 33 pts (FG: 12-24, FT: 9-15), 16 reb, 1 ast, 3 blk

Buzzer Beater: John Amaechi thought that America was full of insensitive, gay-hating, jerks (Wonder where he got that idea? Tim Hardaway maybe.), but he was wrong. Turns out that most of the nation, 95 percent according to Amaechi, have actually been pretty open to his coming out of the closet. “I imagined that it would be a firestorm, that it would be some insane number of letters demanding my deportation or my death,” said Amaechi. Hey, John, don’t flatter yourself buddy. Nobody cares enough about your sorry ass to actually demand that you be deported or put to death. Give us a break! Everybody knows that you are attempting to use your homosexuality to sell a book and further line your pockets, and more power to you for doing so. But don’t act like you thought you were going to be some type of martyr. You’re a gay, retired ball player; big freaking deal.