NBA For The First Week Of The Decade

Well, the Holiday Season has officially come to an end. Haven't followed College Basketball very much this season but saw parts of a couple games at the gym that caught my interest. The first one was the Pitt-Cincy game. In light of friday's event, it's not a shock that Cincinnati lost (at least it was close it wasn't too much of a fale....with the exception of some horrible shot selection at the buzzer....and thankfully Tim Tebow the warrior was nowhere to be found). The other game they showed parts of was some bonus coverage from EspnU.....UNC got upset by College of Charleston....now if we can get some of those upsets in March as well.

Well enough of my College Basketball soapbox, time to focus attention towards the NBA games getting national love this week.

4- Lakers vs. Clippers Wednesday ESPN

Battle of LA. Not as exciting as it sounds. If it's baseball (Dodgers vs. Angels) that would be a good game, college football (USC vs. UCLA) it depends on the year (and usually how much USC is violating NCAA Sanctions) NFL (um nevermind) NBA ( you get an unlikable great team with an unlikable star in Kobe and a team that's played second fiddle....never has and never will be great......pass)

3- Celtics vs. Hawks Friday ESPN

A case could be made for any of the games (except the "battle of LA"), the Celtics are doing their part by having the second seed and putting things in a comfortable cruise control until the playoffs. The Hawks while still playing well, have faded from their quick start and look to be settling into a 4-seed and a probable second round exit. Wake me in May......next

2-Cavs vs. Blazers Sunday ESPN

For how much talk there has been about the Cavs struggling this year and the offense slowing down, you would think they would have a record worse than 27-9 and not be the #1 seed. It would be scary to see how good they are at their peak. The Blazers may not be the most interesting team, their players that haven't been lost for the season may not be household names but they somehow have the #3 seed in the east. Not sure how long they can hold on to their seed and it is scary how good they would be at full health.

1-Cavs vs. Nuggets Friday ESPN

Gets the nod because of the LeBron vs. Carmelo match-up. While the Nuggets have the lowest conference seed in these games (sans the Clippers) the individual match-up here is tough to beat.

NBA Holiday Preview: Guaranteed 99 Percent Less Painful Than The Last Play of Yesterdays Packers-Steelers Game

Well, there have definitely been better sports weeks for me. The Packers choking on the last play, Big Ben throwing for about a million passing yards not to mention the Giants inevitable win tightening up the NFC Playoff Chase, the Bucks going 0-3 and losing those games by a combined 5 points (2 of those games in the last second)........not quite rock bottom but a bit too close for comfort....anyways on to the games:

5- Heat vs. Knicks Friday ESPN

Ouch indeed. The Heat may be a 5-seed, they may have Wade but being on TV on a constant basis, i'll pass. The Knicks........seriously? Well they can at least sell the playoff implications card as the Knicks are one game out of the 8-spot (the Eastern Conference....where hey even the Knicks have a chance happens)

4- Clippers vs. Suns Friday ESPN

Even without Blake Griffin, the Clippers have been respectable (by their standards 12-14) they would be a 6-seed in the East, but having the misfortune of being the L.A. team that did not benefit from the Tim Donaghy era, they are 3 games out of the last spot. The Suns, great at home mediocre on the road. Not much i'm excited about team-wide. This mainly got pushed up to the 4 spot as I have Nash and Kaman on my fantasy team and I don't care who wins just as long as they put up big numbers.

3- Nuggets vs. Blazers Friday ESPN

If the season were to end today, the Nuggets and Blazers would be matching up in the pivotal 3-6 match up. Both of these teams are solid interesting teams but the match-up itself, i'm just not feeling it.

2- Cavs. vs. Lakers Friday ABC

A match-up between two teams that beat the Bucks by a combined 4 points last week. Could it be they played better? Could it be they have LeBron and Kobe respectively? Could it be that having said players biased the refs to horribly mis-balance the free throws? (33 to 17 in the Laker game and 31 to 14 in the Cavs game). Man this puts that 2002 Kings-Lakers officiating to shame.

I give it a 60 percent chance that out of habit that LeBron and/or Kobe will commit a foul at some point and out of habit the ref will find a way to blame it on Andrew Bogut.

In all seriousness OMG LeBron, Kobe.........LeBron, Kobe........LeBron Kobe.

1- Celtics vs. Magic Friday ABC

Opening act of the ABC doubleheader, in my opinion the better of the two games. With all due respect to the Hawks and Cavs, these two teams have established themselves as the class of the Eastern Conference.

These teams matched up for a 7-game epic in the Second Round this year and seem destined to clash in the Eastern Conference Finals. Not sure if this game will do much in the context of the final standings but considering they are playing on a national stage when the majority of people have the day off, the winner of this game has the chance to shift the Eastern Conference landscape.

NBA Preview: Lots of Heat on TV

Another week.....another slate of NBA games on National TV (NBA TV doesn't count since I don't get it).....pretty thin slate of stuff but out of the 4 games.....this is the order of interest I have in these games......

4- Bulls vs. Cavs Friday ESPN

The Bulls are off to a pedestrian start. The Bulls have just lost tonight, snapping the Bucks 4-game losing streak. So far, the Bulls haven't done much to follow up on nearly pulling off the biggest upset of the Playoffs.

The Cavs have sleep-walked to a 12-5 start in their we better win a championship to show LeBron he has the best chance by staying in Ohio.

3- Heat vs. Nuggets Thursday TNT

Dwayne Wade is one of the best players in the league...but the Heat on back to back nights is overkill. The last time the Heat were on TV they lost to an inferior Wizards team.

The Nuggets are in the lead in a competitive Northwest division and will be looking to get some distance from their competition.

2- Heat vs. Lakers Friday ESPN

Two chances to watch the Heat....if you miss them Thursday all you have to do is wait another day.

The Lakers are neck and neck with the Suns in the Pacific and should be in good shape to win playing against a Heat team on the back end of a back-to-back

1- Celtics vs. Spurs Thursday TNT

Out of the four games, this match-up is the most likely to be a finals preview. On an unrelated note, this game is the only one of the four involving a player on my fantasy team (Tim Duncan)......in an attempt to help me get one step closer to going undefeated (5-0) at this point......ahhh the uninspirin-ness of early December NBA Action.....It's Amazing

Well, off to watching more episodes of Reaper (I can always count on Hulu to find a show to get hooked on every few months) and reading the book Baseball Between the Numbers that I got in the mail today.

Sunday Randomness Part I:(Non-Football) Edition

Alright, haven't posted in a couple days and I figured it was about time:

Friday night, I got my first chance to watch some NBA Action. Caught part of the Clippers-Jazz game and Lakers-Mavs. The Clippers look light they are the same 'ol Clippers, they kept it close for 3 quarters....but things fell apart in the 4th quarter and they got blown out. In other words, some things never change

Lakers-Mavs game was more surprising. While not much stock can be taken in an early season game, the Mavs surprisingly outplayed the Lakers.

Speaking of Basketball I got the new Bill Simmons book, the Book of Basketball in the mail the other day. I'm still in the process of reading it (the thing is like 700 pages long and you could almost do a full work out just by lifting the book).....its a good read so far, i'll probably discuss it more as I work my way through it.........

Also, I got a chance to watch part of the MLB Network special about the 1984 Padres. Didn't know too much about the squad other than they were the team that lost the '84 Series to the Tigers. If you get the chance to , its definitely worth checking out.

Just another lazy saturday afternoon

Thus far a fairly uneventful weekend......my brewers are losing by a touchdown to the white sox.....in terms of my streak for the cash update..i actually managed to pick correctly as the angels beat the padres....however i am back to zero as i picked cs-fullerton to beat arkansas....they instead went on to lose 10-6


For my pick of the day tomorrow....I am going against past experience and picking the orlando magic to beat the lakers in game 5 tomorrow....i'm going against the overall trend in this pick but this series (except for game 1) has been a lot better and exciting than La's 3-1 lead would indicate.... if Dwight Howard hits even one of those free throws this series is tied up and heading towards one of the better nba finals in recent memory...game 4 definitely sped up the demise of the magic...........but I see them at least making it to game 6 before this happens

Pick: Magic 94 Lakers 89