Holy crap
It's been a while, how's everyone been? I was looking at the archive and it's been like over a year and a half since I last updated this thing, so I decided to turn this into my sports blog.
I don't know how many readers I'm gonna have, but I'm going to link on my Facebook and see if anyone starts to read and keep up.
I'll try to write about more than just my teams (The Cubs, Bears, Bulls, Grizzlies and White Sox, sometimes).
I can't promise that I'll be as good as Bill Simmons or anything, but I'll probably be more consistent since I don't have anything else going on and have a lot of free time.
I watch a lot of sports, as a lot you reading this know by now, but I'd love to be a sportswriter one of these days and this seems to be a way to start off.
So the NBA Finals are underway and the Celtics have shocked almost everyone in the World by jumping out to a 2-0 lead.
Well why is that? Haven't they been the best team all year long? Did they not win 66 games in one of the most competitive seasons in NBA history?
Let's say you have two light sockets in your house and one shocks you every time you use it, maybe isn't always a teeth chattering shock, but a good, solid shock and it gets you every time, without fail.
Then you have another light socket that, depending on what day of the week and hour of the day gives you a shock that is bigger and better than the other one half the time and does nothing another half of the time.
Well aren't the Celtics the first socket? Day in and day out, they brought their lunch pail and kept on winning.
The Lakers were much better than a half and half scenario, but they had some real stinkers this year and in the playoffs.
A lot of people panicked on the Celtics after they went to game 7 with the Hawks in round one and had a collective heart attack after the seven gamer against the Cavaliers.
But they looked downright great against the Pistons in the Eastern Conference Finals, and maybe they started to figure things out and get their bearings.
The Lakers were kind of different though. They swept the Nuggets with ease and faced their only adversity of the playoffs against the Jazz until some questionable officiating gave them game six in Utah.
Then they dispatched the Spurs in the Western Conference Finals with what seemed to be no trouble.
Now they're down 0-2 to the best team in the NBA. How will they respond to adversity? Will Kobe plan on taking 40 shots a game and reverting back to old Kobe? If so they will probably get swept.
That's always been my question about Kobe Bryant. When the chips are down, can Kobe respond? He used to have Shaq to carry more than half the load. Now, they have a better team now, better bench, more talented veterans, but Pau Gasol is no Shaq.
And that's the main reason the Lakers are in the position that they are. They've become a jump-shooting team, not unlike my Chicago Bulls, and we know how well they did this year.
Of course game 3 back at home will cure all ills, Lamar Odom will turn into James Worthy, Pau will look like the homeless man's Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Kobe will score 40 and probably shoot more free throws than Leon Powe, for that game anyway.
Of course, I've noticed something else happen during these playoffs, and that has been the "baptism by fire" mentality of the Celtics. Most people thought that they would roll through the Hawks in round one and maybe sweep them. When the series went seven, noone knew what to think. Were the Celtics not that good? Have we overrated them a little bit?
Round two against Cleveland brought up the same fears. "They can't win on the road, their bench only shows up at home". Along the way, a lot of people wrote them off and while the Lakers coasted stamped them as the title favorite.
So now you've got the Celtics, the best team all year, with an underdog chip on their shoulder because of losing their way a little bit in the playoffs.
And the Lakers, hardly tested, may have gotten a little too big for their britches. And games one and two showed that a disrespected Celtics team is noone that you want to encounter on the game's biggest stage.
If Boston is able to steal a game in Los Angeles, the series will likely be all but over, and in the process, will shock a lot of people. But why is that?
In sports, fans seem to have a short memory. Big wins are quickly forgotten after devastating losses, and most killer competitors say they remember the losses more than the wins. While I don't personally think that's any way to be, it's the mindset of most competitiors, and more specifically this particular Celtics team.
This team was assembled for one reason, to win championships, and they've been on a mission all year long, and nothing short of paralysis will stop them, as Paul Pierce displayed in game 1. Maybe KG could finally relax and maybe Ray Allen rides off into the sunset and makes the "Big Three" the "big two" for next year. Maybe they all call it quits, their respective career stories written and capped with a ring. Or maybe they all return to defend their championship, just maybe not with the same fire as they put into this season.
I'd believe any of it, and as I write this, I know that no three guys in the NBA would deserve a championship more than those three, with the exception of Steve Nash. I'm pulling for them, Boston's pulling for them, and NBA fans who don't live in Los Angeles probably are too, because there's never been a classier group of guys find each other at this point in their careers than Pierce, Garnett and Allen, and above everything else, that's been the great thing about this watershed series and the best NBA regular season in 10 years.
I don't know how many readers I'm gonna have, but I'm going to link on my Facebook and see if anyone starts to read and keep up.
I'll try to write about more than just my teams (The Cubs, Bears, Bulls, Grizzlies and White Sox, sometimes).
I can't promise that I'll be as good as Bill Simmons or anything, but I'll probably be more consistent since I don't have anything else going on and have a lot of free time.
I watch a lot of sports, as a lot you reading this know by now, but I'd love to be a sportswriter one of these days and this seems to be a way to start off.
So the NBA Finals are underway and the Celtics have shocked almost everyone in the World by jumping out to a 2-0 lead.
Well why is that? Haven't they been the best team all year long? Did they not win 66 games in one of the most competitive seasons in NBA history?
Let's say you have two light sockets in your house and one shocks you every time you use it, maybe isn't always a teeth chattering shock, but a good, solid shock and it gets you every time, without fail.
Then you have another light socket that, depending on what day of the week and hour of the day gives you a shock that is bigger and better than the other one half the time and does nothing another half of the time.
Well aren't the Celtics the first socket? Day in and day out, they brought their lunch pail and kept on winning.
The Lakers were much better than a half and half scenario, but they had some real stinkers this year and in the playoffs.
A lot of people panicked on the Celtics after they went to game 7 with the Hawks in round one and had a collective heart attack after the seven gamer against the Cavaliers.
But they looked downright great against the Pistons in the Eastern Conference Finals, and maybe they started to figure things out and get their bearings.
The Lakers were kind of different though. They swept the Nuggets with ease and faced their only adversity of the playoffs against the Jazz until some questionable officiating gave them game six in Utah.
Then they dispatched the Spurs in the Western Conference Finals with what seemed to be no trouble.
Now they're down 0-2 to the best team in the NBA. How will they respond to adversity? Will Kobe plan on taking 40 shots a game and reverting back to old Kobe? If so they will probably get swept.
That's always been my question about Kobe Bryant. When the chips are down, can Kobe respond? He used to have Shaq to carry more than half the load. Now, they have a better team now, better bench, more talented veterans, but Pau Gasol is no Shaq.
And that's the main reason the Lakers are in the position that they are. They've become a jump-shooting team, not unlike my Chicago Bulls, and we know how well they did this year.
Of course game 3 back at home will cure all ills, Lamar Odom will turn into James Worthy, Pau will look like the homeless man's Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Kobe will score 40 and probably shoot more free throws than Leon Powe, for that game anyway.
Of course, I've noticed something else happen during these playoffs, and that has been the "baptism by fire" mentality of the Celtics. Most people thought that they would roll through the Hawks in round one and maybe sweep them. When the series went seven, noone knew what to think. Were the Celtics not that good? Have we overrated them a little bit?
Round two against Cleveland brought up the same fears. "They can't win on the road, their bench only shows up at home". Along the way, a lot of people wrote them off and while the Lakers coasted stamped them as the title favorite.
So now you've got the Celtics, the best team all year, with an underdog chip on their shoulder because of losing their way a little bit in the playoffs.
And the Lakers, hardly tested, may have gotten a little too big for their britches. And games one and two showed that a disrespected Celtics team is noone that you want to encounter on the game's biggest stage.
If Boston is able to steal a game in Los Angeles, the series will likely be all but over, and in the process, will shock a lot of people. But why is that?
In sports, fans seem to have a short memory. Big wins are quickly forgotten after devastating losses, and most killer competitors say they remember the losses more than the wins. While I don't personally think that's any way to be, it's the mindset of most competitiors, and more specifically this particular Celtics team.
This team was assembled for one reason, to win championships, and they've been on a mission all year long, and nothing short of paralysis will stop them, as Paul Pierce displayed in game 1. Maybe KG could finally relax and maybe Ray Allen rides off into the sunset and makes the "Big Three" the "big two" for next year. Maybe they all call it quits, their respective career stories written and capped with a ring. Or maybe they all return to defend their championship, just maybe not with the same fire as they put into this season.
I'd believe any of it, and as I write this, I know that no three guys in the NBA would deserve a championship more than those three, with the exception of Steve Nash. I'm pulling for them, Boston's pulling for them, and NBA fans who don't live in Los Angeles probably are too, because there's never been a classier group of guys find each other at this point in their careers than Pierce, Garnett and Allen, and above everything else, that's been the great thing about this watershed series and the best NBA regular season in 10 years.