With the end of the NBA Finals I am thankful for one thing – that we will never again have to hear talk about Kobe’s inability to win without Shaq . No more bad rap songs, no more experts yammering endlessly, no more mind-numbing talk about a ridiculous subject. The guy is clearly the best player in the game, he has been for a long while now, and now we can let it rest and move on to something else. And by something else I don’t mean anything to do with LeBron James and Cleveland. New topics only, please.

I don’t care how many stars you have had on your team, or how good your assistants are or anything else – winning 10 championships as a coach is darned impressive. That’s a record that will never be broken, and he’s not done adding to it, either.

Last time out, Johan Santana gave up four home runs to the Phillies. Today, he was yanked with none out in the fourth after allowing nine earned runs to the Yankees. Nine! It’s amazing to see a guy who has so much talent and who was pitching so well suddenly pitch so badly two games in a row. No one is saying anything yet, but I would not be at all surprised to see Santana get a bit of a vacation – say 15 days or so. It just doesn’t at all seem possible that he is healthy.

In his last start, Cliff Lee was rough – he allowed 11 hits and four runs against Kansas City and didn’t seem to have any of the pinpoint accuracy that makes him so potent when he’s at his best. It was very impressive to see how he bounced back tonight – he took a no-hitter into the eighth, and wound up with a complete game shutout. Lee still has a lousy 4-6 pitcher, but he’s pitching well right now and is really dialed in. It’s the fault of his lousy team that his numbers don’t look better. Unfortunately, the fact that he is better than he appears isn’t of much use from a betting perspective in my eyes – the public seems not to have forgotten that he won a Cy Young last year, so the numbers are higher than they normally would be for a guy with his record.