Are the Celtics in trouble?
I think it’s too early to say that, but the injuries – especially the ones to their big men – will certainly be a problem. In our Game 5 preview I predicted the Magic to win at home and pull within a game of tying the series. They did. And I am still expecting the Celtics to close out the series at home Friday night.
The Orlando Magic are trying to take a step toward making NBA history Wednesday night. They are trying to become the first team to come back from a 3-0 series deficit.
The Magic beat the Celtics 96-92 in overtime Monday to stay alive in the series. They are trying to repeat the feat that the Philadelphia Flyers pulled off in their Conference Semifinal series against another team from Boston – the Bruins.
The Celtics continued their winning streak by beating the Magic 94-71 in Game Three last Saturday. Boston has now won six games in a row and is up 3-0 on the Magic. Game Four of the Eastern Conference Finals tips off Monday at 8:30 ET at the Boston Garden.
The NBA playoffs have bee full of great stories. The Celtics have gone back in time by a couple of years. The Suns finally got the Spurs’ monkey off their backs. The Lakers are looking like the Lakers. Performance the most impressive showing so far, though, is by the Orlando Magic. Not only have they swept both of their opponents, but they won their four second round games by a stunning combined total of 101 points. That shouldn’t be possible in the playoffs, and certainly not in the second round. The Magic are now riding a 14 game winning streak, and the only time they didn’t cover the spread over that stretch was in the first game of the playoffs, and they only missed by one point. Oddsmakers haven’t been shy with setting numbers, but Orlando just doesn’t care.
The Hornets have become the first team to fire a coach this year by booting Byron Scott just a year and a half after he was named NBA Coach of the Year. The team had limped out to a 3-6 start, and two of those win hardly count because they were against the Clippers and Kings. I’d sum up the way the franchise handled this with two words – inevitable and stupid. It was inevitable because Scott had to go because of the start and because of the way the season last year went – a disappointing regular season and humiliating playoffs. Chris Paul was frustrated and the team has no more important task than keeping Paul happy. They are already over the luxury tax threshold so they can’t overhaul the roster in a meaningful way, so Scott was the only real option. The move was stupid, though, because of their choice of a replacement. The new head coach is general manager Jeff Bower. He has been with the team since 1995 and he built the current team so he knows them well, but he has never been a head coach and a couple of assistant stints atMarist and Penn State a hundred years ago are his only real bits of (barely) relevant experience. They have also hired Tim Floyd as Bower’s top assistant. Not only if Floyd coming off a disgraceful exit from USC, but his last coaching experience in the NBA was with the Hornets – and they fired him in 2004 after one season because he didn’t do a good job. I have no problem with getting rid of Scott, but only if they replace with a coach with a good chance of being better than Scott was. I just don’t really see that here.
1. There’s an article today on ESPN that suggests that Notre Dame is going to go 11-1 and return to the BCS this year. Apparently they aren’t kidding, either. I’m not sure I have ever read anything more stupid. They are returning a bunch of players and all, but it’s not like they are returning BCS caliber players or anything. Experienced garbage is still garbage. Eight or nine wins is believable, but 11 is a joke – even against the puffball schedule they have given themselves this year.
It’s the 2008-2009 NBA Finals and this season sees the number three seed in the East, the Orlando Magic (59-23), meet the number one seed in the West, the Los Angeles Lakers (65-17). The Magic beat the Philadelphia 76ers in the initial round, the Boston Celtics in the second and the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference Finals. The Lakers took it to the Utah Jazz, Houston Rockets and Denver Nuggets.
Andy Roddick lost at the French Open today. What a shock. Actually, he got crushed. He lost in three decisive sets to hometown hero Gael Monfils. This victory sets up one heck of a quarterfinal match. Monfils has only dropped one set, and he’s playing as well as he ever has. His next opponent – Roger Federer. Federer is building a nice unbeaten streak on clay, but he had to fight for his life to come back from 0-2 against Tommy Haas to win in five sets. Federer is obviously favored to win the match, but it won’t be easy for him. The winner of this match will be in very good shape to win it all, so this could be a classic. It should go down on Wednesday.
The Cleveland Cavaliers, down three games to one, survived one more day by beating the Orlando Magic 112- 102 in game five. That’s old news by now. The news on the Eastern Conference front will be made Saturday when these two teams meet again.
Continue reading “NBA Eastern Conference Finals Critical Game Six”
This is how sure I was of the likely outcome of yesterday’s Cavs game – I didn’t even bother to watch it. I watched a movie instead (Incidentally, it was the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie which was on TV – what a piece of crap. Talk about wrecking a good thing). I like watching the NBA playoffs, and I think this series is fascinating, but I was sure of how it was going to turn out. I mean, think about it – the Cavs had lost just twice at home all year, they were looking all but invincible in the playoffs, they were well rested and prepared while the Magic were coming off a tough, long series, and they have the best player on the planet. I thought that the Magic could keep the series interesting, but I gave them almost no chance in this first game. Neither did the oddsmakers, apparently – the Cavs were favored by a healthy 8.5 points.
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