The Starting Five

THE NBA PLAYOFFS – I might actually pay half attention this year with the King James and the Cavaliers a favorite to reach the NBA Finals. James gets 38 points in the playoff opener on Saturday, showing every reason why the Cavs should get there.

THE NHL PLAYOFFS – What was that thud in Washington this week? The Capitals losing twice at home to the N.Y. Rangers certainly was not in my horoscope, much less that of any Capitals fan. Talk about being in dire straits? Where has Alex the Great been?

JOHN MADDEN – The kind of guy I would never want mad at me … Madden announced his retirement after 30 years in the broadcast booth earlier this week. It turns out his final game was the Super Bowl and he goes out successfully – he did a great job with Al Michaels in what turned out to be a very good game. The way he called the game made it a great way for him to go out at the age of 73. Madden was unique in his own way. He taught the average fan with his analysis in terms of ‘Whaps and Booms’ instead of always boring us with the intracacies of inside terminology. He was a Hall of Fame coach and a HOF broadcaster.

NEW YORK YANKEES – Of course I couldn’t be happier that my Cleveland Indians spoiled the very first game in the new Yankee Stadium on Thursday with a 10-2 win over that team. And then, 24 runs on Saturday. It’s not often an Indians fan can gloat against the Yankees, so I’ll take ‘em when and where I can get them. Andy Schotz – what did you think about Saturday?

NASCAR — From Joey Logano to Mark Martin – I guess anyone young and old that can hold on to a steering wheel can win a race.

I watched the US Open last night away from home and happened to catch the crawl line on the screen with the score showing: LA 44, Boston 20 in the NBA Finals ….
Later when I got home, I turned the TV on figuring to just catch a score, but of course, as long as the NBA is taking to play these games, the Celtics and Lakers were still playing close to midnight.
And, BOSTON wins …..

Sounds to me like it was a Kobe Bryant and Los Angeles Lakers “greatest-ever NBA Finals COLLAPSE” more than anything.

The player who professes to be the best can’t make a shot when it’s needed.

And then, in the postgame interview, he assesses the outcome by saying — to paraphrase — the team will wine about it, have a few beers and about 20 shots and then worry about it later.

Way to go Kobe. All the young kids that look up to you as a role model and you suggest going out and getting blasted is the way to forget about a sorry collapse.

What a guy.

(Hey, what is this?!? A blog post?!?!? Yeah, I know, shocked the heck out of me, too.)

If I was Washington Wizards coach Eddie Jordan, I would bench DeShawn Stevenson for the rest of the Cavaliers series … which the way it’s going will be two more games.

He’s done enough damage already.

First, you really have to be an idiot to call LeBron James “overrated.” That’s just dumb. James just turned in a season in which he averaged 30.0 points, 7.9 rebounds and 7.2 assists. The list of guys in the NBA who have averaged a 30-7-7 over a season is a really short one: Off the top of my head, Oscar Robertson once averaged a triple-double, and Larry Bird and Michael Jordan may have done it, but that’s about it. Apologies if I missed anyone, but I think I made my point. (Edit: Bird never did it, but Wilt Chamberlain did it. Jordan once averaged a 32-8-8. Goodness.)

But Stevenson took his idiocy to a whole other level Monday night.

With James – who was on his way to 30 points, 12 assists and nine rebounds – and the Cavaliers thoroughly outplaying the defense-less Wizards, Stevenson made a 3-pointer, then did the “You Can’t See Me” face-wash taunt John Cena has made famous in the WWE.

Two problems: The Wizards were down 16, and Stevenson is a combined 5-for-16 in the two games, averaging a whopping 7.5 points per game.

Hey, DeShawn … I’ve got one word for you: Scoreboard.

Here’s the thing: I actually like a little trash-talking, as long as it’s done well. It can’t be personal, and it shouldn’t be negative. But a “Better get somebody else to guard me” or an “I’m taking you to school tonight” is within the bounds of sportsmanship and keeps the game what it is: A game.

However, there’s a time and a place for trash-talking. And it surely isn’t down 16 and getting embarassed by the guy you called “overrated.”

This was a series a lot of people liked the Wizards to win – and for the record, I have a $5 bet with Herald-Mail publisher John League, who took the Wizards. I took the Cavs, knowing full well they struggled in the final few weeks of the season. My reasoning was simple: I didn’t want to bet against LeBron. I remember how he almost single-handedly carried the Cavs past the Pistons in last year’s Eastern Conference finals. And the Pistons are a whole lot better than the Wizards.

Hopefully, no one will ever be dumb enough to call LeBron “overrated” again.

He really would have liked to see the Cavaliers make a deal for guard Jason Kidd, but LeBron James has to be satisfied with the deal GM Danny Ferry pulled off right before the NBA trading deadline this afternoon.
I’m not an NBA guru, don’t care to be one. However, I do remember how humiliating the sweep by San Antonio in the finals last year was and how much help James really does need in order to get to the NBA’s promised land.
It’s a sweet deal for Cleveland, even though I hate to see Drew Gooden leave. The Cavs picked up Ben Wallace and Joe Smith from Chicago and Wally Szczerbiak and Elonte West from Chicago in an 11-player deal.
Even though he’s 33, Wallace still has the inside game and I’m guessing he’s ready to return to the form that he showed when he was in Detroit. Szczerbiak, a Miami (Oh.) grad, is a sharpshooter that will hopefully be a significant player from the outside, helping take much of the constant double-teaming off James. I think Smith and West are players above the caliber of Donyell Marshall and Ira Newble, two of the players the Cavs let go. I’m not at all worried about Cleveland trading Larry Hughes. He’s certainly not been worth his contract since coming over from Washington.
I consider this trade the beginning of the second season for the Cavaliers, one in which they have closed the talent gap from themselves and Boston and Detroit in the Eastern Conference.

Listened to some of the Washington Redskins on radio Sunday. I pity Larry Michaels, the play-by-play man for the Redskins because he has to work with Sam Huff and Sonny Jurgenson. The two were great NFL players, but the two of them supposedly doing color? Well, it’s a bad comedy show.

My oh my. I really didn’t expect my ND Irish to win a game until the final four-game stretch of the season. Yet, the Irish prevailed over UCLA 20-6 on Saturday. They kayoed UCLA’s No. 1 QB and took advantage of turnovers. I should only hope they are growing stronger, but USC and Boston College are in the way of any current progress. HOWEVER, I predict ND will give Boston College all it can handle.

And while on the topic of college football … don’t you just love how even the playing field is in college? USC gets bumped off by 40-point underdog Stanford. There have been a huge amount of upsets the last two weeks and there will probably be some more. Some have already said Stanford’s upset of USC was the greatest ever … I think not — I still go with Appalachian State beating Michigan. … You just gotta love college football.

I fully expected my Indians to lose to New ork on Sunday, especially after Steinbrenner issued his public ouster of Joe Torre if the Yankees don’t win …. That fueled the Yanks some on Sunday, but George can still get ready to find a new manager. The Indians will come out on top.

LeBron James at a Cleveland-New York playoff game in Cleveland wearing a NY Yankees hat …. So what? If he’s wearing another basketball uniform that’s a big problem, but a hat? Deal with it!

Aahh, yes.
The National Basketball Association — my favorite professional sports league. HA HA .. please don’t take that serious.
Tim Donaghy = just another reason why the NBA is so full of nothing.
My only personal interest is that of Lebron James. Otherwise, I might even claim to have more interest in NASCAR than the NBA.
Commissioner David Stern claims the Donaghy situation is an isolated incident. For the sake of the NBA, I hope it is.
Donaghy has been in trouble before, on and off the court and he has been at the center of attention while officiating NBA games for things other than the ones we will eventually find out he bet on. He was one of three officials at the Brawl at The Palace when Indiana players fought with fans. He’s had confrontations with Rasheed Wallace.
Stern has a huge job ahead of him now. I think this is a tragedy that is far more serious than any other the NBA has faced.
And everyone questions why people think games are fixed.

This recent binge of playoff activity in the NBA with the Cleveland Cavaliers has me spinning. I’ve actually watched too much NBA on TV …. far more than I care to admit since I am not an NBA fan. But, as a Clevelander, I had to tune in closely and watch the organization that I once had the privilege of covering as far back as the mid 1970s.

The Cavs came into existence when Stroh’s was the beer of choice; when Cleveland was still known as the ‘mistake on the lake”; when there was no night life in downtown Cleveland and the Cavs played at Richfield Coliseum, halfway between Cleveland and Akron and long before LeBron James was born.

Now, we Cleveland sports fans can say: “Woe be the Browns!”
At least the Indians made it to the World Series twice in the 1990s … now the Cavs are in the NBA Finals. The Browns are one of the NFL teams that have yet to enjoy the life of a Super Bowl — their last NFL championship appearance coming in 1967.

Will the Cavs win this thing? Most everyone says ‘no’ and won’t even give them a chance of winning one game. I won’t be so fast to judge a complete wipeout, nor the rings going to San Antonio.

I firmly believe the Cavaliers should have swept Detroit in four games and while that won’t happen against San Antonio, I do feel they can pull off the totally unexpected and beat the Spurs.

Former Syracuse guard Gerry McNamara is my No. 1 all-time favorite basketball player, and former Penn State guard Joe Crispin is my No. 2.
Now that it’s March, I miss those gritty little sharpshooters more than ever.
Penn State, the school I usually root for across the board, hasn’t gotten anywhere close to the Big Dance since Crispin led the Nittany Lions to the Sweet 16 in 2001.
And the Orange, a year after G-Mac single-handedly and miraculously led them to their second straight Big East tourney title, fell in the quarterfinals earlier today, snapping their eight-game tourney winning streak.
Maybe I should consider making Penn State junior guard Mike Walker my No. 3. After all, he played like my 1 and 2 earlier today, sinking a Big Ten Tournament-record seven 3-pointers in the Lions’ 66-60 loss to Illinois.
G-Mac became my No. 1 after I watched in amazement as he scored 55 points in a high school game his senior year, leading Bishop Hannan past Trinity in the 2002 PIAA Class AA state semifinals.
Coincidentally, one of the Trinity players who failed to stop him that night was Walker, then a sophomore.
While, for the first time in four seasons, I will no longer have a good reason to pick Syracuse to win it all on my NCAA tourney bracket, I would like to have a reason to pay a little closer attention to the NBA. (I do admit, however, to listening to two or three Wizards games on the radio this season).
Crispin bounced around the NBA for a few years but didn’t last. I think G-Mac’s NBA stay will be longer — once he gets there. He’s been holding his own for the Bakersfield Jam in the NBA’s D-League.
Here’s perhaps my favorite G-Mac stat: He got out of a $200,000 contract with a team in Greece last fall to play in the D-League for a prorated salaray of less than $20,000. More playing time was worth less money — at least for now.

ESPN.com columnist Bill Simmons is easily my favorite well-known sports writer. So from time to time I’m going to link to one of his columns.

Here’s one on Allen Iverson that I think is dead on. Enjoy.

First, the NFL:
At the halfway point of the National Football League season, let me go out on a limb and say the unbeaten Indianapolis Colts WILL NOT win the Super Bowl. Somewhere along the way, I think there will be a stumble, or two, and the same thing will happen as it did to the Colts last year.
Who will win you ask? Beats the daylights out of me other than to say it will be one of two teams playing in The Super Bowl.

Next, the NBA:
As I have said before in print, I’m no big fan of the Nonsence Basketball Association, but I will watch with interest how my favorite team, the Cleveland Cavaliers and King James, perform. I think they’ve got the tools to do it this year if they stay healthy. I think the Cavaliers can, and will, win the Eastern Conference and I think San Antonio will come through in the Western Conference. Get the champagne ready at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland for a Cavaliers championship in 7 games.

Next, the NHL:
Ho-hum … but I really would like the Capitals to do well … I actually pay attention to Alex Ovechkin and his prowess. Maybe they can break through and do some damage. However, I think the Buffalo Sabres could come through and make their fans very happy the franchise never moved.

And now, for the BCS:
Ohio State-Michigan. One-Two. Nov. 18. Columbus, Ohio. And that’s just the regular-season final. And it’s probably going to be the first of two meetings, even though the next one won’t be for about 6 weeks when the BCS title game is played Jan. 8. I really do think the game will be so close and agree with the experts that it won’t make a great difference in the top 2 places and a rematch will be in order.
Too bad for Louisville, because I think they’ll beat Rutgers Thursday night and run the table undefeated.
So, my final decision is an easy one — Ohio State baby! (Especially if it can’t be Notre Dame).