Celtics/Bulls

Can now set the standard for exhilarating, breath-taking, classic, entertaining, back and forth playoff basketball.

Just moments ago Ray Allen tied the game at 118-118 to force TRIPLE OVERTIME. Allen himself has been amazing. He’s put up 49 points and has 9 made three-pointers. Upcoming is the 7th overtime session played in this series.

I’m not going to bug you with a live blog. I’ve got a basketball war for the ages to watch. The rest of this postseason has been generally boring. The Celtics and Bulls have been amazing.

I WANT GAME 7!

For Seahawks Fans

I haven’t dedicated enough of my posts to the local fans! So it looks like Brian Russell will be sticking with the Seattle Seahawks. I know that you, like me, cannot stand to see the sight of the “free safety” bumbling and wandering his way along the field while not doing his job particularly well.

The management seems to love him though. I remember reading on Pro Football Talk that his football savvy and grit is vital in keeping him. While that’s the biggest pile of crap I’ve ever read, I have to reconsider the thought.

I don’t care about him screening out his own teammate in double coverage! Or setting up a basketball-style pick on a linebacker resulting in a 29 yard gain! Or his two major whiffs against the Patriots when Matt Cassel was there for the taking! I don’t care! He’s got the grit to cancel all of his countless mistakes!

Watch out St. Louis, when the season opener comes you’ll be getting a heavy dose of grit! So much grit that I have to insert a photo edit!

Be afraid Steve Spagnuolo. Be very afraid of the grit coming to your door.

NBA’s First 2nd Round Matchup Confirmed

The Cleveland Cavaliers may have advanced to the next round, but they’re still waiting for the Hawks and Heat to finish up their series. The Mavericks and Nuggets can say they finished off their opponents early and will meet up for an explosive 2nd round.

Denver finished off the New Orleans Hornets 107-86 to take one of the most lopsided series in recent memory in 5 games. You could tell New Orleans mailed it in with that embarrassing 121-63 loss at home in game 4. Carmelo Anthony, who has seen his team fall in the 1st round in 5 games three times, gets to advance to the next round for the first time in 5.

I really didn’t think this would be a blowout, the Nuggets have convinced me that if they are to meet the Lakers in the conference finals, they have a chance of pulling off the upset. It’s clear that the Nuggets are the “winners” in the Allen Iverson-Chauncey Billups swap with Detroit.

The Mavericks as you know eased the potential disaster of having the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Finals on Monday. It wasn’t really an upset since it was clear the Spurs did not have a supporting cast sans Manu Ginobili. However, seeing the Spurs meekly go off the court at home having been blown out for the 2nd time in 4 games was stunning. Tim Duncan has never been eliminated in round 1. It’s only the 2nd time that their season has ended with a playoff home loss. The other time? A game 7 overtime loss to the Dallas Mavericks.

History strikes again.

Mavericks @ Nuggets will be a dandy. I’m picking the Nuggets in 5 but it will be a tight battle to the finish.

ABC Execs Breathes Huge Sigh of Relief

A huge development last night as the San Antonio Spurs failed to outscore their opponent, the Dallas Mavericks, for the 4th time in 5 games. According to the NBA rulebook, this confirms that the Spurs are now eliminated from the playoffs. This came two days after the Detroit Pistons failed to defeat the Cleveland Cavaliers once in their playoff series.

The Detroit Pistons and San Antonio Spurs have long been the teams you would never want in the NBA Finals. ABC knows this first hand, because when these two faced off in 2005, it produced one of the lowest rated finals in league history. There was a repeat of this in 2007, when the Spurs faced the Cleveland Cavaliers.

ABC executives are rumored to be partying and dancing to their heart’s content when the news broke.

The New Jersey Devils Are Chokers

The #6 seed Carolina Hurricanes were down 3-2 with little time remaining in game 7 of their Eastern Conference quarterfinals match against the home team #3 seed New Jersey Devils. This was another crazy finish to a fantastic series. The Hurricanes scored twice in less than a minute, including the winner from Eric Staal with less than 40 seconds to go in regulation to stun the Devils and knock them out of the playoffs.

Gus Johnson’s Excitement Finally Released

I will, with no hesitation, say that Gus Johnson, the staple of March Madness on CBS, was not good at all last month. He was dragging the last syllable of every word and not even making blowout games sound exciting. When doctors feared that his excitement and enthusiasm would build up and damage his vocal cords for life, the final round of Carl Froch vs. Jermain Taylor saved him. With Taylor up 106-102 on the scorecards of two of the three judges, the only way he could lose is if he was knocked out or knocked down multiple times. Taylor had his chances to finish off the unbeaten super middleweight champion, knocking Froch down in the 3rd round. It was the first time that Froch had ever been knocked down. Like his first fight against Kelly Pavlik, Taylor faded as the fight wore on. After the jump, round 12 is Gus time (fast forward to 1:52 for the beginning of the final round).

Women’s Fanzone Makes Debut

Yesterday marked a special day in the Sky Sports janitor closet Fanzone booth. For the first time in its history, the men would be taking the week off thus making for our first ever Sky Sports Ladies Fanzone! After the jump see how that turned out! It’s Arsenal against Middlesbrough and Blackburn versus Wigan!

Never Again Shall I Watch the NFL Draft on ESPN

I wasn’t expecting the best of coverage by ESPN for the NFL Draft, but goodness me did that “coverage” suck. I know it’s hard to fill in 2 days of things to talk about, but everything from Erin Andrews’ pointless interviews, to having a bunch of talking heads, to Todd McShay dying for Seattle to draft BJ Raji (when we already have Brandon Mebane, Cory Redding, and Colin Cole) was too much to handle. This cannot be possible. For lack of a better phrase, they half-assed one of the biggest days in the NFL that has absolutely nothing to do with playing the game itself. There was nothing positive about this year’s telecast.

I used to like Chris Berman. On Saturday though? Pathetic. His puns are worse than ever “The 4 hour mile”, he constantly strung together incoherent sentences broken up in between more incoherent sentences. It’s like he wanted to set up one of his colleagues before the pick was made but it just came off as awkward. When the highlights of Matthew Stafford were narrated by Boomer I couldn’t bear it. He could not possibly have been prepared. He looks so lost and it’s embarrassing. If I’m ESPN I’m thinking of phasing him out slowly.

Steve Young, Mark Sanchez is “Presidential” in the way he dresses? What the hell are you talking about? He did this again later on with another player. Young is a good analyst but even he was awful. It’s like he was intent on shouting over everybody with insane observations while stressing the importance of the QB position. Frankly I’d rather have Emmitt Smith back than listen to Young again. At least I’m guaranteed entertainment I can laugh at.

The team of Berman, Mel Kiper, Steve Young, and Keyshawn Johnson made my life hell. I had to mute the TV several times because it wasn’t intelligent debating. It was 4 guys shouting over nothing. You may not like Around the Horn, but the mute button is probably the best part of that show.

Todd McShay should be fired because he adds nothing other than arguing with Kiper but you already knew that.

Michael Smith was so awkward over the weekend with his little touch screen draft board thingamajiggy. He couldn’t articulate himself properly much of the time and is not good on TV. Stick to reporting and writing because you do a solid job in that department.

We’re not done yet. The pointless “sideline reporting” has reared its ugly head yet again. Erin Andrews interviewing Matthew Stafford before the official announcement that he would be the #1 overall pick AND after Roger Goodell made it official was unnecessary. Why do we need immediate thoughts from them after they’ve been selected?! It’s just more talking heads that are not needed for a professional broadcast.

Where is ESPN getting these people? An injury analyst? Are you serious?! Pedro Gomez should be banned from television. If he’s going to tell me that Edgerrin James was watching the Heat/Hawks playoff game with his kids then I’m not a happy camper.

Enough picking apart of individual people, let’s go to the production itself. I know they’re at the mercy of advertisers, but going to commercial break 4 minutes before a pick is about to be made is unacceptable! They ended up missing the final pick of the 1st round.

It’s also anticlimactic for the cameras to zoom in on a player who is on the phone smiling, knowing he’s about to be selected by whichever team is on the clock. Can’t you just wait 20 seconds instead of practically giving away the pick? I swear they did this 6 or 7 times in the first 15 picks.

Why do I need these stupid polls on the ticker? They put up one that asked “Will Josh Freeman be the starting QB in week 17?”. Zero percent said yes, and zero percent said no. Come on. It’s bad enough I have a bunch of guys shouting nonsense to me, what’s the purpose of adding reader polls after nearly every pick?

I’m going to leave it there even though I have some more things to say.

That is the last time I’m watching the NFL Draft on ESPN. My tolerance has been pushed off a cliff. It’s like they don’t even care what they do anymore. Since I know you’re scoping blogs ESPN, hear me on this one (and just about every other blog and media outlet there is), your COVERAGE IS BEYOND TERRIBLE.

I’ll watch it online if I have too. I can’t stand it anymore. It’s obvious they aren’t getting any better at what they’re supposed to do. Excess doesn’t necessarily mean it’s better. I’m fine with simplicity. ESPN is not capable of understanding that, and I know that I’m not the only one fed up with this.

Check back in June when I end up writing the same thing about the NBA Draft.

Thank You Denver

So uh….hey…it’s Mookie here and um….I’d just like to uh…THANK THE DENVER BRONCOS SO MUCH FOR PULLING OFF A HORRIBLE TRADE!!!!

The Seahawks received a 2010 1st round pick and gave the Broncos their #37 pick, which they used on Alphonso Smith.

Well done Denver. If you go 4-12 next year then we’ll be relishing your failure.

Now for you New England. As if I didn’t already like the Patriots enough, you drafted Patrick Chung. I hope Chung succeeds but in the process you go 4-12.

Announcement: NFL Draft Live Blog

Tomorrow I’ll be a part of a live blog of day 1 of the NFL draft over at The O Files. Join me, James Craven, JFein, 49er16, and hopefully many others who haven’t been paid off to comment on this site regularly. That “hopefully many others” part can be you! So join us tomorrow at 3:30 PM ET/12:30 PM PT for our uninsightful draft thoughts, failed mocks at Mel Kiper’s wig, pointing out the failed mock draft of Todd McShay, and maybe some coverage of which player is going where.

Enjoy your draft weekend!