It's the weekend rewind, running back some of the highlights (and lowlights) of the past weekend in sports and this one is all about the NHL and NBA playoffs.
There were 8 NBA playoff games, 3 of them were close.
Yeah, as excited as I was for the NBA playoffs I was left pretty disappointed. Not a single game in the West was close. OKC beat Dallas by 38, the Clippers beat Portland by 20, the Heat beat the Hornets by 32, the Spurs beat Memphis by 32, and the Warriors beat Houston by 26. Steph hurt his ankle and may miss tonights game so my sweep prediction may be spoiled, but he was dominate in the minutes he played Saturday and that's still a good sign going forward for the Dubs. Patrick Beverley was doing some dirty/cheap shit as expected. Exhibit A:
Locking up Steph's arm and not letting it go. Remember when Kelly Olynyk did that to Kevin Love and ripped his arm out and people were calling for Olynyk's head? But Beverley's just playing hard, hustling, being an irritant it's his game. I don't hate Beverley, but I do think he's overrated. He's the black Matthew Dellevadova to me. They both lack a lot of skill, they play hard, and they do dirty tricky shit. If you can make a career out of being an "irritant" I kinda respect that because you were able to sustain a career of playing basketball while sucking at basketball. Aside from being an overrated defender Beverley can sometimes hit the open 3. Same with Delly, good defender (not as good as people want you to believe) and can sometimes hit the 3, but Delly can also throw lobs to all his athletic teammates so he has that on Beverley. Anyway that should continue to be a chippy series but even without Steph the Rockets' defense is so horrendous that they shouldn't lose.
Of the other blowouts only one surprised me, the Miami Charlotte game. I thought all games in that one were going to be close, but Miami shut down Charlotte and lit them up on the other end. Brutal showing from a team I expected a lot more from. And one last note, Russell Westbrook's game 1 outfit:
If that's what he's rocking game 1 I can't wait to see what he's wearing the rest of the playoffs. Maybe it's because I'm a white guy from Wisconsin, but this look is RIDICULOUS right? I mean, right? I get that it's his thing and a lot of what he wears is, but come on. Russ has to be just trolling the world with this shit. He wakes up and looks for the most ridiculous combination of clothes he can find and wears it and just waits for the reactions. That has to be it. Nobody throws that on and thinks, "Goddamn this looks good. Like really really good, I'll wear this on national tv." He's gotta be going, "I'm gonna wear this and watch all this suckers eat it up and think it's cool." The rolled up pants and the bucket hat did it for me. I can't imagine ever wearing that under any circumstance, let alone willingly. But that's how confident this man is. I respect that.
Now onto the close games and I'll start with the playoff opener, Toronto vs Indiana. Toronto lead for most of the game, until late in the third quarter and all the fourth Paul George went OFF and the Raptors lost another game 1. They've only won one game one in their franchise history and never in the first round. Now we just have to see if they'll respond like a 56 win team should and beat the Pacers ass tonight, or if they'll do what they did last year and just lay down and die in embarrassing fashion. My money is still on Raps in 6, but they have to find more offense. If there's any silver lining it's that Kyle Lowry can't play worse than he did and they were still in the game until the last minute or so.
Atlanta and Boston I expected to be close. But I didn't expect the Hawks to take a 17-point lead, and I then didn't expect them to blow the 17-point lead and still win. So congrats to them, but I still think Boston will win the series. Also the Hawks were going for a neon-out with their shirts. I know they added that to their new color scheme, but I think they're late on neon. I feel like neon has kinda passed at this point. The Hawks were a good 3-4 years late in my opinion, but I'm not a fashion expert. I am a college student/pretend sports expert.
Finally we have Cleveland and Detroit in what was a really good game, until the end when Cleveland won. Reggie Jackson tried to go iso on K-Love and just sucked it up. Two possessions in a row and twice he failed to score. On Kevin Love. 1-on-1. So that's embarrassing, but it looks like Detroit can actually make this a series which is good to see. I want to see a rattled LeBron in round 1 and hope it carries on. The seeds of doubt need to be planted early because then the odds of him doing some stupid prima donna shit skyrockets and I get to go off about LeBron again. On a serious note though, if your a Cavs fan and you're reading this you should have nightmares about this team's defense. You already know you can't beat Golden State, San Antonio, and probably not even OKC, if they met in the Finals, but I'm honestly concerned they might not even make it out of the East. If Toronto gets it together, they play good defense and offense (usually). Cleveland has offensive weapons, but defensively they have LeBron, Tristian Thompson, and kind of Shumpert and Mosgov. Delly now and then yeah, but that's all you have for actually consistently good defenders. That's not good enough to win a title. I'd be more worried about Toronto than anyone from the West right now if I'm a Cavs fan. But back to the game, LeBron was LeBron, not only in his play but in his antics. Shameless whining at EVERY SINGLE CALL. I honestly got mad at LeBron because every time a call went against him he threw his hands up by his face and started pleading to the ref. I know a lot of other guys do it and they don't bother me because LeBron makes it a whole show when he get's away with all kinds of shit. Example:
Blatant travel, but he's gotten away with that his whole career and before you can throw the Warriors illegal screens in my face understand that I know LeBron gets calls, and the Warriors get calls. Also understand that most picks set in the NBA are illegal. And when a travel is that obvious you have to call it. The refs did a disservice to the game letting that go. He also was fouled passing to Love and got free throws even though it looked nothing like a shot and he threw the ball right to Kevin Love. Bron also bullied Reggie Jackson and hit him with a finish you'd expect from the old white guy in a pick-up game:
Note at the end where LeBron decided straight bullying Reggie wasn't enough so he actually bullies him by shoving him. I couldn't find the under the basket replay where you could see him shoot then just shove Jackson. Gotta prove you're the bigger man at 6-8 250 I guess. And finally the Warriors are so in his head that he tried to steal one of their moves:
Yeah, word of advice here. If you're going to do that make sure either Stephen Curry or Klay Thompson are shooting it. I like Kyrie I really do and he played great yesterday, but he's not Steph, he's not Klay, save yourself from looking like an asshole and only do that when those guys are shooting. Bogie! Show em how it's done.
NHL Playoffs Continue To Be Great
Like I said in my predictions, I don't know a ton about hockey. I only watch hockey during the playoffs, but I'm rarely disappointed. I was last night because the Ducks decided to make it interesting by making it 3-2 with like 5 minutes left but lost and barely even got any decent shots at the goal and it sucked. I picked Ducks in 6 and now they're down 0-2 so they're the only pick I'm nervous about right now. As for the other series Washington is handling Philly easily and the only thing worth note from that series is that this happened:
Yup, maybe the worst goal ever given up of all time. And it happened in the playoffs when you're trying to beat the best team. That sucks, I'm sorry Philly, but at least (some of) you have that Villanova title that almost killed me. Rangers Penguins has seen two big wins each way. Tampa Bay looked like it might run away with the series before Detroit won game 3 yesterday. The Sharks are up 2-0 and like I said, you don't fuck with sharks. The Blackhawks (the team I said would win it all, I have been informed that might be a bad choice but I'm sticking with it) are down 2-1 to the Blues in what has maybe been the best series so far. The Wild are down 0-2 to Dallas as many expected. They dominated game 1 winning 4-0, and game two they won 2-1 thanks to this filthy goal by Jamie Benn:
Yup, went 5 hole on a breakaway on an All-Star goalie. Oh, this was the first goal:
If that doesn't go in maybe this game plays out differently. Gonna be hard for Minnesota to beat the top seed in the West now, and even harder if they continue to struggle putting the puck in the net.
Finally we have the Islanders and Panthers and after two good first games that saw each team winning one, the first ever playoff hockey game at Barclay's Center did not disappoint. Florida went up 2-0 (would've been 3-0 but a goal was disallowed) with these two goals:
The Isles responded:
And the Panthers responded to the response:
The Islanders would come roaring back with two more goals to force OT:
And finally John Hickey would win it for the Islanders with this:
I gave up looking for an actual video, but just know that Barclay's was going nuts. It was sweet.
So that's all I got for this weekend. Enjoy all the playoffs.
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