NBA: regular season finish, thoughts, playoff predictions

Well as many great things have a start, they sadly have a finish. Or as the old saying goes. For the NBA’s regular season which started on October 30th, 2012 with the ring ceremony to its latest champion Miami Heat. It will end in the evening of April 17th, 2013 in Los Angeles. Nearly 6 months of basketball action. I know, very exciting time.

In general this regular season was the first time that I really dedicated myself to really wanting to watch NBA basketball again. Since baseball had ended 2 days prior to the regular season starting, and the Packers doing alright but not great, and the NHL lockout (yeah there was a lockout a while ago, I forgot too). In normal years I’d watch a few regular season games here and there a few years. The last time I had a craving to watch was back in the 1990’s with the Michael Jordan dominating the game like the Beatles dominating music (you couldn’t really hate them, you had to watch them to understand what they were about, even if you were a casual fan you watched them). Best moment was Jordan’s clutch shot at the end of game 6 of the 1998 Finals against the Utah Jazz. He was clutch. Still hold the memory dear to me, best memory as a sports fan, even as a 9 year-old.

Award predictions:

6th Man of the Year: JR Smith

Rookie of the Year: Damian Lillard

Coach of the Year: George Carl

Defensive Player of the Year: Lebron James

Most Improved Player: Paul George

Most Valuable Player: Lebron James

NBA Playoff Predictions:

Western Conference

(1) Oklahoma City Thunder vs (8) Houston Rockets: Thunder in 4 games

(4) Los Angeles Clippers vs (5) Memphis Grizzlies: Clippers in 6 games

(3) Denver Nuggets vs (6) Golden State Warriors: Warriors in 7 games

(2) San Antonio Spurs vs (7) Los Angeles Lakers: Spurs in 5 games

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(1) Oklahoma City Thunder vs (4) Los Angeles Clippers: Thunder in 5 games

(2) San Antonio Spurs vs (6) Golden State Warriors: Spurs in 6 games

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(1) Oklahoma City Thunder vs (2) San Antonio Spurs: Thunder in 5 games

Eastern Conference 

(1) Miami Heat vs (8) Milwaukee Bucks: Heat in 4

(4) Brooklyn Nets vs (5) Chicago Bulls: Nets in 7

(3) Indiana Pacers vs (6) Atlanta Hawks: Pacers in 6

(2) New York Knicks vs (7) Boston Celtics: Knicks in 5

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(1) Miami Heat vs (4) Brooklyn Nets: Heat in 5 games

(2) New York Knicks vs (3) Indiana Pacers: Knicks in 7

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(1) Miami Heat vs (2) New York Knicks: Heat in 6 games

NBA Finals

Miami Heat vs Oklahoma City Thunder: Heat in 5 games.

2013 NBA Champions: Miami Heat.

(I had been writing this since 10 p.m. my time, so its about 3-4 hours, accidentally hit a button that would go previous screen and I thought this thing would save as a draft as a whole, and I learned that the hard way. In other words: FUCK YOU WORDPRESS!)

Hope you enjoy reading these. Thanks readers!

🙂 -Tom

My friend: Baseball is back

Now it has been a long time coming. Both in that I haven’t done a column in nearly 3 months. Why the long period of time? Regardless of the way that my Packers lost to the 49ers in the divisional playoff game a week later the column was released, it was still a decent season for the Green and Gold. I get my revenge on Christian Ponder (who is more of a pussy than anyone else that I know), on stealing who was my interest months before he stole her, Samantha Steele (now Ponder, now obviously the latter last name was better to me). Other than my revenge, the Packers even up their rivalry with the Vikings in the playoffs at 1-1. There is a point to this article.

Baseball has returned. Days are getting longer, Beer doesn’t freeze when you try to drink it, girls start to wear shorts, shirts (yes my guy friends, don’t lie you like it, I do too). Another year of hope for Cubs fans to break the curse of the Billy Goat, Yankee fans claim that this will be the year that they will win #28 (and fail), hot dogs will be consumed, baseballs will be thrown back in disgust, another year of Joe Buck and Tim McCarver destroying the great game of baseball (one idiotic word at a time). Here’s my overall thoughts on the season, and the season so far. 

1. Yankees still suck. 2009 was the last great year of the Yankees opening their checkbook to players in a big way. CC Sabathia and Mark Texeira were the ones that took from going to small-time teams to the big show. Going to the Yankees that year you witnessed many things: the two players actually making an impact on the club, the last year that you witnessed an Alex Rodriguez actually being clutch and put up numbers like he was supposed to make, and the Yankees winning #27 of their overall World Series titles (of which I couldn’t watch ESPN for a month because they loved to give the Yanks so much slack, note this is before Tim Tebow came into their lives and destroyed the network). 

Obviously the Yankee bandwagon has been small these past few months for good reasons. Their players get more injured than an average Yao Ming season. It’s a fact that they have old players (Kuroda 38, Pettite 40, Jeter 38, Overbay 36, A-Rod 37, Youkilis 34). The average age of the team is 30 years old. Certainly no spring chickens on the team. 7 players on the disabled list. 

2. Tigers bullpen is still trash. Biggest reason why they couldn’t win a title last season. As much as starting pitching is key to winning games, relief pitching deserves as much responsibility to winning games. For example, if you work in a McDonalds, your shift is about to end, business has been good, plenty of great compliments from the customers, working area is clean, you head out, and the coworker puts in the wrong order for a customer, bad example I know. That’s what relief pitching is essentially, you keep a good thing going for the one who came before you and you don’t try to screw it up for the person. The team’s ERA is 2.60 (which is good when you think of it) but here’s the relief pitchers ERA (Smyly 13.50, Downs 6.75, Coke 9.00). The season is young I know, these sort of problems happen normally, I feel the Tigers will be alright. 

3. Houston Astros. The Astros as of right now are 1-2 on the season. The logo is nice, the stadium is still pretty cool (AT&T Park is probably my favorite ballpark). On Opening Night last Sunday, these Astros won a game against the Rangers. 8-2 in fact. After that, the honeymoon was over. Losing to the Rangers 7-0 and 0-4 in 2 days was heartbreaking I figure. My overall thoughts on them going from NL to AL is so-so. I personally liked to see the Brewers go back to the AL since that was where they started as a club (established in 1969 as the Seattle Pilots then moving to Milwaukee in 1970, entered the National League in 1998). 

4. Red Sox. As a fan of the Red Sox, I find this year to be a year where we could go almost anywhere in the division. First or last. The division is open. Somewhere we could get closure to the horrid season that was 2012. Jackie Bradley Jr., already is a household name, starting pitching looks good, hitting is impressive, we could go all the way in a possible way. 

That’s all that I have for right now. 

-Tom

NFL Wild-Card Predictions

Hello folks, it is the eve of one of the best parts of the year in the sports world: NFL playoffs. First week is full of some intriguing match ups now that the games that don’t really matter turn to the games that do matter. Win or go home. Simple as that. I will also do the divisional predictions as well as the Super Bowl as well, just on a different column after the wild-card weekend is over. I know this could bite me in the ass early in the playoffs but at least I give out my opinion on it. Here we go:

Cincinnati @ Houston: Tale of two different seasons for these teams. Last season was the same matchup. Bengals haven’t won a playoff game since I was 2-3 years old in 1990. Time is now right for them to end the drought and bring Marvin Lewis his first playoff win. I’ll go with the Bengals.

Minnesota @ Green Bay: The second all-time playoff matchup between these two teams. Vikings won the first game back in 2005. Different cases for both teams. Obviously I want the Packers to win, and I still believe that Christian Ponder will not be the elite quarterback that people expect him to be. He’s played well I will agree to a point, but taking my girl Samantha Steele away from me loses all respect for him. I have since ended my pursuit of the girl. She needs a brain. Go Pack Go.

Indianapolis @ Baltimore: A lot of people not believing in the Ravens in what could possibly be the great Ray Lewis’ last game. I believe the Ravens will win it based on the fact that they’re inspired by him and they will win it for Ray who deserves it. I’ll go for the Ravens.

Seattle @ Washington: Obviously the best game of the wild-card weekend. RGIII vs Russell Wilson. Two of the best rookie QB’s in the NFC. This game will easily be a high-scoring affair. I like Washington being them the home team and Seattle on the road hasn’t been that great as it should. I like RGIII more than Wilson because I feel Robert Griffin has more speed in his legs and certainly more accurate as a passer. Also because I still won’t get over the Fail Mary. Go Washington! Hail to the Redskins!