Great Sports Weekend For The Green Machine

If this weekend is any indication of how the Lakers and Dodgers will fare for the rest of their respective seasons, then I'm going to be a very happy guy. The NBA Playoffs began yesterday, much to my delight. This is the best time of the year for NBA fans, there really is nothing like the atmosphere of playoff basketball. The Lakers opened up their mission for a championship with a nice 113-100 victory today in Game 1 versus the Utah Jazz. Kobe Bryant led the purple and gold with 24 points while Pau Gasol added 20 points, 9 rebounds and 4 blocks. However the two Lakers that I was the most impressed with are two that really didn't get much attention during the regular season: Trevor Ariza and Shannon Brown. Ariza was lights out, scoring 21 points while shooting a ridiculous 8 of 10 from the floor. Brown added 9 points and 3 assists in 22 minutes off the bench. This was the first playoff game in Ariza's career, while this was also the first time Brown played more than 1 minute in a playoff game. Many Laker fans feel that Ariza's absence in the postseason last year was one of the reasons the Lakers did not win the title. Ariza is a strong, athletic and talented player. I thought he made a mistake when he left UCLA after his freshman year a few years back, but he has come a long way in his time in the NBA and has done nothing but marvelous wonders in his time with the Lakers. Shannon Brown came to the Lakers this season at the trade deadline, when he was acquired along with Adam Morrison from the Charlotte Bobcats in exchange for Vladimir Radmonovic. I was very happy with the deal at the time, I was never really the biggest Radmonovic fan as I felt he was too inconsistent and underachieving to be earning the salary he was getting, so I was glad to see him get shipped out of town. I never thought Brown would get much playing time at the point guard position, with Jordan Farmar and Derek Fisher already battling for their share of time, but the last few games of the regular season and today Brown has played brilliantly. He ran the offense well, he made his shots when he was open, and played somewhat decent defense on Jazz guard Deron Williams. When all is said and done, if the Lakers can get the kind of performances from their role players like they did today, they will beat the Jazz in 5 games or in a sweep. To put it in perspective, Andrew Bynum had 7 points and played 20 minutes in this game, yet the Lakers won by 13. Game 2 is Tuesday night at 7:30 in Los Angeles.

I wasn't all that impressed with the other playoff series. 4 of the other 7 games were complete blowouts, with the exceptions coming from Boston-Chicago, Dallas-San Antonio, and Philadelphia-Orlando. Chicago Bulls Point Guard Derrick Rose put on the best performance I have ever seen from a rookie playing his first playoff game. Rose had 36 points and 11 assists to lead the Bulls to a Game 1 upset victory over the defending champion Boston Celtics. I'm interested to see how the Celtics respond in Game 2, I still thought they would win this series even without Kevin Garnett, but after watching Game 1 I'm not so sure anymore. I can't say I would be upset at all if the Celtics lose to the Bulls, I would just love hearing the bandwagon Boston fans complain that the only reason they lost is because of Kevin Garnett's injury. Funny because every Celtic fan gave Laker fans a hard time last year when Laker fans complained that Andrew Bynum's injury was why the Lakers didn't win the title; it's funny how karma works isn't it? LeBron James was very impressive, and right now all signs point to a Lakers-Cavaliers finals matchup. I would love to see Kobe make short work of the Cavs in the finals just like he did in the two games this regular season. Maybe then people will finally realize Kobe is still the best player in the league. I really don't hate LeBron, much to the contrary of what people think, I'm just realistic and don't buy into the fact that he will be the next Michael Jordan. I am still standing by a statement I made earlier this year: LeBron James will not win an NBA Championship in Cleveland. It won't happen as long as Kobe Bryant is still with the Lakers, and Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, and Kevin Garnett are still in Boston. If LeBron wants to win a title, he should sign with another team next summer when he is a free agent. I'm sorry but when the second best player on your team is Mo Williams, you're not going to win a championship even if the best player on your team was Michael Jordan in his prime. Unless Cleveland brings in a SUPERSTAR, LeBron won't win a title there. And for those of you saying Mo Williams is an All-Star, yes he was, but he was AN INJURY REPLACEMENT. If you are the point guard on the team LeBron James is on, you should be able to average more than 4 assists per game, which is what Williams averaged in the regular season. I could go on for a while on this subject, but I'll save it for another time, maybe once the Lakers win the title in June.

By the way the Los Angeles Dodgers are on an 8-game winning streak. They are 10-3 right now and their offense is looking very good. Manny Ramirez finally hit his first home runs this weekend, while Andre Eithier and Matt Kemp participated in batting practice against the Colorado Rockies' pitching staff this weekend. So far the Blue Crew have scored 5 or more runs in 7 of their 10 wins. I hope they keep this up, I really didn't expect them to be this solid this early in the season. If they keep this up the whole year, maybe I will be able to celebrate a Dodgers World Series Title for the first time in my life.

There are 2 weeks left of school for me and then finals week. My two favorite shows are on tomorrow night: 24, and of course WWE Monday Night Raw. All is good right now, except for the fact that it will be close to 100 degrees all week.....only 3 more weeks in the desert until I'm back in glorious Southern California for the summer.