NBA Finals
Jun
12
Written by:
6/12/2011 10:17 PM
Which city will celebrate more tonight, Dallas or Cleveland?
The 2011 NBA Finals are now complete and have been some of the very best basketball games that I have watched in recent memory. Game 6 was played tonight and Dallas closed out D. Wade and company in Miami. This series has been one of runs, and one of Dallas closing halves strong against the Heat. The Heat, as many have said, has three of the Top 4 players on the court every time they step out on the court, yet find themselves down in this series. Dallas has made this series about their whole team being better than the Heat’s big three. I am not going to bash LeBron, but for someone who is the physical specimen that he is, he has relied on his jump shot entirely too much this series, versus taking it to the rim strong and making the officials call a foul. Taking some ill-advised jump shots in this series, particularly late in games, has cost Miami a couple of games and may ultimately have been the reason they lost this series, but the lack of production from James in the 4th of each game will be a talking point for a long time to come. Dirk, who was named Finals MVP, was the anti-James this series. Dirk, who played very poor in the first three quarters tonight, brought his “A” game in the 4th tonight and closed out as great players do.
Wonder if Scotty Pippen would like to change his statements from earlier this series? MJ was 6-0 in Finals appearances while LeBron is now 0-2. This is Wade’s team and both he and James made that very evident in this series. Chris Bosh, who I felt was very overrated, has been much more reliable in this series than James. This series shows that a team of five solid players can beat three superstars. As much as everyone wanted to make this about the Big three, the best TEAM won this series and congrats to the Mavs.
OTHER THOUGHTS FROM THE WEEK
Congrats to the UNC Baseball team for making it to Omaha for the College World Series. This will be the Heels 5th Trip in six years and hopefully they can bring home a title.
UFC 131 was this weekend in Vancouver and was another great card. One thing that keeps coming up is the judges scoring these fights. There were two fights on Saturday where scoring was questionable. Kenny Florian beat Diego Nunes on Saturday night two rounds to one, but one official scored it Kenny Florian 30-27 over Diego Nunes. Nunes seemed to win round one rather convincingly, while Florian seemed to win the last two. UFC President Dana White made a comment on Twitter and in his post-fight press conference about this fight, but this was not the one that bothered him the most. The opening fight, which could be seen on Facebook and YouTube, between Darren Elkins and Michihiro Omigawa was the one that White was openly upset about. Elkins was awarded the official win by the judges, but the UFC is viewing it as a win for Omigawa, and awarded Omigawa his win bonus. I keep saying this is going to impact a major championship fight at some point if something is not done. I hope I am wrong, but things in this realm, continue to happen too frequently as of late.
Jeff Gordon won the race at Pocono today. That was a great nap for me today.