The Screaming Viking

The heat moved past the bulls last night.  I watched most of the game and I will say that the bulls looked like they were working harder, but the Heat were the much better team.  It seemed like the bulls made quite a few mistakes and over all didn’t play tight enough to win.  The heat seemed to push less hard but made less mistakes, so the overall feeling of the game was the better team won.  I think quite a bit of that stuff has to do with playoff experience.  The bulls had to work through sync issues, while the heat were on basically the same page.

LBJ IMO looks to be the best player in league right now and might be on his was to being the best player ever…but I still don’t like him.  During these last two games with the bulls he put the weight of the team on his shoulders and took over the game.  The difference this year compared to previous years was when he decided to take over the game he did it through his own scoring as well as facilitating the scoring of others.  In previous years he was all about his scoring.  Maybe he didn’t have the supporting cast to be able to do that…we could debate that ad-nauseum…but this year he seems to be maturing into a great player.  I think he will need to win multiple rings and MVP’s to be considered the greatest ever…but he might be on his way.  I still don’t like him, solely for the way he left Cleveland.  Maybe that’s lame…but it’s my opinion and I’m entitled to it.  Me not liking the guy doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the great player he is though.

Last night LBJ won the douche award for “drawing” a foul on Rose.  I don’t think that kind of acting has any place in sports…it was a foreign soccer player move at best.  We also saw last night how, once again, the refs turned the tide of the game.  It took a couple of crap calls from them to bring the bulls down enough for the heat to get back in the game.  I firmly believe that there is an effort by NBA officials and execs to get the match-ups they want during the playoffs.  It’s tough to watch the game…but it’s entertaining to me to watch the crap fest.

I sat down and watched most of the bulls heat game last night…I’m not a fan of the heat, but the bulls didn’t deserve to win that game.  I’m not a fan of the heat because of LeBron James.  I watched the guy when he played for the cavs, pulled for him and all that…but after he went to miami the way he did I would love to see him never win a title.  This year though it seems fairly inevitable that he’s going to win.  I don’t have a whole lot of faith in the Mav’s when it gets to the title game.

The bulls and the thunder seem to be suffering from the same problems.  They have a relative lack of playoff experience as a team.  All kinds of talent and hustle, but they just can’t seem to come together collectively during some stretches of these playoff games.  There was one point when rose was on a break, bosh with 5 fouls was trailing…rose went for the shot, bosh went for the block and rose avoided him for the 2 points.  At that stage of this close game it would have been more valuable to get bosh fouled out and go to the line for 2 shots.  There was quite a bit of miscommunication on passes and cuts, turnovers that were unforced (ball dribbled off of another players foot as they were coming up the court…no pressure).  It’s those little mistakes that need to be cut out for them to be a successful playoff team.  There is value in players getting to the playoffs multiple times and learning how to function in that environment.

As much as I don’t like James, he sure turned on the D against rose in the 4th.  I think they put him on Rose around the 7min mark?  He shut him down…it was pretty dominate.  Rose settled for 2 jump shots at the end that I was pretty disappointed with.  I would have liked to see him put the ball on the floor and take his chances.  Maybe if it wasn’t a tie he would have.  Down 1 point I bet he drives to the hol

Watching the NBA usually sucks IMO.  I was a big basketball fan back in the day, but after I grew up a little bit I realized how subjective the officiating is, how lopsided it can be and how the flow of the game is interrupted constantly with the whistles and the time outs.  I always complained about the officiating, but I never put thought in to it beyond “it sucks” until lately.  On Lex & Terry they have interviewed Tim Donaghy a few times and he tells them how he would go about adjusting the outcome of various games.  After hearing that, it’s interesting to watch games with that information and notice the stuff that he is talking about.  Maybe they can’t play as physical on one end, maybe call is made that will shave a few points here and there…it’s pretty interesting.  I think in the NBA the officials are more able to keep the spread what they want it than any other game.  You can make adjustments in other sports, but it’s easy to add the “and one!” in the NBA…call a foul here, don’t call one there…etc.  They can’t put the ball in the hole but they can give them every opportunity.

Game of Thrones episode 6 I found to be kind of…blah.  I found it to be by far the least interesting episode of the lot.  The crowning was interesting…but other than that I just didn’t find it all that good.  I don’t have much to say really…eh, maybe I wasn’t all that in to the show last night.

Man, it seems like it’s getting worse and worse for Lance Armstrong.  People are coming out of the wood work to say this guy was/is dirty.  I suppose they gain some notoriety and maybe some book money if they roll on Lance, but outside of that…what else do they gain?  It’s not like these people are legit competitors anymore, so they don’t gain anything by getting him out of the sport.  They are tainting their own legacy by admitting that they also used banned substances (I don’t like “performance enhancing”…lots of things enhance performance that are not illegal).

It seems like the “evidence” is piling up, but Armstrong’s attitude through all this is to deny it.  Not just deny it, he gets legal on anyone that accuses him of this stuff.  He goes on the offensive and sues the hell out of them for libel and so forth….and he wins or there is a settlement.  That’s the part of it that confuses me.  If he is in fact guilty, this is a genius strategy, but if he’s guilty why have none of the law suites gone against him in court?  It seems like the french have been after him forever…but they have had no “solid” proof.

The only other plausible explanation for this is that he is guilty and the professional organizations are conspiring to keep him clean publicly.  I could see that.  Armstrong has brought a bit of notoriety to biking and a cult following of sorts.  Maybe the powers that be have decided that he is of greater value to them with a clean record than to “bring out the truth”.   There is certainly some validity to that point of view.

On a personal level Armstrong has meant a little to me as a symbol of triumph.  Given some family history, he seemed to ring through as a beacon of hope.  If he’s dirty, it doesn’t really taint that idea, he still survived…but it does harm his overall image to me personally.  If he’d have come out and said “yeah I did it” I’d have been fine with that…but if this turned out to be a big cover up his stature would diminish just a little bit in my eyes.  But it’s not like that means anything to L.A.