NBA Playoffs - Day 25

Cavs Apply Bunker Mentality In Win

Cleveland 86 Detroit 84

LeBron James and the Cavs stole a win in Detroit last night to get ahead , 3-2 . The Cavaliers are a victory away from the Eastern conference finals. Like in previous victories against the Pistons , the bench Cleveland was huge. Varejao , Marshall , Jones outscored their counterparts 2:1. The Cavs were not rattled even when the Pistons made a run at them . Donyell Marshall , here shown in his draft day photo , blocked Prince's shot to insure the win . Y ou can say that The Prince was denied entry to The Palace by a Marshall !
The best the Pistons was able to do was tie the game. ' Had Detroit wrest the lead even by just 1 point , the Cavs would have been under tremendous pressure ' said TNT Analyst , Kenny Smith.
Make no mistake about it . It's still LeBron's show. He was constanly scoring whoever was in front of him . Prince , Evans and Wallace. It's still James and the Gang. LBJ and Party. LeBron and Friends . You can say that LeBron gets by with a little help fom his friends . Like in the Beatles' song . May James be as successful as the Fab Four. By the way , one of the living members of the Beatles , Paul McCartney is in the news today. Paul was reported to be divorcing his second wife. It will be one a costly divorce for Paul , who is worth millions and millions of dollars , especially without a pre nup. I wonder if that is the reason LeBron still has not married the mother of his son ( shown here being helped by LBJ ). Just make sure you have a pre nup , LeBron !

The Cavs victory stunned the hometown crowd . During most of the game , they were silent.' I have never seen this place so silent ' wondered ex Pacer Reggie Miller who was the TV Analyst last night. The crowd which included Thomas ' Hitman ' Hearns , came alive only towards the end of the game. The Cavs' plan is to keep the game close up to mid way the Q4 . From there , James can take over. According to Kobe Bryant , the TNT Guest last night , ' James is one of those guys with the ability to take over the game ' . You can say that coach Brown was right in his adopting this kind of a tactic . He referred to this as ' bunker mentality ' in agreement with the reporter who used the term in his line of questionning. I don'y know why we keep using ' war ' terms in our sports lingo . Just this morning . I heard a hockey player used terms as ' warriors ' , ' battlefield ' and ' deploy the forces ' . In today's climate and the ongoing war in Iraq , some people are quite sensitive about the use of such terms. It's not politically correct.

Now, let me wrap this up as I have to go to work at 0900 hour or else I will be reported as MIA .

Spurs Stops Mavs Momemtum

San Antonio 98 Dallas 97

The Spurs stopped Mavericks' march into the Western conference finals date with the winner of Clippers-Suns series with another hard fought victory last night. ' The game could have gone either way ' said Tim Duncan who played like a monster last night. He made his first 12 shots tying the NBA playoff record held by Larry Mc Neil. One wonders if this has someting to do with Tim being left out of the NBA 1stTeam for the first time .
The Spurs big man , who collects knives for a hobby , is afraid of heights and sharks . Calling Mark Cuban dressed your mascot as a shark !
A block by Bowen of Nowitzki's jump shot helped the Spurs tremendously. It resulted in a jump ball . Until then , the German sharpshooter was deadly making his 1st 3 point shot of the series. Another jumpball ensued after a mad scramble for the ball . This time involving the Argentnian Daredevil, Manu Ginobili. Manu was all over the place last night. Stealing the ball from Dirk , driving while wrapping the ball around his back , battling for the loose ball. A real livewire . ' Manu can change the momentum of the game with his hustle play ' said Kobe Bryant. Kobe should know having played with him a lot of times .

This series now at 3-2 in favor of Dallas is odd in a lot of ways. Especially on the part of San Antonio according to Steve Kerr who was once a Spur himself. The ' shootfest ' is uncharacteristic of games involving SA. Kerr noted that the ' scores of the past 3 games averaged over 100 points whereas in the regular season , the games ave. only at 80's .' Dallas has forced San Antonio to play its kind of a game. The fast tempo game. Wonder no more. All is fast now in Texas . Texas will go 80 m.p.h. as legal driving speed. soon . As you know, both are Texas teams. What about Houston ? Will Jeff Van Gundy drop his boring half court offense ? Will Van Gundy go for the exciting fast paced game ? Is a ' run and gun ' type of play suited for Van Gundy ? Ummm .

If I am Houston's GM , I will force Van Gundy to change his ways or else Van Gundy is Van Gone Dy !.