Boston Holds On

Usually when one of the best teams in basketball is up by 24 points in the fourth quarter a win is pretty much guaranteed. However, last night and on a few other occasions this NBA Playoffs the league best Boston Celtics have struggled to close out games. There have been a few moments when I have been ready to call AAA and report the breakdown I’m witnessing in front of my eyes. Game 2 of the NBA Championships was another one of these moments as the Celtics blew a 24 point leaned but luckily managed to hold on and win 108-102.

With less than eight minutes left in last nights game the Lakers were trailing 95-71 but went on a 31-9 run to get the score as close as 104-102. In total the Lakers dropped 41 points on the best defensive team in the NBA in the final quarter and had Celtics fans everywhere wondering what had happened to their team. If you’re a Celtics fan you can’t really enjoy this win. Sure Paul Pierce looked like he had fully recovered from his “injury” and Leon Powe had the game of his life, but even being up 2-0 this is not how you want the Celtics heading to L.A. It will be interesting to see if they can tighten up their game because if they don’t there’s a great chance they will be return to Boston down 3-2.

One and Done

A lot of players dream of the opportunity of being able to retire on top of their respected sport but very few ever have the chance. Michael Strahan is one of those players because after winning a Super Bowl with the New York Giants last year, the seven-time Pro Bowl defensive end has decided to call it quits just before mini-camps start. It’s nice to see a guy recognize when he’s finished and has nothing left to accomplish because the last thing anyone wants is another Brett Favre that just won’t walk away.

Usually I would like to see a guy try to come back and repeat before he retires but I don’t blame Strahan for ending things now. Die hard football fans still don’t believe the Giants won the Super Bowl last year and their chances of repeating are slimmer than their odds of winning last year and they’re the defending champions.

Baseball Bullies

A couple days after the Tampa Bay Rays got in a bench clearing brawl with the Boston Red Sox the Rays apparently couldn’t get the Texas Rangers to do the same, so they just ended up fighting each other. After a Rangers homer that left the Rays trailing 3-0, pitcher Matt Garza and catcher Dioner Navarro had a heated exchange on the mound that saw the players pushing their gloves in the others face. The Rays pitching coach actually had to come out and make Navarro go back to his position behind the plate. After the inning was over Garza got in Navarro’s face in the dug out and the two ended up fighting in the tunnel leading to the clubhouse.

I love when stuff like this happens, especially with a team that is playing so well. An incident like what happened with Garza and Navarro is something that can totally ruin a team’s chemistry and throw the train completely off the tracks. It always seems like this kind of blow up happens between pitchers and catchers, or quarterbacks and wide receivers which is classic because those pairing have to work so close with each other. Hopefully this doesn’t totally ruin the Rays season though because it would be nice if a team other than Boston or NY had a chance to win that division.