Association Round 1 Action

The NBA Playoffs are back, and they are certainly alive and well. Saturday's quadruple header provided us with some amazing moments and definitely some new insights. However, due to inclement conditions my personal knowledge of the later games may be diminished. Regardless, we begin.

First, Lebron and his gang of flukies against the Wiz and Agent Zero's comeback. Lebron threw his body around, got in a few battles, and came out alive up 1-0. We'll see if he continues to get 4 steps on half of his drives to the basket throughout the series. The big thing here, however, was Gilbert Arenas stepping up and making his return. I was one who definitely thought he was not yet ready to come back, but his 1st half performance said otherwise, 14 points on 4-4 from 3 point land, not too shabby. Looking forward to seeing if Lebron can continue to carry his "role players."

Our second game deserves a column of its' own. Absolutely fantastic theater for a 1st round playoff game. I was absolutely enthralled. Spurs and Suns, rematch of last year's great playoff series. This one without Tim Donaghy involved. It was already being hyped as the best 1st round matchup and I will say after game 1 that it already lived up to the hype. For those of you who may have been outdoors all day, it was a double overtime battle that the Spurs tied twice with threes to send into extra periods (one by Finley, one by Tim Duncan). That's correct, Tim Duncan, his first three pointer of the year. Then in the second overtime, Steve Nash hit a fall away three from the corner to tie. If it weren't for Manu Ginobili's driving layup for the win, it's like this game would have lasted another 3 hours. The coolest part about games like this is the people you watch the game with. In my case I watched with a big Suns fan, 3 people who were railing me all game for cheering for the Spurs, and another who just wanted a great game. Well, we all got what we wanted, except for the Suns fan, but even he had to enjoy the thrilling nature of clutch shots being hit to tie games.

The third game was home to my favorite team in these playoffs, the Hornets. I have to admit, I jumped on this bandwagon this year. But unlike others, it was at the beginning of the season when I was riding them to a streak of 8 straight winning parlays. When money is coming in, it's hard not to cheer for the team that has been your horse. On top of this, my strange man love for Chris Paul has come out and gave me a sleeper team to watch in the West. As you all know, the Hornets had a gigantic season, roping in a 2 seed in the wild West. So, with all this love, I'd obviously take the Hornets over the Mavs in Round 1, right? Wrong, but I have the right to change my mind. As good as Paul is, I expected the experience of Dirk's Mavs to overcome the best point guard in the world. What I didn't expect was Avery Johnson not throwing everything he had against Paul. Paul repeatedly ran down the court yelling, "He can't guard me!" in regards to future Hall of Famer Jason Kidd. He was completely correct, and Avery didn't do anything to stop it. Paul finished with 35, 10 assists and 3 steals, and confirmed to me that he is one of the most unbelievable players in the Association.

Game 4, what can I say? I was rediculously drunk at this point, struggling to stay awake and watch. But I made it and here are some notes. T-Mac, you choked. Loved the early play in this game from you, but the lack of impact late led to the game getting away from the Rockets. Deron Williams, I've always disliked you, leading back to this game in 2005. It so happened to be just a year and a half after another tragedy in my life, so I can't get over it. Anyway Deron Williams played great, with 20 and 10 assists. But, the real step up player was Andrei Kirilenko. Old AK-47 put up 21 on 8-12 shooting, and played excellent defense to shut the Rockets down late. By the way, how many shots does Bobby Jackson have to put up for Rick Adelman to realize that this is not a 2001 Lakers-Kings showdown. I mean 3-15 from the field, honestly? I have no more.

So, after 11 hours of basketball, 1 thriller, 10 too many beers and tons of food later what have we learned? Two things, I would kill to see Spurs-Suns Round 2, and all day drinking often results in more fun than being sober all day. Just a thought, give it a shot again sometime soon.

So I've got to give you a song of the day, and it will be..."Your Time Has Come" by Audioslave. I'll be honest, I just turned my iTunes on and this song was the last one playing, God only knows how it got on here. However, it's a fire-you-up tune and sometimes we all need to get a bit juiced. One final note, the Cubbies are 11-6 and riding over crappy teams. So 'til next time, catch Playoff fever or a smooth D Lee jack.