NBA: the Finals, Spurs Vs. Heat // The French Open (Current) // MLB: AL Colorado Rockies , “Turning A Corner.”
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NBA --- IT begins Thursday, East versus West, each seeking best of seven, their sought outcome the year’s NBA championship title and trophy. For a third year in a row, the Miami Heat will seek the glory, facing the West’s San Antonio Spurs.
Last night, the Heat didn’t just become top of the East and headed for the Finals; they bolted far forward early against the Indiana Pacers, a team that until last night kept “pace,” pushing the East’s series to a 3-3 situation, but no Pacer being a match for the Heat’s LeBron James and Dwyane Wade combining for 53 points in game seven, the Heat evolving into an amazing home-court win, 99-76.
If last night’s Miami win was a predictor, then surely the Spurs have much to be concerned about, though the West’s 2012/13 best NBA franchise’s Tim Duncan and Tony Parker are not the worrying kind, their focus is on transitioning from the rebound to “escape and evasion” for their shooting accuracy from any angle, any rational distance from the net.
Then there’s the strategic thinking of arguably basketball’s best active coaches, Gregg Popovich and the younger Eric Spoelstra, neither capable of standing aside, wringing their hands and only watching the fouls pile up. Under Popovich’s tutelage, the Spurs have reached the NBA Finals four times prior to this post-season, defeating the N.Y. Knicks 4-1, 1998/99, also the New Jersey Nets 4-2, 2002/3, the Detroit Pistons 4-3, 2004/5, and the Cleveland Cavaliers 4-0, 2006/7.
Spoelstra has been to the Finals twice, losing to the Dallas Mavericks 4-2, season 2010/11, last year defeating the Oklahoma City Thunder, 4-1.
The NBA coach with the most Finals wins is Phil Jackson---11, combining six Chicago Bulls wins with five while coaching the L.A. Lakers. Boston Celtics coach Red Auerbach is next with nine wins, six straight from 1959 through 1965/6.
The team that’s been to the Finals the most and won, that’s the Celtics---13 wins, though Boston
During the last Spurs visit to the Finals, when they defeated the Cavaliers 4-0 (a sweep, one of only eight since the NBA finals kicked in, 19467), LeBron James was among the Cav players sulking, the Spurs Tony Parker selected as Finals MVP. James was crowned Finals MVP last year, averaging 28 points. Last night, James racked up 32 points. Spurs vs. Heat, there’s a history there!
French Open --- OF those top-seeded at the 2013 French Open, Spain’s Rafael Nadal, America’s Serena Williams and last year’s Fr. Open winner, Russia’s Maria Sharapova, seem to be living up to expectations, the three now ready for quarter-finals at Roland Garros after victories that weren’t the uphill slogs that Swiss Roger Federer and Serb. Novak Djokovic, almost encountered recently.
However, all five are still of Finals possibilities, providing that Federer can take apart France’s J-Wilfried Tsonga today, and Serena doesn’t find Russia’s Svetiana Kuznetsova her first spoiler of the easy 2013 Fr. Open run that she’s had so far. Kuznetsova disrupted Williams’ sets-won sequence at the 2009 Fr. Open.
Still, from performance service, return service and especially game tempo control, Williams seems to be the year’s likely Fr. Open women’s winner.
Federer has been showing performance setbacks, his speed of court response not what it once was with regard to consistency, though his moves are always the right moves, his racquet-wielding of the same elegant simplicity noted through the years, evidence: his difficult recent win vs. Gilles Simon.
Our guess is that current world number one player, Novak Djokovic, will be challenging seven time Fr. Open winner Nadal at this year’s Fr. Open Finals, a Grand Slam event that Djokovic has never won.
MLB --- IF we go by number of won games so far in 2013, the American League bests the National League, 425 wins over 413. The AL AL
Yet the NL owns the two MLB teams with the most 2013 wins so far, the NL Central’s 38-19 St. Louis Cardinals and the 36-22 Cincinnati Reds.
Best in the AL now are the AL West’s Texas Rangers and Oakland Athletics, each of 35 wins, and AL East’s Boston Red Sox, also with 35.
Moreover, the NL has the only division where only one of its five teams is above .500, the NL East, led by the Atlanta Braves, 35-22, .614.
Another way of looking at this is to note that the AL’s three division last place teams have 24, 23 and 20 wins respectively, while the NL’s three division last place clubs are 23, 21 and (ugh!) the Marlins 16. Were the total number of NL last place division wins the same as those of the AL
What comes to mind here? League vs. league, you’re only as good as your weakest part. But that’s so no matter how you cut the cheese in other endeavors, baseball and beyond.
Colorado Rockies --- THE 30-28 Rockies have been an up, then down, up again, down once more team, living the Ferris wheel life when they need to turn a corner horizontally and continue upward, never going back, which I suppose is any baseball team’s wish when stuck in a Yo-yo experience. That said, nearly all of us want that, whatever our game happens to be, and making such a reality is rarely an easy ride, not in baseball, not even for MLB’s current best, the NL Central’s St. Louis Cardinals, 38 wins, but also 19 losses, a few of these losses heartbreakers: you don’t lose games in double-digits without moments of forlornness, even if you win four at the WS but first had lost three.
So, the Rockies are swinging back and forth between second and third place in the NL West, from one ranking to the other with what almost seems perfect regularity. Yesterday, the Rockies were crushed by the 36-22 Cincinnati Reds, 3-0, after winning a series vs. the 23-32 Los Angeles Dodgers, the last vs. L.A. game containing four Rockies home runs, two by CF Dexter Fowler, the others by 1B Todd Helton and RF Michael Cuddyer, final score: Rockies 7, Dodgers two, a noteworthy fact that the Rockies would still have won without the four homers.
Most disappointing about yesterday’s loss to the Reds is that the Rockies four hits failed to translate, couldn’t convert to runs, underscoring that issue that Rockies reporters, analysts and fans have harped about to ad nauseam (you’ve probably seen it on this page), the RISP matter, at third outs Runners In Scoring Position becoming the ghosts of runs that could never be.
Still, the Rockies are only two games behind AL West’s first place team, the 32-25 Arizona Diamondbacks, and a single loss behind second place, the 30-27 San Francisco Giants.
Disturbing, of course, is that the Rockies have essentially been a team with improving skill-sets, e.g., Fowler and Cuddyer having 10 home runs each as of today. That’s roughly five per month within a six month season, thus the possibility of 30+ HR’s each before October. Moreover, the two have 15 and 14 multi-hit games, respectively. Topping that is LF Carlos Gonzalez with 21 multi-hit games, next Troy Tulowitzki, 17.
Too, Helton may not agree but he’s shown cheery and remarkable adaptability to being the critical moment’s final word-slugger instead of the creator of the critical moment, having banged out as pitch hitter or DH that HR or extra-base hit contributing significantly to a win. Think also of LH starter, Jorge De La Rosa, now 7-3, and Rockies reliever Rex Brothers having the lowest ERA in the majors for 20 or more games played.
The Rockies were 16-11 in April, a month when they won eight games straight. In May, the Rockies finished under .500 for the month (12-16), the best Rockies winning streak only of three games, joined by a four-game losing streak. June won’t be a picnic of any sort, in that 17 of 25 remaining Rockies games will be against division first, second and third place teams, including two more games against the Reds, then battles with the 28-29 Washington Nationals, the 28-30 Philadelphia Phillies, 35-23 Boston Red Sox, the 30-27 Giants Add a four-game series vs. the 26-30 San Diego Padres and seven of the 17 will be vs. teams within the Rockies NL West. Where the Rockies are of concern, June can make the bigger difference re. post-season selection.
END/ml.
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