Tuesday, January 6, 2015

NFL: Playoffs & Going Forward // NBA: Standings & Change // World Tennis-2015

sports-notebook.blogspot.com . . . // FOR MORE ANALYSIS, GO TO "MILE HIGH SPORTS RADIO," AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team---milehighsports.com. SPORTS NOTEBOOK posts its columns Tuesday and Friday each week. Ed., Publ., Marvin Leibstone; Copy & Mng. Ed., Gail Kleiner.
NFL: Playoffs--- THE American Football Conference North’s 10-6 Baltimore Ravens defeated the AFC North’s 11-5 Pittsburgh Steelers over the weekend and will face the 12-4 N.E. Patriots this Saturday, while the AFC South’s 11-5 Indianapolis Colts prevailed against the AFC North’s 10-5-1 Cincinnati Bengals and will go up against the AFC West’s 12-4 Denver Broncos come Sunday.
Within the National Football Conferene, the NFC South’s 7-8-1 Carolina Panthers defeated the NFC West’s 11-5 Arizona Cardinals on Saturday and will meet the NFC West’s 12-4 Seattle Seahawks next Saturday, while the NFC East’s 12-4 Dallas Cowboys took down the NFC North’s 11-5 Detroit Lions and will challenge the NFC North’s 12-4 Green Bay Packers, Sunday.
The above-cited outcomes highlight that two division leading franchises, the Lions and the Bengals, were swept from the NFL-2014 playoffs. And, gone from the playoffs is the team that led its division + conference and the entire NFL for the longest period during the regular season, the NFC West’s Cardinals. Meanwhile, the below .500 NFC South’s Panthers, the NFL franchise with the poorest regular season record among the league’s eight divisions, is primed for a go at February’s SB if they could knee the Seahawks on Sunday.
Surprising some analysts were the Steelers loss to the Ravens and the Cardinals falling to the Panthers, underscoring that the NFL’s playoffs of any year can reflect the irony, the sudden fluke, the one or two gestures that can turn a game around, thus the better team guttered and gone.
Football reality advises that Weekend Two of the NFL’s current playoffs could see the the Seahawks dropped by the Panthers, the Packers by the Cowboys, the Patriots kneed by the Ravens, the Broncos by the Colts---but only a misguided fan would bet large on all of this happening, for while irony and the unexpected fluke always hover like clouds during any sports competition, they are never the full sky---it’s competence and determination that usually makes the difference, which is why we’re saying that the final challenges toward SB selection will comprise the NFC’s Seahawks against the Packers, and the AFC’s Broncos versus the Patriots.
NBA---THE six NBA division leading franchises have won 151 NBA-2014/15 games as of today, while the six division bottom-dwellers have accrued a total of 60, forcing a gap of 91 won games. Atop the division leaders are the Western Conference’s 26-5 Golden State Warriors and the WC Northwest’s 26-8 Portland Trail Blazers, accounting roughly for a third of the 151 won games.
Worst at the bottom of NBA-2014/15 today are the WC Northwest’s Minnesota Timberwolves, the Eastern Conference Atlantic Division’s Philadelphia 76ers, and the EC Atlantic’s N.Y. Knicks, each with only five wins from around the 30+ games that each has played.
The division leading franchise with the deepest lead over a second position team, that’s the WC Northwest’s Trail Blazers, nine wins above the 17-17 Oklahoma City Thunder. The best edge within the EC belongs to the EC Atlantic’s 24-10 Toronto Raptors, eight wins above the 16-18 Brooklyn Nets. The least comfortable edge held by a division first place team belongs to the WC Southwest’s Memphis Grizzlies, 25-9 above the 26-10 Dallas Mavericks, the latter’s extra loss preventing supremacy.
And among division third position teams, the WC Northwest’s 15-20 Denver Nuggets and the EC Atlantic’s 11-21 Boston Celtics have accrued the most “games behind” first place teams, 11 and 12 GB respectively.
Quite noticeable is how poorly big market teams have been doing since the start of NBA 2014/15 regulation: N.O. Pelicans, 17-17; L.A. Lakers, 11-23; N.Y. Knicks, 5-32; Detroit Pistons, 10-23. This same fate seems to have dropped in on last season’s top teams: the WC Southwest’s 21-14 San Antonio Spurs are currently a fourth slot franchise, the WC Southeast’s 15-20 Miami Heat a third place franchise.
So, reflecting incredible NBA inequality among the league’s 30 franchises is the big gap in number of wins between teams at the top and those at the bottom, yet the middle and back positions in standings among the NBA’s big market teams and the past season’s top NBA franchises can be said to offset that, which can be interpreted as an NBA that overall is an equal playing field as seasons change from one to the next.
World Tennis---THE world’s year-2015 top player tennis competitions began January 5, and the first major tournament, that is, the initial annual competition of Grand Slam labeling, will occur January 19, “the Australian Open,” at Melbourne, Australia. Next major event of the same caliber, that’s “the French Open,” at Roland Garros, Paris, France, on May 25, to be followed by “Wimbledon,” London, United Kingdom, June 29, afterward “the U.S. Open,” to be held at New York City, USA, August 21. And before, between and after these big four competitions are 64 tournaments scheduled by the ATP and 58 by the WTA, many of these the same, 12 of them tourneys occurring at different locations inside the U.S. . . Re. “Davis Cup” competition, first round will be March 2; Quarter-finals, July 13; Semi-finals, September 14; Final, November 23.
END/ml

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