No I am not going out and partying on a friday night, instead I am a 15 year old boy so I'm watching the Celtics and the Bulls. I love the Celtics and I can honestly say that they have the best defense in the league as a starting five. Rondo, Allen, Pierce, Garnett, and O'Neal (maybe Perkins when he comes back) play the best half-court defense and can absolutely shut down teams. The bench however seems to keep up the offense sometimes but fails to do the same on defense. The bench's bigs are good defenders but not great. Anyway I think the Celtics are the easy pick to come out of the east right now. Even though they have the same record as the Magic, they seem to be more consistent. The Celtics never lose by more than 5 or so, where as the Magic seem to lay eggs some games and the next game completely turn it around and look like the best team in the NBA. The co-best team in the NBA with the Celtics are the Lakers. I know the Lakers have lost 4 straight games for the first time since April of 2007, I don't think there is any doubt in anyones mind that the Lakers are still the favorite out west.
Since I know this is what everyone is thinking about I will talk about LeBron. Yes, I watched the game last night. I thought going in that the Cavs would have a chance to win because of the whole situation, and what would be a playoff atmosphere. Instead the Cavs got destroyed and LeBron had his best scoring game of the season, but there was still a playoff atmosphere. But I got to talk about the beginning, I am not lying when I say that those were the loudest boos I have ever heard. I mean as soon as he stepped on the court that crowd was prepared to boo. You got to see that for Cleavland they had been preparing for this since July when LeBron had "The Decision", so they had all sorts of creative cheers, shirts, poster, etc. My favorite cheer was "your Wade's Pippen!", and my favorite t-shirt was "the lyin king" with a picture of James with a lion's mane. He should have handled the whole summer situation a lot better, but now that it's over that is not what bothers me. What bothers me is that he still won't apologize. Even when he got the opportunity when Craig Sager asked him straight up if he wanted to apologize, but he didn't. I'm not sure if he doesn't think he did anything wrong, or he doesn't want to say that he was wrong. Either way he makes things that shouldn't be complicated, complicated.
I am also so excited for the Patriots Jets game on Monday Night Football. It doesn't get any better than arguably the two best teams in the NFL on Monday night. The big thing I think will be the Patriots defense against the Jets much more multi-dimensional offense this year. I still don't think the Pats defense is that good even though they have some very good players on d. That's why I think it will be extremely important for the offense of the Patriots to keep the ball and therefore limit New York's possession of the football. The NFL media still can't seem to buy the Falcons though. I don't know what else they have to do. They have the best record in the NFC, they have beaten the Packers, Ravens, and Saints who are all considered Super Bowl contenders, and they have not lost at home, and over the last three years seem to have the biggest home field advantage in the NFL.
Short note about college football is that it now looks like we are definitely headed towards a Oregon Auburn BCS National Championship game in Glendale, Arizona. While Boise State thought that they might have a chance this year they ended any argument with there overtime loss last week in Nevada. I'm excited to hear that TCU will be joining the Big East which is great. Mainly because UConn might make a BCS bowl game and they are 8-3, while other teams like LSU with only two losses, most likely will not make a BCS bowl game. Anyway I might be just saying random stuff now so I'm done for now.
-Max
