Who's Playing Who?

Well hello there, welcome to the first ever edition of The Final Buzzer!

Are you comfortable? Good. Now I’ve been thinking for a couple of weeks about contributing to the Who’s Playing Who? website and to be honest, the hardest thing is just deciding what to call the article (please send in any suggestions that would be more badass than The Final Buzzer). Anyways, I was wondering what I could write about?

NRL? Already covered.

Super Rugby? Ditto

America’s Cup? Pfft, please.

Football? I get confused… what’s the difference between EPL, the Champion’s League and the FA Cup? Are they all the same? Which one is more important?

Underwater Hockey? Is that even a real sport?

Golf? Ever since Tiger stopped having his way with everyone, the sport has lost its charm.

And then it dawned on me: NBA.

This was perfect for many reasons. Firstly, because no one else is covering it, and secondly, it’s my favourite sport (ye-ah!). My aim is to share with you my opinions of the NBA and anything else sporting related or not that I can think of! Because let’s face it, I’m going to write whatever I want, but I’ll try and keep it NBA related for the most part.

With the NBA playoffs just around the corner, it’s the perfect time to get right into the business end of the season without the unnecessary foreplay a.k.a – the regular season.

For my first article, let’s talk about the happenings in the Eastern Conference of the NBA.

Since the NBA trade deadline (Feb 24^th), I’m still wondering if Boston trading Kendrick Perkins was the best move for them. They’re 9-5 since the trade, but have surrendered their 4 game lead of the East and are now 1^st equal with the Chicago Bulls. Now I understand why they traded Perk, the Celtics front office were worried about Pierce and Allen getting tried, especially if they matched up with LeBron and Wade in the second round. Jeff Green definitely helps them with that (Green is pretty solid and was always playing out of position on the Thunder). But Doc Rivers has always told anyone who would listen that “the starting five of Perkins, Garnett, Pierce, Allen and Rondo have never lost a playoff series”. Well guess what Doc, no one can argue with that now.

My conspiracy theory for this trade is that Danny Ainge was hoping Perk helps the Thunder knock off the Lakers in the Western Conference so they don’t have to play them should the Celtics make it back to the finals! And is it also wise to place all your playoff hopes on Shaq? The man hasn’t been in shape since he filmed ‘Kazaam’ in 1996 (which is also the last year he made a free throw).

The Chicago Bulls, on the other hand are scorching right now. They recently recorded their 50^th win of the season. This is the first time that’s happened since Michael Jordan won his 6^th championship with the Bulls in 1998. Derrick Rose is most likely going to win MVP and Tom Thibodeau is a strong candidate to win Coach of the Year (fun fact: that last player-coach combination to win the MVP and Coach of the Year in the same season was Tim Duncan and Greg Popovich in the 2002-2003 season. The how did the Spurs do in the Playoffs that year? They won.)

After losing 5 games in a row to pretty average teams, calls of Pat Riley to return to the bench and some crying in the locker room (I’m looking at your Chris Bosh) the Miami Heat finally put some solid wins together over Lakers, Grizzles and a 30 point ass-whopping of the Spurs (which is ironic seeing the Spurs whopped their candy-ass by 30 the last time they played). But as the Playoffs draw near, there are still questions being asked about who should take the last shot: DWade or LeBron? But more importantly, which white guy has the worse tattoos: Mike Miller or Mike Bibby?

Not a lot to say about the Magic and the Hawks, although I will say I feel bad for Dwight Howard. He tries so hard, and it looks like nobody else cares. At least they can be happy that they’ve still got Gilbert Arenas! Oh wait…it’s not 2005? My bad. The Hawks are sitting in 5^th and should have their playoff berth secured this week. They’ll match up with the Magic, which might be good for the Hawks, because for some unknown reason, Jason Collins is Dwight Howard’s kryptonite.

As the great Mick Jagger always preaches, “You can’t always get what you want”. Small tangent here. Seriously, how are the Rolling Stones all still alive, let alone touring?! They’ve been playing since 1962! Keith Richards once snorted his dad’s ashes to get high and can’t remember the 1980’s?! And they’re still probably banging groupies on tour! It’s crazy!

Anyways, the point of using that lyric is to talk about New York Knicks. They’re now 7-9 since the Melo trade and he’s already complaining! THIS IS WHAT YOU WANTED! YOU WANTED THE PRESSURE, YOU WANTED TO PLAY AT THE GARDEN AND NOW YOU’RE SAYING TO THE FANS TO WAIT FOR NEXT YEAR?! This seems like an easy out for Melo to blame the lack of time together, but to dodge the media after a loss to the Pistons and blaming Mike D’Antoni’s offense is pretty poor. Yesterday they lost to the Celtics at Madison Square Garden 96-86 after leading by 14 at halftime. Amare and Melo didn’t hit a shot in the 4^th quarter. I feel like if these two teams meet in the playoffs (which would happen if the playoffs started today), the Knicks would get swept by the Celtics. Critics said it was going to be tough for Amare and Melo to play together. Hopefully they can work it out before the playoffs start. Their lack of a true center is going to be their downfall, oh and the fact that they don’t play defense. Classic D’Antoni.

The Philadelphia 76ers are quietly playing some very good basketball at the moment. They’re locked into the 6^th seed and could be quite a challenge to whoever they face in Round 1. Doug Collins has done an awesome job with them since they started pretty poorly to start the season and should be a coach of the year candidate. But in saying that, if they were in the Western Conference, they wouldn’t even be in the playoff picture (they’d be 11^th in the West, just in front of Utah). Some of those teams out West must be sooooo jealous of the 76ers right now!

The 8^th seed playoff race is now Indiana’s to lose. The Bobcats are basically out, now thanks to their three game losing streak and their only hope now is if MJ decides that he can still play at 50 (you laugh but it’s defiantly a possibility- the MJ deciding to play again part, not the Bobcats making the playoffs). Milwaukee could still make the playoffs, they’ve won two in a row, but there’s little room for error from here on out and would need the Pacers to lose games to bump them off.

For teams who aren’t in the playoff race…well…umm…the Nets got Deron Williams so that’s pretty cool. I like how he wears a headband now. Sasha Vujacic is obviously giving him fashion advice.

It’s also crazy that despite Cleveland (currently 13- 56) owning the worst losing streak in NBA history (24 games in a row- yikes!), they’ll still end up with a better record than last year’s New Jersey Nets (who finished 12-70) so there’s hope for you yet Cavs fans!

Wow, that was longer than I thought! If you’re still reading this, I commend you sir/madam and in return, I will give you some Tiger Blood that Charlie Sheen gave to me to protect from the Trolls.

Hope you enjoyed reading this. Hopefully I’ll do one for the Western Conference. If Adrian lets me.

And that my friends, is The Final Buzzer.