Any thoughts or opinions on the hire? The Sonics were crap over the past few years, so i’m not all that thrilled about bringing him in. If anything, they seemed to get worse over his tenure than better.

Are the NBA Playoffs pre-determined? It sure seems that way sometimes, at least when it comes to questionable refereeing. It’s funny how so many people are saying that David Stern wants a Celtics-Lakers Final because it sure is shaping up that way. If the Pistons come out of the East, then i’ll be more inclined to believe that everything is on the up-and-up, but I tend to be a conspiracy theorist when it comes to the NBA. I spent too many years in Chicago seeing Jordan get every single call, especially from ‘96-’98 after his first retirement. 

Ismail and I went to the Braves-Mets game on Wednesday. It was Teixeira Bobblehead night, so we got there around 6 PM to make sure that we were two of the 15,000 fans to receive one (we did). My friend Roberto, a Mets fan, met us at the game at 7 PM; however, he didn’t get a bobblehead, so we made the right call on getting there a little early. We bought $6 General Admission tickets, but there were lots of empty seats that night, so we sat above the dugout in the Upper Deck. There were less Ushers than normal, so it made it a little easier to move into better seats.
 
The game was totally one-sided in the Braves favor. Jair Jurrjens pitched another strong game ( 7 innings, 1 ER) and Francoeur almost hit for the cycle (HR, 3b and 1B). The game moved real slow but we stuck around until Frenchie’s last AB to see if he’d get the double that he needed. Unfortunately, he popped out to Second. Chipper hit his 12th homer of the season, prompting Roberto to say that he hated him. If I were a Mets fan, i’d despise Larry too-he’s a Mets Killer. The final ended up being 11-4, the third win over the Mets in two days.
 
We left in the 8th inning and got home around 10:30, just as the game ended. Apparently, we must’ve just missed some guy falling to his death over the wall besides the exit stairs (he was sliding down the rail and flipped over the wall, a 150 feet drop). From what I can tell, it happened in the same part of the stadium where we exited.

The second game of the series didn’t go much better than the first for Houston. Oswalt gave up a pair of two run homers to Milton Bradley and former Georgia Tech product Marlon Byrd. Vicente Padilla overcame a high pitch count and went seven strong innings to get the win. He has pitched really well this year as the Rangers have now won seven consecutive series to move to .500 for the season. The highlight for Houston once again was a 2-4 from Berkman including a long HR to left. He should lead in all thriple crown categories as soon as Chipper tweaks a leg muscle and doesn’t qualify for the batting crown due to a lack of ABs. That should happen in the next few weeks.

 I’m passing on the game today since it is over 90 degrees and I don’t need the sunburn. For the game yesterday, I sat in the HR porch in right field in the 4th row. It was a really good view and the fans were great with chants of “Let’s Go Rangers” battling it out with “Let’s Go Astros!” Watching the game today, Houston is leading 4-0 in the fifth and Berkaman just got another hit to make him 34 for his last 56. Pay homage to the Big Puma!

I went to the first game of the Astros/Rangers series last night at the lovely ballpark in Arlington. The Rangers were giving away bobbleheads for CJ Wilson so I got there pretty early. Apparently demand isn’t very high for giveaways as I could have gotten there 20 minutes before first pitch and still received one. In a matchup between the two leading RBI men in Major League Baseball, Josh Hamilton came out the big winner by hitting two homers and a triple while collecting 5 RBI to go along with a 5-5 night. Lance “Big Puma” Berkman managed a 2-4 night to edge his batting average closer to .400. The Rangers got up 8-2 as they shelled Shawn Chacon. Houston battled back to even the score before Texas took back the lead on a close play at the plate that resulted in an ejection for Cecil Cooper. The home team tacked on 6 runs in the bottom of the 8th as Oscar Villareal gave up 3 homeruns, bringing the Rangers total to 6 for the night. Villareal’s ERA is now over 6.00 for the season and he has been seeing mop-up duty after being projected as a key set-up man before the season. I think the Braves got the best of that deal although I think Josh Anderson is in the minors, right?

 Back out to the Ballpark tonight with a much better pitching match-up of Oswalt vs. Padilla. I’m sitting in the right field porch for the first time, which should be cool. One little nugget to pass along from last night’s game is that Chacon still has no record of wins or losses at this point despite 9 starts on the year, which is a MLB record to start a season. Also, the Astros already have 17 come from behind wins this year.

Well, Billyball is no more; don’t let the doorknob hit you on the way out. Is Woody next? Will the Joshes be re-signed? Will we bring a shooter in? Will we pick up a decent big man? Lots of issues to deal with over the next few months.

What do we do about a GM? I have no idea who’s out there, but I know that Lang mentioned a few options in Geoff Petrie, Nique and Steve Smith. I’d like to see someone come in with a proven track record, so i’m not so sure about Nique and Smith. Whoever they bring in, they need to do it sooner than later so that we can get ready for the draft (I know that we don’t have a pick but maybe a savvy GM could pull off a trade or two to acquire one).

I’d love to see both Joshes re-signed; while Smith drives me crazy sometimes with his turnovers, he still has streaks of brilliance that make him extremely valuable. Chill is probably my favorite Hawk, largely because he does the little things that make this team successful.

Woody’s gotta go; i’d like to see someone like D’Antoni or Avery come in, but I doubt either will happen. We need someone who actually knows how to run an up-tempo offense, something Woody often spoke about but rarely implemented; That’s why D’Antoni would be a perfect fit.

We have to bolster the bench with some shooting and some size. IMO, Salim is the answer for the shooting, but if Woody stays, then there’s no way that Salim will re-sign. Zaza showed some toughness in the playoffs, but he had a horrible season. We can’t depend on him to be our only big man off the bench.

A full year with Bibby at the helm should help guarantee our first winning season in over a decade, but we’ve still got a lot of work to do.

I can’t believe we’re talking about a Game 7! As Mora would say- PLAYOFFS? PA-PLAYOFFS? You wanna talk about PLAYOFFS?

Do you think we have a shot? My logic goes that there’s no way we play four piss-poor games in a row up there-we’re due for a good one. I’m not saying necessarily that we’ll win, but I expect a close game, especially since there’s so much on the line.

We’ve gotta have a better game from Joe than in Game #6. We also need another strong game from Marvin, assuming that his knee injury is not serious. We have to make Free Throws up there-that means you Zaza, Bibby and Josh Childress. Keep up the pace, shore up the rebounding and we have a realistic shot. If we don’t do all of those things well, we’re done for the season.

SHOCK THE WORLD!

Shock the World indeed! Three wins in a week over the best team in the NBA-something no one thought could be done. Can you believe that there’ll be a Game 7 tomorrow?!?! I am so proud of the boys. If you’d asked me beforehand if i’d be happy with the Hawks winning two games, i’d say definitely. But now, I WANT A WIN and will be disappointed if they don’t win tomorrow, even if I know it’s less than likely.

Recap: Ismail and I went to the game, my third in a week. This was the biggest crowd of the three-20,425 in attendance for the biggest crowd in Philips history. The atmosphere was once again electric-this game meant something and the fans knew it needed to be a strong 6th Man, which it did.

Marvin had a huge game, his first good game of the series. Joe did not play well until the 4th Quarter, so we needed someone else to step up and Marv was the man. Josh was getting killed by the refs and sat for large portions of the game because of foul trouble. The Powers that Be must’ve been instructed to make sure the Celtics got the benefit of the calls as Garnett was getting every single call in his favor, hurting both Josh and Al’s PT. Despite this, we overcame two significant deficits (just like in Game 4) to pull out the victory. We almost shot ourselves in the foot with all of the missed Free Throws; I kept thinking that this was going to haunt us for sure, but somehow we found a way around it.

After the game, the crowd was the most animated that i’ve seen. Hundreds of people chanting “Let’s Go Hawks”, ”Boston Sucks” and “Overrated”. I would not have wanted to have been a Celtics fan in Philips last night as they were hearing it from the Hawks faithful; I couldn’t have been more proud.  

The Spin: Hawks Magnets again.