New York, NY: Wow, what a sports week. In the NBA the old guard prevailed, setting up an epic Warriors vs Lakers matchup. But in the NHL chaos reigns, as the upstart Panthers and Kraken took out the best regular season team of all time and the defending champs, respectively. The Jets and Giants had their drafts, with the Giants getting high marks, for whatever that’s worth. The Jets’ big move was completed before the draft, with Rodgers finally in the fold. The Knicks sputtered to start their series with the Heat and on Monday the Devils and Rangers faced off in Game 7. And maybe I’ll even talk some baseball. Just kidding.
GOAT Fight!
My friend texted me “there’s no way the NBA will let the Kings win and spoil the LeBron Steph showdown.” Well, it was Steph himself who wouldn’t let the Kings win with the first 50 point game Game 7 in NBA history. But the Lakers have found their stride with some crafty deadline traded and a healthy AD. This should be fun.
Ice Party Crashers
Hockey teams should start thinking about tanking at the end of the season so they don’t win the President’s Trophy. The curse is real people. The Bruins steamrolled through the regular season, looking unbeatable, then lost in seven to a plucky Panthers team. The Bruins were up three games to one and had Florida on the ropes so many times. But like Michael Myers, they just kept coming back. And the Kraken were able to find a way to win two in a row against a depleted Avs team. There is going to be plenty of new blood in the elite eight.
G-Men Go Aggressive
G-Men Go AggressiveThe Giants aggressively targeted their three biggest weaknesses and might have come away with three starters. Banks should slot in a CB2, Michael-Schmitz should be a day one starter at center, and Hyatt should be able to get plenty of first team action at WR, even if he doesn’t start. The Giants gave up low round draft capital to move up and attack their needs. On paper it looks good. The only negative is that the effing Eagles might have been one of the few teams that did better.
Green Aaron
The Jets draft didn’t look as great on paper, but Aaron Rodgers is finally in the fold. He was doing the MSG tour to watch the Rangers and Knicks, with new Jet and buddy Allen Lazard. Rodgers said the right things and looks to be all in. We’ll see.
Knicks Go Cold
The Knicks had a brutal second half and fell to Miami in Game 1. I guess you have to give the Heat D some credit but the Knicks were missing plenty of open looks. Brunson was 0 for 11 on three pointers and the team shot 20.6% from behind the arc. Throw in 60% free throw shooting with eight misses and you have the formula for losing a game you should have won. RJ Barrett from the regular season was back, with out-of-control drives to the basket. Jimmy Butler’s injury could flip this series on its head. I don’t think there’s any way the Heat can win this series without #PlayoffJimmy.
Game @#$$#@$%#$ Seven, Let’s Gooooooo
The big one is the Rangers and Devils at the Rock on Monday in a massive game seven. Stephan Matteau, where you at? The Zibanejad, Kreider, and Tarasenko line turned it around for the Blueshirts in Game 6. And getting Kane off PP1 sure helped too. I’ve been saying that Schmid was getting too much credit and it was more about the poor play of the Rangers. He was fine, but the Rangers did not test in his first three games. And when did get decent looks they would hit him in the chest. As we saw in Game 6, if the Rangers have time and space to hit corners, they’ll score.
Let’s gooooooo.
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