UngsungBlog: A (Fantasy) Sports Blog

No quick-hitters, but one quick aside:  tonight at the Nokia Theater LA Live, Vin Scully & John Wooden will be on-stage together, and yours truly has tickets to the affair.  Two legends of their respective sports—and arguably life itself—and the proceeds go to cancer research?  Awesome.

I can’t wait!

- So after having a night to sleep on the disaster that was Game Four, I woke up, dropped by ESPN.com, and happened to notice that Bill Simmons posted a running diary of the game.

(Yeah, it just so happened that he was keeping a running diary of arguably the greatest combination comeback/gag job in NBA Finals history.  Uh-huh.)

Let the hysteria/myopia begin:

1) “Special thanks to Gasol for not helping in time — I’m starting to think Kwame Brown, Javaris Crittenton and two draft picks was a fair trade.”  By this logic, the Randy Moss trade was an awful one for the Pats.

Does anyone think the Lakers would be anywhere close to where they are without Gasol?  And would be singing a different tune if Bynum were healthy?

2) “Just when I thought this couldn’t get any better, they just cut to a replay of Vujacic punching a chair and fighting back tears on the bench. That wasn’t just the best moment of the Celtics season, I think it was the best moment of my life.”  Talk about kicking a guy (and all of Los Angeles, for that matter) while he’s down.  Seriously?  The best moment of your life?

3) “RAY ALLEN!

RAY ALLEN!

RAY ALLEN!”

As great as Allen has played in this series, the MVP has to go to Pierce (his Game One “theatrics” aside), right?  The Celts’ comeback only got rolling when Pierce finally realized that the likes of Vlad, Walton, Ariza, and even Kobe couldn’t guard him.  In addition, Pierce had as much to do with Kobe’s lackluster game than Kobe himself.

4) “The Kobe-MJ thing … done. Over. Jordan never would have let that happen in the Finals. Ever. Under any circumstances. Nobody is ever allowed to bring this up again.”

Done and done.  Kobe could win the next four rings by himself, and I wouldn’t rank him up there with MJ.  Simmons couldn’t be more right on.

5) “For all my bitching about Doc Rivers over the years, I have to hand it to him — he played the right guys at the right time and helped facilitate one of the great moments in Boston Celtics history. The man deserves all the credit in the world. He outcoached the Zen Master. It happened. His focus was on winning, and they won.”

See #4.  Rivers could easily have over-coached, but he didn’t.  He was as integral to the Celtics’ winning, I’d argue, as the Big Three.

When Simmons was expressing his lust for the Patriots during the last NFL season, his articles were completely unreadable to me.  I really couldn’t stand them.  For some reason though, his love-fest for both the Red Sox and the Celtics don’t annoy me nearly as much.  I guess it might have something to do with my added hatred for Beli-cheat, Brady, et al.

- Some more NBA Finals parting thoughts:

1) Tell me John Hollinger did not just rate Dwyane Wade’s 2006 FT-shooting contest performance as the greatest Finals performance of all time.

(If you want to award Wade an Oscar after the fact for his performance, on the other hand, I’m fine with that.)

Wade’s performance was better than any of MJ’s six Finals’ performances?  Really?  You can say that with a straight face?

2) Every LA fan has to wonder how much different our interior defense would be with a healthy Bynum out there.

By “different,” of course I mean “better.”

I’ll think about it…for another week or so.

3) Does this game do more to Kobe’s legacy than the three rings he won with Shaq?

I’m inclined to say “absolutely.”

I guess I can now return my Sceptre LCD TV I bought from Costco early last year :P.  Do you blame me?  I’ve got a summer to look forward to of watching the Dodgers stink (in HD, at least!), Boston Celtics’ championship DVDs (”Witness the greatest comeback in NBA Finals History!  AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”), and decent summer shows—My Boys, Burn Notice, to name a couple—that aren’t in HD because Time Warner hasn’t yet offered USA in HD yet.

(That was supposed to be a Bostonian “AHHHHHHHHH!” like in Good Will Hunting, and not a scream.  I’m terrible at phonetically spelling stuff :P)

Later.

Tags: bill simmons, boston celtics, diary, dwyane wade, greatest finals performances, john hollinger, john wooden, los angeles lakers, nba finals, scully & wooden for the kids, vin scully by Peter
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Quick-hitters:

- I just noticed that my blog lists blog categories under “Tags:” at the end of each blog entry, rather than the tags themselves.

I’ve since fixed this, but knowing me, I probably screwed up somewhere.  If anyone sees a problem with the “Tags:” entry in the future, please let me know!

- Current rebate-o-meter:  $1,550 (not counting the two orders I placed in the last hour or so and, obviously, have yet to even consider filing :P).

No changes to my toothpaste-o-meter, but I did pick up six additional bottles of mouthwash.

- Lamar Odom just earned his entire year’s salary tonight.  Too bad it was all for naught.  The Lakers’ bigs finally started running hard in that first quarter.  Where was this during the first three games of the series?  And did someone inject something into Trevor Ariza?

(Random thought:  That crossover that Luke Walton pulled off early in the second quarter might have been the whitest crossover ever :P)

Naturally, Boston was going to make their run in the second quarter, but that three-point play by Fisher was absolutely huge.  And did I read that wrong, or did Kobe really not have a FG in the first half?

Then the third quarter happened, and with that, the series is now over.

(David Stern probably is not a happy camper.  Certainly he wanted this series to go seven.  Well, perhaps he could still do something about it… :P)

There’s just something about the third quarter that just absolutely energizes the Celtics.  21-3 to end the quarter?  +16 for the entire quarter?  That might have been even more impressive than the Lakers winning the first quarter by a record-setting 21 points!  Most importantly, Pierce got rolling, and that’s when I knew the Lakers were in huge trouble.

Championship teams play through adversity.  Boston clutched up.  The Lakers wilted.  Ray Allen gets to the basket untouched?  And why the hell did the Lakers inbound the ball???  And those are the reasons why Boston is going to win the NBA Championship in five or six games.

Worst of all, now I’m going to have to hear how the Lakers choked away a 24-point lead for years to come, especially from the Boston myopians.

(Thanks, Jeff Van Gundy, for the hex, when you declared the series tied 2-2 early in the game :P)

Congrats, Celtics!  You deserved it!

One parting thought:  this series reminds me a bunch of the 2004 Finals, minus the team bickering.  I argued that Detroit actually won that series 5-0, and one could argue that Boston is up 4-0 in this series right now.

Let’s hope the aftermath of the Finals does not include another Kobe Bryant meltdown.

Tags: Blog, boston celtics, categories, lamar odom, los angeles lakers, tags, trevor ariza, wordpress by Peter
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Quick-hitters:

- How come I never realized how addictive graham crackers can be?

Damn graham crackers. Good thing I don’t have any chocolate and marshmallows lying around…

- Current rebate-o-meter: ~$1,400. Apparently I forgot to enter about $400 in rebates that I almost completely forgot about!

And by “enter” I mean “I completely forgot about these items I ordered, and therefore I’m not even close to thinking about filing these rebates.”

I’m lazy.

- Hey Sprint! Did you loan out some of your CSRs to Sirius?

I was shopping through Sirius’ web site via AAA for a radio and subscription service. The site had a pretty nice deal: $14.99 for the Stratus 4 Dock & Play Kit, plus a free month of service and free activation. After notifying my sister of the deal, she quickly told me to order it for her.

When I got to the checkout, though, I saw the $15.00 activation fee in my shopping cart. I looked back at AAA’s website, and made absolutely sure that everything looked good. Free shipping? Check. Free month of service? Check. One year subscription? Check. So where’s my free activation?

I called the Sirius/AAA hotline, and almost immediately, a guy with a thick accent answered. He asked me for my name, phone number, and address, but I pointed out that I was not yet a subscriber, and just had a question or two about a AAA promotion. I pointed out that AAA members get free activation when ordering online, adding the fact that I did sign up for a one year contract.

The moron asked me to read the serial number off the back of my radio. Strike one.

I reminded him that I was not yet a subscriber, and wanted to sign up for service. I stated again that I was supposed to get free activation as a AAA member.

The moron, matter-of-factly, stated that it was “policy” to charge the $15.00 activation fee. Strike two.

At this point, I was furious, so I decided to speak in my one-word-at-a-time, near-the-top-of-my-voice voice (which will, from now on, be known as the “IVR voice”), pointing out again that I was signing up through AAA’s site, and the site clearly mentions that AAA members get free shipping AND free activation.

The moron told me that he would research it with “somebody,” and he put me on hold. When he came back, he acknowledged an error on the site, and that I should only be charged $10 for activation. Foul tip…

I screamed, “TEN DOLLARS IS NOT FREE!” That’s when the rep dropped this bomb on me: he said that his coworker insisted that the activation charge was correct!!!

(Now I’m assuming “coworker” != “supervisor.” For all I know, maybe he did mean supervisor. For now, though, I am not giving him the benefit of the doubt.)

One final time, I adamantly pointed out that I should be getting free activation. That’s when I heard his “coworker” in the background utter “It’s right! It’s right!”, to which the trained seal stupid rep responded with something to the effect of “There is a $15.00 activation fee, which is policy to charge for new subscriptions.”

*click*

Strike f**king three.

EDIT: Wanting my sister to share my pain, I had her call back and try to get a supervisor on the line. “Jay” answered her call, and while he wouldn’t transfer her to a supervisor, he did append our order for free activation. There were some issues getting the radio she wanted for $14.99, but he eventually fixed the pricing of the kit as well. He was ready to put the order through, and he asked my sister if it was OK to put her on hold.

She did. And, in-freaking-explicably, she “accidentally” hung up on him.

She immediately called back, and tried to find “Jay.” The first rep explained that she couldn’t do so without his extension. The second rep she spoke to wouldn’t put the order through, insisting that the price of the radio was wrong. While being on hold with a third rep, and she inexplicably hung up while on hold a third time!

(Apparently the rep I dealt with cursed us.)

When she called yet again, she again demanded a supervisor. Tired of waiting being placed on hold for so long, she hung up and called again. Finally, she got a rep that spoke English!

This rep instructed my sister to order the service through sirius.com, and once the order was in the system, the rep was going to manually waive the activation fee. How do you suppose that went?

After the order was submitted, the rep put my sister back on hold, and attempted to manually credit her account. When she came back on the phone, naturally, she told us that she could not credit the account. Instead, she told my sister to call back when she receives the radio, and request the credit upon activation.

Hey, stupid rep: if you couldn’t credit the account right now, what makes you think one of your fellow morons reps is going to be able to credit the account when my sister calls in to activate the radio?

Several calls, zero supervisors, two headaches…and we aren’t even customers yet. Awesome.

- Paul Pierce went 2 for 14. Kevin Garnett went 6 for 21. The Lakers held a double digit lead in the first half. Kobe Bryant shot 18 foul shots. Sasha Vujacic scored 20 points.

And after all that, the Lakers still had to fight for a Game Three win? That can’t bode well for the Lakers’ chances in the series. Then again, Lamar Odom was non-existant for three quarters, Pau Gasol got a couple key offensive rebounds, and Derek Fisher had another ineffective game. So did the Lakers really win, or did they just not lose?

Speaking of Sasha, what a great game he had. Killer treys, irritating defense, but not a single shot of him adjusting that thing he had in his head that keeps his hair manageable? And I loved the little tussle between PJ Brown and Jordan Farmar.

If Pierce and Garnett give Boston anything decent in Game Four, and Odom and Gasol rebound as well, who wins Game Four. You have to give the Lakers a slight edge, all things considered, don’t you? Then again, a dominant Pierce might be all Boston needs to win Game Four and end the series in six games at the most.

Note to Phil Jackson: Trevor Ariza does not belong on the court, much less checking Paul Pierce or Ray Allen.

Until next time!

Tags: boston celtics, free activation, incompetent csr, kevin garnett, kobe bryant, los angeles lakers, paul pierce, sasha vujacic, satellite radio, sirius, stratus 4 by Peter
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No quick-hitters tonight.

- On Friday, my sister had the craving for some chili, and armed with a suggestion from her boss, we swung by Chili My Soul that night.

(Tangent:  I’m not much of a fan of heat, and by that, I mean that I’m a wuss when it comes to peppers.  My tolerance for heat is pretty low, and it wasn’t long ago that my tolerance was even lower than it is now.  My sister, on the other hand, could probably chow down on five-alarm chili.)

After sampling two chilis—the Texas Pride, rated 5/10, and a little bit of the Gunslinger (8/10)—I opted for the Texas Pride.  My sister sampled the Gunslinger and declared it “as hot as ketchup,” sampled the Demon (10/10), loved it, but came to her senses and went with the Gunslinger.

I forgot to take into account the fact that sour cream and cheese can kill a significant amount of heat in something peppery, but I was still quite satisfied with the chili.  Maybe next time I’ll go up to a 6 or a 7.

(My sister was pissed after adding the sour cream to her chili.  She’s definitely getting the Demon next time).

- That sound you hear is the Lakers’ bandwagon derailing and crashing into a ravine.

(Please wait for the bandwagon to come to a COMPLETE stop before exiting.  Thanks and see you next year!  And be sure to put away those stupid flags!)

The NBA might as well etch Paul Pierce’s name onto the MVP trophy right now.  I’m not even sure the series is going to return to Boston (well, unless the refs have something to say about that…it wouldn’t surprise me if Kobe attempts forty FTs in Game Three.)

As much as I would love to give the refs a share of the blame in the Lakers’ loss (seriously, look at the FT disparity, and that second foul on Kobe was absolute garbage), that would be deflecting the blame from where it belongs:  the Celtics’ suffocating defense.  When Kobe Bryant doesn’t get into the paint, the Lakers aren’t going to win any games.  Also, when did the Lakers become a terrible rebounding team?  I mean, they were never elite, but is Boston really destroying the Lakers that badly on the glass because of Boston’s superior rebounding, or the Lakers’ lack of desire?

(Tangent:  Please, ESPN/ABC, enough of Paul Pierce’s “heroics” in Game One.  When is Disney going to release the made for TV movie based on what happened?  Kobe Bryant’s image repair over the last few years is sick of hearing about Pierce’s “heroics.”)

By the way…Leon freaking Powe???  And why is it that Pau Gasol plays well for only one or two quarters per game (Game One v Denver excepted)?

(Note:  I typed everything above after the third quarter, when I finally turned off the TV.  I did not watch the Lakers’ near-comeback.)

More thoughts about this game, once the anger subsides, next time!

Tags: boston celtics, chili my soul, demon, gunslinger, kobe bryant, leon powe, los angeles lakers, mvp, paul pierce, texas pride by Peter
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No quick-hitters today.

- So thanks to SlickDeals, I scored a pair of cheap field level tixs for Tuesday’s Rockies-Dodgers game.  I expected to see two struggling offenses (check), solid pitching (nope), and the typical rude, obnoxious Dodger fans (check, naturally).

What I didn’t expect was a scrum, which is exactly what we got in the bottom of the eighth inning.

I remember seeing Matt Kemp strike out on that wild pitch, and as I went to sit back down in my seat, I saw the Rockies bullpen all of a sudden pour out.  I stood back up immediately, and that’s when I saw Kemp fall to the ground.

Nothing like a brawl to energize an otherwise moribund crowd!  For the rest of the game, the fans chanted  “Rockies suck!”  I wanted to remind the fans that the scoreboard said otherwise, but I had no intention of spending the night in a hospital room.

When the hell is Rafael Furcal coming back?

(After seeing the replay of the events that led up to the brawl, Kemp clearly overreacted.  Torrealba didn’t even shove him, and Kemp acted like he got sucker punched.  Yeah, Torrealba shouldn’t have shoved Kemp in the throat, but Kemp was clearly the instigator.  I thought Kemp deserved a five game suspension—one more than he got—and Torrealba should only have gotten two—one less than he got.)

- Once Paul Pierce returned from the locker room after his injury, you could just feel the game slipping away from the Lakers right into the laps of the Celtics. Add some great lockdown defense on the Lakers down the stretch, and it wasn’t hard to see how the Celtics surged ahead of the Lakers in the second half.

(Damn PJ Brown! That guy was EVERYWHERE in the fourth quarter! Someone give me some of the magical potion someone obviously gave him :P)

Everything that could have gone wrong in this game probably did for the Lakers. And even as I typed that, I knew that Boston didn’t play their best game either. It might only be one game out of a possible seven, but the Celtics are clearly the better team right now.

KG got off (Gasol’s got no chance against him), Allen got off to a great start, and then there was Pierce. And it seemed like, every time Boston needed a play, one of their role players happened to be there to do so.

(Freaking PJ Brown.)

At our lunch last weekend, I was told that the key to the series was stopping Paul Pierce. Personally, I thought the key was figuring out which Kobe Bryant was going to show up. We can both be right, no?

And what was with the Lakers committing so many stupid, away-from-the-basket, in-the-penalty fouls?

(Mark Jackson just said that the Lakers need Kobe to make the right play, and then Kobe goes ahead and takes a terrible three-point shot.)

The Lakers better plan on stealing Game Two if they want any chance of winning this series. Otherwise, this series could be over in as soon as five games.

If there’s anything to be positive about, the Lakers got trounced pretty well in the first road game of their series against Utah and San Antonio.

And the Lakers can’t possibly miss that many open shots in Game Two, right?

Right?

Tags: boston celtics, colorado rockies, los angeles dodgers, los angeles lakers, matt kemp, yorvit torrealba by Peter
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Argh!  This was supposed to be posted two nights ago!

Quick-hitters:

- You know you watch way too much TV when you can nearly recite that entire Taco Bell burrito rap.

(Speaking of commercials, I’m getting sick and tired of that song in the latest Zune commercial that goes “I’m here, and I ain’t going nowhere!” Please, go.)

- So I’m about ready to get a new cell phone (more on that another day; thanks Sprint). What should I get? A Palm Centro? A Moto Q (not the 9c, as that is $100 too expensive for my liking)? Or should I just keep my Sanyo Katana?

Decisions, decisions.

- They say one should not go grocery shopping while hungry. I should avoid online shopping while hungry as well.

I’m this close to ordering about $50 worth of Oberto beef jerky from Amazon. Thank goodness for free GCs through my Amazon Visa card + a $15/39 coupon (OBERSAVE).

- Every time I go to a supermarket that happens to have Gatorade, Powerade, or a similar bottled drink on sale, I cannot resist the temptation to buy several bottles. I do this for two reasons: one, I love sports drinks; and two, I re-use the bottles for drinking water.

(Let’s not get into the potential health hazards of re-using drink bottles.)

Anyway, I’ve now developed an even more ridiculous habit of not finishing a bottle before I start on a new bottle, typically of a different flavor. It has gotten to the point where I could walk from my living room computer to my bedroom, and pass anywhere from two to six unfinished bottles of Gatorade.

(Case in point: one day, there was a bottle of Gatorade on my computer desk, a bottle of water and a bottle of Crystal Light on my coffee table, and two bottles of Sobe Life Water on my kitchen counter. None of the five bottles were empty, and none of them were more than half full.)

Naturally, I’ve begun to take advantage of this. Every time I get up to go to the bathroom, the office, or my bedroom, I pretend to be an endurance runner, quickly taking a swig out of one of the bottles as I pass by.

Simple things like this amuse me, if you people haven’t already figured that out.

- Last night’s Pens-Wings 3OT game (that’s hockey…you remember that sport, right?) was one of the greatest sporting events I’ve seen in some time.

Too bad hockey has fallen so far off the map that not many people give a damn anymore.

But seriously, what else could you have asked for? Two plus bonus periods of hockey? A young goalie stopping 50+ shots in over 100 minutes of game time? A young team 30 seconds from losing, scrapping a game-tying goal to force the extra periods? A guy allegedly calling his shot, saying that he was going to score the game-winner, and actually doing so (Petr Sykora)? Close calls, big saves, and stupid penalties throughout the OTs (the Wings got hosed on the second goalie interference call, btw)?

If only my LA Kings didn’t suck…

and if only I could find hockey games on a network (Versus) that doesn’t require me to shell out $15 for that and a few other channels that I will never watch…

and if only the latest strike/lockout didn’t occur, causing me to not give a damn about hockey…

then maybe I’d still be a hockey fan.

(BTW, hockey in Hi-Def is incredible.)

- Here are some quick thoughts I have regarding the Celtics-Lakers NBA finals:

1) People have been saying that the key in the series is whether or not the Lakers can stop Paul Pierce.

Am I the only one that thinks that stopping Kevin Garnett is as important? And am I the only one that doesn’t see anyone on the Lakers guarding his well? Gasol’s too slow, and Odom’s not long enough. Yeah, we know that KG is not clutch, but if the Lakers are forced to double-team him, you don’t think that Posey, Pierce, or even Allen is going to hit a wide-open shot?

2) I fear that Gasol is going to play like a “weenie” again. I fear that Odom will do too much, and will be shut down by KG. And I fear that Pierce will do enough to slow down Kobe. All that spells disaster for the Lakers.

Laker fans should breath a huge sigh of relief, though, knowing that Doc “I’ll blame anyone buy myself, even God” Rivers is Boston’s coach.

(I’m not being facetious when I say that Rivers will blame God if something happens; I recall, during one of those coach’s interviews, Rivers blaming God for the Celtics’ shots not falling!)

Talk about a coaching mismatch!

3) Despite the coaching advantage and (I’d argue) the bench advantage, I think the Celts are just too strong. I don’t expect to see the same Celts team that took seven games to oust Atlanta to show up in the Finals. For now, I expect Boston to take the first two in Boston, and then win either Game Four or Five, and close out the Lakers in six.

I’m so confident of that prediction that I will bet $20 on Boston winning the NBA Finals.

(Boston fans, you may begin to send me hate mail :P)

Tags: 3 OT, amazon.com, beef jerky, boston celtics, commercial, detroit red wings, hockey, los angeles lakers, moto q, oberto, palm centro, pittsburgh penguins, rap, sprint, taco bell, water bottles by Peter
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No quick-hitters.  Let’s just get to basketball.

- Raise your hand if you didn’t think that Deron Williams’ last-second shot was good.

Now THAT was a great playoff game.  The Lakers punched Utah in the mouth for three quarters, and the Jazz made their inevitable push by finally draining triples down the stretch.  Leave it to Derek Fisher, an 88% FT shooter, to brick that free throw late, giving the Jazz a shot at the tie.

The story of the game (other than Kobe’s virtual game-clinching 6-0 run, including that dagger trey and the “bank’s open late” and-1), though, had to be the two offensive foul calls on Carlos Boozer.  The one right before halftime was a pretty weak call, and I thought the one in the third quarter was even worse.  Think Utah could have used a not-in-foul-trouble Carlos Boozer down the stretch of the fourth quarter?  I will entertain the argument that Boozer got taken out of four games by foul trouble, and in at least three of them, he drew some pretty weak foul calls.

(That being said, what was Deron Williams complaining about right before halftime, when he obviously fouled Derek Fisher on the left arm?  In fact, I’d argue that he fouled Fisher twice on that shot:  once before the release, and once on the follow-through.)

This begs the question:  did Carlos Boozer do something to deserve the lack of respect he got from the refs?  Did he spill a drink on David Stern at an NBA function?

At least Utah has a bright future ahead of them.  Deron Williams made “The Leap,” and their team will return largely intact next year.

(Like that is supposed to make Jazz fans feel better, I know.)

Speaking of poor officiating, that charge call on Paul Pierce, late in the fourth quarter of Celtics-Cavs, was abysmal.  Instead of Pierce shooting two to potentially trim the Cavs’ lead to three, the Cavs got the ball back.  Matt Harpring getting run over by Pau Gasol in Game Five of Jazz-Lakers thought that call was horrible.

The Ray Allen non-goaltending, on the other hand, was absolutely the correct call.  I always thought that goaltending couldn’t be called if a shot had no chance of going in, and who would argue that a shot hitting the side of the backboard had a chance of going in?  Michael Wilbon insisted that the basket should have counted, but I was happy to hear that I was, indeed, correct.

Anyway, what a pair of Game Sevens we basketball fans have in store in the next few days!

Tomorrow, part 3 of my “covert ops” mission.

Tags: boston celtics, carlos boozer, charging, cleveland cavs, derek fisher, deron williams, fouls, kobe bryant, lebron james, los angeles lakers, paul pierce, utah jazz by Peter
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Argh! I thought I just had a headache, but I guess I am full-blown sick! Sore throat, runny nose…good thing I still have two bags of cough drops from CVS (free after ECBs, naturally).

- It’s time…for some Dodgers love.

(I swear I’m not a bandwagon-er, even though it may appear that way because this is the first real Dodgers blog entry I’ve made this year.)

Rafael Furcal has to be the early favorite for NL MVP, right? No, I’m not saying this as a homer. I’m not saying this after watching Furcal tattoo a three-run, game-breaking HR against Colorado. And I’m not saying this as a fan of the guy himself. I’m saying this based on his stats YTD:

(as of 5/1/08) .370/.457/.580. 28 R, 44 H, 12 2B, 2 3B, 3 HR, 11 RBI, 18 BB. Second in NL in AVG, fourth in steals (7), top ten in OPS (1.036), and first in runs. Never mind all the SportsCenter-caliber plays he makes at shortstop. Is it no coincidence that his play is a key reason for the Dodgers’ six game winning streak?

Reports say that Furcal is open to offers for a contract extension mid-season. Can you blame the Dodgers for trying to re-sign him? Think he’ll take a three-year extension worth $48 million? Yeah, I know…$16 million for a SS who will be 34 at the end of the contract? I could think of bigger wastes of money.

(Tangent: I actually took a few minutes to decide which player I would associate with the word “wastes” above. It should really only have taken a few seconds; Schmidt has been injured, while Jones couldn’t get a hit if he were swinging a tennis racket.)

(Tangent #2: Did I just Ung-hex the Dodgers? It’s now Dodgers 7, Rockies 6. Whoops!)

- Raise your hand if you had the Atlanta-Boston series going more than five games.

If your hand is raised, you’re a Hawks fan (do those exist?), a damn liar, stoned out of your mind, or you own a time machine, went to the future, and saw Atlanta winning Game Six at home on May 2, 2008.

(Tangent: Why is it that, during the “NBA Cares” mini-commercials that air during the playoffs, do we hardly see the superstar players participating? ESPN just aired one such commercial, and Kyle Korver (!!!) was the guest. Was Deron Williams busy that night? Was Carlos Boozer having dinner with family that day?

I kid, of course. What the NBA has done for New Orleans is, in a word, remarkable.)

As I was watching the fourth quarter of the Celtics-Hawks game, one thought came to mind: “THIS team won only 35 games in the regular season?” People slammed the Hawks for taking Al Horford over Mike Conley, Jr., but Horford’s been real strong in this series. Naturally, I gotta ask: What if the Hawks had drafted Chris Paul? And why did I continue to see Ray Allen on Joe Johnson? Is Doc trying to get himself run out of town?

(Off-topic: Andruw Jones just doubled??? The world is going to end! His batting average probably just increased ten points with that one hit.)

Do the Hawks have a chance in hell of upsetting Boston in Game Seven? Why not? Do I think they’ll win? Of course not.

By the way, T-Mac is having a hell of a first half against Utah—10-16, 28/7/3—and I’d love to see Houston force a Game Seven against Utah. It’s gonna be hard to do so, though, sans Rafer Alston. Had he been healthy for the whole series, would this game be an elimination game for Utah? Also, LeBron went LeBron, manned up, and ousted Washington with a triple-double. I dare the Boston-Atlanta winner to start trashing LeBron.

(OT: It appears that the Ung-hex has been averted, thanks to a bases-clearing double by Matt Kemp. Whew.)

More playoff thoughts next time, but until then, let me wrap up with this:

- So as you loyal UngsungBlog readers—all none of you—know, my sister has karmic powers. Evidently, either I have yet to learn to stop picking on her, or I like letting karma kick me in the ass.

Well, as we were preparing to head back to MPK last Friday, my sister remarked that she was expecting a phone call from someone, but her phone wasn’t not in her possession. Standing right in front of our sofa, I asked where her phone was, and she explained that she had left it in her car.

I jokingly exclaimed that leaving her phone in her car was “foolish,” and immediately turned around to get something. That’s when I discovered that my sister had left my poker chip set besides the sofa, hidden under a blanket which hung over the sofa.

How did I know the poker chip set was there? Well, one nano-mill-second after I insulted my sister and turned around, my right foot Vanderjerked the hidden poker chip set.

(Vanderjerk, v., to kick something hard, either accidentally or not at all straight, named after former Indianapolis Colts idiot kicker Mike Vanderjagt: My nephew spilled his juice all over our carpet, so I disciplined him by Vanderjerking him in the butt.)

I screamed out in pain, bent over, and was immediately half-crying and half-laughing; crying because it hurt like a mother, and laughing because what happened was so ridiculous. My sister got a good laugh for about five minutes, and I thought it was a bit funny for a few seconds. Too bad my foot hurt for a good day or two.

Will I learn my lesson? Maybe when the Clippers win an NBA title.

One last parting thought: what the hell happened in the third quarter? I guess the Lakers better prepare for a Game One on Sunday.

Tags: april, atlanta hawks, boston celtics, houston rockets, karmic powers, lebron james, mvp, nl, rafael furcal, sister by Peter
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