I don't know if anyone other than myself or those who hail from the "Golden State" area cared at all about the Warriors/Mavs series, but you should have. In case you missed it, the 8th seeded Warriors blew away the first seeded Dallas Mavericks 111-86 last night to win the first round NBA Playoff series four games to two staging the biggest upset in NBA playoff history.
Thanks to the TV networks, I had been forced to watch an extensive amount of NBA basketball for about a three week span. You know, those three weeks after college basketball ends, before baseball begins, and hockey isn't shown on TV anymore? Yeah, it's the worst part of the year. You have to watch the Suns, Mavs, LeBron and Kobe pretty much every night of the week. It's either this or Grey's Anatomy...and I choose the NBA which tells you what I think about McDreamy, McSteamy, McOtherGuy, and the character who gives the show its title, McUglyandILookLikeI'veBeenExposedToRadiation. She should have called it quits after "Old School."
Watching the NBA regular season quickly became very cumbersome. Aside from the Bulls and Pistons, none of the NBA teams play hard. The majority of the shots taken, especially by big name stars, are uncontested. No one plays defense. And Kobe just makes tries to make it look like everyone plays defense against him and then he: complains, spins way too much (see the Christian Laettner buzzer beater against UK in '91, why did he take that step to his right before he turned around...no one was there...thanks Christian, the Atlanta Hawks miss you, but we don't) puts up 50 points in however many consecutive games, and no one really cares. He also has sex with high schoolers; no one cares about that either.
The point is, the Golden State Warriors, again, not a club the media is all over, have been playing playoff basketball for the past month. They fought hard for their incredible record during the last month of the season just to get into the playoffs whereas their opponents who went 67-15 this season were coasting, resting up, and had not adjusted to the playoff atmosphere the Warriors had been accustomed to. The Warriors played physical, selfless, basketball. They play their game: fast, hard, and merciless which caused the Mighty Mavs a great deal of shell shock, much like how the Pistons ran over the Lakers in'04. Thanks Kobe, you got out played by a guy who wheres a mask who's name isn't Bill Lambeer.
In recent years, playoff hockey was usually known as the best sport to watch. As physically demanding of a sport that hockey is, the heart and determination of hockey players is put on display in the playoffs and the games played are played hard. No matter how the game ends up, during playoff hockey, at the end of the game, the players can barely walk. They are that tired from putting it all out there. That's entertaining. So are fights.
Sidney Crosby's Worst Nightmare.
Unfortunately, the Stanley Cup Playoffs aren't taken as seriously anymore on TV (thanks Walt Disney). The days of Lemieux, Jagr, Stevens and Messier, Graves, Gartner are over. But what is happening is that the NBA players are starting to take their playoffs more seriously and the Golden State Warriors, whether anyone likes it or not, are leading the charge. Watch Baron Davis, Stephen Jackson, Jason Richardson and the rest of the Warriors play and you will be entertained. Every shot is contested, they never let the 24 second clock run down and they rarely run plays out of the half court set. Even if they don't win, someones going to get ejected, and that's pretty awesome. And even if you don't care for basketball, watch it on Thursdays for the next few weeks...anything is better than Grey's Anatomy.
<--- Amazing Beard.
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