Tiebreaker on Sunday

Coming into Sunday, I was tied in my main league 5-5-1 and we happen to be the 3rd and 4th place teams at this moment. That made today huge for positioning in that league. Oh yea, there were a couple of football games on TV as well.

I'll start with San Diego visiting the defending champs in Indianapolis because this game was awesome. It had all the drama you would want from a playoff game. It went back and forth all game. Peyton Manning completed his first 14 passes, trying to do his best to impersonate Tom Brady's all-world performance last night. That was the pinnacle of his afternoon though because he threw picks on the Colts' next two possessions. San Diego had the lead in the second half after losing both starting halfback, LaDainian Tomlinson, AND starting quarterback, Philip Rivers, who had 3 touchdowns before he went down. Antonio Gates played the game, but had a small role in the air game, finishing with only 2 catches for 28 yards. Billy Volek of all people played hero for the Chargers on the last drive of the game after the Colts failed to score with 2:01 left in the game. Volek drove the Chargers down the field and scored the gamewinning TD himself. He finished the game with 3 rushes for -1 yard and the touchdown that sent the defending champion Colts home early. This brings the AFC championship matchup to New England, where the Chargers will try to continue their postseason to Arizona.

There were some basketball games during the NFL playoffs too.

The first was in Canada, where the still streaking Trailblazers visited the Raptors. The Raptors won the thriller in double OT. Chris Bosh is showing why he will be an all-star, coming off his 40 pt performance in this one to score 38, grab 14 boards and block 3 shots. Three Raptors played 50+ minutes in this one and Andrea Bargnani was not one of them. In fact, he started at center only to total 15 minutes in this game. Needless to say, Sam Mitchell does not trust the sophomore center fully yet and you shouldn't either. He's a very streaky contributor and if you don't have to start him in your daily transaction league, you shouldn't. On the Blazer side of the ball, Steve Blake missed this game as expected with his calf injury. Jarret Jack started in his place and had 12 pts, but only shot 4-16 from the field.

Although I'm a Chicago guy and love the Bulls, this Bulls blowout was awesome, selfishly speaking. The Bulls got destroyed by the Hawks, who had been reeling after their over-.500 start to the season. Joe Johnson was the story in this one, going for 37 pts, 9 rebs and 5-6 from three point range. He was utterly unstoppable. On the Bulls side, at least they got some help back with Luol Deng coming off the bench in this one. He returned to the lineup after a three game hiatus to score 28 pts in 30 minutes. I would expect him to be back in the starting lineup in the Bulls next game, with Andres Nocioni returning to his normal role off the bench. Funny tidbit in this game, Joakim Noah, the Bulls rookie out of Florida, was suspended unanimously by his peers. As my blogs continue, I will more and more begin to reveal the teams and players I root for and the ones I despise. Noah is one of those players that when the Bulls drafted, I almost stopped rooting for my hometown team. I stomached it when Chicago drafted 3 Dukies in a relatively short timespan in Jay Williams, Chris Duhon and Luol Deng, but the fact that they would draft a Gator like Noah made me sick to my stomach. Anyways, this might be bad for Chicago in the long haul, but this story made me smile a bit even amidst the Bulls woes this season.

The divisional game of the day was in Houston, between the Hornets and the Rockets. This one was pretty exciting down the stretch as Yao Ming tried to keep Chris Paul and David West down during the fourth quarter. However, Paul worked his magic again when it mattered most, hitting crazy jumpers and finding David West again and again. Houston just couldn't keep up with them. They outscored the Rockets 29-19 in the final frame with CP3 and D-West leading the way. I picked up Luis Scola for a spot start in this one and he was below average, but 6 pts, 7 rebs and 2 stls could've been worse. With T-Mac returning any day now, I wouldn't trust any Rockets off the bench for production and only Yao, McGrady and Rafer Alston (perhaps Shane Battier, I do have him on my team) are the only full-time ownable Rockets. New Orleans looks ready to take that next step to become one of the elite teams in the league with their bench starting to produce like they are capable of doing.

The other divisional playoff game was a battle between NFC East rivals, New York at Dallas. This game was pretty good too with a slightly different storyline. New York was able to hold on late in the fourth quarter, while the home team was unable to complete a late game comeback. Interestingly enough, both home teams won yesterday and both away teams pulled out upsets today. The Giants played well and they are hot and confident. After that near defeat of New England to close the regular season, the G-Men might be looking at a rematch if they can close their Cinderella story at Lambeau Field in Green Bay. This game will have a ton of storylines. I have no doubt that the press will be talking about Eli getting farther in the playoffs than Peyton and that Brett Favre will be the focal point of an article somewhere as well. I'm sure there will also be critics also attacking Tony Romo after this one. For the second consecutive postseason, he has had the ball in his hands with the game on the line and he is now 0-2 in these contests. Whether or not distractions in the form of Jessica Simpson had something to do with his mindset, people will ask questions about his leadership and mental toughness. Romo's a great player already and he will be just fine next season, but IMHO he needs to understand that if he is to get a new girlfriend, it needs to be in the offseason so there is at least fewer distractions at the time. This is only good advice if he's looking to become a championship caliber quarterback, which he's not yet. If I were him I wouldn't be able to say no to Carrie Underwood or Jessica Simpson either though. I don't think the women are the distraction for Romo as much as it is the media surrounding Dallas, which is the biggest market for the NFL, and their ridiculous coverage of his private life. These playoffs have had a lot of surprises already and there will be more to come before there are 2 teams heading to Arizona for the 2008 Super Bowl.

The Pistons got destroyed. Not only are these words not frequently spoken in the current state of the NBA, it's even more ridiculous that the loss came from the New York Knicks, who are THE dysfunctional team of professional sports. This being said, I'm sure whoever Detroit has next on the schedule needs to watch out (Toronto at the Palace of Auburn Hills). I don't think Chris Bosh will continue his scoring tear, at least not in this one. Detroit is one of those teams that don't take losing well. I'm sure this was just a lapse in concentration because Detroit probably doesn't prepare the strongest against a team like New York, but they will come out tough and strong against Toronto. All this being said, Detroit was losing by 29 before the 4th quarter began and Flip Saunders started the frame with all bench players with Isiah Thomas following suit quickly after. No starters returned to the game. The game couldn't have gone better for me with my opponent owning a player from each team, Rip Hamilton and Eddy Curry. Curry wasn't one of the chief contributors from New York, finishing with only 7 pts, 6 rebs and 0-4 from the FT line. Rip was even worse on the Pistons' side finishing with only 3 pts on 1-7 shooting. The final score was 89-65 (64 pts is the franchise low for pts scored for the Pistons and the franchise low for the Knicks for pts allowed).

- Golden State and Indiana play on the local FSN-Bay Area network, but since they show hockey once in a while and they own exclusive rights to Warrior contests, there isn't an alternate way to watch the game. That's one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen. If I'm mistaken in my reasoning here and there is a way to watch the game in situations as this, please let me kno. The game was put on after the hockey game concluded at the 5:00 (or so) mark in the 3rd quarter. The Warriors played pretty bad in this one, but they kept it close the whole way with great energy off the offensive glass. Monta Ellis and Baron Davis kept the Warriors in it until they finally took their first lead of the game toward the end of the 3rd quarter. The game was a great one that went down to

- Early in the 2nd half in LA, the Lakers held their breath for their big man in the middle, Andrew Bynum. He came down awkwardly and clutched his knee and needed help to the locker room. He didn't look to put any pressure on his leg. I'm sure more will come out on this in the near future. The game in question was controlled by the hometown Lakers for most of the game. In the fourth quarter, the Grizzlies made their run and went back and forth with the Lakers, probably not a coincidence that they made a run after Bynum was out of the game. However, Kobe started taking over the game in the fourth in a way that everyone is used to, hitting clutch free throws and throwing his body into the lane. The Lakers went up 3 on a couple of Kobe free throws (he was 14-15 from the line) with 40 seconds left when Rudy Gay hit a huge 3 to tie. The next possession Kwame Brown was fouled going for a dunk. Kwame, who was in the game for Andrew Bynum after the injury, had been 0-2 in the game and only 11-29 on the season (37.9%). Kwame made 1-2 and it proved to be the gamewinner. The Lakers are now at 6 wins in a row. If Bynum is to miss an extended period of time, which it looks like he will, Kwame will be the starting center and Kobe will probably look to score more. Bynum owners can only hold their breath since the young center was starting to become one of the elite. For Memphis, they played competitively again, but it doesn't matter. They're still young and if Kyle Lowry's name was Kobe Bryant, he probably would have been shooting free throws to try to win the game after he drove the lane right into Kwame Brown's body. Pau Gasol and Mike Miller led the way for the Grizz, while Rudy Gay had another off night. The Grizzlies are definitely up and coming, but this season is not their time.