yeah your Raps are that bad.

I cheered everytime Damon Jones got the ball, too bad he couldn't make a shot.

Lebron goes out- we don't score. Lebron comes back- complete domination.

BRING IT DETROIT

When did San Antonio become a shooting team?

They seem like they're hitting 90% of their shots!!!

53-51 Spurs

If it's going to be a high scoring game, Phoenix is gonna take it.

6 blocks already for Duncan?

It's a joy watching best PF of all time...

It's amazing how much of a beating Nash is taking.

It's gonna get ugly in the final period.

The Spurs are just getting everything their way. Now, I'm not talking about calls, the calls seem fair for both sides... but the Spurs are just hitting almost everything and getting all the bad bounces.

It's ridiculous.

It looks over for the Suns now

Down by 14 going into the 4th.

It's a glim outlook for us

It's over. the Spurs are just having too great of a game. 16 up.

EDIT: Make that 20. Now I just want to see that unusual triple double. With blocks.

down 12 with 5 minutes to go IT AIN'T OVER YET!!!

FUCK JUST TAKE THE DAMN SHOT NASH!!

DAMN IT!

Now it's going to be a boring ass finals no matter who makes it.
I was hoping for Suns vs Cavs finals.

Yuck! Gross!


:-p

I'm fine with either Spurs or Jazz from the west, and Pistons from the east.

Spurs vs Piss

boring vs boring

Now I have to root for my real team... Detroit.

I hope the Jazz KILL the Spurs... or have the Spurs make it, only to be KILLED by my Pistons

The NBA doesn't want a Spurs vs Piss finals if they want people to actually tune in.

Their best shot for big rating would be Cavs vs whoever. KING JAMES is the only megastar left.

Some megastar.

That's the fault with NBA. They now market the players instead of clubs.

I wish Suns will win a championship before Nash retires. It's just incredible seeing the little guy running all over the place all the time but never seems out of control. They played so hard; not saying Spurs and others don't, but it's just that with Suns' style, you see it so clearly and can't help but pulling for them.

Nobody wants to watch the Cavs no matter if LeBron is on the team or not, they're just awful to watch.

It's interesting that even though Spurs and Pistons are the de-facto best and most feared teams on the West and East respectively, they'll be rooting for each other to be the opponent in the Finals. Utah has dominated Detroit the last four years, sweeping them 4-0 in the last two seasons; while Cleveland has San Antonio's number, sweeping them this season and going 3-1 in the last two seasons. I am hoping for a Jazz-Pistons or Cavaliers-Spurs Finals to make things interesting.

That said, I predict:

Detroit over Cleveland in 6
San Antonio over Utah in 5

San Antonio over Detroit in 5

4-0 in the 2nd round. I nailed two series to the game (Detroit and Utah), and the other two I was only off by one game (SA and Cleveland). That brings my playoff prediction record to an amazing mark of 10-2.

Onto round 3:
Detroit over Cleveland in 5 games (I'm tempted to pick it as a sweep...)
San Antonio over Utah in 6 games

I'd be amazed if either series goes to game 7.

I think for the most part you can throw out regular season records when looking at playoff matchups. It's so much different of an atmosphere, and playoff experience becomes a big factor - more than some think it does.

For your Utah/Detroit example of Utah beating Detroit 4-0 in the regular season, you have to consider that this Utah team has ZERO experience in being in the finals and that Detroit has a buttload of experience (5 Eastern Conference Finals in a row). Plus, factor in that at least 3 of those regular season matchups were with a Chris Webber-less Detroit team, and that 4-0 mark become so irrelevant.

I think Detroit would kill the Jazz in the finals, and on the other side, I would be inclined to pick SA over Detroit. Plus, I believe that Detroit would have home court over Utah. I have to imagine Detroit would be hoping for the Jazz.

I just don't the Spurs to win again... Getting sick of it. Shit Duncan is a beast.

I'm rooting for Detroit vs Utah in the finals. Piss because with the way they've played this decade they deserve at least 2 championships, Utah because they're the unexpecteds and I like to see Sloan succeed(and I like them).

I'll say Detroit in 6 and San Antonio in 5 though.

Suns-Spurs Series Deserved Better

SAN ANTONIO -- A moment of silence, please, on the premature death of the best playoff series NBA school principal David Stern -- and the rest of us -- will see anytime soon.

The hoops drama that was the San Antonio Spurs vs. the Phoenix Suns should have lasted seven games. And if Maximum Dave and his curiously reasoned form of punishment hadn't made an appearance this past week, we might be counting the nanoseconds until Sunday's series finale between the two best and most compelling teams in the league.

Instead -- and this is going to come out the wrong way -- we get Game 1 of the Western Conference finals with the Utah Jazz. Nothing wrong with that, except that the Spurs-Suns got jobbed. We all did. In fact, I could have watched these two teams play a best-of-17 series.

But Stern's decision to suspend the Suns' Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw for the pivotal Game 5 compromised the integrity of a series that deserved better than kneejerk justice. The Spurs beat the roster-challenged Suns that night in Phoenix, and then advanced to the conference finals with Friday evening's 114-106 victory.

The Spurs were the better team Friday, but thanks to Stern, we'll never truly know if they were the better team for the series. This isn't a rip on the Spurs. They did what they had to do, and they did it with cool, heartless efficiency. But this will be forever known as the What-If Series.

What if Robert Horry hadn't temporarily lost his mind, channeled the Hanson Brothers, and thumped Suns' guard Steve Nash into the scorer's table during the waning moments of Game 4? What if Stoudemire and Diaw hadn't left the bench area? What if Stern hadn't turned the series upside down when he suspended Stoudemire and Diaw for one game and Horry for two?

It was a dumb decision then. It's a dumb decision now. It will remain a dumb decision no matter how many times Stern tries to justify it.

"I can sit up here and complain about it after the fact... I guess cry about it after the fact," said Nash. "But it's tough not to just think forever what would have happened if this stupid rule didn't get in the way of this series. There's no guarantees of anything, but to come this far and put this much into a season and for us to be without two key guys for Game 5 for nothing we instigated -- and for not either one of them having a malicious tone in their offense -- will forever haunt us. But I don't want to cry about it after the fact. The Spurs played great."

The Spurs did play great. They led by 20 points early in the fourth quarter. They kept the Suns from stepping on the clutch and shifting their offense into third or fourth gear.

"Frankly, I'm going to try to figure out how we did this," said San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich.

Here's how:

Manu Ginobili filled up the boxscore with 33 ponts, 11 rebounds, six assists, four steals and four three-pointers. Tony Parker had 30 points. Tim Duncan added 24 points, 13 rebounds, nine blocked shots and, when double teamed, always managed to find an open teammate.

And then there was Bruce Bowen, who likely will have to miss Sunday's game after undergoing surgery to remove himself from Nash's hip. A clearly frustrated Nash finished with 18 points, but he only had one field goal through the first three quarters.

"He can't be Superman every night," said Suns coach Mike D'Antoni.

Imagine spending an entire series running into open car doors. That's what Bowen did, caroming off a thousand different screens and picks set for Nash. Sure, Bowen is physical, maybe borderline chippy, but it was a matchup worth staring at.

"Bruce had the toughest job on the team, without a doubt," said Popovich. "I don't know how he does it."

If there was such a thing as a basketball coroner, he would have said the game's time of death came at exactly with 5:23 remaining in the third quarter. That's when Bowen found his usual spot on the baseline, just inches behind the three-point line, and hit a trey that stretched the Spurs' tiny lead to 66-61. Then Ginobili added another three-pointer with 4:58 and that was that.

"There was a stretch where they couldn't miss," said D'Antoni.

It didn't help that the Suns' Raja Bell decided to foul everybody except the Spurs' Silver Dancers. Or that Leandro Barbosa forgot how to make a three pointer (0-5 Friday, 0 for his last 12 attempts). And yet, the Suns actually whittled the Spurs' lead down to five.

But by then, there were only 34 seconds remaining and San Antonio kept making free throws. Meanwhile, I'll have permanent ear damage from the sound of Spurs' fans whacking those thundersticks as the seconds ticked down.

Remember Stoudemire? He scored 38 points and added 12 rebounds in the loss. You think he might have made a difference in Game 5?

This is why it would have been fitting to see the series go seven games. Then Stern's decision would have been sort of rendered moot. America would have rejoiced.

"Absolutely I can understand why people would want to see it go one more," said Duncan. "You also have to understand why we didn't want to see it go one more."

My point exactly.

Of course, Nash is right when he says there are no guarantees. Maybe the Spurs win this thing in six even if Stoudemire had played last Wednesday in Phoenix -- but I doubt it.

"We'll never know," said Nash.

And that's the shame of it all.

Maybe I should change my predictions. Aren't you always wrong?

Oh, no... I think this means my Pistons are going to lose to the Cavs!