Beautiful Tuesday for Sports Fans

While Yankees fans may be bummed about getting shut out by Beckett and the Red Sox, the Mets squeaked out a 6-5 win over the Phils (BCA predictions 2-0). More importantly, hockey fans got their game 7, with a 2-1 Penguins win and suddenly the Magic have a pulse after setting a record in NBA Finals history for field goal percentage and hung on to beat the Lakers by 108-104.

Another victory was the Washington Nationals going ahead and selecting Stephen Straburg, arguably the greatest pitcher in college baseball history (in case you are unaware Strasburg went 13–1 with a 1.32 ERA, 65 hits allowed, 16 earned runs, 19 walks and 195 strikeouts in 109 innings pitched with San Diego St this year), with the first overall pick in the MLB draft despite the fact that they are going to have a hell of a time signing him. I'll let Millman discuss this further...

Hockey highlights made it look like a great game, that's all I have on that..

I'm not sure what to make of the Magic shooting 62.5% and only winning by 4.
Again, with all this talk about Kobe being this great "closer" he played poorly down the stretch last night. Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom could have scored every time they touched the ball, but Kobe refused to give it up. He is a great player, but his selfishness can get in the way of his greatness at times, and it has this series. The Lakers are fortunate to be up 2-1 right now.
Props to Stan Van Gully on working the Skip/Jameer platoon like it should be, 37/11 minutes played respectively...and Skip responded playing an efficient game, 8-12 from the field, scoring 20 points.
Does anyone get better looks from deep than Rashard Lewis (thanks in part to his height / shooting style)?
Luke Walton is scared to shoot the ball.
Mickael Pietrus hit one of the toughest lay-ups I've ever seen and a fade-away jumper I'm not sure MJ would've hit. Who did he sell his soul to before these playoffs? I've always liked his defense, but offensively he is playing like a man possessed (though that put-back to put the Magic up 101-99 with 2 minutes left should have been an offensive goaltend, it's OK though, makes up for all the superstar calls Kobe got - like the bailout reach-in on Pietrus when they had him doubled and that inexcusable foul on Dwight when he easily stuffed Bryant).

Eastern Conference Exposed?

Amidst all the talk this year about the Eastern Conference being back, the Orlando Magic just got beat down by the Lakers so bad in Game 1 and looked so over-matched that it's hard not to think that the Eastern Conference was a bit of a sham this year. And shame on us for not realizing this sooner, after all a team like the Suns didn't even make the Western Conference Playoffs, while I don't even want to get into the Eastern Conference Playoff race.

This Magic team, which everyone conveniently forgot had their problems with the 76ers and were taken to the max by a worn down, beat-up Celtics team before they shot the lights out exposing the weaknesses of the Cavaliers last series. But all anyone remembered was the Cavs series, and believed they were undefendable. Looks like they can miss three-pointers after all.

Maybe Dwight can call out Stan Van Gundy again after the game. That is if he can finally stop talking about how butt-hurt he is he didn't get to shake King James hand. Maybe he should have spent a little less time reflecting about a missed handshake and a little more time worrying about the Lakers frontcourt - a little bigger challenge than the joke he used and abused last series.

So happy to see they didn't scrap the puppet commercials, instead we get a shameless, unapologetic, ineffective, revamped, pewch bunch of whiny commercials we have to sit through. Thanks Nike, you continue to be a classy company.

This Magic team is still good, they can't win this series but hopefully they can heat it up a bit and at least make the games more entertaining - if they don't make this at all competitive their defeat of the Lebrons will end up being a bigger blow to the NBA than initially thought.