Whether or not you put them ahead or behind his Airness, there’s no denying that we have THREE guys in the league right now who draw comparisons with MJ. You could argue till your nuts fall off over who’s the best between Lebron, Wade and Bryant and each can make a claim at being on the same level as Jordan. We also have studs like Dwight Howard, KG, Paul Pierce, Tim Duncan, Chris Paul, Deron Williams, and others who are or will be considered all time greats for their respective teams and/or positions.

There’s just so much talent in the league right now and we’re in an era where defense is actually very important. Back in the ’80s and ’90s most teams didn’t really D up all that much. Other than the Bad Boy Pistons or Jordan’s Bulls, the majority of the league tended to play like the Phoenix Suns of recent years. Just watch some old games on ESPN Classic and you’ll see what I mean. The growth of defense, to me, really makes the play of guys like Lebron, Wade and Kobe even stand out more.

What really kills me, though, is that I just HATE watching basketball nowadays. It seems that regardless of whether the team I’m rooting for wins or loses, there are always about a dozen or so horrific fouls that have been called that end up ruining my experience. The refs often appear to have more control over the outcomes of these games than the players. And it doesn’t matter if they’re “on the take” or just ridiculously awful at what they do, it just kills my love for the sport. The NBA needs to fix this because these players are just so amazing and it’s a shame that the sport isn’t reaping the benefits that it ought to be with all this marketable talent. Fixing the ref problem would make a massive difference.

The best part about it was this didn’t seem possible even a year ago. We had just finished one of the worst seasons in team history where we tanked the last half of the season in the hopes of getting the 1st pick in the draft lottery to land Oden or Durant. Then the lottery balls don’t fall our way and we end up getting stuck with the 5th pick of the draft all but ending our hopes of building a championship team for years to come. But then Danny boy traded that pick for Ray Allen, which was universally DOGGED on draft day by all the experts, and then used the leverage of having Ray Ray convince Kevin Garnett to accept a trade to wear Celtic green. And, well, the rest is history. We’re the 2008 NBA Champions!

PS – I think this means that The Curse of Dave Z might be finally over!

A lot of the credit goes to the Lakers’ D, but guys like Pierce and Garnett just needed to be more aggressive instead of settling for bricks from long range. The reason I thought this was ours for the taking was that despite Kobe’s and Sasha’s efforts, the rest of the team didn’t really do that well. You’re not going to get many games where Odom, Gasol and Fisher all play that poorly on the offensive end in LA. Not to mention the fact that Lakers tried to give it away by making only 61% of their foul shots. I still think we might be able to take at least one of the next two games, but if we don’t then this game will likely be looked at as one that we let slip away.

Yessssss!!!!!!!! The Celtics are back in the NBA Finals after a 21 year drought and they’ll be in a dream match-up with the league’s MVP Kobe Bryant and his magnificent Los Angeles Lakers. I’m so fucking excited that my heart is just racing like crazy and I can’t help but grin from ear to ear.

To close out Detroit in Auburn Hills tonight in Game 6 was thrilling and I’m so proud of my boys for coming through with their 2nd road win this series. The best part is that it seems we’re getting big games from different people every night. Pierce and Allen came through tonight and so did did role players like James Posey who had a brilliant 4th quarter defensively. The three straight missed free throws definitely made my heart miss a few beats, but the bottom line is that they scored enough points and made enough shots to win.

I’m scared shitless of the Finals match-up with the Lakers and thoroughly believe we’re the underdogs, but, hell, that’s why they play the games. All it takes is another four more wins. It should be an amazing series and I would be beyond thrilled if the boys in green can pull this one out. Go Celtics!!!

The Detroit series will be a beast, particularly because of Boston’s road woes. However, I have faith in my boys and am hoping that they might just match up better against Detroit than they did against Atlanta or Cleveland — meaning that while Detroit is by far a better overall team than the Hawks or Cavs, they don’t have any scorers in the vein of a Lebron or Joe Johnson that really gave Boston problems. Nevertheless, I’m both nervous and excited. It should be a fun and hard fought series that will hopefully end with the C’s in the NBA Finals.

Speaking of fantastic, I’m even more thrilled by the fact that the Flyers finished off the Canadians last night putting them into the Eastern Conference Finals of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. They finished 22-48-12 last season, which was dead last in the NHL with only 56 points, so making it this far has been a fun, albeit stressful, ride. I can’t wait to see them take on Crosby, Malkin and the Pens (assuming they don’t collapse against the Rangers).

The Flyers, as per form, got a 2-0 lead only to blow it and make things interesting before finally coming out on top. The finish is all that matters in the end, but if I start getting gray hairs or have a stroke the blame is going to be put on them. I’m really hoping they can close it out this weekend. My fingers are crossed and a blade isn’t coming anywhere near my playoff “beard” (if you can call the long scraggly hairs hanging under my chin a beard).

The C’s did exactly what they did in the first two home games — blow out the Hawks — so now it’s time to see if they can pull things together in Atlanta’s raucous arena to finally close out this series on Friday. I don’t want to see it go to a game 7 in either series, because I’m not sure if my heart could take it.

The Philadelphia Flyers have been a welcome surprise, though I don’t want to get too confident because a 2-1 series lead doesn’t mean it’s a lock, particularly after they almost blew the 3-1 lead against the Caps. Still, it’s been awesome cheering them on and I’m hoping they can continue to play great and make it to the Eastern Conference Finals against Malkin, Crosby & the Pens (assuming they continue to dominate their series).

On a more personal note, I’ve been experienced what I’ve self-diagnosed as kidney pains. It might just my back muscles, but the signs and symptoms point more to the kidneys. I have a doctor’s appointment today, so I’ll find out more later this afternoon. Shit hurts, though, and really makes it hard to concentrate.

Luckily, amid the kidney pains that started Saturday afternoon after downing 12 diet Pepsi’s in 10 minutes and the struggles of the C’s and the stress of watching the Flyers get big leads, blow the leads, then either win or lose at the end, it was really nice to be able to release some stress killing random people in GTA IV. God, I love this game and this series.

I’ve only played a couple of hours of the single player (going through some really boring parts) and had a lot of fun playing with other 2K guys online multiplayer, but I can see why it’s gotten all the 10s. There’s just so much good too it. So much that you can forgive all the flaws such as the horrid animations, sloppy camera angles, god-awful AI, fucked up targeting issues, etc, etc. It is easily the most-flawed “best. game. ever” that I’ve yet played. I could probably write an IGN-esque 25,000 word review just bitching about the game. Then again, I could write as many praising the hell out of it. In the end, I’m sure the good will mightily outweigh the bad and I’ll love this as much as the previous games in the series and quite possibly more.

Why do I bring this up again? Well, the Memphis Grizzlies recently completed a trade of its superstar Paul Gasol that looks infinitely worse than the one Kevin McHale got lambasted for when he traded KG to the Celts. Oh, and guess who the trade was with? Yeah, the Los Angeles Lakers. Kobe’s team gave up some scrubs and netted a bona fide stud in Gasol (who debuted with LA tonight scoring 24 pts and pulling down 12 rebounds). It’s as if the basketball god’s (or the NBA front office) is looking for a classic Lakers versus Celtics NBA final to help up its ratings after way too many piss poor draws thanks to teams like the San Antonio Spurs being dominant. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.

The Celtics are doing even better thanks to the trades for Garnett and Allen, plus the signings of a bunch of key role players that have been exceeding initial expectations. At 15-2, the green are already more than halfway to their win total for all of last year and are showing that they have a legit shot at representing the Eastern Conference in the NBA Finals and possibly even winning it all.

I’m just thrilled that they’re relevant again and so damn fun to watch. I haven’t really enjoyed watching them play much since Reggie’s death, except for maybe brief spurts during the Pierce/Walker days, but this C’s team is as fun to watch as the ones in the Larry Legend days.