<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">The whole time, the remote felt funny in my hand. Surfing the channels on a "Soprano"-less Sunday, I should have found the NBA Finals irresistible. The playoffs had been positively addictive, and now Erick Dampier and the delightfully helium-voiced Avery Johnson were taking apart Shaquille O'Neal and the august Pat Riley. This should have been great television, yet my eyes grazed over the game as if it were a Jerry Springer show. Turned off instantly, I made an exasperated getaway, stabbing at the remote a little angrily. The NBA and the double-digit Dallas win simply couldn't rate with the other offerings of the day. First, the A's finished a sweep at Yankee Stadium. Then Se Ri Pak and Karrie Webb went to a playoff in the LPGA Championship, in which Michelle Wie stayed in contention until her final green, and the Giants imploded in dramatically awful fashion. I can't remember which came first -- Pak's winning approach shot landing 2 inches from the pin or the four Pirates pooling around home plate after Jose Bautista's grand slam in the eighth. Moments like that tend to numb a viewer, for better and worse. The Finals offered no pick-me-ups. O'Neal's five points look fascinatingly bad in print, but as train wrecks go, the Giants' eighth inning had it all over the Diesel's Game 2. This week, the Heat and Mavericks will have to transform their series pretty radically if they want to avoid abject trivialization in comparison with the U.S. Open. The sentiment behind Tiger Woods' return from his father's death, plus his finally validated rivalry with Phil Mickelson, will trump anything the NBA has to offer, unless Michael Jordan somehow suits up for Miami. What's the sentimental factor in these Finals? Gary Payton in search of the elusive ring? That doesn't begin to equal Woods' quest at Winged Foot. Payton's closest counterpart (an old-timer with revived championship hopes) in golf is Vijay Singh, and at this point, before the first tee shot, Singh has more hope than Payton. Riley wouldn't like to hear that. He went on a little tirade after his Heat fell behind 2-0 in the series Sunday night, saying that everyone had been wrong about his team before, writing off Miami in the early rounds of the playoffs. "We were history,'' he told reporters after the game, "and then we were history against Detroit. Even when we were ahead 3-1, we were history. I'm sure we're history right now." It sounds a little whiny and pathetic, and perhaps Riley has lost some of his elan. He hasn't taken a team to the Finals since his '94 Knicks met the Rockets, and he hasn't won a title since 1988 with the Lakers. But only old-time NBA fans remember him as the maestro of Showtime, and fully understand the hubris that allowed Riley to bump Stan Van Gundy from the coaching job in December and swoop down from the executive offices. Youngsters might know about his history, but when they think about these Finals measuring up to the past, they will flash back less than a month to LeBron James and the fire he set underneath the Cavaliers, who very nearly burned the favored Pistons. They will see the Suns staving off seemingly certain elimination by the Lakers and that remarkable 3-pointer by Raja Bell with 1.1 seconds left in Game 5 against the Clippers, ultimately sending Phoenix to the conference finals. </div> Source I thought Game 1 was competitive, but Game 2 was definitely lopsided. I still think Miami has a chance to make it a series again, they should be playing with a lot more urgency in Miami.
To be honest, I hate people who say "if Michael Jordan was playing I'd watch"....to those people I say "screw you".....I loved watching MJ as much as the next man, but people need to come to the realization that MJ is gone, and he's not coming back....and the Finals have been decent so far, game 1 was pretty entertaining and close, with game 2 being lop sided for the most part.
This article says that the TV ratings are up. <div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">ESPN.com - Ratings for the first two games of the the NBA finals between Miami and Dallas were up 13 percent for ABC in comparison to last year's championship series with San Antonio and Detroit. The second game of the series on Sunday night, which Dallas won 99-85, drew an average rating of 8.0 -- a 17 percent increase from 2005.</div> Source
If it's a close game with the clock winding down the game gets very exciting. In this series both games were won by double digits and it not fun to watch blowouts.
Well, you know, at least it's better than the Finals last year. Four straight blowouts, wow, you know...boring. Until Horry hit that dagger in game 5, the Finals were just as bad, if not worst.
The Heat made it a series just now, 98-96. Kudos to Wade and his 41 points, and a spectatular defensive play to end the game.
honestly, how much stock can you really put in the opinion of a guy who think the most exiting sports thing to watch is a freakin golf tourny? zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
I personally found last year's finals to be more exciting, but then again I've never been turned off by "boring basketball." This series hasn't been that bad though. I'm just hoping the Heat tie it up and we get to see 3 more competitive games.
I'm so pissed, I went to bed last night thinking the Mavs had just finished the Heat in the 4th, and I wake up this morning to see that I missed a great finish.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Catfisha:</div><div class="quote_post">why dont yall just watch the mothafurkin games</div> Can someone ban this dude?
simply made for shock value. This guy obviously is a tennis fan pretending to be a bball fan. Anybody who follows the NBA knows this series is FAR more entertaining than expected. You have two new teams. You have a rising star right before your eyes, you have Shaq on a quest to win another ring. You have Alonzo Mourning who could've died a couple yrs ago, now he's one game away of winning it all. You have GP who's my favorite player, over 15yrs in the league and hitting game winners. Game 5 will go down as one of the best games in the history of the NBA. Basically, everything is on the line. How can you NOT love this
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Rock4life:</div><div class="quote_post">simply made for shock value. This guy obviously is a tennis fan pretending to be a bball fan. Anybody who follows the NBA knows this series is FAR more entertaining than expected. You have two new teams. You have a rising star right before your eyes, you have Shaq on a quest to win another ring. You have Alonzo Mourning who could've died a couple yrs ago, now he's one game away of winning it all. You have GP who's my favorite player, over 15yrs in the league and hitting game winners. Game 5 will go down as one of the best games in the history of the NBA. Basically, everything is on the line. How can you NOT love this</div> When its games like this it is really exciting, when its a blow out i change the channel
