With the Stanley Cup Finals starting last night and the NBA Western Conference Finals closing, today is a sports slate pretty much devoid of meaning. Oh yeah, there’s the French Open in tennis (thanks for the tape delay NBC!). The Indianapolis 500 just wrapped up (Yawn!). After that it’s late-May baseball. Not exactly a whole lot at stake today. Heck, even the NCAA Men’s Lacrosse D1 Final isn’t until tomorrow.
The upcoming NBA Finals is intriguing though, with a Celtics-Laker rematch of the 2008 Finals. Despite having home-court advantage and Kobe Bryant, it’s unclear who is the favorite in this series. While seemingly challenged in the Western Conference, the Lakers haven’t gone more than 6 games this year. It also feels like they have a bit more talent than the Celtics. Meanwhile, the Celtics have been on a roll and their defense has rounded back into 2008 form.
I’ll take the Lakers winning it in a close game 7, although I’m a little nervous going against Tim Legler, who has the Celtics in 6. He’s been on target with his predictions much of the postseason.
And after my whining about the weakness of this year’s NBA playoffs, things got a little more exciting, but not much. The Suns provided 2.5 exciting games. The Magic saved face by avoiding the sweep and added one overtime victory, but got schooled in Game 6. Still an eminently forgettable post-season, unless we get 3 or 4 overtimes in the Finals.