Sports May 30, 2010

The NBA finals are set. After both teams started to stumble and blow their leads, the Lakers and Celtics will play each other in the finals again. I thought the Magic would claim the series and come all the way back after they were able to force a game 6. It would have been the second time in a month a Boston team had blown a 3-0 lead. A big reason the Magic didn't make the finals was their consistency of play. They were sloppy against the Bobcats but managed to win. They dominated the Hawks, but then they went down 3-0 on the Celtics. They did play well to get back 2 games, but not so well in the last one. If they want to win a Finals, they have to play well a lot longer.

What about Halladay throwing a perfect game? Its the second time this month, by far the shortest time between two perfect games. There have also been 3 no- hitters so far this season, and its not even the end of May. This all happens with luck. Remember a stretch between Randy Johnson's perfect game and Anibal Sanchez's no hitter more than two years later. That spanned a good part of three seasons in which no one threw a no- hitter, much less a perfect game. Now, we have had three (including Mark Buehrle's last year), within five baseball months. That's ridiculous.

The National League also looks very tight this year. There are 9 teams within 5 games of a wildcard berth. I know its May and several teams will drop out as the year progresses, but this has to be exciting. Thats more than half of the league in contention. It might not matter, as the wildcard teams are often times much worse than the division winners. However, every year since the turn of the century, either a wild card team or a team that missed the postseason the year before won a penant.