Closing It Out

I figure an appropriate theme for tonight's blog post would be closing out a series. Considering how pertinent that has been to both yesterday and today in the sports world.

Game 4 between the Penguins and Hurricanes went exactly as I suspected last night. After a brief seven minute lead for Carolina the Penguins just dominated. With goals by Fedotenko, Talbot, Guerin, and Adams the Penguins once again took advantage of very poor defense and goalkeeping by Carolina. Though Cam Ward had had an outstanding Playoffs thus far for the Hurricanes his efforts were not the same against Pittsburgh, see Talbot's floater of the glove of Ward in period 1. Moving forward Pittsburgh will have a much more difficult task against the Red Wings, whom they lost to in last year's Stanley Cup Finals. I do feel that the Penguins are much improved over last year, at least mentally, but will they be able to overcome the juggernaut that is Detroit?

Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals was tonight and even though the outcome was as expected the road to it was not. The goalkeeping of both Cristobal Huet and Chris Osgood was phenomenal in the least. Props to Huet for his stop on Franzen as time expired especially considering his terrible game 4 performance. Congrats to Chicago on a good season, better luck next year. As for the Finals the Wings are going to have to get healthy with key players like Lidstrom and Datsyuk being out the last couple games. They also are going to have to watch out for Malkin and that punk Crosby. Needless to say I think the Wings in 6 again this year.

Game 4 last night in Orlando was a thing of beauty. As expected they game was a closely fought battle like most of the games thus far. Cleveland, in my opinion, played their best team game so far. They had larger scoring contributions from guys like Delonte West and Mo Williams even if they did shoot just 40% from the field. Two keys to Orlando's victory were Howard's foul shooting, which was very unHowardlike, and the smothering defense by Pietrus and Courtney Lee on LeBron. Granted, I believe that the Magic had better inside and outside play than the Cavaliers. I see Cleveland coming back and winning another nail biter at home in game 5, if for no other reason than that they will be at home. But I defiantly see Orlando closing this one out in six.

Tonight's game 5 between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Denver Nuggets allows for a chance for one on the teams to put themselves in a close out situation for game 6. The effort of both teams at times has seemed lax, with the sluggish play and questionable passes of many of the players. I like LA in this one because they are at home and I feel that in this series there has been a lot of going through the motions hoping for the win and the usually favors the home team. Before this series I had figured the Lakers would win in all but now I'm not so sure. With the way Orlando has come hard for 48 minutes a game and the solid 36 the Lakers have put out I feel the Magic are now the favorites. I'm rooting for Denver in this series if for no other reason than Chauncey Billups but my main focus thus far is on the East Series.

My efforts to provide comedy in to my post will come so stay on your toes.

"It's my first day" -Homer Simpson