Well after many many weeks, the NBA playoffs have finally got interesting. I can honestly say that I haven’t really been watching all the games from start to finish. I usually end up reading some recaps and checking the box scores to get an idea of what happened. All of the sudden both the West and the East are far from settled. Just 2 days ago it was a sure thing that the Lakers and Celtics would rematch the 2008 finals. While I still feel that is ultimately what we are going to see, I now will be very interested in watching all the games.

Game 6 in the east may as well be game 7. The Magic have home court and for some reason it took them til now to realize how to use it. If they can pull out another victory in Boston, I think they will easily advance after a game 7 at home. In the west the Lakers are still in control. The one concerning thing if you are a Laker fan has to be something that Ski mentioned in one of his posts. Kobe Bryant has been amazing the last 2 games and the Lakers still were unable to win either one of them. In the NBA, the stars always seem to get theirs but to win a championship the role players really need to play their part. This has never been more evident than in this series. With that I wanna welcome Channing Frye to the series as well.

I’m gonna go ahead and predict the Lakers and Celtics just like most others, with the Lakers repeating as champs. All I really hope for now is a few more thrilling games en route to the finals.

After getting beat by the Suns to tie the series up at 2-2 the biggest question coming out of LA isn’t how the Lakers go about slowing the Suns down, it is does Phil Jackson leave the Lakers to go to the Bulls or even the Nets.

This question was brought up during the post game news conference to Phil. He responded with a classic Zen Master response that keeps us wanting more. Asked if he would return to coach the Bulls Phil said, “he had no desire at all”. Which sounds about right since they tried to shaft him years ago by not giving him a pay raise after winning so many titles with them. When asked about maybe going to the Nets Phil had an interesting response, “I’d like to have a, you know, vodka with him at some point”, “He seems like a very interesting young man.” Most people will try to read between the lines and get that Phil is going to go to the Nets and with that Lebron will follow him there. Now I’m no idiot and I know that Phil is not going to go to New Jersey or anywhere other than the Lakers. He’s just trying to show Owner Jerry Buss that when the season ends and he thinks that he can cut his pay  that he has all these other options to fall back on if he doesn’t get what he wants. And that’s all. So sorry Guido’s of New Jersey you’re not getting Phil to head out to that shit hole and try to resurrect that terrible team.

On a side note I don’t know how Phil can be so laid back and joking after dropping 2 straight to the Suns. They have been getting beat on offense, defense, hustle and all out effort in the last 2 games. And thats with Kobe shooting just lights out these 2 games. I don’t think I have seen him in this kind of zone all season and they are still getting beat. Lets just see if Phil is still laughing when the Suns steal game 5. I’m calling it now Suns win game 5.

I’m writing this at the end of the 3rd qtr of game 2 and one thing for sure is that Suns have earned my respect. Win or lose, this team never gives up. They really have no business competing with the Lakers man for man but seem to have more heart. I didn’t see the Lebron game where he “gave up” but I can’t imagine this team ever doing something like that.

Now that I think about it a little more, it’s obvious that Steve Nash has rubbed off on all his teammates. The team represents Nash’s entire career. To think that this little tiny white guy can make the worlds best athletes look like fools is just awesome. Now that the Blazers are out of this tourny I can officially say that I’m rooting for the Suns. They’ve been very good for a long time now and this was supposed to be the year that they were taking a step back, so much for that. Guys like Channing Frye and Jared Dudley have been raining 3′s and freaking Louis Amundson brings all kinds of energy. Grant Hill looks like he did 10 years ago and Amare is just nasty (although a dumbass for saying what he did about Odom, I think  he just lucked into another double double). If you think about it none of those guys should be good NBA players yet all of them have been extremely valuable to the Suns.

Because it takes me so long to type, its now midway through the 4th and it looks like the Lakers are in control. Even with a loss tonight I’m now going to expect this series to at least come back here to LA. The Suns will feed off their home crowd and hopefully they can even this thing up.

Can it get any worse for Amare. Not only did he just get steam rolled by the Lakers and toyed with by Pau, but now he has to deal with this shit from his mom.

ESPN.com news services

Phoenix Suns forward Amare Stoudemire’s mother was arrested on Saturday in Scottsdale, Ariz., for failing to have an ignition interlock device on her vehicle, according to a report in the Arizona Republic.

Carrie Mae Stoudemire, 54, was stopped at 3:25 p.m. after her Lincoln Navigator was straddling two lanes and going 60 mph, according to the Scottsdale police report. Her eyes were “watery and glassy,” according to the officer.

Carrie Stoudemire told the officer the Navigator was rented and she was unaware she needed to have an ignition interlock device on all of her vehicles. She added that she was on her way to an alcohol class.

Police said Carrie Stoudemire’s driver’s license says she must have the device on her vehicles until Oct. 30.

After Carrie Stoudemire refused to participate in a field sobriety test, the officer handcuffed her and put her in the back seat of his patrol car.

According to the report, Amare Stoudemire and another man arrived at the scene a few minutes later. Carrie Stoudemire began to yell “Amar’e!” and asked for a lawyer.

Police said Carrie Stoudemire was charged with speeding, operating a vehicle without an ignition interlock device and failure to drive in a single lane. She was booked into the Scottsdale jail and later released.

Carrie Stoudemire has been in and out of jail throughout Stoudemire’s life for charges ranging from drunken driving to drug possession to prostitution.

If I was a Suns fan I would be very worried about any story invloving moms. Just ask Lebron how his mom helped him out in the playoffs. This really is the last thing the Suns and Amare needed right now with how great the Lakers are playing, they need to have 100% focused.

Amare already didn’t help his cause when he dropped this gem about Lamar Odom’s 19 points and 19 boards.

“I’m not giving him no hype right now; he had a lucky game in Game 1″. “We just got to make sure we box him out. I think I focused so much on Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum to where he snuck in there and got 19 boards, so now we just got to make sure there’s three guys out there that can rebound well [when] adding Odom. So, we got to do a better job on them.”

Is Amare joking here. A lucky 19 and 19. That’s absurd. You had to focus so much on Pau and Bynum that you couldn’t bother with Odom, looks like you did a great job because I remember Pau going for 21 points and scoring pretty easy every time. I thought Amare had matured enough to not make these ridiculous statements after getting throttled, but I guess I was wrong. Lock up the Lakers for a sweep because Amare is so mind fucked he will be useless the rest of the series.

After about a 5 year hiatus I’m back to being a Lakers fan for the remainder of the NBA playoffs.  This has a lot more to do with the fact the 3 teams I hate the most are playing along side them in the conference finals.  What are the odds that the 3 douchiest teams are still alive?  So now I’m forced to root for the team I idolized as a youth, and root hard, even though I abandoned them 5 years ago.  No way I want any of the following 3 teams winning the title.

#3 Orlando – D-Ho turned into a D-bag rather quickly.  His antics are not funny and neither are his commercials or self interviews.  The crowning moment of his doucheness came when he wore a hideous pink shirt with an equally hideous Mr Rodgers sweater to his press conference and proceeded to mock someone who tried to make light of the fact he looked like a fucking clown. Feel free to learn a post move sometime.  Having the waste of talent Vince Carter easily lands Orlando in my top 3 hated teams.

#2 Phoenix – Canadian douche-bag Steve Nash is the main reason I can’t stand the Suns.  Really his only crime is his love for soccer, major minus points for that, but unfortunately for him he’s victim of the media’s obsession with lily white NBA players.  His back to back MVPs are ridiculous.  You don’t see the NFL handing out MVPs to kickers do you?  PGs are like kickers.  You need one that is descent and doesn’t screw up, but they’ll never be the cornerstone of a championship team.  Steve Nash is good at what he does, but what he does is nowhere near as important as what Kobe, Shaq, D-Wade, Tim Duncan, etc.. do (did).  Eh.  Amare Stoudemire and his bug eye glasses and his lack of defense are also bothersome to me.  I don’t know how anyone can root for this glorified college team.

#1 Boston – Now it might be easy to dismiss my inclusion of Boston as the #1 D-bag team due to the fact I grew up a Lakers fan, but that would be intellectually lazy.   You see, Boston has the #1 and #2 bitches in the NBA playing for them in Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett.  Not to mention a former #1 in Rasheed Wallace.  The thing that really bothers me about Pierce and Garnett is they are damn good players, there is no need to be such bitches.  Pierce acts as if he’s in a Euro soccer league all the time, flailing around like he’s been shot only to get up and score seconds later.  It’s pathetic.  He’s one of the best scorers in the NBA and he acts like such a pussy.  By now everyone knows about Garnett’s antics.  His shtick is pathetic.  I wish this were the late 80′s/early 90′s so I could pay good money to see Charles Oakley go right up to Garnett and punch him in the face.  I do like Rondo, he’s a baller, but he can’t make up for the epic amount of doucheness of Pierce and Garnett.

Back to back days with a post from THE STER. Consider yourselves lucky because I have to listen to his shit almost every day.

The Blazers face off against the Suns in the first round of the playoffs, and my prediction is a Blazers victory in six games. You may ask why I would make such a bold prediction in a time when Brandon Roy is out for the first round with an arthroscopic knee surgery, and both twin towers Przybilla and Oden out for the season with twin patella ruptures. The bench looks like the Toons bench in Space Jam after a physical first half with the Monstars in Space Jam. Andre Miller is playing like an All-Star point guard averaging almost 16 points and 5 assists in April, and in the same month LaMarcus Aldridge averaged 22 points a game and 8 rebounds; playing like a veteran big man, both inside with an impressively fluid finesse game, and outside with his always reliable jump shot. If Portland can get contributions on the perimeter from The Spaniard Rudy Fernandez, who only played 7 minutes against Phoenix this season, this could be a fantastic series for Blazer fans. When Rudy is hot and twining the 3-ball, he reminds me of Mandy Patinkin in The Princess Bride as Inigo Montoya. It’s like he’s staring down the closing defender as he ices the three, “Hello, my name is Rudy Fernandez. You killed my father. Prepare to die.” If Miller and Aldridge can be as efficient offensively as they have been in recent days, and the Blazers can get quality backcourt play from Fernandez and role players like Jerryd Bayless (avg 12 pts/gm vs PHX) and Martell Webster (avg 8 pts/gm vs PHX), and continue their stellar play defensively against the Suns, who averaged 110 points per game this season, but managed only 98 per game in three games this season against Portland, the Blazers will win this series.