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Bees, en masse

Did you hear about this one? 60,000 plus angry bees unleashed on the 18th hole of Waterchase Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas?

You think Angry Birds are a problem? Try bees. Yes, they sure did cancel the final eighteen holes of tournament. The University of Texas-Arlington men's golf coach Jay Rees was stung near his eye, several other bystanders were also stung. When a beekeeper was called to the course, it was found that a beehive had fallen from a tree branch above the 18th green, and split open. According to Coach Rees, the beekeeper recommended cancellation.

They took the professional advice and shut it down.

NFL Preview thoughts

The Clarion Content is a dangerous source for predictions. We would almost recommend betting in directly opposition with our thoughts, save for this is what we are indeed thinking. This year we have had time for even less research than we have done in some years past, some sports talk radio, a podcast here or there, Grantland is about the sum total of it. Henceforth, we will only have a sentence or two about most teams, and for some even less.

NFC East

Dallas Cowboys
We agree with former Super Bowl winning Cowboys QB Troy Aikman that it is put up or shut up time for this core group of players. Gut instinct feel, this team collapses, they break it up and start over with a high draft pick. Last year's start was indicative, not a fluke.

New York Football Giants
We keep hearing how banged up they are on the defensive side of the ball. Eli Manning threw a ton of interceptions last year. This feels like a down year for the G-Men.

Philadelphia Eagles
They have assembled a defense of stars this year. But the offense looks vulnerable, lucky for them the NFC East looks very mediocre this year. Michael Vick has always been fragile. The Eagles wideouts are small and injury prone. Andy Reid is a horrible game manager and an even worse play caller. The Eagles consistent failure to develop a running game will see them come up short of the ultimate prize. (This must all sound so familiar to Donovan.)

Washington Redskins
Well, they got rid of Albert Haynesworth. But aren't they going with Rex Grossman at quarterback? We have never believed in Mike Shannahan.

NFC North

Green Bay Packers
The Super Bowl champs look great. We like Bill Simmons theory that the NFL lockout actually helped ameliorate the typical Super Bowl hangover. The Packers weren't feted the way most champs are. Did it help keep them hungry?

Detroit Lions
Apparently, it was Matt Millen, not ownership after all. The Lions are poised for a breakout season. Ndamukong Suh looks like he could be the defensive MVP. The only question mark is quarterback Matt Stafford.

Chicago Bears
We do not believe in Jay Cutler, we never have. They still have no number one wideout. We like Coach Lovie Smith. Is the defense aging? .500 at best...

Minnesota Vikings
It is just not going to be a happy career for Donovan McNabb... Maybe, maybe if Adrian Peterson stays healthy all year, their season will be less than disastrous.

NFC South

Atlanta Falcons
They are a chic Super Bowl pick. We like, not love, Matt Ryan. We think Julio Jones will eventually be an asset, but the lockout didn't help him. And what about their cornerbacks? Up to the task? This team takes a step back.

Carolina Panthers
The biggest question facing the Panthers this season is what position Cam Newton will play after the Panthers draft Andrew Luck. Tight-end? The Panthers resigned the stars of their 2-14 team. They still have no #2 wide receiver. We think Duke Blue Devil football wins more games than the Panthers this season. 0-6 in the division seems certain.

New Orleans Saints
Darren Sproles is the perfect Reggie Bush replacement and might even be an upgrade. Drew Brees is a wizard. We will take brains over brawn every day.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Nobody believes in Tampa quarterback Josh Freeman more than Bill Simmons, not his mom, not his coach... There must be a reason. We haven't seen enough to make up our minds on young Mr. Freeman. The Bucs appear to be the classic case of a team that suddenly faces a harder schedule and backs up. They are in a tough division.

NFC Worst

Arizona Cardinals
Kevin Kolb reminds us of the illustrious Scott Mitchell. Did they get worse defensively? This division is so bad that anything is possible.

San Francisco 49ers
If not for Alex Smith we would pick them to run away with this division. Why are they still sticking with Alex Smith? Andy Dalton would lead this team to a division title. Graham Harrell could probably be plucked from the Packers practice squad and lead this team to a division title. (We are assuming 7 and 9 will be enough again to win the West again.)

Seattle Seahawks
When did they give up on Charlie Whitehurst? Tavaris Jackson couldn't hack it in Minnesota with Adrian Peterson and a good o-line. What is he going to do here?

St. Louis Rams
We are not sold on Sam Bradford. Stephen Jackson is a useful asset. Do they have enough other offensive weapons? Says here no.


Division winners: Philadelphia, Green Bay, New Orleans, other
Wild Cards: Tampa Bay and Detroit

Conference Champ: New Orleans


Drew Brees is a winner on and off the field


AFC East

Buffalo Bills
We like quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick. They need to find ways to utilize C.J. Spiller. Receiver Steve Johnson has skills too. The Bills are improving in a tough division.

Miami Dolphins
Bad ownership is destabilizing the franchise by undermining the head coach. We don't think Chad Henne is the problem, he might even be okay eventually, but not in this trainwreck of a situation. Brandon Marshall needs the departed Ricky Williams to tutor him in the way of karma.

New England Patriots
Why is everyone so enamoured with Belichek and company signing a bunch of aging defenders? Because the Junior Seau addition worked out so well? If these were the Al Davis led Raiders they would be getting killed for the same additions. Lucky for the New England defense, Tom Brady is on the other side of the ball.

New York Jets
Mark Sanchez is not getting any better. He looks great on a poster, less so on the field. Can the Ryan and the Jets defense carry them to the playoffs again?

AFC North

Baltimore Ravens
The last hurrah or the beginning of the other shoe dropping? We like the offense. This is the year the Anquan Boldin signing pays off. Ray Rice is dominant. Ricky Williams is a good change-up The o-line is pretty solid. Joe Flacco is a winner. Can the defense do its part? Is the window still open? Just maybe.

Cincinnati Bengals
We like quarterback Andy Dalton. And the Bengals won't be as bad as people think, oh they'll be bad all right, just not as bad as people think. Andy Dalton wants no part of the Andrew Luck sweepstakes. (Although, maybe he should, as it would hasten his departure from the black hole that is Bengal land.)

Cleveland Browns
This is a team headed in the right direction. We like what Colt McCoy showed last year. They have some weapons on offense. But, the top of the division is amongst the NFL's elite. So .500 appears to be a best case scenario.

Pittsburgh Steelers
Everyone is talking about the Ravens aging defense, but the Steelers are actually older. In fact, we heard they are going to start the oldest defense of this millennium. James Harrison had two off-season surgeries. Predator Ben Roethlisberger and the offense will likely drag them into the playoffs, and if they do, anything can happen.

AFC South

Houston Texans
It doesn't seem like even Gary Kubiak could screw this up. No Payton Manning? Could he and the Texans get a bigger gift? If they don't win the title this year, he gets fired and they break the thing up.

Indianapolis Colts
The Colts season changed when Payton Manning got injured. Kerry Collins is a joke. The rest of the roster is less than talented. Even stud defensive ends Mathis and Freeney are less valuable on a team that does not have the lead all the time. We are, however, the last sports page in America to believe in Curtis Painter. In Purdue's Joe Tiller we trust, it says here if Painter gets the keys in time, he leads a late charge for a Wild Card berth that comes up just short.

Jacksonville Jaguars
Well, until they shocked us by cutting David Garrard last week, we were predicting the Jags would win the division. We like head coach Jack Del Rio. He has moxie. Maurice Jones-Drew has enough heart for three men. But what other talent is on the roster? On a team now led by a journeyman quarterback? No playoffs for them.

Tennessee Titans
We cannot believe the Titans were dumb enough not to be able to retain either Vince Young or Jeff Fisher. In this mess of a division, keeping just one of them might have been enough to get the team to the playoffs this season. Then again, maybe it is a better to bottom out and get into the Andrew Luck sweepstakes. The Titans figure to be about that bad.

AFC West

Denver Broncos
May as well play Tim Tebow, it is not like they have anything else going for them. Maybe Tebow inspires divine intervention on their behalf?? Mile High fans haven't seen back to back teams this bad since the early 70's.

Kansas City Chiefs
This is the year when Matt Cassell shows us why Tyler Thigpen and Matt Leinart have played ahead of him. K.C. got an easy schedule and lots of breaks last year. This team is backing up. We think Jamaal Charles is powerful running back, but they do not have enough weapons around him.

Oakland Raiders
We like Jason Campbell. We have believed in his leadership since his Auburn days. We love the way he throws the ball. The Raiders went 6 and 0 in the division last year. Why did they have to fire Coach Tom Cable and subvert it all? Answer: Al Davis.

San Diego Chargers
Phillip Rivers is a winner. Absent Norv Turnerm, we would be picking this team to the Super Bowl. They have a gaudy array of offensive weapons and a lousy division to beat up on. How will they find a way to lose in the playoffs this year? No idea, but we can't wait to find out.

Division winners: New England, Baltimore, Houston, San Diego
Wild Cards: New York Jets and Pittsburgh

Conference Champ: Baltimore Ravens


Ray Rice is a dominant force, with a defense that has one last hurrah left.

The Super Bowl winner?

Says here the New Orleans Saints and Drew Brees make it 2 out of 3, beating the Ravens of Baltimore in Ray Lewis's final game.

NFL has good guys too

The Clarion Content and many other media outlets are found of dragging the NFL and other sports leagues through the mud when one of their players does something ethically questionable. In the effort toward some kind of proportion, we want to highlight when we see something extraordinarily good, too. Regular readers of the Clarion Content's politics site, will know that our editors are suckers for a good hero story.



In this case, Baltimore Ravens rookie wideout, Tandon Doss, gave us an opportunity to both credit an NFL good deed and tell you a hero story. Indiana University alum, Doss said it wasn't his intention, he was merely thinking about a pregame meal when he strolled into 5 Guys Burgers and Fries in Baltimore's Inner Harbor.

Doss found a fight in progress. One man with a knife was holding the restaurant manager captive while another beat him. Apparent the knife wielding man had been fired in the days previous. Doss, who humbly downplayed his role, was quoted in the Baltimore-Sun, "I saw the guy on the ground bleeding, and I saw a guy on top hitting him. So I stopped it."

The manager suffered a cut on the chin. Doss said, "I mean, it was two dudes on one. I was trying to help the situation out. I broke it up."

Read more here.

Rays and Sox

We must beware the powerful Clarion Content jinx. We are noted for our ability to make the diametric opposite of what we predict come true. Thus it is always dangerous for the sports editor to predict things we wish will happen, but in this case we have to put it out there, despite the fact it is both our prediction and our desire.

The Boston Red Sox look awfully vulnerable to being caught by the Tampa Bay Rays in the race for the American League Wild Card. While Boston would appear to have a comfortable 7 and 1/2 game lead over Tampa, just last week they were ahead by 11 and 1/2 games. The Sox are increasingly banged up. Star third baseman, Kevin Youkilis has been dinged up all season and was recently put on the disabled list. Prized free agent outfielder Carl Crawford is barely hitting .250 and has a miserable 39 RBIs. The Sox offense is so meek right now, last night's line-up featured rookie Josh Reddick, he of the career 288 at-bats and 9 lifetime homers, hitting 5th. Line-ups that are that thin are more commonly associated with the Rays, than the Sox or Yanks.

However, it is not just the offense of the Red Sox that looks wobbly. The pitching staff has been battered as well, and that, pitching, is not an area either the Rays or the Yanks are vulnerable. The Rays with their pipeline to Durham have a seemingly endless supply of quality young arms. The Yanks have five solid starters and an extra $180 million dollar man, A.J. Burnett. The Red Sox conversely are trying to get by with forty-five year old knuckleballer Tim Wakefield, free agent flop John Lackey and castoff Eric Bedard holding down the back end of their rotation.

As their limp start showed, the Red Sox have holes. Those failings maybe exposed the possibility of the kind of epic Red Sox stretch collapse that hearkens back to the days of yore.

Not a proud moment

We caught this strange and ugly scene on Bill Simmons vehicle, Grantland. Georgetown University and a local Chinese team, against whom they are playing an exhibition game, got in an ugly bench clearing brawl. It lasted less than a minute, but the visuals are disturbing. The crowd boos and throws plastic water bottles when the Georgetown team exits the court. Grantland links to the Washington Post's article here, which reads like a wire report: making no attempt at explanation or understanding. Just the facts ma'am.

Was there anything else going on beyond a roughly contested basketball game here? Anything regionally or locally that was relevant? Was their a strain of anti-Americanism here?

America ought be very careful about pissing off the Chinese holders of almost all of our sovereign debt.

Free agency quick hits

The NFL's free agency flurry like many rushed decision-making processes is filled with gaffes.

We think that the Cardinals are out of their collective gourds to give up a good cover corner for the unproven Kevin Kolb, a guy who has had exactly one, big success in a meaningful game in his career to-date. Why were the Eagles and offensive guru Andy Reid so ready and willing to part with guy?

And what is up with everyone fawning of the Patriots and Belichek's swooping in and grabbing aging past their prime, big name guys? How well did that work for them with Junior Seau? In fact, what are they the new Raiders? Not only are they going old, but they are going with old dudes who are known to have bad or disruptive attitudes. When was the last time they had success doing following this route? Corey Dillon in 2004? Guess, one could argue that it worked with Randy Moss...

Anyway, we are not buying it this time.

Interesting Pujols theory

While the Clarion Content's Sports Editor was catching a game in PNC Park in Pittsburgh this month we heard an interesting theory on Albert Pujols impending free agency. The common line has been that he is going to resign with the Cardinals. Baseball's biggest spenders, the Yanks, Red Sox and Phillies are all set at first base, all have big name guys with long term contracts, Teixeira, Gonzales and Howard, respectively.

Two other big name franchises are in financial purgatory, the Mets have the Madoff mess and the Dodgers are lost in the Frank McCourt nightmare. Hence the conventional wisdom, Pujols stays in St. Louis, unless the Cubs, who have been burned badly by big time free agents, (Alfonso Soriano, anyone?) hop in from nowhere, despite new ownership and a rebuilding mindset.

But, while we were in Pittsburgh, we heard a new theory from a Pirates fan name Wish. No, it was not the Buccos themselves. Pirates fans are dreaming of the playoffs, but they haven't completely lost their minds.

How about the San Francisco Giants? The defending World Series champs could surely use some more pop in the line-up to go with all that pitching. With their beautiful China Basin ballpark and stable ownership, they have the financial resources. Having dealt with Barry Bonds, they are prepared and aware of what it is like to have a megastar in the locker room. And, as a bonus, Pujols is not known for the kind of charming personality that made Bonds so widely beloved by the media and opposing fans.

Could Albert lose his heart to San Francisco? Ever been there? Would you rather have $300 million in flyover country (St. Louis) or $270 million in the pearl of California? Interesting.

Reyes decision

A lot of style, minimal substance...

The Clarion Content is unclear on why it is so hard for the New York Mets to part ways with Jose Reyes. Reyes is a dynamic talent for sure. However, this side of Carlos Beltran no player is more closely associated with the Mets epic collapses, choke jobs and chronic underachievement. Reyes was a leader of the "Only plays hard sometimes" pack under Jerry Manuel and Omar Minaya.

In the last 2½ years, he has missed 170 games, had two hamstring injuries, a separate calf injury, surgery on a torn hamstring tendon, a hyperactive thyroid and a strained oblique. He has failed to play 150 games in four out of his seven major league seasons. He is just the kind of guy who would have a spectacular contract year, like he is this year, and go in the tank as soon as he signs for big bucks.

The Mets should part ways with Reyes, Beltran, and the core of the Minaya flops. David Wright is a piece to build around, Jose Reyes is fool's gold.

Tiger, it is like that...

For Tiger Woods, has it gotten to that point?



Word is Tiger is doing commercials in Japan. Entourage fans will know how low that likely means the cashflow is. Tiger is selling back rub, some kind of Japanese Ben Gay. He has lost endorsement deals from Gillette, Accenture, Tag Heuer, and Gatorade in the last two years.

Tiger reportedly had to dole out approximate $100 million for his divorce settlement. Who knows how liquid that left him? Yahoo estimates his endorsement deals have dropped from in the neighborhood of $75 million a year to more like $20 million. His golf earnings have also dipped from the low eight figures annually to under a million dollars year to date.

Read more here.

Map of Baseball Caps

This awesome illustration maps the history of baseball cap logos from the 1950's forward, from the team with most, the A's, to the team with the fewest, the Yankees.

A grateful thank you to one of our Chicago readers, the Cleary Man, for sending this our way. Much obliged! View it full sized here.

NBA Draft talent

The Clarion Content can't comment on the Europeans leaguers and other global b-ballers who were drafted by NBA franchises the other night in what Bill Simmons says will be remembered as the "Foreigner Draft."



The Clarion Content does have some strong opinions on the players that got drafted, starting with Kyrie Irving. Word out of Duke is that he is a strong character kid, hope so, because it is very tough to get drafted number one overall by the franchise that lost LeBron when you have played less than twenty college basketball games and don't have the body of NFL defensive end. We think Irving becomes a successful pro, with a reasonable NBA career, never quite an all-star, but a nice blend of some of the skills of say Mo Cheeks and Vinny, "Microwave" Johnson. Good distributor, streaky hot shooter, small defender who has to play the point or is a sixth man, a 3rd guard.

We would rate him a the fourth best NBA career arc coming out of this draft. Number one we like Nolan Smith of Duke and now the Portland Trail Blazers. A leader with guts and heart, Smith is a tenacious battler who will win off the dribble and be able to get his own shot, even against much bigger players. He is unselfish to a fault and this will lead him to even greater heights in the NBA than he reached in college.

Number two we like, Derrick Williams. The guy can score. He can play the three or the four in today's NBA. He is the anti-Michael Beasley, who the Clarion Content warned about before he was drafted, Williams is level-headed and a diligent worker. Unfortunately, he got drafted by a team that is schizophrenic. They have Beasley, are run by Kahn, are dangling their coach Kurt Rambis from a meat hook, haven't integrated Ricky Rubio... etc. We do like Kevin Love.

We agree with the Spurs about Kawhi Leonard, whom we rate as the number three NBA career in this draft. Guys who have little help in college don't look as good as they are because of the focus the other team's defense and coaching put into stopping them individually. This same issue applies to another guy who will definitely have a long NBA career, Jimmer Fredette. Other teams keyed on him constantly, built their defensive game plans around stopping him, and the guy still scored with minimal quality help around him. These kind of guys succeed in the pros. Steph Curry anyone? The difficulty is identifying them.

We rate Leonard above Kyrie Irving, Fredette below. Time will tell how good our eyes was.

Top College Draft Prospects 20111

1) Nolan Smith, Duke
2) Derrick Williams, Arizona
3) Kawhi Leonard, San Diego State
4) Kyrie Irving, Duke


Kawhi Leonard

Johnny Damon, Hall of Famer?

Some regular readers accuse the Clarion Content of having a too expansive criterion for selection to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. It is a claim we vociferously dispute. Jim Rice, Tony Perez, Bert Blyleven and Andre Dawson were all deserving. We did not, however, support the candidacies of Dennis Eckersely or Kirby Puckett, simply to cite a few examples on both sides. The borderline cases, of course, produce the most debate.

It is with interest then that we read a note from the Associated Press this morning about an exclusive club Mr. Johnny Damon joined last night while batting for the gritty Tampa Bay Rays. Damon doubled down the leftfield line and became the 11th player in baseball history to have 500 doubles, 100 triples, 200 homers and 2,500 hits. All the others, a prestigious list including names like Musial, Gehrig, Ruth and Brett, are in the Hall of Fame.

Is Johnny Damon a Hall of Famer? It is a fascinating question to ponder for the next few years.

Nowiztki

Defending Dirk Nowiztki? It is a tough job both for opposing players and for the player's supporters. Undoubtedly Nowiztki has been great in these playoffs, and his numbers are those of a Hall of Fame career.

Also indisputably, in the biggest moment of this season's playoffs so far for Dallas, Nowiztki had the ball twice in the last thirty seconds of a tie game in a tied seriess. Sandwiched around a missed LeBron James three pointer, Nowiztki turned the ball over, throwing it out of bounds, and missed his signature step back sixteen footer.

Tough to defend a guy with a reputation as a shrinking violet when he does that...

The team that has won Game Three has won the last eleven NBA Finals, all of them since the league switched to the unbalanced 2-3-2 format.

Atlanta Hockey is no more

The Clarion Content has long derided the National Hockey League for its move into warm weather United States cities. Locally, the Carolina Hurricanes have been the exception to the rule. The exception proves the rule? Bringing the Clarion Content's northeastern Original Six hockey biases to the table, we have never bought into hockey in warm places. This is the national sport of Canada. This week the NHL agreed.

The Atlanta Thrashers were the weakest warm weather franchise this side of the Phoenix Coyotes (in bankruptcy and league receivership while sucking money out of the City of Glendale). True North Sports & Entertainment bought the Atlanta franchise and is moving it to Winnipeg, Manitoba. The underlying premise? Canada loves hockey. How much? Winnipeg sold out its 13,000 season ticket plans almost immediately.

Atlanta is lukewarm about all of its sports teams. The team was 28th in attendance in a 30 team league. Hockey doesn't play well in warm weather cities. Only one warm weather city is in the top half of the league in attendance, though to be fair San Jose, just outside the top half, plays to sellout crowds.

Bottom line, this was an obvious move for the league.

Next up what Canadian city takes the Phoenix Coyotes?

Another World Series

Ruth as a Red Sox

The Clarion Content and the Sports Editor are familiar with the story of the Chicago Black Sox and the fixed 1919 World Series. We imagine many of our readers are as well. But had you heard the tale about the 1918 World Series between Babe Ruth's Boston Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs? We hadn't either.

The New York Times had a fascinating article in its sports pages over the weekend (and fortunately we are not over our article allotment yet). The Times, relying heavily on a book by Sean Deveney called "The Original Curse," detailed the case that the Cubs threw the 1918 World Series. It centers around Cubs rightfielder Max Flack, the only man ever to get picked off-base twice in a single World Series game. In the same game, Flack also misplayed a Babe Ruth flyball into a triple by playing excessively shallow. In the final World Series game, Flack dropped a routine, two-out, can of corn, to right field in the fourth inning; his error allowed both Boston runs to score in the clinching 2-1 victory, a four games to one Sox triumph.

The NY Times reports there was strangely no celebration on the field. America's entry World War I was the big story, the following baseball season had been put on hold and most players assumed they would be drafted. Attendance was down. The economy was wobbly. World Series payout shares were going to be less than half of what had been anticipated. Conditions for a fix were ripe.

Anecdotal evidence from convicted Chicago Black Sox pitcher Eddie Cicotte, indicated that several of his co-conspirators discussed the Cubs having been offered $10,000 per man to fix the 1918 Series.

All the principals are long dead and there is no more than Cicotte's words and the circumstantial evidence of Flack's failures. It is still an interesting story. Read more here.

Baseball Attendance

Word is Major League baseball attendance is lagging yet again. The moribund economy has done the game no favors. This, in combination with the struggles of a couple of major market teams, has pushed figures downward. The Los Angeles Times is reporting that through their first eighteen home games, the Dodgers averaged 36,672 spectators, which is a 16.5% drop from the same point in the season last year. The New York Mets, playing poorly and embroiled in the Madoff scandal, are also way down in attendance. Fannies coming through the turnstiles are even lower than the paid attendance figures that the Mets are reporting.

There are also a couple of smaller market teams who doing well whose public has yet to buy into their success, most notably Cleveland, but also Florida and Kansas City. Expectations are low and attendance has been still lower.

Tweet of the Night

From our buddies Petros and Money on the radio... Matt "Money" Smith got off the Tweet of the Night as the Lakers were going down in flames to fall behind the Mavs 3-0.

Think Peja is getting texted up by J-Will, Vlade, Doug Christie, C-Webb and Rick Adlemann right about now?

We are betting, yes, definitely yes.

Baseball, its punchless

While we at the Clarion Content love the new pitching heavy, post-steroids era of baseball, we have to acknowledge it sure is different. No more Punch and Judy second basemen hitting twenty-five homers in a season, same goes for the seventh place hitter in the line-up, no mas de 100 RBI seasons for a hack hitting that low in the order.

Just how much has the balance of power swung back to the pitchers? Last night's game between the White Sox and the Twins featured seven starters with batting averages under .200, three for the White Sox and four for the Twins.

Against this fierce line-up, the Twins Francisco Liriano pitched the first no-hitter of the season and according to the Elias Sports Bureau the first no-no ever by someone named Francisco.

Notes from the Heat's win

Who is the more self-absorbed jerk here...

A couple of notes from the Miami Heat's closeout win over the 7th seeded Philadelphia 76ers last nights. Philly was a .500 team in the comparitively weaker Eastern Conference of the NBA. Miami beat them 4 to 1 in the series and by six points last night. A couple of notes for basketball insider from the game: LeBron James no field goals and only three points in the fourth quarter. Delonte West not only stole his Mom, but his mojo, too. The Heat, as a team, no field goals in the final six minutes and forty-three seconds as mediocre Philly whittled a ten point lead down to one, save for a Wade breakaway dunk in final moments after the outcome had been decided.

Very solid, Miami. Very solid. Well done. Seven titles here you come...