Knicks make it to second round of Playoffs!

The New York Knicks won their first playoff series since the 1999-2000 season. The Knicks were able to beat the Boston Celtics in six games. The Knicks had a commanding 3-0 lead on the series before losing two straight games. With the series on the line and the momentum in the Celtics hands, the Knicks found a way to overcome this and win the series on the road. At a point in the game the Knicks were up by twenty-six points and the Celtics were able to score nineteen unanswered points to force the game to a four-point game. The Knicks were eventually able to stop the run and eventually hold the Celtics off but it was a very scary moment from a Knicks fan perspective.

Why the Knicks were able to pull off the win:

The main reason why the Knicks were able to win this game on the road last night was because of their stellar defense. The Knicks as an entire team were swarming the ball and were not giving any room for the Celtics to get off any shots. This was the case for the most of the game except for that huge run by the Celtics in the forth quarter. Knicks Guard/Forward Iman Shumpert was the fuel to the Knicks the entire night. Shumpert, since coming off his injury has been playing better and better every night he plays. Last night showed that the “Old” Iman Shumpert is coming back and this is great for the Knicks. Shumpert is a lock down defender and is the fire starter for the Knicks defense. Shumpert has pride in his defense and when he makes a great play on defense, it catches on with the rest of the team and they play great defense as a whole. If the Knicks want to go deep into these playoffs, they will need Shumpert leading the team on defense.

 

The Knicks now will be playing the Indiana Pacers in the second round and this series will start on Sunday May 5th. This will be a great series since the Knicks and Pacers have a little rivalry with each other from years past. This seems like a series the Knicks can win, but only the Knicks will be able to show us that. I cannot wait for this series to start and watch the Knicks advance.

If the Jets Trade Darrelle Revis

 

There are rumors going around the NFL that the New York Jets are going to trade Darrelle Revis. If the Jets do this trade, they will in fact be the laughing stock of the NFL. How can they trade their only great player? Revis is the great building piece for a team. He RIGHT NOW is the best corner back in the NFL and he can shut down any receiver in the NFL. The only way I can understand the Jets trading Revis is if he holds out again! Revis should not do this, since he just suffered an ACL tear in his knee. Revis wants to be the highest played corner back in the NFL, and I don’t blame him. The only thing wrong with this is; do the Jets have the money to pay him? And as of right now, the answer to this question is NO.

NBA Season is finally here!

The NBA season is finally upon us and started on Tuesday, October 30th. The raining Champions the Miami Heat received their rings on open night and took on the Boston Celtics. The Heat were able to win on their opening game and LeBron James was able to get a double-double and barely played in the second half of the game because of leg cramps. The Heat looked great, and so did the Celtics. Both I think will be great teams this year. The Heat will be great because of their star power and also their great bench and defense. The Celtics will most likely be a good team but not as good as the Heat (obviously). The Celtics looked pretty solid on defense and I believe the Celtics will go as far as Rajon Rondo goes. He needs to be the main player on that team and take it over for them for them to be great again.

The Los Angeles Lakers and the Dallas Mavericks played the other great game on opening night. The Lakers had one of the best off seasons a team had since probably the Heat did a few years ago. The Lakers were able to acquire Dwight Howard from the Orlando Magic, Steve Nash from the Phoenix Suns and were able to keep their all-star forward Pau Gasol in the process. The Lakers might have lost this game to the Mavericks, who were without Dirk Nowitzki and Chris Kaman, but I think they just need some time to figure out how the team is going to work just like the Heat needed to do. The reason why the Lakers got Steve Nash was to run the offense, so why did they have Kobe Bryant take the ball up the court most of the time? They need Nash to run that offense and need Kobe to take the back seat if they want to go to the Finals again. Kobe is still an elite player, but if he wants this team to be great and actually work, he needs to learn how to be a team player and not have the ball in his hand every possession.

The actual first game of the season was the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Washington Wizards, who did not have John Wall. It was a decent game, but not too much to be said. The only noteworthy thing from this game is that both teams could be serious contenders in the future. Also, Kyrie Irving shows that he is, and will be an elite player in the NBA and I am really excited to see how great he becomes.

Another headline from the second day of games is interesting also. The Oklahoma City Thunder recently traded their sixth man of the year James Harden to the Houston Rockets a few days ago. In his debut for the Rockets, Harden went off! Harden was able to score 37 points, grab 6 rebounds, dish 12 assists, and steal the ball 4 times. Everyone did not think he would be able to the guy on a team. But apparently Harden thought otherwise. He looked like he could be the guy on a team and as of right now I have to believe him because of the way he played. Harden and Jeremy Lin could be a pretty solid duo in the next few years to come.

My season picks for the Champion and Season Awards:

Finals Pick: Thunder vs Heat (2012 Re-match) and I believe the Heat will win again. LeBron James is just too amazing and he can do it all. Kevin Durant will but up a great fight and will make this series closer than it was last year, but it just is not enough for this year.

MVP: LeBron James – he showed us again, that he is no joke and that he is the best all-around player in the NBA. He is a freak of nature and I do not see him losing a beat from last year and the summer olympics.

Rookie of the Year: Anthony Davis – Davis was the first pick in this years draft, and I do believe he can be a force in the NBA. He has all the skills you want in a big man besides size. Even without size I think he will be great and a very great player for years to come.

Defensive Player of the Year: Dwight Howard – I believe since Dwight seems like he wants to play for the Lakers, I think he will become Dwight Howard of old and just dominate on the defensive side of the ball. All of this also goes with his health, which I think is behind him.

 

Jets win, but lose at the same time

Yesterday the New York Jets played the Miami Dolphins and won by the score of 23-20 in OT. The Jets might have won the game, but it was not pretty at all. Mark Sanchez seemed to struggle all game except for the random plays that went for huge gains. Sanchez completed 46% of his passes (21/45) and had two interceptions and was able to record one touchdown with 306 total yards. It was decent numbers put up for Sanchez besides the completion percentage. Sanchez has to start making better decisions to make it in the NFL because too many times he throws the ball when it should not be thrown and he does not throw the ball many times when it should be. Sanchez also needs to work on his down field throwing. Too many times he has a receiver down the field and he over throws them almost every time. Sometimes overthrowing is fine, but he consistently overthrows receivers and needs to be able to connect on long passes.

Two solid WRs that had great games where Santonio Holmes and Jeremy Kerley. Holmes was able to catch nine passes for 147 yards on sunday. Holmes looked really great against the Dolphins and looked like the number one receiver for the Jets finally. Kerley had an explosive play for huge yards and had another great game in his break out year. He was also able to record a touchdown and that is his second touchdown of the season.

All in all the Jets offense was alright but of course was not great. The receivers need to be able to catch the ball on a regular basis. Too many drops have been happening and can really kill any momentum on a drive. Another area the Jets need to work on is their offensive line and their protection of the quarterback. Through out the game Mark Sanchez is constantly on the move and has to evade pressure. If the offense wants to be more like week one then they will need to protect Mark and give him enough time to think, react, and then throw the ball effective. Which he has not been able to do a whole lot of during the past few weeks. The Jets also need a tight end to step up while Dustin Keller is out with an injury. When Keller is on the field, the Jets offense is way more smooth and looks a lot better with Keller in the lineup. Keller is Sanchez’s favorite target and is very reliable in the offensive game and can block pretty well too. If the Jets get Keller back I believe the Jets will look way better on offense since he is a huge part of their offense.

The Jets defense more or less played horrible in my opinion, besides the pick-six by LaRon Landry. All throughout the game, the Dolphins rookie QB was able to complete passes all day whenever he wanted too. Once Revis left the game, it got even worse. They kept attacking Revis’s backup Kyle Wilson. Wilson is in his third season and is used to playing as the third string cornerback. He will need to play out of his mind while Revis is out of the Jets are in major trouble. Another thing the Jets NEED to do is get pressure on the quarterback! They do not get pressure on the quarterback like they used too. Too many times in the game the other teams quarterback gets way too much time to throw the ball and no matter who’s defense, a player eventually gets open. One of the biggest things in the NFL about defense is the ability to get to the quarterback and the Jets just do not seem like they can do that on a regular basis.

Now for the biggest news for the Jets on sunday. This is the injury of Darrelle Revis. Revis tore his ACL in Sundays game while running down the field. No other player was involved when Revis was hurt, which is a good thing, but also not that good since arguably the best defensive player in the NFL was hurt on that play. While Revis was on the ground, he looked in serious pain and with a torn ACL, pain is definitely normal for that situation. Revis will be out for the remainder of the season, and that is a huge blow for this Jet team. The Jets will have to play better defense while Revis is out and without Revis this defense plays much worse. With this injury, this might be the end of their season unless someone can step up and produce a fraction of what Revis brought to the field. It is going to be interesting how the Jets’ defense plays without him and my feeling is that they won’t be the same until he returns.

This is what the Jets are going to be missing with Revis out:

 

New York Jets save TDs for regular season

 

The New York Jets played the Buffalo Bills on the opening week of the NFL season. There was much speculation on the Jets for their lack of offense in the preseason where the only touchdown came by their third string quarter back in the last preseason game. In the preseason the Jets looked pathetic on the offensive side of the ball. They could not do much at all whenever it came down to it.

When the game started, Mark Sanchez looked like a completely different quarterback. He and the Jets offense actually started to throw the ball, weird right? It looked like a completely different team then the one that played in the preseason and for us Jets fans, this might be a good thing to come and you should be excited on what you saw today. But do not get too excited because they did play the Bills and we cannot be too sure if they are a horrible team or just an average team, but either way, the Jets looked solid on offense and especially on defense!

Mark Sanchez threw an interception early in the game but it was not completely his fault. Mark was running towards the sideline and decided to throw the ball to the tight end on a shovel pass but the tight end was not expecting the pass and tipped the ball in the air for the interception. Besides that, Mark looked like a quarterback built for the NFL. He was making passes down the field, sounded like he was changing the play on the line from what he saw what the defense was giving him. All in all he made me feel like we can count on him this year. (And I am one of the biggest haters on Sanchez, but from today he made me believe in him, but that can change in a heart beat!)

Key players in this game were Mark Sanchez, Jeremy Kerley, Stephen Hill, and the entire Jets defense. Mark finally looked like an NFL quarterback today and looks very promising. Seems like Tebow can make Mark work and actually play well. A main spark in today’s game was wide receiver Jeremy Kerley. Kerley had a receiving touchdown and also a punt return for a touchdown which no Jet has done in a long time. Kerley can be a very big part of this offense throughout the season because of his slot present and his ability to return punts. Another big performance today was from the Jets second round pick in Stephen Hill. Hill is a big, tall, and speedy wide receiver that the Jets have been looking for. Hill had 89 receiving yards and caught two touchdown passes. I believe he can be a huge playmaker for the Jets this season as long as they keep with the passing game. Now for the main reason I think the Jets did so well today because they gave the offense great opportunities, but do not get me wrong, the offense looked great as well. The Jets defense was unstoppable today. They looked ready for anything coming their way. Their three best corner backs in Darrelle Revis, Antonio Cromartie, and Kyle Wilson all had interceptions and Cromartie had a defensive touchdown.

All in all, the Jets looked great but we need to see the next coming weeks to see if they are legitimate. The main thing from today is that they can throw the ball and should stick with it if they want to become dominating. They should not get rid of the running game at all, but definitely should keep the amount of passing going. Their defense is solid just like every year and that is not a concern from week one. I am excited to see how the rest of the season goes because I am extremely pleased from todays game and was proud wearing my Jets apparel today. LETS GO JETS! J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS!

 

Dwight Howard a Laker through a four team trade

A few days ago the Los Angeles Lakers made a huge trade for center Dwight Howard. The way they got the best center in the league is through a four team trade including the Lakers, Magic, 76ers, and the Nuggets. The notable player that moved are, Andrew Bynum went to the 76ers, Andre Iguodala went to the Nuggets and the Magic got many players and draft picks from each team. Looks like mostly every team came out with a good deal besides the Magic.

Los Angeles Lakers                                                                                                                                                                  Grade: A+                                                                                                                                                                                               The reason I give the Lakers a A+ grade is because they did go from the second best center in the NBA to the best. So that in it self seems like an automatic win. But since they were able to keep Pau Gasol, this trade makes 110% sense for the Lakers. Their starting lineup is on paper, almost unstoppable. Thier starting five include; Steve Nash at point guard, Kobe Bryant at shooting guard, Metta World Peace (Ron Artest) at small forward, Pau Gasol at power forward, and Dwight Howard at center. Every player has been to an all-star game and are all very respected in the NBA for their game. They also have Antawn Jamison coming off the bench who is also a very respectable player in his own. This move makes so much sense for the Lakers and it is still amazing that they were able to pull this off. Steve Nash has way to many options to give the ball too, and with his talent, it’s going to be scary to see how he can make this all work.

Philadelphia 76ers                                                                                                                                                                   Grade: B+                                                                                                                                                                                                The reason I give the 76ers a B+ is because they completely upgraded at the center position with Andrew Bynum, and also was able to add another three-point specialist in Jason Richardson (from Magic). With Andrew Bynum, the 76ers now have the second best center in the game today. Which is a total upgrade from Spencer Hawes. Even though the 76ers lose Andre Iguodala, I still believe that acquiring Bynum is great for the team. This addition makes the 76ers better, and they were a great young team last year to begin with. The only way this trade might back fire for the 76ers is if Andrew Bynum does not sign with them long-term after this season. Overall great trade and will be nice to see this young team for the next few years become great.

Denver Nuggets                                                                                                                                                                          Grade: A-                                                                                                                                                                                                The reason for the A- grade is because the Nuggets just have a nice, unselfish, deep team that will be hard to beat. Andre Iguodala is a perfect fit for the Nuggets because he does not need to have the ball in his hand and he does everything right. He is the ideal player for the Nuggets to get and I believe he will be great in Denver. Denver is still deep and is very strong on both sides of the ball. The Nuggets will basically be the same team they were this year and it was a great idea to get Iguodala since he will fit perfectly with them.

Orlando Magic                                                                                                                                                                           Grade: F                                                                                                                                                                                                  The reason for the F is, the Magic should have been able to get so much for one of the best players in the NBA. For what they got for him is almost disrespectful to Dwight Howard. This is what they got in the trade: Arron Afflalo, Al Harrington, first-round pick in 2014, second-round pick in 2013 (from Nuggets); Nikola Vucevic, Moe Harkless, conditional first-round pick (from 76ers); Josh McRoberts, Christian Eyenga, conditional first-round pick in 2017, conditional second-round pick in 2015 (from Lakers). Compared to what they traded away, they should have gotten way more than what they got. Earlier in the week it was rumored that the Magic would get Pau Gasol. That makes more sense because at least they would get an all-star caliber player for Dwight Howard. But what they got makes absolutely no sense. Their roster now is basically full of just role players. No superstars what so ever (at least in my mind). Hopefully in the next couple of years they will be able to attract free agents because they need the most help they can get. It will be interesting how the Magic play next year since the Dwight Howard mess is finally over with.

That is my analysis of the whole trade and their was obvious winners and losers from the trade and it will be interesting how this changes the NBA playoff picture now. Are the Lakers the best team now? Only time and actual play will tell.

Mike Trout. Rookie of the year and MVP?

Mike Trout is an Outfielder for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Trout has just recently turned 21 and he seems to be the favorite for the American League Rookie of the Year and also possibly the American League Most Valuable Player. Ever since the Angles called up Trout to the Majors, the Angels finally became a power house in the American League like everyone thought they would be in the beginning of the year. Trout is the definition of a five tool player. Trout has speed, can hit for average and power, a great glove, a great throwing arm. It seems like Trout will be a superstar for many years to come. He seems to love the game and seems willing to do whatever it takes to be an all time great and to have fun all at the same time. Mike Trout also happens to be one of my favorite players in the MLB because it does seem like he can be great for a long time to come and I want to be able to follow his career to its fullest. It would be great to see a Rookie of the Year/MVP in one year because it has only been done two other times in the history of the MLB. It will be very exciting how Mike Trout, Albert Pujols, and Mark Trumbo will do for the Angels in the upcoming years. It could possibly become as one of the best 1-2-3 punches of all time. But only time can tell, so keep tune to Mike Trout and the Angels in the upcoming years.