MY NBA All-Stars

     The starting lineups for the NBA All-Star game were announced today and seemed to be somewhat decent choices.  There's always going to be a massive amount of debate whenever a list of all-stars is released for any sport and the NBA is no different.  The reserves to the all-star teams will be announced a week from today, but I'll go ahead and include the players I believe should be named.  Instead of spamming Twitter with my choices, figure I could just make a post for it!

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Giants, 49ers, Patriots, & Ravens move on to Conference Championships

     In what was an insanely exciting weekend of playoff football, 4 teams emerged victorious and moved one step closer to going to Indianapolis for Superbowl XLVI.  Here's what went down...

- The New England Patriots demolished the Denver Tebows Broncos 45-10.  The Patriots had this game on lock, save for one 1st quarter Brady interception, the Broncos were never in this game.  The New England defense was surprisingly dominant, forcing Tebow to scramble even more so than usual as he threw for an extremely pedestrian 136 yards while only completing 9 of 26 pass attempts.  Tom Brady, on the other hand, had a record-tying performance, matching Steve Young for the most touchdown passes in a single playoff game with 6.

- The Patriots will be facing the Baltimore Ravens who took care of business against the injury riddled Houston Texans.  The Ravens won 20-13 as Houston was able to hang around with rookie quarterback T.J. Yates who struggled mightily throwing 3 interceptions against the tough Baltimore defense.  Of Yates' 184 passing yards, 111 of which went to Andre Johnson.  Arian Foster led the way for Houston's offense with a touchdown and 132 yards rushing, but it wasn't enough.  The Texans had a chance to tie it late in the 4th as they were driving down field when Yates threw an interception to safety Ed Reed who would seal the deal for Baltimore and punched their ticket to the AFC Championship game.

- In what may have been one of the greatest, if not entertaining NFL playoff games of all time, the San Francisco 49ers managed to defeat the New Orleans Saints in a back & forth nail-biter, 36-32.  The stellar 49er defense was able to force 3 turnovers in the first quarter alone against the dynamic Saints offense including a fumble recovery on their own 2 yard line after Pierre Thomas was knocked out of the game with a hit from Donte Whitner.  The 49er offense struggled through most of the game as it remained close despite the dominant showing from the San Francisco defense.  At the beginning of the 4th quarter it was 20-17 San Francisco.  That's when all the fun began.  A David Akers 37 yard field goal made it a 23-17 game with 7:36 to go which was followed up by a 44 yard touchdown pass from Drew Brees to Darren Sproles to put the Saints up 24-23 with 4:02 left in the game, just 1 of Sproles' record-breaking 15 receptions in the game.  The 49ers answered when their quarterback, Alex Smith was able to rush for a 28 yard touchdown on a 3rd & 8 with 2:11 left in the game putting San Francisco up 29-24 after a failed 2 point conversion attempt.  New Orleans answered right back as Drew Brees threw an epic pass to Jimmy Graham that ended up as a 66 yard touchdown pass down the middle, as the Saints were able to tack on the 2 point conversion making it a 32-29 game with only 1:37 left in the game.  Game over, right?  Wrong.  Alex Smith led the 49ers down the field and capped it all off with a 14 yard touchdown pass to Vernon Davis, who had 7 receptions for 180 yards & 2 touchdowns, including the game-winner with just 9 seconds left in the game.  A tearful Davis returned to the sidelines after the catch and embraced his rookie coach Jim Harbaugh in an image that will live on forever.

- The 49ers weren't the only NFC team to pull off what was perceived to be an upset this past weekend.  The best team in the regular season, Green Bay Packers who went 15-1 were defeated at home by the New York Giants 37-20.  This was a game that, surprisingly, the Giants had control for most of the way through.  The Packers defense was their downfall as Eli Manning was able to throw for 330 yard and 3 touchdowns.  The probable MVP of the regular season, Aaron Rodgers had a very pedestrian game for his standards, as he was only able to muster up 264 yards on 2 touchdowns and an interception.  Not all on him though, as his wide receivers dropped several balls that came back to bite Green Bay in the ass.  Hakeem Nicks led the way for the Giants on offense as he caught 7 passes for 165 yards and 2 touchdowns, including a 37 yard bomb to end the first half that he was able to grab in the endzone.

So we have the Ravens & Patriots and the 49ers & Giants.  Personally, I love these matchups and will be rooting for the 49ers and Ravens.  Give me a Har-BOWL!  With Jim in San Francisco and his brother John in Baltimore, this could very well be a very Harbaugh Superbowl.  This 49ers team is a hell of a lot of fun to watch and virtually impossible to root against.  Seriously, unless you're a Giants fan, I don't see why you would want to root against them next weekend.  I know I sure won't be.

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LeBron ≠ Clutch

Last night the Miami Heat lost their 2nd straight game, this time to the Los Angeles Clippers.  Some may say the Clippers won this game, but sorry, the Heat LOST it.  Absolutely atrocious play from Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade, & LeBron James led to an implosion during the 4th quarter & overtime.  The free throw shooting is what did Miami in as LeBron proved once again, late in a close game, he cannot be relied upon.  James only made 9 of 17 free throws, including missing on several key ones late in the 4th, which basically cost them the game.  It wasn't just LeBron, to be fair, as the big 3 as a whole played terribly.  Chris Bosh (6-16), Dwyane Wade (6-17), & LeBron James (7-19) all had bad shooting nights while Chris Paul played lights out for the Clippers.  This was a big road test for the Heat, playing against a good team and they didn't live up to expectations, often times screaming at the referees for more calls to go their way.  Caron Butler helped carry the Clippers in the 2nd half, lighting it up for a total of 20 points while Blake Griffin fooled around and got himself a 20 & 12 double-double.  Key defensive plays from DeAndre Jordan helped propelled the Clippers to their biggest win this year and Miami is left wondering, yet again, if LeBron's inability to close out games will be their eventual downfall.

I Like Sportz

     Alright alright, I think it's painfully obvious to everyone who knows me that I like sports.  Embrace it!  The title simply comes from The Lonely Island song "We Like Sportz" (which is phenomenal) Here's a new idea I'm gonna debut for this ol' blog, it's gonna be a daily sports rundown/musing on the recent events.  It's going to be done in the same vein as the guys over at The John Report do things.  One major headline and then several other stories.  I'll try to include all sports in the headlines and will do my best for this to be a daily thing, along with the song of the days.  So here's the first of hopefully many editions of I Like Sportz.

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Kobe!

Last night Kobe Bryant proved to everyone that, well, he's still Kobe Bryant.  He went off for 48 points against the Phoenix Suns, the highest scoring output in the short NBA season thus far.  He closed the game out, scoring 15 of the Lakers final 17 points and led the way to victory for Los Angeles.  A lot of people seem to doubt Kobe, which probably does nothing more than to motivate him to kick even more ass.  This guy is the greatest player to play in the game for the past decade and in the discussion for one of the all-time best.  The fact that there are still people doubting him year in and year out is ludicrous.  He's on a team with guys like Josh McRoberts, Troy Murphy, & Devin Ebanks playing major minutes.  More often than not, Kobe is gonna have to take over games.  It's unclear whether or not that will lead to a successful year for the Lakers, but people better be prepared to deal with a motivated and hungry Black Mamba.