Jeff: The Monday Musings

* Is it too early to award the NBA Championship to the Mavs? The Heat were atrocious last night in their 99-85 loss to Dallas, and Heat fans can't have high hopes that the next 3 games being played in South Beach will help turn this around. My buddy Ben, who's got a great tactical mind, thought there was no way Miami would allow Dallas to dictate tempo for 7 games. Throught the first two games they haven't, yet Miami is still down 0-2. First give credit to the Mavs for this. They've been a hybrid team, able to run when they need to, and execute in the halfcourt when needed. With Dirk, Jason Terry, Josh Howard, Jerry Stackhouse, Devin Harris and Marquise Daniels, the Mavs are the best one-on-one team in basketball, and yet all of those guys are excellent in transition too. It's been a killer combination all playoffs long. Dallas' strategy looks to be to make Dwayne Wade work for his 20-30 points a night, double-team Shaq before he even thinks about touching the ball, and dare anybody else to beat them. Thus far, Miami hasn't done it, and although the Heat may take game 3 (anybody think the refs could give a couple-or thirty- calls to the Heat Tuesday night to try and make this interesting?) or 4, Dallas just looks to have too much.

* If I told you that a center in last night's game was 2-5 from the field and 1-7 from the line for 5 points, you'd probably guess it was Erick Dampier, right? Or Desagana Diop? Nope, it was Shaquille O'Neal. Think about that-- SHAQ SCORED 5 POINTS IN AN NBA FINALS GAME!!! Honestly, is this the end of the Diesel as we know him? I mean I don't care how old the guy is, he's still 7'1 and 350, and even if all 5 Mavs are draped over him like a curtain, the Big Aristotle should still score more than 5. What has happened?!?

* I do know this: Dwayne Wade is certifiably insane if he signs a contract extension with Miami this summer. Just plain crazy.

* My Mariners and the Local 9 (your Minnesota Twins) have played two series in the last 2 weeks, and there's some interesting parallels there:
Twins catcher Joe Mauer is hitting leading the world with in hitting at .386 (can somebody talk to him about the sideburns? Please? This isn't 90210) and Mariners outfielder Ichiro is 2nd at .366 (he's hitting .461 (47-102) since May 17). In the team's series last week, Mauer and Ichiro were a combined .528, and the WORST day for either of them was Mauer's 2-4 day Wednesday. Think about that. It will blow your mind!

* Twice in those series the two best young pitchers in baseball squared off: the Twinks Franisco Liriano and the M's Felix Hernandez (by the way, just a little giddy that we've seen Good Felix 2 games in a row. He absolutely dominated the Angels yesterday. King Felix has returned! King Felix has returned!) each won once, and both were essentially lights out in their performances. I was in attendance for their duel a couple of Friday's ago in the Big Giant Ugly Garbage Bag, and watched all of the rematch at the Safe last week. These two are going to be very good for a long, long time. Too bad we can't say the same about their teams!

* What's just absolutely ridiculous about Mauer right now is that he has zero protection in the Twins lineup. None. Zip. ZILCH! NADA! The Big Mountie Justin Morneau is the only Twin in the top 30 in the AL in homeruns (14) or RBI's (47)(First the Twins finally get a new stadium approved, and now a Twin could finish with 30 HR's in a season for the first time since 1987? Start building your bombshelter because there's no room in mine!). In case you're wondering, the Royals are the only other team that can make that claim. If this is the Mauer we can expect, Twins fans should start a riot if GM Terry Ryan isn't allowed to spend money on some hitting this offseason. With Mauer, Liriano and Johan Santana, Minnesota has three of the best building blocks in the bigs, and if they wait 4 years for the new stadium to start putting talent around it, they're going to be sorry.

* I'm putting together the ol' NFL preview for 2006. Last year I started strong (click on 07/2005 and scroll about 2/3rds of the way down), but ended up having to do too much in too short a time to finish. This year I'm going to start posting sooner (like say this week!) in hopes of previewing all 8 divisions.

* I've admitted before (and will again) that I'm not the greatest at predictions, but I realized even the "experts" have trouble doing this as well. Let's look at what the Big Boys picked, and compare to what actually happened in 2005:

What actually happened:
PLayoff teams (* denotes wild card)
NFC- Giants, Bears, Bucs, Hawks, Skinnies*, Panth*
AFC- Pats, Bungles, Colts, Bronch, Steelers*, Jags*
Super Bowl- Steel over Hawks.

Here's what people picked:

Sports Illustrated:
Super Bowl: Panthers over Colts
NFC: Eagles, Vikings, Panthers, Rams, Cowboys*, Falcons*
AFC: Pats, Ravens, Colts, Chiefs, Steelers*, Jets*

ESPN:
John Clayton: SB: Colts over Vikes
NFC: Eagles, Vikes, Panthers, Rams, Falcons*, Carrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrds*
AFC: Pats, Steelers, Colts, Chefs, Chargers*, Ravens*

Chris Mortensen: SB: Eagles over Colts
NFC: Eagles, Vikes, Panthers, Rams, Falcons*, Cowboys*
AFC: Pats, Ravens, Colts, Bronch, Bills*, Jets*

Fox Sports:
Jay Glazer: SB: Falcons over Colts
NFC: Eagles, Bears, Falcons, Rams, Giants*, Panthers*
AFC: Patriots, Ravens, Colts, Chargers, Chiefs*, Jets*

Me: Super Bowl: Never picked
NFC: Eagles, Vikes, Rams, Panth, Bucs*, Lions*,
AFC: ?? (I never posted)

So what did we learn? A) I need to actually finish my picks for an accurate comparison, and b) This is as much for fun as it is for accuracy. NOBODY picked the Seahawks to make the playoffs let alone the Super Bowl!!

Just wanted to throw that out there so when all my picks go wrong this year, at least you'll know I won't be the only one.