NBA Finals: Whoever wins I lose

Now that the Miami Heat officially eliminated the Chicago Bulls with their Dallas Mavericks-like comeback in Game Five, we can now look toward the NBA Finals I didn't want to see.

The Finals have an "Alien vs. Predator" feel to them seeing as how whoever wins I lose.

I was a part of the group of people that immediately hated the Heat for forming the dream team with LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. I refuse to jump on the bandwagon now. And as much as I should root for the Mavericks so I can say my Los Angeles Lakers were defeated by the champs, I can't do it.

I wanted to see the Bulls back in the Finals. It would have been very NBA-on-NBC-esque. Plus, how cool would it have been to hear the Bulls intro music during their starting lineups for the Finals. I have goosebumps thinking about it, but it wasn't meant to be this year.

Instead, the team we all wanted to fail is in the Finals against this year's "America's Sweetheart." (*GAG*)

I'm pretty much over my Lakers hangover, but not having Oklahoma City vs. Chicago is a bummer to me. I'll watch the Finals this year because I love basketball and even though I hate the Heat they are fun to watch, but I still feel like a Finals loser this year.

Knicks to get crushed in playoffs

Carmelo Anthony scores 39 points against the New Jersey Nets, and I'm supposed to get excited like the announcers? Granted, ESPN needs its announcers to pump up whatever game the network is covering, but take a look at what happened to the Knicks tonight. They gave up 68 points in the first half to the Nets. The NYETS! The New York Knicks play no defense whatsoever. A'mare Stoudemire has been atrocious since Anthony showed up in New York. Melo is legit. There's no doubt about that, but the fact they give up 116 points to the Nets is absurd. Deron Williams isn't doing anything for the Nets, so there is no excuse as to why this happened. If the Knicks expect to compete with either the Boston Celtics or Miami Heat in the playoffs there are many things that need to change. However, I don't see how he Knicks are going to learn how to play defense in two weeks. The boys in blue and orange are staring at a first-round sweep. They'll run and gun and make things exciting, but there is too much power in those other two teams. The Celtics will force the Knicks into a grind-it-out series that the Knicks have no chance of winning. The Heat's Big 2 1/2 will just be too dominant if that's the series that ends up getting matched up. LeBron James actually plays defense, so you can expect Anthony's production to go down. If it's the Celtics you can expect Paul Pierce to be all over Anthony much like Pierce was all over Kobe Bryant in the 2008 NBA Finals. The Knicks will be fun to watch in the playoffs because of the storylines, but let's not kid ourselves: A sweep is in their "Magic Eight Ball."

A farewell to Jimmer

I'm not going to try and quote Ernest Hemingway in my blog, but the title is appropriate for what's about to happen in the life of Jimmer Fredette.

His five-month run as a celebrity came to a close Thursday night in the Sweet 16. Florida was the better team, and Jimmer took some pretty bad shots in the game.

For me it was strange. I've always been a huge NBA fan first and then a college hoops fan like fifth. But the Jimmer brought the college hoops game to the forefront in my mind. It's been weird.

Now Fredette will enter the NBA Draft and try to make it with the big boys. If Thursday's game was any indication of how he will play under pressure then I don't expect him to be very good as a pro. As Colin Cowherd said, "He's coming to an NBA bench near you."

Even though Jimmer will make more money as a lottery pick, he will be more productive as a later pick. If he really cares about basketball and not the money, then waiting for the Celtics, Lakers or Heat to draft him is what he should be hoping.

Right now the Lakers have Steve Blake coming off the bench to run the point. He gets like 8-10 minutes a game and is supposed to be knocking down 3-pointers. Blake doesn't always knock down 3-pointers. If the Lakers let Blake go then they can pick up Jimmer. He will come in and do what Blake is doing right now, but he will do it better.

If the Utah Jazz do the irresponsible thing of drafting Jimmer, then he will be thrown into the starting lineup. I don't think he will fair well.

Do the right thing, Jazz. Don't draft Jimmer. As for the Lakers: dump the dead weight of Blake. Jimmer can do his job better.

All-Star Weekend Bonanza

I love the All-Star Game every year, but I think I've been blinded because the Lakers are usually in first place in the Western Conference when the game rolls around.

That wasn't the case this year: the Lakers are struggling, and they're being accused of not caring again. Kobe Bryant didn't look very good down the stretch, playing while he was sick and other things.

Then he goes and scores 37 points in the All-Star Game. Call me crazy, but you go and stink up the court against the worst team in the NBA, but then you go and win MVP in a game featuring the best players in the league?

I'm beginning to think Kobe might be part of the Lakers' problems as the second half of the season gets under way tomorrow night.

Why can't Kobe go out and score 37 every night? Granted, nobody plays defense in the All-Star Game, but those are still the best players in the league. I think Kobe might be the one with a lack of motivation, and it carried over into his Laker teammates.

I'm worried with the playoffs arriving in a couple of months. I really don't want to see the Lakers bounced out in the first round by like Portland or Utah or somebody like that. With the way LA has been playing I've got no reason to believe they'll win a championship this season.

Something needs to happen, and seeing Kobe shine in the All-Star Game has got me worried about the rest of the regular season. No more flipping switches. I want to see results now, starting with tomorrow night's game against Atlanta. Kobe, go be the All-Star Game MVP against the Hawks tomorrow night.

NBA 2K11 rocks the house

NBA 2K11 already garnered "greatest sports video game ever" honors from me when I first started playing it due to the Michael Jordan theme, and getting to play as his royal airness.

But the game solidified itself when I won the NBA Finals with the Lakers: your first off-season task as the World Champs is to visit Obama at the White House. So there you are in the White House with video-game Obama. Unbelievable.

It was one of the cooler things I've seen in a video game. Obama is the only president that could pull this off. 2K Sports did a fun thing by taking advantage of having a "cool" president. Kudos to Obama for agreeing to this as well.

Lakers beat Rockets; still look awful

I've decided it's very difficult for me t effectively blog about the Lakers because of how emotionally invested I am in them. They're my team, so I'm clouded in a lot of ways, but one thing I'm not clouded on is how atrocious the Lakers are on defense.

How do you let Kevin Martin torch you for 30 points? It's unreal. The Rockets also had numerous easy layups, especially down the stretch.

Tonight's game would not have gone to overtime if the Lakers would've just played good defense. The curses of the Celtics game carried over into this game, but at least Kobe was looking for his teammates tonight. He had 11 assists on the game.

There are many things for the Lakers to still fix as we approach All-Star Weekend. The San Antonio Spurs are coming to Staples Center, so this is the Lakers' chance to get off the snide against the elite teams in the NBA. They haven't beaten one yet.

Looking ahead will never stop being a curse

Both the Lakers and Celtics lost Friday, which kind of takes some wind of sails for Sunday's NBA Finals rematch.

Occasionally teams will have let downs like the one the Celtics had against the Suns, but the Lakers seem to keep having let downs the whole season. Sometimes I really wonder how much they care. It was the Kings for crying out loud.

I think the main problem I have is that if the Celtics come out and beat the Lakers Sunday I do not want to hear any excuses. I don't want to hear, "The teams we play against care more about these games than we do."

That's not good enough. The Lakers should start caring about those games. Kobe and Gasol should think back to Christmas Day 2008 when it was their turn for a revenge game: a rematch of the Finals. The Celtics were on a hefty winning streak, but it ended on that day.

The Lakers still on the team from 2008 need to look to that game to realize what the Celtics are going through right now. That should be enough to motivate the Lakers to start playing good basketball--and maybe if the team could start knocking down some shots.