This has been Ray's best postseason. He's really attacking the rim fearlessly, and not waiting for his three pointer to fall.

wince carter. fail.

this lakers/celtics final is shaping up to great.

What a pathetic effort from Orlando in the final seconds.

Impotence personified.

My wife asked who the guy doing the Larry David impersonation on the broadcast was. I told her it was Jeff Van Gundy and punched this classic up for illustration:

Also, I've got no real love for either of these teams but it made my night when Vince missed those FT's.

Amare Stoudemire is a terrible defender.

The rest of the Suns have actually stepped it up a bit on that end, even Nash pretends to play defence sometimes, but Amare is just such a gaping hole to cover for.

i guess this is far more plausible than it was when i posted it a week ago.

Well, I was sure wrong on my Magic-Suns Finals hope... I guess it will still be fun to root wildly for the Celtics to put the hurt on the Lakers. The C's are my third favorite team, and it's always fun to have a team in the Finals to root against.

WORST. PLAYOFFS. EVER.

Finals should be good though.

What are you guys making of this purported hookup between LeBron's mama and Delonte West?

Story HERE but it's in a bunch of places.

I like that Calvin Murphy is the go-to source for information on extra curricular fucking. (as well he should be)

i wouldn't put anything past delonte west.

its so ridiculous is has to be true

I mean, what's up with Paul Pierce's facial hair?

It's like the most jankiest, white trash, configuration ever.

Get it together man.

Yeah, and Rondo looks like a girl.

This is a fucking joke.

I mean, it's the Conference Finals. When I'm more sober I'd like to have a rational discussion about the league. Something is rotten in Denmark.

It's not the league's fault. The "winningest" team has choked, wimped out, stb, checked out early... Superman is a fraud.

No, the late 90's, early 2000's were much, much worse. Especially in the East, where you would routinely have playoff games with scores like 66-62.

This Celts thing is pretty simple: You've a got a team with three HOF'ers, one young stud and a pretty nice bench (and Rasheed!), all healthy and playing like they mean it--and now featuring championship pedigree, something no one else in the East has. The only thing capable of slowing down that train is the Lakers.

And really, anybody who thought a team featuring Vince Carter (in any capacity) was going anywhere hasn't watched much hoops. Van Gundy had a great quip basically saying that if Vince had any heart or will to win he could be Kobe, but he doesn't so he's not. Good night Irene.

Fellas, fellaaaaas, the same thing would have happened last year if Boston had Garnett.

They took the Magic to seven WITHOUT him.

The reason these playoffs have been so underwhelming comes down purely to depleted rosters, and the misguided hope that Lebron could make the finals with that team behind him. At least the finals are shaping up to be fucking great. Who wouldn't want to see Boston face L.A. in a 2008 finals rematch? If this series is great it makes me forget that every other one stunk except for OKC vs L.A. in the first round.

In the West, it's not Phoenix's fault they're getting their ass handed to them by the Lakers, they shouldn't have made it this far to begin with. They are not as good as OKC, who lost to L.A. in the first round.

Denver lost their coach, and with him, their shit. While they wouldn't have beaten LA had they came up against them, they could have stole a game or two to keep things interesting had George Karl been healthy. This is a team that reeeeeeeeally needs a coach. Carmelo. Kenyon Martin. Chris Anderson. JR Smith. There's a lot of volatility right there. They needed Karl badly.

Portland limped into the playoffs on the back of Andre Miller. With their roster healthy and motivated they could have swept Phoenix.

Utah? Breezed past the undisciplined Nuggets team thanks to their efficient flex offense, but couldn't be expected to do any more with two starters out.

Milwaukee could have made noise had they had Bogut. They were one of the most well-oiled teams up until he went down (though without playoff experience, who knows how they would've done...)

And the Cavs, well the Cavs really weren't that good of a team to begin with. They tried hard, and lost right about where they should have.

So really, there have been a lot of injuries spread out over a number of teams, but either way, you'd be seeing a Celtics/Lakers Finals, the path there just may have been a little more interesting had the other teams had full rosters.

I think Phoenix is better than you are giving them credit for.

Even so, they're not better than a healthy Portland, Denver, Utah, or OKC.

I think once they beat San Antonio they lost their juice. It's like they've been waiting so long to beat that team, by the time they did, beating San Antonio didn't mean all that much to anyone but themselves.

By what metric? They won more regular season games than all of those teams, and as for your typically inept and lazy red herring of "if those other teams were healthy..." keep in mind that Phoenix has been playing without Robin Lopez for the entirety of the playoffs save Game 2 against the Lakers.