Heat burn Bulls, Canucks harpoon Sharks and Hail in Texas?!

May 25^th, 2011

Quite the sports night last night! Both playoff games went into overtime and neither team that probably should have won did in fact win. The Chicago Bulls and Derrick Rose had a chance to tie up the series with the Miami Heat and send it back home at two games apiece but Rose missed a dribble-drive to the left fall-away shot (His favorite according to ex-Bulls coach and current Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro) at the buzzer in regulation. In overtime Dwayne Wade finally showed up after scoring 0 points in the 2^nd half and close to my prediction yesterday Miami won 101-93 led by LeBron’s 35 points to send Chicago to the brink of elimination Thursday night.

As mentioned, there was another playoff game last night as the San Jose Sharks were in Vancouver to take on the Canucks down 3-1 in the series. San Jose dominated the game and led 2-1 with less than a minute to go before an icing call that many commentators as well as every Shark believed was incorrect. As they claimed the puck had touched a Canuck in the Shark’s defending zone, which would have negated the call and not given the Canucks an attacking zone faceoff with about 30 seconds to play. Sure enough this apparent missed call cost the Sharks as Ryan Kesler scored a tip-in goal with about 13 seconds left in the third period. The Sharks outshot the Canucks 56-34 but fell in double overtime on Kevin Bieksa’s knuckle puck of a goal halfway through the second overtime sending Vancouver to their first Stanley Cup Finals since 1994. The Bruins will try to join them there tonight as they take on the Lightning in Tampa Bay for game 6 at 8pm on Versus. Prediction- Bruins advance with a 4-2 win.

I promised to cover some other sports as well so quickly I will discuss how great the Rafael Nadal vs. John Isner first round match at the French Open was. It was the first time EVER Nadal was forced to play 5 sets in a match at Roland Garros, and he did so by coming from behind defeating the 6’9” American Isner 6-4, 6-7 (2-7), 6-7 (2-7), 6-2, 6-4. Other notables from yesterday’s first round action were: 4^th seeded Victoria Azarenka, 2^nd seeded Kim Clijsters and 7^th seeded Maria Sharapova all won easily in 2 sets. While 22 year old American Vania King upset the 22^nd seed Dominika Cibulkova in 3 sets.

Also a busy night in baseball last night as rain, hail, lightning and a bunch of home runs (3 by Carlos Quentin) made the White Sox victory over the Rangers the most interesting of the night. Elsewhere both the Yankees (Mark Teixeira RBI single) and the Orioles (Adam Jones 2-Run home run) were walk off winners. And on the uglier side, my beloved Mets were clubbed 11-1 by the Cubs last night in Wrigley.

I’m sure many of you enjoy Sportcenter’s “King of the Night” poll that they do very often just as much as I do, so I will be ending each post with who I believe to be the biggest winner and the biggest loser from the previous night.

Last night’s biggest winner was LeBron James, who led the Miami Heat to a 101-93 overtime win over the Chicago Bulls with 35 points, 6 rebounds, 6 assists, 2 steals, 3 blocks, 5 turnovers while shooting 11-26 from the field and 13-13 from the free throw line.

Last night’s biggest loser was Jorge De La Rosa of the Colorado Rockies who pitched 2 1/3 innings giving up 3 hits, 2 earned runs, while walking 2 and striking out 3 before being removed from the game. That last part is what qualifies him as the biggest loser, as he suffered a complete tear of the ulnar collateral ligament in his left elbow (pitching arm) which now will most likely need Tommy John Surgery and a year’s rehabilitation that goes along with such procedure. Very unfortunate injury for De La Rosa and the Rockies, as he has been their best starter this year, posting a 5-2 record with a 3.51 ERA before this injury.  We wish him the best of luck in recovery and hope to see him back soon.