After two rounds of pretty lackluster basketball, the final two rounds of the NBA Playoffs finally delivered the goods—most notably this year's Finals, the same matchup I had predicted at the beginning of the year (for the second straight year). And if this post doesn't end up looking as catastrophic as the NHL Final Thoughts did, my logic was still the same in hoping that like my 2009 picks, the predicted runner-up would actually triumph once again. Instead, things ended up exactly as I pretty much feared they would, with the Lakers pretty much waltzing through the West before getting probably the stiffest challenge they've had for any of of the five titles Phil Jackson has brought to the team.
My own prognosticating this post-season was an improvement over last year's mark (and at least this year, I was no worse than Jalen Rose), but there were certainly those who did better:
Brit's jolly cry of approval / SUN 3-16-25 / Florentine artist known for
frescoes / Frodo's enchanting friend / 14-line poem with only two rhymes
across three stanzas / Subway commuters, informally / Not-so-joltin' joe? /
Dug through for digital analysis / Hawkeye's real first name in the
"Avengers" movies / German soccer legend Manuel who innovated the
"sweeper-keeper" role / Cote quote? / Girl who's "sweet as apple cider,"
per an old song
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Constructor: Paul Coulter
Relative difficulty: Easy
THEME: "Have It Both Ways" — two Across answers share a common Down
segment—that segment reads one wa...
3 hours ago