The Braves' Third Quarter: Won't Get Ahead of Myself This Year

When the Braves passed this point last year, winning the division seemed far-fetched but a playoff berth seemed highly likely. And of course, we all know how that turned out. 

So this year, much to the surprise of this observer and many other, a division title is well within reach. Once again, Atlanta is atop the Wild Card race—albeit by a smaller lead than the team had last year. Still, there's also an extra playoff spot at stake. So, how confident should this Braves fan be?

Well, there's certainly a lot to like. Considering Atlanta is chasing a surprising Washington team that is supposedly going to be shutting down its phenom pitcher at some point before the race is over, I'm trying not to be satisfied with just a Wild Card berth. While Kris Medlen has seemingly come out of nowhere to become a near unhittable starter, the prospect of having to play a single-game playoff does not strike me as working in the Braves' favor. Hell, even a five-game series is a little risky. It seems as though Atlanta seems far better-equipped to win four games out of seven than three of five or the dreadful lone game that will determine who gets to move on to play a division winner.

It will be an extremely nerve-racking finish, I imagine. The photo used for the graphic was one I chose from perhaps the best victory the team has had this year, an astonishing comeback from a 9-0 deficit against the Nats in July that represents the sort of never-say-die attitude a fan would hope the Braves can summon again as they finish the year. That 11-10 victory was a remarkable feat, for sure, and the sort of win that one would hope the team is looking back on fondly and citing as a moment they came to believe they could still be playing in October rather than thinking about other games that got away.

At the moment, Atlanta is one of four teams within about two games of one another for those two additional playoff spots. Still, keeping last year in mind, the number of contenders doubles if you don't rule out the clubs within 10 or so games. So are the playoffs still possible? Sure. But I'm not assuming anything's a given by any means.

Who knows, maybe the Marlins I originally picked to win this year's World Series will turn it around and surprise everybody. OK ... maybe some things are safe to assume.

Final Thoughts on 2011-12 NBA Season: Obligatory Post No. 2

Alas, the long national nightmare is over and a member of Michigan University's famed "Fab Five" has finally won an NBA Championship. So congratulations are in order to you, Mr. Juwan Howard. You finally did it and this is truly your moment. Good show.

Oh, and maybe some other guys. Total team effort, of course.

***DEEP BREATH***

Look, this year could be a difficult one for a lot of Bulls fans to accept because for so long throughout this season, there were moments when many fans wanted to believe Chicago could win a seven-game series against Miami in this year's playoffs. And we waited and we waited all year long before every hope was disintegrated in the closing moments of the very first game of the playoffs. Brutal. Championship window closed significantly, if not entirely.

The playoffs continued nonetheless, and while many of us once again were seduced by the seeming superiority of the basketball being played in the Western Conference, the Oklahoma City followed up their Game 1 Finals win with absolutely no answer for LeBron or any other Heat role player for the next four games. Oh, Miami-OKC sure could be a marvelously entertaining conclusion to future postseasons too in the tradition of Lakers-Celtics, but this year ended up being a little too one-sided. Despite the laughable-in-retrospect scares from Indiana and Boston, Miami took charge in this year's NBA Finals and let the Thunder play the part of the heartbroken.

Again, this was the Finals most people had at the beginning of this year, and I resisted ... probably in part to hold out hope for the beloved Bulls. Going forward, however, I assume Heat-Thunder now becomes not just the Finals I will more than likely join in predicting, but maybe also wanting to see in the sense that there's two legitimate superstars now competing on the highest level in LeBron and Kevin Durant. Derrick Rose, bless his knee, will need some help to enter that conversation.

Ultimately, when you consider that we weren't entirely certain that the season was ever going to even tip off, the Heat-Thunder Finals provided all the more reason to believe that the future for the league is probably going to continue to get brighter and brighter.

Final Thoughts on 2011-12 NHL Season: Obligatory Post No. 1

Seeing as it's July, I should probably go ahead and bang out these two usual footnotes to the conclusions of the winter sports seasons. I'll start off with the Los Angeles Kings, since they wrapped up their title first.

The picture to the right there is probably one of the most wonderful little reasons to feel genuinely happy for this team. The other, however, is simply the fact that they went out there and flat-out fucking earned it. Seriously. New Jersey deserves some credit for winning as many games as the entire Western Conference did against L.A. in the previous three rounds, but the Kings seriously just went out there and took the damn thing.

Ordinarily, yes, I generally loathe pretty much any sports championship team that comes out of Hell-A. The Kings, however, are not the Dodgers nor the Lakers. As demonstrated by the local media's screwing up such basic concepts as the team's logo to how to pronounce a star's name to forgetting the last time the team made it this far, there is some temptation to think "they don't really deserve it." The "they" being the residents that were just now getting word of the bandwagon. No, Chicago never had any of those.

In the end, however, how can a Hawks fan not be happy for Daryl Sutter? And how can you not appreciate the way the entire club played right from the beginning of every game. The Kings took the first three games of each best-of-seven series in all four rounds. There was rarely a moment they didn't seem to be completely controlling the puck. And during those moments that they were on the defense, then how can you not look at Jonathan Quick's play and want a goalie like that playing for your favorite team?

There is no denying that for the longest time, I've wanted an eight-seed to win it all. It reinforces that belief that anything's possible in the NHL playoffs, but I never would have expected an eight-seed to do it quite like the Kings just did. That was a level of dominance that you would normally expect from the top teams.

Moreover, the Kings winning the Cup might also send a message to certain general managers about taking gambles during the season. Kings GM Dean Lombardi called his trade deadline acquisition of Jeff Carter a "Hail Mary," and it won him the Cup. 

As for the prediction records, James Murphy and John Buccigross, both from ESPN, finished with records of 10-5, although Murphy had four series this postseason predicted in the exact number of games while Buccigross only did that once. I, meanwhile, had pretty much the opposite score, going 5-10 with only one "exacta" for another year of really awful predicting on my part.

The Braves' Second Quarter: Hanging Around

It looks as though I have some catching up to do here, so I'll quickly touch on how things are going for the Bravos. While I had predicted this would be a third-place ball club at the beginning of the year, the teams they're chasing are completely different from what I had originally anticipated. And seeing as we're at the halfway point now, the usual looming trade deadline moves are being considered by multiple teams around the league. The Braves are certainly in contention for one of those playoff spots, so where might Atlanta be looking to improve?

With Brandon Beachy now being shut down for the year to undergo Tommy John surgery, that more or less nullifies the currently division-leading Nationals (!) having to ultimately sit down Steven Strasburg. With Miami dealing for Carlos Lee, that fourth place team's dealing shows that there's still some fighting expected in the East.

The second quarter for the Braves was a pretty tough one, as the team fell behind Washington and New York. Atlanta remains within shouting distance, but has really been struggling to get back atop the division. While Dan Uggla will be starting at second base for the National League in the All-Star Game (and has been widely considered to be undeserving of the selection), Brian McCann is missing out for the first time since he came into the league and both Chipper Jones and Michael Bourn (both of whom seemed to be worthier than Uggla) lost out on the fan vote for the extra spot (eventually given to the Cardinals' David Freese).

The team retired John Smoltz's jersey number in what will probably be the second-to-last ceremony of this type for a couple years (I'm thinking Chipper will get honored at some point next season), but the question that remains is whether fans are going to be getting something that has unfortunately become a lot less frequent than it used to be: postseason baseball.

NBA Finals Prediction: "Look at these fucking hipsters ..."

I believe I was one of perhaps like four people who did not initially predict that Miami would be meeting Oklahoma City for the NBA Championship this season (see here ... or here, for example), and I attribute that reluctance to the doubts I had about the Thunder. Talented as all hell, sure, but still need another year or two of coming up short before they get to the Finals. Or so I thought.

Most of us who are not still blinded by the rage caused by the debacle known as "The Decision" can admit that LeBron James has arguably been the best player in the league for a number of seasons now, but these playoffs have allowed another player to possibly take over that title along with the Larry O'Brien Trophy: Kevin Durant.

While I typically say how the NHL playoffs are more entertaining than the NBA playoffs right around this time of year (or so it seems), this year has indeed provided some quite stellar basketball the past few weeks. It is now only appropriate that it come down to the Heat and the Thunder.

Just to be clear, Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals pulled in the highest rating ever for an NBA game on cable, and now with this level of starpower for all the marbles, we're talking about possibly the highest ratings of this century.

NHL Stanley Cup Final Prediction: In which the lowest seed ever wins the Cup

And so it comes to this. Had you asked me to write down all the possible head-to-heads for the Stanley Cup when these playoffs began and then order them in descending likelihood, I have to wonder how far this would have been from the bottom. I'd like to believe it would be closer to the middle somewhere, but I can say with tremendous certainty that it definitely would have ranked fairly low at the beginning of this season.

You're usually lucky if you get one Cinderella in the Final, and here we've technically got two.

The Devils were definitely a stronger kind of a six-seed, seeing as they did still finish the year with more than 100 points and were sort of a universal favorite to beat the Panthers in the first round. Still, very few people had them getting much further than that, let alone play in the last series of the year.

And the Kings? They had their handfuls of believers in those first two rounds before a clear majority caught on that they've been in a different gear ever since this postseason started. It's not the series many of us were expecting, but that sure as hell doesn't mean it won't be interesting.

NBA Playoff Confrence Finals Predictions: Another edition of Age & Wisdom v. Youth & Explosiveness

In the quest to crown a new NBA Champion, we are down to the final four teams. And while the Heat are certain to command a lot of attention just by still being around, the series that is likely going to feel more like the "must-see" television will be the Western Conference Finals. Indeed, I did want to use this image to indicate the marquee matchup that we're looking at, but the truth is that the Spurs and the Thunder are more than just one-dimensional teams. All four teams really are, although Miami's two at this point is barely an exception.

Anyway, the Thunder had been predominant favorites to win the West throughout the season, but it now appears that with Spurs still waiting to experience their first loss in these playoffs, many of us are acknowledging that San Antonio has reasonably established its legitimacy as the team to beat. Can the Thunder live up to their young potential? Or will the Spurs' wily veterans prove that with age comes wisdom?

Before we get to my own picks, I actually had time to compile a few other records of predictions thus far in these playoffs.

Final Thoughts on 2011-12 Chicago Blackhawks and 2011-12 Chicago Bulls: Where it all fell apart

The hopes were oh-so-high, and they came crashing down oh-so-quickly. All too quickly. As this little graphic demonstrates, it's an eerily similar pattern to the fates of three Chicago teams this past year, and for this fan, it hurts a little more when you recall that the Atlanta Braves imploded and lost a postseason berth on the final day of the regular season.

Oh, sure. Maybe I should have broken these two teams in separate posts, but really, the endings for both teams arrived much sooner than expected, separated only by a couple weeks. One set of hopes ended in April while the other's were extinguished in May when there were once again notions both could be playing in June. Two first round exits for both Chicago clubs, and now the question that needs to be asked is, "Will either one is going to be any closer to a championship next season?"

Sure, we could sit here and harp about the injustice of having to watch some thug knock the Blackhawks' top scorer out for the remainder of the playoffs on yet another unquestionable cheap shot. Or we could bemoan what might have been had the Bulls not lost both Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah, but again, what might have been or what was supposed to be is rather pointless now. You have to wonder whether these teams are going to be considered contenders when next year begins.

The Braves' First Quarter: Encouraging signs?

I guess if something's going to dull the still healing wound that is both the Blackhawks and Bulls being eliminated much earlier than I'd anticipated, it might as well be good news about the Braves. Last year's disappointing finish began a pretty painful series of finishes to the respective campaigns from the Four Bs. So perhaps we're all due for a new cycle.

I don't want to get too far ahead of myself, but it is important to remember that there are now two wild cards for the postseason, so sitting in first place after the first 41 games is certainly a good place to be. Still, my preseason picks to get into the playoffs from this division are currently in the bottom two spots instead, but I highly doubt that will stand for all that much longer. Nonetheless, the Braves rebounded quite nicely from starting the year 0-4 by winning something like 10 of their next 11.

It is largely a surprise to me that the it's the team's offense that has been propelling the success more than the pitching. The picture for this quarter's graphic comes from a wild win that happened the night of my birthday, no less. It was a wild back-and-forth with the Phillies that ended with Chipper hitting an 11th inning walk-off homer. If Atlanta continues to produce runs at this rate and the pitching indeed becomes more solid, then who's really to say what the limit is?

If the Braves can stay healthy, it certainly appears they can stay in the playoff conversation too.

NHL Stanley Cup Playoff Conference Finals Predictions: It's funny because I thought I couldn't do worse than last year

Sure enough, I did not get a single one of my picks right last round. While I have not been keeping up with the picks of others as diligently as I used to in the past, judging what I glanced at, it's not as though I'm the only one who did not foresee the first two rounds of the NHL playoffs unfolding like this.

The top-seeded New York Rangers have to be feeling pretty good about living up to the hype so far, and indeed the team's fans have to like the remaining competition. However, I've been among the many who've been fooled into thinking somebody's going to start lighting up Jonathan Quick and Mike Smith, the two goalies pictured in this post, sooner or later. So far, we've all been totally wrong and, as a result, when two of the best goalies in these playoffs meet in the Western Conference Finals, the winner's team won't just be playing for the Stanley Cup, but the winning goaltender will very likely be accepting the Conn Smythe.

It's been one of those rare years where every seeming underdog goes out and proves us observers and prognosticators wrong, but just for shits & giggles ...