SU has been a long-time LeBron fan but this year you really have to appreciate just how good he is. Kevin Love goes down for the series with the Bulls and is gone for the year and now Kyrie Irving is hobbled in the Conference Finals. You don’t hear any whining from James. He just raises his game and is 2 wins away from the Finals. Did you know that in his career, LeBron has surpassed 30 points in 44% of his 174 playoff games? That is an amazing stat. And he is not just out there chucking it up. Interesting quotes from his teammates after last night’s win:
“He helps us elevate our game,” Tristan Thompson said. “Playing with a great player like him just makes you want to get better, makes you want to put the time in watching film and I think that’s what great players do. They take the group around them and help elevate their game.”
“We all have a skill set and you want to be able to get to your skill set and do what you do best and he allows that,” Jones said. “If you’re a defender and you’re an on-ball defender, you know you can pressure up because he’s a great weakside defender and that gives you the confidence. If you’re a shooter, he gets you the ball in spots. If you’re a big man, he finds you in transition. So, all the different facets on the game he’s able to impact.”
For SU, it’s such a contrast with what you have in NY with Carmelo. You never, ever hear comments like this. It just highlights the distance between LeBron and that next tier superstar in the NBA. Money-wise, it’s the same. Impact-wise? Miles and miles apart.
Jeff Van Gundy is a leading candidate for the Pelicans’ head coaching job. Good for him. Good guy, good coach. Mike D’Antoni is apparently in the running for the Denver Nuggets position. SU would love to see him get that job and then bring in Jeremy Lin to run his offense. That would justify my purchase of next season’s NBA Season Pass to watch those games.
Yankees getting clobbered again today – 10-0 half-way through. The only positive that could come out of this is that Cashman might finally start bringing up some youngsters to replace his under-performing veterans. Stephen Drew may still be a viable major league player but not in New York. He is one of those players who cannot perform here. Bring up Refsnyder from the minors. If he makes a lot of errors, believe me – no-one will notice as the whole team makes a lot of errors. Didi Gregorius just cannot hit at all. Is this the best Cashman can do? Use the rest of the season to play the young guys. The fans demand it.
Finally, the French Open starts tomorrow and the men’s draw has Djokovic playing Nadal in the quarterfinals. I know they come up with a draw by picking names out of a hat but that is crazy. SU is pulling for Djokovic to get that first French championship and his career Grand Slam. To win it, he will likely have to beat Nadal, Murray and Federer in succession. If you win a major in Men’s tennis, you have earned it.
Sports Update Intergalactic 
Welcome to the Cavs bandwagon!
Dave, I am on board mainly for all the ex-Knicks on the roster, i.e., Mosgov, Shumpert, JR. Plus I like the way they play – push the tempo, move the ball (except in the last 4 minutes which I trust they will figure out) and trust LeBron to make the right plays. I still think the Warriors will beat them in the finals given the injuries but this team is going to win multiple championships in the next 3-4 years if it stays together.
I think the cavs play is slightly less surprising than most fans think. All year people praised kyrie Irving offensively, and he is extremely talented, but is his absence or injury plagued playoffs that much of a loss. Lebron was fortunate to have him alleviate some of the regular season rigors, but the playoffs are entirely different. With kyrie either spotting for up or on the bench, the most noticeable result is that all of the isolation sets that lebron used to allow kyrie to run, mostly when lebron needed a rest, are now being taken over by lebron himself. This just gives lebron more time with the ball in his hand, and while he’s not the shooter Irving is, he’s stronger, finishes better, and sees the floor better. Combine all of this with the fact that kyrie’ minutes are being filled with Matthew dellavadova, who people forget was arguably the best college player in the country his senior year. Dellavadova, while not as offensively gifted as Irving, is a much bigger and better defender who can knock down open jump shots created by lebron.