You have to admit that there have been some odd line-up combinations in this year’s NBA finals.  Many times during the game, LeBron is the tallest player on the court.  As a fan, the faster up and down pace is much more enjoyable to watch.  The coaches are calling few plays and the players are just playing ball.  Do you remember the Pat Riley era in NY?  He called every offensive play – every one.  Walk the ball up and dump it down into Patrick Ewing.

Of course, there is the Mike Woodson equivalent – walk the ball up and give it to Melo.  But he has variations off of that set: there’s the 3-jab step move; 4-jab step move; and the 5-step option.  Woodson felt it was important to mix up the jab steps.

SU predicts (now) that the Warriors will win in game 6.  Kyrie Irving is a terrific offensive player but you know, you just know, he is due for a 7 for 25 night.  It’s coming and when it does, no-one else will be in a position to pick up the slack.  Certainly not Kevin Love who is down to 3-4 shots a game.  SU has been very happy to see long-time fave, Richard Jefferson, get quality minutes and rave reviews by the broadcasters.  Even Mark Jackson who buried Richard on the bench just a few years ago in Golden State.

Lots of rumors of Melo being traded to Cleveland to play with LeBron.  SU would do the even up trade with Love.  Why not?  Melo can play the 3 or the 4 – a perfect fit with the Cavs and the chance to play with his buddy LeBron.  Love can throw the full court outlet passes on the fast break at the Garden.  Add Jeremy Lin and maybe you have something.  Or not.

The Yankees continue to tease the fans by flirting with .500.  SU says no need to flirt: call it a season and sell high.  Beltran is a great fit for a contender and would bring some top prospect.  But you need to deal him while he’s hot and looking spry.  He’s one oblique injury away from being out for weeks.  Same with Chapman.  Yanks are going nowhere.  Refsnyder is killing me.  Finally getting his shot to play every day and not getting it done offensively.  Now we have Ike Davis?  Cashman going the bottom feeder route yet again.  Blow it up and get more interesting.  Find some hitters where you can actually visualize them getting a hit.  Seriously: when Brian McCann is up, it feels physically impossible for him to get a hit through the shift.  Chase Headley?  Every hit is a shocker.

Note Eduardo Nunez is hitting .327 for the Twins and playing every day batting lead-off.  SU is very proud of him.  Always liked him.  Exciting player.

Meanwhile, the Mets are desperate for some offense.  They will need to be as equally shrewd this year in July as they were last year.  History says that’s hard to do.  You are more likely to have a track record like Cashman’s than you are being successful.  But their pitching should at least get them to October.

Mark Texeiria is going on the DL with torn cartlidge in his knee.  They will treat it with injections and rest but he could be out for the season if he needs surgery.  SU says that given his performance year-to-date, this is a positive development for the Yankees.  Texeiria has been a rally killer in the middle of the line-up all season long.  Everyone wants to blame A-Rod but Texeiria has played many more games and hasn’t hit a homerun in over 140 at bats.  Taking him out of the line up hurts defensively but will allow Girardi to go with a more uncontentional line up going forward.

SU would equate this with getting Stephen Drew off of the roster.  It has major positive implications.  Let’s give Rob Refsnyder a shot now to play regularly.  He actually can hit the ball and why not see what he can do?  They are bringing up this dude Parmalee to play 1st at least part-time.  SU says ok with me – anyone is an improvement.

The best scenario right now is for some team in the AL East to go on a roll and put the Yankees in sell mode come July.  SU is all in on blowing up the roster and selling some pieces.  Hey, beat the rush and start now.

Sad news about Muhammed Ali’s passing.  SU was always an Ali fan – larger than life.

Finally, you may want to catch the French Open finals tomorrow between Murray and Djokovic.  SU is rooting for the Joker to get that first French Open championship.  Speaking of the French Open, check out this film on the 1981 French Open.  It’s in French but offers a lot of behind-the-scenes access to the star players.  You have to watch it in small doses but it’s interesting and worth checking out.  Special thanks to long-time SU subscriber D. Harmon for passing this along.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kx8E9Clwgvk

SU has figured out the Yankees’ strategy.  It’s becoming clearer to me:

• They will humiliate him for the rest of this season along the lines of what they did to Jorge Posada in his last season.  Bat him 8th or 9th, sit him in games you would figure he would start, piss him off.  Then, after the season is over, they will negotiate a buyout for A-Rod’s last year of his contract and that will be that.
• This will be a long and tortured road and A-Rod will do his best to be the good soldier.  The media will be all over it as we know they relish the chance to bring someone down even more than building them up in sports.
• The other alternative is that they accelerate this plan and negotiate the buyout mid-season this year.

SU believes he still has something left in the tank and surely more than the other slugs on this roster.  Plus, I would rather watch him swing and miss vs. seeing Mark Texeiria hit into the shift over and over and over again.

Time will tell.

Wow, that was quick.  A-Rod sat yesterday and is sitting tonight against a left-handed starter, in AJ Happ.  Girardi implied that he may even sit tomorrow.  Refsnyder is starting in right field and A-Rod, Gardner and McCann are all sitting.  SU feels bad for A-Rod (OK, he’s still getting paid) but this has to be a major ego blow.  You can say he’s earned the bench time by his performance but he was starting to hit before he tweaked his hamstring and the only way he will get back in the groove is to throw him out there.

It looks like he will become an occasional starter against left-handed pitchers but not all lefties.  They clearly feel Beltran is much better as a DH.  Refsnyder gets his big shot tonight.  He needs to not screw this up and take advantage.  Looks like Chase Headley is safe given that he is terrible from both sides of the plate and you don’t lose anything based on who’s pitching. Romine is the back-up first baseman.

Time to tell the truth about the 2016 Yankees: this is a $200 million+ payroll?  Is there any GM out there that couldn’t do better than this?  SU will say it again: the fans will not continue to watch this line up.  Like Knick fans, they can handle a rebuild situation.  Please, please, please give us the rebuild.  Paging Ross Moschitto, Jerry Kenney and Horace Clarke.  Please report to active duty.

As predicted by SU last week, Golden State completed the comeback from being down 3 -1 and secured the Western Conference Championship.  So, how did they do it?

• Klay Thompson dug deep and won game 6 for them and in the process, allowed Stephen Curry to get healthy and regain his shooting form.  Curry took it from there in game 7.
• Billy Donovan went from a coaching genius up 3-1 to a rookie NBA coach who has more to learn.  The truth, as per usual, lies somewhere in between.
• Russell Westbrook can’t help himself.  His crazy athleticism is a curse.  He is so good and so fast that he resorts to taking over the game down the stretch.  At the end of game 6, SU heard a stat that in OKC’s last 15 possessions, there were 14 passes in total.  The NBA has already launched an investigation to find out how ex-Knick coach Mike Woodson sneaked onto the  OKC bench and was allowed to call offensive plays for the Thunder.  Westbrook was criticized for turning it over 3 times late in game 6 but it did appear that on at least one of those instances he was trying to pass the ball.
• Durant is terrific but he logged a lot of minutes last night and seemed to tire late.  You have to hand it to Steve Kerr for resting his stars and getting great production from some bench players in the 3rd and 4th quarters (and for not taking the Knicks’ job last year).
• Reggie Miller’s insights were interesting as he pointed out how the OKC players were yelling at each other when things started to head south in the 3rd quarter.  Grace under pressure?  Show some leadership.

SU believes Cleveland is a very tough match-up for Golden State.  LeBron appears to be on a mission.  SU predicts Cavs in 6.  But this will be a great series.

SU was also correct about Matt Harvey – at least for one start.  It looks like he made some mechanical adjustment and his velocity is back up in the high 90s.  Of course, time will tell but Met fans must be breathing a little easier.

Speaking of breathing, the Yankees are giving new meaning to the term “lifeless.”  Great stats:  last night you had key players in the following slumps:

• Gardner: 0 for 19
• McCann: 1 for 19 with his homerun in the 9th inning
• A-Rod: 1 for 16 with a ton of strikeouts
• Castro: 2 for 25
• Hicks: 2 for 15
• Beltran: 4 for 21 (and supposedly carrying the team)

Afer 50 or so games, they have been limited to 2 runs or less 21 times already – worst in the majors.  SU says they are officially unwatchable.  They will win enough games with CC, Tanaka and Eovaldi plus the bullpen to hang around .500 but they are going nowhere and no-one is going to be watching.  SU says time to clean house and go young.  But I have been ignored before.

The whispers in Yankeeland have begun that the return of A-Rod off the DL will hurt their offense and recent success on the field. The premise is that Carlos Beltran hits much better as the DH vs. when he is playing right field.  Allowing Beltran to DH also frees up Hicks to play the outfield where he has been hitting about .285 for the past few weeks since he has seen more regular at bats.  Andrew Marchand of espn.com weighed in recently:

http://espn.go.com/blog/new-york/yankees/post/_/id/92877/a-roag-its-time-the-yankees-made-alex-rodriguez-a-part-time-player

The reality is that the Yankees started winning when Ellsbury was also out for several games.  They are winning due to better starting pitching and enough offense to eke out some wins.  Mark Texeiria is now having neck spasms and will miss several games.  Can you say psychosomatic symptoms of stress due to being in the walk year of his contract?  SU is all over this one.  He is seeing millions of dollars evaporate before his eyes and having 12 rbis through 40+ games is a bit embarrassing.  A-Rod had started to hit before his hamstring injury and hit a homerun last night in his rehab assignment.  You don’t have to bat him 3rd and you don’t have to play him every day.  But Beltran runs hot and cold and there is no reason to think his hot streak will last for a long time.

There are rumors now that Andrew Miller will be shopped before the trade deadline.  SU is not following this one.  He is in the 2nd year of a reasonable 4-year contract and has proven he can play in NY.  Chapman is great but will be a free agent after this year.  There are also rumors about trading Beltran before the deadline.  SU would keep Miller and move Beltran.  This team may get a wild card but won’t go anywhere in the playoffs and they are incredibly boring to watch.  If you are looking to put fans in the seats and watching on YES, it’s time to rebuild and might as well get started.  But let’s do it more thoughtfully please.

Met fans panicking about Matt Harvey.  SU says calm down and keep rolling him out there until he figures it out.  You may not want to sign him long-term but you do need him this year and it’s important to maintain his confidence and stroke his ego.  It’s likely that his medical issues are a bigger deal than is being let on.

Cleveland will put away the Raptors in game 6 and that will be that.  But SU says do not give up on the Warriors just yet.  OKC is combustible and Golden State just has to win game 6 on the road.  I know it’s rare to see anyone come back from down 3-1 in the NBA playoffs but this group won over 70 games this year.  Steve Kerr needs to make an adjustment – let’s see if he is up to the challenge.  SU loves having a game on each night for this round.  The post-season has been terrible til now – record number of blowout games which is odd.  Home court seems to count for too much – certainly more than it should.

SU must admit I was shocked that Draymon Green was not suspended for game 4.  Surely during the David Stern era this would never have happened.  He was a stickler for the rules and if you took a half step onto the court from the sideline in a fight that was happening 30 yards away, you received your suspension – even in a game 6 of a playoff series.  There is no way Green was kicking his foot that high as a natural follow-through on his shot.  In fact, both Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson thought he should have been suspended, and Van Gundy figured the league was trying to decide between 1 and 2 games.

If Golden State wins tonight and goes on to win the series, this decision will no doubt taint their success to some degree.  But good drama tonight and Green will receive the John Starks treatment for what he used to get in Indiana after head-butting Reggie Miller back in the 1990s.

The 4th quarter of the Cavs- Raptors game last night was great.  At one point, Cleveland made 11 shots in a row and still couldn’t win the game.  Even SU fave Richard Jefferson got into the act with 8 4th quarter points.  Cleveland is discovering what many teams already knew: live by the 3, die by the 3.  Did you really think JR Smith was going to keep shooting at that high a level?  And Kevin Love seems to shrink from the spotlight when the light shines brighter.  I will say this: LeBron James is pretty much unstoppable.  When he is playing his pass first game and lets the offense come to him, he is the man.

Channing Fry is a nice player but you can overdo the 3-balls on every possession.  True, it took Toronto to have exceptional games from Lowry and DeRozan to win and that won’t happen again.  Cleveland will win in 6 games but they need to mix it up offensively to get ready for the finals.

Look for the Warriors to bounce back tonight.  Westbrook is due for a 6 for 27 shooting night.  You can feel it coming.

The Golden State – OKC series is really good stuff.  The teams don’t like each other and OKC is playing with a desperation to finally get that first championship.  Kevin Durant has been pretty much unstoppable against the Warriors this year – it’s just a bad match-up for Golden State.  Both teams like to push the ball at a fast pace and no lead really ever feels that safe (although last night’s 40-point bulge is an exception to that).

The NBA’s decision on the leg kick to Adams’ groin by Draymon Green to suspend or not to suspend will be key.  SU says that if Patrick Ewing’s one step onto the court against Miami was a suspension back in the 1990s, and if Amar’e Stoudamire’s one step onto the court against the Spurs was a suspension, then this is a suspension.  It doesn’t matter if you are a superstar or a rising face of the franchise.  The NBA always calls it like it sees it (except of course the refs at the end of games when they don’t always see it) and Green was clearly looking to give it to Adams and it’s happened 2 games in a row now.  But even if Green gets the 1-game suspension, Golden State is a deep team and they have a good shot at winning game 4.  OKC hates prosperity and Westbrook can easily go off in the other direction.  It’s why we watch.

Can you imagine the Knicks playing this up tempo style next season?  Me neither.  Let’s move on.

How about them Yankees?  5 in a row over lowly Arizona and the Oakland A’s who have about 20 players on the DL.  SU says it’s all good but do not be fooled.  The offense is still flawed.  Cashman needs to shake things up by moving one of the regulars in a trade.  But hey, 1 game below .500 is a step in the right direction.

Noah Syndegaard appears to be the best of the Mets’ hard throwers.  It will be interesting to see where they put their money going forward as they look to shape the roster for the future.  This is where the GM earns his salary.  No easy decisions here.

Does Green deserve to be suspended?

Yankee fans were grateful to hear that Hal Steinbrenner is not happy with how things are progressing for his team.  Wally Matthews of espn.com feels Steinbrenner should be pointing the finger at himself for approving the roster.  SU agrees but only in part.  The real accountability rests with Brian Cashman although we don’t know in the end who ultimately was approving those long-term deals for Ellsbury, CC (extension) and A-Rod (extension).  The reality is that 2016 and 2017 are transition years and only the true diehard fans will continue to watch.

SU used to be in that boat but I must admit, this year’s team, like last year’s, is unwatchable.  In the past, SU would always stay up for the West Coast late games to the end.  No longer.  And right now, there isn’t one player in the line up who you look forward to seeing up there.

Girardi is being criticized for pulling his starters after 6 innings and going to his Big 3 in the bullpen.  He has done it twice this week with Eovaldi on Wednesday who had retired 18 in a row, and Nova last night.  While SU would like to see Girardi leave them in, I get it.  He is managing a line-up that puts up 2-3 runs a game, and it’s his job to find a way to get as many wins as possible with this offense.  It’s the right move but as a fan, it’s boring and uninspiring.

Mark Texeiria and his .148 left-handed batting average got the night off last night.  No-one is talking about it but SU has identified the issue.  Texeiria is in his contract year with the Yankees – he is a free agent after this season and he is clearly pressing to have a good year to sign with someone else for the next 3-5 years.  Sure, he’s always been a slow starter but he’s coming off an injury and people are watching to see what a 35-year old with lots of mileage can still do.  SU believes the Yankees will let him go and go with Greg Bird to give the fans some hope for youth.

In the meantime, SU is absorbing the Knicks rumor that Jeff Hornacek will be the new coach.  I must admit that his signing leaves me with that “meh” feeling.  Could have been worse (see Kurt Rambis) and the names out there (Frank Vogel) are so defensive minded which is also unappealing.  If Hornacek is smart, he got Phil Jackson to agree to move Carmelo, sign some free agent guards (Jeremy Lin is still out there) and build around Porzingis.  Hornacek favors a fast-paced offense.  Anthony just doesn’t fit into that model.  Why hamstring a new coach with personnel that don’t fit how he wants to run the team?  SU is not committed.  If Lin goes to Brooklyn I am all in.  Isiah Thomas has poisoned my relationship with the Knicks for life.  There is no going back.  And, by the way, with all the coaching changes in the NBA the last few years, you don’t see anyone knocking on Isiah’s door.  Surprise, surprise.

SU was going to give its take on the fracas between Jose Bautista and Odor of the Rangers.  But active SU commenter, S. Goldman, beat me to the punch and weighed in today with the following:

“All is quiet at SU despite signs of a continued resurgence in the Bronx and the Toronto/Texas brawl. A few things about the brawl:

1) Texas very well may have tried to hit Bautista as retaliation for a bat flip in the playoffs. This is more or less in line with the unwritten rules we often hear about although I’m now learning that the unwritten rulebook has as a subchapter on this that indicates the retaliation should happen early in the series rather than late in the game on getaway day. I have little patience for all of this, mostly because MLB has been policing this for years in a way that is about as effective as can be expected. People still get hit but it rarely gets out of hand with retaliation after retaliation. In any case, it was late in a close game and getting a free trip to 1st base is valuable in its own right.

2) Bautista’s slide into second was just wrong. It was not quite Chase Utley bad because it was actually a slide but it was a slide that pretty much began after passing the base. Middle infielders should have to deal with hard slides but they should be comfortable knowing that the slides are headed towards (not away from) 2nd base. The rules could be clearer on this and it doesn’t have to be about feet first or no roll blocks or whatever. The slide can be hard but it has to be towards the base. Period. Anything else results in an out at 1st base. And I’d give Bautista the same suspension given to Utley, especially if his motivation was to hurt more than to break up the double play.

3) We can’t pretend to know what athletes are really like as people. But maybe this shows us that those who were offended by Bautista’s bat flips were onto something. You might say the same thing about those that were offended by Bryce Harper. I don’t know if baseball needs to be made fun again but, if so, maybe we can find some better guys to do it.

4) Compared to Bautista or Harper, I know even less about Odor but his reaction was truly ugly. I don’t know if he’s nastier than the next guy in a fight or if he just got lucky to connect with a punch (where others rarely do). In any case, a fist to the jaw is not the image MLB wants to be associated with (other than the attention and clicks it draws on their sites and apps) and he’s going to see a pretty hefty fine and suspension as well.”

SU is not a Bautista fan.  I am not “sold” on his sudden power resurgence at the later stages of his career.  I hated the bat flip in the playoffs as I am clearly old school and not into showing up the opponent.  I saw the videotape of his slide and he was intent on hurting someone there.  I must admit: that was a great punch by Odor – you never, ever see a sports fight have such a direct hit on a punch.  It’s bad for baseball’s image and you certainly don’t want youngsters thinking that is the right thing to do.  But…. it was amazing how everything went flying there.  The reality is that guys like Bautista and Big Papi never get thrown at or hit.  They comfortably stand right on the plate and no-one moves them back.  Big Papi trots around the bases in about 28 seconds and Bautista does his elaborate bat flips and twirls.  The Rangers’ pitcher hit him in the side.  True, last at bat was not the best timing I suppose but not the worst thing.  It was a bad brawl but it does add some bad blood and spice to the rivalry.  Yankees – Red Sox could sure use some of that.

Scientists have been weighing in on Chase Headley’s 9 for 27 homestand with a couple of homeruns and a few rbis.  The laws of Physics are definitely involved here as well as probability.  SU believes it’s a clever Stephen Drew ploy.  Just when it looks like you will be released, you get a few hits and keep the lions at bay.  Let’s see if he can sustain it.  Mark Texeiria is next on the SU hit parade.  No doubt he will get it going on this road trip.  7-3 homestand was huge.  SU is still not sold.

Finally, Mets and Nats in an early season showdown.  They are coming off a lousy road trip but SU believes it’s just the ups and downs of a long season.