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- Cinderella no more: Underpowered Cambridge United’s run in the FA cup ended yesterday with a 3-0 loss to Manchester United. The result was not unexpected, and by drawing Manchester United in their first game, Cambridge United earned themselves a bunch of fans and a ton of money, but that won’t stop them from wondering what could have been if they had been able to convert on an early scoring chance.
Line: Shucks.
- Maybe it’s the year of the Blues: The St. Louis Blues have been solidly one of the best hockey teams in the NHL for years now but they’ve never been able to translate that into playoff success. They showed their class against the number one team in the Eastern Conference, the Tampa Bay Lightning, by coming from 1-0 down to win 2-1 in overtime.
Line: The Blues have done it before in the regular season. It’s time for them to do it in the playoffs.
- From meh to whoa: As is often the case when there doesn’t seem to be any remarkable games on the schedule, one of them turned out to be a great one. I thought the Portland Trailblazers would make quick work of the Utah Jazz. Instead, it took a great performance from Damian Lillard, who scored 25 points, to edge the Jazz 103-102.
Line: Games like this are why it’s worth watching any old game. You just never know.
- Cavaliers make noise in college basketball too: LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers have been on a winning streak in the NBA but it may be the Virginia Cavaliers college basketball team that has the better chance to win a championship this year. The college Cavaliers are 20-1 and beat the 12th ranked North Carolina Tar Heels 75-64. The game was virtually tied at halftime but Virginia put their foot down in the second half and put their customary smothering defense to good work.
Line: I’d like to know how teams in Virginia and Cleveland got named after royalists in an English political conflict. (Oh, is that just me?)
- Streaks broken: The Atlanta Hawks went into their game against the New Orleans Pelicans having won their last 19 games. The Brooklyn Nets went into their game against the Los Angeles Clippers having lost four games in a row and seven in a row at home. They both broke their streaks last night. The Pelicans beat the Hawks thanks to Anthony Davis’ 29 points and 13 rebounds. The Nets’ edged the Clippers 102-100 when Jarrett Jack scored with only 1.3 seconds left in the game.
Line: Brooklyn wins, Atlanta loses? The times, they are a-weird.
- The Sharks got Klinkhammered: Rob Klinkhammer has (a great name and has also) been on three different NHL teams this season. He started with the Arizona Coyotes, was waived and then picked up by the Pittsburgh Penguins, and later traded to his current team, the Edmonton Oilers. He’s a big, physical player, usually described as something like “useful.” He was certainly useful for the Oilers last night when he scored a shootout goal to break the tie between the Oilers and the Sharks as the fourteenth player on his team to take a shot in the shootout! Klinkhammer was quoted in this ESPN recap of the game as saying about being unexpectedly called upon to win the game, “I was laughing the whole time. I thought it was hilarious.”
Line: The fact that you can’t repeat shooters and eventually guys who aren’t used to taking shootouts have to go out there is my favorite part of the shootout.
- The Super Bowl gets discussed: Ad infinitum. Over and over again. Even by us! I posted two explanations of what was going on at the end of the Super Bowl for the non-football fan who may have had trouble following how the Patriots stole the ball from the Seahawks and what happened after that.
- All the goals went to the West: NBC Sports Network had a good NHL ice hockey double-header last night. In the first game, the Montreal Canadiens beat the New York Rangers 1-0 thanks to some great goaltending by Carey Price (given the score, the Rangers also had great goaltending from Henrik Lundquist) and a third period goal from Max Pacioretty. The late game between the San Jose Sharks and Anaheim Ducks was a higher scoring affair and ended 6-3 in favor of the Ducks.
Line: Goals are fun, but if I had to choose, I’d rather watch a 1-0 game than a 6-3 game.
- Overpowered by the Grizzlies: The Memphis Grizzlies buck the current trend for NBA teams. They have two big men who like to play with their backs to the basket, a style more common in the 1980s than in the 2010s. It’s working for them. Last night they beat the Denver Nuggets 99-69.
Line: Whether or not you like the Grizzlies, you’re probably glad there’s some variation of play in the NBA.
- No Kobe, No Problem: The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Chicago Bulls 123-118 in double overtime last night. It was the first win for the Lakers since Kobe Bryant assented to having surgery to fix his torn rotator cuff, instead of just playing the rest of the season with one arm, which is what you get the sense he wanted to do. The Bulls have now lost six of their last ten games but as troubling as that is, they’re likely to be more puzzled than frightened by this loss.
Line: No Kobe, no problem for the Lakers!
- Djokovic to the finals: Novak Djokovic beat Stan Wawrinka to advance to the finals of the Australian open where he’ll face Andy Murray. Djokovic needed five sets to beat Wawrinka although the fifth was so one-sided (Wawrinka didn’t win a game) it seems retrospectively ceremonial.
Line: No surprises in this year’s Australian Open finalists: Djokovic, Murray, Williams, Sharapova — all big names.
- Trouble in Chile: The United States Men’s National Soccer Team lost 3-2 to Chile in an exhibition match in Chile. This is no big deal, it doesn’t really matter whether the U.S. wins its exhibitions or friendlies, but it’s frustrating for fans of the team nonetheless. This makes five games in a row without a win.
Line: Chile often has a tough squad but I expect more from the U.S.
- Four scores and win: NBC Sports Network had a double header of NHL hockey games on last night and in both of them, the winning team scored four goals. The Washington Capitals scored four but really only needed one to beat the Pittsburgh Penguins who didn’t score at all. For bonus fourness, there were also four fights in that game. The Los Angeles Kings needed all four of their goals to top the Chicago Blackhawks who scored three.
Line: Four goals is usually enough to win in the NHL these days.
- Topsy-turvy night in the NBA: Some strange things happened last night in professional basketball. By far the strangest was the woeful New York Knicks beathing the Oklahoma City Thunder 100-92. These things happen, even to good teams, but the Thunder can less afford it than any other good team in the league. The Cavaliers continued their winning streak but this time it was Kyrie Irving who led the way. With LeBron sitting out with a sprained wrist, Irving scored 55 points in the 99-94 victory over the Portland Trailblazers.
Line: Wait, the Knicks won?!
- Blue beats red: Chelsea beat Liverpool 1-0 in the second leg of their home and home Capital One Cup semifinal. The Blues advance to the finals where they will face the winner of Tottenham Hotspur and Sheffield United. Those two teams play today with Tottenham up 1-0 in aggregate.
Line: Chelsea just looked a little bit better than Liverpool. Not by a lot, but by enough.
- Islanders still confound the Rangers: Back when the Islanders were terrible and the Rangers were good, they still found a way to almost always play well in games between the two teams. That’s what a rivalry is all about. Now that the Islanders are one of the best teams in the league, the Rangers can’t keep their end of the bargain. The Islanders beat the Rangers 4-1 in this game.
Line: The Rangers aren’t used to being the underdogs in this rivalry.
- Detroit’s Achilles heel: Remember when the Detroit Pistons were the hottest team in the NBA? They’re not anymore. Since guard Brandon Jennings tore his Achilles tendon, the Pistons have lost three games in a row, including last night’s 103-95 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers. They’re the NBA mirror image of the Pistons. After a long fallow period, they’ve won seven games in a row.
Line: What goes up, must come down.
- One of Goliath’s early matches: The thing is… until David, Goliath had a pretty good record, I’m guessing. That’s how the F.A. Cup match between Stoke City and Rochdale worked out. Stoke City won, 4-1.
Line: I guess this is the flip-side of the heroic F.A. cup underdogs — sometimes they are just outclassed.
- The rare weather-delayed basketball games: The Brooklyn Nets and New York Knicks canceled home games last night because of the snow storm.
Line: HAHAHA the snow storm must be a basketball fan… HAHAHA.
- Carolina Blue over Orange: You know you’ve got some classic teams (or political correctness) when you can easily refer to a color and it identifies the team. The North Carolina men’s basketball team beat a short-handed Syracuse Orange handily last night. The final score was 93-83. Syracuse had to play two players for the complete game because of injuries and despite creating 20 turnovers, did not have enough to upset the North Carolina team.
Line: I’d like to see these teams play again when both are at full strength.
- Australian Open gets serious: We’re now in the quarterfinal round of the Australian Open. This is the part where ranked players start inevitably knocking each other out of the tournament. Last night Rafael Nadal and Australian phenom Nick Kyrgios as well as Simona Halep and Eugenie Bouchard were eliminated from contention.
Line: Oh no! Nadal/Krygios/Halep/Bouchard lost!! Darn!
- Lopsided NBA games galore: TNT couldn’t have been happy with the double-header it got last night. First the Chicago Bulls surprisingly blew out the defending championship San Antonio Spurs 104-81. Then, the Los Angeles Clippers toyed with the Brooklyn Nets on teir way to a 123-84 win that honestly wasn’t as close as the score makes it seem. Apparently TNT was able to switch away from the late game and show part of the Boston Celtics surprising win over the Portland Trailblazers 90-89.
Line: The NBA season is a marathon, not a sprint. Sometimes, in the middle of the winter, the games don’t seem that inspired.
- Federer goes out early: Roger Federer is only 33 years old but in Tennis years, that’s very, very old. His demise has been predicted so many times that predictors have stopped daring to predict very much about him at all, so we’ll just stick to the facts. He lost last night in four sets to Andreas Seppi and has been eliminated from the Australian open.
Line: After so many years of being dominant, now you just want to see Federer get one more masters win for old-time’s sake.
- Iraq triumphs: Amidst what was reported to be a heavy police presence in Australia, Iraq beat Iran in a thrilling soccer game. The game was tied 1-1 after 90 minutes and despite being down to ten men, Iran was able to tie the game up twice in extra time to leave the game at 3-3 120 minutes in. Iraq won the penalty shoot-out 7-6 and will move on to the semi-finals of the Asian Cup. The game was pretty fiesty for a soccer game. Ten yellow cards were given, in all, and there was a brief shoving match near the end of the game. Still, as a triumph of sport over politics, so far at least, it seems to have worked.
Line: This sounds like a great game. Shame it was in the middle of the night in the U.S.
- Florida State upsets Louisville: The Florida State women’s basketball team, ranked 17th in the country before this game, will be moving on up after beating 4th ranked Louisville 68-63. Florida State isn’t a traditional power in women’s basketball but they’re making a strong case this year to be included as a tournament favorite.
Line: It’s good to know that Florida State isn’t totally defined by their corrupt men’s football program.
- Barcelona gets the last laugh: As an impartial observer of this game, Barcelona had the better of the play for most of the game and therefore had my support. Then there was a five minute period when they felt they were not getting the calls they deserved from the ref. In complaining they incurred his wrath and received two or three yellow cards. They must also have incurred his sympathy or at least instilled a belief that they were being unfairly persecuted because not more than five minutes later, they got a penalty kick on a pretty soft foul. Lionel Messi put the ball in on the rebound and Barcelona won 1-0.
Line: Barcelona won and they should have won but I don’t like the way they won.
- Pittsburgh scrambles back but loses in the end: The Pittsburgh Penguins lost their fourth game in a row to the Chicago Blackhawks 3-2 after losing in the shootout that follows tied games in the NHL after an additional five minutes of overtime play. The Blackhawks got out to a two goal lead before letting the Penguins scramble back into the game with two goals of their own. The NHL takes a break now until Sunday’s All-Star game.
Line: No team needs this break more than the Penguins do.
- Excellent basketball scheduling by ESPN: ESPN had two games to televise last night and they were both excellent. The Oklahoma City Thunder beat the Washington Wizards 105-103 in overtime. The close game was overshadowed somewhat by the awkward wooing of the Thunder’s best player, Kevin Durant, by the home team, the Wizards. Durant will be a free agent after next year and is rumored to be considering playing in Washington D.C., close to where he grew up. The Golden State Warriors continued their reign of baskets with a 126-113 win over the Houston Rockets in a game that will be remembered at least as much for it’s heat as its scoring.
Line: Great doubleheader last night. Perfect time to grab a big bowl of popcorn and plant yourself in front of the TV.
- More favorites fall in Australia: The Australian Open never seems to be a great place for favorites and last night was no different. Gael Monfils fell in five sets to 6’8″ Jerzy Janowicz. Australian Samantha Stosur lost to American Coco Vandeweghe much to the home crowd’s dismay, and Caroline Wozniaki lost in straight sets to Victoria Azarenka.
Line: I always root for Americans in international competitions but it’s still a little sad when the home country’s best player gets eliminated.
- Tied up after one: The first leg of the Capital One Cup between Chelsea and Liverpool ended in a 1-1 tie. Liverpool had the better of the chances all game long but game up a silly penalty kick in the first half to give Chelsea their goal.
Line: Because it was in Liverpool, a tie gives Chelsea the slight edge in the series.
- Old school hockey: The Philadelphia Flyers beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 3-2 in overtime last night in a game that would have been at home in the 1990s or even 1970s. There were several ugly hits, four fights, and countless skirmishes throughout the night.
Line: The Flyers always seem to force the Penguins into games like that and then beat them.
- Celebrating .500: The Oklahoma City Thunder are celebrating today because they’ve finally climbed back up to having an equal number of wins and losses on the season. They started the year out with injuries to both their best players and have been scrambling to catch up ever since.
Line: I would never have imagined the Thunder celebrating .500 but here we are.
- Surviving Australia: Bill Bryson once wrote a very funny book about Australia called In a Sunburned Country
whose conceit was that there are more things that will kill you in Australia than anywhere else in the world. There’s (hopefully) nothing that will kill the tennis players in the Australian open but there do seem to be a lot of upsets every year. Maria Sharapova narrowly avoided being upset by Alexandra Panova. Panova was up 4-1 in the deciding third set of the match before giving way to Sharapova who eventually won 7-5.
Line: Australia is a dangerous place for favorites but Sharapova survived to play another day.
- Finland wins border conflict: Finland beat Sweden 1-0 in their international friendly in Abu Dhabi. Their one goal was scored by a player with a typically awesome Finnish name, Roope Riski in the 63rd minute.
Line: Playing Finland is Riski business. HAHAHAHAHA
- Sometimes it is easy being the Blues: The St. Louis Blues are making hockey look easy. They beat the Colorado Avalanche 3-1 for their seventh win in the last eight game. Avalanche goalie, Semyon Varlamov valiantly saved 27 of the 30 shots that came at him, but it wasn’t enough.
Line: The Blues are playing great hockey. Maybe this will be their year.
- Is the NBA coming back to normality? The two NBA basketball games I featured yesterday were the Detroit Pistons at Atlanta Hawks and the Chicago Bulls at Cleveland Cavaliers. Before the season, NBA observers would have said that the Hawks and Cavaliers would win those games. The way things have been going though, it was fair to think about the opposite results. Turns our, things might be turning back to normality in the NBA, at least a little. The Hawks won 93-82 and the Cavaliers won 108-94. Then again, the Knicks actually won a game, beating the the Pelicans 99-92, so maybe normality is just an allusion.
Line: The NBA season is long. Let’s not get too carried away by unlikely things like the Cavaliers terrible play and the Pistons brilliance.
- An upset blowout: There’s college basketball upsets and then there’s the unranked Georgetown Hoyas beating 4th ranked Villanova 78-58. Georgetown scored 42 points in the first half while playing a smothering defense that allowed only 20 points in return.
Line: Nice win by Georgetown, they’ll probably be ranked in the top 25 after this one.
- The first tennis upset of the new year: The first of the four major tennis tournaments of 2015 has begun and with it comes the first upset. Fifth seeded Ana Ivanovic lost her first round match to a relatively unknown Czech player, Lucie Hradecka. After winning the first of three sets 6-1, things fell apart for Ivanovic and she lost the second two sets 6-4 and then 6-0.
Line: It’s not unexpected to get some early upsets, especially on the women’s side of a big tournament, but it is surprising how bad things got in the third set for Ivanovic.
