Playoff Mania

  I’m definitely not taking credit for it. My ego is not that huge (remember that I am not that tall—okay, I got the short joke out of the way)—despite what too many want to think. I simply cannot control things outside of my own circumstances. It’s not humanly possible.

My previously expressed belief was that I could no longer watch the New York Yankees as the lack of hitting was driving me crazy. And I have carried through on that promise. I may have tracked the scores, but I didn’t tune into the games, opting to watch other sports. 

Was it a coincidence that the Bronx Bombers began to hit in earnest once the team returned from the thrashing it received in Baltimore? That started a six game winning streak, with the big bats coming alive, most notably Aaron Judge, who was finally hitting home runs worthy of his reputation. 

So what happens on Thursday night when my wife, daughter and I go out for dinner? The final game of the series against Houston was being shown on the television by the bar. I saw the game. Sure enough, the Yankees were losing 4-2 at that time, and Houston managed to eke out a 4-3 victory to salvage a win in the four game set. 

What did I immediately think? That it was my fault. Had I averted my eyes from that screen in the restaurant, the Yankees would have retained their karma and won the game. 

Now I know that is unrealistic. The Yankees couldn’t possibly win all the rest of the games to be played this season. 

Yet I think that when the Yankees take on the Rays in St. Petersburg this weekend, maybe I should find something else to watch. After all, don’t I believe in superstition? 

What do I substitute the loss of Yankees baseball on my viewing plate? It isn’t the Mets. Not that I hate them—I don’t. I just don’t like Keith Hernandez and the way he talks. His voice is shrill and he is a bit full of himself. I do like Ron Darling better, but he is not enough to sway me to take in a game from Citi Field. 

Nor have I turned to MLB Network for games. I really haven’t needed to. 

Why? This is the time for NBA and NHL post-season action. With the tenants of Madison Square Garden in the thick of the action.

Which team do I start to talk about first? That’s a difficult choice. Both are performing in a way that I never expected.

Sure, the New York Rangers were the team with the most points in the NHL regular season. But not by much. Florida, Boston, Carolina and Toronto in the Eastern Conference and Dallas, Winnipeg, Vancouver and Edmonton all exceeded 100 points for the 2023-24 campaign. 

What that allowed for is home ice to start and end a playoff series, should it go seven games. Which can easily be lost in the first two games—it happened to Boston versus the Maple Leafs; Dallas against the defending champion Vegas Golden Knights; Winnipeg playing Colorado; and with Edmonton and the Los Angeles Kings. And in the second round, Colorado struck back from a three goal deficit to defeat Dallas in Texas, plus Boston won Game 1 in Florida.

No one can clearly predict how a series will go. Matchups and goaltending go a long way to deciding the outcome. Coaching and talent along with experience are additional factors. 

The only real upset in the first round was the Colorado Avalanche handling the Winnipeg Jets. There were seven game series involving Boston and Toronto, again leading to heartbreak for long-starved Leafs fans, who haven’t seen a Stanley Cup champion since 1967; and in the Dallas-Vegas games. Leafs management was so incensed how Head Coach Sheldon Keefe (despite having a great regular season record) couldn’t get his team past the first round the past two years. Now he’s gone even with two more years left on an extended contract. 

Only the New York Rangers went unscathed, taking out a Washington Capitals team which squeaked into the final Eastern Conference playoff slot. Some thought this was merely a good team dominating a team that was lucky to be in the tournament. 

Except that the Rangers have run up a 3-0 lead on a highly competitive Carolina squad, winning two games in overtime despite being significantly outshot. 

I have seen snippets of the other series in both rounds. New York’s run of seven straight wins to begin the playoffs matches the run of the 1994 team. That team was the last to win a Stanley Cup in Gotham, ending a 54 year drought when the team iced Vancouver. 

Could this be the time for the Rangers? It’s hard to say; Carolina could easily jump back into the series. Florida and Boston are worthy opponents in the next round.  Any team coming out of the West will be tough, too. 

Wouldn’t it be magical if the Rangers and Canucks met again in the Finals? There’s a long way to go. It sure has been fun watching hockey so far.

As much fun as hockey has been, basketball has been riveting, too. That Knicks-Sixers series was epic. Minnesota and Oklahoma City swept their first round foes. Only Cleveland and Orlando engaged in a seven game series, Game 7 won convincingly by the Cavaliers. Indiana went past a depleted Milwaukee team to reach the next round. Losses by the Los Angeles Lakers and Phoenix Suns led to the teams firing the head coaches. 

The second round has been full of surprises. Most pundits thought that Boston would roll past Cleveland. Nobody told Donovan Mitchell, who single-handedly led his team to a win in Game 2 at the TD Garden. Boston may finally be missing the injured Kristaps Porzingis, a key player in the rotation.

Denver is the reigning champion. Nikola Jokic just picked up his third M.V.P. award. But his Nuggets team is in disarray, having lost twice at home to a hungry Minnesota team which has blown out Denver in both games. Nuggets’ star Jamal Murray had a meltdown over the officiating, throwing items towards a referee, incurring a $100,000 fine without a suspension (that should have been imposed).

Oklahoma City is in a dogfight with Dallas. The Western Conference leaders are relatively new to the playoff picture, a youthful team with loads of talent. The Mavericks, while suffering some injuries, are playoff-tested. Which is why the Mavs went into OKC and won Game 2. Expect this series to go at least six games. 

What has my attention are the New York Knicks. Once more, Jalen Brunson has been phenomenal. He picked up where he left off against Philadelphia. His Villanova brethren, Donte DiVincenzo and Josh Hart have excelled. Isaiah Hartenstein has played great. But New York has suffered another key injury with OG Anunoby felled by a hamstring injury after keeping the team in Game 2 when Brunson went down with a right foot injury. Brunson returned and led the team to victory, but his status for Game 3 is questionable. 

Playoff time in New York has been particularly exciting. Only the Knicks have lost a game thus far. The road gets much tougher starting with the Knicks visiting Indiana and as the Rangers progress.

I have a definite case of playoff mania. Who needs the Yankees right now?

I Just Can't Watch The Yankees

  I established a small moratorium on watching the New York Yankees. Despite playing to a very decent record thus far, this team is increasingly unwatchable. So why torture myself (as if I haven’t done that since the last World Series title in 2009 or when icon Derek Jeter retired; you can excuse the euphoria of watching Aaron Judge clout 62 homers as an aberration)? 

I knew this would be difficult. The team plays seemingly every day and my day is usually calming down enough around seven when I normally fall into the routine of turning on the YES Network (except when it become infuriating with select games on Amazon Prime and Apple TV+, requiring additional steps to locate the broadcast and wait for it to finally appear on the screen). My sense of anticipation for the top of the order—Anthony Volpe, Juan Soto, Judge, Alex Verdugo, Giancarlo Stanton and Anthony Rizzo to inflict damage on enemy pitchers—lured me to watch. 

My disappointment with the strikeouts, weak grounders and routine fly balls, coupled with pitching which gets by, usually allows me to start checking on the outcome on my cell phone. This allows me a layer of insulation from the repetitive failure to produce runs, which seemingly is occurring on a too frequent basis (New York leads all of baseball in the dubious category of GIDP—grounding into a double play—which, if it doesn’t marketedly improve, will set a new MLB record. Also the pitch-by-pitch abuse of the strike zone by umpires—whether it is a pitch well outside, high or low—and the apparent inability of Yankees batters to swing at or to fully connect with that one or two hittable pitches per at bat—is maddening; pitch identification seems to be gone with this group.

Yes, I am aware it is a marathon. What has transpired in the first 35 games will not be dispositive of how the season ends—especially for the Yankees. Right now, the Kansas City Royals are on the heels of the AL central-leading Cleveland Guardians, while the Minnesota Twins, wallowing to begin the season, compiled a ten game winning streak into the weekend. Even Detroit, the Yankees’ opponent this weekend, is playing above .500. 

For that matter, the usually moribund Oakland A’s are hovering near first place in the AL West, while the Houston Astros are in the basement along with Anaheim. The Philadelphia Phillies and Atlanta Braves are atop the NL East, while both the New York Mets and Washington Nationals hover around .500. Milwaukee, despite being thrashed twice by the Yankees last weekend, sits in first place in the NL Central, with the Chicago Cubs nearby and both St.Louis and Cincinnati not playing awfully; Pittsburgh did descend to its normal depths after beginning the season well.

Only the talent-rich Los Angeles Dodgers are clearly ahead of their rivals in the NL West. With a record no better than the Yankees, even with Mookie Betts , Shohei Othani and Will Smith carrying lofty averages. But then again, didn’t all the experts pick the Dodgers to flourish?

Those same experts were split on how well the Yankees would rebound from last season’s disastrous 82-80 record. The starting pitching has been sound while reigning Cy Young Award winner Gerrit Cole is in the midst of his lengthy rehab. While for the most part, the bullpen has been good, reliable reliever Tommy Kahnle is still not back from his injury.

Thus, for now, the team has apparently exceeded expectations of the naysayers. Yet, in the recently concluded series with the AL East-leading Orioles in Baltimore, New York managed very little offense in losing three of four. 

Which is why the prognostications of those who don’t see the Yankees being a threat to win the World Series is still in play. And with the harrowing start to the 2024 campaign, I find myself averting my eyes to Yankees baseball. For now.

On the other hand, the NBA and NHL post-seasons have been riveting. Just in the first round.

Let’s start with the NBA. Indiana defeated a Milwaukee Bucks team without superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo playing in any of the games and co-star Damien Lillard playing hurt when he could play. Indiana advances to the next round, while the Bucks, who hoped putting Doc Rivers in charge was the right move at midseason, reel from the defeat and the very bad image of Patrick Beverley hurling a basketball at a Pacers fan after the final loss. 

The Pacers opposition in the second round is the New York Knicks. Without star forward Julius Randle, no one thought that New York had enough to finish second in the Eastern Conference. So, too, did many experts question if the Knicks could get past the Philadelphia ’76’ers once Joel Embiid returned and with the emergence of Tyrese Maxey at guard. 

In what proved to be a riveting six games, New York did enough to get past the Sixers, winning two games at the Wells Fargo Center, including the clincher on Thursday night (Sixers ownership bought a number of tickets to donate to first responders in order to stop a loud contingent of New York fans from being heard. It didn’t work). Because of own player—Jalen Brunson. 

Brunson scored over 40 points in three separate games, including setting a franchise record with 47 points—on the road. Along with his former Villanova teammates Josh Hart and Donte DiVincenzo, the highly-motivated trio plus another group of contributors off of the bench worked magic in the limelight. As superb as Brunson has been in his one season in New York, please stop comparing him with Walt Frazier and anointing him as possibly the second-best player ever to play for the team from Madison Square Garden. 

The cumulative point differential between the teams was one—in favor of NYK. A significantly hobbled Embiid battled his way to the basket or free throw line in each game. The play was indicative of a 2 versus 3 semi-final matchup—until Embiid missed plenty of time in a regular season where he was headed towards a possible league M.V.P. award, thereby derailing the Sixers bid for a higher seed, home court advantage (if any) and relegating the team to the Play-In round. 

The winner of the Indiana-New York series will face the survivor of the Orlando/Cleveland-Boston series. Boston looked dominant versus an overmatched Miami squad. Cleveland and Orlando have battled in almost anonymity, playing very high quality basketball. If the Magic wins Game 7, it just might give the Celtics a more difficult time than the Heat did. 

Out West, Minnesota looked awesome in dismantling the Phoenix Suns and its trio of stars; Devin Booker, Bradley Beal and Kevin Durant did not look good against the younger and hungrier T-Wolves.  Minnesota did suffer a bad injury—Head Coach Chris Finch was run into by one of his players, suffering a torn patella tendon, which required surgery. The F&M grad expects to travel with the team when they meet Denver in the next round. 

Denver took it to the Los Angeles Lakers in their series, winning in five games. Denver is good, but they needed two game-winning shots by underrated Jamal Murray to win games and advance. 

The Lakers’ loss started a chain of events. The speculation is that Lebron James will re-up with the team and the Lakers will draft his son, Bronny, to play alongside his father. The scapegoat for the loss was not the players. Instead, Head Coach Darvin Ham and his staff were let go. There is turmoil in Laker Land, sitting squarely on the shoulders of Rob Pelinka to repair. I am not a big fan of his.

Dallas took down the Los Angeles Clippers. Coupled with the Kings loss to the Edmonton Oilers in their hockey series, it is going to be quiet inside of Crypto.com Arena. 

The Mavericks draw the top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder for Round 2. It is going to take a monstrous effort by Dallas to make it to the next round. OKC is that good.

Meanwhile, the NHL awaits two Game 7’s to decide the next round opponents. In an old time Original Six series, Boston and Toronto are fighting it out; English-speaking Ontario is holding its breath, rooting for the Cup-starved Leafs. The other series involves Dallas and the defending champion Vegas Golden Knights. The winner gets to face Colorado, winners over Winnipeg. Western Canada will deal with a Vancouver-Edmonton matchup, which ought to be awesome. 

Waiting in the East are the New York Rangers after a dominating win over Washington. Carolina and Florida meet in what will likely be a seven game series. New York, Boston (if they survive against the missing firepower of the Auston Matthews-less Leafs), the Hurricanes and Panthers are all legitimate Stanley Cup contenders. 

TV can be exciting to view at the end of April and into May, outside of local baseball. I just can’t watch the Yankees.