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Three games were played in the first round of the NBA play-offs on Thursday night and there were a couple of shocks. First up in Chicago there was no shock as the Boston Celtic retook the lead in the series 2-1 thanks to a blow out win over the Bulls. The Celtics were up 22 points by halftime and just blew Chicago away to win 107-86, Paul Pierce led Boston with 24 points including 4 3-pointers while Rajon Rondo grabbed a double double with 20 points and 11 rebounds.

With home advantage now regained the Celtics will be confident that they can put this series to bed but no one would be surprised if Chicago won the next game in Chicago to take this series to a 6th game. To win in the next game though, they’ll want a bigger performance from their stars, Ben Gordon who had previously put up big numbers in first two games was shut out for only 15 points last night, shooting 5 of 13 from the field while Derrick Rose shot only 4 of 14 from the field for 9 points, a feeble total.

In Dallas the Mavericks bossed the San Antonio Spurs in game 3 of their series and won easily 88-67 in a fantastic display of defensive play. By the half San Antonio had only 30 points on the board and with less than 5 minutes gone in the 3rd quarter and Dallas up 62-36 coach Gregg Popovich called a timeout and benched all of his starters in what he described as a lost cause. The Spurs’ bench players weren’t much better and that all added up to a performance resulting in their fewest points in a play-off game ever with Tim Duncan scoring a career low post-season total of 4 points.

On the other side Dirk Nowitzki paced Dallas with 20 points and 7 rebounds while Josh Howard was a few behind with 17. The most galling stat of the night was the Spurs’ shooting, San Antonio shot just 32 percent from the field all night and missed 15 3-point attempts. Unless the Spurs can up their game then Dallas will be confident of another win at home that would see them take a 3-1 lead to San Antonio and maybe provide us with the first shock of this season’s play-offs. Conversely the rest that the San Antonio big guns gained at the end of last night’s game might prove handy next time round.

Finally the biggest shock of the night was provided in Salt Lake City as the Utah Jazz beat the L.A Lakers 88-86 to keep them alive in this series. The Jazz are still 2-1 down in the best of 7 but will be hopeful that they can call on their stellar home form to carry them to another win and maybe put some pressure on Los Angeles in their next home game. The Jazz won this one with a Deron Williams fadeaway jumper with only 2.2 seconds left, despite this shot falling it wasn’t really Williams’ night and he only scored 13 points from 3 of 7 field shooting. Thankfully Carlos Boozer carried a lot of the Utah load and top scored with 23 points and had an astonishing 22 rebounds for a heroic double double.

The Lakers won’t be pleased that they blew an 8 point lead in the 4th quarter but will still be encouraged by what they saw in Los Angeles; the fact that Utah can play on the road. They won’t want to get complacent however, and will want to make sure they win the next game in Utah so that they can wrap this one up early, the last thing they want is a long drawn out series that would tire their players.

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In tonight’s NBA play-offs the L.A Lakers can go a step closer to booking their place in the Conference Semi-Finals with a win over Utah in Salt Lake City. The Lakers took both of their home games to lead 2-0 and looked comfortable in both. The Jazz hope to give them a harder test at home though, where they’ve only lost 8 games all season and will need to win both of their two home games if they’re to have a any chance of pulling off a miracle as 8th seeds. They might have to face the Lakers without center Mehmet Okur who’s questionable to start tonight’s game and even if he does a full strength Jazz will still find it hard to beat Los Angeles who look a well oiled play-off machine with Kobe Bryant averaging 25 points a game and Pau Gasol 21. Utah will have to look for some sturdy defense to stop these two, something that they haven’t done all season. Utah gave up an average of 100 points a game in the regular season and looked to outscore their opponents a la Phoenix to win games but this plan has backfired whenever a team has matched their very good offense and the Lakers are a good bet to do this. The game starts at 10.30pm ET and the game’s on TNT.

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With 16 games played in the MLB on Wednesday it seems stupid not to talk about that instead of 3 NBA play-off games that produced little in terms of excitement. First up in Pittsburgh the Pirates completed their sweep of the Florida Marlins and in doing so gave the Marlins’ their 4th loss of the season. The Pirates were successful in this 3 game home stand because they limited the Marlins’ explosive offense, before last night’s game the Marlins had only scored 2 runs in the last 2 games and only scored 4 in this game. Architect of this was Paul Maholm, who gained the win despite giving up 4 earned runs and 8 hits in 6 complete innings, thankfully for the Pirates though their middle and late relief came through the final 3 innings without giving up a run and in the 9th closer Matt Capps earned his 5th save of the season.

In the first of two games in Boston the Red Sox won the game that had been postponed on Tuesday due to rain 10-1 thanks to some early power hitting. With another game coming up later that evening the Red Soxs wanted to keep their bullpen relatively fresh and luckily for them the gods were smiling. Rain again came down in the bottom of the 7th which would end the game prematurely but since enough innings had been played Boston and pitcher Tim Wakefield took the win. Wakefield thus became the oldest Red Sox pitcher to complete a game and now moves to 2-1 on the season, in this game he only gave up the 1 earned run (the only run of the game for Minnesota) and 5 hits while striking out 4. As for the Sox’s offense that came in quick 2 run bursts to take the game away from the Twins early. In the 1st Kevin Youkilis homered to right to score David Ortiz and himself, in the 2nd Nick Green homered over the Green Monster to score George Kottaras and himself and in the 3rd Mike Lowell
homered again over the Monster to score J.D Drew and himself. After that the game was in Boston’s hands and they didn’t let Minnesota see it adding 4 more runs in the 7th before the game ended.

In New York the Yankees created another piece of history at their new stadium against the A’s by scoring the first walk-off home run. They won this one 9-7 after a long period of extra innings as the game was tied at 7 after 9. With C.C Sabathia starting the Yankees hoped for a long outing that would spare their shaky middle relief from another outing, he gave them 6 and 2/3rds innings but gave up all 7 Oakland runs and 4 walks. Thankfully then for New York their relief kicked in and held the A’s to only 3 more hits in the next 7 and 1/3rd innings eventually leading to Jose Veras to get the win after Miguel Cabrera hit a 2-run homer into right field to score Nick Swisher in the bottom of the 14th.

In Arizona the Diamondbacks shut out the Rockies and won the game thanks to a Ryan Roberts RBI single in the 7th followed by a walk when the bases were loaded. They won this game 2-0 but most of the plaudits go to their pitching, starter Dan Haren came into this game 0-3 but hit back at his critics by pitching 7 complete innings giving up only 6 hits while striking out 9. His work was backed up in the 9th by Chad Qualls who earned his 4th save of the season despite giving up 2 hits.

In another tight game in the West the San Francisco Giants won their 6th game of the season in extra innings thanks to a Brad Molina RBI ground rule double in the 10th against San Diego. Brain Wilson was given the win after he pitched the final two innings for the Giants but starter Barry Zito did no harm to his E.R.A with a 7 innings outing that saw him strike out 5 and give up 6 hits. This win gave San Francisco a 2-0 win in a short series with the Padres and improves them to 6-8 after a couple of weeks gone in the season.

In Baltimore the White Soxs tied their 3 game road series against the Orioles with an 8-2 win. Thanks to some early hitting Chicago were up 4-0 by the end of the 3rd as Baltimore couldn’t find a way of coping with John Danks’ pitching, Danks earned the win pitching 7 complete innings during which he allowed only 4 hits and 1 earned run to improve to 2-0 on the season with an impressive E.R.A of 0.95.

In Cleveland the Kansas City Royals levelled their 3 game series with the Cleveland Indians with a 2-0 win on Wednesday night. Cleveland have looked inconsistent in the early runnings and carried on that kind of play with only 5 hits all night as the Royals pitching was dominant. Brian Bannister started for the Royals and pitched 6 complete innings giving up 4 hits and striking out 1 for his first win of the season while Joakim Soria earned his 5th save of the season by pitching out the 9th. Kansas City were ahead early when in the 1st David DeJesus hit a sac fly to right to score Coco Crisp from third before right fielder Willie Bloomquist hit an RBI single to center in the 7th to score designated hitter Mike Jacobs.

In Washingon the Nationals were subjected to a cruel loss at the hands of the Atlanta Braves thanks to a walk when the bases were loaded to lose this one 1-0. Despite this loss they still took their first series of the season beating Atlanta 2-1 and are 3-11 on the season. Jair Jurrjens started for the Braves and gave 7 and 2/3rds innings of seamless pitching during which he gave up 6 hits and struck out 4. It wasn’t him that got the win though, that went to Mike Gonzalez despite Gonzalez pitching only 1 out in the bottom of the 8th. Rafael Soriano then pitched out the 9th with the 1 run lead to get his 2nd save of the season.

In Philadelphia the reigning champions carried on their questionable form this time losing at home to the Milwaukee Brewers 3-1. The game was won for the Brewers in the middle innings when they broke through the Phillies defense to score 3. In the 5th short stop J.J Hardy hit a homer to right before in the 6th center fielder Mike Cameron hit a 2 RBI double to score Corey Hart and Ryan Braun. Despite giving up a run in the bottom of the 9th Todd Coffey earned his second save of the year to tie the 3 game series at 1 each.

In Toronto the Blue Jays levelled their home stand with the Texas Rangers at 1-1 thanks to a walk off RBI single by Kevin Millar that scored Vernon Wells in the 11th innings. The game ended 8-7 and the Blue Jays must have feared the worst when closer B.J Ryan blew a 3 run lead in the top of the 9th but thankfully their smoking hot offense came through again to keep them at the top of the AL East at 11-5 on the season.

Back in Boston the rain had stopped by the time had come to start the other game of the day against the Twins and the Red Sox duly won that one as well, 7-3. It was another quick start by the BoSoxs as in the 2nd first baseman Jeff Bailey hit a 3 run homer to score himself, J.D Drew and Jason Varitek before an innings later David Ortiz doubled to left to score Josh Ellsbury and David Pedroia. 5-0 and Boston never looked back despite giving up 2 runs in the 4th to complete a day sweep of the Twins in a rainy series.

In Chicago the Cubs failed to score against the tame Cincinnati Reds and as a result lost 3-0. Despite keeping relatively close to the Reds all game the Cubs only had 6 hits in a convincing outing by Reds starter Johnny Cueto who pitched through 7 innings and gave up only 4 hits. Francisco Cordero earned his 6th save of the season in the 9th and was helped earlier in the innings when Cincinnati put another run on the board to make it 3-0. This win ties the series at 1 each with one to play.

In Houston the Astros beat the high flying Dodgers to at least win the series and will have a chance at a sweep tonight. Houston won this one 6-5 thanks to a 2 run 8th innings that saw them retake the lead, Ivan Rodriguez won the game with a 2 RBI single to center to score Hunter Pence and Geoff Blum. Los Angeles starter Randy Wolf will be disappointed to have gone so deep into a game and not earn the win, he didn’t get the loss though, that went to Ronald Belisario who gave up the all important single in his one innings on the mound.

In St. Louis the Cardinals can thank starter Joel Pineiro for their win against the New York Mets as he earned his 3rd win of the season pitching 8 innings in the process. Two Albert Pujols RBIs set the Cards on their way and they were 5-1 up by the 5th innings in a game where the Mets’ offense was stifled. Ryan Franklin came in to pitch the final out and in the process earned his 4th save of the year.

In Anaheim the Detroit Tigers won their 8th game of the season a shootout, 12-10. In a game where quality pitching was nowhere to be found each team signalled their intent early with the Angels leading 3-2 after one innings after Kevin Morales 3 run jack. With so many runs scored it would take too long to go through all of them in a game where 10 pitcher were used with the unlucky one being Scot Shields who didn’t manage an out at the start of the 7th innings as he gained the loss after giving up 4 earned runs and 2 walks. L.A have made a slow start to the season and are only 5-9 after nearly a tenth of the season has been played.

Finally in Seattle the Tampa Bay Rays beat the Mariners thanks to some relentless scoring in the first 6 innings. Tampa were 7-0 up before Seattle got on the board thanks to a Jose Lopez 3 run homer but couldn’t find anything else where as the Rays added another 2 to see the game out easily.

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3 games are being played tonight and the middle one is Miami @ Atlanta. The Hawks lead this series 1-0 after winning 90-64 on Sunday night and holding the Heat to their lowest points total of the season. Mostly this was done by stifling Dwayne Wade with double teams that meant he missed open shots, in fact Wade only shot 8 of 21 from the field for 19 points, way below his average of around 27 points.

Atlanta will want to see the same kind of defensive performance if they’re to win their second home game in the series. If that happened then they would be in a commanding position going into the games in Miami where in the regular season the Heat lost 13 times. They may well have to play without a full strength Acie Law though who’s questionable for tonight’s game while Mario Chalmers is the same for the team from Florida. Tip-off is at 8pm ET and the game’s on TNT.

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3 play-off games were played on Tuesday night and all went to the home teams. First in Cleveland the Cavaliers made it 2-0 in their series with Detroit, the 8th seed, despite a late Pistons rally, 94-82. LeBron James led the Cavs (surprise surprise) with 29 points and also grabbed 13 rebounds for a double double while Delonte West dropped 20 in an increasingly slick looking Cleveland play-off machine. If they do manage to sweep the Pistons in 4 games the Eastern Conference will be scared. The Cavs were up by 31 points at the start of the 4th quarter before said Detroit come back which cut the deficit back to 12 points but at Quicken Loans Arena it was too little, too late for the Pistons to complete the fight back in a game where they’d been trounced for the most part.

In Portland the Trail Blazers levelled their series with Houston 1-1 after a much improved performance on the first game. In the first game the Rockets had a field day and beat the ‘Blazers 108-81 with Yao Ming shooting 100 percent for 24 points, however Portland sensed that if Ming was given another easy game they would be on the brink of play-off elimination and tightened up. Ming only shot 6 shots from the field and only made 3 for 11 points all game while on the other end Brandon Roy exploded for 42 points while LaMarcus Aldridge dropped 27 points and 12 rebounds for a double double. With the series now going into Houston for two games Portland will hope to take one of the two games to give themselves home court advantage once more and will hope for another big performance from their star small guard, Roy, to achieve that.

Finally in Los Angeles the Lakers comfortably beat the Utah Jazz 119-109 to take a 2-0 lead going into the 2 games in Utah. With the momentum firmly in Los Angeles’ favour the task set for Utah is a massive one, having failed to come anywhere near a win in Los Angeles they’ll need to win their two home games to have any chance of staving off elimination for a few days at least. In this game Kobe Bryant led the Lakers with 26 points and 9 assists while Pau Gasol had 22 points. Lamar Odom came off the bench to drop 19 in a game when, despite the scoreline being close at times, the Lakers never looked like losing.

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3 games are being played tonight and while the early game will likely be predictable (the Pistons @ Cavaliers) and the same goes for the late game (Utah @ Lakers) the middle game in the mid-West will likely be more interesting. The Houston Rockets stay in Portland for the second home game of four for the Blazers and with the Rockets already having taken 1 Portland will be going all out to ensure that they don’t go into Houston with a large deficit and the need for 7 games. To do this they’ll look to stop Yao Ming, Houston’s towering centre after their first effort failed on Saturday night. Ming hit all of his shots from the field (9) for 24 points and 9 rebounds on the way to a 108-81 victory.

Not only do they have to contend with Ming but the Rockets are at full strength so that means Artest, Scola and Aaron Brooks, who led the Rockets on Saturday with 27 points and 7 assists. With Greg Oden also possibly out the ‘Blazers will need to play some serious defensive to avoid staring a quick series defeat in the face. Tip off is at 10pm ET and the game’s on NBA TV.

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2 games were played in the NBA play-offs last night and normality was resumed in the two series that had previously thrown up the wildest results. In Boston the Bulls came close to another upset and kept the Celtics extremely close all game but with only a few seconds left Ray Allen got the ball and took a shot from behind the arc oblivious to the fact that Joakim Noah was in his face. He duly sank the 3 pointer to give Boston the win 118-115 and tie the series at 1-1. The teams now go back to Chicago for the Bulls two home game and you would think the Celtics would show the Bulls who’s boss. Unfortunately Leon Powe found out that he will be out for the rest of the play-offs with a torn ACL, another bad injury for the already weakened Boston.

In Game 2 the aforementioned Allen led the Celtics with 30 points while Rajon Rondo had a triple double with 19 points, 16 assists and 12 rebounds, a performance worthy of the play-offs. Glen Davis also had 26 and Kendrick Perkins 16 and 12 rebounds in a game where the Celtics bench didn’t do much work. On the other side Ben Gordon would have been disappointed that his massive 42 points couldn’t carry Chicago to their 2nd win in a row, Gordon hit 14 of 24 from the field including 6 three-pointers.

In the last game of the Monday night San Antonio won the second game of their series with the Mavericks 105-84 but the Mavericks will still be pleased to have taken one game back to Dallas, where the next two games will be played. In what turned out to be a blow out the Spurs restricted Dirk Nowitzki to only 14 points in a great defensive display. On the offensive side Tony Parker top scored with 38 points while Tim Duncan shrugged off any injury worries to get a double double with 13 points and 11 rebounds. A la the Chicago Bulls the Dallas Mavericks will be annoyed that they couldn’t replicate the intensity they played with in game 1 but they’ll still be pleased to be going home with a win under their belts especially as they’re very strong at home.

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On this Monday night there are only 2 games being played, Chicago look to do the impossible (or what most people thought was impossible) and take another game off of Boston in Boston while the game in the West is the 2nd home game for San Antonio against Dallas. San Antonio will still be hurting after their 105-97 loss at home on Saturday night which gave home court advantage to the Mavericks. The Mavericks largely did this by relying on their bench late on in the game and grinding down San Antonio, the only way you beat the Spurs.

San Antonio will hope to build some momentum and stop any more damage being done to their hopes of going deep into the post-season by beating Dallas tonight. They’ll be boosted by the full return of Jason Kidd, who didn’t practice before Saturday’s game and maybe as a result only managed 4 points. Despite the early loss in the series the Spurs are still heavily favoured in the press, it will be interesting to see whether they can tie the series up at 1 each or whether Dallas will have a chance at wrapping up the series at home in 5 days time. Tip off is at 9.30pm ET and the game is on TNT.

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The last 4 play-off series started on Sunday and everyone game went to the home team bar one.

First up in Los Angeles the Lakers easily beat the 8th seeded Utah Jazz 113-100 to take a 1-0 lead in the series. L.A were on top from the start and went into half time with a 22 point lead and while the Jazz did out score them by 9 in the 3rd quarter they were never in doubt. Kobe Bryant started his play-off run with a solid 24 points in 40 minutes on court. Kobe shot 9 of 17 from the field but arguably the best performance of the night came from his less flashy sidekick Pau Gasol. Gasol scored 20 points and just missed out on a double double with 9 rebounds, shooting 7 of his 11 shots from the field along with all 6 of his foul shots. With another their second home game of the series being played next the Lakers will hope to wrap this one up in 4 games which looks a distinct possibility the way Utah are playing.

Next up the biggest shock of the night as a 6th seed went to a 3rd seed and beat them for the second consecutive night. This time it was in the Eastern Conference at Orlando where Philadelphia inflicted some damage to Dwight Howard and his team. The ‘Sixers came back from 18 points down to win this one 100-98 thanks to an Andre Iguodala 2-point jumper with only 2.2 seconds left to play. Iguodala had 20 points, 8 rebounds and 8 assists while Lou Williams came off the bench to score 18. Despite hitting 11 of 13 from the field to drop 31 points on the night Dwight Howard couldn’t carry the Magic, who with this loss surrender the home court advantage they had.

In Atlanta the Hawks gave a performance worthy of a play-off place and the home court advantage they battled for all season as they beat the 5th seeded Miami Heat 90-64 in a blow out. Josh Smith and co. held Miami to their lowest points total of the season including only 7 points in the 4th quarter. Atlanta had a 20 point lead at half time and never looked back, Josh Smith top scored for the Hawks with 23 points and 10 rebounds for a double double while Joe Johnson dropped 15 to see the Hawks to a 1-0 lead in the best of 7 series.

Finally in Denver the 2nd seeded Nuggets showed why they were so high up in the regular season standings with a 29 point victory over the New Orleans Hornets, 113-84. Chauncey Billups led the Nuggets with 36 points and 8 assists while center Nene grabbed a double double with 12 points and 14 rebounds. Denver will look to wrap this one up in 4 or 5 games to give themselves some rest for the Conference Semi-Finals and after this display they will be confident that they can go into New Orleans and win at least one game.

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In the NBA tonight the remaining 4 ‘Game 1’s are being played tonight, Utah @ L.A Lakers, Philly @ Orlando, Miami @ Atlanta and New Orleans @ Denver. Orlando rested Dwight Howard and Hedo Turkoglu in the final games of the season which is why they lost games to teams like Milwaukee and Toronto but while both are questionable for tonight’s game they’ll both definitely play in an important game. The Magic cannot afford to go into the 2 76ers home games 1-1 because Philly are a strong team at home (24-17) and Iguodala and co. can make them pay wherever they play.

Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy will be looking for big performances from Howard and Rashard Lewis, two of the Magic’s mainstay throughout the season and if they can go into the 2 road games at 2-0 they will be confident that they can at least nick one and settle this game in 5 as a team that were way over .500 on the road in the regular season. Tip off is at 5.30pm ET and the game is being televised on TNT.

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