THE FINAL FRONTIER

(I had to say it cuz it’s really corny and has nothing

to do with anything I’m going to talk about)

The Refs and LeBron (in a paragraph)

STOP TALKING ABOUT THE REFS! The media does such a terrible job of letting fans enjoy sports. We have to see every play from 4 angles with zoom and slow mo from the comfort of our own television in HD over the span of 30 seconds we get to decide how bad of a call it was.  That’s not end, we then turn on any channel that talks about sports and have to see the same play again while the “analysts” tell us that it’s killing the flow of the game whenever the whistle is blown, or we’re not protecting players and keeping it fair when the whistle is not blown and people keep comparing it to the ’80s. It’s nothing like the ’80s. Nothing will ever be like that again as long as David Stern is in power, thinking about the Artest melee. Champions overcome. The two players leading the way with the most technicals throughout the entire playoffs are the 2 superstars left playing for a title. Does that seem weird to anyone else? With that being said, I don’t think the refs will get in the way of this series because of the style of play we’re going to see.

NEXT!

TELL ME YOU BET ON THE MAGIC LIKE I TOLD YOU TO? 6 to 1 to win the series.  It was beautiful to watch that series with Orlando hitting upper 40s in 3-point field goal percentage, Cleveland playing terrible defense pretty much the entire 48 minutes of every game and LeBron….my god.

Can we all agree that the Cavs were never as good as the entire country thought? What they achieved in the regular season was great against all the teams that didn’t have a shot at making the Conference Finals. If you give Boston a healthy Garnett, they walk through the East wondering why it was so difficult the year before. LeBron is a beast of an athlete, as is Dwight Howard. They ARE NOT great basketball players, not yet. Neither is fulfilling more than 75% of their potential. People say, “No David, you’re being too hard on LeBron.  LeBron was the best player this year and will be for years to come and the numbers he put up are second only to Jordan, but he has no team around him. You can’t win a title without a team.”

Of course you can’t win a title without a team. We watched Kobe try and do that when Shaq left and for some reason people thought it would be different now? Did the offense the Cavs ran at the end of games look familiar at all? LeBron brings the ball up the floor, 18 seconds and 22 dribbles later he does something and hopes to get fouled or catch fire with tough jumpers.

Orlando Magic vs. LA Lakers

As always, I use oddsmaker.com for my sports betting. They have the Lakers at -270 to win the series which means for every $270 you wager, you profit $100. The Magic are +230. A $100 bet would pay $330 total. Kobe is -300 to win MVP, and Howard is +250.

The only way Orlando can win this series is if they continue to play like the have the last 7 games of the postseason, and the Lakers play worse than the have in any series thus far.  Jameer Nelson never got hurt, then I would probably consider them the favorite. That’s tough luck, but I have a feeling we’ll be seeing Orlando on the biggest stage a few more times in the next 10 years.

I keep hearing that Orlando causes matchup problems for the Lakers. Nobody causes matchup problems for the Lakers besides quick point guards. The Magic do not have that without Jameer, so I don’t know what all the fuss is about. Dwight has an underdeveloped offensive game. Bynum will put him on the line because Dwight’s a bad shooter. Pau will lag off him to make sure he doesn’t blow by him for the easy bucket. Lamar will play him straight up and potentially not need help of any kind depending on how his back is feeling. If you stay at home with Orlando’s shooters and make sure 75% of shots are contested, then you have a good shot of winning. Their defense isn’t great. No defense stops the triangle if it is being run well, and nobody stops Kobe when he’s this dialed in. Period.

I’m not saying that games won’t be competitive. The Magic do not give up, and the Lakers are not going to panic either. We all saw the Lakers fall apart last year.  Neither did they waltz through the West this year so it’s logical to think that they may not show up for the Finals. That is false. What we saw last year was a team that had lost their young center, replaced him with an amazing talent and half a season later they had the best record in the West while breezing through their bracket without ever getting punched in the mouth.

Then they got punched in the mouth and whimpered. You don’t make a pansy noise like that when Garnett’s Celtics are around because they will eat you alive, and they did.

We are going to see some pretty basketball.  We are going to see one or two players on Orlando crack under the pressure of the added cameras, importance, celebrity treatment and maybe even a pumped up Staples Center–that might be pushing it, but I like to dream big. We’re going to see Dwight Howard try to do too much. We will see Pau remind us that he’s the best 2^nd player on any team in the league who plays as many minutes as Kobe and somehow never gets in foul trouble no matter who he’s guarding. We’re going to see Odom taking things seriously (if his back is okay). Most importantly to me, we’re going to see Kobe solidify himself as a top 3 two-guard and a top 10 player all time. It is about time we all take a second to reflect on how special a talent he is, it doesn’t matter if you like him or not, we should watch basketball to appreciate the finesse, skill, determination and talent because it’s available in HD by the bushel or barrel or some large amount.

I bet Kobe to win Finals MVP. If you like the Lakers to win, and you agree with me and think Orlando won’t keep playing at the freakishly high level they did against Cleveland, then I would do a two pronged bet. Take the Lakers in 5 for +400 and in 6 for +200. This gives you the opportunity to make a profit and provides a cushion in case you aren’t 100 percent sure how many games it’s going to take. If you like Orlando to win, then you’re in luck because the Magic to win in 6 and 7 are both +600 which is a GREAT payout considering these are the two best teams we saw in the playoffs, and the Lakers have not exactly been an overwhelming, dominant force. Orlando won both regular season games as well. As nice as +600 is and as much as I like gambling, I can’t justify going against my gut. I think the Lakers take it in 5 games even though 6 makes more sense. If the Lakers don’t win, then you can find me wandering around Sunset Blvd talking to myself about how the matchups didn’t scare me even though every sports media outlet told me that I should worry……ENJOY THE GAMES!

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Dave Weitzel is a professional gambler and excels at everything from Poker to Chinese Checkers and has been betting on both since the third grade.  Dave Weitzel has turned his sights to sports betting and is passing his knowledge onto you via The Odds by The Sports Union.

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