Posts Tagged ‘Nashville Predators’

Let’s call it Wednesday

Posted: April 27, 2016 by Sports Time Radio in basketball, hockey, post season, sports, Uncategorized
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Out of the big four sports I’d have to say that basketball is my least favorite. It always seem to me that the games are just dunks and 3-point shots. I always try to catch a little bit of the game just to keep up with the score and see what’s going on. Now last night was the first time in a long time that I was sorry I missed a game. I noticed that there was a very early start time for the Indiana Pacers/Toronto Raptors game yesterday. I guess it was because they had two Eastern Conference games on the television schedule. The series was tied at 2-2 with Game 5 being played at Toronto’s Air Canada Centre. By the time I actually got to the game it was coming to the end of the 3rd quarter and the Pacers had a 13 point lead 90-77. I had pretty much given Indiana the game which would’ve also given then a 4 games to 3 games lead in the series. Little did I know that the Pacers would score just 9 points in the 4th quarter. Toronto was able to even the score at 92-92 and then after back to back 3-pointers by DeMar DeRozan and Corey Joseph sandwiched around a missed 3-point shot by Indiana’s Monta Ellis the Raptors found themselves with a 98-92 lead. Solomon Hill hit a big 3-pointer for the Pacers to cut Toronto’s lead to 100-99. DeRozen made two free throws to make the score Toronto 102, Indiana 99. The Pacers had the basketball under Toronto’s basket with 2.7 seconds left. Ellis inbounded the basketball to Paul George who you’d expect to take the last shot, but he was double teamed and passed the ball to Solomon Hill who appeared to hit a game winning 3-pointer for the Pacers. After the referees reviewed the play it was ruled that the ball left Hill’s hand after the game clock had expired. With those 3 points taken off the board the Raptors get the win 102-99 and they take a 3 games to 3 lead in the series. You have t wonder if this is the kind of loss that might stick with the Pacers. Not only did they give away a 13 point lead in the 4th quarter they appeared to have saved the game for themselves only to have the referees change that on a review. Will this impact Indiana’s play in Game 6 which isn’t until Friday night at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indiana.

DeRozen had what many are saying was his “best playoff performance” leading Toronto with 34 points. Kyle Lowry scored 14 points and had a team high 5 assists while  Jonas Valanciunas added 11 points. Off the Raptors bench Norman Powell and Bismack Biyombo each scored 10 points and Biyombo grabbed a team high 16 rebounds. Paul George had a game high 39 points for the Pacers and also led Indiana in rebounds and assists with 8 of each. George Hill had 15 points while Myles Turner scored 14 points; Turner also grabbed 8 rebounds to tie George for the team lead.  Solomon Hill was the only Indiana player to score double digits points off the bench and he ad 11 points.

The other NBA playoff game last night saw the Atlanta Hawks take a 3 games to 2 lead in their series with the Boston Celtics by winning Game 5 110-83. After the 1st quarter Atlanta found themselves down by 5 points at 20-15, but a 32 point 2nd quarter gave the Hawks a 47-39 lead at halftime. Atlanta continued to put up the point as they had a 42 point 4th quarter to pretty much put the game away. At the end of that 3rd quarter Atlanta led 89-62 and the Celtics never got any closer. Both teams scored 21 points in the 4th quarter to get to the final of 110-83. Atlanta was led by Mike Scott who came off the bench to score 17 points. Jeff Teague and Kent Bazemore each scored 16 points while Kyle Korver scored 13 points and Paul Milsap added 10 points. Milsap and Al Horford led the Hawks with 8 rebounds apiece while Milsap tied with Thabo Sefolosha for the team lead in assists with 6. The Celtics where led by Evan Turner with 15 points. Jae Crowder, Marcus Smart and Jared Sullinger each had 10 points for Boston. Terry Rozier led Boston with 4 assists and Jonas Jerebko grabbed a team high 8 rebounds for Boston. The series heads back to TD Garden in Boston for Game 6 on Thursday night. The home team has won each of the 5 games played in this series; so will Boston be able to hold serve on Thursday night or can Atlanta close them out and move on to the 2nd round.

So besides the two games last night injuries seem to be the story of the NBA playoffs right now. First Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors goes down with a sprained knee in Game 4 against the Houston Rockets. Golden State still won the game (121-94) and have a 3 games to 1 lead in the series. Curry is scheduled to be out at least 2 weeks; so with another win Golden State will go into Round 2 of the playoffs without Curry. Golden State will meet the winner of the Los Angeles Clippers/Portland Trail Blazers series which is tied at 2 games apiece right now. The Clippers where another team that suffered from the injury bug in their Game 4, but they not only lost one player they lost two. First Chris Paul suffered a broken hand in the game. He had surgery on that hand yesterday and has been ruled out indefinitely. Then the Clippers announced that Blake Griffin would miss the rest of the playoffs with a left quadriceps injury. Now it looks as though the Warriors will be able to advance without their best player, but how are the Clippers going to do in a series that’s even and missing their two best players. All four teams are on the court tonight; so we’ll see if the Warriors can close out that series and we’ll see how the Clippers play without Paul and Griffin.

NHL

While the 2nd round of the NHL playoffs gets started tonight with the New York Islanders at the Tampa Bay Lighting there’s still one 1st round series left to be decided. The Anaheim Ducks are hosting the Nashville Predators tonight at 10:00 p.m. on the NBC Sports Network. The winner goes on to face the San Jose Sharks in the 2nd round of the playoffs while the loser heads home. Frederik Andersen has picked up all 3 of the Ducks wins this series and has a Goal Against Average (GAA) of 1.26. You have to think that Anaheim will go with Andersen in net over John Gibson who’s 0-2 with a GAA of 3.08. For Nashville it will be Pekka Rinne in goal since he’s played all 6 games of this series and has a GAA of 2.68. Who do you have winning this Game 7? If it helps you at all Dan the Man had Anaheim winning this series when he made his picks at the start of the 1st round.

Listen to the Sports Time Radio podcast on BlogTalkRadio.com and you can find me on Twitter @Burketime

 

 

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Let’s call it Wednesday.

Posted: November 19, 2014 by Sports Time Radio in baseball, football, hockey, sports, Uncategorized
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11/19/14

Week 11’s picks had Dan the Man, Schaumburg Stu, Mr. Fantasy and I all going 8-6 for the week. For the season I’m in the lead with an overall record of 102-57-1. Schaumburg Stu is 2 games back at 100-59-1 while Dan the Man and Mr. Fantasy are tied while an overall record of 99-60-1. Who knows what Week 12 will have in store for us.

In what I guess we’ll call the Fantasy Football Challenge pitting Mr. Fantasy vs. Greg, played out this way. At quarterback Mr. Fantasy went with Tom Brady of the New England Patriots while Greg picked Robert Griffin III of the Washington Redskins. Brady scored 13.44 points and finished 13th among quarterbacks while Griffin scored 8.74 points and finished 21st among quarterbacks for Week 11. At running back they both agreed that Mark Ingram of the New Orleans Saints was the right choice. Ingram finished 9th among running backs with 20.70 points. At wide receiver Mr. Fantasy went with DeSean Jackson of the Washington Redskins while Greg’s choice was Randall Cobb of the Green Bay Packers. Jackson finished 48th among wide receivers for Week 11 with 6.95 points while Cobb finished with 20.65 points which was good for 10th place among wide receivers. At tight end Mr. Fantasy picked Antonio Gates of the San Diego Chargers while Greg went with Julius Thomas of the Denver Broncos. Gates scored 5.45 points and finished 21st among tight ends while Thomas got hurt in Sunday’s game and scored 1.80 points which put him in 42nd place among tight ends. At kicker Mr. Fantasy picked Stephen Gostkowski of the New England Patriots while Greg’s choice was Nick Novak of the San Diego Chargers. Gostkowski scored 6 points and finished tied for 11th place while Novak scored 10 points and finished tied for 6th place. Sleeper picks for Week 11. Mr. Fantasy went with Cleveland Browns wide receiver Taylor Gabriel while Greg’s choice was Indianapolis Colts running back Trent Richardson. While Richardson might not be a sleeper in name value in production value he would be a sleeper if he had a good week. Gabriel coed 13.37 points and finished 23rd for Week 11. Richardson scored 4.60 points and finished 47th among running backs for Week 11. If you heard the show Sunday morning you have to hear Mr. Fantasy complain about picking the same players over and over. He suggested that they not be allowed to pick the Top 5 scores at each position. I ran the idea by Greg and he was good with it; so starting with Week 12 they will not be allowed to select any of the Top 5 scoring players at each position for the season. As always I use the scoring system from your Yahoo league titled Next Year is Here 13.

If you’ve listened to Sports Time Radio you know that we all live in the Chicago area. If you listen to sports talk radio in Chicago when they’re not firing Marc Trestman or trying to get Jay Cutler traded or released they’ll talk about who the Chicago Cubs will sign from the free agent market this off-season. The team itself had come out and said that Jon Lester was the first free agent that they where interested in, but they’d also like to sign Russell Martin. Now Dan the Man and Schaumburg Stu are the resident Cubs fans on the show while Mr. Fantasy roots for the Chicago White Sox. Now we’ve heard this song and dance from the Cubs organization for the past couple of seasons. How they just missed out on this free agent or that free agent and it has started already this off-season. Russell Martin signed a 5 year $82 million dollar deal with the Toronto Blue Jays. The Cubs of course having to explain losing Martin to Toronto, went with it was too much money. I actually agree it was too much money for Martin, but he was the only top catcher on the free agent market and that’s what someone was going to have to pay to bring him in. There’s strike one on the Cubs. This morning the Cubs have been quoted as saying that they believe that Lester will sign with the Boston Red Sox. So the Cubs put two names up for their fans to look for and now it looks more and more that neither one of these players will be in a Cubs uniform come opening day. While Martin was far and away the best catcher on the free agent market there are still some top of the rotation starting pitchers still out there. Will the Cubs go after a James Shields or a Max Scherzer now that they’re saying Lester is headed to Boston. I doubt they will, but they’ll need to find some new names to put up for their fans to wish for.

If you’re playing fantasy hockey this season like Dan the Man and I are, I hope you had all of your Nashville Predators in your line up last night. The Predators went out and scored 9 goals last night against the Toronto Maple Leafs. Taylor Back scored 2 goals while Derek Roy, Eric Nystrom, Mike Ribeiro, Filip Forsberg, Calle Jarnkrok, Roman Josi and Colin Wilson each added a goal. Shea Weber tallied 3 assists while Ryan Ellis, and Paul Gaustad each had 2 assists in the game. Maple Leafs goalie James Reimer gave up 6 of the Predators goals while Jonathan Bernier gave up the other 3 goals and was tagged with the loss. The Montréal Canadiens led the NHL right now with 29 points and an 20-14-5 record. The Tampa Bay Lightning are just 1 point behind at 28 points and an 20-13-5 record. After that it’s the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Anaheim Ducks tied at 27 points.

Kevin Harvick won his 1st Sprint Cup championship and a championship for Stewart-Haas Racing by winning the Ford EcoBoost 400 in Homestead Miami Florida on Sunday. Harvick went from 12th to first over the final 15 laps gave Harvick the championship over Denny Hamlin, Ryan Newman and Joey Logano. It was Harvick’s first Sprint Cup title in his 14th season of competition.

You can find Sports Time Radio on BlogTalk Radio and you can find me on Twitter @Burketime.