Lebron’s dream very much alive
WITH the Los Angeles Lakers completing a second straight “backdoor sweep” last weekend, this time against the Houston Rockets, Lebron James’s dream of winning his first National Basketball Association (NBA) crown in the West appears very much alive.
King James has won three rings in the East—two with the Miami Heat and one with the Cleveland Cavaliers. Transferring to Los Angeles in 2018, he has become the Lakers’ new heart and soul. Definitely, he is the team’s trigger to end a 10-year title drought, the longest in franchise history.
And the Lakers seem to be on the right track, first entering the playoffs for the first time in seven seasons and next barging into the Western Conference Finals.
In scoring back-to-back victories in the two-round playoffs both set in best-of-seven formats, the Lakers recorded a couple of feats worthy of trivia.
As I said in another column, the “backdoor sweep” happens when a team that loses the first game goes on to win the next four games for a 4-1 series triumph.
The Lakers did that twice in the successive playoffs—first against Damian Lillard and the Portland Trail Blazers and second against James Harden and the Houston Rockets for similar 4-1 routs.
The opposite of the “backdoor sweep” is the “gentleman’s sweep,” which happens when a team leading by 3-0 loses Game Four before it wins Game Five for a 4-1 series victory.
Miami did that in the Eastern Conference second round playoffs, speeding to a 3-0 lead over Milwaukee before dropping Game Four for a 3-1 edge.
The Heat easily defeated the Bucks in a Game Five mismatch as the reigning MVP, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee’s superstar, did not play due to an injury.
“I was willing to play but management said no,” said Antetokounmpo, the Greek monster. “They value my health and I appreciate that.”
Miami’s 4-1 demolition of Milwaukee will be a big boost to Mike Spoelstra, the Fil-am Heat coach, entering the East Finals. The Bucks topped the regular season going into the NBA bubble at Lake Buena Vista, Florida, on July 31—with the Heat a mere fifth seed.
Game One of the best-of-seven series between Miami and Boston will be played on Wednesday (today), with the Celtics still perhaps reeling from fatigue as a result of their brutal series with Toronto that went to Game Seven.
The game will be followed by the winner-take-all contest between the Los Angeles Clippers and the Denver Nuggets starting at 9 a.m. (PHL Time).
Will the Nuggets make it a rare three straight wins today, following their second straight come-from-behind 111-98 victory over the embattled Clippers on Monday?
Pushed to the brink like in Game Five, the 2-3 Nuggets rallied mightily again in Game Six, erasing another 16-point halftime deficit with a 59-30 final half salvo to steal a 111-98 victory and forge a Game Seven.
It’d be cruel and doubly painful for the Clippers should the Nuggets proceed to complete their improbable odyssey today as that would also derail a much-anticipated West Conference Finals between the Lakers and the Clippers. Abangan!
THAT’S IT Seemingly, it’s the season of comebacks as Austria’s Dominic Thiem and Japan’s Naomi Osaka scored come-from-behind wins in the US Open tennis over the weekend in New York City. Thiem, 27, defeated the 23-year-old German Alexander Zverev, 2-6, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 7-6 for the $3-million top prize in men’s play, while Osaka beat the 31-year-old Belarussian Victoria Azarenka, 1-6, 6-3, 6-3, on the distaff side to increase her net worth to nearly $40 million. And Osaka’s only 22. As I keep saying, there is money in tennis, besides golf, basketball and, yes, boxing.