We Are Epic: A Running Diary of the Day in Sports for 5/17/06

For those of you who were asleep at the wheel, yesterday was one of the best days in sports that I’ve ever witnessed. You had The Champions League Final (UEFA) and then two pivotal game 5’s in the NBA playoffs, including the defending champion Spurs playing for their post season lives. And if that wasn’t enough there was a full slate of MLB games, including my D-Backs trying to sweep their divisional rivals San Diego Padres and take a game and a half lead in the NL West. All in all we were set up for a massive day in sports, and it delivered, in a very big way. I kept a running diary of what transpired, although it should be noted I did this after I had watched everything an not during, so this maybe a bit choppy and sub par, but this great day in sports badly needs to be documented. Will start with the UEFA Championship game between FC Barcelona and Arsenal FC.

Barcelona v. Arsenal:

- I’ve been pumped about this game for some time, it’s the perfect appetizer to the world cup, which I’ve been a little to excited for. Seriously, I get chills every time I see Gatorade’s Team USA commercial and I even get goose bumps during the commercials that that sh*t eater Bono narrated. Needless to say I was ready for some soccer.
- For those of you who don’t know anything about this game allow me to give you a brief synopsis: This is the championship game (obviously) of a league that involves the top club teams in Europe. The game is a big draw because it features two of the worlds best strikers (forwards for those of you who don’t know soccer lingo) in Ronaldino of Barcelona (who plays for the Brazilian National Team) and Henry of Arsenal (who plays for France). It also involves the man who just maybe the ugliest human being of all time (also Ronaldino)*.
- 3 minutes into the game Henry makes a beautiful touch to get himself free in the box, unfortunately his next touch is less then stellar and he’s unable to get a clean shot off and the Barcelona (Bar for short) goalie makes an easy safe. This sequence leads me to remark: “Arsenal shore came out of the gates quicker.” I then look around and realize I’m watching the game by myself.
- 18 minutes in and Ronaldino finally gets his first touch. He plays the ball pass the defensive line to fellow striker Eto’o who gets by the keeper and is promptly tripped up, leading to the keeper getting a red card and forcing Arsenal to play a man down for the remainder of the match.
- Watching the back up keeper come in and realizing that Arsenal is a man down I make a mental note that Barcelona will now dominate the game and that I woke at 11 for nothing.
- No less then 20 minutes later Arsenal has brilliantly packed in and are fairing pretty well on their counter attacks. In the 37th minute Arsenal was awarded a free kick and Henry found Sol Campbell who put an amazing header in the lower left corner as Arsenal goes up 1-nil. In related news I know nothing about soccer.
- In the 2nd half Barcelona completely controls the game and is getting endless scoring opportunities. It’s only a matter of time before they break through.
- In the 76th minute Arsenal’s heroic defense finally breaks down as sub Henrik Larrson plays a touch pass to Eto’o who gets a 1-on-1 with the keeper and plays it pass him. The scores is now tied at 1-1 and it Barcelona has all the momentum.
- It should be noted that in Fifa World Cup ’98 for the Nintendo 64 Henrik Larrson and I lead the Swedish National Team to a thrilling World Cup victory. We defeated the Brazilians in the finals.
- Five minutes later Larrson breaks past the defense and plays a beautiful pass to the streaking midfielder Belletti who’s shot ricochets of the inside of the Arsenal keepers’ leg and into the goal. 83% of England has just been put on suicide watch.
- Barcelona holds on for a 2-1 victory, as Arsenal fans get one hell of a stomach punch game. The post game celebration is filled with a lot of hugging and close ups of Ronaldino forcing me to change the channel to Date My Mom.**
- All in all this was a great match that I’m certain was butchered by my shoddy recap. Let’s just move on.

Cavilers V. Pistons, Game 5:

- I was out running some errands when I get a phone call from my brother Max who informs me that Clevland is up 5 at half time and some kid name LeBron James has 18 points.
- I get home just in time to see the final half of the 3rd quarter. The Pistons have made their run to get back into the game, but The Cavs answer as Flip Murray hits a jumper at the buzzer to put Cleveland up by 2.
- It’s not so much the Cavs as it King James, he’s good. LeBron drives into the lane and is triple teamed yet he still finishes a shot to kept the Cavs in front.
- As the game winds down Chauncey Billups starts to loose his head. Not only is he forcing up bad shots, but he refuses to acknowledge the fact that Mcdyess, Rip Hamilton and Tayshun Prince are scoring a lot more effectively and easily then he is.
- Billups commits three fouls in about a 3 minute span and fouls out. He may have just cost his team the game. Can someone please tell me how this guy was an MVP candidate? Anyone?
- LeBron has often said that he doesn’t believe in ‘presure’ moments. With the game tied and under 2 minutes to play he drives by Price and then puts in a left handed floater over Ben Wallace. This play ignites a round of “Oh Sh*t” from all those viewing at the Paradise household.
- With the game tied and under a minute left LeBron proves he’s the anti-Kobe by passing out of the double team to set up Drew Gooden for the go ahead lay up.
- Flip Saunders for some reason leaves Ben Wallace in the game instead of going with ‘Sheed whose on the bench. Because of this Donyell Marshall is able to come over and help on Prince’s drive and he gets a block. Lindsey Hunter, who holds the record for worst field goal percentage in the shot clock era as well as having a girls first name grabs the rejection and quickly bricks a shot. Eric Snow then grabs the ball and does his best Jerry Stackhouse impression as he hurls the the other end of the court where the Pistons run it down and call a TO with 1.9 seconds, apparently the idea of trying to seal the win at the line was a little too much for him.
- Rip Hamilton brings a solid close to the Pistons choke job as he fails to get off a shot on the ensuing inbounds play.
- Just a really solid game, the Cavs have now won 3 in a row which raises an interesting question: If Larry Hughes brother had died at the beginning of the playoffs would the Cavs have lost a single game?***

We’ve already had two great games, not to mention a plethora of great baseball games and we still have the Spurs facing elimination. Let’s go to the days great finale.

Spurs v. Mavericks, Game 5:

- Tony Parker gets off to a quick start driving in to the lane and hitting some nice floaters. Parkers new thing is to start the games off strong and then not show up in the 2nd half. He’s fast becoming the Chris Webber of guards.
- Just a tremendous basketball game, too much going on to evner try and break it down here. Here’s a brief synopsis of this game: Tim Duncan made all 11 of his first half shots, Dirk got a fast break dunk to end the half tying the score.
- We quickly check in on the D-Backs who have given up 10 runs in 2 innings, I guess we can write off the sweep.
- How does Tim Duncan not win the MVP every year? He’s the best power forward of all-time, his teams are always top 4 in the league and he’s only got one other player on his team who can create his own shot (Ginobli) and he’s sporadic as all hell. And I know what you’re thinking” But what about Parker???? Well first off Tony gets almost all his points of the pick and roll, especially when big men switch on to him. He also scores a lot because no big man is going to help off Duncan. And despite all of this he still falls apart in the clutch, not to mention the absolute tooling Devin Harris is giving him. Say it with me now: OVERATTED!!!
- Kobe is a guest in the TNT studio tonight, and you’re telling me this day isn’t already epic enough? Unfortunately no one brings up Raja and they allow Kobe to dance around the fact that he quit on his team. Charles and Co. don’t harass Kobe nearly enough, but all in all this was great television.
- My fatness gets the better of me as I skip the start of the 3rd quarter to go Dairy Queen. Surrounded by a horde of white trash I order a dip cone, and it was delicious.
- All right I’m fading fast, let’s get this over with quickly.
- Michael Finley raises up and yacks on Eric Dampier like Dampier had just killer his first born. Just an unbelievable dunk, even more amazing when you consider how awful Finley looked the past couple post seasons in Dallas. I didn’t even know he could still dunk.
- The D-Backs score 8 runs in the 6th to pull with in one, and all of a sudden we’ve got a serious toggle option here.
- The Spurs are up 5 with under 3 to go and in complete control pf the game, but the way this series has gone you just know they’ll do something to let the Mavs back in this one.
- On que C-Webb… er… I mean Parker turns the ball over and Dirk races down and nails the fast break 3, tie game. Dirks follows the 3 by trying to do the Shaq esque below the radar run down court. So one needs to tell Dirk that he’ll never look bad ass. And while they’re at it they should also explain that the only thing he’ll ever come off as is a cheesy villain in some PG movie.
- The teams then trade baskets and then with under 2 minutes left Ginobli sinks one of two free throws to put the Spurs up one. Both teams then bunker down on and neither can find a way to score. Predictably Parker makes a great move to lose his man only to miss a wide open lay up, somewhere C-Webb tries to telepathically tell Parker to just start hiding from the ball.
- Under a 30 seconds left and both teams are steadfastly refusing to score. Dirk finally breaks free for a free throw line jumper, but he’s blocked by Bowen and one of the best defensive plays I’ve ever see.
- The Padres put 3 insurance run in the 7th and the game is effectively over, still pretty entertaining from what I saw though.
- In the final 6.5 seconds they’re were two jump balls, the Mavs won both.
- Down one with 2.4 seconds left Jason Terry misses a fade away jumper by about a foot. It falls perfectly to Dirk who tries to hot potato into the hoop but misses badly, especially for an uncontested 2 footer. The Spurs survive in what is fast becoming one of the greatest series of all-time.

I know I didn’t fully capture it, mainly because I got tired there towards the end, but this was a great day in sports, one of the best of my life time. And now I’m going to go to bed so I have some energy left to root on Raja and the Suns tonight. Peace.

Until We Meet Again.

* Although it should also be noted that Ronaldino is currently the best soccer player playing, this is evidence by the fact the he’s the two-time FIFA Player of the Year.
** Ok I probably would have done this anyway. But that doesn’t take away from the fact the Ronaldino looks like the love child of Satan and Dracula.
*** I’m probably going to hell just for thinking this, let alone typing it. But as Alan Alda once said comedy = tragedy + time.