ohtani's jacket

Jordan for Lebron.

I hope the NBA moves on from Jordan some day. His legacy casts too big a shadow over the league. I doubt Jordan would have beaten the Spurs with this Heat team. He may have made things more competitive and he would've eaten his teammates alive, but do the Heat suddenly start playing amazing team defense because they're terrified of Mike?

Okay, fair enough, though the Lakers did re-tool and beat the Spurs again in 2008. The point I was trying to make was that the 2001 sweep was brutal and then Kobe closed the Alamo in 2002, but Duncan and the Spurs escaped the type of scrutiny that most superstars face. Can you imagine what it would be like for Lebron if one of his teams was swept or lost in the first round? Granted, the Spurs had already won a championship (at the Lakers' expense), but the only real criticism the Spurs ever got was that they were boring and more recently that they're old.

Hahaha. Thank you for saying this. Anybody who's ever listened to Rick Barry talk for more than 5 minutes knows that he has an amazingly outsized opinion of himself. I love it on old NBA footage when the Warriors get knocked out and Barry steps into the CBS booth. He was a great commentator. Brilliant at reading the play.

By the same token, the Lakers had the Spurs number for a long time and Duncan has had his share of failures in the playoffs. I don't think Duncan was ever held to the same standards or expectations as Shaq, Kobe or Lebron simply because the media has never been as interested in the Spurs as they are the Lakers or Lebron.

Hope it was the same thing he said to Wilt in '67: "Great, baby. Great."

Congratulations to the Spurs! Only the 4th or 5th team to lose in 7 and come back and win it all the following year, and some of the best finals basketball since the Showtime Lakers.

It reminds me of the '89 Pistons sweeping the Lakers after the Lakers had beat them in 7 in '88. Obviously, the Spurs are more like the Lakers in terms of age, but I can't remember the last time I saw a team lose in the finals then come back this strongly.

Leonard for finals MVP?

If Lebron drops 40, will this be forever known as "the Poo game"?

Hey, look on the bright side. At least they have three days to fix the A/C.

Ha, if none of the stadiums had air conditioning, Lebron would have never won a ring.

If this were the 90s, we'd be talking about how flawed these teams are and how they're incapable of winning the title (the '94-95 Rockets aside.) They seem better in hindsight than they really were. None of them were as consistently good as the Spurs, who Lebron is now facing for a third time.

The West was softer than the East when Magic went to all those finals and you don't hear that as a talking point much. I'm not sure the Western conference teams Jordan faced were as good as today's Western teams, either.

The home team won every game in that series, but only the games in Boston were blowouts.

Ballot sent. That was the first time in one of these polls that I could have sent a list with 100 legitimately great films. I managed to sneak in some personal faves, but it's crazy when you get into the 80s and you're still ranking famous films.

Here's the last batch of films I watched for this: I BURY THE LIVING (Albert Band) -- great title, not so great film. The mystery takes forever to kick in and the pay-off is lame. The acting is pretty shoddy too. The saving grace is the photography, but not one of the decade's stronger B-films. THE BAND WAGON (Vincente Minnelli) -- the musical for people who like to claim that Singing in the Rain isn't the best musical of the decade. Is it better than Singing in the Rain? No. In fact, I'm not convinced it was better than An American in Paris, but Fred Astaire devotees may disagree. THE BURGLAR (Paul Wendkos) -- pretty good under the radar noir. Has a bit of a problem with exposition, but the elements you want from a noir are there and the final set piece on the pier at Atlantic City is cool, even if the idea of a showdown at an amusement park was far from original. ICE COLD IN ALEX (J. Lee Thompson) -- quintessential British war film. Just a ripping good yarn. The bulk of the action deals with a group of soldiers escorting two nurses across the desert in an ambulance and is similar to Wages of Fear in terms of the dangers they face. Fantastically shot set piece scenes. Great acting. Plenty of tension and drama. This one had it all. Great note to end on.

SUDDEN RAIN (Mikio Naruse) -- chose a random Naruse to watch since there's so much of his filmography I haven't see. It was all right, but the impression I get with Naruse is that he was inconsistent, particularly with the material he chose to shoot. Yet in some quarters they rave about each of his films because they were previously unknown and not canon. I'm not sure he deserves the plaudits. At least not on a film by film basis. This was also a film about a married couple bickering, and if you're married you'll know that's not always what you want to watch. WHEN CHIMNEYS ARE SEEN (Heinosuke Gosho) -- this was the first Gosho film I've seen, and despite it being the umpteenth million post-war Japanese drama about hardship and people living on the fringes, Gosho's love of Rene Clair meant this had a wonderful comic charm to it. Like most comedies it ran out of steam, but it was a good introduction to Gosho and I'd recommend it for people who like Shohei Imamura's films. O DRAKOS (Nikos Koundouros) -- considered by Greek critics to be the greatest Greek film ever made, this is a noirish character study about a sad and lonely officer worker who is mistaken for a notorious criminal. Since he hates his life, you can pretty much guess what follows. It was quite frenetic to begin with and I had some trouble with what was going on, but the photography won me over and the end shot in particular was really gorgeous. The story itself wasn't the most original, but I was into it by the final third. Not bad. THE GIRL CAN'T HELP IT (Frank Tashlin) -- Frank Tashlin films are always colourful and fun. This wasn't a masterpiece like Rock Hunter, but it was enjoyable. It was Tashlin's ode to rock 'n' roll and features a lot of the biggest names of the day like Little Richard, Eddie Cochran and Fats Domino. ROOM AT THE TOP (Jack Clayton) -- I enjoyed this kitchen sink drama. The lead character was a bit of a prick, but Laurence Harvey was a good enough actor that I didn't despise him. His motivations were clear; the only real problem was that it wasn't convincing when he was supposed to be in love (with Simone Signoret.) That was the only real chink in the film's armour, though I wouldn't call Signoret's Oscar winning performance exceptional. THE FLOWERS OF ST. FRANCIS (Roberto Rossellini) -- this is canon, but it's not the most exciting film is it? I liked a couple of the stories towards the end, especially the one about the siege, but I generally don't care for films that are chamber pieces or rather a collection of short stories. I get what Rossellini was trying to illustrate about the Christian spirit, but there wasn't much to hang your habit on. SURCOS (Jose Antonio Nieves) -- now this was an excellent neo-realism film. There were as many neo-realism films in the 50s as there were films about post-war Japanese society, but this sticks out as one of the better ones and certainly one of the best Spanish films of the decade. It's a familiar story of a family of farmers who move from their village to the big city in pursuit of a better life and full victim to the evils of the city, but it was extremely well made and managed to slip past the censors in the Franco regime. I would consider this the Spanish version of the Bicycle Thief or something similar. LA TRAVERSEE DE PARIS (Claude Autant-Lara) -- classic French comedy starring Jean Gabin and Bourvil. As usual with foreign comedy much is lost in translation, but the plot was amusing even if the jokes didn't make me laugh out loud, and I was impressed that the film didn't run out of steam. I probably won't vote for it, but I enjoyed it. EDES ANNA (Zoltan Fabri) -- Sweet Anna was very sweet. Even my three year-old daughter said she was cute. She's the maid of a woman who treats her like shit in this Hungarian drama about a sweet girl pushed to the edge. A very good, economical film that as probably an analogy for some political thing I can't be bothered looking up. Since there's only a hundred spots on the list, this is the kind of film that's right on the cusp, but it was very good. Fabri is another guy where I'd like to see more of his stuff.

Edit: Wrong thread.

For my money, the 50s is the best decade in the history of cinema. I could go 200 deep easily and keep watching films for the rest of the year, so I'm happy to stop. There's plenty of stuff I haven't seen yet and a handful of films I wish I'd re-watched, but I was able to knock off a massive amount of stuff and branch out in several new directions, so I've thoroughly enjoyed this project. Sadly, I don't see this continuing into the 40s and earlier, but it was a great excuse to have a singular focus in what I watched.

BLESSINGS OF THE LAND (Manuel Silos) -- classic Filipino melodrama about a family of villagers trying to cultivate lanzones as calamity after calamity occurs. As it's a melodrama, the calamities are naturally quite convoluted and mostly revolve around a villager who is wrongly accused of murder and becomes a murderous recluse and attempted rapist, but it's an excellent piece of 50s melodrama and I deeply regret the amount of Tagalog cinema that lacks subtitles. SHREE 420 (Raj Kapoor) -- Kapoor is in full-on Chaplin mode here, creating his most obvious tribute to the Tramp while even paying homage to silent cinema. I love Kapoor, so I enjoyed this lively tale of the rags to riches rise of the Chaplin character and the price he has to pay with his soul, even if it also borrows the most didactic parts of Chaplin, including a Great Dictator style speech. Kapoor was a massive talent and it's a shame his work isn't better known in the West. THE MONEY (Kim So-dong) -- a bunch of poor villagers talk about money... a lot... Picks up in the second half when the central character loses all his and everything turns to shit, but takes a long time to get going, and yeah, "money is the root of all evil" ain't the most original theme and is more fun with Bollywood songs (see above.) THE WHITE REINDEER (Erik Blomberg) -- this Finnish film is like Nanook of the North if Nanook of the North was a horror film. A newly wed woman visits a shaman to get a spell for keeping her husband at home and is turned into a bewitched vampire reindeer. Interesting to say the least. CARMEN COMES HOME (Keisuke Kinoshita) -- Japan's first colour film and quite a beloved one at that. Good old Hideko Takamine stars as a cabaret dancer who returns home to the country to visit her aging father and causes quite a stir. The colours are beautiful, there's a nice musical influence and some earthly humour, but as with most of Kinoshita's films it's lacking something, in this case probably an extra layer to Takamine's character. THE BLACK PIT OF DR. M (Fernando Mendez) -- moody and atmospheric horror about two doctors who make a pact to discover if there's life after death, with horrific consequences. Mendez really was a pro and did wonderful things with a simple budget and single studio lot. I would put him on the same level of Bava and Franco. Great B director. HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (William Castle) -- I wanted a ghost story not a whodunit, but if that doesn't bug you then this is one of Vincent Price's juicer roles and I suppose one of his better films. He has some venom soaked lines, that's for sure. LILI (Charles Walters) -- everyone talks about how heart warming and charming this is, but aside from the puppets I wasn't that sold. The love story was unconvincing to me, and when the love story is unconvincing in a romantic comedy drama, you've got problems. The dream sequence that closes this out is also talked up a lot, but it's got nothing on An American in Paris. The whole puppet thing works well, though, even if it's a little on the nose in terms of what it represents. YIELD TO THE NIGHT (J. Lee Thompson) -- excellent entry to the female prisoner on death row genre, a popular one in the 1950s. Diana Dors, a British Marilyn Monroe type, does extremely well going against type as the female inmate, and Thompson avoids any and all traps when it comes to sentimentality or melodrama. Sturdy film.

This Indiana side reminds me of the 2000-01 Trailblazers, who went 42-18 and finished 50-32. Except for the criminal offences.

Technically, he fell short in '89-90 and '94-95.

Indiana are up shit creek without a paddle.

That's gotta be some sort of record for most road wins in the opening weekend.