The New York Knicks sadly lost the first game of the second series. Needless to say the Knicks needed to win game 2 against the Indiana Pacers. The Knicks played well making the shots and clinching the lead when they needed to. The Knicks came to play, Carmelo Anthony drained an outstanding 32 points, which he should be doing every game of the playoffs. Iman Shumpert had an outstanding game as well with 15 points. This man loves to ball out and make plays. As a knicks fan i really love having Shumpert he can play from anywhere on the court, and in game 2 of the series he made some outstanding plays. Raymond Felton as always puts up the points he supposed to be, he ended the game with 14 points.

The Knicks began the third trailing the Pacers 64-62. That’s when the knicks began to play some ball, they went on a 30-2 run bridging the third and fourth periods. This run that the knicks had put them ahead 92-66, exactly what we needed. This demoralized the Pacers, they had no chance of coming back. The Knicks had all the momentum and kept it. The final score of the game was 105-79 in Madison Square Garden (MSG).

Game three will be held in Indiana with Amare Stoudemire being back.

Last night the New York Rangers win big at the Madison Square Garden (MSG) over the Washington Capitals. Rangers started up big with scoring a goal in the first to put them a head. The crowd at the stadium was electric. We started the second up by one, and than buried another to put us up by two. Sadly the capitals started to pick it up, and they scored two in the second to tie it up. While they scored their last goal with seconds remaining the capitals made the mistake by ending with a penalty. Giving the rangers the advantage in the third. Instantly beginning the third the Rangers go on attack and score a third goal to go up by one. This goal took the rangers like seconds to execute. Later in the period the Rangers scored another to end their scoring at four. The Capitals at the end scored another goal but weren’t able to score another before the time ran out. The Rangers will be heading to Washington to play game five.

Last night April 19th 2013 the Rangers won a huge game against the Panthers. This was a huge win for the Rangers, after losing to the flyers playoffs weren’t looking to promising to them.

The rangers started of by scoring 2 goals in the first, while holding the Panthers to only one. In the second period rangers were able to burry one while holding the Panthers to one. In the third the rangers came out with some energy and scored three goals.

Mats Zuccarello and Derick Brassard each scored twice to provide rare scoring depth, Rick Nash tallied on the power play, and Brad Richards scored his first goal in seven games.

As part of the All Star Weekend, the annual Slam Dunk event will occur in mid-February. Participants are given the opportunity to make three dunks. Following the contest, voting is opened up to fans to select the player with the best dunks. Despite big names in basketball shunning the event, it still continues to have a lot of entertainment value for basketball fans. Last year’s event was won by Jeremy Evans of the Jazz who dunked two balls simultaneously in a spectacular fashion. This will be one of several events during basketball’s weekend of the year that will be the focus of sports betting at online casinos.
Some betting options on the Slam Dunk Event of course will pertain to which player will win the bet. Voting can often be rather close which affects the odds established by the online casino site. Proposition sports bets are rather popular for this upcoming basketball event. These are types of sports bet that focus on specific player performance rather than teams winning a game. Bets on this event can be placed up to minutes before it occurs.
When All Star Weekend occurs, there is bound to be idle time between basketball events such as the Slam Dunk Contest. An idea for filling this time includes playing basketball themed slot machines at online casinos like http://www.ipadcasino.ca/. One of the most well known basketball related slot machines is Slam Dunk. All of the symbols found on the reels are different types of basketball memorabilia. For instance, a jersey emblazoned with the number 23 is found on the reels. While it omits a name, it is paying tribute to Michael Jordan, one of the best players in NBA history. This number 23 jersey serves as the wild symbol in the game. It can be used to substitute for any other symbol excluding the scatter symbol.

The Yankees are the best team in New York. When are they not?

While most NBA teams acquire their talent through free agency and trades, the Oklahoma City Thunder took a different approach and it has paid off handsomely for them. The Thunder have built there team almost exclusively through the draft. Their best player on their current team acquired through free agency or trade is either Thabo Sefolosha or Kendrick Perkins who combined to average 10.4 points per game this season.

Their drafting expertise started in 2007 when they drafted the now three time defending scoring champion Kevin Durant 2nd overall. It continued in 2008 when they drafted Russell Westbrook 4th overall despite Westbrook averaging just 12.7 points and 4.3 assists the year before at UCLA. They also used the 24th pick to draft Serge Ibaka from the Republic of Congo. Ibaka had only started playing basketball recently and didn’t speak a word of English. In 2009, they would use the 4th overall pick to select James Harden. These players are now the four leading scorers on the team.

No team’s perfect though, the Thunder have made a few mistakes in the draft. The only mistakes I could find was: 1. In the 2009 draft they traded the draft rights of Rodrigue Beaubois to Dallas for the draft rights to Byron Mullens; 2. In 2010 they traded the rights to Eric Bledsoe to the Clippers for a future protected first round pick (not exactly a mistake yet, but Bledsoe’s been a nice player.); 3. You could argue drafting Cole Aldrich 11th in the 2010 draft was a bad move, but really there wasn’t much after him: There was Avery Bradley who went 19th and would have been a solid bench player for them, Landry Fields who went 39th and really just would have been a younger version of Sefolosha and Lance Stephenson who went 40th and could have made choking signs at Lebron in the Finals.

These mistakes are all minuet though and because of the Thunder’s impeccable drafting abilities they look to possibly have a potential dynasty. There only challenge will be keeping all their drafted players.

For the past two games, with their backs against the wall, the New Jersey Devils have come up strong with two big games to keep themselves in the running for the Stanley Cup. After winning the first three games on the Stanley Cup Finals, the Los Angeles Kings made everyone believers that they would sweep New Jersey to lift their first ever Stanley Cup. But they have come up short in the past two games. The Kings offense has been no where to be found after lighting the lamp in game 3, scoring four goals against future hall-of-fame goaltender Marty Brodeur. The Devils were able to score twice against stellar goalie Jonathan Quick of the Kings in game 4, and then scored an empty net goal to make the final score 3-1, thus bringing the series back to New Jersey. The motto in the Devils locker room before game 4 was they have to fly back to New Jersey no matter what the outcome was in the fourth game, and they wanted to bring the Kings back with them to make them earn their first ever Stanley Cup. That is exactly what happened.

The series shifted back to The Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey and the Devils got the crowd into it fast after an exciting first period of game 5. When the buzzer sounded after the third period the score was 2-1 New Jersey. The Kings now know the Devils are not going anywhere and they will come out fighting in game 6 Monday night in order to once again bring the series back to New Jersey for a game 7. All eyes are on the Kings and if they are going to be able to finish off the Devils at home tonight. If they don’t, another six-hour flight awaits them back to the east coast for a game 7, something no one in the Kings locker room wants. They want to hoist the Cup tonight, in front of 18,000+ of their fans and show everyone that they no only deserve to be in this year Stanley Cup Finals, but that they deserve to be the Champions this year.

Watching the Oklahoma City Thunder and the San Antonio Spurs series is like comparing night and day. The Thunder on one hand, are young, exciting and fun to watch. On the other hand, the Spurs are full of veterans, they are slow and just plain boring. If the Spurs were playing any other team in the NBA besides the Thunder, the Miami Heat or the New York Knicks, I would rather watch the grass grow or wet paint dry on a wall then sit back and watch another Tim Duncan bank shot or Manu Ginobili flop. The only player that I can generously say is …somewhat… interesting is Tony Parker. Besides him, the Spurs do not bring a lot to the table in terms of excitement. That being said, there is no denying the fact that the Spurs are a winning organization. They play excellent team basketball and have great chemistry on the court together. I just wish every now and then that I can say to myself, “I want to watch the Spurs play tonight”. Hopefully within the next few years when the old men retire and a new generation of Spurs come up, they are more interesting to watch then the Spurs are now.

When the New York Giants‘ star wide-receiver Hakeem Nicks fractured his right foot in drills during the team’s second Organized Team Activities, it was safe to say that most Giant fans were very concerned. The media shockingly over-hyped this injury and acted as if it was a season-ending injury. Questions arose such as ‘What will Eli Manning do without the team’s 2011 leading receiver?’ or ‘How will this injury negatively impact their other star receiver Victor Cruz?’. What the media and many fans did not take into account is that this injury will only sideline Nicks for about 12 weeks. Since the injury took place in late May, Nicks should be returning at the end of August. Although Nicks will be missing a handful of workouts and training camp, he may be available for at least one preseason game. Even if Nicks were to miss some regular season games, Giants’ offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride has dealt with injuries to star players before. Gilbride will incorporate other facets of the offense such as utilizing running backs Ahmad Bradshaw and rookie David Wilson and allowing for young wide-receivers to step up and fill in for Nicks. The absence of Nicks enables other young Giants’ receivers to get more reps in and develop a better chemistry with quarterback Eli Manning. Unlike the other receivers, Nicks can afford to miss some time due to his enhanced knowledge of the playbook. He is an excellent route runner and an established force that requires much attention and troubles many opponents. Due to Manning and Nicks’ remarkable chemistry on the field over the past three seasons, they should take little to no time getting back to the way things were and give the Giants a chance at another Super Bowl run. As the Giants have shown in previous years, it is not important how you start the season, just how you finish it.

Although it is early in the season, the Mets currently have a better record than the Yankees and appear to have a much brighter future. The Yankees have way too much money tied up with old, unproductive players such as A-Rod, Soriano, Teixeria, Jeter and CC Sabathia. The Mets have young talented pitching and financial flexibility after this year despite the Bernie Madoff situation. The Yankees window is closing and they have very minimal prospects to build on, while the other team in New York appears to be building for the future the right way, minus Jason Bay.