Top 10 Celtics - Sixers Game Three Takeaways

10) This series was a lot more fun before Paul Pierce showed up

9) Kevin Garnett isn't exactly shy about telling you how his day is going

8) So much for home court advantage

7) When Spencer Hawes, Elton Brand and Evan Turner combine for 11 points, the Sixers aren't beating anyone

6) If you want to say Celtics in five now that they are well and truly awake, I can't argue

5) When the Celtics run, good things happen for them, which is to say, the same thing that is true for every team in the Association is true here

4) Doc Rivers clearly missed the Tom Thibodeau lesson of not playing your stars in a blowout against Philly

3) It had been a while since the Sixers showed up in their periodic guise as a bad and overmatched team

2) When Xavier Silas gets minutes for the Sixers, you know that the plan has not been achieved

1) If I'm Doug Collins, I try Andre Iguodala on Rajon Rondo, because I'm not seeing how 10+ assists from the opposing point guard should be tolerated

Top 10 Lakers - Thunder Game Two Takeaways

10) One of these games, the Lakers are going to get the Thunder's stars to not dress goofy in the post-game remarks

9) If Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook are going to make defensive stops to win games, that's a whole new way for the Thunder to win

8) Andrew Bynum thinks the Lakers did almost everything right tonight while losing, which is further proof that the Lakers aren't doing themselves any favors by letting his near microphones

7) Durant waited until late in the game to remember that he's tall

6) So long as Kobe Bryant continues to think he's the most important player on the Lakers, they are very vulnerable

5) Shockingly, Metta World Poverty didn't come through in the clutch

4) When your coaching matchup is Scotty Brooks and Mike Brown, any useful strategy will stand out for its novelty

3) The Lakers feel like they've let a game slip away, because they are impressively arrogant pricks who can't give their opponent credit

2) If Bryant does this another 20 or 30 times, people might start noticing that he's not the be-all and end-all closer after all

1) Steve Blake is not Derek Fisher

Top 10 Clippers - Spurs Game One Takeaways

Tulsa or San Antonio, I'm not sure which

10) If you are wondering how Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili and Tim Duncan are all healthy in a year where everyone else is dropping like flies, you are not alone

9) Blake Griffin said his knee was only at 80%, which means that the Clippers can look forward to slightly closer losses as he gets closer to full health

8) There is no truth to the rumor that San Antonio is, in fact, the basketball Borg

7) If Chris Paul isn't the best three players on the floor, this isn't a series

6) Gregg Popovich manages his resources better than any coach in NBA history

5) Duncan has forgotten more about basketball than the Clipper big men have ever learned

4) If you are feeling bad about the Spurs advancing past this fun Clippers team, just remind yourself that less money in Donald Sterling's life is a win for humanity

3) The really scary thing about this Spurs team isn't that they are good, it's that they are so good that they blow teams out when not playing all that well

2) Vinny Del Negro didn't have much to do in this one, but playing Paul for 38 minutes in a quasi-blowout doesn't exactly scream out intellect

1) The NBA's Western Finals are going to have those two sterling media metropolises of Tulsa and San Antonio, which should, for once and for all, end the Tim Donaghy conspiracy theories

Top 10 takeaways from Pacers-Heat Game Two

10) It must be nice to play on the Heat, since your every missed shot and failure is blamed on LeBron James

9) Indy won on the road in a game where they missed 24 of 29 from the field, because both of these teams want to end basketball as we know it

8) So many people are now interested in telling you how important Chris Bosh is, after telling you for years that he's gutless and sucky

7) If you were surprised by James missing free throws late, you haven't been paying any real attention to his career since, well, high school

6) We'd say something nice about the Pacers' defense here, but it's not allowed by the rules of NBA analysis, in which everything is about LeBron

5) Dwyane Wade is very, very good at arguing with the refs during a play and giving up a 4-on-5 possession

4) The Pacers have a big advantage in the pivot with Roy Hibbert with Bosh out, so Hibbert took... six shots all night

3) Danny Granger said that the Pacers never felt as if they were the underdog, which means that Danny Granger might not have a firm grasp on reality

2) It says something substantial that this Heat team really could use Zydrunas Ilgauskas

1) The Heat's struggles are really opening the door for the eventual Sixers' win of the Eastern Conference playoffs, where they will be presented with a trophy in the form of a giant asterisk

How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Pac Bell

I'm back in CA for 48 hours this week, which is why my schedule is all Catty Wumpus (we are now the first and only sports blog ever to use that word, thank you, thank you). This also led to going to a Giants game with friends of mine in the area, and their kid, last night.

The Giants beat the Rockies, 3-2, as Ryan Vogelsong overcame weak control to keep his team in it, then the Giants scratched together some runs late against impressive rook Christian Fredrich (he's good, though I'm not in love with any pitcher in Colorado) and the less-impressive Colorado bullpen. Oh, and Sergio Romo is nails. The game went for a little more than three hours, and we had a blast. Not exactly a unique experience, this.

You see, it's kind of hard to enjoy Pac Bell when you are an A's fan; the park more or less exists as a reminder of what life could be like, had the team only been able to find their own dot-com sugar daddy back in the day when such things existed. (Pac Bell was built with public money, much of it from terrible sites like Webvan. But I digress.) The view is great, the food is great, there's 41K+ people in the place no matter what team is facing the Giants, the kids' area is ample and wonderful, you can pretty much eat anything imaginable out there... assuming, of course, you have the cash.

My party of four sat in the left field corner for $25 a piece. We kept the young'un happy with food early, cotton candy and ice cream late. The adults had some adult beverages, and we paid for parking. So we easily spent over $200 on this, or what I would have spent to take my daughter to five A's games at the Coliseum.

Which is crazy and wrong, of course... but the plain and simple fact of the matter is that even if baseball were affordable on a routine level, I doubt I'd go to very many more games per year. There's just not enough time in my life, just not enough close stadiums, just not enough times when I'm with people who want to go to games. So while it would be nice to keep games affordable, it's just not going to happen, and the 41K+ people per night filling the place aren't complaining.

So, yes, Pac Bell is just the best place to see a game, and since every other place is charging Monopoly money now for the experience... why pule about the cost? Go once a year, enjoy it for what it is, and move on from the idea that the world should rebel against Better Stadium Less Ball. The tide has rolled in, never to roll back, and standing on principle in the ocean ruins your shoes.