Chode Picks – NBA Quarterfinals

Welcome back friends and family, to the second edition of the first-ever NBA Playoff season of the Chode Picks! What a difference two weeks makes. The last time I sat down to write the Picks, I was staring down a week full of exams and papers due, followed by the promise of Mifflin weekend at the end of the tunnel. This week, after conquering the necessary schoolwork and surviving the block party, I have almost no actual work to do, with only one lab report and one exam standing between me and graduation. Considering that the exam isn’t until next Thursday, and I fully intend to use my patented strategy of ‘plagiarize-and-paraphrase’ on the lab report, I’ve got more than enough time to devote to the Chode Picks. I might even include a little hockey analysis this time (you’re welcome, Scotty). Anyways, there’s a lot I want to write about this week, so let’s get started.

First off, time to recap the madness that was last weekend. Mifflin 2012, also known as “Cinco de Mifflin”, or “Cinco de Drinko”, or “the one day of the year that I don’t try to set Mexicans on fire”. I started off the morning the right way, by eating a pound of bacon and chasing it with a liter of beer. Next came the traditional Mifflin keg race (note: does not involve any actual athletic activity) followed by shots of Patron and a solid, 6-hour blackout. I really wish I could remember what the hell happened to me from noon to 6 PM, but judging from the pictures of me flipping over tables and climbing onto my roof, it seems like I had an awesome time. Unfortunately, the actual block party itself was marred by police intervention. I don’t know what the hell their problem was, but it seemed like the city of Madison had imported the entire Menomonie Police Department for a weekend. The pigs were slapping cuffs on anyone they could find committing any infraction at all. I honestly saw a girl get a ticket for jaywalking. JAYWALKING! Are you fucking kidding me? I understand the resentment that some officers must have towards us students, since most of them weren’t smart enough to go to college and we get to enjoy four years of bliss here at UW, but damn, chill the fuck out. The following exchange I had with a cop in my friend’s backyard perfectly summed up the relationship between the students and officers.

Officer: [riding through yard on a horse] Alright, let’s see some IDs
Chode: [glares at officer]
Officer: [horse is now shitting] What the hell’s your problem, kid?
Chode: Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.

They even arrested Montee Ball for trespassing, which raises two important questions:
1) Who was the asshole that told the cops Montee wasn’t welcome on their porch?
2) If this had happened at an SEC school, would the cop have been fired before he could finish writing the ticket?

Also, Patrick Kane of the Chicago Blackhawks was there. Like a typical Chicagoan, he made an ass of himself and got thrown out of a party for choking a sorority girl.

By the way, you’re an idiot for not coming, Sawle.

Ugh. Alright, time to write about that boring sport on ice that requires no athletic ability whatsoever.

Western Conference Finals: PHOENIX COYOTES vs LOS ANGELES KINGS

Yes, you read that correctly. One of the teams playing for the Stanley Cup this year will be from either Arizona or southern California. If I’m going to pretend to care about hockey, it would at least be nice if the teams were from cold-weather cities. Take last year for example. As much as I despise Boston sports teams, I could respect their victory since their fans have to live in snow for 4 months out of the year. Hockey, like football, is meant to be played outside in the cold. Anyways, I’m taking the Coyotes here based on my one rule of picking hockey games: take the team with the better goalie. Mike Smith has been fantastic this postseason.

Coyotes in seven

Eastern Conference Semifinals: WASHINGTON CAPITALS vs NEW YORK RANGERS

First off, this has been one HELL of a series. After losing a triple-overtime contest in game 4 and basically giving away game 5, Washington battled back to force a game 7. Unfortunately, I don’t get to watch it because I work all day tomorrow. Anyways, I think this game will be won or lost by the play of Alex Ovechkin. He’s the best player in the world, but seems to disappear at times. For a long time, I though that Ovechkin was the LeBron of the NHL, but then this season LeBron became super-effcient and consistent while Ovechkin looked strangely human. Still, if he’s on his game, the Capitals can beat anybody. If he’s not, their season will probably end tomorrow. Also, the winner of this game faces the New Jersey Devils in the Eastern Conference Finals, but I didn’t feel like writing about them because I was rooting for Philadelphia.

Capitals in seven

Enough hockey. Time for the offseason NFL update.

Congratualtions to the Minnesota Vikings on finally completing a stadium deal that will allow the team to continue to get their asses beat in the NFC North until at least 2042. When the highlight of your sports year is finding out that your team isn’t being moved to California, you must be from Minnesota. When the news broke yesterday, one of my roommates, a long-suffering Minnesotan, nearly shit himself with excitement. For the purposes of the Chode Picks, I’ll refer to him as Jake, because that’s his name.

Jake: HEY!! Guess what’s NOT happening?
Chode: The Twins getting 30 wins this year?
Jake: The Vikings moving to L.A.! They finished the stadium deal!
Chode: Congratulations. Welcome to another decade of mediocrity.
Jake: Oh, really? How about THREE decades of mediocrity? 30-year lease, bitch!
Chode: Touche.

Just how bad has it been for Minnesota sports? Let’s recap the past year or so. First, the Twins go from 90+ wins two years ago to 99 losses last season, along with a devastating concussion to Justin Morneau (that he might never fully recover from, sadly). Then the Vikings finish 3-13, winning just one too many games to draft Andrew Luck or Robert Griffin III. Adrian Peterson and Ricky Rubio both suffer ACL tears, and Kevin Love’s best season ever gets rudely interrupted by a concussion. The Golden Gopher football team wins just three of nine games, while new coach Jerry Kill has not one, but TWO seizures on the sidelines. The Gopher basketball team loses their best player to yet another ACL tear early in the season. Finally, the Wild started off well enough to get fans’ hopes up, before collapsing and missing the playoffs. The lone bright spot was the Lynx winning the WNBA championship. Unfortunately, in this day and age, winning a women’s professional sports title is like tying for an actual man-sports championship. You could say it’s like kissing your nappy-headed sisters. This is what happens when you sign Brett Favre, assholes.

In the meantime, the Packers won a Super Bowl and went 15-2 the next season, while the Badgers won consecutive Big Ten football championships and made it to the sweet sixteen twice in a row in basketball. The Brewers won a division championship and Ryan Braun won the MVP. Also, the Miami Heat signed the best player in the world, made it to the Finals, and appear to be poised to finish the job this season. In summary, ALL OF MY TEAMS ARE MUCH BETTER THAN YOURS! I couldn’t have drawn it up any better.

Anyways, in my mind Minnesota has gone from public enemy number one to the doormat that I don’t even feel like ripping into anymore. When your chief rival gets to be this pathetic, there’s only one course of action to take: find a new enemy. Enter Chicago. I fucking hate that city. Between their five major sports teams, there’s more than enough to make for a replacement to Minnesota. Fortunately, most Chicago teams are actually good enough to compete with my teams. The Bears were surging last season until injuries to Jay Cutler and Matt Forte shot them in the foot, while the Bulls…. Hold on. I need to savor this for a minute.

THE BULLS ARE OUT OF THE PLAYOFFS!! THE BULLS ARE OUT OF THE PLAYOFFS!! JOAKIM NOAH HAS HEAD LICE!! DERRICK ROSE’S KNEE IS MADE OF GLASS!! TOM THIBODEAU HAS NO FUCKING IDEA HOW TO KEEP HIS PLAYERS HEALTHY!! ANDRE IGUODALA IS KEYSER SOZE!! THE HEAT HAVE A CLEAR PATH TO THE NBA FINALS!!!

Yes. And that brings me back to the NBA. Now that the Eastern Conference has wrapped up the first round, it’s time to take a look at the contenders, pretenders, and wildcards left in the mix. Here we go!

Western Conference Semifinals: LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS vs SAN ANTIONIO SPURS

Yes, I’m making the questionable assumption that the Clippers can finish off the Grizzlies with injuries to their two best players. Why? Because when you make a pick, you stick to it, no matter how bad it might look in retrospect. And because Clipper fans, despite living in Los Angeles, are really good at their jobs. They create the kind of hostile environment that the Staples Center hasn’t seen since the days of Magic Johnson. They deserve to win at least one playoff series. Also, an injured Chris Paul is still better than anybody in Memphis. If you haven’t been watching this series, you’ve missed out on the greatest point guard play the world has seen since Isaiah Thomas. In fact, I’m not even going to call Paul a point guard anymore. He’s invented his own position. From this point on, he will be referred to as Chris Paul: Point God. LeBron is still the best player in the NBA, but after watching CP3 this past week, it’s a lot closer than I thought. Unfortunately, as good as Chris Paul: Point God is, he’s still being coached by Vinny Del Negro. Against Greg Popovich’s Spurs. Dear Lord, this series is going to be a massacre.

Spurs in five

Western Conference Semifinals: OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER vs LOS ANGELES LAKERS

Yes, I know the Lakers haven’t beaten the Nuggets yet, but let’s be real. They’re far too talented to lose in the first round. I’ll still be rooting for Denver, mostly because I hate Laker fans, and also because it would be awesome if Carmelo’s former team went farther than the Knicks, but at the end of the day, we all know that the Lakers are better. That being said, they’re going to get mauled by the Thunder. In the first round of the NBA playoffs, it became obvious that there are three teams playing on a different level right now: San Antonio, Oklahoma City, and Miami. This series is just a tune-up for the upcoming seven-game bloodbath between the Spurs and Thunder. Also, James Harden needs to knock Ron Artest on his ass at least once.
Side note: you’ve all seen Kevin Durant’s new Sprint commercial right? The one where he says “I was double-teamed, and had no one to pass to”, before a clip of him hitting a game-winning shot? Yeah, sorry Kevin, but I’m calling bullshit. Want to know why? Because if you’re double-teamed, THERE HAS TO BE SOMEBODY OPEN TO PASS TO!! It leaves three guys to guard four! Unless your teammates are fucking morons and all stand in the same place, somebody is wide open. So pass the damn ball, Kevin. Don’t be a hero.

Thunder in six

Eastern Conference Semifinals: BOSTON CELTICS vs PHILADELPHIA 76ERS

First off, if you haven’t seen it yet, go watch the end of game 7 between the Bulls and 76ers. I’ll wait. Fine, I know you’re too lazy to look it up, so I’ll break it down for you. The Bulls trusted a gangly white dude to seal up the series for them, which predictably didn’t work, and then Andre Iguodala killed the dinosaurs. It was awesome. In an incredible stroke of luck, I was actually talking to a cute girl from Chicago at bar in Madison during the end of the game.

Chode: Hey, I don’t know if you noticed, but there are only eight seconds left in your team’s season.
Girl: What? We’re winning by one and shooting free throws!
Chode: Just watch.
(Iguodala grabs the rebound, sprints downcourt, gets fouled and hits the winning free throws)
Chode: IGGY!!
Girl: What the fuck?
Chode: Sucks to suck. Hey, at least the Cubs are doing really well.
Girl: Oh, you asshole. I wish I could slap you right now.
Chode: I’d like to strap you to my face and say the alphabet.

She left shortly after. Totally worth it. Anyways, I’m taking the Sixers in this series too, for two reasons. First, they have the best player (Iguodala, who should make the Olympic team this summer, and if he doesn’t I’m going to be kind of pissed), and second, they have all the confidence in the world right now. They just knocked off the #1 seed. They’ve got the “nobody believed in us!” factor going, and their youth and speed matches them up really well with the Boston Geriatrics. Regardless, the winner of this series gets the honor of losing to Miami in the Eastern Conference Finals.

76ers in seven

Eastern Conference Semifinals: MIAMI HEAT vs INDIANA PACERS

Frank Vogel, you are an idiot. The only chance the Pacers had in this series was to lay low and hope that the Heat would underestimate them, then somehow steal four games with hot shooting and good defense. Yesterday, I would have given them a 10 percent chance of pulling it off, but today, Indiana head coach went on a popular Miami sports radio show (Dan LeBatard’s to be specific. He’s really good, and if you’ve got time, you should check out his YouTube videos), and called the Heat “the biggest flopping team in the NBA”. Wow. If there’s anything worse than having to play against LeBron James and Dwyane Wade in the playoffs, it’s having to play against a pissed-off LeBron James and Dwyane Wade in the playoffs. As much as I admire how Indiana has built a contender through defense, chemistry and unselfishness, they’re going down like a blind lesbian in a fish market. Up yours, Frank.

Heat in five

A few more thoughts before we wrap it up:

- John Elway is going to deeply regret trading Tebow. If he improved that much over the course of one season, can you imagine what he can do with an entire offseason of work? There’s absolutely no reason that they couldn’t have signed Manning and kept Tebow as their quarterback of the future. I can’t wait for the day that Tebow leads the Jets to a playoff win over Denver. You know it’s coming.
- Literally one day after I posted the last edition of the Chode Picks, I ran into Mike Bruesewitz at another bar. He did not apologize, nor did he offer to buy me a drink. The curse of the Brueser lives on.
- Charles Barkley deserved to win an Emmy about as much as Obama deserved to win the Nobel Peace Prize
- I don’t like to write about politics a lot in the Chode Picks, but if you’re a democrat, why the hell would you want Tom Barrett to run against Scott Walker again? Losing once wasn’t enough?
- CREVICE FOR LIFE!!

This edition of the Chode Picks was brought to you by Yamaha.