The Group of Death Resolves Itself and Boston Loses Another Finger To a Ring

I'd like to start this post off by saying that one of the most important parts of this blog while your dear friend Pappy is in the Delaware Valley is Comcast with their okay internet and excellent cable services. However, they charge exorbitant fees, and they do something that Time Warner never does in Syracuse: have 24 straight hours of a service outage. The funny part to me is that while this storm that supposedly took out service for so many people was occurring, nothing happened to my cable service. But 2 days afterwards? Of course it will take out your service. The logic is beautiful.
However, not as beautiful as the beautiful game (futbol (soccer)) was yesterday, and the Euro action was pretty ugly. In order to prevent the throwing of games, both games are played concurrently, so I joined a friend at a West Philly bar and got to watch both on big screens right next to each other, but it was still tough to pay attention to both at the same time.
The Italians took their dives, as Luca Toni did in the 24th inside the box, drawing a red card for Eric Abidal that probably should have been a yellow for Toni. Andrea Pirlo, who probably has the most accurate foot in the world right now, easily put the penalty past Coupet, and Italy was set to coast. This was especially easy because Ribery, France's best midfielder, fell to injury in the 10th. It looked like a Zidane break where he would get off the stretcher on the sideline, squirt water on his leg, and go right back on. But it was actually a REAL injury. Samir Nasri came in for him and proved to be pretty terrible, as he was replaced by Jean Alain Boumsong in the 26th. A deflected De Rossi free kick closed the scoring in 62nd, and the Italians marched on with barely a hint of trouble, which was a Karim Benzema shot that barely missed. France did what its army regularly does in war and what it's soccer team does once every two or three tournaments: disappear completely. They only managed one goal in this tournament. I don't know what type of shape Zidane is in right now, but his national side needs him pretty badly.
So, one uncompetitive side in the France-Italy match meant that the Romanians needed to pull off a win against the less offensive Dutch oven which was weaker due to a big chunk of their starting lineup that destroyed the French and Italians resting for the quarters. Not much going on in the first half, although the Romanians did put on some pressure. However, the Dutch showed that they could attack well even without their best players, and Huntelaar in the 54th and Van Persie, who seems to have recovered from the injuries that limited his time at Arsenal this year, in the 87th, dashed Romanian dreams of advancing to the quarters.
To round out the day, the NBA Finals concluded in Boston as the Celtics mauled the Lakers 131-92 for the franchise's 17th. Boston could do no wrong (33:7 Assist:Turnover ratio, 32-37 from the line, 13-26 from 3, 43-87 from the field, and Sam Cassell didn't play), and Kobe looked like a giant poop. Paul Pierce is your Finals MVP to no one's surprise. So now, we look to next year. Right now, the early consensus is another Lakers-Celtics Final, but it could play out completely differently because of one factor: Andrew Bynum. He is a top 5 big man in the NBA when healthy, and if he can put in at least 70 regular season games, the Lakers will probably be able to keep their roster together (Ronny Turiaf's contract expired, and Vujacic could go where the money is that the Lakers can't pay him) but could make a trade this offseason in order to improve. The Celtics will also have the same roster minus the probably retirements of Sam Cassell and PJ Brown, whose role will be filled by "Big Baby" Davis. This is what the NBA wants: a rivalry between the two most storied franchises in the league, with players remembering last year. The Spurs are going to try to return to glory, but they have never looked so bad getting eliminated (They took the Mavs to 7 games in 2006, but a paltry, basically uncompetitive 5 against the Lakers? I don't think so.). I'm sure Donaghy will be in Arkham Asylum like the Riddler at the end of Batman Forever, being asked by Bruce Wayne why the series didn't go seven, and Donaghy telling him that Stern wanted to make sure no one knew he did actually pay off the referees. Well, we'll see what happens next year if 2 big market teams, 1 from the East and 1 from the West, make it to the conference finals. I'm pretty sure they'll both make it to the NBA Finals, but that isn't my business...shit, they found me; I'm fleeing like Jerry Fletcher in Conspiracy Theory.