Massive amount of news!

Let's start in the NBA, where Dirk Nowitsky and the Dallas Mavericks have won the NBA Championship!  They crushed the Miami Heat in Game 6, which was held in Miami, to close out the series 4 games to 2, winning the final 3 games of the series after falling behind 2 with a painful loss on their own home court in Game 3.  It was definitely a history making series win, and it means that Labron James has once again failed to win the big one.

On the wrestling front, the TNA PPV was last night, and in an incredible back and forth match, Mickie James defended her Knockouts Championship against the powerful challenge of Angelina Love with Winter at ringside.  Before the match Angelina told Winter she doesn't need the memory pills anymore, she remembers their previous time together now, and they're 'on the same page'.  Winter was happy to note that now they're finally 'really' together, but ultimately despite their being on the same page, and Winter repeatedly interfering in the match, Mickie was too powerful an opponent to overcome.  The greatest and most dominant Women's Champion of all time, having won the Women's Championship 7 times now, Mickie traded finishers with Angelina, she hit the Mick Kick but Winter put Angelina's foot on the ropes, then Angelina hit her own finishing kick, the Botox Injection, but Mickie got her hand on the ropes, and kept it there despite Winter trying to push it off.  Ultimately it was a Mickie-D-T that finally finished the match in Mickie's favor.  After the match Winter and Angelina laid Mickie out, so the feud is still going strong despite Mickie's impressive Title Defense last night.  Sting didn't fare as well under similar circumstances, as Mr. Anderson won after Eric Bischoff interfered in the match, Mr. Anderson is now a 2 Time World Champion.

Finally I'd like to close with more Election 2012 news, as there are yet more Iowa endorsements for Ron Paul to mention.  Earlier today, Iowa GOP Central Committeeman Jeremiah Johnson, and Debuque Tea Party Organizer Jeff Leucke, became the latest prominent Iowans to officially back Ron Paul's Presidential Campaign.  That was before tonight's debate, which Ron dominated, scoring another impressive performance, this time in New Hampshire, the previous debate having taken place in South Carolina.  There will be an Iowa debate in August, shortly before the critically important Straw Poll vote out there.  Tonight's debate was won handily by Ron, who is winning both the Fox News and CNN online polls.  Ron is the clear front-runner to win the Iowa Straw Poll right now, after Mitt Romney announced he was giving up and wouldn't even compete in it.  Ron would probably have beaten Mitt even if he had competed in it, which of course explains why Romney dropped out of it. 

Stay tuned to the Gladiator Blog for more major news coverage, and super cool information!

Dallas One Win Away

After their dramatic victory in Game 5 of the NBA Finals, the Dallas Mavericks are just one win away from completing their run for a Championship!  Dirk Nowitsky may be one of the greatest players of all time, and it's somebody that most fans didn't know much, if anything, about before this year's playoffs, what a feel good story!  He's had a LOT of help along the way in the Finals also, Jason Kidd, Jason Terry, and perhaps most of all, particularly in the last two games, Tyson Chandler.  Tyson Chandler is a player that wasn't good enough for the Charlotte Bobcats to keep around...that's the Carlotte Bobcats, a team that didn't even make the playoffs.  And for the first part of this series you could certainly see why they cut him, he didn't do much.  But these last two games, he's really done what he should've been able to do all along, use his size to great advantage.  Ironicly, if he'd been playing up to his potential all year he probably would've never left Charlotte, so him finding his game this late actually served him, and the Mavericks, very well.  If Dallas wins the Championship, of course Dirk will get the biggest share of the credit, and deservedly so, but Tyson Chandler may be the second most important player on this team, and when you're on a team with folks like Kidd and Terry, that's really saying something.  Game 6 in Miami is going to be HUGE, I'm thinking it could be the highest rated game in NBA history.  Certainly it's a game I'm looking forward to! 

Amazing Game 4

Game 4 of the NBA Finals was quite simply amazing.  Dallas, as usual, got off to a good start and proceeded to waste that on shoddy defense.  It was a different kind of bad defense this time though, as you recall in game 3 they repeatedly allowed Miami to simply drive and dunk or lay it up for tons of free points in the first quarter, keeping Miami close and allowing them to eventually build a huge second quarter lead.  This time they did a much better job of stopping Miami from just having free points by driving and dunking or laying it in, but they gave up an ASTOUNDING amount of offensive rebounds, nine in the first quarter alone.  Simply unfathomable, so Miami managed to end the first quarter tied despite shooting less than 30 percent from the field, while Dallas shot around 50 percent.  Its amazing the creative ways Dallas can find to give away points like they're a high school team instead of an NBA team.  Dallas played relatively poorly in the second and third quarters, ending them down by 2 and 4 respectively.  Its worth noting that Dirk Nowitsky, who was having a very bad game, was quite sick, he could barely talk, he had a high fever, he was very much not well.  Of course we all remember MJ playing in the Finals with the Flu and scoring a ton of points, but clearly Dirk, especially when he's sick, is no MJ. 

The 4th quarter began the same way the 2nd quarter did, with Dallas giving up a bunch of points without scoring any themselves, quickly going from 4 down to 9 down, much like they went from tied to 7 down less than 2 minutes into the second quarter.  The early parts of 4th quarters have been REALLY awful for Dallas in this series, and it was no different in this game.  Eventually they settled into a medium-high single digit defecit for a while, as the time ticked away.  As the game progressed toward its ultimate conclusion, Dallas finally started getting some offense going, cutting into the defecit, and actually getting some stops as well.  Thanks to the Miami coach inexplicably not calling timeout during a key Dallas run, they were actually able to come ALL the way back, AND take the lead!  A lead they were able to get up to 3 points with about half a minute to go, but then Miami had a very long pass that resulted in Wade getting fouled and going to the FT line, where he cut the lead back to 1.  There was about a six second difference between the shot clock and the game clock, and Dirk was standing there holding the ball.  He could've held it longer than he did, but he decided to drive on the Miami fellow guarding him, and despite his sickness, and the poor game he'd been having, he made a BIGTIME layup with about 14 seconds left! 

Miami called a timeout, and it seemed they would go for a 3 point shot to tie, but instead Wade drove and got an easy basket with 9 seconds left.  Dallas took their final timeout, advancing the ball, and then they inbounded it in such a way that they were able to run off a couple seconds before anybdoy could reach the guy to foul him.  Dallas then hit two CLUTCH Free Throws, extending the lead back to 3 with 6.7 seconds left.  Miami called its final timeout and advanced the ball, and now seemed like a great time to just foul somebody, and make sure Miami couldnt tie the score, since they couldn't advance the ball again, being out of timeouts.  Instead Dallas chose to play defense, Wade received the inbound pass but stumbled and lost the ball, he recovered it and passed to a teammate, Miller, who was probably the LAST guy that Miami wanted to shoot their last shot, but with about 3 seconds left thats exactly what he did.  I don't think the ball even hit the rim, if it did it BARELY did, and the time ran out, an amazing and glorious victory for the Dallas Mavericks! 

What an incredible game, and it sets up a VERY critical Game 5 in Dallas on Thursday night.  Sadly its up against Impact Wrestling, so I'll be forced to go back and forth like I did last week.  It's a pivotal game, just as Dallas had to win Game 4, they have to win Game 5 just about as badly.  Game 6, and if necessary Game 7, will be in Miami, so Dallas will have to win another game in Miami in order to win this series, but if they lose game 5 they'd have to win TWO STRAIGHT games in Miami, quite the daunting task indeed.  Much better to just win Game 5 at home and then win Game 6 in Miami, ending the series right there.  Yeah, let's just do that :) .

The Greatest Comeback of All Time!

Game 2 of the NBA Finals was a seesaw battle, lots of ups and downs, but in the end it was Dirk Nowitsky leading what has to be the greatest comeback in the NBA Finals of all time!  With about 5 or 6 minutes to go, Dallas had just given up 13 straight points, and trailed by 15.  It seemed that they were about to head back to Dallas trailing 2 games to 0, looking like a team that was just too old or simply too pathetic to perform in the 4th quarter.  But that, as it turns out happily, was just an illusion, as Dallas quickly ran off 8 straight points to cut the lead to 7.  A generous foul call gave Labron two free throws, that he made to extend the lead to nine, before Dallas hit a big 3 ball to cut the lead to a half a dozen.  Dallas continued to whittle the lead down thanks to big D and scoring at the other end.  Eventually they got it down to 2 with under 2 minutes to go, and Miami had a LOOONG posession, thanks to Dallas' repeated failure to rebound Labron James misses.  Eventually somehow they managed to get the ball back on a 3 on 1 break, which they converted to tie the score!  Now under a minute to go, Miami misses again, and Dallas has the chance for a 2 for 1.  They pass on that, taking their time and that resulted in an open 3 ball for Mr Dirk which he promptly DRAINS to give Dallas its first lead in like FOREVER, a 3 point lead with 26.7 seconds to go! 

Miami took their final timeout, and then received a HUUUGE gift, as Jason Terry inexplicably leaves Chalmers, the man he was supposed to guard, to double team Wade....ON AN INBOUNDS PASS PLAY, when Wade didn't even have the ball!  This gave Miami the chance to simply throw the ball in to the all-alone Chalmers, who hit the wide open 3 and tied the score with 24.5 seconds still left.  The horrors!  Dallas then called their own final timeout, and began milking the clock.  With about 10 seconds or so, Kidd got the ball to the only man on the court who mattered, Mr Dirk Nowitsky.  He said after the game he was anticipating being fouled, since Miami still had a foul to give, but apparently Miami forgot or something, as they simply played him straight up with Bosh, who got TAKEN TO SCHOOL, Dirk blew past him and laid it up with THE LEFT HAND BABY!!  That gave Dallas a 2 point lead with under 4 seconds to go, and Miami had no timeouts so they had to push it quickly.  Wade actually got a mighty decent look all things considered, but in the end it was no good, and the Dallas Mavericks had scored their greatest victory of all time, and the greatest comeback in NBA Finals history!  I can't wait for Game 3 in Dallas on Sunday evening!  Oh baby what a series!

NBA Finals Game 1

Tonight's Game 1 of the NBA Finals was very exciting, and showed a lot about the two teams.  In the first half, it was Dallas' game, in the second half Dallas started to take over, but then Miami turned the tide, eventually winning comfortably.  Dallas did a lot of things wrong, really easy and simple things like missed layups, and failure to rebound, which if corrected could easily lead to a win in Game 2.  Perhaps the worst thing about the game however, was the unbelievably biased Pro-Miami announcing by the ABC Announce crew.  Hopefully something can be done to either get more objective announcers, or to at least give these guys a reprimand to get them to show more objectivity.  A notable point in the game, when a Dallas player was driving for a dunk and got totally clobbered by a Miami player, one announcer actually insanely suggested that they should've called an offensive foul.  Apparently if you drive for a dunk against Miami you deserve to be clobbered!?  It was an unbelievably huge Pro-Miami bias, and I'm not watching ABC for that, I want to hear unbiased announcing.  Its bad enough that the liberal media can't be unbiased on political matters, do they really have to extend their lack of objectivity to sporting events?  I would hope not, I hope tonight was an exception and that going forward we can get truly objective announcing, it sure would make watching the Finals more enjoyable for anyone who isn't a huge Miami fan.