From the pages of the Sportsmemo Newsletter...

San Francisco (Cain) +145 at Milwaukee (Gallardo)
Matt Cain has shown Cy Young caliber stuff in nearly every one of his 14 previous starts this season. He allowed two runs or less in 11 of those 14 outings, and six of his last seven. Cain is coming off a stellar eight-inning, three hits allowed performance against Texas, one game after his complete game four hitter against Oakland. The Giants have won each of his last nine starts. Very quietly, under the radar, San Francisco is emerging into a legitimate contender in the NL. The Giants would be the NL’s Wild Card team if the season ended today. Since their 3-8 start, the Giants are now 34-23 in their last 57 games. This is a competitive team, but the betting marketplace continues to price them very cheaply. San Francisco’s mediocre preseason expectations have them fifth out of 30 MLB teams in terms of profitability this year...exactly the type of team I’m looking to support. Milwaukee’s Yovani Gallardo will most assuredly be the favorite here, based on his season long 7-4 record and 3.00 ERA. But Gallardo’s command has been off in recent starts, walking four batters or more five times in his last eight trips to the hill. Gallardo has needed 328 pitches to labor through 17 innings of work in his last three starts, losing twice in the process. Expect more of the same on Friday.  Recommendation: San Francisco

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When Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol and the Lakers’ supporting cast carried LA past Orlando in Game 5 to earn the NBA title, it marked the end of another wild and wacky NBA season. In this article, I’ll take a quick look back at just what happened during LA’s run to the title.

The NBA is not like other leagues. In the NFL, it’s not unusual to see a team come from nowhere to earn a victory in the Super Bowl. In the last decade, we saw virtually unknown teams like the Baltimore Ravens and Carolina Panthers, or perennially losing squads like the Tampa Bay Bucs and Arizona Cardinals all reach the big game and cover the pointspread when it counted most. In baseball, we’ve seen bottom feeders like the Rockies, Rays and Marlins all reach the World Series in the last half dozen years.

For an NBA team to win the title, they need to win 16 times over an eight-week span of playoff games. NFL teams can win the Super Bowl with as few as three playoff victories; baseball teams need 11 wins in the span of less than a month to earn a title. Even an elite college basketball squad like North Carolina needed only a relatively modest six-game winning streak over two and a half weeks to cut down the nets as NCAA Champions.

A postseason hot streak goes much further in football or baseball than it does in the NBA as Denver Nuggets and Cleveland Cavaliers supporters found out the hard way in the Conference Finals. Both teams looked unstoppable in the first two rounds of the postseason; each lost their Conference Finals matchup in six games after cooling off in a hurry.

Meanwhile, an NBA team that is not playing their best basketball at the start of the playoffs has ample opportunity to get into a better flow as the weeks pass and one series fades into the next, as LA Lakers faders found out the hard way. And injuries can take even the mightiest contenders out of the equation – just ask those with future tickets on the Rockets, Spurs or Celtics about how much of a chance their teams had without Yao Ming, Manu Ginobili or Kevin Garnett respectively.

The Lakers and Celtics met in the Finals last year, with Boston earning the title in six surprisingly easy games, covering the pointspread all six times. LA and Boston were the preseason favorites to return to the Finals this year; and the betting marketplace had those two teams 1-2 on the future board all year long; ahead of Cleveland, San Antonio, Orlando and the other contenders.

Boston lost their heart and soul when Garnett went down. And the veteran team ran out of gas, needing a full seven games to dispense the Bulls in the first round and seven more before they fell to the Magic. The Lakers stayed healthy and they got better as the postseason progressed. Like Boston last year, LA played their best basketball in their last two games of the conference finals and into the NBA Finals, earning their first title since the Shaq-Kobe three-peat dynasty last won in 2002.

Finally, grudgingly, the betting marketplace seems to be giving the Orlando Magic the respect that they have earned here in their impressive and dramatic run to the Finals.  The Magic were bigger underdogs in their series against Cleveland, both in terms of the series price and in the actual game pointspreads.  Stan Van Gundy’s squad was in the range of a nine point underdog in the first two games of their series against the Cavs; now only a six point underdog in Game 1 against the Lakers.  And after starting the series as 4-to-1 underdogs against Cleveland, the Magic are only slightly more than 2-to-1 underdogs at the start of this series.

But before we give Orlando too much credit, let’s not forget that they are still significant underdogs to win the series and in my opinion, they deserve to be just that.  When we break down the matchups, the Magic don’t seem to have the same type of edges they enjoyed against the Cavs; a team that was not able to get their role players to step up and produce when it mattered most.

The Lakers are bigger than the Magic in the low post.  Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol are younger, quicker and stronger than anyone the Cavs had to battle with Dwight Howard.  Even though the Magic won both regular season meetings between these two teams, Howard was contained in both contests, held to twelve made baskets in the two games combined.  If Howard gets into foul trouble, forcing extra playing time for Marcin Gortat or Tony Battie, the Lakers will have a significant edge in the paint.

Orlando’s biggest matchup edge against any team is with their perimeter shooters.  Hedo Turkoglu and Rashard Lewis have proven to be extremely difficult to defend because of their ability to hit the three point shot combined with their ability to drive to the basket, creating opportunities for their teammates while getting to the free throw line.  Lamar Odom and Luke Walton are likely to get ample playing time in this series.  Their cumulative defensive acumen against the Magic’s forwards will be crucial for LA’s defensive success.

Courtney Lee, Mickael Pietrus, Anthony Johnson, JJ Redick and Rafer Alston have all stepped up at times this postseason, draining the life out of their opposition with stellar perimeter shooting.  LA has the depth and athleticism to match up with the Magic behind the three point line.  Trevor Ariza, Shannon Brown, Jordan Farmar, Sasha Vujacic, Derek Fisher and, of course, Kobe Bryant will be charged with the task of containing Orlando’s smaller perimeter sharpshooters.  The Lakers did a tremendous job containing the Nuggets three point shooters, holding Denver under 30% from behind the arc in the Western Conference Finals.  They’ll need a similar defensive mindset against the bevy of three point shots that Orlando is likely to attempt.

The Lakers did not play very well in the Finals last year.  Boston was bigger, tougher and hungrier; nothing that Phil Jackson could coach around.  This year, a wiser, hungrier Lakers squad is in better position to earn Jackson his 10th championship as an NBA head coach, although it won’t come easy – the Magic are quite capable of making LA earn this title, as opposed to coasting to it.  Teddy’s prediction: Los Angeles in six.