By Steve Faulks:

For the Conference Finals I figured I would provide analysis on the series as they progress, since predicting them as not been a strong point of mine so far this playoff year.

First, I will start in the East where the Philadelphia Flyers are currently sitting with a 2-0 lead against the Montreal Canadiens with Game 3 in Montreal on Thursday.  Brian Boucher was very good against New Jersey but had come back to earth against the Bruins.  The Flyers found themselves in a hole, down 3-0, a deficit where only three professional sports teams had overcome.  There are a few things we have learned about the Flyers since then.

With the Red Sox finally starting to play well over the last month or so, the early season complaints many fans had with the team have started to diffuse.  Anticipating the potential for a lukewarm season (by Sox standards, at least), GM Theo Epstein attempted to curb the enthusiasm for the 2010 campaign last winter with his “bridge year” comments, hinting at the fact that the 2010 team was patching short-term holes without committing long-term to free agents.  In other words, he was confidence in the young crop of players in the system and didn’t want to fill roster spots with risky, long-term signings (cough..cough…Jason Bay…cough).

It's been a long day and I don't feel like putting in tons of effort, not that I do often, on an article today. But I did put effort into reading this article from the wallstreetjournal.com and it makes too much sense to not exist. I remember Craig, the former SOS soccer guy, telling me all about relegation and how it worked int he EPL and how American sports should have it. Well Craig wasn't good at convincing me but this article from WSJ and college football has really got me thinking.

The 2009-2010 NBA Playoffs are in the books and surprise surprise, Kobe Bryant and the LA Lakers are standing on top of the basketball world again. Now, I could sit here and tell everyone that I told you so, seeing how I was spot on with 3 of 4 Conference Finalists, 100% accurate on my Finals teams, the number of games, and most importantly, the winner. But as you all know, I’m not the kind of guy that brags about those kinds of things. So let’s just get take a few moments to reflect on what went down this year and then present “Drew’s NBA Playoff Slammy Awards”.

What we “witnessed”…