Busy and exciting night in sports. Of course the headline being game 3 of the NBA finals between the Lakers and the Magic. We already mentioned the MLB draft.  Arguably the greatest rivalry in sports takes place tonight as well as the 1st place Yankees face the Red Sox, and not to go unmentioned game 6 of the Stanley Cup.

Here are some thoughts:

NBA

What did we see in game 2.  We saw Stan Van Gundy set a lineup throughout the game with devout indecision and we saw the Magic go virtually the entire 4th Quarter with no true PG.  Despite the atypical Orlando Magic gameplan, they sent the game into OT, had a great chance to win the game at the end of regulation, and in all honesty should have won.  Now they move from disney land to disney world and Vegas has set the line at Magic -4.

What is Vegas telling us.  A typical line advantage is 4 pts for the home team.  Therefore the differential between any given matchup is 8 pts home to road.  In this case, the Lakers being -6.5 in game 1 and 2, we have a 10.5 and in some places 11 pt line differential from home to road.  Now Vegas usually sets the line to get 50/50 action.  However this is the Lakers.  Lakers are getting the public money whatever the line is, and they are up 2-0 in the series and still given 4 pts.  Seems odd to us, a little too odd.  Vin Scully once said “It’s a waste of time to try to figure out life.”  Apparently he’s spent a lot of time in Vegas.

Vegas has done a terrific job of embracing new technology, statistics, and information, especially in basketball.  The era of new age statistics centered around efficiency is upon us.  Stats can be found on such websites as 82games.com and basketball-reference.com, among others.  And Vegas has put aside their pride for the sake of sharpening their lines.  The lines are as tight as they have ever been in the NBA.

With all that being said, we are going to make a guess.  Call if a shot in the dark.  Pretend you are a blind man with sunglasses in a dark room trying to find an invisible piece of paper with our prediction on it.

Orlando 96 Lakers 91

MLB

Yankees/Sox – The first place Yankees, finally healthy, play the Red Sox tonight.  Red Sox are 5-0 vs the Yankees this year, however it seemed as if those games were played amidst of stream of irrelevance, as all 5 games were without Arod.  Since his return the Yankees have undoubtedly been the best team in baseball, so the anticipation for this series is on a higher level than earlier this season

Willis/Buerhle – Our boy Dontrelle Willis is starting tonight vs the White Sox.  We almost feel obligated to mention each start due to our self-indulgent diatribes earlier in the year.  Tonight he’s facing his diametric opposite, Mark Buerhle.  The Mark Buerhle who is the model of consistency.  Dontrelle Willis, who in 1000 years will be in the history books as the archetype of inconsistency.  Should be fun.  Something deep inside tells us Dontrelle puts together a solid performance and gets the W.  Human intuition works in mysterious ways.  Or maybe it’s because the White Sox are a below average baseball team.

NHL

Stanley Cup – The new member of SOB is on an unannounced hiatus so no hockey writeup tonight.  We can’t even attempt to break down a hockey game, its such a shame too as that is what the public wants, 250 words breaking down NHL matchups.

Enjoy the night in sports, feel free to comment, we won’t bite.