nba playoff 2008

I'm a little late in posting this, well not that late, but late as in it's no longer first hand news. You've probably read about it on NBA.com, or even watching Sportscenter updates on your sports channel.

Yet, I'm still putting this post up. That shows you how much I love basketball, doesn't it?

Game 6 of Eastern Conference Final was on channel 812 (ESPN) this morning, I didn't get to watch the whole game, only bit of first quarter. I was kinda hoping that Pistons would be able to force a Game 7, and went on to win the series.

Garnett and his buddy Billups.

That never materialized. The Celtics are back into NBA Playoff Finals after long absence. The new Big Three, of Garnett, Pierce and Allen, led the Celtics to reach the finals, where they will play against the already-qualified Lakers.

That also means we'll be seeing the old, long-time rivalry between the Lakers and Celtics being reignited.

The last time people actually hype about this matchup was when Larry Bird was still cladding the famous #33 green jersey, while Magic Johnson donning his #32 purple-gold outfit. And, that, was some two decades ago, at least.

The good o' days - Bird vs Magic.

Lakers parading after their Western Conference Finals victory over San Antonio Spurs.

The Lakers were back into the Finals first time since 2004, the last time the lifted the championship trophy. Kobe proved his worthy as a leader by leading Lakers to the Finals, first time since Shaq's departure. He showed his class when Lakers dethroned San Antonio.

I don't really like Celtics, despite all the hype they have from the media since the start of the season. I find the way they play, was not convincing. yet it's over-rated. They don't play attractive basketball.

Let's take a look into the lineups of both team:

Celtics:
C - Kendrick Perkins, Age 23
PF - Kevin Garnett, Age 32
SF - Paul Pierce, Age 30
SG - Ray Allen, Age 32
PG - Rajon Rondo, 22

Notable Reserves:
P.J. Brown, Age 38
Sam Cassell, Age 38

Lakers:
C - Pau Gasol, Age 27
PF - Lamar Odom, Age 28
SF - Vladimir Radmanovic, Age 27
SG - Kobe Bryant, Age 29
PG - Derek Fisher, Age 33

Notable Reserves:
Jordan Farmar, Age 21
Luke Walton, Age 28
Sasha Vujajic, Age 24

With the glance of that, it seems Celtics are bit older if compared to the Lakers. Nevertheless the Celtics' Big Three should be placed under the radar. Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce shouldn't be taken lightly.

The ever passionate KG, and boy, he looks like a green monster here. Hmm, sounds like 'the hulk'.

Ray Allen, one of the best shooters in history, has the quickest release among all players. Yeah, Allen rocks.

And Paul Pierce has been superb in leading the Celtics this season, just look at the series where the played against Lebron's Cavaliers. In the decisive Game 7, he contended with Lebron James, who dropped 45 points that game, by dropping a 41 points.

So the Lakers will need plenty from their own stars, MVP Kobe Bryant, newly acquired Pau Gasol, and Lamar Odom. Too bad Andrew Bynum is still sidelined with injury. Of course, I really think the bench and supporting players are the key to this matchup. Lakers have the edge over Celtics in this department.

Kobe and Gasol, the new equation to success?

Lakers bench has been superb this season, Ronny Turiaf has been the energizer, Sasha Vujacic and Jordan Farmar are excellent shooters.

Well, I've typed enough. Let's just wait for the show to begin.

Game 1 of NBA Finals 2008 starts on this coming Friday, 6 June 2008 (Malaysian time).

Game on Lakers!

Lakers...


vs.

Celtics.


So, you think Jerry West will enjoy the show all the way? Let's hope so.

Euro 2008 & bridal fashion preview

Remember the countdown I mentioned earlier?

7 days.

That's all we gotta wait for Euro 2008 to kick-start. So, we still have football to catch even after the leagues in England, Spain, Italy and others have rounded up their footballing season.

16 teams will be competing in Austria-Switzerland to wrestle and dethrone Greece, the winner in 2004. Check out the updates and final lineup of 23 in both these websites -- Soccernet.com or European Championship's official website at http://www.euro2008.uefa.com/.

Note: We will only get to watch Euro 2008 in action on the 8 June 2008, because of different time zone. Check your Astro listing for the matches. Opening match will be between co-host Switzerland and Czech Republic

united triumph: relive the moment in moscow

Manchester United was crowned as the best in Europe after they ousted Chelsea in Luzhniki Stadium early this morning (Malaysian time). The scoreline after 130 minutes 1 - 1, and the penalty shootout result 5 - 4 to Man Utd.

Let's relive the moment in Moscow, and see how the Red Devils made through 130 minutes of football, plus the penalty shoot-out.

All English affair in city of Moscow.

Before kick-off, the lucrative honour and silverware all managers and players crave for. It will be the Cup to fight for between Chelsea and Manchester United.

Cristiano Ronaldo rose high to the top to meet Wes Brown's cross, guiding in his header to the back of the net. Chelsea defenders looked helpless, and Cech was stunned in his position, he didn't even move.

Paul Scholes were left bloodied after clashing with Claudia Makelele. He suffered concussion, and had momentary blurred vision. He stayed on to play through the match until 87 minutes, that's when Ryan Giggs was introduced into the game. Giggs also made history by breaking Sir Bobby Charlton's club record appearance in Europe.

Manchester United dominated the first half, while Chelsea took charge most of the second. They ended 90 minutes with a 1 - 1 stalemate. Not even a Didier Drogba's red card in the 116th minute could change the scoreline.

The hero, almost a villain the same night, had his spot kick saved by Petr Cech. It was Manchester United's third kick.

A slip of a lifetime. John Terry missed the kick, which could have sent the trophy to London instead, after he slipped while taking his kick. He was left soaked in rain of agony.

A hero's redemption. Edwin van der Saar made it count the most after his save on Nicolas Anelka's penalty kick, the first attempt after the shoot out went into Sudden Death. van der Saar failed to save any in the previous 5 shots, JT sent his shot completely wide.

New crop of heroes. The miss, the save, the luck. Manchester United - the Champion in 2008.

Hope you enjoy the photos. All photos are from Soccernet.com.

champions league final update

We've gone through 90 minutes of normal time, which ended with a 1 - 1 stalemate. Cristiano Ronaldo scored his 42nd goal of the season in the 26th minute, while Chelsea equalized through Frank Lampard's lucky tap-in in first half's dying second.

There were no breakthrough after 90 minutes, and it stayed almost the same until a dramatic sequence occurred. Didier Drogba was sent off with a red card after he slapped Manchester United's centre half Nemanja Vidic, just right in front of the referee.

The match now goes into a penalty shoot-out, the scenario which I hope for the least.


Update:

Manchester United are the Champions of Europe!!!! Glory to Manchester United!

90 minutes weren't enough to decide the better of the English top two, Extra times weren't sufficient, not even a last minute send-off of Didier Drogba could help it. It has to come down to the wire, just like how the English Premier League title race.

Penalty shoot-out, it was.

Rain was soaking in Moscow, players from both teams try hard to calm their nerve. They know they'll need steel nerve to take those penalties.

Every penalty taker was spot on, that is until Manchester United's third taker - Cristiano Ronaldo. The wonder kid who has 42 goals under his belt this season had his penalty saved by Chelsea's Cech. Advantage to Chelsea.

And captain John Terry was the last of first five to take the penalty, and he could bring the triumph to Chelsea, and their fans. All he had to do was to slot the ball into the net, but somehow, he completely missed everything. Instead of the trophy to Chelsea, he handed a lifeline to Manchester United.

Edwin Van Der Saar left the best for the last, as he stepped up with his heroic moment, saving Nicolas Anelka's spot kick, the sixth and the last one. Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium were filled with contrast, agony and joy. Chelsea's faithful was left with faces of despair and agony, especially John Terry, who seemingly blaming himself for the miss. On the other hand, the Red Devils fan broke into joy as they celebrated with their team.

Sir Alex Ferguson was truly in cloud nine. Why not? He has done it again, 9 years after his treble triumph. He has a double this season.

Congratulations to Manchester United, and thank you for a wonderful season.

Football season has come to the end this year. It was a joy to follow Manchester United's progress. Their style of play is a joy to watch.

Here's the summary of the penalty shoot-out.
Manchester United Chelsea
Carlos Tevez (O) - Michael ballack (O)
Michael Carrick (O) - Juliano Belleti (O)
Cristiano Ronaldo (X) - Frank Lampard (O)
Owen Hargreaves (O) - Ashley Cole (O)
Anderson (O) - John Terry (X)
Ryan Giggs (O) - Nicolas Anelka (X)

O=Made; X=Missed



On second thought, the seaon might not really be over as we have European Championship to follow in Austria & Switzerland.

Long live football/soccer!

champions league final: manchester united vs chelsea

Photo's from soccernet.com

Football fans. It's the moment of truth. Will Manchester United repeat their heroic in 1999? Will they cap their wonderful season on a high note? Those will be decided after 90 minutes of duel in Moscow.

The clash of two English titans will happen in Luzhniki Stadium, Moscow. Who will prevail?

Catch all the action live at ESPN (Channel 812 on Astro), coverage starts on 2:00 a.m., 22 May 2008. (Note: The time mentioned above is of Malaysian time, check your local TV time at espnstar.com)

I'm off to sleep now. I'm waking up later for the match! See you in Moscow!

basketball tournament - kuching open final iii.

Okay here's the final post on basketball, and sports, at least for a while. LOL.

The previous post was so much about the #15 dude, so I'll try not to highlight him that much in this one.

The whole game was pretty good. Action-filled, and it's really worth watching.

The #15 dude.

Sarawak Energy wasn't the only team who brought in 'imports', Sentosa had their very own import too. They have an imported player in their #8, I forgot his name. He's based in Miri, and represented Malaysia in the junior level, if not mistaken. He's pretty tall at height.

Import vs Import.

Look at his height against the #15 dude. Almost the same, no? This dude could dunk as well. But too bad, I didn't get to see him dunk. Hmm. I was out of luck, I guess. So how good was the actual game? Well, if you ask me, I'll definitely say it's much better than KungFu Dunk. (I dislike that dude in the movie).

The Kungfu element in the game, flying kick? LOL, not quite.

I'd rather watch this game on tape over and over again, than watching that movie. The movie was really a crap.

I think I should make myself a pass, so that I can get a courtside access to cover such event. LOL. Then again, it's not right to do so.

Where's the ball? LOL. Can see?

So, who walked away as the winner?

A little bit of input about basketball game in general before I end this post. Apart from NBA, and NCAA, the two I know of, basketball games are played with the standard regulation set by FIBA, so there should be much different anywhere else.

A basketball game is played through four quarters, two for each half, and each quarter lasts for 10 minutes. Should the game ends in a tie in score, overtime period will be played. I think the overtime period lasts for 5 minutes. During the game, teams must make a shot attempt within the given 24 seconds time frame, this is known as the shot clock. Should any team fails to make shot attempt when shot-clock expires, the possession will go to the opposing team.

LOL. Now I think that is boring enough. Okay. Let's just end this post already.

After teams exchanging shots...

.. like this 3 pointer.

And arguing about referee's calls...

.. like this.

.. or maybe like this.

So, after exciting four quarters of play, we finally have a winner from the two. And the winner is...

... Sarawak Energy!!!

I'm sure Sentosa will return next time as a stronger team.

I think we should have more of such competition going around. It's good for the sports, for the people, and of course, good for the nation. Since it's so good, why don't we form a properly managed league?

Well, my only complain for the day was the stadium and its surrounding. The stadium is pretty old already. I think the planning wasn't wisely done back then when they build for this stadium. The recreational park there was poorly maintained.

Otherwise, the surrounding could be a nicer place than it is now.


Photo notes: All photos posted in the finals are taken with EF 90-300 lens. Photos had to be cropped to 'save' the composition. Flash wasn't used, because if it's used, the photos will look ugly.

basketball tournament - kuching open final ii.

So the game tipped off, and we were into the finals between Sarawak Energy and Sentosa.

Sometime after the game started, I spotted this by the courtsie. A reporter was covering the game. He's Michael.

I spotted something, but I had to zoom till max length of 300mm to be sure. I saw siao bai!

The game was pretty exciting, both teams exchanged basket constantly. That made the score pretty close, through the first quarter, and much into the second. Sarawak Energy seemed to have bit of edge over their opponents, as Sentosa constantly attempt long range shot beyond the arch. For some reasons, the Sentosa players were less cool about the match, probably stil hyped to be where they had reach then.

#15 tried to slash towards the basket, constantly threatening the opponents' defense.

The #15 dude (this sound so amateur-like, but I seriously don't know what his name is) is a all-around player. Not only he can penetrates from perimeter, play in the box, he can also square up a three pointer in your face. According to the article I read in Sin Chew Daily, his natural position is guard, but he has to make shift to play as a Power Forward cos lack of size in his team.

Triple ball!

Hack-a-Shaq strategy surely doesn't work on him, he hits stroke in his free throws!

For some reason, the crowd cheered whenever the #15 dude touched the ball. It somehow became a 'homecourt' advantage for Sarawak Energy. I guess the crowd was expecting the #15 dude to put on a showcase.

Sentosa piled defense onto #15, resorting all kinds of methods to stop him.

Well, I guess expectations are there when he put up few dunks before the final. I was expecting a dunk the very least. But too bad, there wasn't any. It seems as though the star of attraction laid low, and was deployed as a decoy. When he drew attention from the defense, there is high chance for his other team-mate to be unguarded. Thus, easy offense for his team.

"Not in my house!"

Offense wasn't only his highlight, he also served up top class defense, including the block in the picture above. I thought we'd only get to see this kind of block in the NBA. Hmm.. I wish I could leap that high and block a shot consistently. I must lose my weight first.

High above the rest.

That's all for this part, final round up will follow next.

basketball tournament - kuching open final i.

I will try to do a quick posts on this part. Let's get it done and dusted quickly so that we can move on to other things.

Kuching Open Basketball Tournament.

I posted the update on semi-finals. Now that you have seen how it was like in the semi, how do you think the final game will turn out to be like?

Well, first major differences was dealt at the door. Throughout the tournament, at least until semi-finals, there wasn't any entrance fee charged. But, it's all different when it comes to the finals. We were charged about MYR 5 per adult, and MYR 3 for children (if not mistaken).

Despite the entrance fee, people are still flocking in the stadium for the final match day of the tournament. We had hard time finding parking for our vehicles.

The finalists were Sarawak Energy and Sentosa. These two met at the same stage last year, with Sarawak Energy as the beaten finalist, as Sentosa walked away with the champion's trophy. This time round, Sarawak Energy reinforced with new acquisition, an foreign player in the #15 Cameroonian, and player #12 who is of Labuan origin.

A battle with vengeance, I guess.

So, let's have a preview on what serves up next in the game's detail.

Former gem of Sarawak, Lau Boon Hui, he was pretty popular back then, one of the best guard in the nation. Believe it or not, he could dunk, despite his not-so-impressive height.

The man from Cameroon, the foreign import. He gave a lot of highlight-reels and a lot for the fans to cheer about throughout the tournament.

The Sentosa team in blue jersey.

Out for the ball.

So who will win the game, and how did they win it?

They'll be up next.

basketball - kuching open semi-final

Since my last few posts have been sports related, why not make it a series. I hope it doesn't bore the girls out there. At least, you can have your eye candy in Cristiano Ronaldo, right?

This time round, I am not going to the States for NBA, nor I am going to Europe to talk about the football there. I'm going local this time.

I was at Kuching Open Tournament Semi-Finals, which just concluded recently on the 4th of May.

There were two semi-final match scheduled on Friday, but I only managed to catch the second one. I was at other location earlier, as there was a charity concert on the same day. Will post some of the photos from the other event later on.

Kuching Open Tournament was held in MBKS Indoor Stadium, which is located at Pending there. This stadium has been around for quite a while already. The building itself is quite old, and the recreation park, which was built just near the stadium, lacks maintenance. The whole place just look worn down.

Anyways, back to the semi-finals. The first semi-final featured Sarawak Energy, or more keenly known as SESCo, who are one of the two hot favorites to win the tourney. The second game featured the other favorite - Sentosa.

Again, I put my 350D to the test this time. I must say, the angle wasn't great, as I just snapped the shots from the audience stand. The lens I use most of the time was my 50mm f/1.8. Other settings include shutter speed between 1/320 - 1/200, and ISO at 800.

Empty stadium, even no entrance fee was charged, the stadium was rather empty.

We're going to look more into the actions from that night.

Local hoop action.

3-point attempt.

A 3-point attempt.

A break away layup.

A Sentosa player (#7) with a jump-shot attempt.

Free shots, free throw.

The shots here aren't dramatic. Hmm. I wish I could just shoot from court side. I could just be thick-face and wonder around the court side snapping happily there, but then, I don't want to end up being escorted away by security personnel.

Hmm. How nice if I can shoot with a EF 70-200mm f/2.8 IS, preferably with at least a 40D body, if not 5D.

LOL. I'm dreaming!

The final match coming up next. I might need to split the next post to multiple part, cos I took quite a plenty shots that night. We'll see how it goes.