Honestly, Joba coming in and being Joba made the game less frustrating for me. I would have been pissed if we got shut down by Brad Lidge

I didn't pay much mind to this game, but Moyer shut the Yankees down by getting a bit lead courtesy of A.J. Burnett then playing against the Yankees' aggressiveness by throwing virtually every pitch one inch outside of the strike zone in every direction at 82 mph, but sometimes 77. Classic Moyer, really, nothing in the center of the zone, but everything too close to take, and with him throwing dead fish up and keeping them away from the sweet spot, there wasn't much the Yankees could do. As it was, they rallied against Lidge, but too little too late.

This game seemed like the opposite: good start by Pettitte, bad relief, no rally. I didn't see Kendrick pitch, can anyone else help on that one?

I just followed the celts-lakers game. I think it's more nerve wracking watching the updates than it is watching the play develop. Especially for hoops where lots of action happens so quickly.

I was really torn here. I root against Ray Allen due to unshakable college grudges. And it's impossible to deny that the celtics fans largely overlap w/ red sox fans. But I try to resist that kind of crossover rooting. i

But I just can't root for kobe either. In the end, a Kobe/Ray stink-bomb in game 7 was good enough, I guess.

Kung PAU!! Go Go Lakers!! (I cheer for them until my Knicks come back into the NBA...)

I'm just pissed a giant sinkhole didn't open up beneath Staples Center and swallow the whole goddamn lot of them.

I don't ask for much these days ...

I think it's worth mentioning that, as a non-fan who makes no effort to seek out news on the NBA, nothing about the finals trickled through to me through mainstream media, only through my twitter account. I've not seen a single photo, let alone a highlight, of any NBA postseason game and only figured out it was Celtics-Lakers about a day or two ago . . . and I'm ostensibly a "sportswriter." The World Cup, meanwhile, has been unavoidable and has even introduced a new buzzword into the lexicon and one highlight I've seen roughly 10 times in various media. Is this a PR problem for the NBA? I've heard/read/seen more about LeBron James' free agency than I have about the actual playoffs/finals.

[6] Hi Cliff! Wow..i find that pretty shocking actually..I'm obviously no following any tv from the US, but in the papers here and the web..seems a LOT of talk about the Finals. Even the Baseball Today podcast guys were talking about it..this was the biggest NBA game in years..

No comment on the Yankees "performance" tonight.. (cue up Tommy LaSorda!)

Biggest NBA game in years? Really? Look, I'm almost a shut-in as a stay-at-home dad, but that shocks me. What was so big about it?

Meanwhile, speaking of that World Cup thing, good news here about vuvuzelas at Yankee Stadium.

[8] Not too many Game 7's in the Finals, and last was (i think) Spurs-Pistons..bit of a snooze...Lakers-Celtics is the Yankees-Dodgers of the NBA.

The Chase Utley fellatio-fest in the media has got to stop! He's not helping his team by "gutting it out" to play through injury..if you're hurt, rest and get better. Don't drag out your injury-laden body to hit .250...meanwhile, Robbie Cano is hitting .370...imagine if he tried harder, Bob Klapisch!

Ray Allen and Celtics: Jon [3], I'm almost the opposite. I love Ray Allen, but under no circumstances would I root for the Celtics. Kobe is a dick, but I love his game. And southern New England would have been unbearable (for a week, anyway) if the Celtics had won.

Cliff, around here there is virtually no buzz about the World Cup, and constant yapping about the NBA. Obviously that's largely because the Celts are... were in the finals, while New York has become sadly irrelevant, or basketball has become irrelevant to New York in June, or however you want to look at it.

So now I can focus on the Slovenia match today! Yesterday I watched about twenty minutes online at work on the ESPN3 feed. On my 27 inch monitor. Awesome.

[11] I'm sure Ray Allen is an admirable guy and obviously, he's a great player. He's just been a foil for my favorite basketball player of all time since college. Ray Allen's Big East Player of the Year Award in 1996 was one of the classic award-blunders of all time, and outside of me and my friends at school, I don't think anybody even noticed. And his game-winning chuck in the 1996 Big East Finals is the greatest non-Yankee loss I've ever suffered through.

[2] Kendrick had very good command early, and mixed his sinker and changeup well. He was especially good (for Kyle Kendrick) against lefties, busting them inside repeatedly and effectively. Normally, he gets behind to left handers and gets bombed to teh point that I've assumed he'll end up a reliever. Still, despite the good sinker, he still gave up lots of fly balls. Yanks put together some good at bats against him late yet still managed to go down 1-2-3 in the seventh. Some buzzard's luck there - at'em ball to first for the first out, 2 strike ball that went out just foul to left before the second out. Shocking turnaround for the series - murder Halladay on Tuesday and lose convincingly to the Phils' no. 5 and 6 starters the next two nights. With Burnett burning out the bullpen on Wednesday, I'm hoping your starters can pitch strong against the Mutts.

Last night's NBA game reinforced the notion that NBA regular season is about as boring as watching paint dry. 48 minutes of hustle, physical play, swarming defense. I thought I was watching college ball. A pleasant change.

Not a Lakers fan, really, but Celtics are a tick below the Red Sox on my "teams I enjoy watching lose" list. There are only a couple. Maybe only those two, lol. It comes from the McHale, Ainge, Bird teams of the 80's. They had the same whiney faces as Youkalis and Pedroia after a called strike 3. Just makes me wanna smack 'em.

C'Mon Yankees. Wake up!! Seems like you guys have been sleepwalking through the last two games.

it is worrisome that the Yankees cannot put together offensive rallies on a regular basis. With Arod less than 100%, Teixeira still struggling, Posada winding down, Jeter not so clutch,and Granderson spotty, this lineup has a lot of holes. WIthout Cano and Swisher putting up career best numbers this team and fans would be in panic mode.

Unless Arod (if he really can recover from his bum hip) and Tex step it up soon, the second half of the season will be agony. Boston is only 2 games back...

I was at the game last night. Not much to say other than that it was probably the rowdiest bleacher crowd I've been in since the new stadium opened. Beer getting thrown, fights breaking out, a cops hat getting stolen...it felt like the old days!!

The game itself, well I mean honestly there really just wasn't much to say about it other than I kinda felt coming in the Phillies were gonna wake up against us (it was only a matter of time) and I fully expect to at least take 2 of 3 this weekend, so I'm not gonna lose much sleep over this.

As for the NBA; I got home in time for most of the 2nd Half. I had been rooting for Boston mostly because I generally like their roster and I really can't bring myself to root for Kobe and Phil (the GF was pulling for LA solely because of the Kardashian connection, I wish I was making this up). The game played out exactly as I thought it would except for the fact that Kobe was kinda non-descript. Not great, not bad, just so-so. If that had been the case and they lost then forget it as far as reaction goes, but they won so it'll just be a footnote. I kinda felt for the Celtics as they had to know that this was the last hurrah for their main guys, gotta be a tough feeling knowing that theres pretty much no way you're gonna get back next year.

Anyways, the real basketball season in NYC begins TODAY...go out and get him Donnie.

[6] With you on the NBA. Quite frankly, I cannot stand basketball -- there's too much scoring, which to me is more boring than too little scoring. Everyone runs up the court and 2 points are scored, then everyone runs the other way and 2 points are scored, to be repeated over and over again. Plus, you do not get a Bucky Dent moment in any other sport but baseball. I only hear about basketball from PTI and ATH on ESPN, and that's only because I find those shows less uninteresting than other shows at that hour while I eat supper.

But to the real story, what the kind of crap this Phillies series was. Dropping two to a team mired in a hitting funk? Yankees shat the bed here.

If anybody is interested in the World Cup game, there is a separate thread for that up top.

Phil Jackson is still coaching the Lakers? I thought he retired.

(This is the level of my basketball knowledge . . .)

Swung by the Stadium yesterday to see if they had tickets available to the Phils game, $150 was the cheapest ticket available. I passed.

[20] I've had good luck with Craigslist getting tickets on the day of the game. Most times face value or less. You can pay with Paypal (or with a ticket broker, a credit card), and often the tickets can be emailed and printed out, or left at the desk of the bowling alley across the street if they are from a ticket broker.

[21] StubHub works well, too. New Yorkers use it the way other cities use scalpers. You can buy tickets right up to the last minute.

I almost never plan ahead of time, so I end up walking up on Gameday or buying a ticket from scalpers. Except in NYC, where they're so strict on scalpers that you're much better off using StubHub.