Can't We All Get Along

The SEVEN 28 April 2012 I. Twenty Years Later Twenty years ago Rodney King uttered the now-famous words - "Can't we all get along" - after his policemen/attackers were acquitted of beating his behind, and L.A. went up in smoke. Now, in light of the reaction to the Washington Capitals game/series winning goal being scored by a Black man, Joel Ward, I'm almost tempted to say no. Racist Boston Bruins fans lit up the internet with their posts calling Ward every kind of N-Word possible, which naturally embarrassed the Bruins to no end, much less many in the city of Boston. Of course, the internet gives racist cowards a level of anonymity...given that they would never say anything like that within a mile of Kevin Garnett, or Jim Rice, or Big Papi, for that matter. That said, if you want to know who they are, just google Joel Ward reaction to goal and see what you come up with. II. Are You Blind, Ref? Staying in the hockey vein for a second...unusual as that may be...I just have to mention that I watched a few minutes of the Capitals-Rangers first game this afternoon...and I was left to wonder if the NHL had borrowed some refs from the WWE, or chose to use some of the aforementioned idiots that wrote about Ward. On one play a Capitals player had a semi-breakaway, and was subsequently tripped and clipped to the ice by a Ranger. In the midst of all of this the players crashed into the Ranger goaltender, and the puck wound up in the net. The result of all of this was a face-off near center ice; in other words, no penalty on the Ranger, no penalty shot for the Capital, and no goal awarded to the Capitals. How all of this - totally the fault of the Ranger player - could happen and none of the above resulted is totally beyond me. If anyone can NHL-school me on that, I'd appreciate that! III. World Peace Suspended That seems like it could have been a headline in L.A. twenty years ago...but in fact, it's this week's headline after the 7-game suspension of Metta World Peace after his elbowing of James Harden. If these two teams get by their first round matchups, they will meet in the second round...and it will be a monster series in light of what has just transpired. IV. 1999 All Over...Not! In the last year there was a strike-shortened season, 1999, the Knicks and Heat met in the playoffs, and with Jeff Van Gundy's job on the line, Allan Houston hit every piece of the rim on his series-winning shot that eliminated the Heat. But in this strike-shortened season, the Heat have LeBron James and Dwyane Wade. If you want to do Mike Woodson and the Knicks a favor, tell them to just play a straight-up zone against the Heat. Give them all of the threes they want, but keep Wade and James out of the lane. That's the only chance they have to succeed against the Big 2. V. What A Shame The Bulls' superstar and reigning MVP, Derrick Rose, has suffered a season-ending injury in Game 1 against the 76ers. As a fan, I always want to see the teams at full strength, so I am so sorry, and wish Rose a speedy and complete recovery. Of course, in terms of this year, that makes things potentially easier for the Boston Celtics to advance to the conference finals, presumably against the Miami Heat, who I do predict will have a tougher time than many expect against the Indiana Pacers in their round two. VI. Wild Wild West First round winners will include the Spurs, and the Thunder (although the Dallas Mavericks will not be an easy out). The two tough first round matchups to predict are the Lakers-Nuggets and the Clippers-Grizzlies. I would have definitely taken both LA teams, but missing World Peace will hurt the Lakers against the extremely deep Nuggets, and missing the home court advantage will hurt the Clippers against the young and athletic Grizzlies. Nonetheless, I'll go LA in both series, setting up a winnable second-round series for the Spurs over the Clippers, and the aforementioned tremendous matchup between the Lakers and Thunder. Any team with Kobe Bryant can win any series, but my guess is that the Thunder will meet up with the Spurs in the Western Conference finals. VII. So Far, So Good Gotta throw in some baseball here...Last year, after the St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series, Matt Holliday told free-agent to-be Albert Pujols to come back in 2012 and they would win it again. So far, so good for the Cards even in the absence of King Albert...unfortunately, not so good for the Angels. Someone needs to pick up Bobby Abreu to bolster their bench.