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With the Raptor’s two game road sweep in Oakland against the injury riddled Warriors the series is now firmly in the grasp of the Toronto Raptors as they are back home with a 3-1 series lead.

No Klay Thompson or Kevon Looney in Game 3 was too much. We’ll never know if the absence of Kevin Durant alone would have doomed the Warriors in a six or seven game series, but in the pivotal Game 3 at home the Warriors at home without the three looked like the Thunder did the year after Durant’s departure. Basically–it was Steph Curry playing hero ball while the other players watched.

I thought Jeff van Gundy was right on when he said the Warriors team on the floor for Game 3 would have probably finished the season as the No. 8 seed in the West.

Meanwhile—the Raptor’s support cast around Kawhi Leonard came alive in Game 3 and then in Game 4 Serge Ibaka played one of the best games I’ve ever seen him play in post season.

It’s been a big off season for bigs Sam Presti has discarded this spring. First…Enes Kanter played a solid role for Portland as they easily eliminated the Thunder on their way to run to the Western Conference Finals. And now Serge Ibaka is one win away from having a ring which ironically hasn’t been sniffed by Russell Westbrook and Paul George.

Maybe Steven Adams should be hoping he’ll be traded as well to a legit contender this summer. Thunder big man coach Mark Bryant has left the Thunder and you have to wonder if Adams will be back as Sam Presti tries to put more shooters around Russell Westbrook next season.

Anyway…kudos to Serge for the two games in Oakland–especially Game 4. It’s nice to see former Thunder players competing for rings even if it isn’t for the Thunder.

The one thing game officials don’t want to miss on the ice is a goal or a missed call which leads to the game winning goal no less. Unfortunately—that’s what happened in Boston in Game 5 when the obvious trip in the Bruins’ zone led to a turnover and what turned out to be the game winner by Perron.

You can’t miss that call, but all four game officials did and the St. Louis Blues head back home with a chance to clinch their first ever Cup in Game 6.

Having written this…I would also add the Blues have played great hockey these past two games with Jordan Binnington and Ryan O’Reilly leading the way.

Binnington has been fabulous in net after the Game 3 meltdown and O’Reily has been the best hockey player on the ice these past two games scoring a game winner and notching a game winning assist as well.

Boston’s powerplay went thud in Game 5 and their first line did not produce. The lines were tinkered with and the Bruins went with only eleven forwards. Yet…the puck still did not find the back of the net.

In the last two games combined—the Bruins have scored but three goals as a team.

My three leading candidates for the Conn Smthye heading into Game 6 in St. Louis are in this order currently…1 Binnington, 2 Rask, and 3 O’Reily.

Championship teams often take on the persona of their head coach and these Blues very much have the look of Craig Berube intertwined in their game.

The Boston Bruins simply have to put the puck in the back of the net or else the Blues will be hoisting the Cup.

My beloved Bruins and the St. Louis Blues are now tied at 2-2 in a pretty good Stanley Cup Finals. The NBA Finals now move to Oakland with the Warriors and Raptors tied at one game apiece. Originally—I had the Warriors in six games and I’ll stay with that pick.

Klay Thompson has now played in 120 straight playoff games. He’s no Cupcake—he plays through the aches and pains unlike some we know. I would think he plays in Game 3 in Oakland. He knows his body. He’s a champion with a championship pedigree. He would never fit in with all the dysfunction in Oklahoma City in the spoiled culture of Sam Presti’s pampered players.

Klay Thompson would never allow Little Nick Gallo to rub his crotch against him in a post game presser. Klay Thompson would answer every Berry Tramel question. Klay Thompson would help the college level media in Oklahoma City help understand the finer nuances of the pro game from a mental standpoint.

It’s going to be tough for me next season to go back to covering the overpaid, over-hyped Thunder of Sam Presti, but I feel a moral obligation in that the Daily Thunder became so horrific this past season someone with a moral compass needs to be recording this for the basketball archives in Oklahoma.

I’ve come to respect both the Warriors and the Trailblazers as my feelings for the Thunder are fairly obvious.

But of course Little Nick Gallo and Low Energy Royce Young will be back to chronicle the Thunder for the novice level Thunder fans who only started following the NBA after Katrina.

Hope Klay plays. He’s my favorite NBA player and he’s a huge part of what the Warriors have become.

For all of our talk of the Warriors being loaded they just keep proving there’s much more to them than just a loaded roster. It doesn’t matter who has gone down in these NBA Playoffs—they just find a way to overcome it and move on to the next game.

Still no Durant and then Thompson and Looney go down in Game 2 on the road, yet Steph leads and they follow. They follow.

With the series hanging in balance perhaps, Andre Iguodala nails a clutch three point shot to get the Warriors back in Oakland with the series tied at 1-1.

Do you really see a Thunder role player taking that shot in that situation? Would you have seen say Jerami Grant given the green light in that situation with five seconds remaining on the road? I don’t think so.

If I were a Thunder fan inside the Peake I’d stop booing the Warriors and start admiring them for the mental toughness they possess which the hometown Thunder can’t seem to instill in their system.

It’s hard to be too critical of the St. Louis Blues for a lack of energy in this game as three of Boston’s first four shots found the back of the net and in essence the game was over before it ever got out of the first period.

The final score was 7-2 in favor of the Boston as the Bruins won back home ice and have a 2-1 series lead. Boston now needs two wins to become the city’s third major league champion this season. Not that home ice means that much with the Blues in that they are 5-6 at home in this post season run of theirs.

Blues’ rookie netminder Jordan Binnington was horrific. He couldn’t stop anything. Of Boston’s seven goals they came on a total of fifteen shots in sequence.

It’s hard to be too critical of the Blues given that when your goalies can’t stop anything in front of them it’s hard to establish much trust with the remainder of the team.

There is a silver lining in this in that I don’t have to play the Gloria song on here in my Game 3 recap.

Patrice Bergeron, Tory Krug and Tuukka Rask are my three stars of the game. Boston’s fourth line was once again excellent.

Tuukka Rask is my leader on the board currently for the Conn Smythe if the Bruins do indeed go ahead and close out the series.

I’m not sure what St. Louis coach Craig Berube should do in net in Game 4. I guess you roll Binnington out there and see what happens.

Back to basketball tonight in Toronto as the Raptors lead the finals 1-0 after Pascal Siakam’s great Game 1 performance. I would guess Kevin Durant will be playing in Oakland when the series heads back west.

Take away the first ten minutes of this game where Blues’ goalie Jordan Bennington gave up two soft five hole goals and what happened the remaining fifty minutes was a clinic put on by the St. Louis Blues.

The Blues showed the hockey world fifty-three minutes or so of how you take the other team apart by checking them into submission at every opportunity. Anything in a black and gold jersey near the puck was hit in the face and with bad intent by every St. Louis player.

It was like a prize fight and the Bruins were not helped when they lost defensemen Matt Grzelcyk in the second period and had to play the rest of the game with five defensemen rotating minutes. For good measure the Blues ran Bruin netminder Tuukka Rask twice in the game and then killed the penalty afterwards.

This was a message game sent from Craig Berube to the Boston Bruins…the message being if you want an inch of space you’re going to be hit and be hit with a nasty intent attached.

Sam Presti should have watched the game. I think he might have witnessed a coach who might be able to get Russell Westbrook to turn into an honest player. Sam Presti please call Craig Berube to help your diva star turn into an honest player. For $40 million per you should get a two way player.

It was old school hockey. The Bruins first line of Marchand, Bergeron, and Pasternak were for the second game invisible. As a group they are -7 in the first two games. Some regard this as the premier line in the NHL this season—yet the Blues haven’t in the least been impressed with the trio. Both Boston goals were scored by their fourth line.

Carl Gunnarson a defenseman ended the carnage 3:51 into the overtime with a rising slap shot from the top of the slot which Tuukka Rask never saw.

Rask was decent in this game and only because of his good play did the game even get to overtime. The game was for the most part played on his end with Boston’s defensemen unable to cleanly connect passes of any variety on any breakout plays. Quite frankly…they looked scared.

Boston’s puck movement was in a word…horrific. It looked like a pee wee level clusterfuck where none of these guys had ever been checked before in their lives.

The series now goes to St. Louis where the Blues now hold home ice advantage with three of the next four games being played in their arena in front of their adoring fans. The St. Louis baseball Cardinals absolutely suck this season. Don’t for a second think the St. Louis sports fans know this is their only chance with the Blues for anything special to happen this season pro sports wise in their city.

I would think Laura Branigan was heard singing “Gloria’ late into the night in the bars of St. Louis.

Boston needs a serious attitude adjustment in Game 3 if they want to lift the Cup.

After watching Game 2 in Boston probably need to learn the lyrics to ‘Gloria’.

Teams which win the first two games in the Stanley Cup Finals go on to win around eighty per cent of the championships. Bruins need to come out ready tonight with some jump and get all over those big St. Louis defensemen with an ungodly forecheck. Forecheck those motherfuckers to death and exact a toll every time one of them touches the puck.

Five skills of a hockey players are: 1 skating, 2 shooting, 3 passing, 4 checking, and 5 fighting (when needed). Bobby Orr could fight, pretty boy Gretzky couldn’t fight. I’ve always held that against him in my Pantheon rankings of the greatest hockey players.

Four of these skills are team skills, only shooting is an individual skill. If you can skate, check, pass and think the game you can become hockey player.

No tornadoes tonight in Deer Creek. I can focus on the game.

LET’S GO, BOYS. First goal this time. Get on them and stay on them for sixty minutes.

I’m gonna try and be a little more provocative on some of the videos in an effort to attract more of Trump’s religious right followers on here now and again so as they might occasionally read something other than the usual braindead shit they absorb on Fox 24/7. Just doing my part to help educate the country.

You have to figure he hasn’t touched Melania since Baron was born. Someone had to fill the void after Karen, Stormy, Omarosa, daughter Ivanka and an assortment of escorts. Why not John McCain’s bud Wispy Lindsey Graham? Fairly sure Jerry Falwell Jr. and the religious right can live with this as long as the tax cuts stay in place.

Thank god there’s a hockey game tonight. I have some pent up anger.

LET’S GO BRUINS!

Two days after Memorial Day and Bob Mueller makes a nine minute statement in which he is basically telling Congress to step up and to do their job by telling the American people who there president is.

You see there is a thing called the law. And the law is inherit in our Constitution and how people regardless of income, race, and religious beliefs are afforded equal treatment by the law. Trust me, my father as a trial lawyer who did way too much pro bono work ingrained this in me. WE FOLLOW THE LAW. This is not complex.

Your Honor, I call Lindsey Graham to the stand and I hope the bench will remind the senator from South Carolina he is under oath and the penalty for perjury is not to be taken lightly.

If you you’re a Fox regular and can’t read like our sitting POTUS then at least click this and smarten up a little bit.

You think if a poor black dude named Jerome was as overt in breaking the law as Donald Trump has been the wispy fraud from South Carolina would look the other way? Of course not. Because Jerome is black, poor, and will never be in a position to nominate a U.S. Supreme Court Justice.

Lindsey Graham will never be compared to Howard Baker by presidential historians.

It was 1970 and I was thirteen years old when the Bruins beat the expansion St. Louis Blues in the Stanley Cup Finals. The moment when Bobby Orr flew thru the air is perhaps the greatest moment in hockey history unless you’re a Montreal Canadian fan and you’re a Canadian hockey purist.

I loved the Bruins in part because their Triple AAA affiliate played in Oklahoma City. They played their games down at the old fairgrounds and quite a few very good players came thru OKC before heading to the parent team Bruins. This in part laid the groundwork for the Oklahoma City Blazers remarkable run in minor league hockey later on which in reality laid the groundwork for the current arena in downtown Oklahoma City which now houses our diva Russell Westbrook and his now underachieving mates who lead the league in payroll and listless first round exits.

I always wonder how an NHL team would have done in downtown OKC during the MAP days. OKC actually came down to the last city standing as they made every cut with the NHL trying to land an expansion team. It came down to Oklahoma City and Columbus…and as we know Columbus now has the NHL Bluejackets.

Then came Hurricane Katrina and the rest is history as to how the city removed the Sonics from Howard Schultz and Seattle after the two years of the New Orleans franchise playing in the then Ford Center.

In reality–the Bruins are my favorite pro franchise perhaps only followed by the Green Bay Packers and Roberto Clemente’s Pittsburgh Pirates on my fan pecking order.

The Thunder are falling fast in my heart and not just because of the three straight first round exits, but more to the point because of the bullshit manner in which they have allowed Westbrook to become the ultimate boorish diva pro athlete in all of pro sport. Antonio Brown now of the Oakland Raiders would be second on that list.

Note to Russell Westbrook…despite the eternal love glow you get from Little Nick Gallo rubbing against your cock — you aren’t in Bobby Orr’s league. Not even remotely close. Grow up, kid. Watching you during a presser is like witnessing a black version of Donald Trump.

Anyway, Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final is tonight and I think if Boston wins this game they win the series in five games. Huge game for the working class St. Louis Blues who have embraced the old song ‘Gloria’ as their song.

If the Blues were playing anybody else other than my beloved Bruins—I’d be rooting for them.