Forty years after the Bullets won the only other Washington D.C. area winter sports title on June 7, 1978, the Washington Capitals, in their 43rd season, won their first NHL title/Stanley Cup, winning (4-3) at Las Vegas, to take the series 4 games to 1, vs the first year Golden Knights.
Lars Eller, who also scored in the second overtime of game 3 at Columbus after the Caps had lost the first two games of their prelim vs the Blue Jackets, scored with seven plus minutes remaining and the Caps held on to win the title.
Jakub Vrana and Conn Smythe Trophy winner, Alex Ovechkin, the latter incredibly emotional after winning the crown in the 14th season of his superb career, gave “Wash” (1-0) and (2-1) leads, they could not hold and Las Vegas led (3-2) entering the third period.
However, Devante Smith-Pelly scored at 9:52 of the third period to tie the game, before Eller’s Stanley Cup winning goal.
The last time before this year, both NBA semi-final series went 7 games was in “same calendar” 1979.
That year both the NHL and NBA final series ended in 5 games, with the winning team (Montreal, which won an incredible 15th title in 24 seasons, and the Seattle SuperSonics vs Washington (Bullets), winning 4 straight games after losing the opening game.
Now a Washington team wins 4 straight after losing the opener, this vs an incredible first year team, Las Vegas that shocked by making the NHL final and nearly cost its town’s sports books “mucho dinero,” by winning it all.
The “Caps (series) Wrap” took place on the road in all 4 series and they trailed the series at one point in all four (only the 1991 Penguins had trailed in all 4 series and won it all, before the Caps did so).
Speaking of the Penguins, let’s cite their greatness with 5 crowns, all 5 in years they eliminated the Capitals.
Yet now the Capitals have a title and they defeated Pittsburgh (now they are (2-9) vs the Pens in the ‘offs), en route to their most special, first Stanley Cup victory.
A first title for the Capitals with their goalie, Braden Holtby and their coach Barry Trotz.
The great player, Kevin Durant scored 43 points leading the Golden State Warriors (bet vs, from minus 5 to minus 3 plus) to a (110-102) win at Cleveland (Cavaliers) in game 3 to take a commanding (3-0) NBA final series lead.
It is the second straight season “G.S.” has taken a (3-0) final series lead and the fourth time in Warriors’ history (they also did so as the Philadelphia Warriors in the first final in 1947 and in their upset sweep of the Washington Bullets in 1975).
Only in 1975, did they complete a 4 game sweep, winning the crown in 5 last year and in 1947.
Andre Iguodala returned to the Warriors’ lineup and made some big plays down the stretch for the Warriors, who will seek their third crown in four seasons Friday night in Cleveland.
Kevin Durant, pictured above won 4 NBA scoring titles, but nary a title with the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Last year, he joined previous Warriors players, Neil Johnston, Paul Arizin, Joe Fulks and Rick Barry (all 4 won their scoring titles with the Warriors) as a Warriors’ title winner in a season without winning the scoring title, to coincide with season(s) in which there was no title, as the league scoring leader.
Only Joe Fulks, in that referenced above first season, won a scoring title and a team title with the Warriors.
I am not sure why the superb film, “The Third Man,” was relegated to an afternoon time slot on TCM, but it was a pleasure and much needed pick me up to view it.
The Third Man was brilliantly directed by Carol Reed.
There was a great cast that included Orson Welles, Trevor Howard and Joseph Cotten, plus a compelling, mysterious story, making “The Third Man” among the greatest films ever made.
The Washington Capitals, in their 43rd season are on the precipice of their first NHL title/Stanley Cup win, after taking (3-1) series command vs the first year, Las Vegas Golden Knights, with a (6-2) home win in game 4.
Evgeny Kusnetsov, who now has 31 ‘offs points had 4 assists in the tilt, while T.J. Oshie had a goal and two assists in the game 4 win.
“Wash” hopes to wrap up the crown at Las Vegas, on Thursday night, in game 5.
32 times, 31 consecutive after the lone exception, which was Toronto’s incredible comeback from a (3-0) series deficit vs Detroit in the 1942 final (hence there has never been a comeback to win from just a (3-1) series deficit in the NHL final), the team leading the NHL Final 3 games to 1, has won the title.
Fifty years ago tonight, the darkness came and perhaps never left, as a man who had sought the better angels and changed for the far better, Robert F. Kennedy, was killed just after winning the California Primary.
Only one city with a large black population had no problems after another horror on the 4th, 2 months earlier, when the brilliant Martin Luther King was killed and that was Indianapolis.
The biggest reason peace manifested that fateful night was that Mr. Kennedy stood on a flatbed truck in that city and talked to the audience, expressing his feelings when his brother John F. Kennedy, the U.S. President was killed and saying reacting with violence was not the answer then nor that night in 1968.
It is of course not the answer and neither is hatred and unfair persecution, such as that spewed by a man Robert Kennedy worked for, Senator Joseph McCarthy and his assistant Roy Cohn.
Cohn is in my opinion and many other people’s rivaled only by J.Edgar Hoover, for let’s just say not being nice, a vast understatement as to what they were. p
Kennedy sought his “better angels” and moved far away from McCarthy and his ways.
The current U.S. President, “D.J.” Trump has not even come close to doing so regarding his mentor, the same Roy Cohn.
Perhaps some day he will, but then again he owns that proverbial “land in Florida” and so much else, currency accepted here, however, likely not where he is going next.
If nothing else, consider Mr. Kennedy’s successful effort to look inside himself, reach, read, consult and most of all, work on improving himself.
This is really very difficult to do. I know!!
Last night, the Washington Capitals won (3-1) at home, vs the Las Vegas Golden Knights to take a 2 games to 1, NHL Final Series lead.
As was the case in the Caps’ “#7 semis” win at Tampa Bay (Lightning), Alex Ovechkin, a great player and certainly a great goal scorer appearing in his first final series, in this year in which he played in his first “semi,” “struck” for the game’s first goal.
Ovechkin has scored the “go ahead to stay,” goal in the last three Caps’ wins, those being #7 semis and #’s 2 and 3 vs Las Vegas.
Evgeny Kuznetsov, whose overtime goal in #6/quarters dispatched the many time “Caps’ Conquering,” two time champion Penguins, added a goal and an assist in #3 last night.
In just the third Washington sports team win in three times that many (9) game 3’s, Jay Beagle had two assists, the second on Devante Smith Pelly’s insurance goal in the third period.
In the previous 8 Washington team sports league final series, no “Wash” team has ever led a final (2-1) (or better) and won that series.
Only the 1925 defending champion Washington Senators, who ended up dissipating a (3-1) World Series lead to the Pittsburgh Pirates, led (2-1) in a final series.
Before last night, the 1933 Senators, who eventually were 5’d by the New York Giants and the ’25 Senators who won games 1,3 and 4 but no more, won a game 3 as a Washington team in a league final.
The Red Wings swept the Caps in the ’98 final while the Bullets now the Wizards, were swept in ’71 and ’75 and lost the last 4 and in 5, in the same calendar, 1979 NBA final.
Washington’s Bullets won the title 40 years ago but trailed two games to one, (for that matter (1-0) and (3-2) before winning #’s 6 and 7, to win the title.
Alex Ovechkin, pictured above.
Paraphrasing Linda Gray’s “Sue Ellen,” who famously said “it was you Kristin (played by Mary Crosby) that shot J.R.” on the iconic show Dallas, which I now realize rightfully, in my changed opinion, kept the NBA from being shown live via CBS on Friday nights, the media “shot” another “J.R.” — one more average than the other, even with the popular surname Smith.
The game was tied, he was not going to score after that rebound and I doubt his team Cleveland would have.
Yes, it was a bad play, but even in sports terms, nowhere near that bad and certainly not decisive.
It was checked upon, J.R. Smith did not steal nor has the “crown jewels.”
The beautiful, classy Linda Gray pictured above.
In still one of the highest rated shows ever in November 1980, Linda’s character revealed the well guarded answer as to who/whom shot J.R.
For the fourth straight season, the Golden State Warriors won at home vs the Cleveland Cavaliers, in the NBA final round opening game.
As was the case in the 2015 opening game the tilt went into overtime (paid out at 15.5 to 1) but unlike that Warriors dominated overtime, this one also all Warriors (17-7), did not manifest in the favorite (a way to high 12 plus, which is also the opening game 2 line) “burn covering.” Thus I believe for the first time, at most the second time, in 19 GS/Cleveland final round game tilts, the favorite won and did not cover.
It also was one of the few close games among the 19 or for that matter in these NBA ‘offs. Three Warriors (Steph Curry, Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson) scored in the 20’s, while the incredible LeBron James hit for 51 points, but his team lost the NBA final round opener for the eighth time in nine such games.
I will have more details on this game and notes (of course J.R. Smith made a bad play, however he also got a great rebound on the final sequence of regulation play. Yet the media, which not only hypes the good, also over does the bad, picking on one play in a game with so many vicissitudes (witness the case with the superb player, Bill Buckner).
Whether Smith forgot the game was tied, clearly the media has, overstating the play’s importance (see the Buckner case, which essentially interfered with a man and his family’s life) and the FACT the game was TIED. There were just 4 seconds left!
Speaking of facts, I have put up a link to last year’s post after game 1, which includes 2 more, regarding the two Cleveland sports teams (Indians the other, both the glorious, legitimate Cleveland Browns and the inept/not true Cleveland Browns–I am not defending the original team’s move from Cleveland to “Balti,” just the opposite—, can never be in playoff series) incredible failures in final series openers (2-9), all but one of the 11 tilts played on the road.
- NBA Look What You Have Done To Me on June 2, 2017
The best of seven, NHL Final series between the first season, Las Vegas Golden Knights and Washington Capitals, who are completing their 43rd season, is tied at a game apiece.
Las Vegas got the game winning goal in the third period from Tomas Nosek in their (6-4) home win in their first final series game played Monday night.
Washington squared the series with a (3-2) win in game 2, ending their record streak of 5 final round game losses, in the post expansion era.
Braden Holtby’s spectacular stick save, denying Alex Tuch the tying goal with just over 2 minutes to play in the third period, highlighted the “Wash” victory.
It was just the sixth in 26 final game/series tilts for the two current “D.C.” area teams (the Caps and Wizards nee Bullets) in their history.
Included is the then Baltimore Bullets being swept by Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Oscar Robertson (by the way, all this discussion regarding who is the greatest NBA player is not only ridiculous to even consider James being better than Jordan, but also unfairly leaves Kareem especially, Oscar and others out of the discussion) and the Milwaukee Bucks in the ’71 NBA final.
The Red Wings swept the Caps in the ’98 NHL final, the Warriors, top heavy favorites vs James and the Cavaliers (I wish I had their overwhelming faith, as I do “fear” James and his greatness), this season swept the Washington Bullets in the ’75 NBA final.
Add a (4-1) loss as defending champions to Seattle in ’79 and their title was won in 7 in 1978, also vs Seattle.
Thus the Wizards nee Bullets (getting rid of guns would be more effective than changing the team name from Bullets) are (5-15) in final series games, the Caps are (1-5).
My “Frito Bandito” was green and I brought him out, listening to Earl Monroe and the Bullets on the radio.
After 48 consecutive days of at least one NHL or NBA playoff game (April 11th-May 28th), it was great to watch the Dick Cavett Show on Decades.
I often watch it no matter what else in on television.
Last night’s 1978 interview, shown in 2 parts, encompassing the entire hour was a great one with the classy, Ingrid Bergman.
It was most revealing and I am glad I learned more about one of my favorite performers, Ingrid Bergman.
The one and only, beautiful, classy, Ingrid Bergman, pictured above.
Andy B Sports 