Bruins Win Game One Against Flyers In Overtime

Yesterday afternoon the Bruins started off the 2^nd round play off series well with a 5-4 overtime victory against the Philadelphia Flyers.  Steve Begin and Patrice Bergeron took blood early in the first period with 2 goals for Boston.  The Flyers’ Parent and Pronger scored against Tuukka Rask in the 2^nd period to try to tie the game up, but Miroslav Satan snuck one in for Boston to maintain a one point lead.  The lead was back up to 2 goals in the third period when David Krejci scored for the Bruins, but shortly after was erased by goals for Philly by Richards and Briere.  Forced into overtime, the exciting game finally came to an end in the 13^th minute of overtime when Marc Savard scored the game winning golden goal for the Bruins.  Here are the awesome highlights:

Game two will be played in Boston on Monday night at 7 p.m. 

Celtics Defeat The Heat And Move On To Eastern Conference Semi-Finals Against Lebron And The Cavs

On Tuesday night, the Celtics knocked out the Heat in a 96-86 game five win in Boston.  The Celtics were up by 10 at the half, and although Dywane Wade put in a great effort for his team to chip away at that lead with his 31 points, the Celtics managed to finish the game with the same lead.  Ray Allen was a huge asset on offense with a team high 24 points and all five of his three pointers coming in the second half.  Pierce was the next highest scorer with 21 points, 7 rebounds, and 6 assists.  Rajon Rondo, the play maker guard, had an impressive 16 points, 8 rebounds, and 12 assists.  Here are the highlights from Game five:

Game one of the Eastern Conference Semi-finals against the Cavaliers will be played in Cleveland on Saturday at 8 p.m. WATCH OUT LEBRON!

BoSox Sweep Toronto In Three

Although they couldn’t pull off the sweep against Baltimore (due to a close 7-6 loss on Sunday), the Red Sox swept Toronto in the very next three game series.

On Monday night, the Red Sox traveled to Toronto to begin the exciting series against the Blue Jays.  The scoring went back and forth between the two teams, but eventually the Sox pulled out a 13-12 victory.  After a slow start, the only completely scoreless innings were the 2^nd, 7^th, and 9^th, with 18 hits for Boston, and 16 hits for Toronto.  Unfortunately for Beckett, who gave up 9 hits, a three run homer, and eight runs in the 4 innings he pitched, this game was meant to be a battle of the bats.  Our line up was able to back him up and outhit the Jays.  The major contributors were Jason Varitek with three hits and four RBIs, and Marco Scutaro with three hits and one RBI.  We eventually secured the win with much need help from the bull pen, including relievers Delcarmen, Okajima, and Bard, and our closer Papelbon.  Here are the highlights from the game.

Tuesday night ended in a better, but less exciting 2-1 win for the Sox against the Blue Jays.  This game was all about defense, which is why Clay Buchholz was the shining star with a great pitching start for Boston.  The game proved to be an epic battle between Buchholz and Shaun Marcum of Toronto.  Both pitchers gave up one run early on, but it was Buchholz who pitched 8 full innings, striking out 4 batters along the way.  Finally in the eight inning, with Kevin Gregg on the mound for Toronto, Mike Lowell drew a bases loaded walk to take the 2-1 lead for the Sox.  Click here for the highlights.

On Wednesday night, the Sox were successful in both taking the sweep, and also shutting out the Jays with a 2-0 win in the final game of the series.  This time the pitching champion came in the form of Jon Jon Lester, who had a season high eleven strikeouts, along with just one hit over seven innings on the mound.  His amazing performance was backed up by Dustin Pedroia scoring Darnell McDonald in the sixth, McDonald scoring Adrian Beltre in the seventh.  Bard and Papelbon filled in on the mound in the eighth and ninth innings to finish out the game and hold onto the win.  Check out the highlights here. 

Bruins Win Series And Move On To Semifinals

The Bruins have finally wrapped up their Quarterfinal series with the Sabres and are moving on to face the Philadelphia Flyers in the conference Semifinals.

Their first attempt at knocking out the Sabres was unsuccessful on Friday with a 4-1 loss against Buffalo.  The Sabres took the lead quickly with first period goals from both Adam Mair and Jason Pominville.  To make matters worse, Buffalo's Mike Grier tacked on another goal in the second period, while Boston remained shut out.  Some hope came for Boston in the third period when Johnny Boychuk scored, but this was quickly erased less than a minute later with a goal by Tyler Ennis for the Sabres.  A fight even broke out with mere seconds left in the game, but no players were suspended.  Watch the highlights here.  

Tonight, however, game 6 came back to Boston and the Bruins were able to win the series once and for all with a 4-3 win against Buffalo.  David Krejci was a huge asset for Boston, scoring his first goal in the first period and again later in the third period.  Mark Recchi helped out with a goal in the 2nd period, and Miroslav Satan scored the final goal for the Bruins in the third.  Kaleta scored for the Sabres in the second period, and Gerbe and Vanek tried to rally for a comeback with their two goals in the third period.  They came up short because of the Bruins' goalie and hero of the game, Tuukka Rask, who made of total of 27 saves throughout the game.  Watch the amazing highlights here.

The series against the Flyers will begin in Boston on Saturday afternoon at 12:30 p.m.  

Celtics Head Back To Boston, Up 3 Games To One

After going up 3 games to 1 against the Heat in the quarterfinals, the Celtics tried to close out the series today in Miami, but were stopped by Dwyane Wade's resilient performance.

Game two on Tuesday night brought an in-your-face 106-77 win for the Celtics.  Dwyane Wade tried to put up a fight with his 29 points and 5 assists, but that was nothing compared the team effort by Boston.  Ray Allen scored a team high 25 points, and had five rebounds and three assists.  He was followed by a surprising performance by Big Baby Davis who contributed with 23 points, 8 rebounds, and 1 assist.  Paul Pierce and Kendrick Perkins also helped out with 13 points each, along with Rajon Rondo who had an impressive 7 rebounds and 12 assists.  And all of this was done without Kevin Garnett, who was suspended for this game because of a fight in game 1.  Check out the highlights:




Friday night the teams met in Miami for one of the most exciting games I have seen in a while.  Literally an epic battle from the start, the two teams remained even for the entire first half and went to the locker rooms with Miami up by 1 point.  Pierce came in strong during the 3rd quarter to give Boston an 8 point lead going into the fourth.  However, Miami turned up the Heat in the fourth and with only 3 minutes remaining in the game they had tied it up 92-92.  Finally, with the score tied at 98 and just seconds to go, Paul Pierce hit a jumper at the buzzer to win the game 100-98!! He had a total of 32 points along with 8 rebounds throughout the game. Ray Allen tacked on 25 points and Rajon Rondo contributed 17 points.  Here are the highlights:




Tonight the Celtics had the opportunity to finish the series and knock out the Heat, but unfortunately Dwyane Wade had a huge performance and Miami won their first game of the series by 101-92.  Might as well start off with the craziest part and tell you that Wade scored FORTY-SIX points. Hard to beat that, lets be honest.  The Heat was actually up by 18 points at one time during the 1st half, then the Celtics came back during the second half to take the lead, but in the end Wade was on fire and started hitting every single shot to secure the win for his team.  These are the highlights from game 4:





Game five will be played in Boston on Tuesday night at 7 pm.  If the Celtics manage to wrap up the series this time, they may have to play Lebron next. 

Red Sox Win 4 Of The Last 5

Since the last miserable post about the Red Sox, they have actually won four out of the five games they played.  From Tuesday to Thursday they played a series against the Texas Rangers and won the first two games.  On Tuesday night, the Sox were down 6-2 in the bottom of the sixth against the Rangers.  Before the inning was over, Josh Reddick doubled on a fly ball to left field, scoring Victor Martinez and Jeremy Hermida.  Reddick was then replaced by pinch hitter Darnell McDonald,a substitution that would prove extremely influential for the Red Sox.  In his first at bat for Boston during the bottom of the 8th, McDonald hit a two run homer to tie the game at 6-6.  Closer Jonathan Papelbon did his job during the top of the ninth by not allowing the Rangers to score, which led to McDonald's even more amazing walk off single to end the game and win it for the Red Sox!! For some reason I can't embed the video, but click here to see the walk-off hit and the Fenway crowd go wild!

On Wednesday night the 8-7 victory was somehow even more exciting than Tuesday nights game.  This time the game was tied at 7-7 in the 9th, so the game had to go into extra innings.  Twelve innings to be exact.  In the bottom of the 12th, Kevin Youkilis became the hero of the night with another walk-off hit (this time a double) to win the game!! We did horrible last week and now have begun a walk-off winning streak...go figure with the Sox, right? Click here to see Youk's walk-off hit!


The boys weren't so lucky in the final game of the Rangers series on Thursday.  Poor pitcher Clay Buchholz had 6 scoreless innings, but lost it in the seventh when he gave up three runs to the Rangers.  That was all it took, and the Red Sox lost 3-0 in the end.  Rangers pitcher CJ Wilson shut out our offense in the 7 innings he pitched. 

Friday night began a three game series against the Baltimore Orioles, and the Red Sox took game one in a 4-3 win.  Big Papi hit his first home run of the season in the second inning to give Boston an early lead.  Then Hermida scored in the third and Beltre scored in the fifth to put the Sox on top 3-0.  Then all of a sudden the score was tied at 3-3 after a two-run homer from Orioles's Adam Jones in the seventh, followed by Julio Lugo (former Red Sox player) scoring in the eighth.  However, Adrian Beltre came through in the end by drawing a bases-loaded walk in the bottom of the eighth.  Per usual, Papelbon did his job well pitching in the top of the ninth to finish the game. Click here for the highlights.   

Tonight the Red Sox beat Baltimore again in game 2 by a close 7-6 victory.  The Sox were down 3-1 (thanks to a homer by Varitek), but came back in an unbelievable fashion by Marco Scutaro and Kevin Youkilis hitting BACK-TO-BACK three run homers in the bottom of the seventh.  Papelbon actually showed his mortality with his shaky performance in the ninth, where he gave up three runs, but somehow made it out alive and still gave Boston a win.

Bruins Up 3-1 In Series

The Bruins have won both games 3 and 4 at home in Boston to bring their lead in the series up to 3 games to 1.  

On Monday night, the Bruins defended their home ice in Boston to narrowly defeat the Buffalo Sabres 2-1.  Mike Grier scored first for the Sabres early in the first period, but the lead was soon erased by the Bruins' Dennis Wideman who scored 8 minutes later.  The scoreless second period was nothing but great defense from both sides and the goalies, Rask and Miller.  Then, in the 12th minute of the 3rd period, Patrice Bergeron came through strong and got a goal for Boston.  Here are the highlights for Wideman's and Bergeron's game winning goals:





Tonight the Bruins were victorious once again, defeating the Sabres 3-2 and taking a 3 games to 1 advantage in the series.  This game was so exciting that it could only have happened during playoffs.  The Sabres were up 2-0 by the beginning of the 3rd period thanks to a goal by Kennedy in the first period and a goal by Montador in the second.  However, an exciting rally by the Bruins led to an early goal by David Krejci and another one midway through the third period by Patrice Bergeron to tie the game at 2 a piece and send it into overtime.  Finally, in the second overtime, Miroslav Satan scored the golden goal that won it for Boston and sent the crowd at the Garden into an uproar.  Here is the exciting footage from his winning shot:



Game 5 will be played in Buffalo on Friday night, when the Bruins will hopefully win and take the series.   

Less Than A Good Start For The Sox

The Red Sox have had a rough season so far, and an even rougher past week.  They are now riding a pitiful record of 4 and 9, six of which losses came during the past week.  

In the road series against the Minnesota Twins from Monday to Thursday, Boston managed to pull out one win from the three games.  On Monday they lost 2-5 to Minnesota, with starting pitcher Jon Lester giving up four runs in five innings.  Twins' Joe Mauer had 3 hits and 2 RBI's.  On Wednesday night, with help from Jeremy Hermida's three-run, bases clearing double in the eighth inning, the Red Sox grabbed a 6-3 win over the Twins.  John Lackey pitched for 6 2/3 innings, giving up seven hits and 2 runs.  Thursday nights game was absolutely horrible thanks to the Twins shutting out the Red Sox 8-0.  Not only was Tim Wakefield's performance on the mound less than stellar, the Twin's starting pitcher Fransisco Liriano completely silenced our team's bats.  

Unfortunately the weekend only got worse at Fenway.  The Red Sox were swept in a 4 game weekend series against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.  Friday nights 1-3 loss was delayed and then set in stone when it was completed on Saturday.  Saturday's regularly scheduled game was played out and the Red Sox lost 5-6.  Maybe Sunday and Monday's games will be better.  Not a chance.  The Sox lost to the Devil Rays by 1-7 and 2-8 on Sunday and Monday respectively.  

Yuck. This post was not fun to write.  One problem with having a sports blog is that you are obligated to still report on the games when your team plays horribly and loses.  Of course I would never let these losses sway my loyalty to the Red Sox, but it is a lot nicer and more exciting to write posts when they win.  You have to keep in mind, however, that your readers are expecting updates from your blog so you should provide both the good new and the bad news.  Hopefully from here on out it will be a lot more good news coming from the Red Sox!!     

Game 1 In The Bag: NBA Playoffs

The Celtics journey toward Banner 18 began well last night in the Garden with a 85-76 victory over the Miami Heat in Game 1 of the first round of playoffs.  The name of the game was Tony Allen who created a much needed spark when he replaced Ray Allen in the third quarter.  After the Heat quickly went up by 14 in the second half, Tony Allen came off of the bench to completely shut down Dwyane Wade, along with getting 14 points, 2 blocks, and 3 steals.  His efforts were completely necessary considering the fact that Wade had 26 points, 8 rebounds, and 6 assists, most of which came before Allen was defending him.  Paul Pierce also played his part on offense by scoring the team high of 16 points, followed by Kevin Garnett with 15 points.  Ray Allen was virtually not in the game last night, but Rajon Rondo took up some slack for him with a double-double 10 points, 7 rebounds, and 10 assists.  Here are the highlights from game 1:   


With only 40 seconds left in the game, KG was given two technicals and ejected from the game for a supposed elbow to Quentin Richardson's face in front of Miami's bench.  He has also been fined $25,000 and suspended from the upcoming game 2 of this series.  Big Baby Davis, Udonis Haslem, and Richardson were all also given technicals for being involved in the altercation.  Game 2 at the Garden will be played on Tuesday night at 8 p.m. on TNT. 

Admittedly a Fair Weather Bruins Fan: NHL Playoffs

By request from one of my readers, I have decided to give a few updates on the Bruins since hockey playoffs started this week.  I am admittedly a fair weather hockey fan for the Boston Bruins, but I assume that some of my other readers would also enjoy hearing more about them.  

The Bruins embarked on their playoff journey on Thursday and had a close 2-1 loss against the Sabres in Buffalo.  The Sabres drew blood first with a goal by Vanek near the end of the first period, and soon after with a goal early in the second period scored by Rivet.  The Bruins fought back and Recchi scored a goal in the second period, but were unable to tie up the game ever.  Here are the highlights from game one.




Then this afternoon the Bruins redeemed themselves with a 5-3 win against the Sabres in Buffalo, to even the series at 1-1.  Again the Sabres came out aggressively with Ellis and Myers both scoring in the first period, and Pominville scoring early in the second period.  Luckily, they would not score again, creating the opportunity for an amazing come back by the Bruins in which they would go on a 5-0 scoring run to win the game.  Chara and Ryder started things off, both scoring in the second period, followed by Recchi early in the third to tie up the game.  Chara and Ryder would both score again later in the third period to seal the victory.  Here are the highlights for game 2.  
  

Game 3 will be played in Boston on Monday night at 7 p.m.