April 16th update

Flyers crushing Pens in intense series

• The NHL playoffs have been going for about a week now, and the most interesting series has been the battle of Pennsylvania. The Philadelphia Flyers and Pittsburgh Penguins are locked up in a heated rivalry. The personal hatred between the teams was never in question but it intensified a few weeks ago during the regular season and obviously the players' tempers have not cooled down during the playoffs.
• It’s not helping that the Flyers have been running circles around the Penguins (Don't lie, you thought we'd use a flying pun there) which has contributed to the Penguins losing their cool a bit. During Game 3 on Sunday, which the Flyers won 8-4, the two teams combined for 158 penalty minutes. This included a period at about the 12 minute mark of the 3rd period with a fight, and then another fight as the referees were trying to sort out the first fight. 3 players were ejected from the game.
• One of the more concerning aspects of all the fighting is that Penguins superstar Sidney Crosby has missed much of the past two seasons with a concussion and its aftereffects. It would be a shame for one of the NHL’s biggest stars to lose even more of a very promising career from a stupid fight during a playoff game. That all being said, this was one of the most entertaining games in the playoffs so far and we're hoping that the Pens extend the series for a few more games just so we can continue to see these teams compete against one another.


NBA playoff picture still wide open

• In many seasons the playoff picture is more or less locked into place with weeks remaining but this season there's still a lot of intrigue in the last couple of days. The Eastern conference has seen the Bulls recently pull away for the #1 seed as the Miami Heat have lost a few games and the Milwaukee Bucks are still within 2 games of the Knicks for the final playoff spot but it's the West where the real intrigue is.
• 5 teams are within 3 games of each other for the final 3 playoff spots. Those teams in order of their current standings are the Dallas Mavericks, Denver Nuggets, Houston Rockets, Phoenix Suns and Utah Jazz. The Suns are currently one game back of the Rockets who lost to the Nuggets yesterday and the Suns on Friday. All the teams still have many games left against each other so it should be a thrilling, down-to-the-wire finish to an abbreviated but still entertaining NBA season.