Playoff Musings...Part V

This installment (number five) of our playoff-lon observations comes weighted with a lot of expectation. Episode V of Star Wars was The Empire Strikes Back. 5 is also that Lenny Kravitz album you bought and couldn't trade in at the used CD store a few years back because they already had 12 copies. 5 is also the jersey number of the incredibly intense guy in a suit on the Celtics bench dropping F-bombs and bruising ribs with chest bumps. And 5 is the number of games in a series that Detroit didn't see this year. I bet they're having more fun in Cancun than they would've had in Cleveland anyway. You can only walk through the Rock N Roll Hall Of Fame so many times.

That said, here are a few observations after all the series have played 4 games.

The Hornets scored as many points against the Nuggets as Jordan scored against the Celtics in his legendary game at the Garden. Do you believe that if His Airness had played the Hornets last night, 1 on 5, that the game would've gone into overtime? I don't either. He is a closer.

Speaking of closer, it's a term that went from a novel cross-sport reference to completely overused in about 10 minutes. Should I thank Jalen Rose for dubbing a "closer" on every team even if they don't have that kind of guy? Or should the blame be placed squarely on the Blazers for forcing Brandon Roy into that role even though he is probably only a really, really good set up man?

I can't get enough of the black and white "Where amazing happens" commercials. I wonder if it wouldn't be so hard to make a new one for each game. Here are my candidates for top 5 commercials from this years playoffs so far.

- Boozer's dunk. Even though you'll have to wait until next year to play it. But then you won't be able to play it when he's high-fiving the Detroit Pontiacs during tank-a-palooza 2010; the John Wall sweepstakes.

-Williams' game winner. It was the deciding play and gave Jazz fans some sort of condolences when this off season gets messy. And it will get messy.

-Wade's banked-in 3-pointer. That would have helped me sit through him hobbling around in Game 4. Can we get a cortizone shot please, or some of that magic soccer spray?

-Allen's game winner. For two reasons. 1) It was over Joakim Noah. And 2) I think he was crying when he saw it go in. The black and white super slow-motion would help me confirm as well as put Joakim in about 600 YouTube parody videos.

-Tracy McGrady walking out of the tunnel in the Rose Garden during game 5, in the 4th quarter with the Rockets up 5. The crowd would be going crazy because they know he just lost the series for Houston. Its the anti-Willis.