Author: lleonardbw

NBA Finals report: Irving out for rest of series; Cavs morale after game one says their riding the Titanic

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by David Zizmor

OAKLAND–The Cleveland Cavaliers announced this afternoon in a brief press conference with head coach David Blatt who only could shake his head about Cavs point guard Kyrie Irving who went through an MRI at Stanford Sports Medicine Clinic and was diagnosed with a fractured knee cap and will miss the rest of the NBA Finals against Golden State.

Irving is schedule to undergo surgery for the fracture in the next few days at Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland. Irving who had been suffering from a left knee injury for the last few weeks. Irving was injured in the Cavaliers 108-100 loss to the Warriors on Thursday night and had to leave the game. At that time it was not determined if Irving was going to be able to play in game two on Sunday in Oakland but that was all decided when doctors did the MRI.

Irving had been averaging 19 points in the playoffs and even better with 23 points in game one on Thursday night until he had to leave due to the knee injury in the fourth quarter. Irving a three time NBA All-Star and whose dad Drederick is involved in his son’s basketball business affairs was vehemently angry after finding out that he would miss the entire remainder of the finals due to the knee injury.

The elder Irving upon hearing of his son’s status slammed a private room door where Cavaliers personnel and medical staff were delivering the news to Drederick. It was reported that Drederick left the meeting slamming the door and walked out. Cavs General Manager David Griffin went to talk to Drederick but Drederick pointed towards Irving’s agent Jeff Wechsler in other words talk to the hand. The situation for the Cavaliers looks grim with LeBron James basically fending for himself in game one once Irving left the game.

LeBron scored a post season high of 44 points but it wasn’t good enough as Golden State won in overtime 108-100. It all appeared like LeBron was like an island facing the Warriors top starters Andrew Bogut, Klay Thompson, Stephen Curry, and Draymond Green. LeBron could score but couldn’t defend all that the Warriors were throwing at them.

Blatt was asked about the situation now going into Sunday’s game with the loss of Irving, his father basically was angry about this injury and is the Cavaliers responsibility and fault that they overused and pushed his son to his limits and now he’s out for the rest of the finals. Blatt in speaking with the media didn’t have any answers only to say, “you’ve got to talk to the people who are closer to that, I’m not involved in that whole agent-dad thing.”

David Zizmor does commentary on the NBA each week at http://www.sportsradioservice.com

Stanley Cup Finals Podcast with Joe Lami: Weird twists and turn deflections are Hawks pay day in game one win

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by Joe Lami

Chicago @ Tampa Bay 1-0 Hawks lead series: Chicago goaltender Corey Crawford who had 22 saves in game one against the Tampa Bay Lighting on Wednesday night’s 2-1 win. The Lighting exploded with shots on Crawford and it kind of helped Crawford settle in and only allowed one goal in the one goal defeat of Tampa Bay. Crawford allowed one goal on a crazy redirection it was absolutely insane. This shows the great hand of the Lighting forward Alex Killorn who scored at 4:31 in the first period.

Killorn’s shot took a crazy deflection in the left circle and was he able to get his stick on the puck and it was an amazing goal and all of a sudden towards the end of the game in the last six and half minutes that’s where the Hawks were able to completely take over the scoreboard as they controlled the latter part of the game at least in the shot department not allowing the Lighting any shots in the final frame.

In the second half of the game the Blackhawks completely dominated it and it was only game one and more importantly for Chicago it was a road game. Now the Hawks officially stole home ice away already in the first game and if the Hawks can take game two in Tampa Bay on Saturday they would have a chance to sweep when they get back to Chicago.

The Hawks key player on Wednesday night was Teuvo Teravainen who had a goal and an assist with the second Chicago goal and he provided the kind of third line production that you need to see in the playoffs. He was able to takeover and he joked with the media after the game and he said to the media “I shouldn’t have scored that first goal I’m going to have to talk to the media.”

Teravainen had two points and he was actually on the ice for all three goals that were scored in the contest and it ended up being a plus one rating. The one shot on net found the back of the net at 11:51 from Teravainen in the third period for his total ice time. The goal that was scored by the Hawks Antonine Vermette at 15:26 in the third period was on an amazing forecheck it was set up by Patrick Sharp after a dump and chase play.

It was Sharp on a forecheck that really started the play and they were able to capitalize after the puck went into slot and Vermette was able to find the back of the net to get the eventual gamer.

Joe Lami is an NHL analyst for http://www.sportsradioservice.com listen to his podcast below

San Francisco Giants podcast with Michael Duca: Giants not doing so good against pitchers they face for the first time

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by Michael Duca

SAN FRANCISCO–Looking back on the Giants four straight loses the Giants lost a tough one a 8-0 shutout against the Braves last Saturday to Braves pitcher William Perez who went seven innings, four hits, three strikeouts, and improved his ERA to 2.66. The Giants never do well against new pitchers they’ve never faced before.

You can go back to the days when former Montreal Expo pitcher the late Charlie Lea who threw a 4-0 no hitter against the Giants at Olympic Stadium in the second game of a doubleheader on May 10, 1981. Lea did it against a Giant line up that was not too familiar with his pitching style. This is just how things work they’ve always been a fast ball hitting team. The Giants against Perez didn’t do so well last Saturday because he threw off the breaking pitches and that’s what the Giants struggle with when they face pitchers like that.

On Sunday’s game against the Braves in the 7-5 loss the Giants scored two early and someone asked me when the Giants are going to start coming from behind for a change instead of taking the early lead and losing it. Which they did as the Braves scored twice in the seventh and scored four times in the ninth. What happened on Tuesday night the Pirates put up a four spot to later had a lead 4-2 and then they added on in the next three innings for the 7-4 win.

What happened Sunday for Atlanta was a matter of the Giants taking the lead early 2-0 lead an later things snowballed with the Braves picking two runs in the top of the seventh and four runs in the top of the ninth. Giants reliever Santiago Casilla tried close it out but was shelled in that ninth for four runs three of them earned on three hits.

Michael Duca does Giants commentary each week at http://www.sportsradioservice.com listen to his podcast below

Oakland A’s podcast with Charlie O: A’s putting up fight in battling to get out of the AL West basement

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by Charlie O Mallonee

DETROIT–The three game win streak that the A’s picked up is a great thing it was the first series win for Oakland since May when they took two out of three from Texas. That’s a long time between series wins and they did it again on Tuesday night winning the first of three games in Detroit with a win 5-3.

The A’s had won six of their last nine ball games and things are on the positive the A’s jumped to a 5-3 lead when Ben Zobrist hit a grand slam home run off of Tiger pitcher Alfredo Simon at Comerica Park on Tuesday night which wound up being the final score. The A’s have won four of their last five games.

The A’s are 13-25 over their last 37 games remember they started out 8-8 the season and 20-33 overall now that’s the worst in the American League. They have won four out their last six, their in the cellar in the AL West with 12.5 games off the lead. They’ve been 25 days in the cellar.

Right now it’s not about getting into first place I really believe right now the goal for the A’s has to be get to .500. If they can get to .500 then there’s a lot of opportunities and if they get to .500 their not going to be as quick to break up the team. If this team gets into late July when the trade deadline comes up as their still looking at a record as they have right now there’s going to be some players that some A’s fans like their going to be gone.

So it’s really important for the A’s to keep themselves together to keep competitive in the AL West and keep the fans interested to make their goal “let’s get back to .500”. The starting pitching for the A’s all season long has been the shining star for the Oakland A’s. There 5-2 in their last nine games they have a 1.23 ERA which every team in MLB would love to have from their starting pitchers.

The starters for the season have an ERA of 3.19 which is the best in the AL and you ask the question why are they 20-33? The don’t have the number one relief core that is part of the problem. Right now the A’s are third in innings pitched by their starters. They have gone into Tuesday night’s game 316 innings pitched by their starters.

Join Charlie O and his A’s podcast commentary below heard weekly at http://www.sportsradioservice.com

San Francisco Giants podcast with Jeremy Kahn: Giants want to snap loss string against Bucs before road trip

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by Jeremy Kahn

SAN FRANCISCO–The thing about the Giants loss 4-3 from Monday night is the Giants held a one run 2-1 lead and let it go and lost the ball game by a run in the late innings.. Gerrit Cole who started for the Pittsburgh Pirates on Monday night is now 8-2 and came in and he’s a brother law of Brandon Crawford’s wife and is a East Bay product.

Cole is a very good young product and he’ll be with the Pirates for a very long time. Cole was able to retire Crawford into a double play and he made an out and the next time Crawford could go out and do better. In last week’s Braves series at AT&T the Giants could have won all four of those games but lost heavily 8-0 in game three and 7-5 in game four of that series.In the game against the Pirates on Monday night they could have won that game.

The Giants minor league players have been the whole key to the Giants success and look at Giants second baseman Joe Panik last season and now they have a great third baseman in Matt Duffy. These players came up here and did very well.

Giants plan to have affordable housing at AT&T Park. The Giants and San Francisco Supervisor Jane Kim plan on putting an initiative on the November ballot to do construction at parking lot A to build affordable condos which is badly needed in the city. The Bay Area needs to consider more affordable housing but the Giants building affordable housing next to the ball park is a great idea. This initiative could happen or very well not happen we’ll see what happens on this coming November ballot and we’ll talk from there.

Tuesday’s Giant starter Chris Heston had been throwing some great ball he shutout the Braves in his last outing. Heston had a one run lead in the game versus the Pirates on Tuesday he has been a bullseye pitcher. His stuff has been lights out and his breaking ball has been working for him. He very well has been a great contributor the Giants shutout string that they had going in the month of May. The Pirates touched him up for four runs in the top of the third after San Francisco had a two run lead.

Jeremy Kahn is a San Francisco Giants beat writer catch his podcast below at http://www.sportsradioservice.com

That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary: It’s not L.A. or N.Y. but with Curry & LeBron it’s still TV marketing genius

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by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

OAKLAND–Before I covered any other team in the Bay Area I had the chance to cover the San Francisco Warriors at the Cow Palace in the late 60s before they moved to Oakland in 1971. The Cow Palace was the first place I covered basketball and the Warriors always had great fans. When I talk about the best fans I mean the fans who supported this team whether they were in first or last place.

I covered the Giants for many years in the 80s and nobody cared about the Giants and the A’s struggled through the late 70s and early 80s before they went to the World Series in 1988. The Warriors have always had support and it is about time they made it to the finals and a lot of people have passed away waiting for the Warriors to win another title.

It was the 1974-75 Rick Barry-Al Attles days when they last won a championship title. It’s a beautiful thing that this finals is going to happen starting Thursday night in Oakland and I wish nothing but the best for Golden State. The Cleveland Cavaliers are a very good team also and they have one of the best players in the world in LeBron James for Cleveland and Stephen Curry for Golden State these two are money for the network.

The networks that might have hoped that the Clippers or a larger east conference team with a larger TV market would have made it. They may not get totally shutout as Curry has been one the faces of the playoffs and of course with LeBron James. LeBron is already a megastar and for TV it’s great to have LeBron and now you have Curry.

We know that the Bay Area is a great place but in a place like Kentucky they could care less about a guy like Curry but the network audience will be tuning in and they will be out to see why the Curry is the Most Valuable Player on the other side your going to see the other superstar like LeBron. This is why TV likes it because they do have established superstars and LeBron is one player who needs no introduction.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the TV Spanish voice for the Angels, the Radio Spanish voice for the A’s, and does News and Commentary each week for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

Golden State Warriors Podcast with David Zizmor: Warriors recovering well after grueling first three rounds

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by David Zizmor

OAKLAND–The Cleveland Cavaliers are a strong and powerful club and to be able to beat the Cavs it will take a lot of physical exertion. You heard the Golden State Warriors Andrew Bogut make some comments after this series against the Houston Rockets that Memphis was exhausting. Their physical in play and they grind on you.

That’s why they call Memphis the Grindhouse, Houston is a different kind of physical Bogut said Dwight Howard of the Rockets in so many words was a dirty player and that’s not an exclusive opinion of Bogut that’s pretty much a league wide opinion. Howard has amazing talent but when he gets a little bit frustrated and gets a little bit upset he gets dirty.

We saw that when Howard did that open had fist at Bogut and we saw that with a number of technical fouls in this last series. Had this series continued into game six to Houston Howard would have been suspended for game six because he got his seventh flagrant or technical foul that is an automatic one game suspension.

So since the Rockets lost the series Howard will be suspended for game one of next year’s regular season. The bottom line is that physical play really takes a toll on the Warriors. You saw it with Steph Curry going head over heels on the Rockets Trevor Ariza landing on his head in a very scary moment in game four.

That was a pretty scary moment, Curry was bruised up and you could see in the following game five he was not as explosive or aggressive as he had been in the past. That didn’t change the fact that he didn’t play a great game he definitely changed his style a little bit because of the pain. Of course in game five Klay Thompson got kneed in the head for an awful, awful injury.

Thompson suffered a concussion and a laceration to his ear he’s the one who really needs that week off between the conference and NBA Finals. The NBA has a protocol for concussions that everybody has to follow and Thompson has to follow it now. Most people let alone basketball players recover from a concussion within ten days.

David Zizmor does Warriors commentary each week at http://www.sportsradioservice.com listen to his podcast below

San Francisco Giants podcast with Michael Duca: Advanced scouting gives Giants huge success in drive for first place

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by Michael Duca

SAN FRANCISCO–Last year in the World Series I made a comment on the team bus on the way home from game seven in Kansas City to former Giant catcher Brian Johnson, the reason why the Giants were in the post season last year is because the Giants had spectacular advanced scouting they knew exactly where to position themselves to play everybody on both teams in both the LCS and the World Series.

You saw advanced scouting again on Friday night in the Giants win over the Atlanta Braves 4-2, what you saw in that eighth inning was an advanced scouts report that Braves reliever Jim Johnson is slow to the plate and can be ran on and they ran on him. The Giants stole bases on him in that inning and both of them set up runs.

It was interesting the Braves starter Mike Foltynewicz struck out the side and got a fly out and was charged with two runs after that in the same inning. Or as they were saying on the radio regarding former Giants play by play announcer Dennis Higgins and his inability to say the word Monaga. So broadcaster Duane Kuiper was calling Foltynewicz, Monaga Fulton.

This is the first time that Giants pitcher Tim Hudson had face his old teammates the Atlanta Braves and he looked like an old experienced veteran facing a team that never had seen him before. It was a marvel to watch on Friday night it was a matter of economy he was averaging 12 pitches an inning and it was beautiful to watch.

Hudson finished out the first inning with your always classic 3-5-1 double plays, you’ll see that once every decade. This 2015 Giants pitching staff has set the record of shutouts for the franchise. They tied the franchise record with 39 straight scoreless innings. They gave up a two out run in that 40th inning. Therefore they were able to set a new standard for the franchise and the Giants last did this in 1948 while being the New York Giants. So roughly every 67 years their going to put up 40 straight zeros.

Michael Duca does Giants commentary for http://www.sportsradioservice.com each week listen to his podcast below

Sports Reporter Ron Bergman of the Oakland Tribune

That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary: Remembering Ron Bergman former Oakland A’s beat writer

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by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

ANAHEIM–Ron “Bergy” Bergman documented and coined the phrase the “Swingin’ A’s” during the 1970’s and the Oakland Athletics dynasty(1972-73-74)winning three consecutive World Series, they are the only team that has done that, winning three World Series in a row aside from the New York Yankees in Major League baseball history. The Yankees won five straight World Series the fifth one being in 1953. Bergman passed away at age 80.

Everybody that knew him called him “Bergy”.he was born in Philadelphia, January 1, 1935. Graduated from Washington High School in San Francisco was the sports editor for Cal-Berkeley of the Daily Californian from 1959-1960, previously served his country in the US Navy from 1955 to 1957. Worked for the Oroville Mercury Register, the Oakland Tribune, the Associated Press, and the San Jose Mercury News.

Today players and co-workers alike expressed their feelings in remembering “Bergy”, and these where some the words most used: skilled, witty, fair, honest, story-teller. Aside from the Oakland Athletics he also covered the Oakland Raiders and the Golden State Warriors. Ron Bergman also covered other stories, aside from sports, like the last Beatles concert which was held at Candlestick Park, San Francisco in 1966.

He was always curious searching for information and every time I spoke with him, in the press box at the Oakland Coliseum he would asked me stuff about Hispanic players and gave me his opinions on many issues, as we chatted and spoke mostly about baseball.

Ron passed this Thursday at Sunrise of Oakland Hills, Oakland, California, of complications from Parkinson’s disease; surviving children are Anne and Adam, his former wife Sally, his brother Jim and two grandchildren. This past March Nick Peters passed, followed in April,by Lon Simmons, they must be building a heck of a league in Heaven.

Rest in Peace Bergy.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the Spanish TV voice for the Angels, the Spanish radio voice for the A’s and does News and Commentary for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

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NHL Stanley Cup Conference Finals podcast: Both East and West conferences battle it out in game sevens

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by Joe Lami

Chicago-Anaheim 3-3 series tied: Anytime you have a game seven it’s the most anticipated game of any series the fact is we were expecting this series to go the distance and we saw a ton of overtime in this series. This game seven with Anaheim-Chicago could go into overtime or triple overtime like it did in game two. It’s going to be an outstanding game seven.

This game is going to happen in one of the most anticipated series in hockey in recent memory. These are two of the best teams this season and best playoff teams of recent memory. The Ducks definitely have the advantage hosting this game seven at the Honda Center this Saturday. The Hawks are a good club and they know how to come back and win hockey games.

There backs were up against the wall, they had a home game game six they were able to win. When you get help like the Blackhawks got in game six from Andrew Shaw two goals, Patrick Kane, Marian Hossa, and Brandon Saad. The Hawks have Kane who is expected to find the back of the net and Shaw who on the third and fourth line he’s grinder and the same with Saad. Saad’s that third line presence and their scoring is coming from everyone and that’s what you need in the playoffs.

Tampa Bay vs. New York Rangers series tied 3-3: The Tampa Bay Lighting’s Ben Bishop didn’t give up all seven goals in game six in the 7-3 drubbing that saw the Rangers tie the series. Bishop was pulled with ten minutes to play in the third and that was to prep him for game seven. At that point you know your not going to be able to come back with that many goals.

There was an empty netter and Bishop really gave up five Ranger goals but the fact is Bishop will be ready. He knows when it’s time to play it’s going to be a great game seven. For the Rangers goaltender Hendrik Lundqvist’s history shows how amazing he is in game sevens and he’s one of the best game seven goalies in the last ten years with a record of 6-1 in game sevens.

The fact is Lundqvist can put a team on its back and of course you always like your players to give you some protection up front and Lundvquist is the kind of goalie that can steal a game.

Joe Lami does the NHL Stanley Cup analysis join Joe for the podcast below and also next week right here at http://www.sportsradioservice.com