Author: lleonardbw

That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary: A blast from the past the 1974-75 Golden State Warriors

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by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

Yes, I remember that championship season, and yes I covered those Golden State Warriors under coach Al Attles. After they won it all, a big celebratory rally was held at Union Square in San Francisco. I was walking a couple of blocks away from Union Square, with my big Superscope tape recorder to get some audio for the station I was working for KOFY 1050AM, then a Spanish format radio station. In those days I was also working for Dean Witter, a stock brokerage firm in the financial district. As I walked towards Union Square, I ran into Bill King, Voice of the Warriors, who was wearing short pants, purple socks and Jesus sandals. He was also going to be at the rally with the owner Franklin Meuli, Coach Al Attles and all the players. It was a happy and pleasant day in The City.

These where your 1975 NBA Champion Golden State Warriors. They ended the regular season with a 48-34 record and defeated the Seattle Supersonics on the Western Division Conference Semifinals; then went on to beat the Chicago Bulls in the Western Conference Finals, and finally they shocked the NBA by sweeping the Washington Bullets in four games during the NBA Finals.

Rick Barry was the Most Valuable Player 29.5 points per game. Jamaal Wilkes aka Silk, Phil Smith, from the University of San Francisco (whose father was a cable car operator in San Francisco) Derek Dickey, Jeff Mullins, Charles Johnson, Butch Beard, the intimidating Clifford Ray, George Johnson with a great Afro hairstyle, Charles Dudley, Bill Bridges and Steve Bracey.

This bunch beat the heavily favorite Washington team that under coach K.C Jones finished with a 60-22 record. Wes Unseld, Kevin Porter, Phil Chenier, Mike Riordan, Clem Haskins, Nick Weahterspoon, Truck Robinson, Dick Gibbs, Tom Koselko and Dennis DuVal.

In 1975, the President of the United States was Gerald R. Ford and the Vietnam War came to an end. A gallon of gasoline in the United States was .44 cents, the average price of a new automobile was $4,250, average cost of a new home was $39,300, average income per year was $14,100, average monthly rent was $200, the Cincinnati Reds won the World Series, “The Big Red Machine”, in the American League, the Oakland A’s won the Western Division with 98-64, while in the National League the San Francisco Giants finished in third place in the West with a 80-81 record.

Where were you in 1975? Where you yet to be born? Or where you in the Bay Area when the Warriors won their first NBA title.

It is good to remember.

Good luck to the 2014-15 Golden State Warriors, in their quest for their second world title.

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

That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary: Can the Giants repeat for a fourth series title tying the A’s four trophies?

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by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

ANAHEIM–I was recently invited to a local elementary school in the East Bay for Career Day. I was invited to talk to the kids (fourth graders) about broadcasting and my career in the business. The regular questions were asked, but one student asked me – when are the Athletics going to win the World Series. When I told him -and the class- that they have won a total of four(4) “one more than the Giants”they looked at me like I just arrived from the planet Mars. Even their teacher(after I have spoken) told me she didn’t know that.

Interesting, that in a world where you can Google anything and in 20 seconds find an answer, there are probably many people in the Bay Area that believe that the Giants have won more World Series than the Athletics. A lot has to do with the Giants propaganda, their beautiful stadium and ,of course, they have won three times in the last five years, but you would think that the Bay Area awash in Orange and Black would understand that there is another Major League team, that has been playing on Oakland since 1968. What came to my mind immediately is the old Janet Jackson song “What Have You Done for Me Lately”. And I can understand that. After all; how many cars were carrying those little Giants flags, before 2010?

But, can the Giants win another World Series this year and tie the Oakland Athletics Bay Area baseball record of four World Series titles?(1972,1973,1974,1989). The saying going around is that “the Giants win the Series every two years”, and that of course is just kidding. But that is what they have done during the past five seasons.

It is way too early to come to any conclusions, with approximately 45 games played by each of the thirty teams in Major League Baseball. Some teams have already started making trades to “fix”their weaknesses, others have not. The Giants ended the Casey McGehee experiment, for the time being, as they sent the third baseman to Sacramento(AAA)but there still is a chance he comes back to the Giants if Frank Duffy doesn’t do as well as many expect in the organization. And as well as things have gone for the Giants in the recent past, McGehee might comeback and be a hero in the postseason. I wonder if these same kids in this classroom remember Travis Ishikawa? Most people had no idea who was Ishikawa until that homerun.

The biggest advantage for the Giants is that they cannot lose this year to the favorite division foes Los Angeles Dodgers. Recently they have swept the Dodgers at Dodger Stadium and at AT&T Park. Still many games left, but something is happening where not even the great Clayton Kershaw can beat the Giants in 2015. This could become “mental”for the Dodgers. Baseball is a funny game, Angel Pagan is a key player for the Giants,we all know that, yet since Hunter Pence arrived from the disabled list, the team caught fire. Can the Giants pitching hold on for the next four months? Can Pagan’s back stay healthy? What kind of Matt Cain(when he comes back)the Giants will see? These, and many other questions will remain unanswered as the season makes it to the half way point, in mid-July and the All Star Game takes place in Cincinnati with Pete Rose involved in some capacity during the celebrations.

Baseball will teach everybody patience, things happen and not in a hurry, it takes time to develop a rally, sometimes a player doesn’t do well half way inside a season, and then in the second half that same player goes nuts and carries the team. I saw Mike Trout the first time the LA Angels brought him up from the minors, he could do little right, they sent him back down. We all know today who is Mike Trout.

There are many so-called experts in the game of baseball, but most of these experts could have never predicted the Giants winning three World Series. The Giants moved to San Francisco in 1958 and won their first World Series in 2010, for those counting, it took 52 years. Talking about patience? Many Giants fans I knew died before they could win the first of three titles. And I know people that work for the Giants organization that admitted to me, that they never expected to win this many in this short amount of time. Some even told me “we were lucky”.

So here we go again, although It might look like the Western Division of the National League will be between the Giants and the Dodgers, please do not forget about the San Diego Padres. One of these three teams will win the west. If you think otherwise, I suggest some serious therapy.

But, in a way, I can understand, since the Giants propaganda and publicity especially by winning three World Series since 2010, gives the impression to many that they have won the most.

NOTE: Today here at Angel Stadium in Anaheim prior to the third and last inter-league game between the Angels and the Padres I had the pleasure of talking with legendary sportscaster Dick Enberg, who recently won the Ford C. Frick Award Hall of Fame for boadcasters. Enberg is the television play by play announcer for Padres baseball, and his booth was next to mine.He threw the ceremonial first pitch yesterday, and he threw it well,but today he told me his arm was “acting up”. Here in Southern California, Dick Enberg has been one of the most popular guys behind the mic, for many decades and people like Joe Torre, Dave Niehaus and Don Drysdale joined him during many baseball broadcasts. A great guy Dick Enberg. Oh My! Congratulations!

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

Oakland A’s & San Francisco Giants podcast with Michael Duca: Was Braden’s 2010 Mother’s Day perfecto tainted with doctored balls?

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by Michael Duca

OAKLAND–If anyone is thinking just because former A’s pitcher Dallas Braden admitted he doctored baseballs during his career and that his Mother’s Day perfect game in 2010 was tainted I say to anyone with that thinking “who cares” really who cares what people think. What people think has very little bearing on reality.

If people would think, the pitcher uses a rosin bag with his own sweat, guess what that makes? It makes pine tar, pine tar is just dried up ground pine tar. I couldn’t never understand why there was an issue about getting a grip on the baseball. It’s not like it makes the baseball do something unusual, it’s not like it’s saliva, mucus, KY Jelly, Vaseline or 1000 other things that pitchers use.

Former A’s pitcher Dave Stewart used to put Dawn soap washing liquid in the crotch of his pants and used that to make the ball slippery and no umpire was ever going to come out and check Stewart there for a foreign substance. He would use the slippery stuff on his fingers and it would make the ball dart more it makes the ball late. The way the baseball is thrown would be for what your aiming at which is a good thing for most hitters and he would not have to worry about where the ball is going.

A Barry Zito return back to Oakland is more than likely to be in September during call ups: Unlike the San Francisco Giants who honor their retired and ex players the A’s aren’t as sentimental and most likely will give Zito a send off in September after minor league call ups. The A’s will find a way in September to bring him up so he could get a nice send off from the A’s.

Zito is not having the numbers in Triple A Nashville to be brought up, he won’t be able to be called to start or relieve and his time in the show is about over. The A’s very unlikely will call up Zito before September. The A’s have one lefthander in the bullpen and that’s Fernando Abad. The theory that Zito would be called as a lefty specialist is unlikely his numbers will have to vastly improve to be brought up before September. Among other things being Zito he has to learn how to warm up, Zito’s warm up protocol has been 25 minutes long.

My memories of Barry Zito are more with the San Francisco Giants than with the Oakland A’s and he was far more successful with the A’s prior to coming to the Giants. I was more involved covering the Giants and Zito during his years there. The one memory that stands out is during the 2010 NLCS where he was benched because he had such a rough year. Zito was class he was the first guy out on the field during warm ups and batting practice and was the last guy off the field. He was there helping guys out and giving tips. Barry was class.

Michael Duca does Giants and A’s commentary each week for http://www.sportsradioservice.com listen to the podcast below

San Francisco Giants podcast with Jeremy Kahn: Giants find their stroke getting production from Pence, Duffy, Akoi, and Belt

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by Jeremy Kahn

The Giants won in stellar fashion tonight with a 6-3 win over the Milwaukee Brewers. The team since Sunday’s 11-2 loss to Colorado has been playing good fundamental baseball this is what they needed before they come home to face the Braves which starts on Thursday night at AT&T Park the Giants will be home over the next week and half.The Giants at Miller Park in Milwaukee this a park where the ball carries there and that’s what happened in Monday’s win, the ball carried for them and it happened again on Tuesday night too.

Casey McGehee who was given an option to go to triple A Sacramento or find another big league club. McGehee who was given the option on Sunday could end up playing in Sacramento. He hit into a lot of double plays (12) and hit .200 and the Giants needed to do something. They did something very quickly and I was very shocked by it but it was a great move.

Giants third baseman Matt Duffy will do a great job taking over the position. McGehee did get ample time at third base. It was like the time when they had Joe Panik move to second base. Panik is now at second base for good now and Duffy at third he’ll be okay there. You might see McGehee back up sooner or later. Definitely you’ll see him in September, who knows he might play in Sacramento and he might be there for the rest of the season until call ups.

Duffy has a good eye at the plate he’s hitting .300 and the rest of the line up has had a good eye for the ball in this series, they worked on these things in spring training and they’ve studied everyone in the organization for so long they know what is going on and Duffy will do a good job at third base.

Even though the Giants are closing in on the Dodgers it’s like we said on the last show it’s only May it’s too early to make a call on where the Giants will finish up in the NL West. The club has a lot of time to go yet and they’ve done outstanding in May by sweeping the Dodgers at home and the Dodgers didn’t even score a run as they got shutout in all three games at AT&T Park on May 19-21.

Jeremy Kahn is a San Francisco Giants beat writer for http://www.sportsradioservice.com listen to the podcast with JJ below

Oakland A’s podcast with Charlie O: A’s starting pitching getting it’s distance in recent success of wins

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by Charlie O Mallonee

OAKLAND–After putting together that three game win streak in Tampa Bay and one against Detroit in Oakland you talk about positives regarding the A’s. When you look at the overall things are still not great the club is 17-30 for the season and they are in last place in the A.L. West. The A’s are 13 games behind Houston that’s the down news.

The good news is they’ve won three games in a row that’s the longest winning streak of the season and that’s not the best thing you could say about a team but they haven’t had many winning streaks. Matter of fact when your previous winning streak was only two and you’ve won three you should be happy and that’s where the A’s are right now.

It’s kind of turned things around from where they were, their prior streak was four consecutive losses, they have lost eight of nine and they have spent 18 days now in fifth place. This three game win streak all of a sudden started to make them and the fans and even some pretty cynical reporters think maybe there’s some hope on the other side of this of what has been a dyer situation.

With the Yankees coming in on Thursday night the A’s really need to focus on the Tigers in this series and they conclude this series on Wednesday afternoon. The A’s faced Tigers pitcher David Price who threw shutout ball against A’s. They have four games coming with the Yankees and it’s going to be a tough stretch.

They’re really going to have to rely on pitching and the one thing the A’s have had go continually well for them throughout this whole dyer straights has been that the starting pitching has remained strong. If you look right now the starters have not allowed a run in the last three games and that streak ended tonight because they did give up a run to the Tigers on Tuesday night’s game.

They had gone 20.2 innings without giving up a run for the starters. That’s the thing that your looking from the starting pitching, they are 4-6 with a 2.55 ERA for the last 13 games. The starters 3.33 ERA which is the best in the American League, now your saying “wow the best in the AL how are they in last?” They also have two shutouts in the last three games which is always a help, the problem in the pitching department for the A’s has been the relief pitching.

Charlie O does the A’s podcast each week at http://www.sportsradioservice.com listen below for the podcast

That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary: Let’s face it any concussion should be approached with caution but Curry slated to start anyway for game five

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by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

The Golden State Warriors have a lot of pieces and they all fit together well and the Warriors have the best team this year in the NBA. However without Stephen Curry in the line up as he was out for part of game four on Monday night things changed quickly. When Curry was laying still after doing a semi summersault in the second quarter over the Houston Rockets Trevor Ariza in the 128-115 loss.

You don’t want that player especially in the playoffs to get injured and the Warriors are thriving now, their moving, and they got their pedal all the way down to the metal. You can not afford to have Curry out for game five on Wednesday and for the rest of this round with the Rockets.

Obviously the best news for the Warriors they have a 3-1 lead on Houston so if push comes to shove and Curry cannot play on Wednesday night in Oakland they can still lose a game and they would not have lost the series. They have a cushion a 3-1 lead that’s the best news for Golden State. The team shouldn’t rush him and he should be ready to play on Wednesday and if he’s still suffering the effects of the concussion from Monday night he should not be rushed to play.

Ray McDonald is finished with the NFL: This is the third time for a domestic violence related arrest for former San Francisco 49ers and Chicago Bears defensive end Ray McDonald with the question that begs to ask what team would want him now? McDonald was let go by the Bears on Monday and he didn’t even play one down with the team after being acquired from them during this off season.

The fact that he’s gone through this three times means he’s got a problem, he definitely has a domestic violence problem and we spoke about this on this show. In the NFL he’s not alone there are a lot of guys like him who need help. This is the third time the NFL has to take very serious action. The Bears cut him immediately and the league will probably suspend him for the rest of the season and let this man get some therapy and get some help because he needs it.

The relationship with McDonald and the Bears didn’t last very long and his career is over unless he’s really seriously gets cleaned up from that big problem that is domestic violence and it’s a bad habit and it’s a bad situation for McDonald and his family to be in. I understand why the Bears let him go and now his career is in jeopardy.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the TV Spanish voice for the Angels and the radio Spanish voice for the A’s and does News and Commentary weekly at http://www.sportsradioservice.com listen to his podcast below

San Francisco Giants podcast with Morris Phillips: The Case of McGehee .200 clip was his undoing

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by Morris Phillips

SAN FRANCISCO–When former Giants third baseman Casey McGehee 32, was let go on Sunday with the club visiting Colorado there was little surprise. McGehee with a .200 batting average and Giant third baseman Matt Duffy progressing with a .297 average things were going to soon change for McGehee’s future in San Francisco. Also there was the bone bruise that he chose not to use as an excuse saying, “everybody’s got something bothering them. Nobody’s 100 percent it’s nice of him (Giants GM Bobby Evans) to try and make excuses. If I go out there, I expect to perform” said McGehee.

It also didn’t help that McGehee hit into a Major League leading 12 of double plays and it really put him in a tough spot. Obviously you have Duffy a 24 year old whose been playing well. He’s had some taste of MLB action in the last couple of years and now he’s ready to establish himself as he hits around .299 with consistency.

Duffy has made 22 starts and he’s the guy for now, the thing that’s interesting is that the Giants lose too much financially, the Giants lose whether McGehee decides to accept a MLB assignment or not. The $4 million that was invested in him and the Giants won’t get that much back they owe him $3.5 million at this juncture in the season whether they take him back or if he decides to shop for new big league club.

There is a chance that he would accept a minor league assignment because he’s from the Santa Cruz area at the same time it’s very likely that he won’t accept that assignment and they will lose whatever money that was invested in him. From the team prospective this is good news. It’s good news that somebody has established themselves at third base in the absence of McGehee and former Giant Pablo Sandoval.

The Giants have been playing well and the Giants expect to continue to play well with Duffy holding down third base. The bone bruise had to be an issue and to his credit he didn’t make it an issue and he’s not making it as an excuse. You got to remember last year in Miami he had the fourth most hits in the National League.

So what happened for McGehee from one year to the next is his performance dropped so dramatically and the injury would be the first thing that anybody would speculate that is the problem. The other issue is that San Francisco is not conducive to offensive play. Some guys have taken well to it some guys haven’t. It’s as simple as that but in in McGehee’s case and the poor play and third base is a position of production and McGehee wasn’t giving them any of that.

Morris Phillips is a San Francisco Giants beat writer for http://www.sportsradioservice.com listen to the podcast below

Golden State Warriors podcast with David Zizmor: Rockets have Harden, Cavs have LeBron & W’s have multiple weapons

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by David Zizmor

The Houston Rockets have James Harden and he gets some help from Dwight Howard whose been injured for most of the year and they lost a couple other good players to injuries in various stretches of the season. Harden has done a lot for the Rockets in helping them achieve their success so far and that’s the main reason why some folks argue that Harden should be the MVP instead of the Warriors Stephen Curry. For a good portion of the season Harden was by himself because Howard was out hurt.

I don’t agree with them but it’s a fair case to make, Harden is a fantastic basketball player and at times is unguardable as we’ve seen in this series. If you watch that game on Thursday in the fourth quarter when Harden really got going it was nothing you could do about it. The Warriors Klay Thompson and Harrison Barnes had great coverage on Harden.

Thompson and Barnes provided good strong defense and they forced Harden to take some really difficult shots but he was hitting every single one of them. Guys that are as good as Harden go through periods like that where no matter what you do and no matter how strong your defense it’s never going to be enough.

Curry is the same way and Thompson can be the same way, Thompson scored 37 points in a quarter because of one those hot streaks, we’ve seen it plenty of times in Oakland where a Warriors player gets on fire you can’t stop them no matter what you try to do. Harden is that guy from the Rockets there’s not a lot of those guys in the league.

The Warriors are unfortunately playing several of them in this post season, like the New Orleans Pelicans Anthony Davis, the Memphis Grizzlies have some offensive players Marcus Gasol and Zach Randolph, and with this Rockets team Harden is as tough as they come before Golden State has to possibly face the Cleveland Cavaliers and LeBron.

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

Oakland A’s Podcast with Jerry Feitelberg: You could bet your Money Ball on it Billy Beane will never step down

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by Jerry Feitelberg

OAKLAND-The Oakland A’s have dropped 13 of their last 15 games, the slide continues on this current road stand after dropping two out of three in Houston and the opening game of this four game series in Tampa Bay. If the A’s were totally to slide and blame gets laid at A’s General Manager Billy Beane’s door step the only ones that can force Beane to step down are owners Lew Wolf or John Fisher.

To do that Wolf and Fisher would have to buy Beane out from his minority owner status and then fire him and that just isn’t going to happen. Beane has been pretty much an economist pretty much during his reign as A’s GM since 1998 his first season. He was pretty much on his own under former A’s owners Steve Schott and Ken Hoffman.

He’s just as independent with current A’s owners Wolf and Fisher and Beane at this point has nothing to worry about to be quite honest about it. Beane is not going anywhere. Wolf and Fisher are very please with the way that Beane has kept the payroll down and the A’s are profit making operation right now.

You have to keep in mind that if it’s Beane in Oakland or another general manager in MLB when these fellas make a deal you never know how it’s going to turn out. You study the players, you look at what you have out there and you make the deal. Sometimes it works out well and sometimes it doesn’t. The A’s took a chance on Brandon Moss who is now with Cleveland.

Moss was with the Pirates in 2008-10 and at that time he was somewhat a marginal player but he turned out to be a pretty good deal for Oakland when he joined the club in 2012. Moss had three pretty good seasons which was cut short in the last part of last season. The A’s unloaded him to Cleveland. Beane felt that the trades that he made last season were going to get him to the World Series that failed to materialize.

Going forward A’s acquisitions from last season didn’t work including with former A’s pitcher Jeff Samardzija who was sent to the White Sox in the off season. Beane also brought in Jon Lester from the Red Sox and he was trying to rebuild the club on the strength of the Samardzija deal. The A’s Marcus Semien whose hitting a little over .300 has a lot of pop in his bat but his fielding has been a lot left to be desired.

Case in point the A’s have hired former Rangers manager Ron Washington to help right the A’s defensive ship, Semien has committed 16 errors this season thus far over the course of 40 games and the A’s have brought in Washington who worked with him to improve his fielding or throwing and this is something that Beane has done to get Semien back on track.

Jerry Feitelberg is a beat writer for the Oakland A’s at http://www.sportsradioservice.com catch Jerry’s podcast on the A’s below

NHL Stanley Cup Conference Finals Podcast: Rangers can’t afford to lose Fri; Ducks edge Hawks go up 2-1

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by Joe Lami

Anaheim 2 Chicago 1: The Anaheim Ducks defeated the Chicago Blackhawks 2-1 in game three. Of the three games game two was the best that saw double overtime it was a game where you saw everything. There was a ton of shots on goal, there were a ton shots that hit the post, there was a disallowed head butt goal by Andrew Shaw of Anaheim.

The head butt shot was something that would end up with a stir amongst the NHL General Managers meeting that their not going to allow headers to be allowed. That was an amazing goal and anyone who loves hockey should watch this play, it was disallowed but the fact that Shaw was able to jump up in the air and head it on home it was absolutely amazing.

There were a lot of soccer puns that were on twitter after that play they were referring to FIFA because it was a disallowed people must have been saying he must have been thought it was soccer and a lot of soccer puns were going off on twitter. The World Cup of Hockey doesn’t start until the end of summer.

In game three for the 2-1 win you have to be looking at the Ducks Ryan Getzlaf the two helpers on both of Anaheim’s goals. Goaltender Fredrick Anderson has been really outstanding for the Ducks with another 28 saves compared to the other night whereas he was stopping everything that was coming at him.

Getzlaf is going to be the difference maker in this you could look towards goaltending in the playoffs and that’s what happens he looked for secondary scoring. The Ducks Simon Despres scored the winning goal for the Ducks at 19:05 in the second period that put them up two games to one. Getzlaf had been outstanding he’s had 14 helpers through the first two and half rounds.

You have to have your top players come out the best in the playoffs and Getzlaf is sure doing that. This is a series that could see multiple overtimes. We’ve seen one double overtime already, right now it looks like the Ducks will win the series. They were able to seal a much needed game three at United Center and now they head back to Anaheim with a one game lead to get ready to play game four.

Tampa Bay Lighting 2 NY Rangers 1: The only way the New York Rangers could keep up with the Tampa Bay Lighting is to keep the Tampa offense off the scoreboard. The Rangers won game one 2-1, in the other two games Tampa Bay put up a six spot the Lighting won it in game two 6-2. Game three ended up going overtime it was an absolute stellar of a hockey game.

The thing the Rangers really have to look out for is the Tampa power play, the Tampa power play has been absolutely outstanding and the Rangers have no stop to it. They have to play this series with no penalties. The Rangers have the speed but the Lighting are a lot faster and the Lighting have their defenseman who are quick as well.

The Rangers have speed but the Lighting have a much faster team than the Rangers. The Rangers really need to slow down a bit to claim their advantage and they have the puck below the dot and they really have to recycle the zone and slow things down because their not going to win a transition game.

Joe Lami is covering the NHL Stanley Cup Conference Finals for http://www.sportsradioservice.com listen to the podcast below