WHAT A GAME!

Well, that was something. I'm still trying to rest my voice after watching this great thriller of a game. And there's nothing in sports in this continent that matches the intensity of a one-game playoff to decide a champion, and it's gonna come in my favorite sport. This is the 6th time in my nearly 30 years of my life that the NBA will have a game 7, and it would not have been possible without tonight's game 6. There were times tonight where I thought this would be the last NBA game until preseason in October, and there were times where I raised my voice at my TV during the key moments of the 4th quarter and overtime. The last couple of games in this have been blowouts, and that doesn't really translate into good television. But whenever the outcome is in doubt in a postseason game with a title at stake, it always produces some of the best television anywhere and always puts fans on the edge of our seats...nothing like it.

I would probably wonder where tonight's game ranks with other championship thrillers in recent years. There's Game 6 of the 2011 World Series that Bob Costas called the best game in a team sport in recent years that had echoes of a similar game 6 25 years earlier that folks in Boston don't even want to talk about. There was that Super Bowl in Tampa that if it weren't for Santonio Holmes' tip-toe TD in the last minute, then Larry Fitzgerald's run to daylight would've changed the course of history. Or just last year when Manchester City scored two goals in stoppage time to take the 2012 English Premier League title away from crosstown rivals Manchester United by the tiebreaker of goal difference. And there's some others too: the Vancouver gold medal hockey game & Sidney Crosby becoming a national hero, Tiger winning at the '08 U.S. Open, Nadal beating Federer in that summer's Wimbledon men's final, the relay in Beijing, numerous Stanley Cup playoff & March Madness games, and so many others events too many for me to mention in this short post.

Well, we've seen a lot of postseason thrillers this spring & summer in both the NBA Playoffs and in the Stanley Cup, including that incredible Boston comeback that folks in Toronto have still not gotten over. Tonight's NBA Finals Game 6 is a sure nominee for that ESPY award for Game of the Year, and it's certainly gonna grab my vote. And considering my buddy-buddy friendship with a good part of the twitter community, it's also a good warmup for what I'll be in when The Challenge: Rivals 2 premieres. And a good start to a summer that includes a trip to Vegas & maybe seeing some NBA Summer League games and/or running into those at the USAB national team development camp too.

Final words for you... NBA Finals. Game 7. Thursday night. I. Seriously. Can't. Wait.

- DC