Howard has tech rescinded? Shocker

No surprise here as Dwight Howard's technical from last night has been rescinded. Not because he deserved to have it taken away, after all he was taunting Anderson Varajeo after a dunk, but because David Stern doesn't want to have one of his most recognizable stars in the league miss a game due to suspension.

With the Cavaliers, AKA LeBron James' team, in jeopardy of not reaching the finals, the last thing the league wants is to risk Orlando's only superstar not playing a game in the finals that the Lakers or Nuggets would dominate.

More overrated: 2008-09 Cleveland Cavaliers or Dwight Howard?

If I've learned anything from the Eastern Conference Finals it's that the Cavaliers and Dwight Howard are in a fight to be the most overrated story of the season - series loser taking the title.

For all the hype of LeBron James' shot to win Game 2, it should be negated - not in history but at least in terms of this postseason - by the Cavaliers play in the series' first, third and fourth games.

Largely untested in rolling to an 8-0 start to the postseason including an all-time record of eight consecutive double-digit wins, you would expect them to be rusty in Game 1 of this series, but not to lose just their third home game of the season (and only the second in which they played their starters.)

If it wasn't for LeBron's huge shot, there would have been talk about a sweep going into tonight's Game 4 and the notion that the 2008-09 Cavaliers may be one of the most overrated teams in recent history. (That discussion should come to fruition after tonight's result.)

It was the same LeBron who looked skittish at the end of Game 3, taking bad shots and yielding a turnover that essentially sealed the loss. I don't blame him, the ever-deserving league MVP, but his team as a whole, and especially head coach Mike Brown. The coach of the Harlem Globetrotters could have done a better job getting the Cavs to close out on 3-pointers last night - especially Rashard Lewis's go-ahead shot before LeBron's gift free throws that sent the game to overtime. (I don't know what was worse, that call or not giving Howard two free throws after he was undercut by Anderson Varajeo with 0.5 seconds left in regulation.)

From the embarrassing Finals sweep at the hands of the Spurs to an inability to win Game 7 against Boston last year and now a slow start in the second-biggest series of James' career, the clues have been there. And don't forgot the one team that won in Cleveland during the regular season when its starters played - the Los Angeles Lakers, also won the season series 2-0 by a combined 27 points.

Losing to an experienced and heavily favored Spurs team in 2007 as well as a destined and talented Boston team last season is completely understandable. But after starting the season 43-1 at home with its starters (including the playoffs) the last thing anyone expected was for the Cavs to be in a 3-1 hole to a team that lost its starting point guard - Jameer Nelson - halfway through the season, with that single win because of the greatest shot in the young career of one of the top two players in the league.

(Much credit due to acquired-from-Houston-guard Rafer "Skip to My Lou" Alston for keeping the Magic among the East's elite.)

For all the criticism Magic head coach Stan Van Gundy gets for making bad decisions under pressure, he's gotten his team pretty far despite being written off after losing Nelson.

Partially to credit for that 3-1 advantage is Dwight Howard, despite being the most overrated player in the league. He has one move, no touch around the basket and a poor attitude, as evidenced by his postseason-leading six technical fouls - one shy of a suspension.

He is an athletic freak (who should've won the dunk contest for the third time) and the best shot blocker in the game, even if he makes no effort to control where those blocked shots end up. The only exception would be when he eats them for jump balls like he did to James at the end of overtime tonight.

But too often Howard takes himself out of the game mentally because he's disappointed in the refs, his teammates, his coach, or maybe even the Magic dance team. It never seems, however, that he is genuinely upset with himself.

And in case you haven't noticed, Dwight Howard disappears offensively in the fourth quarter of big games. Fourth quarter points this series in Game 1: four; Game 2: zero; Game 3: eight (all eight on free throws on his home court); Game 4: one.

That's 13 points total in four games, nine of them on free throws. He is averaging 0.5 field goals per fourth quarter. I said, the starting center for the Eastern Conference All-Star team is averaging one fourth quarter field goal for every two games this series.

(Kobe Bryant's fourth quarter totals for each Western Conference Finals game, in order: 18, eight, 12 and 14.)

And if you didn't notice how Howard scored all his points in overtime tonight, it was straight bullying. Not that there's anything wrong with that, get your points how you can, but that's going to catch up to him more often than not, especially when a team plays better defense so that he's not left wide open with no chance to take a charge.

Regardless of who wins this series, the Cavaliers as a whole and Howard as a player will look like impostors against Los Angeles or Denver. The Cavs probably need a solid veteran to compliment James, Mo Williams, a hard-nosed but streaky Delonte West, the volatile Anderson Varejao and the rest of the cast to be true title contenders.

Howard on the other hand needs an attitude adjustment and probably an improvement in work ethic as well.

If the Lakers can get past the Nuggets, the door will be wide open for Bryant to win his fourth NBA title and send the Cavs or Howard back to the drawing board.

---

(For the record I think Howard is more overrated simply because James is a great player who gets better every day and makes the Cavs a contender, albeit an overrated one.)

Sidenote: Michael Jordan wouldn't have lost the NBA Finals last year the way Kobe's Lakers did, and he wouldn't perform the way LeBron has this series against the Magic*. Just further proof that there may never be an heir to his throne.

*Turnover prone at the end of games and unable to make free throws. In other words, MJ would have found a way to be up 3-1 or at least tied 2-2 in this series, no matter what the supporting cast.

Another new Post-Up Blog the a.m. at FrederickNewsPost.com

Low blow on Kobe by Denver columnist

Turns out the people of Denver still haven't forgiven Kobe Bryant, at least not Mark Kiszla.

Bryant scored 30 points last night (despite missing eight minutes due to foul trouble) and led what almost amounted to one of the greatest comebacks in NBA Finals history, yet Kiszla's Denver Post headline indicates that Bryant failed.

That headline turned out to be a prelude to a masked bashing of the greatest player on the planet.

Kiszla couldn't disagree more though, what with his apparent ranking of Bryant as the fourth-most valuable player in the league: "While there were probably more deserving candidates from among New Orleans guard Chris Paul, Boston forward Kevin Garnett and LeBron James of Cleveland, this season's MVP award was given to Bryant, apparently in recognition for finally reaching maturity at age 29."

Give me a break. (Personally my MVP ballot would have read: 1. Kevin Garnett 1-A. Kobe Bryant 3. Chris Paul 4. Tim Duncan 5. LeBron James.) But how can you honestly put Kobe anywhere outside of the top two, or even three players? And questioning his maturity? There's a big difference between being highly-competitive and simply immature (an unfortunate, but not overbearing facet of most competitive people.)

Here's another favorite line of mine: "Bryant did score 30 points in Game 2, but is shooting an unremarkable 41 percent from the field in the series."

Sooo, you're criticizing his field goal percentage "in the series," so far -- a series that is only TWO games long? That's a reach that Inspector Gadget couldn't even make.

And one final dig that made absolutely no sense: "But the league MVP never got a meaningful touch of the basketball again while the Lakers desperately searched for a way to steal a victory during the last precious ticks on the scoreboard clock."

Well no kidding, Mark. You're completely correct, the league MVP should have the ball in his hands at the end of a close game, but you have to blame Sasha Vujacic for shooting a hybrid fadeaway-side-shuffling-off-balance-desperation 3 as Kobe stood open on the right wing.

Did Bryant grimace at his teammate for taking the shot? Of course he did, but not before going in for a rebound looking more possessed than Arnold Schwarzenegger in End of Days.

Bryant scored nine of LA's last 15 points -- all in the final 2:53 -- and had 13 points and five assists in the fourth quarter. If that's not doing his part to help the team win, if that's failure, then LeBron was a failure when he scored 45 points in a game 7 loss to Boston on May 18.

OK, so Kobe's not perfect. But neither is the Pope. It would be nice if the analysis of his performance this postseason was not only objective, but inspired purely by his play on the court, instead of his foreplay in the past.

One before Two except after C and in the NBA

Two things are really bothering me today. The first one is the fact that the NBA starts second-round games before all the first-round series have played out. i.e. game one of Magic vs. Pistons followed by game one Suns vs. Spurs on TNT right now, which precedes Hawks vs. Celtics game seven tomorrow.
The second thing that bothers me is that I never realized the NBA did this in the past. I'm pretty sure MLB and the NHL don't do something so stupid. And obviously with one-game rounds neither does the NFL.
So how is it fair to have two mildly rested teams begin the second round while one of the teams on the other side of the bracket in the conference has to play a game seven before a quick turnaround to begin the second round themselves?
This is like walking a bride down the aisle with the best man ready at the altar, but not the groom.
This serves as one more reason why the general sports fan has a hard time putting the NBA on the same level as the NFL, and even MLB for that matter.

Wammi Youuu: Crank dat DeShawn

On a night when Soulja Boy attends the Wizards-Cavs game, Carlos Boozer knocks Carl Landry's tooth out, a courtside Jazz fan gets tossed for reasons I still am not clear about and Tracy McGrady scores his first fourth quarter field goal of the series, I wonder why some people still refuse to accept the NBA Playoffs as one of the great sports spectacles.
Caron Butler even did a little crankin' after his and-one late in a game that was well out of hand at the time. I can't wait to see how DeShawn Stevenson responds to his own performance last night. He'll probably attribute the success to his mentor Soulja Boy while LeBron AKA Jay-Z was unable to carry his team to a 3-0 series lead.
Back to McGrady for a second though -- he is a sad excuse for a playoff baller. That brick he threw up at the end of the game was embarrassing. Charles Barkley's golf swing is pretty than McGrady's fourth quarter playoff performances.
I'm still not sure how the Rockets managed to win this game. After Kyle Korver hit that three to bring the Jazz within what I think was four points (93-89?), it looked as if the Western Conference Semifinals would only take eight games combined.

In the East, I think if the Wizards really want to have a shot, they should sign Frank Thomas and have him go Marty McSorley on LeBron and save Brendan Haywood the technicals. Otherwise he's going to come back more pissed off than ever for the rest of the series en route to a rematch with the Pistons in the Eastern Conference Finals.

And speaking of McSorley/hockey, can we just skip to the Penguins-Red Wings already? Someone tell me A. Who will stop Sidney Crosby B. Who will stop Detroit C. Who in their right mind would trade for Pacman Jones.

Nevermind on part C.