Our days of NBA fantasy leagues may be over, but I’m catching NBA fever again.

With less than 10 games left in the regular season, the Lakers have locked in the top spot in the Western conference and will almost certainly pound Mark Cuban’s Dallas squad in the first round. The six other Western-conference playoff-bound teams - Spurs, Nuggets, Rockets, Trailblazers, Jazz, and Hornets - are only separated by two games in the loss column. While all of them would love to have the two seed, they should be careful not to get the fifth seed, which would mean not having home-court advantage in the first round and then getting the Lakers in round two. Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if some teams start eyeing the sixth and seventh seed, where they give up home-court advantage in the first round, but then miss the Lakers in round two.

The Lakers are the clear favorite, but there are three other contenders: Spurs, Jazz, and Hornets. The Spurs look as good as they ever have. Parker now has a reliable jumper that makes him unguardable, and Tim Duncan is still Tim Duncan. The Spurs are one of the few teams that haven’t been showing their full hand during the regular season. Even with injury problems this season, the Jazz have the second best record against teams in the Western conference, and they have the second best home record. The Hornets have Chris Paul, who is the best point guard in the league and one hell-a-smart competitor (although he’s not giving me credit for his new moves).

The East is no longer the push-over conference it has been recently, although it is easy to miss this fact. Do not focus on Phoenix, whose record could get them a 5 or 6 seed in the East, but isn’t good enough to even get them into the playoffs in the West. Instead, focus on the following: the East has a winning record against the West this season; the West doesn’t have a middle, i.e. teams are either good or they are bad; the East is almost all middle; last year’s NBA champs, the Boston Celtics, needed seven games to get out of the first and second round last year, and only six games to beat the Lakers in the finals.

Team Lebron looks close to earning home-court advantage through the entire playoffs. The other seeds are still up for grabs. Quite incredibly, only one team in the Eastern conference is mathematically out of the playoff race. The Celtics are hoping that Garnett can get back on his horse soon, so that they can steal the 2 seed away from Orlando. Atanta, who almost upset the Celtics in the first round last year, are in position to get the 4th seed, but their upcoming games will be tough and they are missing Marvin Williams, who is hoping to be back by the Playoffs. It doesn’t help the Hawks that Dwayne Wade’s Heat are on their backs.

Even as a Hawks fan, I must say that there are really only three contenders in the East: Cavs, Celtics, and Magic. I don’t know that the Dwight Howard is mentally ready to win four playoff series. He can really stink it up when he gets frustrated. The Celtics are almost unbeatable with Garnett, and about a .500 squad without Garnett. He’s still missing games with knee pain, so I’m thinking he won’t be in championship shape in time to make a playoff run. That leaves one clear favorite: Team Lebron. What’s scary about the Cavs is that Lebron is playing fewer minutes per game than ever before, and he usually doesn’t start putting the pedal to the metal until the fourth quarter. Anyone who has witnessed his playoff wizardry in the past knows that he can go full blast for four quarters and beat teams practically one-on-five. The Cavs have only lost one game at home this entire season, but it was to the Lakers, who swept their series with the Cavs this season.

My championship prediction: Hawks over Jazz!
Back-up prediction: Cavs over Lakers in 7

This is a tourism video produced by a historic town in northern Japan:

There are links to the rest of the videos in the Engadget post I found this on.

Rankings for the top 15 programs on cable networks for the week of March 9-15:

1. ”WWE Raw” (Monday, 10 p.m.), USA, 3.74 million homes, 5.64 million viewers.
2. ”WWE Raw” (Monday, 9 p.m.), USA, 3.45 million homes, 5.16 million viewers.
3. ”Hannah Montana” (Sunday, 7:30 p.m.), Disney, 3.25 million homes, 4.42 million viewers.
4. ”NCIS” (Monday, 7 p.m.), USA, 3.24 million homes, 4.22 million viewers.
5. ”NCIS” (Thursday, 7 p.m.), USA, 3.14 million homes, 4 million viewers.
6. ”NCIS” (Tuesday, 7 p.m.), USA, 3.07 million homes, 3.98 million viewers.
7. ”SpongeBob SquarePants” (Saturday, 9:30 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.06 million homes, 4.24 million viewers.
8. ”Wizards of Waverly Place” (Sunday, 8:30 p.m.), Disney, 3.05 million homes, 4.16 million viewers.
9. ”Sonny With a Chance” (Sunday, 8 p.m.), Disney, 3 million homes, 3.99 million viewers.
10. ”SpongeBob SquarePants” (Saturday, 12:30 p.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.97 million homes, 3.98 million viewers.
11. ”ICarly” (Wednesday, 5:30 p.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.95 million homes, 3.87 million viewers.
12. ”NCIS” (Wednesday, 7 p.m.), USA, 2.93 million homes, 3.84 million viewers.
13. ”Comedy Central Roast” (Sunday, 10 p.m.), Comedy Central, 2.9 million homes, 4.07 million viewers.
14. ”SpongeBob SquarePants” (Saturday, 12 noon), Nickelodeon, 2.88 million homes, 3.96 million viewers.
15. ”The O’Reilly Factor” (Thursday, 8 p.m.), Fox News Channel, 2.84 million homes, 3.61 million viewers.

March is here, and the madness is too is in the rear-view mirror. Holy moly!

If you missed it, here’s what you will need to tell your grandkids:
- rivals (UConn and Syracuse)
- two Hall-of-Fame coaches
- two top-25 teams (#4 UConn vs. #20)
- conference tournament game
- in Madison Square Garden and on ESPN
- UConn tied the game with 1.1 seconds left in regulation
- Syracuse heaved the ball down the entire court and a player nailed a three at the buzzer… but despite his victory dance on the scorer’s table (see picture), his shot was called off after the refs reviewed the video and determined that he released the ball 1/10 of a second after the buzzer.
- The first overtime was followed by a second, which was followed by a third, which was followed by a fourth, which was followed by a fifth, which was followed by a sixth.
- Every period except for the sixth overtime came down to a last-second shot.
- The game was 70 minutes long, almost as long as two games, and Syracuse’s star played all but three of those minutes. He said he couldn’t feel his legs after the game.
- Eight players fouled out.
- Syracuse had to call upon a walk-on who had only played 21 minutes in the entire regular season.
- Syracuse, the underdog, never lead in overtime until they took the lead in the sixth overtime, almost four hours after the game started.
- At 1:22 am, Syracuse upset UConn 127-117.

The only thing this game didn’t have was Matt Jones.

Here’s a detailed video.

I was reading this article at the New York Times and was amazed at the introduction and how something it was…

When the International Criminal Court issued its arrest warrant for Sudan’s president on Wednesday, an 8-year-old boy named Bakit Musa would have clapped — if only he still had hands.

You can read the rest here. Just thought it was a very weird and cliche introduction. Something made me laugh though as if it was from SNL even though it is a terrible terrible situation.

Violating basic principles of humility and tasteful web design, could it be that it features his robotic, yet annoying, vacant, eaglelike visage four times ?… (In addition to his menacing silhouette?!?)

Bonus link: HanniDate, which reminds me of JttM’s brief fascination (too brief, really) with Objective Ministries.

Bonus bonus link: Eagle goat drop.