NBA

The NBA Playoffs weren’t pretty last night.  There was only one game in action, but it wasn’t exactly good entertainment for basketball fans.  The Atlanta Hawks took on Cleveland on their homecourt for Game 2, and the Cavs have only lost one game at home.  Could the Hawks level the series?  Nope.  LeBron scored 27 on the night, but he didn’t have to work very hard.  The Cavs were up by 30 points in the 4th quarter, and decided to bench their entire starting line-up to give the little guys a chance.  Even the Cavs 12th man, Tarence Kinsey played 2 minutes.  The Cavs simply annhilated Atlanta, and if the Hawks don’t win Game 3 on their home floor — they’re done.  Cleveland 105, Atlanta 85.

In some other bizarre NBA news, Dallas Mavericks superstar, Dirk Nowitzki, has publicly stated that he’s going through some serious issues in his personal life, but that won’t affect his play.  “This team knows I’m a warrior”, he said.  His personal trouble comes in the form of Crystal Taylor, a woman who was arrested at his home.  Nowitzki’s lawyers hired a private investigator to research Taylor’s background, and it appears that there was a warrant for her arrest.  And she has used many aliases in the past.  The details don’t range too far beyond that, but perhaps some more developments will be released in the coming days.

MLB

And in baseball, some MAJOR news.  It turns out that Manny Ramirez, the Los Angeles Dodger slugger, has tested positive for drugs.  His punishment:  50 game suspension. This is a HUGE deal, as it is a major blow to the Dodgers offense, but more importantly, they just signed Manny to a gigantic contract this off-season so he could help them win and attract fans.  Their goal was to sell-out Dodger stadium, and now, that could be a problem.  This also puts a serious thorn in the Dodgers 2009 World Series plan.

NFL

Finally, it looks like all this Brett Favre off-season drama is over.  Thank goodness.  Last year, this dragged on for months.  This year, just a few days.  Supposedly, Favre was interested in playing for the Minnesota Vikings.  The Vikings took interest, and their head coach, Brad Childress, went to see Favre at his home in Mississippi.  Well, it turns out this was primarily media fluff, as Favre publicly stated, ‘I’m retired.  Thanks but no thanks’.  And that puts an end to both Favre’s career (for now), and also about 50% of sports radio talk around the country.