Merry Christmas!

We had lots of gifts given to us and actually many more to come, believe it or not. Christmas day presented us with NBA action and next week (New Years) will give us the college football playoff. But let's cover the NBA first, shall we? Christmas day featured some great games. GREAT games. Here are the scores of the best day of the NBA regular season:
-Heat 94, Pelicans 88 (OT)
-Bulls 105, Thunder 96
-Warriors 89, Cavaliers 83
-Rockets 88, Spurs 84
-Clippers 94, Lakers 84
The big game of the day was the one between the Warriors and the Cavs, a rematch of last season's finals. Though it was a defensive battle, as you see from the score above, the Warriors came out on top thanks to just enough great shooting and a poor field-goal percentage on the part of the Cavaliers. I was not able to watch the other games on Christmas, but click here to see other highlights and stats from those games. Could this be a precursor to the playoffs this year? We'll wait and see. I think the Heat are the main challenger to dismantle the Cavaliers after their performance against the Pelicans. It will be tough to do, but if anything is going to happen, it needs to be now if Erik Spoelstra wants to get the best out of the remaining years out of Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh.

Baseball has quieted a lot since the winter meetings, though a few large transactions have been made in the past week. Daniel Murphy, the second baseman who clubbed home runs in five straight postseason games for the Mets this year, has signed with the rival Nationals for three years, $37.5 million. Since the nation's capital was not able to get Brandon Phillips (he did not waive his no-trade clause) via trade, they took the route of free-agency and took one of the top second basemen off of the market. In other news, Mike Leake, former Giants and Reds pitcher, has signed with the St. Louis Cardinals for 5 years, $80 million. This greatly boosts that St. Louis rotation as they are almost ready to field a team for 2016.

In the NFL, many teams are positioning themselves for a push towards the playoffs. In fact, the Redskins have clinched themselves a position in the playoffs as of tonight when they beat the Eagles. That must have been a great gift to them. Now the Panthers have already clinched home-field advantage throughout the NFC playoffs, these final two weeks will position teams into their individual playoff spots.

In the world of college football, the bowl season sure has had some great games thus far. Next week is when the fun really begins when we have the playoff games to see who will play in Glendale, Arizona on January 11 for a chance at the title. Comment below to tell me who you think will win it all out of the four teams: Clemson, Alabama, Michigan State or Oklahoma.

Happy 50th!

This is to commemorate the fiftieth post for my blog. I would like to give a special thank you for those consistent readers. It means a lot whenever you read this and especially through comments.

Bowl season starts tomorrow! This exciting time of year counts down to new years eve where the college football playoff games will bring excitement and anticipation. Refer to the bowl schedule for your favorite team's game. The season gets off to an exciting start with BYU taking on Utah along with two other games. I personally am excited to be able to see what happens this weekend and heading into bigger games next week.

In the NBA, the Golden State Warriors finally lost! It's not like I was looking forward to them losing, I was just wanting it to happen quickly and get it out of the way because it was only inevitable that they would lose sometime. It's funny because they lost to the Bucks who went on to lose to the Lakers. I think that makes the Lakers better than the Warriors, does it not? Probably not. It's just fun to think about. The Cavaliers look to be great again (not like we didn't know that already). They beat the Thunder last night and the Celtics the previous night. Right now, other than the Warriors and Cavaliers, which team looks to be the best? Feel free to comment your opinion below.

The NFL is going strong as well. The teams that have officially dropped from contention are staying there while there are those that are positioning themselves as the best in the league with only a few weeks left in the regular season. It seems pretty easy at this point who will make the playoffs with a first round bye. Those hunting for a game in the divisional round are still clawing and scratching to get there. Those teams include the Steelers, Texans and Broncos in the AFC, with the Vikings and Seahawks the favorites in the NFC. In other news, the stadium issue will officially be resolved in January with the owners voting to see which team(s) will head to Los Angeles to start a new market there. It is looking more and more like the Chargers will be leaving. As for the other two teams, I am not sure. But we will wait and see. There is no question one team will be in Los Angeles in 2016. You can mark my words. If I am wrong, however, then you can blame me.

The MLB hot stove has cooled down considerably as Jason Heyward has signed with the Cubs. The only other major deal going down this past week has to be that of Johnny Cueto heading to the Giants for $130 million over six years. With Bumgarner already in San Francisco and Jeff Samardzija signing on last week, the signing of Cueto propels the Giants as favorites in a very competitive division with the Dodgers and D-Backs right in the thick of things. I just hope there is enough breathing room for the Padres to sneak in the back door and perhaps snag a surprise playoff birth. We still have lots of work to do to get there, but we will just have to wait and see. That should do it for this week's blog post. Tune in next week on Christmas day for your NBA Christmas jam!