"Its only a game," said my 12 year old daughter, Holly, as my wife, Claudia, my son, Ryan, and I were cheering loudly for the Phoenix Suns as we huddled around our televsion last night. Just a game, but it was a great game!

The Phoenix Suns pulled out an improbable victory over the Los Angeles Lakers, forcing a game 7 in the first round NBA playoff series. The Suns were without their best perimeter defender, Raja Bell, and Kobe Bryant scored a career playoff best 50 points. But MVP Steve Nash scored 32 points and had 13 rebounds, Tim Thomas made a three-point shot to tie the game at the end of regulation and Shawn Marion and Boris Diaw each scored six points in overtime to seal the victory. How sweet it is!

We'll be cheering loudly for the Suns again Saturday evening!

Technorati Tags: Pheonix Suns, Los Angeles Lakers, NBA

I happened across this post after reading an article on e-learning. It reminded me of a funny rat-training experience my sister had many years ago.

For an eighth grade science fair project, my sister taught a pair of white rats to play basketball. She gave a food reward to each rat when it stuffed a whiffle ball through a hoop. The rats would happily play basketball in order to get food.

All was well until the day of the science fair. That morning, the female rat gave birth to a litter of baby rats. Understandably, she refused to play basketball.

The male rat? Of course, he went right on playing basketball! What did you expect?

Tags: Rat Basketball Learning

Thanks, Sean O'Neil, for pointing out the great job being done by Sun to support the 2006 Olympics.

Tags: Sun Microsystems Olympics

You've got to love Shawn Marion.

In Phoenix's triple overtime loss to the Knick's last night, Shawn scored a career high 39 points and played 60 minutes! That's all but three minutes of the entire triple overtime game. And he snagged 14 rebounds to boot.

Effort like that is what makes the loss so heartbreaking.

Tags: Basketball Phoenix Suns Shawn Marion NBA

In the Phoenix Suns' sweetheart season last year, Joe Johnson was my favorite player - not the marquee star, but talented, consistent, hardworking and humble. He came to play every night, racking up more minutes than any Sun player. I was really disappointed when he chose to leave.

But the Hawks gave up Boris Diaw and two first round draft picks for Joe. We may have received the better end of the deal. Some pundits are talkng about Boris and Magic in the same sentence. Minute for minute, Boris is outplaying Joe. Boris leads Joe in assists and rebounds, and with last night's breakout game (31 points, 11 rebounds, five assists and a solid defensive effort against Minnesota star Kevin Garnett), is beginning to show his potential as a scorer from all over the floor.

Tags: Boris Diaw Joe Johnson Magic Johnson Phoenix Suns Atlanta Hawks NBA

How about those Phoenix Suns!

It was great last night when the Suns beat the Mavericks to win the second round of the NBA playoffs in six games and advance to the Western Conference Finals. My wife and I were attending a wedding dinner during the game, but we kept up on the score by checking in with ESPN on my Treo every few minutes!

We in Phoenix are most greatful to Mark Cuban for letting Phoenix steal away Steve Nash. With the NBA MVP at the helm, the Suns have been awesome this year.

With that, I'll bid all my good friends in Dallas "Better Luck Next Year." Eat your hearts out, guys!