All On Luongo

No major American pro sports postseason does close like the NHL. It has the most game sevens, overtimes and nail biting finishes. Tonight, it’s the biggest game seven you can have, the title on the line. 

Game sevens for a title are rare across the pro sports landscape. There were just two in the NBA in the past decade and only one in the 90s. MLB has had two in each of the past two decades (2002 and 2001, 1997 and 1991). The NHL though has had by far the most in recent history, five since 2001. Its last in 2009 was a classic, Pittsburgh winning the cup by a goal in Detroit.

In less than an hour, the Stanley Cup’s deciding game will be in Vancouver, for which the Canucks have to be thankful. They’ve lost each of the three games in Boston by at least three goals, a combined goal differential of +14 for the Bruins. So it will come down to the man in net for the Canucks, Roberto Luongo.

In Vancouver, Luongo has looked like a world-class goalie, worthy of the 12-year, 64-million contract extension he was signed to preceding the 2009-10 season. There, he shutout the Bruins in two of the three duels. But in Boston, his goaltending has been brutal. In game four, he was pulled in the third period after letting in four goals. But giving up three goals and getting pulled just nine, yes nine, minutes into the first period of game six is almost unthinkable. Calling him Jekyl and Hyde might be an understatement. 

He’s done it before though. In the first round series against Chicago, he got the hook after giving up four goals in 21 minutes in game five. But the Canucks won it in game seven and Luongo allowed just one goal, holding strong for Alexandre Burrows to net the clincher five minutes into overtime.

The cards are stacked against Boston. In the past 20 MLB, NBA and NHL championship game sevens, the road team has won just once, Pittsburgh’s 2009 Stanley Cup. Three other Stanley Cup game sevens have been played up north in Canada, the last in Edmonton in 1987. Each of the Canadian teams has beaten its North American counterpart.

But really, this is Luongo’s biggest moment. A choke here and there’s no trip to the bench and another game for redemption. This is it. If good Luongo doesn’t show up, Vancouver stands no chance, because Boston’s Tim Thomas is consistently excellent.

The two teams have been separated by just one goal in each of the three games in Vancouver. Expect nothing different tonight. For one side, it will be a triumph that leads them to hoist the Cup. But the other will just see a mistake, one that prolongs a Cupless history or decades long drought.

Lebron, Heat, etc. Story #7281

It’s catharsis for Cleveland.

Go back nearly a year ago, the summer of The Decision, the loss of the hometown hero, the ultimate heartbreak for a city without a championship in a long  time and lacking elite stars in most sports.

Scrolling through Twitter following the Mavs’ victory, a flurry of tweets from the CavsforMavs movement filled my feed. A summer and subsequent season in no short supply of vitriol spewed toward one man, LeBron James.

The Big Three of James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh didn’t have too much trouble getting to the Finals. It took the Heat just five games to roll through the East, beating the Sixers, Celtics and Bulls. But this series turned out differently.

Unlike the previous three, Miami never got out to a two-game advantage. The Heat got up 1-0 at home, had a commanding 15-point lead in game two. But with seven minutes left in that one, Dallas altered the course of this series.

The Mavericks forged an epic comeback, an incredible performance by Dirk Nowitzki and company. The Heat followed the historic game two collapse with a win and a 2-1 lead. But again the Mavericks did not back down. They answered in game four and did more with a huge game five victory. Its backs against the wall for the first time these playoffs, Miami could not provide an answer of its own.

So a summer seeped in talk of superstars moving around to create “dream teams” and these type of trifectas forever altering the NBA landscape, it’s instead a team not many talked about in the offseason or the regular season lifting the Larry O’Brien trophy.

The key word there…team. Yes, the Mavericks have a top 10 player in Dirk Nowitzki, a guy who had one of the greatest postseasons I can remember. While Nowitzki drove this run, the guys around him were instrumental. Guys like the undrafted JJ Barea, 17-year veteran Jason Kidd, a guy Nowitzki called out Jason Terry and an offseason signing you didn’t hear much about Tyson Chandler. 

In the deciding game six, Dallas’ bench outscored Miami’s 43-20. Dallas is a better all-around team with an excellent coach in Rick Carlisle who got them to play defense good enough to match up with the Heat’s. But what people will remember from the 2011 NBA Finals outside of Nowitzki’s superb performance is James’ lack of one. He never took over the game, went quiet in the fourth quarter when Nowitzki elevated his game.

In eight seasons, James does not have many defining playoff moments. There was his complete domination of game five of the 2007 Eastern Conference Finals against the Pistons, when he scored all of the Cavs’ finals 25 points and 48 total. There was his game-winning 3-pointer with one-second left that beat the Magic in game two of the 2008 Eastern Finals. But let’s be honest, Nowitzki may have had more defining moments in this postseason alone than James has in his entire playoff career. Nowitzki scored more 4^th quarter points in the Finals then Wade and James combined.

Time and time again, James has fallen short. In Cleveland, the excuse was that he didn’t have enough talent around him. That can’t be an excuse this time playing with Wade and Bosh. Maybe James’ time will come. But right now he’s no Jordan, Bryant, even his very own teammate Wade.

He didn’t do in Cleveland, bolted and didn’t do it in Miami. He may one day but for now, Cleveland's happiness is warranted. Next step, the Cavs’ first and fourth picks and maybe someday not just catharsis but joy from a trophy coming through the streets of downtown Cleveland, a title of its own. 

Man oh Man, it's a circus!

If you didn’t like the circus as a kid, stay away…far away.  It’s Bertolt Brecht gone big top in director Brian Evans' fun and frenetic yet also philosophical reimagining of Man Equals Man.

The play, written in 1926, is by no way archaic, as Evans flings it into modern times, under a circus tent. It’s a beautifully crafted set that really does capture the circus environment, a larger than life MAN=MAN atop it all, flashing aglow at key moments.  A moving British flag platform spins the action around and lifts the characters higher on stage. 

Man is a tale of identity and the malleability of man. Galy Gay (Eb Madson) is a hap-hazard, portly porter who wobbles around the stage with little purpose to his being.  When he encounters Polly (Drew O’Bryan), Uriah (Eric Lynch) and Jesse (Justine Blocksom), a group of soldiers looking to replace a missing comrade, Jip (Zach Kopciak), he’s given one- becoming the new Jip. The next nearly two and a half hours is a quest through their travels and the transformation of a man, as they encounter leading lady Widow Begbick (Heather Petersen) and an ensemble of “natives” and other soldiers. 

Here’s where the circus comes in though. All the characters are dressed as clowns. Gay wears checkered overalls, clown shoes and a face full of white paint. The soldiers also have painted faces and colorful hair that is not something Brecht could have ever seen coming when he wrote this in the mid-1920s. It’s a surrealist aura around the stage, clown soldiers gallivanting whimsically. 

The first act delivers a good deal of laughter. Slapstick comedy is abound with Kopciak bringing the best, particularly when Jip’s head becomes stuck in a temple  and he loses a patch of his red hair. You know it’s Man Equals Man 2011-style when characters drop their shoulders down in an ode to the ‘Bernie.’ While there's a slew of silliness and slapstick, Begwick emerges, beer wagon in tow and enchants the stage. You are captivated by her every move, entranced by her red bee’s nest of hair, so voluminous it could very well hold a bottle of beer. 

She has a Medusa-like power, wooing Bloody Five (J.P. Politz) into a sensual standstill as the lights go down. But, then, like the play itself offers a series of surprises, Bloody Five catapults out of his trance and back into his tough guy character. 

Petersen exquisitely delivers a number of monologues giving some guidance to the feverish goings-on.  Madson also does an adequate job providing the more insightful lines of dialogue that really make you think. He says, “be the way that people want you to be...because it’s so easy.” In that line, he so perfectly encapsulates the transformation of his character from Galy to Jip. 

Following the intermission, that change goes into full force. Madson’s jolly early demeanor descends into the dark world of a deadly soldier.  Jip’s nothing like Gay and Madson smoothly transitions to a vastly different character as the play also gains a much darker tone. You’re left to ponder what is one’s identity, who is man, and if everybody is really the same. But the time it takes to get to the narrative’s conclusion drags on. While the first act is engaging, the second slogs along with not enough thought-provoking moments to outweigh the unnecessary. 

Evans' vision of Man Equals Man is surrealist, even Kubrick-esque. The colors and dark nature are reminiscent of some aspects of the Kubrick classic A Clockwork Orange. There’s a similar bit of mind manipulation and transformation that occurs to Alex present in Man.  

Man Equals Man is not equivalent to perfection, just as its characters’ identities are imperfect. It borders on the cusp of going too far over-the-top but remains visually engaging throughout.  Man’s a bag of popcorn with a few kernels unpopped but mostly pretty tasty and definitely not burnt.