Thursday night in front of the TV

Celtics 89-73 Cavs (Celtics 2-0)
The Cavs started off hot and it looked like the Celtics would be sweating a little bit. But they cooled off after the 1st quarter, Lebron had another frustratingly sub-par game and the home team cruised through the 2nd and 3rd periods. Ray Allen finally tooled Wally Sczerbiak and the Celtics bench got a lot of playing time tonight. Suddenly the vulnerable Celtics are looking strong again at the right time and now the Cavs are in a must-win situation. (Snooze of a game for non-Celtic fans, truth be told)

Red Wings 4-1 Stars (Red Wings 1-0)
In the first few minutes of the match, I thought Osgood looked jumpy and out of sync in goal. My initial thought was that Dallas would have some chances to score. But Osgood settled in quickly and the Stars just never made much of the few scoring opportunities they had. As the game wore on it was the Stars that looked out of sync, off balance, they couldn't maintain possession and squandered their power play chances. The Red Wings are fantastic passers and stifling on defense. The Wings dominated this game and I suspect they'll dominate this series. Dallas did not look ready to play and Detroit punished them.

Chicago Fire 2-0 DC United
MLS players have gotten much better at controlling the ball, on-the-ball play is really vastly improved in the American game over where it was 10 years ago. The next leap forward needs to be in tactics: they control the ball, now they need to do something with it. With that in mind, DC United just struck me as a bunch of scufflers, they're not a good squad right now. They had no attack, they couldn't sustain possessions and only in the last few minutes of the match did they even pick up any meaningful scoring chances (all of which, obviously, went for naught). How much of that is simple ineptitude and how much is because they were up against the top team in the east? I couldn't say though my gut tells me DC won't be making the playoffs this year. Chicago was a better team but they didn't finish well, other than Blanco's terrific strike in the 2nd half--you'll be seeing that one on Sportscenter, though they strangely favor European highlights over American ones. They had the ball around the goal and generally didn't look scary. Blanco is perhaps the only pure scorer in the MLS right now and he showed it tonight.

Russ Roberts-John Nye
I generally listen to econ lectures or books on tape while watching sports. This is a bit of a hindrance to watching hockey because I don't know the players that well and sometimes I don't understand the foul calls. Otherwise I find I don't miss the commentary much except for the occasional out of the ordinary play (like what the hell happened to Ben Wallace?). When I listen to the announcers I usually find myself noticing only the ubiquitous product placements rather than any worthwhile observations. So throughout tonight's channel flipping I listened to Russ Roberts and John Nye discussing the evolution of European free trade in the 19th century. Here's an interesting factoid for ya: from 1750 to 1914 Great Britain did not have 1 single year of trade surplus. (Trade deficit is one of those generally worthless statistics that political types toss around because obfuscation is better than illumination. Think about it: all those burgers from Wendy's I've consumed over the years and yet Wendy's has never bought anything from me--how will I survive this crippling trade deficit? If what you buy is worth what you paid then it is an equal exchange and there is no deficit) Another point to consider: though Britain was the center of the Industrial Revolution, standard of living barely increased from 1750 to 1850. Not much of a revolution when you note that no one seems to have gotten rewarded for their effort.