The Rocket announced today that he is sorry for his “personal mistakes.” Nice touch. We’re sorry too.

We had a huge weekend in sports. I didn’t actually watch any, besides the first three quarters of the Celtics/Hawks game on Friday. My thought regarding each day:

Friday:
I’ll leave this simple: I, as well as the rest of my readers who watch/enjoy NBA Basketball won’t feel too great until the Celtics win a playoff road game because you’re probably not going to go undefeated at home in the next 3 rounds. And that’s that for Friday.

Saturday:
-To me, the biggest (best) story from Saturday was MY New Orleans Hornets winning game one over the San Antonio Spurs. Mid-Atlantic Bias has been the undisputed home of the Hornets’ bandwagon since I moved to D.C. and started this blog. The Hornets are like my child at this point. I’m just so happy for them when they win. And really, my child is better than yours at this point. I said a few months ago that they were title bound. I’m looking more and more clairvoyant as the days progress.

-The saddest story from Saturday came when Eight Belles (Place in the Kentucky Derby) was euthanized after she broke both of her front ankles at the finish line. Horse racing is one of those sports that people pay attention to once a year minimum, and 3 times a year maximum, depending on the chance that a horse is going to win the Triple Crown. It’s similar to auto racing on a much smaller scale. Everyone pays attention to the Daytona 500 or for open-wheeled racing, the Indianapolis 500, but only the real fans care about the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series 500 at Pocono presented by Cheez-It. Today, everyone is going to be very sad about Eight Belles, as they were last year with Barbaro and come two Saturdays from now, they’ll only care about Big Brown (the Derby Winner) at the Preakness (just up the road from me). What I guess is really unfortunate is that this horse’s entire life ultimately lead to its early death. When you raise a thoroughbred horse, you don’t do it to send it to the glue factory. You do it to win the Kentucky Derby. Eight Belles came up just short and sadly lost the life it probably never really had.

Sunday:
-At least the Celtics can win at home.

-The Mets/Diamondbacks series, a possible NLCS preview, came to an end with the Mets taking 2 of the 3 games in Phoenix. The Mets only loss came with Mike Pelfrey on the mound, but as we Metropolitan fans know, that is to be expected. The key stat is that the Mets rarely lose at Chase Field (formerly Bank One Ballpark). They’ve lost only twice in their last 17 games there. So if these teams face in the playoffs, remember that stat. The Mets and D’Backs are completely dissimilar beyond the fact that they are both pennant contenders. The Mets are experienced; The Diamondbacks have only one regular starter over the age of 25. The Mets have a big-name closer. You have no idea who the D’Backs‘ closer is (Brandon Lyon). The only thing that they have in common is front-of-the-rotation aces in Brandon Webb (Arizona) and Johan Santana (Queens). Time will tell whether they are the two best teams in the National League. Right now, I would say that they are.

-The boring round of the NHL playoffs came to an end. Hallelujah!

Here are my previews (more like predications for the next rounds in the NBA and NHL, beginning with the latter:

Eastern Conference Finals
Pittsburgh over Philadelphia in 5.
-In the battle of the Keystone State, the more talented team from the west end beats the team with the hot goalie from the east end. Pretty handily too.

Western Conference Finals
Dallas over Detroit in 7
-Should be a great series. The Wings are rested after dismissing the Avalanche in Round 2. The Stars are not after playing a 4 OT game last night/this morning en route to beating the San Jose Sharks in 6 games. However, I picked the Stars to come out of the West. So I’ll stick to my guns.

NBA Conference Semi-Finals (and yes, I realize that this round has already begun, but I haven’t actually watched any of the games yet, so there’s that):

Eastern Conference
Cleveland over Boston in 6
Detroit over Orlando in 4

Western Conference
Los Angeles over Utah in 5
New Orleans over San Antonio in 7

Two of those series are easy to pick. Utah has no one (Their head coach Jerry Sloan’s own words) that can defend Kobe Bryant. Utah might win one at home. Detroit is just so much better than Orlando. I can’t see the Magic winning a game unless Dwight Howard has a 30/25 game.

I’m going with my heart with the Hornets and against it with the Cavs. I’ve explained New Orleans already, so I’ll stick with the Cleveland/Boston series. I don’t think the Celtics can stop LeBron James. As I told Matt this morning, I think Zydrunus Illgauskus is the key to this series. If he can average 15 points a game, that’ll be all Cleveland needs to outscore Boston. And frighteningly enough, I think the Celtics might be emotionally drained enough to lose Game 1 at home tomorrow night.

Game O’ The Day: San Antonio @ New Orleans (Game 2…9:30 TNT). San Antonio wins this game. I don’t want that to happen.

Continue below for a special post from reader Matthew regarding the University of New Hampshire Wildcats’ Spring Football game.