Sport and Cinema.com

In the fall of 1993, in his prime and at the summit of the sports world, Michael Jordan walked away from pro basketball.

After leading the Dream Team to an Olympic gold medal in 1992 and taking the Chicago Bulls to their third consecutive NBA championship the following year, Jordan was jolted by the murder of his father

In a renewal of one of sports history’s greatest rivalries, Boston and Los Angeles meet yet again for the NBA crown. Beginning this week at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, a new chapter begins as the Lakers and Celtics meet for the second time in three years, and the 12th time overall.

PG Steve Nash, Mavericks-Suns
SG Kobe Bryant, Lakers
PF Tim Duncan, Spurs
SF LeBron James, Cavaliers
C Shaquille O’Neal, Lakers-Heat-Suns-Cavaliers

A day after Boston took game one over Orlando in the Eastern Conference Finals on the road, Phoenix comes to Los Angeles to begin play at the Staples Center for the right to advance to the NBA Finals.

In clinching their first round playoff series against Chicago Tuesday night, the Cavaliers did not look like the runaway freight train that carried them through the regular season.

The strain on Kobe to carry a team that was supposed to lean more on Ron Artest and Lamar Odom has been evident down the stretch. The health concerns of Andrew Bynum will likely increase the burden on Bryant. For the Thunder to have a shot, they will need to have Russell Westbrook step up as it is likely that Kevin Durant will be slowed from the attention showered on him by the Lakers D.

The former Laker guard, now running the point for Guangdong of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA), is hoping to carry his Southern Tigers to the league title as they play the Xinjiang Flying Tigers in the championship series beginning today.
The force behind Xinjiang’s team is Mongolian center Mengke Bateer, the first Chinese player to start for an NBA team and the first to win an NBA championship (San Antonio Spurs, 2003).

Nee-How Ma from Beijing where your intrepid reporter has scaled the Great Wall, survived the worst sand storm in four years as well as meals of boiled seaweed, spiced jellyfish and pickled shark intestines (and that’s breakfast!) to relay a bit of sports history I witnessed here Sunday night.

The first decade of the twenty-first century has come to a close and there have been some outstanding squads from all the team sports.

You recently witnessed a dominating run by the New York Yankees who became the only team of the decade to win 100 games and the World Series.

Sport and Cinema’s 2009 Holliday Book Picks Historically the “toy department” has been a rich source for literary products and for those looking to find something to satisfy the voracious reader on their shopping list, here are some titles bound to produce smiles under the Christmas tree: