John’s Blog - Coast To Coast

I hope each and every one of you had a very happy leap day!  February 29th comes but once every four years… for any of you that happened to be born on this day, well it’s a rare chance to actually celebrate your birthday on your date of birth!

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There was little doubt that the Lakers would take care of business against the Miami Heat at the Staples Center tonight for their 10th straight win. The only real question was just how bad the carnage would be. The Lakers quite honestly weren’t at their best, and didn’t always seem focused. Then again, the Heat had only won 10 games the entire season coming in, so the Lakers didn’t need to be at their best (or close to it). The Lakers had control of the game with a double-digit lead throughout, ending the game on a 9-0 run after a Dwayne Wade 4-point play to win 106-88. UCLA alumni Jordan Farmar poured in a career high 24 points, while Kobe scored 21 points, dished out eight assists and had four steals. Four Lakers grabbed dougle-digit rebounds: Ronny Turiaf, Luke Walton, Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom. The latter two also scored 13 points a piece for double-doubles. Tomorrow night the Lake Show travels to Portland to take on the Trailblazers at 7:30 pm.

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Yes, I know it’s only been four days since my last Leona Lewis update, but things are moving rather swiftly here in America as “Bleeding Love” continues to make waves EVERYWHERE!

Since I last wrote, “Bleeding Love” has ascended to #21 on the iTunes chart. Up 11 more spots the past four days! Yes, the cracking top 20 seems to be just a matter of hours away!

The radio airplay story on “Bleeding Love” continues it’s slow, yet steady development. It’s now up to #35 on the Mediabase pop chart, despite being played on barely half of the nation’s major top 40 music stations. It’s a similar story on the rhythmic chart, where it’s at #47 on the chart with less than 30% of the panel’s reporters playing it. Long story short is there’s A LOT of room for growth for “Bleeding Love” here on American radio, and once the buzz really starts getting huge, watch out!

The video outlets are also continuing to HUGELY be into Leona. VH1 is showing the video for “Bleeding Love” twice a day, and now even FUSE TV has begun playing it!

Some of you have asked me how to best support Leona. I have received several good suggestions and ideas from many of you. I’ll mix them in with some of mine and with our combined efforts, we can really make this bird fly!

For starters, if you have not already done so, please spend a dollar or so buy “Bleeding Love” off of iTunes or some similar site.

Also, if you happen to be one of the lucky ones who is hearing “Bleeding Love” on your local radio station, tell them how much you LOVE the song and also make sure to request it! If your station isn’t playing it yet, politely ask them to start!

Another great way to support “Bleeding Love” is to vote for her on weekly on VH1’s top 20 video countdown. The first week out, she got enough votes to be #7 in the countdown!!! Last week though, she didn’t make the top 20! So, let’s get to voting and get her back on the countdown where she belongs!

Leona also has a Myspace and a Facebook account, so add her as a friend and also get “Bleeding Love” on your profile so that your friends, family and other visitors can hear it!

If you happen to be a fellow blogger, make links to Leona’s official website and also Leona’s AMAZING fansite as I’ve done!!! On these two sites you can listen to all of Leona’s music, see pictures of her, and discuss her on forums and much much more!

Lastly, and definitely not least spread the word to anyone and everyone not covered in the above - tell your friends and family about this GREAT new artist you’ve “discovered.” If you can bring your IPOD to work with you and listen to it like me, make sure you let all of your co-workers get a listen to her amazing set of pipes!

Also, don’t forget to mark April 8, 2008 on your calendar - this is when Leona’s long-awaited Spirit album will finally be available for purchase here in the States! You can also pre-order Spirit here on Amazon.com

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Watching the Los Angeles Lakers play basketball is quickly becoming the equivalent of watching Tiger Woods golf. Simply put, they’re almost unbeatable - and even if their star player gets ejected without just cause. Kobe Bryant earned his first ejection of the season tonight in Seattle with four minutes to play in the third quarter. Official Brian Forte threw Kobe out for complaining that he didn’t call a foul on a Supersonics defender when he was hit hard while trying to grab an offensive rebound. It hardly mattered though as the Lakers were up 88-57 at the time and cruised to their eighth straight win, routing the home team 111-91. Kobe tossed in 21 points and dished out 10 assists in his 26 minutes of action and Pau Gasol added 22 points and grabbed seven boards. Lamar Odom had yet another double-double with 19 points and 11 rebounds.

With the win, the Lakers are now all alone as the number one seed in the Western Conference with a 39-17 record. In the meantime, the post-Shaq trade “solar eclipse” continues in Phoenix as the Detroit Pistons just ROUTED the Suns by a 116-86 score. It got so bad that the fans were actually booing the Suns before game’s end. How did Shaq-fu do? Try seven points and 11 rebounds… The seven points only told part of the story as he made only one of eight foul attempts.

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PGA tour player J.B. Holmes was thisclose to earning himself the nickname “Dragonslayer” in a short span of 18 days. On February 3rd, he birdied the 18th hole and the first playoff hole to down the world’s #2 player, Phil Mickelson in the FBR Open. In Wednesday’s first round of the Accenture Match Play Championship, Holmes had the world’s #1 player, Tiger Woods on the ropes. The 64th ranked player in the field was up on Tiger by three holes with five to play. Somehow, the Tiger wriggled free with a birdie-birdie-birdie-eagle sequence to turn the tables and move forward. So close, yet so far away… Holmes has to continue to settle for the name “Philslayer,”… somehow that just doesn’t have the same ring to it as “Dragonslayer.”

Tiger made it through that trial and a couple of other close calls to get into today’s 36 hole final match against his good friend, Stuart Cink. Not surprisingly, Tiger displayed his typical Sunday closer form, blitzing Cink with birdies early and often. Both players birdied the first hole… and that was as close as the match would be. Tiger birdied five of the next 10 holes to take a commanding 5-up lead through 11. Cink did manage to briefly make it a match again, trimming the Tiger lead to 3-up as he birdied 12 and 16, while Tiger was in the midst of making five straight pars. Birdies by Tiger on the 17th and 20th holes quickly extended the lead back to a 5-up advantage. After both players bogeyed the par-5 fifth (23rd) hole, Tiger effectively closed out with birdies on the 24th, 25th and 26th holes. Cink did manage to have a lone highlight, curling in a long 40-foot eagle putt on the 28th hole, doing a mock “Tiger pump” in celebration. Tiger had a putt of the same length and nearly holed it as well. The match ended on the next hole as Tiger stuck his approach shot to within two feet of the pin (the birdie putt was conceded), while Cink missed his birdie putt from about 12 feet.

The win was the 64th of Tiger’s career putting him in sole possession of the fourth spot on the all-time list. He’s as beatable as ever, isn’t he Rory? Doesn’t it seem like since the infamous Sabbatini comment that Tiger has become more UNBEATABLE than ever? Tiger certainly didn’t need anyone to rile him up, but it appears that’s exactly what has happened and this had just made things even worse for the rest of the touring players.

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The buzz continues to grow here in the States about U.K. singing sensation Leona Lewis. Only 2 1/2 weeks since her single “Bleeding Love” was released to radio, it is already a smash top 40 hit, already residing at #38 on the Mediabase pop chart. Early support for Leona at top 40 radio has come from some high profile stations including WNOU 100.9 in Indianapolis and WHTZ (Z-100) in New York, where the song is already generating top five requests! Much to my surprise, Rhythmic stations are also behind Leona as she’s at #51 on the Mediabase rhythmic chart and about to crack the top 50.

Perhaps more important than anything in Leona’s success so far though has been VH1’s support of her as their “You Oughta Know” artist of the month of February. The video for “Bleeding Love” has already risen to #7 on their top 20 countdown and is getting played two or three times a day.

All of this exposure for Leona via T.V. and the radio has of course resulted in the inevitable sales spike on iTunes and other similar sites. “Bleeding Love” has quickly risen all the way up to #32 on iTunes top 100 sales chart.

Leona’s off to a GREAT start here in the U.S., and with an upcoming appearance on American Idol on March, and her Spirit album dropping here on April 8th, I think we’re only seeing the beginnings of what will truly be the “year of Leona” here in America.

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**edit ***  check out this great Leona Lewis Fansite which references my blog entry from today! All kinds of GREAT info and news on Leona to be found there! Check it out!

Arron Baddeley played perhaps the round of his life today in the Accenture Match Play Championships against Tiger Woods, and still it wasn’t good enough.  10 birdies and a bogey in 20 holes.  Baddeley had chances to end the match on both the 18th and 19th holes, but both times he missed.  With Baddeley playing so well, Woods had to bring his “A Game” today, and he most certainly did.  Woods had 11 birdies and a bogey in his first 19 holes and then rolled in a 13-foot birdie putt on the 20th hole to finally end the match.  Woods will take on K.J. Choi tomorrow in the round of 8. 

20 holes though was nothing in terms of overtime play today.  After beating “the Tiger slayer” Niklas Fasth yesterday, Vijay Singh had to go SEVEN extra holes to win his match today against Rod Pampling.  In contrast to the Tiger-Baddeley match though, this one was a virtual snooze-fest.  Singh only made three birdies all day to go with his two bogeys, but it was good enough as Pampling could only manage four birdies of his own.  Bogeys were his undoing as he had four of them on the day including a fatal one on the par-5 25th hole.

Live coverage of the quarterfinals (elite- can be seen starting Saturday morning at 10:00 AM ET/7:00 AM PT on the Golf Channel.  NBC takes over coverage with the semi-finals starting at 2:00 PM ET/11:00 AM PT.

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The fans at this week’s Accenture Match Play Championship were hoping that against all odds, Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods would wind up facing off against each other in Sunday’s 36 hole finale.  The hopes for a battle between the world’s two tip ranked players was thwarted though.  “Lefty” played very well today against Stuart Appleby in his second round match, but unfortunately it wasn’t good enough as the Aussie was even better.  Mickelson lost 2-and-1 to Appleby despite making six birdies and an eagle.  Appleby made nine birdies in his 17 holes of play, including one on the final hole to end the match.  As for Woods, he had a relatively easy time against Arron Oberholser getting to 4-up after 11 holes, and then cruising to a 3-and-2 win with a par on 16.

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For those of you who have not stepped outside or looked out the window tonight, you might be totally unaware that a full lunar eclipse is happening at the moment. The next one doesn’t take place until 2010. So get a looksie at it if you can!!!

During the lunar eclipse, there was a sort of “solar eclipse” happening tonight on the basketball court in Phoenix as the Los Angeles Lakers took on the Suns. The Lakers had the upper hand from the get-go. The Suns led at 19-18 with 4:13 to play in the first quarter and then didn’t lead again until late in the game. The Lakers took a 32-29 lead into the second quarter and extended their advantage to 65-57 at halftime. The Suns came back though, and forged to a 106-105 lead on a 3-point play by Amare Stoudemire with 7:26 to play. From there though, the Lakers regained control, as Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol and Sasha Vujacic poured in 23 of their next 25 points as the Lakers closed out the game with a 24-15 run to put it away. The final: LAKERS 130, SUNS 124. With the win, the Lakers clinched the season series with the Suns and by virtue of this are now in first place in the Pacific Division (both teams are tied with 37-17 records).

The Lakers 3-headed monster of Kobe, Pau and “L.O.” gave the Suns fits all night long. Kobe scored 41 points in making 16 of his 25 shot attempts. Pau contributed with 29 points on similarly efficient 13-for-19 shooting. And how about Mr. Lamar Odom? Well, he was smooth as silk, tossing in 22 points (on 9-for 17 shooting) and grabbing 11 rebounds. Being the third option on offense really seems to suit “L.O.” very well!

Shaq made his debut for the Suns tonight. He only played 29 minutes, but did contribute 15 points and 9 rebounds. How was Shaq at the line? 3-for-8 for a typical 37.5% And when they really needed some defensive presence at the end of the game, guess who the Suns pulled with 47 seconds left to play? You can bet that Lakers would have employed the “Hack-A-Shaq” if they had been given the opportunity.

So where do we go from here? Well, unless the Lakers suddenly lose their confidence or get a key injury, I don’t see anything that’s going to stop them from winning the Pacific Division and maybe going into the playoffs as the number one seed in the Western Conference!

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For about six minutes in tonight’s game pitting the Los Angeles Lakers and Atlanta Hawks, it looked like the visitors might give the Lakers a game (again). Pau Gasol’s first play at Staples Center was not a memorable one as he threw an ill-advised pass intended for Kobe Bryant. The Hawks turned that steal into a bucket and still led 4-2 one minute and 48 seconds into the game. The Lakers then went on a 10-0 run to take a 12-4 lead with eight minutes to play in the quarter. Atlanta then drew within 13-12 with 6:15 to play.

From there though, it was ALL Lakers, all the time for the next 17 minutes or so. The Lakers went on a 56-16 run to take a 69-28 lead with 53 seconds to play in the first half. At the half the Lakers led 73-37. Yes, it was over, and also hard to believe these were the same Hawks who handed the Lakers one of their two losses (97-95) on their recent nine game road trip.

The Lakers cruised from there as the Hawks wouldn’t get any closer than 24 points the rest of the way. Kobe and Pau got to sit on the bench the entire fourth quarter as the Lakers cruised to a 122-93 win.

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