Not those play-off's Trying to keep up with my Chicago sports teams. Last night wholly unexpectedly the Chicago Bulls beat LeBron James' Cleveland Cavaliers in the 3rd game of the opening round of NBA play-off's. Everyone had it down as walk over for the Cav's but according to reports the Bulls were huge last night spurred on by a partisan full house with captian Kirk Hinrich going 4-for-4 from beyond the arc on the way to 27 points, my boy Deng getting 20 points, Miller 10 and Joachim Noah seeming to be all over the court.

The Bulls realistically won't get beyond this round but what they may end up getting is LeBron James. The best player since Michael Jordan is a free-agent after this season and Chicago is according to some on LeBron's mind. $50m a season shall do it! Game 4 (of a best of 7 series) is in Chicago on Sunday.

Far better title hopefuls are Chicago's ice hockey team, the Blackhawks. The NHL is also in Round 1 of the play-off's but the Hawks are making hard work of their series against the Nashville Predators with the tie currently finally balanced at 2 games each. The next game is at home, the same home that the Bulls use, and the day before on Saturday after the Hawks won 3-0 in Tennessee yesterday. Goal tender Antti Niemi performing a miracle in between the posts apparently. I wondered where the old Pompey keeper had gone!!

A nice segue back to footie then. By clicking Google to read about the goalkeeper Antti Niemi I found that he got paid £450,000 by Portsmouth in 9 months, playing just two reserve games and warming the 1st team bench once. It is hard to feel too sorry for them, particularly since the company I work for are listed as trade creditors to the tune of £154,000.  ¶ 13:28