The Lakers have won another NBA championship tonight after besting the Orlando Magic in 5 games.  The win is the franchise's 15th, and Kobe Bryant was named the Finals MVP.  He had 30 points, 6 rebounds, and 5 assists in the contest.

The win is Bryant's 4th championship and coach Phil Jackson's 10th.  Jackson became the "best" coach in NBA history by passing Red Auerbach's 9 championships.

Bill Plaschke of the LA Times reflects on Derek Fisher's big shot in game 4 and where it ranks in the great pantheon of Laker big time shots.

Have a read Laker fans.

Quote: The NCAA and NBA established iHoops to provide a structure and to develop programs to improve the quality of youth basketball in order to enhance the athletic, educational and social experience of the participants.

"iHoops is a positive response to the need for basketball's key stakeholders to take a more unified approach to youth basketball."

-- Duke University's Mike Krzyzewski and iHoops board member

Read on.

"We were able to find other guys that did things for us.  Lamar had an outstanding game. Pau was there again, as he is usually. We had other guys contribute as we went through."

-- Phil Jackson

Mike Bresnahan has the recap of tonigh's NBA Finals game 2 action at the Staples Center tonight.  Lakers up 2 - 0!  Woot.

Have a read.

"With his unselfish versatility -- he recorded a double-double against the Orlando Magic in Thursday's Game 1 of the NBA Finals -- he is a perfect complement to Bryant's attack."

Bill Plaschke of the LA Times has a nice piece on the Lakers' sixth man Lamar Odom today.  Have a read.

"Offensively, he was amazing.  Defensively as well.  When he gets it going, he's one of the best players of all time.  There isn't anything he can't do."

-- Lamar Odom on Kobe Bryant

Well, the Lakers took game one of the NBA Finals in convincing fashion tonight at Staples Center, routing the Magic 100-75.  Kobe Bryant had an outstanding 40 points (a career playoff high) in the effort.  The Lakers' big men played exceptional defensive against Dwight Howard, limiting him to 12 points in 1 for 6 shooting from the field -- no dunks.

"We did our job in terms of coming in here and getting one of these games.  We would have loved to get both of them. Now it's time to go home and see if we can't take care of business at Staples."

-- Kobe Bryant

The Nuggets took control in game four of Western Conference Finals tonight in Denver, tieing the series 2-2.  Kobe had 34, and Gasol 21.  J.R. Smith and Chauncey Billups had 24 a piece for Denver.  Game 5 is on Wednesday.

Mike Bresnahan of the LA Times details what the Lakers can expecte in the conference finals against the Nuggets.

Quoted: Their playoff victories over New Orleans and Dallas were by an average of 20.5 points, including a 58-point defeat of the Hornets. They haven't lost a home game since March 9, winning 16 consecutive at the Pepsi Center.

Hey everyone, I am going to use Twitter as dev channel for updates on InfiniteHoops.com.  If you follow @InfiniteHoops, you can expect to hear updates about the service, features I am currently working on, and random commentary about the NBA.  

I am following a number of current NBA players including Shaq, Baron Davis, Steve Nash, Randy Foye, Chris Bosh, Andrew Bogut, Fabricio Oberto and Troy Murphy.  You can find them all on my Twitter page.

We've just added the ability to sign in with your Twitter account to InfiniteHoops.  If you are a big Twitter user and would like to avoid remembering a new password, feel free to click the "Sign in with Twitter" link and get right in.

Try it out and let me know what you think.

Thanks,
Tosh Meston

Hey everybody,
Just a quick update. InfiniteHoops now supports Facebook Connect and MySpaceID as login methods. This means you no longer have to remember your InfiniteHoops password, you can just click the Facebook Connect or MySpaceID button and get right in.

Try it out and let me know what you think.

Cheers, Tosh Meston

Quote: The President released his 2009 NCAA College Basketball Tournament bracket today. President Obama played it safe for the most part, picking Louisville (1 seed), Memphis (2), Pittsburgh (1), and North Carolina (1) as his Final Four to meet in Detroit. After some deliberation, the First Hoops Fan is calling the Tar Heels as this year's national champs.

Too funny.  Click on through to view Obama's NCAA bracket.

"InfiniteHoops is a unique site that lets you find others in your area who might want to start a pickup basketball game. Users input where they will be playing a game and when, and others who want to play can join the game. It's a great way to connect with people around town when the tournament makes you want to play some hoops."

-- Don Reisinger, CNET Blog Network author

CNET mentioned InfiniteHoops in a March Madness inspired post this evening.  How cool is that?  Check out the article everybody.

"In da locker room, snuck to post my twitt. We're playing the Celtics, tie ball game at da half. Coach wants more toughness. I gotta step up."

-- Charlie Villanueva on Twitter

So I guess the Millwaukee Bucks' Charlie Villanueva snuck a tweet out to his followers during half-time of the Boston game on Sunday and head coach Scott Skiles wasn't really pleased about it.

"We made a point to Charlie and the team that it's nothing we ever want to happen again.  You know, (we) don't want to blow it out of proportion. But anything that gives the impression that we're not serious and focused at all times is not the correct way we want to go about our business."

-- Bucks' coach Scott Skiles

I see his point about being focused during the game, but outside of that, I think it's really interesting to get an insight into the players' lives, even if it is just 140 characters at a time.

Charlie's Twitter page is here if you want to follow him:
http://twitter.com/CV31

And don't forget big Shaq's:
http://twitter.com/the_real_shaq

All right.  InfiniteHoops signed up the 6000th player in our little pick-up sports network this week so it is as good a time as any to give a little status update on the site.  

On the techy side, I've been doing mostly search improvements lately.  The search box used to be fairly restrictive in terms of looking up cities, i.e., the search string had to match pretty closely to locations in our database.  Now, it has been improved in two ways.  One is that search looks for games and groups in a geographic radius from the location you type in.  Secondly, the string you type in doesn't have to be city name.  It's nice if it is, but you can also type in zip codes, neighborhoods, park names or other locations.  For example, if you type in: "Denny Park", the geocoder will figure out that this might be a location in Seattle, WA and show you a dropdown list of locations you can pick from.  Early results indicate that people are finding it effective in matching them with groups.  If you're using the search box, let me know what you think.

On the business side, clearly 2009 has been pretty tough so far.  Advertisers are spending less and niche web sites such as ours are definitely aware of the pull back.  Nevertheless, our costs are low and we're in it for the long haul.

InfiniteHoops and the other domains that make up our social sports network - InfiniteSoccer.com, InfiniteSoftball.com, InfiniteFootball.com and InfiniteHockey.com - continue to grow at a steady pace.  2008 visits and page views were up approximately 50% from 2007.  Registration was up nearly 200% over the same period.  We look forward to 2009 being another successful year.

So, who was the 6000th player?  A basketballer from Tacoma, Washington.  Tell your friends about the site everybody!

Thanks,
Tosh Meston
Founder of InfiniteHoops