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PRETORIA, South Africa – David Villa is not even the richest and most famous player in Spain’s attacking line, let alone the Spanish team. Yet what Villa lacks in celebrity attraction he more than makes up with his performances on the field.


No player at this World Cup has been more productive than Barcelona’s new signing as Villa racked up the winning goal in a 1-0 victory over Portugal that sent Spain hurtling toward the quarterfinals.

With four goals and the most enterprising and innovative thinking of any man in the tournament, Villa is the primary reason why Spain has recovered from its dismal start to the World Cup to restore its place as one of the favorites.

The 28-year-old has exceptional feet with the ability to turn any defender and create shooting space for himself. While Liverpool star Fernando Torres has looked shaky alongside him, Villa has been the shining light that has given Spanish fans hope of going all the way to the July 11 final.

Brazil and Argentina are leading the charge for the South American nations as both showed exceptional form in the round of 16. However, the Spanish challenge has hit top gear over the last three games and cannot be ignored.

The latest round of our World Cup rankings ahead of the quarters sees Brazil retain its place in the No. 1 slot. As the tournament enters its most critical stage, anything can happen.

1. Brazil (last ranking: 1) – Head coach Dunga has had his share of criticism, but he’s molded together a side that is producing a spectacular brand of soccer. Magnificent skills and attacking flair doesn’t stop them from being defensively resilient.
2. Spain (3) – That dismal opening defeat to Switzerland is now long forgotten and the Spaniards are starting to sense they can win back-to-back major tournaments. The European champion has steadily built momentum.
3. Argentina (2) – The Maradona show keeps on rolling and it is going to take something special to stop this juggernaut. Lionel Messi continues to impress and you sense this is a team with much improvement left in it.
4. Germany (6) – This young side has coped outstandingly without Michael Ballack, but a huge test lies ahead against Argentina. Miroslav Klose is at the peak of his powers and the team showed its counter-attacking threat by decimating England.
5. Netherlands (4) – The Dutch have looked typically stylish and efficient and will like their chances against Brazil. But Robin van Persie’s touchline argument with coach Bert Van Marwijk was a bad omen for a team that so often collapses mentally.
6. Uruguay (8) – Diego Forlan is far from being the only star on a side that owes just as much of its quarterfinal berth to Luis Suarez. Two-time champion Uruguay has grown in confidence with every game.
7. Ghana (13) – The last remaining African team has pride and passion on its side and is physically imposing. A great opportunity to become the first African semifinalist ever will undoubtedly spur the Black Stars on.
8. Paraguay (9) – The South Americans have somehow managed to scrape their way into the quarterfinals by scoring only three goals in four matches. The Paraguayans’ offense looked especially impotent against Japan.

Epic doesn't even begin to cover it.

After 10 hours, 163 games and almost 1,000 points, American John Isner and Frenchman Nicolas Mahut were locked at 59-59 in the fifth set of their historic first-round match at Wimbledon when play was suspended for the second straight day due to darkness.


You read the score correctly: 59-59. When the Wimbledon final had a 16-14 final set last year, that seemed like a marathon. In comparison, this match was like running to the moon.

The pair started play on Tuesday, splitting four sets before play was halted due to a lack of light. They resumed Wednesday afternoon and figured to be on the court for around an hour to finish their fifth set. Improbably and amazingly, the men were still on Court 18 as the sun set at the All England Club seven hours later. Isner could barely move. Mahut looked punch-drunk. Yet they soldiered on, playing in front of a stunned crowd and a worldwide audience which grew by the minute, as word of the match spread through the sports world. On a day where the World Cup figured to be the top story in sports, two unheralded players on a distant court at Wimbleon stole the show.

The tennis itself wasn't especially riveting for most of the play on Wednesday as big serves, the speedy grass court and fatigue made for quick rallies and short service games. There were very few break chances — Mahut only had one break point prior to the 147th game and Isner just had four break points of his own — but the drama and mind-boggling length of the set more than made up for it.

Consider: The longest previous set at Wimbledon lasted 46 games. Isner-Mahut didn't just shatter the record, they obliterated it.

Among the other remarkable statistics from the match:

— It's the longest match in tennis history: 10 hours. The previous record was 6 hours, 33 minutes.

— Longest set in tennis history: 118 games.

— Most games in tennis history: 163 (previous record was 112).

— Both players broke the ATP record for most aces in a match. Isner had 98, Mahut hit 95. The previous record was 78. Combined, the two had 193 aces, more than double the old record of 96.

— Mahut had just three break points during the entire match.

— The first four sets took 2 hours, 54 minutes. The fifth set is at 7 hours, 6 minutes and counting.

— Mahut won 448 points to Isner's 428. Isner had more winners: 333 to 318.

— The final set is longer than the previous longest match in tennis history. That was 6 hours, 33 minutes.

— Isner had four match points, one at 11-10, two others at 33-32 and another at 59-58. The first and last match points came nearly six hours apart.

— At 50-50, Mahut had two break points and Isner promptly served a 134 mph ace.

— With Mahut serving at 52-53, the pair exchanged a 16-shot rally which ended with a Mahut forehand winner. It was the longest rally of the match. On the next point, Mahut dove for a backhand at the baseline following another long rally.

— The players took their first bathroom break at 58-58. While walking in the tunnel, they exchanged pleasantries, the first time they had spoken all evening.

— Mahut only qualified for Wimbledon after winning a qualifying match in a 24-22 final set.

— The match is almost two hours longer than the longest Major League Baseball game in history (an 8:06 game between the White Sox and Brewers in 1984).

— The scoreboard stopped working at 47-47.

We'll never see the likes of this again.

The match is scheduled to be completed on Thursday afternoon. But Wimbledon organizers may want to keep a court open for Friday, just in case.

Back in the 1990s, typing out “hello” on most cellphones required an exhausting 13 taps on the number keys, like so: 44-33-555-555-666.

That was before the inventor Cliff Kushler, based here in Seattle, and a partner created software called T9, which could bring that number down to three by guessing the word being typed.

Now there is a new challenge to typing on phones. More phones are using virtual keyboards on a touch screen, replacing physical buttons. But pecking out a message on a small piece of glass is not so easy, and typos are common.

Mr. Kushler thinks he has a solution once again. His new technology, which he developed with a fellow research scientist, Randy Marsden, is called Swype, and it allows users to glide a finger across the virtual keyboard to spell words, rather than tapping out each letter.


While many smartphones have features that auto-complete words, correct typos on the fly and add punctuation, Mr. Kushler is aiming for the next level.

“We’ve squeezed the desktop computer, complete with keyboard and mouse, into something that fits in a pocket. The information bandwidth has become very constricted,” he said. “I thought, if we can find a better way to input that information, it could be something that would really take off.”

Mr. Kushler says Swype is a big breakthrough that could reach billions of people. That’s not as ambitious as it sounds. To date, the T9 technology has been built into more than four billion devices worldwide. In 1999 its creators sold it to AOL for a reported $350 million; it is now owned by the speech-recognition company Nuance.

Swype’s software detects where a finger pauses and changes direction as it traces out the pattern of a word. The movements do not have to be precise because the software calculates which words a user is most likely trying to spell.

Capitalization and double letters can be indicated with a pause or squiggle, while spacing and punctuation are automatic. Mr. Kushler, who is chief technology officer of Swype, estimates that the software can improve even the nimblest text-messager’s pace by 20 to 30 percent.

Swype is now being used on seven smartphones in the United States, across all major wireless carriers, including the HTC HD2 and the Samsung Omnia II. By the end of the year, the company says its software will be on more than 50 models worldwide.

It does not have a deal with Apple, the king of touch-screen phones, but it is tinkering with software for the iPhone and the iPad and hopes to show it to Apple soon.

To make money, Swype charges phone makers a licensing fee for each device sold. It also sees opportunity in add-ons.

“We could have custom dictionaries for doctors or lawyers,” said Mike McSherry, chief executive of the company.

But Swype’s appeal goes beyond mobile phones, said Won Park, director of United States technology sourcing at Samsung.

“It could become the de facto standard for tablets, next-generation TVs or next-generation remote controls,” Mr. Park said. “It has tremendous potential.”

Swype’s executives also see its reach extending into public kiosks, smart home appliances, video game consoles and in-car navigation systems.

Some older input methods for mobile devices were based on scribbled gestures, like Palm’s Graffiti. But using Graffiti was slower than typing and forced people to learn an entirely new handwriting format to produce accurate results, said Gavin Lew, co-founder of User Centric, a consulting firm that studies user experiences with mobile devices.

“Swype-like applications rely on a well-known layout, the full qwerty keyboard,” he said. “One simply needs to target a specific letter rather than relying on a memory of how to draw a letter.”

As cellphones take on the functions of personal computers, Mr. Lew said, the need increases to quickly enter and search for information on them.

“These devices aren’t just phones anymore, which is why you’re seeing all these new technologies emerge,” he said. “The more we use them in our daily lives, the greater the need to be more efficient at inputting information.”

Mr. Kushler began experimenting with input methods in 2001, guided in part by his earlier work in helping people with disabilities use technology. He took note of the popularity of devices like those from Palm that used a stylus for input, but he saw room for improvement. He worked with Mr. Marsden to fine-tune the Swype software — which took a laborious seven years.

“The most important thing was that it could accurately figure out which word you wanted to spell,” Mr. Kushler said. “It needed to work no matter what.”

Swype is not the only start-up hoping to profit from innovations in this area. Many companies are trying to improve the way people type on touch screens, which are proliferating swiftly. The research firm Gartner expects global sales of touch-screen devices to reach 326.7 million in 2010, an increase of 97 percent from last year.

SlideIT, a start-up with offices in the United States and Israel, sells applications for touch-screen text input with a finger or stylus for Symbian, Windows Mobile and Android phones. The company says that since February its software has been downloaded more than 500,000 times.

Nuance, a company best known for speech recognition software, acquired a start-up called ShapeWriter that matches patterns traced onto a touch-screen keyboard with those of commonly written words. It is negotiating with phone makers to use its software, called T9 Trace.

Google is trying to let people skip the screen entirely by developing voice- and image-recognition technologies. Its Goggles application can analyze a photo of some text and translate it into a different language — no typing required.

Meanwhile, Swype is moving ahead with its own voice recognition feature, which it expects to add to smartphones this summer.

“We’re all about improving how people input information into their phones, whether through swiping or speaking,” Mr. McSherry said.

Global Wealth Surges

As the financial markets rebounded in 2009 and developing markets continued to grow, lost wealth around the world returned. Despite the volatile global economy, many households gained or regained millionaire status last year, according to a new report by the Boston Consulting Group. The study finds global wealth increased 11.5 percent in 2009, to $111.5 trillion, just short of 2007 levels. When measuring assets under management—cash deposits, money market funds, listed securities, and onshore and offshore assets, but not wealth attributed to investors' own businesses, residences, or luxury goods—the U.S. continued to lead with more than 4.7 million "millionaire households," followed by Japan and China. Singapore, a country with a population of about 5.1 million, had the greatest concentration of millionaire households: 11.4 percent of the country’s total. Wealth may have returned to precrisis levels last year, but confidence has not yet. BCG expects global wealth to grow an average 6 percent annually through 2014, led by robust economies in the Asia-Pacific, but Peter Damisch, a BCG partner and a co-author of the report, says people are still hesitant about investing. Many moved assets from private banks to state-guaranteed retail banks and are still waiting for either new opportunities or new confidence to reinvest, says Damisch.

No. 1: United States

2009 Population: 306.8 million*

2009 number of millionaire households: 4,715,000**
Percentage increase: 15.1 percent YOY**
Share of country’s wealth held by millionaire households: 56 percent**



Even though the U.S. real estate market remained weak, the stock market rebound helped boost the number of millionaire households 15.1 percent in 2009. The U.S. had the most millionaires by far, leading second-in-line Japan by 3,485,000 households. Millionaires represented a fraction of the U.S. population last year but held 56 percent of its wealth, according to Boston Consulting Group.

* Source on all slides: Population Reference Bureau
** Source on all slides: Boston Consulting Group. The year on year change in number of millionaire households was calculated using a constant exchange rate; BCG used yearend 2009 exchange rates to calculate the number of millionaire households in both 2008 and 2009.

No. 2: Japan

Population: 127.6 million

2009 number of millionaire households: 1,230,000
Percentage increase: 5.9 percent YOY
Share of country’s wealth held by millionaire households: 21 percent



The number of millionaire households in Japan grew by a 5.9 percent in 2009. Although No. 3 on the list China tightened the gap with a 30.7 percent increase, Japan still outpaced its developing neighbor by 560,000 households.

No. 3: China

Population: 1,331.4 million

2009 number of millionaire households: 670,000
Percentage increase: 30.7 percent YOY
Share of country’s wealth held by millionaire households: 50 percent



While developed countries struggled through the recession, China’s economy continued to boom, with gross domestic product growing 8.7 percent last year. The surge of commercial activity has created a growing nouveau riche population in China that includes entrepreneurs and investors, although they still represent a tiny fraction of the total population. Seeing opportunities in the growing wealthy demographic, luxury retailers have set up operations in major cities, and high-end real estate is drawing interest—for example, a $30 million house reportedly sold in Shanghai.

No. 4: United Kingdom

Population: 61.8 million

2009 number of millionaire households: 485,000
Percentage increase: 11.5 percent YOY
Share of country’s wealth held by millionaire households: 23 percent



As the financial markets improved, the millionaire population is rebounding in the U.K. Their numbers fell by more than half in the recession, according to a 2009 BBC report. The British Chambers of Commerce said the economy was showing signs of leaving recession in 2009, and gross domestic product ticked up 0.3 percent in this year's first quarter over the previous quarter.

No. 5: Germany
Population: 82 million

2009 number of millionaire households: 430,000
Percentage increase: 23.1 percent YOY
Share of country’s wealth held by millionaire households: 22 percent



Not only have Germany’s rich increased in numbers, apparently some have also heightened their sense of public duty. According to a report by CNBC, a group of German millionaires and billionaires founded a Club of the Wealthy and proposed to Chancellor Angela Merkel that they give 10 percent of their income as a "rich tax" for 10 years to address budget problems.


No. 6: Italy

Population: 60.3 million

2009 number of millionaire households: 300,000
Percentage increase: 7.6 percent YOY
Share of country’s wealth held by millionaire households: 27 percent



Italy’s economy contracted by 5 percent in 2009, but the number of millionaire households grew, and the rich increased their wealth, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers study. The report shows that the increase in wealth was mostly a result of €85 billion that flowed into the country under an Italian tax amnesty on assets held in offshore accounts.

No. 7: Switzerland

Population: 7.8 million

2009 number of millionaire households: 283,000
Percentage increase: 8.4 percent YOY
Share of country’s wealth held by millionaire households: 44 percent



Switzerland, one of the wealthiest nations by personal income, also has the third-highest concentration of millionaire households—8.4 percent of total households, according to the Boston Consulting Group. In a sign of further strengthening, the Swiss State Secretariat for Economics recently raised its growth forecast for the economy in 2010 to 1.8 percent from 1.4 percent.

No. 8: France

Population: 62.6 million

2009 number of millionaire households: 280,000
Percentage increase: 11.2 percent YOY
Share of country’s wealth held by millionaire households: 19 percent



The French may enjoy high quality of life, but France did not make it into the top five for its number of millionaire households. Its gross domestic product last year dropped 2.2 percent, but the government expects GDP to pick up by 1.4 percent in 2010.

No. 9: Taiwan

Population: 23.1 million

2009 number of millionaire households: 230,000
Percentage increase: 21.1 percent YOY
Share of country’s wealth held by millionaire households: 37 percent



Home to manufacturers and such technology companies as Acer and Asus, Taiwan has a large number of millionaires, who represent 3 percent of total households, according to BCG. The wealthy in Taiwan enjoy a favorable tax regime. According to an article in Commonwealth Magazine on Chinapost.com, eight of Taiwan's 40 wealthiest people paid no taxes in 2005 and 17 paid just 1 percent of their income. The article adds that nearly 30 percent of households in Taiwan do not pay taxes, and many of them earn high incomes.

No. 10: Hong Kong

Population: 7 million

2009 number of millionaire households: 205,000
Percentage increase: 16.2 percent YOY
Share of country’s wealth held by millionaire households: 73 percent



In Hong Kong, 8.8 percent of households are millionaire households—the second-highest concentration in the world after Singapore, according to data from the Boston Consulting Group. Media reports say the stock market recovery and rising property prices in Hong Kong and China helped the richest add billions to their wealth in 2009.

No. 11: Canada
Population: 33.7 million

2009 number of millionaire households: 162,143
Percentage increase: 4.8 percent YOY
Share of country’s wealth held by millionaire households: 20 percent



According to the Boston Consulting Group, millionaire households controlled 20 percent of the wealth in Canada last year. Despite the financial crisis, wealth in the country grew an average of 4 percent from 2007 to 2009 and is expected to continue at that pace for the next five years, according to the study.

No. 12: Belgium

Population: 10.8 million

2009 number of millionaire households: 157,611
Percentage increase: 15 percent YOY



Belgium did not make the top 10 for number of millionaire households, but it did come in eighth for density: 3.5 percent of total households. Despite being a wealthy country, Belgium saw its public debt skyrocket last year, to nearly 100 percent of gross domestic product. The government hopes to balance its books by 2015.

No. 13: Netherlands

Population: 16.5 million

2009 number of millionaire households: 152,434
Percentage increase: 9 percent YOY
Share of country’s wealth held by millionaire households: 22 percent



The number of millionaires in the Netherlands dropped in 2008, reported CapGemini and Merrill Lynch, but made a rebound in 2009. According to Statistics Netherlands, 57 percent of the capital owned by Dutch households that evaporated in 2008 due the financial crisis returned in 2009.

No. 14: Spain

Population: 46.9 million

2009 number of millionaire households: 147,913
Percentage increase: 8.1 percent YOY
Share of country’s wealth held by millionaire households: 26 percent



The number of millionaire households is up, but Spain’s economy has not shown signs of recovery as convincing as other European economies—its gross domestic product increased only 0.1 percent in this year's first quarter, after contracting for six quarters. The European Commission forecasts that the country’s GDP will decline slightly in 2010 as unemployment increases to 19.7 percent.

No. 15: India

Population: 1,171 million

2009 number of millionaire households: 139,835
Percentage increase: 19.7 percent YOY
Share of country’s wealth held by millionaire households: 38 percent



India’s millionaire population, which soared in the boom before the global recession, contracted in 2008, according to Merrill Lynch and CapGemini. GDP growth slowed to 6.7 percent in 2009, but the Asian Development Bank expects the rate to accelerate to 8.2 percent in 2010.

No. 16: Australia

Population: 21.9 million

2009 number of millionaire households: 136,690
Percentage increase: 18.8 percent YOY
Share of country’s wealth held by millionaire households: 20 percent



In 2007, the number of millionaire households in Australia increased to 190,000 from 148,000 a year earlier, reported the Sydney Morning Herald. Levels jumped significantly in 2009, and millionaire households controlled 20 percent of the country’s wealth, according to the Boston Consulting Group.

No. 17: Brazil

Population: 191.5 million

2009 number of millionaire households: 126,882
Percentage increase: 19.2 percent YOY
Share of country’s wealth held by millionaire households: 44 percent



Brazil’s recent economic boom created a new league of wealthy individuals. Millionaire households represented 44 percent of Brazil’s wealth in 2009. After the economy contracted by 0.2 percent last year, it heated up again in the first quarter 2010, growing 9 percent year-on-year, a record pace that exceeded forecasts.

No. 18: Singapore

Population: 5.1 million

2009 number of millionaire households: 122,697
Percentage increase: 35.4 percent YOY
Share of country’s wealth held by millionaire households: 53 percent



The chances of running into a millionaire are high in Singapore, which had the world’s greatest density of millionaires, who represented 11.4 percent of total households in 2009. They controlled 53 percent of the country’s wealth. Singapore’s economy shrank 2.1 percent last year but has improved, growing 13.1 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2010.

No. 19: Saudi Arabia

Population: 28.7 million

2009 number of millionaire households: 116,861
Percentage increase: 8 percent YOY
Share of country’s wealth held by millionaire households: 77 percent



The middle class makes up the vast majority of the population in Saudi Arabia, according to a report on gulfnews.com, but BCG research shows that millionaire households controlled 77 percent of the country’s wealth in 2009. Households with $5 million to $10 million of assets controlled the largest share: 46 percent.

No. 20: South Korea

Population: 48.7 million

2009 number of millionaire households: 92,045
Percentage increase: 27.7 percent YOY
Share of country’s wealth held by millionaire households: 19 percent



There were more millionaires in Korea last year compared with 2008. The economy held up through the recession, growing 0.2 percent in 2009. The Bank of Korea expects gross domestic product to expand 5.2 percent in 2010. BCG’s study says millionaires controlled 19 percent of South Korea's wealth last year, while nearly half of the wealth was represented by households worth less than $100,000.

LOS ANGELES (AP)—Purple and gold confetti raining down upon him, Kobe Bryant(notes) hopped up on the scorer’s table, shook his fists and extended five fingers.



When he hopped down, Boston’s legendary Hall of Fame center Bill Russell was waiting to shake his hand.

A Game 7 classic—and this time, it finally went the Lakers’ way.

Bryant, the finals MVP, scored 23 points despite 6-of-24 shooting, and the Lakers won their 16th NBA championship Thursday night, dramatically rallying from a fourth-quarter deficit to beat the Boston Celtics 83-79 in Game 7 of the NBA finals.

Bryant earned his fifth title with the Lakers, who repeated as NBA champions for the first time since winning three straight from 2000-02. Coach Phil Jackson added his 11th, matching Russell’s total and possibly putting a cap on his remarkable career if he decides to leave the Lakers.

“This one is by far the sweetest, because it’s them,” Bryant said after the Lakers beat Boston for the first time in a Game 7. “This was the hardest one by far. I wanted it so bad, and sometimes when you want it so bad, it slips away from you. My guys picked me up.”

Ron Artest(notes) added 20 points for the Lakers, who didn’t exactly show a champion’s poise while making just 21 shots in the first three quarters, even hovering around 50 percent at the free throw line.

Yet with Bryant driving the lane for eight free throws and Pau Gasol(notes) finally coming alive with nine of his 19 points in the fourth quarter, Los Angeles reclaimed the lead midway through and hung on with a few more big shots from Gasol, who had 18 rebounds, and Artest, a first-time champion as the only newcomer to last season’s roster.

“Well, first of all I want to thank everybody in my hood,” Artest said in an ABC interview right after the game. “I definitely want to thank my doctors … my psychiatrist, she really helped me relax a lot.”

Jackson won his fifth ring in Los Angeles to go with his half-dozen from Chicago. And it might be the last: Weary of the regular-season grind and facing a likely pay cut with the Lakers, Jackson hasn’t determined his future, though he previously said another title would make him more likely to chase an unprecedented fourth threepeat next season, when he’ll be 65.

“I’ve got to take a deep breath. I’ve got to take some time to think about this,” Jackson said, wearing a satisfied grin underneath his championship hat. “This was great. I’ll wait to make that decision in a week.”

With his hands already full, maybe Jackson will follow Russell’s lead and put that 11th championship ring on a chain around his neck—and Bryant isn’t likely to settle for just one handful of rings.

He made that clear to his coach.

“He knows how bad I want him back,” Bryant said. “I’ve been openly blunt about how much I want him back.”

With their fifth title in 11 seasons, the Lakers moved one championship behind Boston’s 17 banners for the overall NBA lead.

Amid the confetti and streamers after the final buzzer, Magic Johnson rushed the court to congratulate Bryant, who now has the same number of titles, and to hug Artest.

Paul Pierce(notes) had 18 points and 10 rebounds for the Celtics, who just couldn’t finish the final quarter of a remarkable playoff run after a fourth-place finish in the Eastern Conference. Kevin Garnett(notes) added 17 points, but Boston flopped in two chances to clinch the series in Los Angeles after winning Game 5 back home.

“Listen, give the Lakers credit,” Celtics coach Doc Rivers said. “They were terrific.”

Rivers knows changes are coming, even saying afterward that the ’10-11 Celtics will be different than the ’09-10 team.

“We were the tightest, most emotional, crazy group I’ve ever been around in my life,” Rivers said, adding that he’ll wait a while before deciding on his oft-speculated future.

He called this team “crazy close” and throughout the playoffs, the Celtics only got closer. Down by 14 in their first playoff game against Miami, they won that night and rode that instant burst of confidence not only past the Heat, but through Cleveland and Orlando in the next two rounds.


The Celtics were a .500 team for the final two-thirds of the season, prompting many to wonder if they could turn it back on for the playoffs.

That question was answered long ago. Yes, they could—and one or two more stops on Thursday, they’d have won an 18th title.

“There’s a lot of crying in that locker room,” Rivers said. “A lot of people who care. I don’t think there was a dry eye. A lot of hugs, a lot of people feeling awful. That’s a good thing. Showed a lot of people cared.”

The Celtics had never lost a seventh game in the finals. Despite nursing a lead through most of the night while holding the Lakers to ridiculously low shooting percentages until the final minutes, Boston couldn’t close it out on the coast, becoming just the seventh team to blow a 3-2 finals lead after winning Game 5.

The Lakers tied it at 61 on Artest’s three-point play with 7:29 left, and Bryant’s free throws 90 seconds later gave the Lakers their first lead of the second half. The Lakers forged ahead by five points before Bryant and Sasha Vujacic(notes) hit free throws in the final seconds to keep Los Angeles ahead by at least two points on every possession.

Bryant said he had to downplay the magnitude of the rivalry during the series, but it was a gigantic part of his motivation for this title, without question.

Because it was Lakers-Celtics, the best rivalry in league history.

And because it was against the team that denied him a title in 2008, the Celtics then blowing out the Lakers in Boston in Game 6 two years ago for their 17th championship.

That loss drove Bryant all last season, and drove him again Thursday night.

He was not at his best in Game 7, and acknowledged as much. Didn’t matter— he still captured the finals MVP award, after averaging 28.6 points in the series.

He’s won three straight crowns before, and is already eyeing another three-peat try.

“Let’s go for it again,” Bryant said, moments before hoisting the finals MVP trophy.

The Lakers will hold a parade Monday, with the team riding floats from Staples Center down Figueroa Street to the USC campus in downtown Los Angeles. A rally at the Coliseum last year attracted 95,000 fans, but the Lakers are skipping the arena in favor of a more interactive celebration, the team said.

The Lakers will relish this title because they took it from the Celtics, their greatest rivals, with fourth-quarter poise and defense. The teams have met in 12 NBA finals, but the Lakers won for just the third time.

Exactly two years to the day after Boston beat the Lakers by 39 points to clinch the 2008 title, Los Angeles got revenge for perhaps the most embarrassing loss of Bryant’s career—even if he did little more than grab 15 rebounds for most of the night.

The Celtics had much more poise from the opening tip in Game 7, playing vicious defense that forced Los Angeles to miss 21 of its first 27 shots. Bryant and Gasol were a combined 6 for 26 in the first half.

But forget how it looked, because history will. Bryant even did something Jerry West and Magic Johnson never could: He beat the hated Celtics in Game 7 of the finals.

The Lakers are the first team to rally from a 3-2 deficit to win a finals since Houston did it in 1994, beating the New York Knicks. Although Los Angeles stumbled to the brink of elimination for the first time in these playoffs last weekend in Boston, Bryant’s teams still are spectacular finishers: They’ve closed out their playoff opponents on the first try 10 times while winning three straight Western Conference titles over the last three years.

NOTES: Home teams improved to 14-3 in Game 7 in the finals. No road team has won a title in Game 7 since 1978. … The Lakers are 14-1 in a seventh game at home, losing only the 1969 finale to Boston. … Garnett nearly flattened Jack Nicholson when he chased a loose ball into the front row in the second quarter, but the Lakers’ most famous fans got back up smiling. Other fans near courtside included Jake Gyllenhall, Kirsten Dunst, Ryan Seacrest, Timbaland, director Todd Phillips and George Lopez in purple-and-yellow plaid pants.

Tonight's NBA Finals is the epitome of everything fans love about the NBA: Celtics v. Lakers in a win-or-go-home game for the title.



We all know about the rich and legendary history this rivalry has created. The first six games of this year's saga have been perfect examples: Ray Allen's historic performance in Game Two, Kobe's stamp on history, Derek Fisher's ageless abilities, and the selfless nature that has brought the Celtics to Game Seven.

As the opening tip approaches, here are seven keys to Game Seven that will affect exactly who escapes the Staples Center with the Larry O'Brien trophy.

It is amazing how little media coverage has been given to the lack of three-point shooting in this series (besides Ray Allen's effort in Game Two).

Both teams have shot terribly from outside the arch, and if either team wants to establish the tempo early and make a difference, it will be imperative that it comes from the three.

In each of the Celtics' wins, they have made seven or more three-pointers. Expect the Celtics to go to Ray Allen early, and if he has a performance anything close to Game Two, things could get interesting.

With Kendrick Perkins out with a torn ACL and MCL, the Celtics bench will be very important.

Doc Rivers has still not announced if it will be Glen Davis or Rasheed Wallace that will get the start, but whoever it is will need to be effective.

The reason the Lakers dominated so much in Game Six was the lack of production from the Celtics bench. Wallace went 0-for-7, and no Celtics bench player shot 25 percent or better from the field.

We saw in Game Six how important players like Lamar Odom and Shannon Brown are to establishing the long-term tempo for the Lakers, and Game Seven will be no different.

The play of Ron Artest has been so sporadic that if he's not on, the bench players will be crucial in making up the difference.

If the Lakers are going to have success, the bench will be vital to a Game Seven victory. Expect Lamar Odom to get plenty of playing time if things get close.

Kobe is 4-1 all time in Game Sevens, but this will be the first NBA Finals Game Seven of his career. There is an interesting paradigm when you look at Kobe's history in closeout games and how his lack of success leads to overall team success.

In the four series that have gone seven games and the Lakers have won, Kobe Bryant has never shot above 50 percent from the field. This may be detrimental for the Lakers, unless they find another scorer other than Pau Gasol.

Take a look at the numbers:

2009: Conference Semis v. Houston; Bryant 4-12 (W)
2006: First Round v. Phoenix; Bryant 8-16 (L)
2002: Conference Finals v. Sacramento; Bryant 10-26 (W)
2000: Conference Finals v. Portland; Bryant 9-19 (W)
2000: First Round v. Sacramento; Bryant 7-16 (W)

So, in an way, Kobe's failure is the Lakers' success (Someone should alert Ron Artest and Lamar Odom).

This factoid of NBA history does not bode well for the Celtics...

In the history of the 2-3-2 format of the NBA Finals, no team has ever lost Game Three at home and come back to win the series. The only time a team lost Game Three at home and won the series was the in 1993, but the Bulls already led that series 2-0.

I wrote an article about this a week ago and many Celtics fans began to panic. Let's hope the Celtics acknowledge history and do their part to change it.

If history does repeat itself, we're looking at a 16th title for the L.A. Lakers.

It will be crucial for each team to establish themselves early to win tonight. In the first six games of the series, the team that has won the first quarter has gone on to win the game.

This means that the starters will be the biggest factors, seeing as they will play most of the first quarter. If either team comes out flat from the tip, they might as well forget the following three quarters and hit the showers.

2010 NBA Finals First Quarter:
Game 1: L.A. 26, Boston 21
Game 2: Boston 29; L.A. 22
Game 3: L.A. 26: Boston 17
Game 4: Boston 19; L.A. 16
Game 5: Boston 22: L.A. 20
Game 6: L.A. 28; Boston 18
Game 7: ?

This will be the fifth time these teams have met in a Game Seven to decide the NBA Finals. Boston has the edge, winning all four of the previous Game Sevens (1962,'66,'69, and '84).

Most of those were in the early days of Boston's overwhelming dominance in the league, but I can bet that many Southie faithfuls will be thrilled to know that when it comes down to it, the Celtics have always been in command.

SEATTLE -- Three years ago Ben Huh visited a blog devoted to silly cat pictures -- and saw vast potential.

Mr. Huh, a 32-year-old entrepreneur, first became aware of I Can Has Cheezburger which pairs photos of cats with quirky captions, after it linked to his own pet blog. His site immediately crumbled under the resulting wave of visitors.



Sensing an Internet phenomenon, Mr. Huh solicited financing from investors and forked over $10,000 of his own savings to buy the Web site from the two Hawaiian bloggers who started it.

"It was a white-knuckle decision," he said. "I knew that the first site was funny, but could we duplicate that success?"

Mr. Huh has since found that the appetite for oddball Internet humor is insatiable.

Traffic to the Cheezburger blog has ballooned over the last three years, encouraging Mr. Huh to expand his unlikely Web empire to include 53 sites, all fueled by submissions from readers. In May, what is now known as the Cheezburger Network attracted a record 16 million unique visitors, according to the Web analytics firm Quantcast.

A more recent success for the company is a site called Fail Blog, which chronicles disastrous mishaps and general stupidity in photos and video. The network's smaller sites include Daily Squee, with pictures of cute animals, and There I Fixed It, for photos of bad repair jobs.

Mr. Huh said his company, which makes most of its money from Web advertising, has been profitable since Day 1.

"Then again, it was just me and Emily in the beginning," he said referring to his wife, who also works at the company. Cheezburger now has more than 40 employees and has not sought additional investment.

As the company has grown, so have the opportunities to make money, said Todd Sawicki, the company's chief revenue officer.

"Only 1 percent of what gets submitted goes on the Web site," he said. "The rest we can turn into T-shirts, books and other content that the audience loves."

This year alone, Mr. Sawicki said, the company will generate a seven-figure sum from advertising, licensing fees and merchandise sales.

The company has published five books based on its blogs, one of which, a collection of the cats-with-misspelled-captions images known as Lolcats, hovered on the New York Times list of miscellaneous paperback best sellers for 13 weeks. Three more books are in production, along with a line of greeting cards and desktop calendars.

One secret to the company's success is the way it taps into the Internet zeitgeist. It seeks clues to what is funny right now by monitoring the Web for themes bubbling up on community forums, blogs and video sites. Then it spins off new sites devoted to the latest online humor fads.

"Cheezburger figures out what's starting to get popular and then harvests the humor from the chaff," said Kenyatta Cheese, one of the creators of a popular Web video series called "Know Your Meme" that documents viral online phenomena, known as memes. "Things like Lolcats and Fail are easy to make, easy to spread and hit on an emotional level that crosses a lot of traditional boundaries."

Most of the material the company posts is created by readers, who can Photoshop a funny caption onto an image or remix a popular video in minutes and submit it to one of the Cheezburger sites for consideration. The company says that each day it receives more than 18,000 submissions from readers.

Joe Olk, 28, is one of two dozen staff members who spend their days deliberating over exactly what makes something laugh-out-loud worthy.

Skimming through images on a computer monitor in the company's spacious office in downtown Seattle, Mr. Olk paused over one photograph of a neon sign advertising services described as "Internet Massage." "Now that is just weird," he says with a snicker. "But also funny." And with a click, it is posted online.

Employees do not check to see whether the person submitting content actually owns it before they put it on a company site, but they will remove it if they receive a complaint after the fact. The company says that before it puts an image into a book or calendar, it does seek permission from its creator, who might receive a free book or T-shirt.

Submissions that are funny but don't fit into any of the current blog themes can inspire new blogs. For example, after noticing an influx of photos featuring comically bad knock-off toys and other products, the company decided there were enough to warrant a new site, which is slated to be introduced in the next week or two.

The tricky part, said Kiki Kane, 36, who oversees new site development for the network, is gauging whether an Internet trend has legs. She aims to introduce a new blog every week.

"We're constantly monitoring the Web for new memes," she said. "Those bits of cultural shorthand, inside jokes that you get right away just by seeing a visual image."

Not every new site is a hit. One called Pandaganda, which collected images of pandas looking comically evil and sinister, fizzled after a few weeks, so Mr. Huh pulled the plug. "We kill about 20 percent of all the sites we start," he said.

The idea of quickly tailoring a blog network to satisfy the fickle tastes of a Web-savvy audience, generating new sites to capitalize on a viral sensation and dropping the ones that don't catch on, is what convinced Geoff Entress, a noted angel investor in the Seattle area, to help Mr. Huh purchase the original company.

"Being flexible and able to change as the environment changes is a huge asset to a consumer Web site," said Mr. Entress, who has backed more than 35 local start-ups, including an online community for booklovers called Shelfari that was eventually bought by Amazon.

"The risk wasn't that people wouldn't like the product," he said. "We already had the numbers showing they did. The risk was whether or not we could prove this was more than a fad."

If the wacky cats are a fad, they are one that has had surprising staying power, as shown by a recent Cheezburger happy-hour event at Safeco Field before a Seattle Mariners game.

More than 1,000 fans turned up to listen to cat-themed songs blasted over the loudspeakers, snack on miniature cheeseburgers, slurp from plastic cups of beer and pose for pictures with Mr. Huh.

Tess Mattos, a 41-year-old knitting instructor who traveled up from Portland, Ore., for the event, said she had been a fan of the network's flagship site for three years.

"It's just a good, simple break from real life," she said, adjusting the pair of sequined cat ears she was wearing. "It's clever, but not mean-spirited."

"People think we're weird," she quipped. "But have you seen the fans of 'Twilight?' "

Bay admitted the second "Transformers" movie deserved some of the negative feedback it received: "I'll take some of the criticism. It was very hard to put (the sequel) together that quickly after the writers' strike [of 2007-2008]." OK, fair enough. Now he's trying to fix the abomination that was "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" through his actions, too.

Bay revealed in an interview with USA Today two tidbits about the third Transformers film that should make fans happy. First came a decision that should surprise absolutely nobody: The third film is being shot in 3D (even though Bay had hinted in the past that it wouldn't be). In a more surprising announcement, Bay confirmed that fan-favorite Shockwave will be a featured villain.


The first step to fixing a mistake is admitting a wrong. For his part, Michael Bay has done that verbally.

Shockwave has an interesting history as a toy and as a Transformer. Shockwave's mold was originally produced by a company called ToyCo. Hasbro purchased the rights to add him to the Transformers universe, but not before quite a few other companies did the exact same thing.

Shockwave, with a different paint job, appeared in toy stores around Christmastime, confusing many young Transformers fans (including this author) by being sold under names such as "Galactic Man."

As a Transformer, Shockwave -- who could transform into a powerful laser gun -- was left in charge of the Transformer home planet Cybertron as the Autobots (the good robots) and Decepticons (the bad robots) battled against each other on Earth. Shockwave made an admirable and powerful leader in waiting.

Transformers fans will be the first to heed this warning: Don't get too excited about this announcement. Remember when Michael Bay also announced that fan-favorite Soundwave would be featured in the second film? Remember how that turned out? Soundwave, who as a toy transformed into a cassette player, spent about three minutes onscreen (if that) as some sort of spy satellite in "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen."

These announcements were made on the set of the third "Transformers" film, where shooting has already begun without former star Megan Fox, who was dropped from the series just a few weeks before filming got underway. The other human star of the "Transformers" franchise, Shia LaBeouf, is coping without his former costar. "I love Megan and I miss the girl," LaBeouf told USA Today.

Last month it was announced that Megan Fox would not be returning for the third "Transformers" movie. Naturally, her departure raised the question of who would replace her as Shia LaBeouf's romantic interest in the film.

On Wednesday, after a week of speculation, it was officially revealed on director Michael Bay' blog that British model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley has been cast in the film. The announcement (which misspells her last name) states, "she's the new female lead in Transformers 3."



Huntington-Whiteley previously worked with Michael Bay in a commercial he directed for Victoria's Secret, but she has no other acting credits to her name. She has appeared on the past four installments of the "Victoria's Secret Fashion Show," and was a guest on "Britain's Next Top Model." She's also reportedly dating "Transporter" star Jason Statham.

Filming has already begun on "Transformers 3" in Los Angeles, according to the LA Times, and will continue across the globe over the next 4 1/2 months. The movie is scheduled to open on July 1, 2011. To see more of Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, click ahead for photos of her on the red carpet.