Former Bull John Salmons and the Milwaukee Bucks can breath a sigh of relief. They’re in the NBA playoffs.Salmons scored 26 points against his former team and Milwaukee clinched a postseason spot Tuesday night with a 79-74 victory over the Bulls.Playing for the first time since center Andrew Bogut was injured, the Bucks rebounded from a sluggish start and wrapped up their first playoff berth in four years.They are tied with Miami for fifth place in the Eastern Conference.The Bulls, who matched a season low for points, remained a game behind Toronto for the eighth and final playoff spot in the East.Ersan Ilyasova scored 17 points off the bench for Milwaukee and Luke Ridnour added 13.After the Bucks squandered a 12-point third-quarter lead, Salmons tied the game at 65 on a pair of free throws. Ilyasova followed with a dunk and Salmons made a jumper to put Milwaukee up 69-65.Salmons, shipped from the Bulls to Milwaukee before the trade deadline for Hakim Warrick and Joe Alexander, increased the lead to 76-70 with 1:02 left. But the Bulls cut it to 76-74 on jumpers by Derrick Rose and Taj Gibson.The Bulls put Salmons on the line with 13.2 seconds left, and he made one of two. But the Bulls were unable to capitalize as Brad Miller was called for traveling in the lane with seven seconds left.Carlos Delfino then hit a pair of free throws to seal it.Luol Deng scored 16 points and Rose added 12, but with six turnovers.With the Bulls trailing 60-48 late in the third quarter after 23 minutes of ugly basketball, Miller started the comeback attempt with a three-point play. He made a jumper to start the fourth and later went around Ilyasova for a dunk.Rose made an acrobatic pass underneath the basket to Flip Murray, who finished with a layup to get his team within 62-59. Rose tied the game on a driving layup and Hinrich gave the Bulls the lead with a jumper to make it 65-63 with 6:13 left.Team officials said Bogut is expected to need six weeks to recover before he can begin full rehabilitation.Bogut was having a breakout season before the injury, averaging 15.9 points, 10.2 rebounds and 2.5 blocks per game. He averaged 21.7 points, 13.7 rebounds and 4.3 blocks in three games against the Bulls this season.Former Bulls Coach Skiles started a small lineup with 6-foot-9 Kurt Thomas at center. The Bucks didn’t get off to a good start, trailing by 13 at the end of the first quarter. But they took the lead late in the second.Ilyasova gave the Bucks a lift with nine points off the bench in the second quarter. He scored six consecutive points for the Bucks and got them within 36-35 on a pair of free throws. Salmons gave the Bucks a 38-36 lead on a 3-pointer, then made two free throws to give Milwaukee a 42-36 lead at halftime.Milwaukee closed the half on an 11-0 run and outscored the Bulls 28-9 in the second quarter.After scoring 27 points in the first, the Bulls totaled 24 points in the second and third, including a season-low nine points in the second quarter. The Bulls trailed 60-51 at the end of three.Rose tried to attack the basket with the absence of Bogut, but didn’t get many open looks.

NOTES—James Johnson played after missing Saturday’s game against Charlotte because of soreness stemming from a partially torn plantar fascia in his right foot……Salmons played his first game in the United Center since being traded at the deadline……The Bulls had a video tribute for Scottie Pippen in the first quarter. Pippen, who won six NBA championships with the Bulls, was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame on Monday…..The Bulls host Cleveland Thursday….Toronto lost to the Cavs but still lead the Bulls by one game for the last playoff spot,the the Raptors hold the tiebreaker.

INDIANAPOLIS—This is Duke’s national championship, but this was Butler’s season. Sometimes it happens that way. What do you remember about the 2006 college basketball season? I bet you remember 11th-seeded George Mason reaching the Final Four. The national champion that season was North Carolina. Or Florida. Might have been Kansas. Not sure, but I’m positive George Mason was in the Final Four, because that was the defining fact of the whole season — George Mason, in the Final Four. Can you believe that? The 2010 season will be remembered similarly by lots of us outside the Duke fan base headquarters of Durham, N.C., and Hackensack, N.J. Yes, Duke won the national title.But Butler won the season.There are two defining moments of this NCAA tournament: West Virginia coach Bob Huggins draped his body over Da’Sean Butler as the injured Mountaineers star lay prone on the Final Four floor. That’s one memory. The other memory is of Butler. What, specifically? Nothing, specifically. Just … Butler.Duke had its chance to take not just this national championship, but this memory, from Butler — but Duke failed. Stealing this season would have required dominating Butler on Monday night as Duke had dominated West Virginia on Saturday in the Final Four, dispatching the Bulldogs as an overmatched pretender not worthy of being in this game, much less being in our memory. Instead, Duke hung on by its fingernails to beat the Bulldogs 61-59. Duke’s performance Monday night wasn’t a tour de force. It was a flurry of final-minute fail.Here were Duke’s final five possessions in the last three minutes: Lance Thomas turned it over. Kyle Singler slipped to the floor and was called for traveling. Nolan Smith drove to the rim for an easy layup and missed it. Singler shot a 15-foot air ball with 37 seconds left. And then Brian Zoubek hit a free throw with 3.6 seconds remaining.That’s it. Five possessions — the final five possessions of the national championship game. And national champion Duke mustered just one point. And one air ball. One missed bunny. Two turnovers. That’s not winning a national championship. That’s finding a national championship. But good for Duke, sincerely. The Blue Devils won with defense and rebounding, overachieving all season as Mike Krzyzewski found a way to win his fourth national title with his least talented championship roster. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of a single Final Four team under Krzyzewski — and this was his 11th — that was less impressive, top to bottom, than this one. But still he found a way to win. That makes this one, as he said afterward, perhaps the most satisfying title for him.But it doesn’t make Duke memorable for the rest of us.Butler? Now you’re talking about a memory. The Bulldogs were playing for the national title in their hometown, but that point has been overrated if not overstated. The story of this tournament wasn’t that Butler was in the title game in Indianapolis. The story was that Butler was in the title game … period. Think about it: Butler? Really? That’s impossible. Butler isn’t just from a non-BCS league, but it’s from a non-BCS league outside the clique of accepted non-BCS basketball leagues. Butler isn’t from the Missouri Valley or the Colonial. Not Conference USA or the Mountain West or the WAC. Not the Atlantic 10 or even the West Coast Conference, home of Gonzaga.Butler’s from the Horizon League. I bet you couldn’t name the other members of the Horizon League, or even how many other members there are (nine others, 10 total — I just looked it up). If you could name half the membership of the Horizon, stop reading this website and go to Mensa.com, because you’re a friggin’ genius.And Butler made it here, emerging from a league that includes one of the Loyola schools, two sub-members of the Wisconsin state university system and Wright State. Do you know what state is home to Wright State? I do, but only because I live in Ohio. Until I moved there, I had no clue — and when I moved to Ohio, I was writing about college basketball for a living.From that humble beginning, Butler did something we’ve never seen. Since the tournament went to 64 teams in 1985, creating a six-game gauntlet that weeds out the frauds, Butler is the smallest school from the standpoint of enrollment (4,200) to reach the title game. This season belonged to Butler, and frankly, this season needed Butler. Imagine this title game featuring Duke and the other team from that half of the Final Four, 2009 finalist Michigan State. History wouldn’t remember this season at all, because until Butler came along it was a season devoid of greatness, much less a great story.That includes the 2010 NCAA tournament. From a body-of-work standpoint, none of the best three teams of the season — No. 1 seeds Kansas, Kentucky or Syracuse — got to the Final Four. That means Duke, by virtue of being the fourth No. 1 seed, never got the chance to play any of them. That doesn’t mean Duke backed into the title, but its South Regional was a joke, and none of the titans of this season were waiting in the Final Four. And so a strange season devoid of overwhelming teams gave us a strange Final Four devoid of the same thing. Duke is the champion, sort of like Carl Yastrzemski was the American League batting champion in 1968. Yastrzemski hit .301 that season. Why was he the batting champ with such a pedestrian average? Because someone had to be.That’s Duke — the 2010 national champion because someone had to be. That’s a petty truth, but it’s a big compliment to Duke, because it means that in this completely wide-open season, Duke was the toughest, the sturdiest, most resilient, most opportunistic team of all. Duke won the biggest trophy. Maybe, five years from now, you’ll remember that.But I know you’ll remember Butler.

ATLANTA—Jayson Heyward hit a three-run homer in his first major league at-bat to spark the Atlanta Braves to a 16-5 opening win Monday over Carlos Zambrano and the Pathetic looking Cubs.Heyward, who also had a run-scoring single in the eighth, was 2 for 5 with four RBI.Braves fans in the sellout crowd eagerly embraced Heyward, from Henry County, about 30 minutes south of Atlanta.Fans chanted “Let’s go, Heyward!” as he confidently took two pitches in his first-inning at-bat, then sent a fastball from Zambrano into the Braves’ bullpen behind the right-field wall on his first swing, sending the crowd over the top.Yunel Escobar drove in a career-high five runs as Zambrano gave up eight runs in 1 1/3 innings, matching the shortest of 239 career starts.Marlon Byrd, playing his first game with the Cubs, hit a three-run homer in the first inning and Aramis Ramirez added a two-run drive in the third.Derek Lowe (1-0) gave up five runs, five hits and three walks in six innings before a sellout crowd of 53,081, a record for a day game in Atlanta and was the fourth-largest overall in Atlanta history.Brian McCann hit a homer in the second, when the Braves knocked out Zambrano (0-1), but opening day belonged to Heyward.The 20-year-old Heyward became the sixth Braves player to homer in his debut, the fourth to do so in his first plate appearance. Jordan Schafer also did it last season.Heyward answered cheers from the fans by tipping his cap at the edge of the dugout.Heyward (6-5, 240) won the starting job in right field despite playing only 50 games above Class A in his quick rise through the minor leagues. He was selected baseball’s top prospect by Baseball America after hitting .323 with 17 homers and 63 RBI at three minor league stops in 2009, and was put on the major league roster by the Braves just last Saturday.Atlanta sent 10 batters to the plate in both the first and seventh innings.In the first, Chipper Jones drove in Melky Cabrera when his shallow fly ball fell between shortstop Ryan Theriot and Byrd in center for a single. Escobar added a two-run single before Heyward’s line-drive homer.Making his sixth straight opening day start for the Cubs, Zambrano gave up six hits and two walks with one strikeout.Braves center fielder Nate McLouth made running catches of drives hit by Ramirez in the first and Derrek Lee in the fifth. McLouth was credited with a diving catch of a ball hit by Byrd in the left-center gap in the sixth, though a replay showed the ball popped out of McLouth’s glove when he hit the ground.As umpires called out Byrd, McLouth threw the ball back to Escobar, whose throw to first base forced out Ramirez.Lou Piniella argued the ruling that McLouth made the catch. The umpires huddled but did not overturn the original call.Escobar had a three-run double, and pinch-hitter Eric Hinske added a run-scoring triple off Jeff Samardzija in the seventh. Samardzija walked three batters in the six-run inning.Six Cub pitchers combined for eight walks.Right-hander Takashi Saito and left-handed closer Billy Wagner pitched perfect innings in their Atlanta debuts to end the game.

NOTES—McCann received his 2009 Silver Slugger award before the game….New Cubs owner Tom Ricketts and his brother, Todd, attended the game….Sean Marshall had five strikeouts in 2 2/3 perfect innings behind Zambrano…..Zambrano also lasted only 1 1/3 innings against Pittsburgh on Sept. 4, 2006.

Mark Buehrle pitched three-hit ball over seven innings, Paul Konerko homered and the White Sox opened with a 6-0 victory over the Cleveland Indians on Monday.Konerko got his 12th season with the Sox off to a good start with a two-run drive in the first on the first pitch he saw and Buehrle simply shut down the Indians, spoiling Cleveland manager Manny Acta’s debut and Jake Westbrook’s first start in nearly two years.Alex Rios added a solo homer off Tony Sipp in the eighth and ended the game with a diving catch on Travis Hafner’s line drive to center.Buehrle, starting his club-record eighth opener, looked more like the four-time All-Star he is than the guy who won just twice after his perfect game against Tampa Bay on July 23.He retired the last 10 batters he faced, struck out three and walked one, and drew loud cheers for a spectacular play in the fifth when a hard one-hopper by Lou Mason ricocheted off his left foot into foul territory along the first-base side. Buehrle raced over and — in one motion — shoveled the ball between his legs with his glove to Konerko to retire the runner, one of several highlights for a team that expects to contend in the AL Central after going 79-83.J.J. Putz pitched the eighth and Matt Thornton retired the side in the ninth.For Cleveland, the start of the new season looked awfully like the last one — a 65-win disaster that led to Eric Wedge’s firing.Westbrook — back from reconstructive elbow surgery — tied a club record with four wild pitches, hit Carlos Quentin twice, walked four and allowed five runs and five hits in his first start since May 28, 2008. He left trailing 4-0 after walking Konerko to load the bases with none out in the fifth, but the trouble began almost as soon as he took the mound.Quentin doubled to the right-field corner with two out in the first and Konerko made it 2-0 when he sent the next pitch to the right-field bullpen, just beyond a leaping Shin-Soo Choo. He pumped his fist as he rounded first and took a curtain call as fans chanted “Paulie! Paulie!” The White Sox got two more in the third after Konerko walked to load the bases, before Gordon Beckham scored on Mark Kotsay’s grounder and Quentin came around on a wild pitch to Rios. Rios, who batted .199 with the White Sox after they claimed him off waivers from Toronto in August, made it 6-0 when he connected off Sipp in the eighth.

NOTES—“Sudden” Sam McDowell (twice) and Steve Hargan previously threw four wild pitches in a game for Cleveland. … Indians 2B Luis Valbuena sat out with a right hand bruise after being hit by a pitch in Saturday’s exhibition finale. “He’s just a little sore and we want to be on the conservative side,” manager Manny Acta said. “Our medical staff is happy with the progress he’s made.” Asked if the left-handed-hitting Valbuena would platoon with right-handed Mark Grudzielanek, Acta said: “No. Valbuena’s our second baseman.” … Billy Pierce is now second on the White Sox list with seven opening day starts. … Quentin was hit by a pitch 35 times over the previous two years.

***Some weekend! It started with Arena Football returning and the Chicago Rush defeating the Iowa Barnstormers Friday night in Des Moines.Then it was over to Indianapolis where Butler kept it’s great season rolling with a two point win over Michigan State and Duke hammered West Virginia setting up a Title Game Monday evening behind the Bulldogs and Blue Devils Monday night.Sunday,the Blackhawks,who just a week ago had dropped three straight,have now won three in a row and clinched their first Division crown in 17 years! Now it’s Opening Day for Baseball. The White Sox send Mark Beuhrle against the Cleveland Indians and Jake Westbrook on the South Side while the Cubs later in the afternoon will have Carlos Zambrano opposing Derrick Lowe and the Braves in Atlanta. Also at Miller Park,the Brewers will start Yovanni Gallardo against the Colorado Rockies today.

***As always,here are our Baseball picks for the 2010 season,and any betting based on this is at your OWN RICK!(LOL).:

AL CENTRAL                NL CENTRAL

—————-               ———————— —————————————

1.WHITE SOX               1.St.Louis

2.Minnesota                 2.Milwaukee

3.Detroit                        3.CUBS

4.Cleveland                  4.Cincinnati

5.Kansas City               5.Houston

6.Pittsburgh

AL EAST: NY Yankees                        NL EAST: Atlanta

AL WEST:LA Angels of Anaheim    NL WEST: LA Dodgers

AL Wild Card: Boston                          NL Wild Card: Philadelphia

LES

Winning the Central Division was almost anti-climatic for the Blackhawks, even if it was high on the team’s to-do list.Patrick Kane had a goal and an assist, and the Blackhawks beat the Calgary Flames 4-1 on Sunday, shortly after clinching their first division title since winning the Norris Division in 1992-93.Antti Niemi made 25 saves for the Hawks, and Tomas Kopecky, Troy Brouwer and Dustin Byfuglien also scored. Brent Seabrook had a pair of assists.The Blackhawks reached 49 victories to tie the team record set in 1970-71 and matched in 1990-91 — before ties were broken in shootouts. It was their eighth straight regular-season victory over the Flames, and they improved to 105 points while closing within one of first-place San Jose in the Western Conference.The Blackhawks seem to be turning up their game and pace just in time for the playoffs. Prior to their current winning streak, they had lost three straight and were 2-5-2 in their previous nine.Winning the Central Division was almost anti-climatic for the Blackhawks, even if it was high on the team’s to-do list.Patrick Kane had a goal and an assist, and the Blackhawks beat the Calgary Flames 4-1 on Sunday, shortly after clinching their first division title since winning the Norris Division in 1992-93.Ian White scored for the Flames, whose three-game winning streak ended. Their playoff hopes also took a blow, because they have just three games remaining and are tied with Colorado for eighth place in the Western Conference.The Avalanche have five games left, beginning with San Jose on Sunday night.If the Flames can’t control their fate, it’s partly because they weren’t in charge at any time against the Hawks.Niemi was solid in his fifth straight start and ninth in the Hawks last 11 games, while Calgary’s Miikka Kiprusoff blocked 27 shots.The Blackhawks jumped ahead 2-0 in the first period when Niklas Hjalmarsson’s shot narrowly missed the left side of the net, bounded off the back boards and to Kopecky, who tucked in a backhand shot from the right edge of the crease.Brouwer cut across the crease and backhanded a rebound of Seabrook’s shot with 54 seconds left in the period to make it 2-0.Kane extended the Hawks lead to 3-0 with 4:28 left in the second when he beat Kiprusoff high on the stick side on a 30-foot shot from the slot, and after White replied 62 seconds later. Byfuglien completed the scoring with 2:46 left in the third with a goal from the slot.

NOTES—The Blackhawks’ Central Division championship is their first title since moving into the United Center in 1994-95….Kane has 84 points, the most for a Blackhawk player since Tony Amonte in 1999-2000….Kim Johnsson missed his 11th game with concussion-like symptoms. RW Adam Burish and D Nick Boynton were healthy scratches…..Calgary’s Christopher Higgins missed his 11th game and LW Curtis Glencross missed his ninth because of lower-body injuries. Flames C Daymond Langkow missed his seventh game and RW Brian McGrattan missed his third with upper-body injuries.

***The White Sox close their Pre Season in Atlanta against the Braves Friday night and Saturday afternoon before flying home for a workout Sunday and Monday’s season opener with Cleveland. When the Sox depart Hotlanta, the Cubs arrive there in time for their opener Monday against the Braves. Prior to that,the Northsiders play two more exhibition games in the Valley of the Sun against the Diamondbacks at Chase Field.

***The Blackhawks chances of catching San Jose for the #1 seed in the west improved Wednesday night when they won in Minnesota while the Sharks lost at Dallas. San Jose has three more road games and the Hawks may get some help-if they can take advantage of it.

***The Bulls are two games in back of Toronto for the last playoff slot in the East,but they are REALLY three games out since the Raptors hold the tie-breakers on the Bulls. And with with the Bulls showing little consistency, it doesn’t look good.

LES

MESA—Partly out of excitement but mostly out of relief, Lou Piniella raised his arms toward the heavens and exclaimed: “Soriano!” Reporters had not yet even asked the Cubs manager about Alfonso Soriano, who used Thursday’s final spring game at HoHoKam Park to awaken his bat from what had been a six-week slumber.

“That made my day. I can enjoy a nice margarita tonight,” Piniella said after the Cubs 2-0 victory over the Colorado Rockies. “Three for three, hit the ball hard, two-run homer. Had a little skip in his jump. Yeah, made my day.”

Soriano, coming off a bad, injury-filled season, flipped his bat to celebrate his sixth-inning shot off Colorado reliever Matt Daley.The $136 million outfielder entered the game batting .235 with only one home run and three RBIs. Soriano also singled twice off Rockies starter Jeff Francis, who had his own reason to celebrate: five scoreless innings, with only three hits allowed.After winning 17 games and helping Colorado take the NL pennant in 2007, a hurting Francis went 4-10 the next year. The left-hander then had shoulder surgery and missed all last season. This spring had been mostly frustrating. He went into Thursday with a 7.27 ERA and allowed 10 runs in his previous two starts.Francis will start Colorado’s second regular-season game, next Tuesday at Milwaukee. He said “it means a lot” that his final spring outing was his best.Carlos Silva matched Francis’ five shutout innings, demonstrating why he earned the No. 4 starter spot.Acquired from Seattle for Milton Bradley, Silva finished the spring with a 3.80 ERA.

NOTES—Though each team has broken camp, each has exhibition games Friday and Saturday. The Rockies play the Seattle Mariners in Albuquerque while the Cubs meet Arizona at the Diamondbacks’ Chase Field. …Koyie Hill replaced Geovany Soto in the fourth inning because Hill hadn’t caught Silva this spring. … The Cubs led Arizona-based clubs in attendance for the seventh consecutive spring, averaging 10,892 fans. … Finesse pitcher Francis on following hard-throwing Ubaldo Jimenez in Colorado’s rotation: “Well, a lot of guys can get people out with 97 (mph) like he’s got. Try getting people out with what I have.”

PEORIA—Veteran Scott Elarton pitched two scoreless innings in his first start since 2008 and a squad of White Sox minor leaguers roughed up Ian Snell in a 9-4 win over the Seattle Mariners on Thursday.Elarton, who hasn’t pitched in the majors since the Cleveland Indians placed him on the disabled list in July 2008 for what the club then called a non-baseball medical condition, signed a minor league deal this week. He gave up one hit and struck out one.Snell, the Mariners’ No. 2 starter, gave up six runs and 10 hits while striking out five.The White Sox big-league roster left Thursday morning for exhibition games in Charlotte, N.C.(they lost to their triple A Charlotte team 4-3), and Atlanta Friday and Saturday before flying to Chicago to workout at U.S.Cellular Field Sunday and opening against Cleveland Monday afternoon.

LAKE FOREST— The Bears released DE Alex Brown, a fourth-round selection (104^th overall) by the Bears in the 2002 NFL Draft who appeared in 127 career games (107 starts) in eight seasons. He recorded 483 tackles, 43.5 sacks, 55 tackles for losses, five interceptions, 16 forced fumbles, 11 fumble recoveries and three blocked kicks during his NFL career. Brown was named a second-alternate for the 2007 Pro Bowl after being named a first-alternate a year earlier.