For Giants, It's the Little Things - Leading Off If you wanted a little variety in your sports news Thursday, you certainly got the gamut. It ran the scale of charming from the very highest end - the Giants" fanciful run through the playoffs continuing with their 2-0 lead over the Detroit Tigers in the World Series - to the lowest, where Commissioner David Stern announced he would finally loosen his 30-year iron grip on the N.B.A. after someone spends the next 30 months prying it off. The rest fell somewhere in the middle - the rating on the Bucs" victory over the Vikings in the Thursday night N.F.L. game depending entirely on whether you have more purple or orange in your wardrobe - although Louisiana State's deposed defensive back Tyrann Mathieu being arrested on drug possession charges was certainly bumping Stern at the low end of things. Doug Pensinger/Getty Images Prince Fielder after being tagged out. Neither team scored until the seventh inning. It was hard not to end the night staring slightly agape at the phenomenon that is the Giants, particularly when you're watching a bunt by Gregor Blanco roll predictably toward the third-base line and then stop dead in fair territory. Of course, this led to the Giants" first run, another of those tiny little plays that are adding up to a Giant party in San Francisco. As Mark Purdy writes in The San Jose Mercury News, you can probably stop trying to figure all of this out, but what also became clear in Game 2 is, it's not all freaky strokes of luck that got the Giants here. As Tom Verducci writes on SI.com, it's a lot of the usual suspects: pitching and defense. They also seem to be doing every little thing right, Ken Rosenthal writes on Foxsports.com, which is what creates all those little twists of fate. The big thing going right, however, is pitching, with Jeff Passan writing on Yahoo.com how some of the problem areas of San Francisco's rotation have fixed themselves at the perfect time. Thursday night's reclamation project was Madison Bumgarner, who, as Jayson Stark writes on ESPN.com, had everything to do with the Tigers" lack of offense in Game 2. Manager Bruce Bochy had bet on Bumgarner working through some technical issues, and he bet right, Bruce Jenkins writes in The San Francisco Chronicle. This leaves the Tigers heading back to Detroit needing a plot twist, and fast, writes Jerry Crasnick on ESPN.com. As Drew Sharp points out in The Detroit Free Press, the Tigers aren't losing by miles, but those inches are adding up fast. In contrast to Bumgarner, Tigers starter Doug Fister had a line drive bounce off his head and a tiny bunt stay fair. Simple decisions like sending Prince Fielder home in the second inning ended disastrously, writes Tim Brown on Yahoo.com, which seems to sum up the Tigers" plight. They can do almost everything right, but they're facing a team doing them one better, with karma keeping a toe on the scale in their favor. And soaking it all in from a spot in the stands was Bryan Stow, reportedly attending his first game since the brutal beating in a Dodgers parking lot early last season. The day's news had gotten started on an entirely different note when word of Stern's retirement got out. Considering the man is 70 and has been hinting at retirement seemingly forever, this did not qualify as a surprise. It did kick off a lengthy goodbye because he will not hand the reins to his lieutenant Adam Silver until 2014, so there is plenty of time to assess his impact, although Adrian Wojnarowski argues on Yahoo.com that Stern's intention will be to spend that time buffing up his legend, which has grown a bit tarnished. J.A. Adande writes on ESPN.com that the constant power struggle that was his tenure has turned against him, although he did successfully rule over his fourth player lockout, which seemed to mark Stern at his most ruthless. There is no denying Stern presided over astounding growth of the game globally, Ian Thomsen writes on SI.com, and clearly, the iron fist strategy was more effective than not, Bill Reiter writes on Foxsports.com. The N.F.L. game did not add a whole lot of drama to the proceedings, with the Bucs using a revived running game from Doug Martin to crush the Vikings, Gary Shelton writes in The St. Petersburg Times. It also crushed the early season thoughts that the Vikings were playoff contenders, Kevin Seifert writes on ESPN.com, and dealt a blow to Christian Ponder's reputation, Reid Forgrave writes on Foxsports.com. No one's reputation was plundered more Thursday than Mathieu's after his arrest in Baton Rouge. The news hit his family hard, Pete Thamel and Thayer Evans write on SI.com, but also shows that whoever is trying to watch out for Mathieu did not do him any favors by sending him back to L.S.U. while trying to get clean, Dan Wetzel writes on Yahoo.com. Yes, there was a little bit of everything scattered about Thursday. It succeeded in making the Giants" win seem even more charming.