Here's an excerpt from ESPN.com writer Bill Simmons' column a day before Game 4 of the 2008 NBA Finals:
Now, we have Game 4. Everyone has worked out the kinks. The setting is more familiar; so is the opponent. Every strategy has been tried; every counter to that strategy has been planned. We know who the best nine guys are for each team, and we know when they're going to be playing. (Well, except for the House-Cassell thing, which is going to send my dad to the hospital before everything's said and done.) We know which key guys need to come through, as well as the identities of the Aberration Guys who could potentially swing a close game. Even better, Game 4 is the tipping point for when both teams start rubbing each other the wrong way and things start getting testy and fiesty.
Here's what I'm trying to tell you: Not only has the table has been set for a dramatic, memorable basketball game Thursday night, I think it's going to happen.
You see, Bill has been wrong a lot of times (like when he predicted Rajon Rondo will be Rookie of the Year, Adam Morrison will be huge in the NBA, etc.) but I was pumped after reading this. I was hoping he was right because I've been wanting to watch a GREAT basketball game for the longest time.
Of course the game starts and I start to think, "so much for the dramatic game". It turns out it took two and a half quarters before Bill's prediction took shape. I think it's also important to note that he's been clamoring for Doc Rivers to use Eddie House instead of Sam Cassell since the Detroit series. You know what? Come to think of it, every player and coach involved in that game must've been reading Bill Simmons too. And thank God for that.
It's been a full day since that amazing Celtics comeback and I think I now have a proper perspective of the game. And apparently I'm alone. Sports commentary is really a funny thing. Sportswriters believe that everything in sports can be explained in black and white. They point out factors why the this team lost and this team won. Of course, when it comes down to it there are always more than one factor. What sportswriters do, since their selling their columns more than anything, is focus on one factor, beat it to death, and make someone who watched the game forget the other stuff he saw.
The commentary after game 4 of the 2008 finals can be divided into two schools of thought:
(a) It was Kobe's fault. He couldn't stop his team from melting down. And that's something Michael freaking Jordan wouldn't allow during his day. Therefore every praise the sports media tossed his way during this, his MVP season were suddenly wrong.
(b) It was his teammates' fault. They couldn't make shots when it mattered and they couldn't defend when it mattered (and they're pointing at you Sasha).
This is the perfect example of sportswriting reductionism. It was Kobe's fault? Seriously? Did you watch the actual game? Who was the lone Laker hitting shots, quelling every Celtic run, and making plays for his teammates in the fourth quarter? I'll tell you what, Youtube has a play-by-play of the Celtics' 2nd half comeback. Watch it right now. Count how many times Kobe makes plays. Go ahead.
It was Gasol/Odom/European Union's fault? Who built the 24 point lead? Seriously. The first half of the game is also available in Youtube. Go help yourself.
If majority of the sportswriters were actually interested in explaining what happened, this is what they'll tell you: for a quarter and a half, Doc Rivers found the combination of players who (a) unilaterally decided that they would play as if it were the last game of their lives; (b) were all mobile and active enough to swarm the Lakers defensively with reckless abandon; and (c) could either shoot the 3 (Pierce, Posey, House, and Allen), protect the rim (Garnett), or make Gasol/Turiaf pay for single covering him because the Lakers couldn't leave the aforementioned shooters (again, Garnett).
Phil Jackson's counter, which worked all Playoffs long, was to get Kobe going. And it worked for a while because Kobe did get hot. But the Lakers found themselves in a position where they couldn't defend the Celtics anymore. Not for 12 minutes in that particular game. It simply wasn't going to happen. (Plus Ray Allen was obviously so pissed at Vujacic that I think his adrenaline level went up 10 notches. In that win-cementing lay-up, where the Lakers weren't able to react in time, there was not one iota of hesitation in Allen's part. You could read from his eyes what he was thinking while he was dribbling at the top of the key: "Go ahead Sasha, just stick to me as close as possible. There, that's it. Now I'm going to beat you off the dribble so bad that you'd have to go to the bench like a fourth-grader who got his lunch money stolen, you fucking whiner.")
Will is an underrated part of sports, especially basketball. People keep bringing up all these stats and analyses of basketball moves when they make a case for Michael Jordan being the greatest NBA player of all time, as opposed to say Kobe or Lebron. What they often fail to bring up is that Jordan was the single sickest fucking maniac in the history of the NBA. He had such an unbreakable will to win that there's literally nothing that anyone can do. He destroyed perhaps the top 2 defenses of the modern era - the '91 Pistons and '93 Knicks, during a time when you were still allowed to handcheck players in the perimeter, a HUGE handicap that none of the Kobes, Lebrons, Ginobilis, and Tony Parkers have to deal with in today's game (and by the way, Jordan averaged as high as 37 points per game during that time). He neutered the likes of Charles Barkley, Clyde Drexler, Shawn Kemp and Gary Payton in their prime, Karl Malone, Patrick Ewing, Isaiah Thomas, and Magic freaking Johnson.
This is what sportswriters should be talking about: how the Celtics, from midway through the 3rd quarter up to the end of the game, just out-willed the Lakers. For god's sake, even the shaky Kevin Garnett had two clutch field goals and two clutch free throws during that stretch.
The Lakers did what they could, stop blaming them. The Celtics just willed themselves back into the game.
This is precisely what I love about sports. This sort of thing rarely happens in real life. Could you imagine Gloria Macapagal Arroyo coming back from sheer infamy to become the most beloved President in Philippine history? Or gas prices suddenly going down to P0.50 per liter after one week? Or the Philippines becoming richer than Singapore in three years? Can we will these things to happen? Could Bill Simmons predict this in his next column? Please?
P.S. Congratulations to C/S sports for allowing us non-Destiny cable subscribers to watch one of the greatest games of all time being called by the worst announcers in Philippine television history, while we had Mike Breen, Mark Jackson, and comedian Jeff Van Gundy covering the same damn game for ABC/ESPN. I really couldn't thank you enough. You just added another item to my "things I won't be able to get back for the rest of my sorry life" list. Well done.
Now, we have Game 4. Everyone has worked out the kinks. The setting is more familiar; so is the opponent. Every strategy has been tried; every counter to that strategy has been planned. We know who the best nine guys are for each team, and we know when they're going to be playing. (Well, except for the House-Cassell thing, which is going to send my dad to the hospital before everything's said and done.) We know which key guys need to come through, as well as the identities of the Aberration Guys who could potentially swing a close game. Even better, Game 4 is the tipping point for when both teams start rubbing each other the wrong way and things start getting testy and fiesty.
Here's what I'm trying to tell you: Not only has the table has been set for a dramatic, memorable basketball game Thursday night, I think it's going to happen.
You see, Bill has been wrong a lot of times (like when he predicted Rajon Rondo will be Rookie of the Year, Adam Morrison will be huge in the NBA, etc.) but I was pumped after reading this. I was hoping he was right because I've been wanting to watch a GREAT basketball game for the longest time.
Of course the game starts and I start to think, "so much for the dramatic game". It turns out it took two and a half quarters before Bill's prediction took shape. I think it's also important to note that he's been clamoring for Doc Rivers to use Eddie House instead of Sam Cassell since the Detroit series. You know what? Come to think of it, every player and coach involved in that game must've been reading Bill Simmons too. And thank God for that.
It's been a full day since that amazing Celtics comeback and I think I now have a proper perspective of the game. And apparently I'm alone. Sports commentary is really a funny thing. Sportswriters believe that everything in sports can be explained in black and white. They point out factors why the this team lost and this team won. Of course, when it comes down to it there are always more than one factor. What sportswriters do, since their selling their columns more than anything, is focus on one factor, beat it to death, and make someone who watched the game forget the other stuff he saw.
The commentary after game 4 of the 2008 finals can be divided into two schools of thought:
(a) It was Kobe's fault. He couldn't stop his team from melting down. And that's something Michael freaking Jordan wouldn't allow during his day. Therefore every praise the sports media tossed his way during this, his MVP season were suddenly wrong.
(b) It was his teammates' fault. They couldn't make shots when it mattered and they couldn't defend when it mattered (and they're pointing at you Sasha).
This is the perfect example of sportswriting reductionism. It was Kobe's fault? Seriously? Did you watch the actual game? Who was the lone Laker hitting shots, quelling every Celtic run, and making plays for his teammates in the fourth quarter? I'll tell you what, Youtube has a play-by-play of the Celtics' 2nd half comeback. Watch it right now. Count how many times Kobe makes plays. Go ahead.
It was Gasol/Odom/European Union's fault? Who built the 24 point lead? Seriously. The first half of the game is also available in Youtube. Go help yourself.
If majority of the sportswriters were actually interested in explaining what happened, this is what they'll tell you: for a quarter and a half, Doc Rivers found the combination of players who (a) unilaterally decided that they would play as if it were the last game of their lives; (b) were all mobile and active enough to swarm the Lakers defensively with reckless abandon; and (c) could either shoot the 3 (Pierce, Posey, House, and Allen), protect the rim (Garnett), or make Gasol/Turiaf pay for single covering him because the Lakers couldn't leave the aforementioned shooters (again, Garnett).
Phil Jackson's counter, which worked all Playoffs long, was to get Kobe going. And it worked for a while because Kobe did get hot. But the Lakers found themselves in a position where they couldn't defend the Celtics anymore. Not for 12 minutes in that particular game. It simply wasn't going to happen. (Plus Ray Allen was obviously so pissed at Vujacic that I think his adrenaline level went up 10 notches. In that win-cementing lay-up, where the Lakers weren't able to react in time, there was not one iota of hesitation in Allen's part. You could read from his eyes what he was thinking while he was dribbling at the top of the key: "Go ahead Sasha, just stick to me as close as possible. There, that's it. Now I'm going to beat you off the dribble so bad that you'd have to go to the bench like a fourth-grader who got his lunch money stolen, you fucking whiner.")
Will is an underrated part of sports, especially basketball. People keep bringing up all these stats and analyses of basketball moves when they make a case for Michael Jordan being the greatest NBA player of all time, as opposed to say Kobe or Lebron. What they often fail to bring up is that Jordan was the single sickest fucking maniac in the history of the NBA. He had such an unbreakable will to win that there's literally nothing that anyone can do. He destroyed perhaps the top 2 defenses of the modern era - the '91 Pistons and '93 Knicks, during a time when you were still allowed to handcheck players in the perimeter, a HUGE handicap that none of the Kobes, Lebrons, Ginobilis, and Tony Parkers have to deal with in today's game (and by the way, Jordan averaged as high as 37 points per game during that time). He neutered the likes of Charles Barkley, Clyde Drexler, Shawn Kemp and Gary Payton in their prime, Karl Malone, Patrick Ewing, Isaiah Thomas, and Magic freaking Johnson.
This is what sportswriters should be talking about: how the Celtics, from midway through the 3rd quarter up to the end of the game, just out-willed the Lakers. For god's sake, even the shaky Kevin Garnett had two clutch field goals and two clutch free throws during that stretch.
The Lakers did what they could, stop blaming them. The Celtics just willed themselves back into the game.
This is precisely what I love about sports. This sort of thing rarely happens in real life. Could you imagine Gloria Macapagal Arroyo coming back from sheer infamy to become the most beloved President in Philippine history? Or gas prices suddenly going down to P0.50 per liter after one week? Or the Philippines becoming richer than Singapore in three years? Can we will these things to happen? Could Bill Simmons predict this in his next column? Please?
P.S. Congratulations to C/S sports for allowing us non-Destiny cable subscribers to watch one of the greatest games of all time being called by the worst announcers in Philippine television history, while we had Mike Breen, Mark Jackson, and comedian Jeff Van Gundy covering the same damn game for ABC/ESPN. I really couldn't thank you enough. You just added another item to my "things I won't be able to get back for the rest of my sorry life" list. Well done.
0 comments :
Post a Comment