Liveblogging Lakers-Suns, Game 4

I had originally wanted to explore the suggestions of eminent economist and former Secretary of Finance Jesus Estanislao on nation-building in the aftermath of the recently concluded Philippine National Elections, but a serendipitous series of events led me, instead to liveblog the Lakers-Suns game:

1. I'm battling a nasty cold. As one doctor had already recommended a virtual house arrest as a way of arresting my incessantly leaking proboscis, I am loathe to entertain yet another doctor's advice regarding anything. And yes, I realize that Medicine and Economics are entirely different fields of study, but just this once, I would like to recall my youthful misadventures in healing and thumb my nose up at doctors of all stripes.

2. Manuel just marched into our room to inform his mama, in my presence, that "I don't like papa". For some weird reason, probably related to this nasty cold that has frozen my mental state firmly in between petulant adolescence and early adult ennui, his telling on me fills me with pride. There isn't a single passive-aggressive bone in my 2nd son's body. And just in case I missed his earlier pronouncement, he rolls on top of me, and onto his mama, looks me in the eye and says "I don't like you". For the record, the reason he doesn't like me right now is because I told him that playing with his papa's umbrella indoors is not a good idea.

3. And because Manuel felt I wasn't sufficiently repentant for my transgressions against him, he just pooped in bed. You gotta respect a little boy who is so single-mindedly determined to make his point that he is willing to poop in bed just to spite papa.

Thus, we have the liveblog of the Lakers-Suns game.

Ordinary Work, Extraordinary Grace

Earlier, the San Antonio Spurs delivered another workmanlike drubbing to the young Cleveland Cavaliers, and despite the enormity of that accomplishment, the very manner in which I described the victory might seem an indictment of the soon-to-be champion Spurs. Before the Finals began, Michael Rosenberg made the following observation:

Ah, the San Antonio Spurs. The more they win, the more you want them to hide under a rock.

In a week and a half — maybe two weeks, depending on LeBron James' level of brilliance — the Spurs will almost certainly win their fourth championship in nine years. It will also be their third title in the last five years.

This will place San Antonio among the elite of the elite. Since the end of the Bill Russell Celtics, only two dynasties won more than four championships: the Magic Lakers and the MJ Bulls. And the Spurs should contend for several more years. Tim Duncan is only 31, Manu Ginobili is 29 and Tony Parker is 25.

And what do the Spurs get for their hard work, no-nonsense attitude and unparalleled excellence? Yawns.

This must be the least popular great team in recent sports history. The Spurs do not even evoke the hatred of the Yankees or Notre Dame, institutions that have long had the best of everything and lord it over the masses. They make you feel the way you once felt about chemistry class — as soon as you sit down, you get a headache and can't wait for the bell to ring so you can go anywhere else in the world.

Recently, Henry Abbott of TrueHoop took Rosenberg's assessment even further, insisting that there is a cautionary tale in there somewhere, that the basketball fan has gotten exactly what he or she wants, and is just a little embarrassed at what getting that preference implies:

That's the thing about digging your heels in and howling about what you want. Sometimes the worst thing that can possibly happen is that you get it, and realize you were wrong all along.

It's not a proud moment for anyone.

Like, all us who have been upset for, oh, the last twenty years, about how the players in the NBA don't have a solid grasp on fundamentals. Or they commit too many crimes. Or they are too flashy, top hip hop, too spotlight hungry, too violent, too ... whatever it is.

World of hand-wringers, your team is here. Has been here for years. The San Antonio Spurs are exactly what you said you always wanted.

Abbott goes on, by way of citing Harvey Araton of The New York Times, that:

They put the Spurs on the cover of a magazine, and the numbers show you won't buy it. They put the Spurs on posters and DVDs and the numbers show you're more interested in Paris Hilton. They put the Spurs on national TV, and the numbers will likely show tonight that many of you prefer to watch violent mob shows on premium channels.

The New York Times' Harvey Araton (Select) is marveling at the same thing.

But where is the love for a franchise that thrives on visionary planning, progressive thinking, commitment and continuity? That over the past decade has become the furthest thing from a big-market bully that owes its success to a carnivorous payroll? That has seldom housed me-first braggarts, incorrigible trash talkers, gun toters or pit-bull players?

In San Antonio, the retired David Robinson spent millions of dollars to found and operate a private school for disadvantaged children. Duncan and others blend seamlessly into the city, where people seem to address them all on a first-name basis.

No player's personal issue is bigger than the team, as demonstrated this season when Coach Gregg Popovich made Manu Ginóbili, a player with All-Star credentials, his sixth man. On the whole, aren't the loyal and law-abiding Spurs exactly what those most critical of the N.B.A. have said the league has lacked after it embraced the shoe-company-driven agenda of selling style over substance?

"No character issues, professionalism, preparation - everything people always say they want, it's all happening right here," the Spurs' Brent Barry said.

Araton blames the trend at least a little on regionalism. If the Spurs were based in New York, he says, Tim Duncan would be hailed as the next Willis Reed. Eva and Tony would be in all the tabloids.

And no doubt, he's right, to a point. But it's not only about big market vs. small market. Even San Antonio isn't totally in on the secret -- according to the box score, Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals was almost 500 seats short of a sellout.

The conference finals! The only major league team in town! The pride of South Texas! Empty seats!

Maybe in a big market this team is a compelling narrative. Maybe if Tim Duncan would let the media in a little it would be different. Or maybe it's time to admit that, despite what we may have told the waitress when we sat down, we wanted to watch Kobe Bryant and Allen Iverson all along.

With the gauntlet thus thrown, where rooting for the Cavaliers (as my good friend Jason de Villa is inclined to doing) is tantamount to associating one's love of the game with the tradition of the epic hero (or at the very least, a larger than life figure) and rooting for the Spurs is tantamount to associating one's love of the game with a profound sense of community (such as teamwork, unselfishness, and an appreciation for the virtues of work), how shall this blogger meet this challenge?

There's nothing wrong with wanting to be inspired by larger than life figures. After all, for most casual NBA fans, basketball is primarily about rooting for (literally) larger than life figures. However, while it is almost a singular joy to witness individual superhuman feats such as LeBron's coming of age game against the Pistons, there is a particularly satisfying joy to be derived from reveling in the quiet, consistently excellent play of the Spurs. Basketball is an apt metaphor for many good things in life, as my friend Joel Parcon takes pains to illustrate in his wonderful entry on theater and basketball. I enjoy rooting for the Spurs because their dedication to selfless team play and intelligent basketball is in fact inspirational, if not quite spiritual.

There's nothing wrong with simply getting the job done. Moreover, getting the job done in such workmanlike fashion. The Spurs are more than craftsmen. The very ordinariness of their victories, and the fact that they thrive on one another's sacrifices to produce sublime basketball performances make them artisans of the highest order. Ordinary Work, Extraordinary Grace.

Photo Credits:

Picture of Tim Duncan comes courtesy of Tim Duncan Rooting For Cavaliers For Good Of NBA. Click on the link. You know you want to.

Shakespeare and Basketball

I wasn't going to post any entries since it's the end of the semester and I have quite a lot of checking to do, but I couldn't resist. I got to this wonderfully written blog entry via Henry Abbott's new True Hoop site on ESPN. While Henry's migration to the self-proclaimed Worldwide Leader in Sports is news in itself, I decided to save the inevitable vitriol involved and instead credit True Hoop (and, by association, the Worldwide Leader) for leading me to Celtic Shakespeare. Here are some excerpts worth considering:

On the raison d'etre for the post:

I have seldom been accused of being overly cultured. I have stains on all my best shirts, eat with little to no regard for table manners, and I'm "that guy" that makes out of place comments at parties that stop conversations dead in their tracks.

However, I do hold on to at least one sophisticated acquired taste. I love Shakespeare. I've seen dozens of plays and read more than half of the Bard's works.

A lot of people simply can't stand the language and/or don't appreciate the poetry weaved into his prose. This will largely be lost on those people, but oh well. To everyone else, I hope you enjoy and feel free to chime in with your own in the comments.

On hope in Boston:

Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by this sun of York - Richard III

It has been a long, hard winter of discontent for the Celtics, but there is hope for a glorious summer. We need a lot of luck and a lot of hard work by the management team. But there is hope ahead.

"Out, damned spot! out, I say!" --Lady Macbeth

To Vin Baker’s cap hit. The blight of Vin Baker will finally pass into the history books. We bought out his contract long ago, but the cap hit was spread across several years to lessen the blow. As of this summer, he’s no longer on the books!


On the talented, but sometimes overenthusiastic Bill Simmons:

Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, and tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief. – Polonius (in Hamlet)

To Bill Simmons. If you read the context of this quote you’ll see the irony of it. Polonius is like Simmons in that he believes nothing is worth saying unless you can stretch it out to 20,000 words. I love Bill, but sometimes the best writing comes in small packages.


Picture of William Shakespeare comes courtesy of The Classic Literature Library Presents William Shakespeare.

Picture of Bill Simmons comes courtesy of Charlie Powell, in Slate.

Acquired Tastes: Steve Nash

There's no question that the likes of Kobe, LBJ, D-Wade, Melo, Mister Zero, et al, are more athletic and more talented than the league's reigning MVP. But, as long as he has the basketball in his hands, none of these super-duper stars can match Steve Nash's sheer genius (Rosen, 2007).

Ever since that crusty old coot Charley Rosen became a believer in the wonder that is Steve Nash, which the normally grumpy Rosen giddily capped with a ringing endorsement of Suns basketball after that delightful Suns-Mavericks game where Nash willed the Suns to victory in Dallas, I suppose it is time to seriously reconsider Steve Nash for an unprecedented third regular season MVP trophy. I've seen quite a number of talented point guards in my lifetime, but I've never seen anyone make his team better, in such a joyful fashion, the way Nash does.

Nash's particular genius, I suspect, has a great deal to do with his documented excellence in another team sport, football. Here's a fascinating excerpt from The Arizona Republic:

On his first birthday, Nash received a soccer ball as a present. Nash's father, John, played for a semiprofessional league in England before moving to Johannesburg, South Africa, where a better-paying team was courting him. The family soon relocated to Canada because Nash's parents didn't want their son exposed to a culture of apartheid.

A love for soccer moved with the family.

Although Nash excelled in a variety of sports in high school, the year he was both his school's chess tournament champion and soccer MVP best foreshadowed what was to come.

"I've always thought soccer was a good explanation of who is he as a basketball player," said brother, Martin, 29, a professional soccer player in Canada. "Soccer is not a sport where you can be an individual. The role he played in soccer, playmaker, basically the point guard, is kind of the role he played in every sport, from rugby to lacrosse to hockey."

Steve Nash said people tell him that he "looks like a soccer player playing basketball."

"I'm not sure how it's manifested itself, but it certainly had an impact on me," he said.

This theory is supported enthusiastically even by football analysts. According to SoccerBlog.com:

Steve Nash said people tell him that he "looks like a soccer player playing basketball." In a radio interview he talks about soccer and its similarities to basketball, " the same angles, timing, and using space to your advantage." There is truth in his words. Many foreign born NBA stars who come from strong soccer playing countries seem to show much more creativity than their American counterparts. We see it in Dirk Nowitzki and Manu Ginobili (who unfortunately seems to have picked up the less salubrious aspects of soccer) Nash feels that is so. `You see it a lot in international players the influence soccer has had.

"It allowed them to gain an advantage somewhere along the line. Whether it be agility or footwork, or passing angles and finding creative ways to get the ball either to the basket or to pass it to someone. I think there is something to be transferred from each sport."

As one who plays, and fails to excel, in both sports, I can see how Nash's ability to create opportunities for his teammates where none are apparent is directly related to the mindset required of a football player. Short of recommending that aspiring Filipino basketball stars should start with developing their budding ball skills with football, and then fine tune their basketball specific skills from there, let me end this post with some Steve Nash football goodness. Click here and here. Enjoy!

Belated Ball Posts

It's been a while since I've posted anything basketball related, and for that I apologize. It isn't that there hasn't been anything interesting going on in the NBA, (on the contrary, the season has been unfolding rather delightfully in a chaotically spirited, contrarian sort of way) but that I normally refuse to engage in otherwise entertaining professional basketball speculation until the playoffs. Still, it's hard to resist commenting on the state of NBA ball, especially when...

Following former NBA player John Amaechi's coming out of the closet , Tim Hardaway unmasks himself as several kinds, a plethora, really, of idiot. It's interesting how the same person can make ridiculously stupid statements such as "I don't like gay people and I don't like to be around gay people. I am homophobic. I don't like it. It shouldn't be in the world or in the United States," and expect to get away with an apology such as "Yes, I regret it. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said I hate gay people or anything like that," practically on the same day.

Then there's the equally riveting quest to land heralded multitalented future NBA world beater Kevin Durant. Much has been said about Durant's undeniable skills, but Slate writer Nathaniel Friedman insists that in order for Durant to approach his almost limitless potential, NBA teams must assimilate the wunderkind's prodigous talents in the proper system:

"The very thing that makes him great, his versatility, will make Durant a mixed blessing for some eager lottery team. Basketball is a game of positions, roles, and responsibilities. Point guards pass, shooting guards score, small forwards slash, power forwards do the dirty work, and centers control the paint. A player who can do all of these things poses lots of problems for opposing defenses. By the same token, the more a player deviates from basketball's traditional typology, the more difficult it becomes to assemble a roster around him."

Plus, that old curmudgeon, Charley Rosen, has been at it again. Lately, he's taken on both Chris Webber and the Toronto Raptors. It's worth reading, if only for the astute basketball analysis that manages to slip past Rosen's quest to be the most insufferably sarcastic sports writer ever:

"In general, Webber's off-the-ball defense was putrid. He was frequently caught out of position, or he failed to challenge penetrating guards, or he failed to recover after he showed, or he loafed in offense-to-defense transition. Indeed, Webber never actually ran at any time during the game. He either walked or half-trotted. Nor was he very aggressive in trying to capture any loose balls in his vicinity. His solitary steal came when Manu Ginobili threw a pass that was 5-feet behind a cutter and hit Webber in his hands. His only blocked shot came when Horry was compelled to launch a desperation 3-ball as the shot-clock buzzed off."

"Put Garbajosa down as a terrific standstill shooter. Period.

Andreas Bargnani — 7-12, 4-8 3FG, 4 TO, 22 PTS-- is nearly a carbon-copy of Garbajosa, minus the vision necessary to complete even the simplest passes. Bargnani ventured into the pivot twice: The first time the ball was simply taken out of his hands by a two-timing defender. The second time he started on the right box, and was ultimately pushed (by Mike Sweetney) out to the 3-point line.

But, man, can he shoot!

Bargnani is also the only player I've ever seen whose body seems to get thinner whenever he's called upon to set a screen. He'd rather avoid the contact completely and slide over to an open area in hopes of getting a pass and then firing away.

But, man, can he shoot!

Defense? Forget it. He played too straight up to move laterally at the necessary speed. He reached for the ball, turned his head, failed to box out when he had inside position during free throws, and on one sequence totally lost sight of his man. (Considering that this happened when he was assigned to guard the 6-8, 290-pound Sweetney, perhaps Bargnani needs glasses.)

But, man, can he shoot!"

Photo Credits:
Picture of the NBA logo comes courtesy of Newlaunches.com.
Picture of Tim Hardaway comes courtest of NBA.com