WE WILL start with some roundball today. It's been pointed out to me on several occasions that we don't talk enough roundball here at In Play Lose. The Lose loves me some roundball, of course, and the local club is certainly making it easy to love the NBA again. The Golden State Warriors are 29-5, possess the league's best offense and the league's best defense, to boot. They are dynamic and exciting and the O-rena has become the sort of electric madhouse of a home court everyone knew it could.
The Dubs have been good the last couple of seasons, of course, and their only significant change in the offseason was, of all things, to replace the head coach, which didn't seem to make much sense when it happened. But new head coach Steve Kerr came in, looked at the talent amassed, thanked his lucky stars, and then said something along the lines of, "um, hey, guys, here's an idea: let's pass the basketball." For all of his motivational prowess, deposed head coach Mark Jackson ran a prehistoric, isolation-heavy offense which negated one the W's greatest strengths – they have excellent passers at every position on the floor. With Kerr's more open flow offense, the Warriors are a terror. They're a matchup nightmare because they can adapt to seemingly any situation – they have the best backcourt in the NBA, they have slashers and transition players, they have role players, they have instant offense on the bench, they have shutdown 1-on-1 defenders. The challenge will be to keep their big men, David Lee and Andrew Bogut, healthy for the entire season, because those two can clean the glass and because Bogut is an elite defender, and Kerr has to balance the need to grab homecourt advantage in the loaded West with the need to ration minutes.
But it's interesting to note how a change in coaching and a simple philosophical shift catapulted this team into the stratosphere. The team flirted with trades and the like in the offseason, but then came to realize it wasn't necessary. The end result is a team that's pretty dazzling to watch, and has the look of being special – a term, in sports, which has enormous connotations.
Anyway, let's lace up the sneakers here and hit the hardwood first. To the buzzard points!
• I think they have reached the threshold of misery at Madison Square Garden after Saturday, when the Knicks lost their 15th in a row, getting blown out by 28 by a bad Charlotte
The Knicks are 5-35 and possess the worst record in the NBA, and new Knicks president Phil Jackson (sort of) had to fall on his sword after this one:
"This is a mea culpa. I take responsibility for it."
The reason he only sort of falls on the sword is that he then says this:
"Obviously I didn't do the right thing in picking the group of guys that were here. A lot of it was etched in stone, we had guys with guaranteed contracts... There was something going on there that didn't click toward making winning necessary or a possibility for us."
So, in other words, the players suck, and the previous administration was stupid for signing them. This is classic coach speak, of course, whereby you shift the blame at the same time you admit your culpability.
Carmelo Anthony missing 10 games with a bad knee certainly hasn't helped, nor the absence for 12 games by what remains of Amar'e Stoudemire, but the Knicks were already awful with them in the lineup, and I don't think there is much point in having them hurry back from the injuries. In trading away two players and getting nothing in return of value last week, the Knicks signaled they had given up on the season. The lineup for Saturday's 28-point debacle v. Charlotte was maybe as bad as I've ever seen in the NBA. The Knicks will hope to rebuild through the draft and also free agency in the offseason, but the Zen Master did, in fact, offer up a nugget of truth in that regard which almost no pro sports execs will care to admit:
"We're all worried about the fact that money is not going to just be able to buy you necessary talent. You're going to have to have places where people want to come and play ... "
In other words, there is a legit danger of Edmonton Disease creeping in. And see, it's that kind of stuff which I've always appreciated from Phil Jackson. He's someone who generally isn't afraid to speak to broader issues in a team or the game as a whole. He also then ripped the silly, bright-shiny-object mentality which has hindered the franchise for decades:
"We're going through this period of time and for some of the people that have been fans of this team have told me many times that there's been this impression that maybe the team should blow it up and should start over again and it's never happened. It's always been going after the next big star. We kept searching for the big star to change our fortunes which has never happened in the last 45 years or so, so reality is that this is probably the best way to go about the business and to begin and to restart and do it the right way and put it together in a way that really makes sense."
So even though I dock him for some coach speak there earlier, I gotta give him some props for this. He needs all the props he can get right about now, since that team is even worse than the 76ers at the moment – and speaking of which, they must be really aggravated at the Philly nerve center, since this is the second year in a row where their concerted efforts at being the worst team in the NBA are being actively thwarted. Last year's awful team was done in by the Milwaukee Bucks and their refusal to play together in any sort of an arrangement looking like a team. This year, it's the Knicks. The 76ers will have to try harder, or try easier, as the case may be, and it won't matter anyway, since Cleveland will win the draft lottery again even if they make the playoffs, since it's the only thing Cleveland ever wins.
• Speaking of the Cavs, their attempt at creating an instant championship contender hasn't gone very well so far. In spite of signing LeBron, and trading those two top NBA draft picks they've had to Minnesota for Kevin Love, the Cavs are only 19-19 and can't seem to figure out how to play together. This has led to a certain amount of disquiet in Cleveland, of course, who are desperate for a winner. But the Cavs made a couple of decent trades last week, acquiring some pieces without giving up much of anything, and they basically have the whole season to use as a chemistry experiment, because the East stinks and .500 ball will work just fine for getting into the playoffs. And come April, they still have the best player on the planet on their team.
• The Knicks have now filled out their depleted roster with a couple of guys signed to 10-day contracts. The Lose is a big fan of the 10-day, which is the sports world's equivalent of being a temp. I always enjoyed being a temp, actually. I liked it far more than most of my fulltime jobs. You don't get paid as much, sure, but you're also genuinely appreciated because the organization you're working for desperately needs some stuff done, so you're helping them out in a bind. Likewise, NBA clubs don't bother signing guys to 10-day contracts for the purposes of sitting them at the end of the bench. There are plenty of 7'0" stiffs who can do that. In fact, I've never understand what value the Chuck Nevitts of the world offered in the first place, since you wouldn't be caught dead with them on the floor at a meaningful time. (At least those guys have a sense of humour about it, the funniest of which was Scott Hastings, who once said he was always spoken of in the same sentence as Michael Jordan – "that Scott Hastings, he's no Michael Jordan" – and who responded to his usual box score line of 1 minute of play, 0-0 from the floor, 0-0 from three, 0-0 from the FT line, 0 offensive rebounds, 0 total rebounds, 0 assists, 0 blocked shots, 0 turnovers, and 0 fouls, by saying such a statline was called a "trillion" and that he led the league in trillions.) When you sign a 10-day contract, they usually actually need you to play. (One of the Knicks temps got 18 minutes the other night.) You can sign two 10-days in a season with the same club, but after that, they have to sign you for the whole season. It's kind of a cool audition, and a few guys have managed to stick going this route over the years. And as an inherent fan of the underdogs, I always want to see these kinds of guys do well.
• One other bit of Knicks news here, which actually segues nicely into talking about the NFL playoffs. This is what Phil Jackson said about Knicks head coach Derek Fisher:
"The fans, I want them to leave Derek alone in this regard. He's doing the best job possible. It's not his fault."
Now, Phil Jackson and Derek Fisher have brought to New York with them the famous triangle offense which was a staple of Jackson's teams in Chicago and L.A. What they've come to discover, of course, is that it was a whole lot easier to run a triangle offense with Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen and Shaq and Kobe and Pau Gasol. (In New York, the natives are skeptical.) It's been a belief among many, in fact, that Jackson's genius as a coach actually involved little more than having some of the best players in the history of the game be on his teams, and that this foray into management with New York is an attempt, on his part, to prove the naysayers wrong. Frankly, you can probably run any offense with Shaq and be successful, so long as "throw the ball to the huge guy" is the first option. It's also been insinuated that the Knicks, as constructed this season, don't have 'the right kind of players' to run the triangle effectively, to which I say, "THEN WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO RUN IT?!?!?!" As a coach, you have to give your players the best chance to win the game. Stubbornly sticking with something that doesn't work is absolutely stupid.
Juxtapose that attitude with what we saw in Foxboro on Saturday, where the New England Patriots were in a tough matchup with the Ravens. I said to Phonerz J. Magratheazaphod, the Official Sad Broncos Fan of In Play Lose, that New England would probably have to throw for 450 yards in order to win this game, because the Ravens were decimated by injuries in the secondary this season but were strong at every other position. They threw for 418, so I wasn't too far off. In fact, Tom Brady didn't hand the ball off once the entire second half. The Pats ran the ball only 13 times for 14 yards, with a QB sneak being the only designed running play of the second half. The Pats have striven for more balance in the offense recently, of course, but sometimes you have to stop trying to establish the run, and start trying to win the game. The best coaches adapt and adjust to the situation.
And New England has maybe the best of all time in that regard with Bill Belichick at the helm. Belichick pulled out all the stops in the Pats' 35:31 win, including one of the most ingenious things I've ever seen on a football field when down 14 pts. in the 3rd Quarter:
OK, so at first glance, that doesn't look like much. That's just a seam route to the tight end, right? Well, no. Take a look at the five guys in the offense line again in that gif and you'll see #47 Michael Hoomanawanui, who caught the pass, lined up at the usual left tackle position:
The rules require seven men on the line – five linemen, who are ineligible to catch a pass, and two guys on the end who can. You generally bunch up the five linemen together in a tight row ... but you don't have to. The rules also stipulate that players with numbers 51-79 on offense are designated as lineman by default, but you can use them as receivers if you report to the referee, which is what you see all the time in short yardage, when a lineman will come in and line up as a tight end or blocking back. But the reverse case is true as well: you can take a receiver and declare him to be a lineman, which is what the Patriots did with a running back, #34 Shane Vereen, lined up in the slot:
The referee announced that #34 was 'ineligible' and can't go out for a pass, but the Ravens didn't pay attention. They just looked at the formation, saw five guys bunched together and assumed they were linemen, assumed #34 was a receiver, and then promptly let the #47 masquerading as a left tackle run uncovered down the center of the field for a big gain. The Patriots then ran this same sort of formation twice more before the Ravens staff finally figured out what the hell was going on, but by that point the Pats were down at the 10-yard line, and New England promptly scored to make it 28-21 and get back in the game.
In keeping with being the whiniest franchise in all of sports, the Ravens bitched about it afterwards, but the fact is that it was a legal play. It was within the rules. If anything, I wondered why no one had thought of this before. (Apparently, Alabama ran something like this against L.S.U., but I'd never seen it in the pros.) And this is maybe one of the ballsiest moves ever, if you think about it. You're down 2 TDs in the 3rd Quarter of a playoff game, you desperately need to score this drive, and you go with a gimmick formation to save your season? Absolutely brilliant. The Pats then tied the score at 28-28 on another trick play – a backward pass across the field from Tom Brady to WR Julian Edelman – a former college QB – who then threw a 51-yard TD pass over top of a befuddled Ravens defense. A play the Pats have never run, and no amount of film study of an opponent can prepare you for a play they've never run before.
Now, football has lots more leeway than most any other sport when it comes to the creative sorts of things you can do on the field, of course. But the point is that, in any sport, you need other ideas sometimes. The Royals were so far behind the A's in the AL wild card playoff that they abandoned all conventionality and just start stealing bases in any situation imaginable, which helped turn the tide. Going by the book makes no sense when you have to win now. And going back to the Knicks, if your team can't make sense of the book, then throw the damn thing away and try something else.
• Dez Bryant didn't make the catch:
OK, well, in my opinion, he did make the catch. But by the letter of the rule, this was an incomplete pass. Is it a dumb rule? Yes, very much so, but that's not the referees' problem. Much like the infamous tuck rule of snowy NFL days of lore and yore, the rules were properly applied in the case of this pass, a spectacular play on 4th down by Dez Bryant of the Dallas Cowboys which was overturned on review, giving the Packers the ball back, after which they ran out the clock.
This particular rule about catching the football is referred to as the 'Calvin Johnson rule' in the NFL, since the Lions lost a TD, and a game, due to a catch their super receiver made being determined to be an incomplete pass. And the Lions, of course, who lost in controversial fashion to Dallas a week ago, couldn't help but troll the Cowboys a bit:
• On a happy note, this guy is a new hero of mine, because that is hard core. That is about the most terrifyingly awesome thing I have ever heard of.
• And as a final note, I will be curious to watch the NCAA Championship Game tonight. Personally, I think Oregon wins, and probably not by a small margin, but let's hope the first go at this sort of game turns out to be a good one. And one great piece of Lose related trivia: Ezekiel Elliott, the Buckeyes' star running back, is the son of Stacy Elliott, who played football at Missouri and was on the field for the worst piece of officiating in sports history. Remember Hanlon's razor, folks, and always assume incompetence. You're usually right in doing so, and sometimes depressingly so.
