Super Client Ken invited me, Stag soccer legend and uber-skier Sean Carney, and corporate law maven and Master of the Teardrop Aaron Gafni to the Laker – Heat game last Thursday night. Excellent seats, row 6 on the side, essentially right at the basket the Heat attacked for the first half. We also had a perfect view of D12’s airball free throw with 2 minutes left.
It was a fascinating game in many ways. The Heat didn’t make a shot other than a lay-up or dunk for the first twenty (20!) minutes of the game, bricking every 3, jumper and floater they took. Whatever they were drinking, Kobe shared the same Sad Water from the same glass – going into the 4th quarter, he was 3 for 16. Ouch. Lakers had sixteen (16!) turnovers in the first half – 16 would be a bad number for a full game. And then, for a 9 ½ minute period in the 4th, both teams looked like championship contenders. Unfortunately, NBA 4th quarters are generally 12 minutes long, and the Heat played all 12 of those minutes, finishing the game on a 9 – 0 run. The Lakers continue to set in the west, and it is not a pretty sunset.
Other thoughts:
1. Lebron (39) and Wade (27) combined for 66 of the Heat’s 99 points. For you math wizards out there, that is 2/3 or 66.66% of the Heat points. You could probably go all season without seeing another team win with such unbalanced scoring. In the alternative, you could have seen the OKC Snow Thunder game the next night. Durant (52!) and Westbrook (31) combined for 83 of the Thunder’s 117 in a win over Dallas. That was 71% (!!) of the Thunder’s points. Durant shot only 13 for 31 – but went 21 for 21 from the free throw line. Best free throw shooting I have seen since I made 88 in a row after practice at Claremont one day. Yes, I had a witness.
2. Speaking of living in the past, an aging point guard who can’t beat his man off the dribble, who is questionable defensively, and can’t create his own shot has lost much of his value. Oh, you thought I was talking about Steve Nash? No, I was taking about me.
3. The Heat took Nash out of his comfort zone, and the Lakers out of their offense, by essentially playing a college style defense. Knowing the Lakers wanted to pound it inside, the Heat fronted the post, pressured the ball handler, closed the passing lanes, and double teamed the dribbler off all ball screens. The Lakers reacted like an overmatched college team, trying to force difficult passes into the post instead of reversing the ball to the other side through the high post, and only then dumping it down to the fronted big guy. It will be interesting to see how a team coached by an ex-college coach (Popovich, just to pick a name at random) will handle that defense. Pop’s decision to hold his Big Three out of the Spurs - Heat game last month may have been more about not letting the Heat know how he will attack that defense than the official “resting my guys” excuse (which cost the Spurs $250,00 in a game they almost won anyway).
4. Speaking of college coaching, we would always make offense – defense substitutions when the situation called for it. With 17 seconds left in the first half, shot clock off, the Heat had the ball and took a timeout to set up their last shot. The Lakers had both 38-year old Nash and 38-year old on the floor, neither of whom we good defenders when they were 28 years old. Did any of the 27 Laker assistant coaches suggest subbing in Darius Morris and Earl Clark? If they did, the head coach decided not to embarrass his two veterans (both of whom should have volunteered to come out without being asked). By the Corman Outcome Theory, the Lakers should have subbed them out. The Heat scored 2 points – because basketball is not Jeopardy where second half points count double, those 2 points hurt as much as Ray Allen’s amazing fall away over D12 with two minutes left in the fourth. (The only possible excuse for not subbing was that the Heat’s timeout was a “20-second” timeout, and there may be some special NBA rules about the ability to substitute during on the other team’s 20-second timeout. If so, my bad.)
5. Speaking of Morris, anyone else notice that he has now taken Jodie Meeks’ time as the back up 2-guard. For several minutes of the game, the Lakers had Duhon, Morris, Clark, Pao and Jamison on the floor. That is not a good NBA squad. In my first fake blog, I opined that Jodie Meeks’ ability to score when Kobe was out may be a key to the season. I may have been right. The Lakers also went with one of the oldest line-ups I have seen in a game not being played in a YMCA: Nash, Jamison, Kobe, Metta, and Pao. Before the season, I told several people that the Lakers may have assembled a team built for how teams played in the last century. Many teams now play with 5 inter-changeable parts instead of traditional point, shooting guard, small forward, power forward, and center. In the fourth, the Heat went with no point guard (6’8’’ 260 pound Lebron was “point”), Wade, Ray Allen, Battier and Bosh. Not a “1” or a “5” in the group. Is this the new wave – or is Lebron so out of the world that he allows the Heat to break all the rules?
6. Slightly off topic, though still within the college basketball theme. I coached at Claremont McKenna College for 8 years. At my firm, we have people who graduated from Claremont, Scripps, Occidental and Redlands. Other people in LA went to Azusa Pacific, Cal Poly Pomona and Cal State Dominquez Hills. The LA Times Sunday morning sports section listed about 150 college basketball scores from the night before. The list included Elms 82 Regis (Mass.) 63, Richard Stockton 71 William Patterson 60 (a one-on-one game?), Cornerstone 88 Marygrove 66, Lees-McRae 60 Coker 58, and Park 58 Hannibal-LaGrange 50 (a bit too close to Hannibal Lechter for my taste). I played college basketball for 4 years, coached it for 8 – and I have no idea where any of these schools are. Yet, they made the LA Times sports section – but Claremont, Oxy, Redlands, Pomona, Chapman, Cal Poly Pomona, Azusa Pacific, and Cal State Dominguez Hills did not. When I mentioned this to my Sunday morning hoop group, someone pointed out that I could go online and get the scores I wanted on-line. Which of course means that the LA Times print edition decision not to list local basketball scores (despite listing similar scores from around the country (even red states) has the practical effect of pushing people away from print and to the internet. Nice business plan.
7. Everyone who was at the Heat – Laker game was lucky to be there. As in the Nike as campaign for Lebron, we were all witnesses. http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/
8. My dad’s birthday is today. One of the best things he ever did for me growing up was to plan his schedule (he was on the road a lot) so that he didn’t miss any of my high school basketball games. Thanks Dad – and happy birthday. Or as they say on the Big Island -- Hau`oli lã hanau.
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