NBA Playoff Diary: A Non-Fan’s Account

By: John M. Crist

I admit it, I have been an NBA detractor ever since the Chicago Bulls dynasty went the way of the dodo bird. Too many playoff series’, too many thuggish players, and too many flat-out ugly games have kept my interest at a distance.

So in an effort to be more sports well-rounded, I forced myself to sit and watch game five of the Western Conference semi-final between the visiting Los Angeles Lakers and host San Antonio Spurs. I’m sitting on my couch wearing my 1993 fraternity pledge jersey (my own personal ‘throw-back,’ if you will). As is the case with most every basketball game these days, nothing really happens in the first half anyway, so we begin after intermission:

The score is 42-35 Lakers as the second half begins. With the stifling defense and poor shooting on display tonight, neither team could get to 100 points even if this game went to triple-overtime…

The Spurs are the defending NBA champions, probably the favorite to repeat, and their starting five includes Bruce Bowen, Hedo Turkoglu, and Rasho Nesterovic? I knew Tim Duncan and Tony Parker were good, but they might as well take three bench players from the University of Texas at San Antonio into battle every night…

Kobe Bryant makes an impossible runner in the lane, and as blasphemous as it sounds, I haven’t seen a player routinely find his way to the basket like this since Michael Jordan before he started settling for jump shots…

The Lakers and the Spurs are the two worst free throw shooting teams in the league, yet here they are in the conference semis. This would be like the Yankees making the World Series despite leading the league in errors or the Patriots getting back to the Super Bowl with a really bad turnover ratio. These things just don’t usually happen…

Color man Doc Rivers makes a “WWF” reference as Nesterovic ties up O’Neal once again. He apparently didn’t get the memo that they are calling themselves the WWE now. How great would it be if The Undertaker entered the arena and whacked Doc over the head with a folding chair for making the mistake…

Have you seen the movie trailer for “Soul Plane”? The producers aren’t making a real effort to go after the wine and cheese crowd, apparently. The odds of Snoop Dogg getting an Oscar nomination as the funky pilot are about as good as a Portland Trailblazer winning the NBA Man of the Year award…

Half way through the third quarter, the Spurs have 43 points. I’m pretty sure George Gervin had 43 points before the fourth period by himself in a few playoff games…

Bryant spins to his left, elevates, and hits a floater with the left hand. And he does it over the seven-foot Duncan, by the way, as if the degree of difficulty wasn’t high enough…

Everyone knows that traveling is pretty much a thing of the past, and now the NBA seems to have eliminated the pivot foot altogether. Every time a guy like Manu Ginobili receives a pass at the top of the key, he shuffles both feet before he makes a move off the dribble. I know the league wants to take advantage of the dazzling athletic ability of its players, but it seems they can’t do this without ignoring the basic rules of the game…

Devean George is heating up, draining two threes and throwing down a high-flying dunk in the span of a half dozen possessions. All the basketball experts have said that the Lakers need someone other than Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal to make shots, and George seems to be answering the call tonight. Lakers by 16…

“The Gary Payton Guide to Free Throw Shooting” should be mandatory reading for every player in the league. Two dribbles, shoot, swish. Too many guys use their time at the charity stripe as a way to draw attention because every camera is focused on them. Fancy dribbles, unnecessary ball spins, and that ridiculous Jason Kidd blowing kisses to his wife chaps me to no end. Just shoot the ball already. It’s one point no matter how it goes down…

O’Neal gets absolutely hammered in the key on a nightly basis. It’s no wonder that he goes berserk to the media once a year or so. It’s partially his own fault because he has been such a poor free throw shooter of the course of his career, but he’s just about unstoppable when he gets the ball within an arm’s length of the hoop. If he could ever become an 80% shooter from the line, he would be the most dominant offensive force in the history of the game. Teams would have to rethink that Hack-a-Shaq policy in crunch time, too…

Ginobili goes behind-the-back to Parker who knocks down a long jumper. A Frenchman gets an assist from an Argentinean in a big-time NBA playoff game. Not a lot of basketball pundits saw this coming 10 years ago, but the game is truly as international as ever…

The Lakers follow with a turnover, although they’re still up seven, but the momentum is changing very quickly as Bryant heads to the bench for the first time in the game…

Derek Fisher takes another charge, at least his third of the game, costing Parker a big three-pointer…

Duncan just grabbed his 20th rebound. Yeah, he’s pretty good…

Back-to-back threes by Turkoglu and Parker trim the lead to two. It’s the NBA, where everyone makes a run…

Another turnover by the Lakers, who are positively wilting right now…

Rivers tells the viewing audience, “Devin Brown is the single most important player on the floor for the Spurs.” What was that? I swear I just saw a pig flying outside my window…

I can iron a shirt in the time it takes Karl Malone to shoot a free throw. Bounce, bounce, spin, spin, knee bend, knee bend, mutter under his breath, slow rise, shoot. I can feel myself getting older as I watch this…

Both teams are under 50% at the line with less than five minutes left in the game. If either team had a clue shooting free throws, this could be a double-digit lead either way…

Duncan scores off the window from 18 feet, and it is a thing of beauty. Why is he the only guy in the league who makes a habit of using the glass these days? I guess the old-fashioned bank shot just doesn’t have enough ’street cred’…

Bryant is nowhere to be found right now, and perhaps not by coincidence, the Laker lead is all but gone…

Duncan double-pumps from the top of the key to avoid O’Neal and throws in a prayer off the glass from 19 feet. Spurs lead by one…

It’s hero time, and Bryant makes a jumper off a Malone pick to take a one-point lead with 11.5 seconds left. His crunch-time big-shot portfolio seems to be steadily growing with each passing game…

Duncan makes an unfathomable off-balance jumper to his left from 20 feet for a 73-72 lead with .4 seconds left. O’Neal defended the play about as well as anyone could, but the ball was simply destined for the net as it left Duncan’s hand. The body language of the Lakers gives the impression that not only is the game over, but their season is kaput, Bryant will be a Clipper next season, Phil Jackson retires to his ranch in Montana, and O’Neal starts filming Kazaam II…

Two consecutive timeouts, one by each team, before the actual game-ending play commences. There’s the first thing commissioner David Stern needs to address. Way too many timeouts over the course of the game. When an NFL team burns a couple out timeouts early in a half, it could actually come back to haunt them later…

The Lakers bunch four players near the free throw line for the final out-of-bounds play. Bryant is the logical choice to take the shot, but he’s draped by two defenders and can’t break free. A long lob pass to O’Neal near the rim is the second option, but it’s not there either. Derek Fisher sprints towards Payton, receives the pass, rubs his rabbit’s foot and makes an impossible turnaround fade-away to steal the game 74-73. No question this is one of the 10 greatest shots in the history of the NBA playoffs, not to mention that game five is always the most pivotal in a seven-game series…

Having .4 seconds on the game clock instead .3 seconds made all the difference in the world. The rule book allows a catch-and-shoot with .4 seconds remaining, but anything less requires a tip or the shot will not count…

Michelle Tafoya is interviewing an amazingly cool and collected O’Neal on the sideline, and the highly quotable behemoth sums it up with, “One lucky shot deserves another.” They don’t call him the Big Aristotle for nothing…

Rivers has simply run out of superlatives at this point, telling Al Michaels that he has “never seen anything like it” 34 times in the span of five minutes…

If I was only going to watch one NBA postseason game this year, I got pretty lucky and picked the right one. Despite a lackluster effort by most of the stars on both rosters, the final few minutes was about as entertaining as it gets. Two apparent game-winning shots had been hit before Fisher stole the show. What did I learn? Bryant is the most electric player in the game when he’s on, Duncan puts up incredible numbers on a nightly basis but does it in pretty ho-hum fashion, and nothing really happens until the final two minutes anyway.

The other three series’ (Timberwolves vs. Kings, Pacers vs. Heat, and Pistons vs. Nets) are all tied at two games apiece, but have I been converted enough to actually watch them? Sure, I will. Just give me a call and let me know when there are two minutes left.

John Crist is a longtime contributor to the CSR, and the Editor-in-Chief of Bear Report Magazine. Check it out and become a Bears Insider. You can contact him at johncrist@yahoo.com.

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