Accolades: 2x MVP (1956, ’59), 10x All-NBA 1st Team (1955 – ’64), All-NBA 2nd Team (1965), 11x All-Star (1955 – ’65), 4x All-Star Game MVP (1956, ’58, ’59, ’62), NBA Title (1958), 2x PPG Leader (1956, ’59)
“I never tried to be a team leader in basketball. I wasn’t a guy who did a lot of talking. I just wanted everybody to see that I worked hard, that I’d give my full effort all the time. In business, I try to surround myself with the best people and then let them do their thing.” And if that doesn’t succeed? “Then we all sit down, talk it over, and work things out.”
That’s a fairly accurate description Bob Pettit gave of himself in that interview with Jack Ramsay. Many have worked as hard as Pettit but none harder. You listen to him speak for any length of time and invariably he returns to the ethos of hard work, determination and consistency. These would be hallmarks of his Hall of Fame career.
Bob’s initial forays into basketball were strongly encouraged by his father, a sheriff in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Despite being cut from the high school team twice, the practice ultimately paid off as Pettit eventually made the squad and would subsequently led them to the Louisiana state title. A fairly successful stint at Louisiana State University followed where he averaged ho-hum 27 points and 15 rebounds a game in his time as a Tiger. His play in these years, however, was predicated on him being a back-to-the-basket, low post threat. And at 6’9″ he had the height, but with only a scant 200 lbs to that frame, he didn’t have the weight to succeed in the pros that way.
So, Pettit totally retooled his game upon entering the NBA and would prove to better than ever.
Despite the fears over his frailty, the Milwaukee Hawks selected Pettit 2nd overall in the 1954 Draft. The Hawks were abominably terrible the previous year winning only 21 games. Their leading scorer was Don Sunderlage with a sizzling 11 ppg. Pettit immediately seized the reins of the team and although they improved to only 26 wins his rookie season, Pettit put together a spectacular campaign of 20.4 ppg and 13.8 rpg.
His success was due to virtually abandoning being a back-to-the-basket player and instead becoming a dangerous marauder. He was one of the first big men(not just in position but in actual height) to roam the court and thrive on constant movement. He had a tremendous mid-range jump shot and could score off the dribble with some skill but his biggest money maker was with the incessant attacks he made on the offensive glass and with off-the-ball cuts. Bill Russell, quite the authority on hustle and rebounding, had this to say about Pettit:
“Bob made ‘second effort’ a part of the sport’s vocabulary. He kept coming at you more than any man in the game. He was always battling for position, fighting you off the boards.”
Pettit made the All-NBA 1st Team, which he would do until his final season, and ran away with the Rookie of the Year award in that 1954-55 season. Likewise, the Hawks were ran out of Milwaukee that offseason. Facing dismal attendance, owner Ben Kerner moved the club to St. Louis in hopes that the team (and his pocketbook) would finally succeed. The move turned out better than he could have imagined.
Prior to Game3 of the Pacers-Heat series, my friend John who came to the game with me asked who I thought would win. My political answer was either Indiana close or Miami big. I simply did not see Miami winning a close game on the road, and I certainly could not fathom a reality where Indiana blew out the Heat. A little over three hours after John asked me for my prediction, the Pacers had routed the Heat 94-75, and all of the sudden they find themselves up 2-1 in this series.
Some random thoughts from the game:
Coming from someone who wrote an article months ago calling out the entire city of Indianapolis for not showing up to games and finishing with the fifth worst attendance in the NBA, the crowd last night absolutely brought it. The 18,165 fans in attendance clad in yellow “Gold Swagger” shirts served as the poster child for the image the country should have when they think of Indiana as a basketball state. From the very beginning, it was apparent to everyone, fans and beat writers included, that this was going to be a playoff atmosphere.
Hibbert has blocked Pittman's first 2 shots. Pacers crowd defining playoff intensity.
Roy Hibbert was an absolute monster. When Dexter Pittman was announced as a starter, the gentleman sitting next to me, decked out in a white and black LeBron jersey, declared the game was over and Hibbert was going to have a big game. While the decision to start Pittman, a guy who had exactly zero meaningful playoff minutes logged in his career coming into last night, was curious, to declare even facetiously that the game was over before it started was laughable. Three minutes later, the Pittman experiment was over, Indiana was up 11-2, and I had stopped laughing. Hibbert’s final line ended up resembling everything that Pacers fans could possibly want from their All-Star center: 19 points, 18 rebounds, 5 blocks, and most likely one massive pay day coming his way in the near future.
Where do I even possibly begin with Dwyane Wade? The jokes have already been made that he’s in the spirit of the Indianapolis 500 by bringing the Brickyard to Banker’s Life Fieldhouse last night and how it was actually Miami fans, not Indiana fans, who now wish he had been suspended for Game 3. But there is something far more serious going on than his woeful five point, six turnover, 2-13 from the field performance. Bob Kravitz of the Indianapolis Star tweeted at halftime that Wade might be sick while Brian Windhorst reports that Wade is being bothered by a lower leg issue that plagued him towards the end of the regular season. Whatever the issue is, it needs to get resolved as soon as possible because LeBron James simply cannot carry this team on his back at this point.
The Bosh injury is obviously huge, and Wade’s health is in question as well; however, at this point, the bigger concern for Miami is their mental approach. I haven’t had a chance to rewatch the game on DVR so I’m not entirely sure how much viewers at home could see it or how it translated, but Miami’s body language in the second half was arguably the worst I have seen from a sports team at any level of competition. LeBron walked out of a timeout huddle while Spoelstra was still talking to the rest of the team. Lethargy on the defensive end was present throughout the second half. And Wade was involved in a well documented heated “discussion” with Spoelstra in the third quarter. While I certainly don’t doubt Spoelstra’s explanation that these, shall we say, disagreements happen all the time, usually they are kept out of the view of a national television audience. It was clear that the frustration had reached a boiling point, and Miami is going to be in for a long series (or I suppose a very short one now) if this continues.
Wade, Shane Battier, and Pittman a.k.a. 60% of Miami’s starting lineup finished a combined 2-22 from the field, scored five points, and turned the ball over six times. Looking simply at the box score and seeing Battier’s 0-6 from beyond the arc, 0-7 from the field overall performance doesn’t even come close to telling the full story. Battier was wide open on many of his shots that he flat out missed, and missed badly. If his legs aren’t totally gone, they’re rapidly approaching that point which does not bode well for Miami’s biggest offseason acquisition last year.
On the positive side for Miami, Mario “Super Nintendo” Chalmers was outstanding for the Heat tonight. Finally, someone on the Heat outside of Wade and LeBron stepped up in a game. Unfortunately, Chalmers came up big when Wade was non-existent. Chalmers frequently found himself getting into the paint and converting opportunities there as he finished 8-9 in the painted area. In particular, he continued to get floaters off between the free throw line and restricted area going 4-5 from that area on the floor. Miami desperately needs him to be his Game 3, Dr. Jekyll doppelganger as opposed to his Game 2, five point, Mr. Hyde self.
Following a missed technical free throw by LeBron, Lance Stephenson made a choke sign in the direction of Miami’s bench. For a team that, for some unknown reason, deems it necessary to find even the slightest offensive gestures as an additional source of motivation for the playoffs, you can bet that Miami is going to try and channel that into a rallying point for the rest of the series. Maybe it will end up being nothing in the long run, but there are still no words to define how utterly stupid that action came across when it occurred.
Overall, it’s becoming readily apparent that if Wade and LeBron aren’t clicking on the same night, Miami does not stand a chance to beat the Pacers. That being said, this series is far from over. As impressive as last night’s performance was by Indiana, it still only counts for one win. It’s very possible that Miami spends the next two days regrouping and comes out Sunday guns-blazing therefore reclaiming home court advantage as they head back to South Beach. If they don’t, however, you can pretty much say goodbye to the Heat that you’re used to because a second round ousting at the hands of Indiana almost assures that at least one of the LeBron-Wade-Bosh-Spoelstra combination will not be on Miami’s payroll when the 2012 season tips off.
In the short term though, the momentum is completely on Indiana’s side heading into Game 4. They said they weren’t intimidated by the Heat coming into the series, and the first three games have done nothing but support that claim. Danny Granger and David West earning techinicals last night kept up the chippiness that’s been present all series long and sent a message that Indiana was not scared of the Heatles. That attitude permeated throughout the arena, and whether you were in person for it or watching on TV, one thing was becoming readily apparent. For the first time since Reggie Miller retired, Indiana officially has its swagger back.
Ever since Chauncey Billups went down with a torn Achilles early in the season, the Clippers have been searching for the right backcourt combination to play. They’ve been mixing and matching for much of the year, though they’ve leaned more heavily on a few of the combinations than others. With that in mind, let’s take a look at some numbers, shall we? These were the 10 most commonly-used backcourt combinations by Clippers during the regular season, sorted by minutes played (Current, healthy personnel only; so not counting any containing Billups. Also note that the Randy Foye – Nick Young and Mo Williams – Nick Young tandems played some of their minutes alongside Chris Paul in small-ball lineups).
Regular Season Lineups
Lineup
MIN
OffRtg
DefRtg
NetRtg
Randy Foye – Chris Paul
1061
108.4
102.8
5.6
Chris Paul – Mo Williams
806
110.1
104.4
5.7
Randy Foye – Mo Williams
551
100.5
105.5
-5
Chris Paul – Nick Young
287
109.1
105.1
4
Eric Bledsoe – Mo Williams
247
99.1
99.7
-0.6
Eric Bledsoe – Nick Young
233
96.8
95.1
1.7
Mo Williams – Nick Young
172
100.7
106.9
-6.2
Randy Foye – Nick Young
148
105.7
100.1
5.6
Eric Bledsoe – Randy Foye
116
103.6
88.8
14.8
Eric Bledsoe – Chris Paul
76
111.4
93.5
17.9
Now, let’s take a look at those same 10 backcourt combinations and their performance in the playoffs, again sorted by minutes played.
Playoffs Lineups
Lineup
MIN
OffRtg
DefRtg
NetRtg
Randy Foye – Chris Paul
190
92.5
107.8
-15.3
Mo Williams – Nick Young
120
109.9
95.7
14.1
Chris Paul – Mo Williams
97
92.6
89.9
2.6
Chris Paul – Nick Young
94
109.9
88.9
21
Eric Bledsoe – Nick Young
84
122.5
90.7
31.8
Eric Bledsoe – Mo Williams
80
114.9
98.9
16.1
Eric Bledsoe – Chris Paul
47
113
78.4
34.6
Eric Bledsoe – Randy Foye
19
120.4
108.2
12.2
Randy Foye – Mo Williams
19
109.6
120.2
-10.7
Randy Foye – Nick Young
16
120.5
136.1
-15.6
The thing that jumps out, as I’ve highlighted in the above charts, is that the Clippers’ best backcourt by Net-Rtg (points scored per 100 possessions (pts/100) minus points allowed per 100 possessions) in both the regular season and the playoffs is the little-used Chris Paul – Eric Bledsoe backcourt. In just 76 regular season minutes together, the tandem posted a Net-Rtg of 17.9, meaning the Clippers outscored their opponents by 17.9 pts/100 when the two shared the floor. In the postseason, coach Vinny Del Negro has given the Paul-Bledsoe combination more extensive minutes, and they’ve rewarded his faith by posting a preposterous Net-Rtg of 34.6 (better than any two-man lineup combination in the playoffs except for Boris Diaw – Kawhi Leonard and Boris Diaw – Danny Green) – scoring and defending at a rate that would have led the league over the course of the full season.
It’s certainly understandable why Del Negro may have been reticent to give the Paul-Bledsoe tandem extended minutes during the regular season. First, there’s the size factor. Paul is only 6’0″ and Bledsoe stands just 6’1″, and those are their listed heights. They may actually be smaller. Until they traded for Young, the Clippers didn’t really have a natural shooting guard on the roster; they were mostly playing dual-point guard lineups with either Foye or Williams masquerading as a two. So they were already small enough on the perimeter without playing the two smallest players on their roster together at the same time.
Spacing was likely a consideration as well. None of the Clippers’ front court players can be described as even a passable shooter from outside the lane. Blake Griffin, DeAndre Jordan, Reggie Evans, Kenyon Martin; none of these guys has a jumper to speak of and Caron Butler is just a 32.7% career 3-point shooter from their small forward position. So the Clippers really needed their two-guard to be able to knock down outside shots to space the floor, especially since that player so often was the outlet man for Chris Paul to find when Griffin or Jordan were too well-covered diving to the basket on pick-and-rolls. Bledsoe shot just 20.0% from beyond the 3-point line this season and wasn’t much better on long twos (shots attempted from between 16 and 23 feet from the basket), where he shot a paltry 25.0%. The Clippers dealt with crowded lanes for much of the season to begin with, and without a shooter like Williams (38.9% from 3 this season) or Foye (38.6%) on the court to keep defenders honest, they may have been even more so.
But that ignores what the Paul-Bledsoe lineup could do for LA defensively. Bledsoe may well be the best defender on the team; he’s certainly the best defender in the Clipper backcourt. He’s an absolute pest on the ball, can apply pressure all the way up and down the court and has a knack for getting into passing lanes. There’s a reason that LA’s four best backcourt tandems by defensive rating during the regular season were: Bledsoe-Foye, Bledsoe-Paul, Bledsoe-Young and Bledsoe-Williams. If there’s one thing the kid can definitely do, it’s play defense. While Young, Williams and Foye are average at best defensively, Bledsoe provides an extra boost that the Clippers need. And that defensive superiority fueled their offense too. The Paul-Bledsoe backcourt had the best offensive rating of any Clipper backcourt pairing during the regular season as well.
This type of extra-small, defense-first lineup isn’t exactly common in the NBA, but there is one team who used it to their great advantage this season, even if they initially had to be forced into it by injuries: the Boston Celtics. When Ray Allen got injured in the middle of this season, Doc Rivers turned to second year guard Avery Bradley to be his starting shooting guard. The 6’2″ Bradley, never considered a great outside shooter prior to this year (he attempted just five 3-pointers as a rookie in 2010-11 and missed them all and shot just 21.0% on long twos) and known mostly for his hounding on-ball defense, seemed to be an odd fit with Rajon Rondo, another poor shooter, in the backcourt. But when Rivers unleashed Bradley on opposing ball-handler, it didn’t much matter. The Celtics defense took off and never looked back. Bradley is now one of the most important players on the team.
The sample size of playing time is obviously smaller, but the Paul-Bledsoe backcourt tandem has been every bit as effective as the Rondo-Bradley one.
(Regular Season+Playoffs)
MIN
OffRtg
DefRtg
NetRtg
Bledsoe-Paul
123
112.01
87.73
24.28
Bradley-Rondo
618
103.48
88.32
15.16
Using the Paul-Bledsoe tandem in their series against the Spurs is something the Clippers should stick with – they used the tandem for 16 minutes on Game 1. Having Bledsoe in the game would spare Paul the chore of checking Tony Parker and having to navigate his way through endless amounts of ball-screens. He could instead guard Danny Green or Gary Neal, whichever is in the game at the time. Though this would be a big size mismatch and leave Paul vulnerable to being taken into the post, that’s certainly a preferable situation to Paul getting beat up trying to fight through picks to stay with Parker so he doesn’t get a switch to take Griffin or Jordan off the dribble. Having him guard a mostly stationary shooter who may get a side pick-and-roll opportunity every few possessions or so rather than chasing Parker all over the court allows Paul to save some energy, allowing him to better maximize his production on the offensive end, where he is sorely needed to create points. And when the Spurs go to their Parker-Manu Ginobili backcourt, Bledsoe could take on the Ginobili assignment much better than any of the Clippers other two-guards could. He’s the only one quick enough to hang with him.
It’s unconventional, and there are certainly drawbacks, but this is a lineup that has been insanely effective in the limited minutes Del Negro has afforded it this season. Being that the Clippers more traditional lineup tandems have been so spectacularly ineffective in the playoffs thus far – their most-used backcourt combination of Paul-Foye has the second worst NetRtg (-15.6) of any they’ve used in the playoffs – it’s definitely worth a more extended look.
Tuesday night’s winterization of the Clippers by the Spurs was comprehensive. They shut off their water, emptied and cleaned their swimming pool then covered it with a heavy duty tarp, brought in their garden furniture, unplugged the coffee maker, drained their plumbing and filled it with antifreeze, and set a little timer to make their living room lights come on between 6:30 pm and 11:45 pm. When all was said and done, the Spurs walked away with a 108-92 victory and a 1-0 lead in the best of seven series. And it didn’t really seem that close. The Clippers went on a run early in the fourth to cut the deficit to 8 with 8:42 remaining, but the Spurs tightened up again and never looked back after that.
This was either something to be admired, more a work of craftsmanship than pure sport, the purest expression of the artistry of the Spurs or else it was just another mind-numbingly boring display of the interminable snoozefest that the Spurs pass off as basketball. Myles Brownsaid “Why do people think watching something that works well is so boring?” and then twenty minutes later Netw3rksaid, “The Spurs ‘brand’ has been more or less in place for over a decade … and the sports fan at-large doesn’t want it. It bores them.” For a long time, I agreed with the latter. One of my first articles for this site was, after all, about Tim Duncan and was titled “More Like Power Bore-wards.” But beginning with when I took a closer look at the layered and deceptively simple way their plays work, I began to turn the corner on the Spurs. Suddenly, I was looking forward to watching them play the Clippers, and the reason is plain: the Spurs are an acquired taste, like black coffee or whiskey.
The essence of an acquired taste is that you have to want to acquire it before you actually know if you like it. This is supremely counterintuitive. But there aren’t very many people who get their first taste of black coffee and say, “Man, this is what I’ve been missing!” No: you ease yourself into it with drinks that please your sweet tooth, with frappucinos and other things that are more like milkshakes than coffee. And a lot of people will stay right there, enjoying their coffee with whip cream and chocolate syrup, but some people will eventually decide they want to be discerning about their coffee not as a drink, but as coffee. As an experience unto itself. Things like getting your coffee beans whole to grind yourself becomes important. Having a coffee maker that keeps the water at the right temperature and ready all the time becomes important. In some ways, it means not just liking the thing but liking that you like it.
So it goes—if you’re not someone who just grew up with them—with the Spurs, and Kevin Arnovitz hit on this in his excellent post about their motion weak offense. It’s a beautiful explanation of how the Spurs subtly derange the defense by having Tony Parker hand the ball off on one wing and cut through the paint to receive it on the other wing. In essence, Arnovitz’s case is that this shouldn’t be boring because almost anything can happen at any point in the play because it gives the Spurs so many options: if the defense is napping, Parker can get the handoff back and drive the lane; if Duncan has good position on the low block, he can get the ball and back his man down; if the swingman at the top of the arc is Bonner, he can shoot the three if he’s open; and on and on and on. It sounds great on paper, but there’s a problem with how it’s received by the average basketball fan, and Arnovitz actually points it out himself. “The final resort of the Spurs’ signature set,” he writes, “looks like the first strike from most teams — a simple angle pick-and-roll on the left side with a variety of drive-and-dish options for Parker.” All that motion, all that glorious stuff, can end up looking like what most teams start with, and that’s why it seems boring. If you can’t see the intricacies that got Parker the ball on the opposite wing, if you can’t see how it’s gotten Duncan better post position on the weak side or how it’s freed up a wing at the top of the arc, then it just looks like noise.
But this is just another part of an acquired taste because the onus is on you to understand it, not on the object to become more likable. If someone says they like whiskey and then goes on to say they drink Southern Comfort, someone who’s actually into whiskey will point out that Southern Comfort is technically a whiskey-flavored liqueur. And that’s the thing: a taste that requires acquiring is not about figuring out what you like about something. It’s about learning something new outside yourself, about bringing that thing into your understanding.
Outside of consumable items, acquired tastes pop up most often in music, so it’s also natural for people to reach for band comparisons in trying to explain the Spurs. I compared them to Menomena, a band that builds its songs into complex machines out of simple melodic units. Netw3rk compared them to Fugazi on Tuesday night.
The Spurs are a basketball team for hardcore basketball fans. That's really what I'm saying. They're like Fugazi.
It’s an apt comparison in a lot of ways. Fugazi cared not for mainstream acceptance and had no interest in signing to a major label after they became successful. All their CDs bore the text “This CD is $8 postpaid from Dischord Records” at a time when most CDs were $17 at Sam Goody and all their shows were all ages and $5. And as Chris Ballard’s Sports Illustrated story on Duncan makes clear, Gregg Popovich and Tim Duncan, as the pillars of the Spurs for the last 15 years, have no interest in anything other than what works on the court. “I could be more accessible and be the darling for everybody,” says Duncan towards the end of the piece. “I could open up my life and get more endorsements and be out there and be a fan favorite. But why would that help?” The Spurs are about basketball the way Fugazi are about music, and that hardcore devotion will always alienate some people.
However. Fugazi are also indelibly cool. By eschewing the machinery of the music industry, they endeared themselves to–and in many ways created–the independent-minded music community. The Spurs’ approach has earned them no such cachet and they remain resolutely unhip and old. So while the way they play the game might be Menomena-esque and the way they approach the game might be Fugazi-esque, the way the public at large views the Spurs is probably most like the way they view Steely Dan.
Technically immaculate, disciplined, with an ever-critical eye towards getting the right players to to do the right jobs, with moments of unalloyed brilliance, their approbation sadly consigned to the province of fellow professionals, completely at home being the background music at JC Penney: this is Steely Dan and the San Antonio Spurs in a nutshell. My freshman year college roommate was a huge Steely Dan fan, and I couldn’t square it with the rest of his personality. He also loved The Smiths and R.E.M.; A Tribe Called Quest and Common (back when he was Common Sense); Sartre and Kerouac. And yet he adored this band that sounded like cheesy elevator music to me, the one with pseudo-jazz sax solos, a band where everything felt scrubbed clean and soulless. The one the dad in “Say Anything” listens to. Where was the fire? The grime? The ragged edge that made the music I liked feel alive? In essence, where were the dunks? The alley-oops? The fast breaks and circus lay-ups? The highest highs and the lowest lows? All Steely Dan were giving me was great footwork, textbook pick and rolls, bank shots, and championships. Steely Dan weren’t a band I was missing out on, they were a band I wanted to miss out on. As soon as I heard Fugazi in high school, I knew I had to like this band, but I was content to mock Donald Fagen and company until the summer after my junior year.
Something just clicked that summer. But the thing was, I had to go to them. I had to want to become a Steely Dan fan and so I did. I bought Citizen, which neatly collected all their works into one box set, at the record store I worked at and that summer, as my band drove all over Massachusetts playing shows, we listened to a lot of Steely Dan. I slowly developed a taste for their ultra-smooth music, began to appreciate the way it was almost like soul music deconstructed and reconstructed by aliens. Their narrators were seedy, empty, often desperate and I began to see how the music’s coolness, its spotless polish, was a mirror of the facade the song’ characters were living. And once you acquire the taste for something, it draws you in ever deeper.
And so it goes with the Spurs. They’re running the same action I yawned at for most of this season, but suddenly it all looks different. Like a lot of people, I tend to key in on certain players during games, watching how Kevin Durant is getting loose from screens or appreciating the way Derrick Rose can slice through defenders like they’re standing still. But watching the Spurs now I see all the players as just players, as cogs in the machine of Popovich’s offense. I can see those possibilities that Arnovitz outlines in his article arise and come to fulfillment and I get satisfaction out of that seeing. Here’s just one play from Tuesday night’s Game 1 against the Clippers, and it’s a supremely simple one:
Duncan sets the high screen for Parker, who gets doubled. Duncan rolls to the paint where he screens Boris Diaw’s man (Blake Griffin) and Diaw catches it with space. He doesn’t shoot but instead drives into the paint where he finds Duncan wide open for the easy lay-in. So simple, but everyone does exactly what they should do, and that suddenly seems beautiful. And in terms of opening up multiple possibilities, Diaw taking an open three or midrange jumper would have been a fine choice, as would Duncan dishing it back out to Kawhi Leonard because Leonard’s man had collapsed on Duncan.
And so on Tuesday night I sat watching, squarely on the side of those who admire the clean precision, the footwork, the easy way the Spurs kept getting open looks at three-pointers. I’ve acquired the taste for Spurs basketball but I’ve also realized it takes more than just appreciating good fundamental basketball play; it takes appreciating the appreciation of those things—the very essence of acquired taste.
Podcast Paroxysm is back this week, with guests Michael Levin from Liberty Ballers and Scott Leedy from Hardwood Paroxysm. After a brief talk about the Philadelphia 76ers’ chances at a magical Cinderella run to an NBA championship, a new segment of “Band Names”, and a segment of “Overrated/Underrated” that takes us all the way from pineapple to the Pacers, this podcast has reached a conclusion that will make you laugh, cry, or more likely, neither of the two.
“Hope is what gets you out of bed in the morning when it’s the day of prom and you haven’t been asked. Hope pushes the caterpillar through the cocoon and drives the salmon upstream. Your breasts may be small and your glasses may be thick but hope doesn’t hold up a mirror. Hope is a horizon we head for, leaving nothing behind but fear. And though we may never reach our goals, it’s hope that will save us from who we once were.” – Meg Griffin, Family Guy episode “New Kidney in Town”
At halftime of Game 2, to say that things looked bleak for the Indiana Pacers would have been a colossal understatement. For Indiana fans, the first 24 minutes of basketball had triggered emotional flashbacks to the 2011 NCAA National Title game between UConn and Indianapolis’s own Butler University which practically set back basketball to the peach basket era in a 53-41 “game” that was an affront to basketball. Tonight, Miami and Indiana were equally abysmal combining to shoot 35.4% from the field and commit 19 turnovers combined in a mistake prone half. Though the Pacers somehow managed to keep the game to a five point difference at intermission, there was a feeling that even this deficit was insurmountable. For the second game in a row, Danny Granger came out ice cold going 2-7 from the field, and Paul George equaled Granger’s shooting line. After the early 16-9 Pacers lead had evaporated over the course of the half, you could almost feel the panic and despair take over.
It’s times like this that are test the resolve of both players and fans. Up until last game, it seemed like everything was breaking Miami’s way in the playoffs. First, Derrick Rose went down which ultimately led to the demise of the chief rival Bulls, the most popular choice to prevent the Heat from reaching its second consecutive NBA Finals. In Miami’s own first round series against New York, Iman Shumpert and Baron Davis both crumpled to the floor with knee injuries. Elsewhere, Miami’s new presumed opponent in the Eastern Conference Finals, should they get there, featured a Boston Celtics squad with a banged up Ray Allen. For a team that needs absolutely no help beating anyone else in the league, the road to the Finals seemed like a cake walk for Miami. The only thing standing in the way of the Miami Heat was an Indiana team who had flown under the NBA radar all season long having played one nationally televised game during the regular season despite having the fifth best record in the league.
However, once Chris Bosh went down with an abdominal injury and was declared out indefinitely, the window for an Indiana upset was cracked open just enough for people to begin believing.For a while though, the Pacers seemingly still weren’t able to take advantage. There is no such thing as a “must win” Game 2, but at this point, Pacer fans were lying to themselves if they weren’t thinking that their chances of winning the series were greatly diminished if their team failed to come back from the halftime hole. If ever there was a chance to steal a road game in the series, this was it for the Pacers. All of the sudden, an out-of-nowhere 28-14 third quarter advantage gave them the hope they were looking for. Shots began to fall for Indiana and rim out for Miami. This was a total reversal from the first half. What little energy there was in American Airlines Arena was gone now, and the potential for an upset was slowly starting to seep in. Everyone could feel it.
The entire fourth quarter was an emotional roller coaster for both fan bases. With a flagrant one foul called on Wade followed by a double technical assessed to LeBron and Granger just two minutes later, the chippiness had been established, and it was officially game on. Both teams left everything they had out on the floor; the fate of the series hung in the balance. A Miami win almost assured them of a Conference Finals appearance for the second year in a row. An Indiana win evened the series and set up a scenario where the Pacers could stun the world and advance simply by holding serve on their own home court. When the dust had settled, Miami had fought back to tie the game, both teams endured an odd stretch where they each forgot how to shoot free throws going a combined 3-12 at one point, and Mario Chalmers missed a game tying 3 as the clock expired. The Pacers had survived, and Indiana had its own version of what hope means to them.
Hope is what gets them out of bed in the morning when it’s game day and nobody but the guys in the locker room believe they can win. Hope pushes them through grueling off-season practices and drives them to success on the court. Their point guards may be undersized and their lineup may not be as talented on paper, but the box score doesn’t see that. Hope is an idea that fans cling to, leaving stats behind but sticking with faith.
Last year, the Pacers were a team who the Bulls disposed of in a competitive five game series. To put it in the words of Meg Griffin, it’s who they once were. Throughout this season, they have learned from their mistakes; unlike earlier in the year, no longer does a halftime deficit mean that they are ready to fold up shop and call it a night. Not only are they learning to play as a team on the court, their level of trust within one another has never been higher. As the series shifts back to Indiana on Thursday, the Pacers have the one thing that is just as important as jump shots and rebounding. They have hope. And though they may never reach their goal, it’s hope that will save them.
Considering all of this, I was fairly confident Rivers made the right mathematical call to foul on purpose, only the Celtics executed it poorly by waiting until there were 14.4 seconds left for Rondo to foul Jrue Holiday. That was actually Boston’s foul to give, meaning it had to foul Philadelphia again — with 12 seconds left — to stop the clock. If you watch the replay before that first Rondo foul, you’ll see Rivers consult with assistant Armond Hill, turn the court, watch the action for a few seconds and then finally order Rondo to foul.
That delay struck me as weird. If you’re going to foul and extend the game, then extend it as long as possible, right? That’s especially so if you’re not using clock to press for a steal, and Boston certainly wasn’t doing that.
I wanted to share a question that arose in trying to figure out Boston waiting so long to foul in the waning seconds last night: How much did it matter?
Since Philadelphia corralled the carom with 28.5 seconds left in the game, we can reasonably assume that the shot clock would be turned off, or very close to it, on the subsequent Boston possession had the Celtics fouled immediately to use their foul to give, then fouled again and taken control of the ball.
After talking to several people who know a lot more about basketball than I do, the consensus was that in that situation, the Celtics would go for the best, quickest shot relative to the situation. How would that play out, in probabilistic terms?*
*Disclaimer: This thought experiment is going to be rife with assumptions. Most of them are, I hope, based on rational thinking. If you disagree with the weight given to certain variables, by all means mention it in the comments. To me, the line of thinking is more valuable than the precision of the work.
Philadelphia, as a team, shot 74.2% from the free throw line during the regular season. For simplicity’s sake, and given that the Sixers would likely try to get the ball to their better free throw shooters in a late-game situation, we’ll assume that whichever Sixer went to the line would shoot 75% in that situation. If that were the case, than 56.25% of the time, the Celtics would be down by 3 points after the free throws, just as they were in reality. In this scenario, the game situation doesn’t change greatly. Yes, Boston has more time on the clock, but they were set to get Paul Pierece an open, quick 3 to tie the game on the actual play last night, before Kevin Garnett was called for the moving screen. That shot went up (and the whistle on the foul call was blown) with 10 seconds left on the clock; the Celtics took only 2 seconds to execute a play for a game-tying three.
Regardless of the offensive foul call, the fact that Boston left Philadelphia with 10 seconds to play — and gave themselves a chance, however slim, to play the free throw game again and still force overtime in the case of a missed three or turnover — means that the end-game would have unfolded rather similarly had the Celtics fouled earlier than they did. Had Garnett not been called for that foul, and had Pierce made the 3 (I know, I know, down the rabbit hole of hypotheticals, but bear with me), the Sixers get the last possession of the game with 10 seconds left, runs down the clock for a few seconds and Boston relies on its defense to force overtime.
If the Celtics had fouled earlier and gotten the same Pierce 3 or its equivalent to tie the game, Philadelphia gets the last possession of the game with around 18-20 seconds left, runs down the clock for 10 seconds or so and Boston relies on its defense to force overtime. The same tends to follow had the Sixers missed one of the free throws. The Celtics likely would have gone for a quick 2 to tie the game. Make it, and Philadelphia gets the last shot. Miss it, and we play the free throw game some more.
Either way, the last possession for the Sixers, in the case of a Boston made basket for the tie, follows the same course. In my view, the game really only changes — and the decision on when to foul really only matters — in the two most unlikely scenarios. As previously mentioned, if the Celtics missed one of their game-tying attempts, or if in some crazy parallel universe Kevin Garnett got called for a moving screen in the waning moments of a playoff game, than the decision to foul earlier gives the Celtics more time, which means more opportunities for the Sixers to miss free throws and more field goal attempts for Boston.
The second situation is in the event that the Sixers missed both free throws (a 6.25% possibility based on our 75% FT shooting assumption). In that case, the extra time on the clock might affect Doc Rivers’s decision making. With the shot clock off and a field goal all but securing a victory, the Celtics might decide to run out the clock and go for the last shot. Of course, they might not, instead opting for the quick shot to take the lead and reliance on their defense to hold down the fort. The latter seems more in Doc’s wheelhouse; even if we generously assume that it’s a 50/50 split between the two choices, that means the decision to foul earlier only impacts the game in this specific way 3.125% of the time. The other half of the time, the game would once again come down to whether or not Boston could make a quick basket and defend Philadelphia’s final possession or would miss and have to play the free throw game.
In a game with as many moving parts and decisions as professional basketball, the sum of all of these little percentages can mean the difference between a win or a loss. I don’t mean to demean the importance of slight edges in the least; championships are built on the back of making the right expected value play on a consistent basis. Small decisions like these truly matter in the aggregate.
More often than not, that game would have ended in a very similar fashion, regardless of when Boston intentionally fouled. But in a game where so little can be controlled by the coaches, seizing the edge when the opportunity presents itself can mean the difference between winning and losing.
It didn’t matter last night. It usually won’t. Probably. But there’s always a chance.
By now you should have seen the new Sacramento Kings documentary Small Market, Big Heart on the strife and struggles of the franchise, the city, the fans, and owners in an opposition of wills with different goals. Despite vague assertions of support for #HereWeStay it’s pretty clear the Maloofs have been packing for some time now.
Only one other NBA franchise has moved or changed identities more times than the Kings, the Washington Wizards. Should the Maloofs manage to sway the relocation committee their way the Kings franchise will equal the Wiz as the least stable with six incarnations.
The Kings split home games in Omaha for two seasons
The Smoking Gun
There are those who would tell you the Maloofs have intended to move the Kings for a decade, to a bigger market, a major market. You have to be savvy and spendthrift to keep a small market team afloat, something the Sacto owners have never mastered or maybe never have been interested in achieving at all.
In the case of the Seattle Supersonics-Oklahoma City Thunder bail out, owner Clay Bennett, like the Maloofs, insisted he intended to keep the team in the northwest. The smoking gun came to light when email chains emerged which indicated a public smoke screen all along on this front.
Financial crisis is the crux of it in the case of the Kings. Simply put, the Maloofs are nearly broke — well, by the standards of the wealthy, anyhow. They lack the necessary funds to keep an NBA team competitive or profitable in Sacramento after several poor investments into ventures such as odd reality shows, a skate park in South Africa, and a sinking casino.
While the Maloofs’ finances have likely stabilized somewhat now, what they do hold — the Kings and quite a bit of Wells Fargo stock — isn’t conducive to getting ahead, back to the previous cushier lifestyle afforded them, as currently constituted. They are poor by NBA owner standards, not able to keep pace with the upward trend the league as a whole has experienced over the last decades.
A move to a large market inherently raises profit margins, generally and relatively speaking, or at least the potential is there in an Anaheim market that even already sporting two NBA teams has more untapped opportunities than Sacramento to get ahead once again, they hope. It’s projected that an Anaheim Royals team would pull about 10% of the LA Lakers’ market away from them, equaling about $500 million a year in lost television revenue from the lucrative Lakers deal.
Approval to Pack?
It takes a majority of NBA owner votes to approve any move, so how likely is it that enough would approve one?
Any team that recently moved, would like to one day, or, like the Orlando Magic threatened to, netting a new arena for their efforts, would likely side with the Maloofs. Wild cards are teams up for sale, ones considering it, or recent new owners. It doesn’t appear likely at this time that the Maloofs would have enough support to pull it off, but landscapes can change quickly, as we saw during the lockout, when NBA owners are involved.
Understandably, even those that may support a move have expressed concerns about the precedent it would set by putting three major sports teams of the same variety in a single market.
The relocation committee in the NBA consists of (irony alert) the Oklahoma City Thunder’s Clay Bennett, the Minnesota Timberwolves’ Glen Taylor, the Miami Heat’s Mickey Arison, the San Antonio Spurs’ Peter Holt, the Indiana Pacers’ Herb Simon, and the Utah Jazz’s Greg Miller (and a replacement for Ed Snider that I couldn’t find). Contact information can be found here.
So, Where is this Headed?
The city and the fans of Sacramento have a legitimate beef in trying to keep the team, showing overwhelming support and doing their part when all was on the line, and coming through only to have the door slammed shut at the last minute, excuses made in a bizarre press conference that left only questions in what was supposed to be a time of answers.
The Maloofs will relinquish the franchise, the only question is when and where — they know a large market team appreciates faster than a small one most times, hence the push for the Los Angeles market. Should they manage to land in LA they could get enough of a financial bump in a sale so as to begin rebuilding the family’s financial legacy. They know if they stay in Sacto they will only tread water, slowly sinking.
The best case scenario for the fans here is a hero comes riding out of the sunset to save the day, making the Maloofs an offer they can’t refuse, keeping the team in town. Who knows, it could happen. Things appeared bleak for the New Orleans Hornets and they landed on all six feet.
But for now, all remains in limbo. Sooner or later, something has to give.
“Small Market, Big Heart,” produced by our friends at Cowbell Kingdom. The film is being screened not-for-profit, in an attempt to showcase a community that has been a terrific NBA market for decades and now faces losing its team because, well… the Maloofs kind of suck. We’re all basketball fans. I recommend watching to understand what’s going on in Sactown.
The past two weeks, the cries of basketball fans everywhere have pleaded for the horrendous Boston Celtics – Atlanta Hawks 1st round series to end. Despite these pleas, the basketball gods willed that that contest continue for 6 excruciating games. Mercifully, it ended Thursday but in a typically painful way: mismanaged calls by refs and missed free throws by players.
However, Celtics vs. Hawks wasn’t always cause for concern. In fact, back in the late 1950s and early 1960s, it was the best match-up around in the NBA. To be precise, from 1957 to 1961, the St. Louis Hawks and the Boston Celtics met in the NBA Finals 4 times. There was plenty of in-game heroics and pre-game shenanigans to entertain all during this stretch, but that first clash in 1957 was perhaps the best.
There was oodles of back story, intrigue and, most importantly, delightful on-court play.
Seeds of a Rivalry
The antipathy between this New England city and Missouri burgh begins where all great rivalries do… the Tri-Cities of Iowa and Illinois.
Actually, let’s back this train up a bit further. The story begins in Buffalo, New York. It is there where Ben Kerner, a local businessman, established the Buffalo Bisons in the National Basketball League (NBL) in that league’s 1946-47 season, its 11th. Also started that year was the upstart Basketball Association of America (BAA). Unimportant right now, but hold that thought on the BAA.
Kerner’s experiment with pro basketball in Buffalo ended like all previous attempts did: failure. There had been two previous incarnations of “Buffalo Bisons” that went up in smoke. There was one in the American Basketball League of the 1920s and a previous one in the NBL (then known as the Midwest Basketball Conference) during the mid-1930s. Both attempts collapsed after a single season. This newest attempt by Kerner didn’t even last that long. The team suffering from horrendous attendance bolted for Moline, Illinois after 13 games.
Now, I know we’ve all contemplated packing our bags and moving to Moline for a fresh start, however Kerner actually went through with this plan not only because Buffalo was terrible for attendance, but Moline was excellent for it. 3 weeks before the move, a neutral site game between the Chicago Gears (with George Mikan) and Indianapolis Kautskys had drawn over 4,000 fans. That was stellar attendance and Kerner took note and thus the Tri-Cities Blackhawks were born.
Sidenote: Ben Kerner this season employed Hall of Famer William “Pop” Gates as a Blackhawk. Gates was African-American. In fact, the NBL occasionally had been using black players for years, predating Jackie Robinson in MLB.
Over the next couple of seasons, the Blackhawks were an above average team always making the playoffs in the NBL and the times seemed decent. Then along came a merger with the BAA in 1950 that created the NBA. The NBL had primarily been located in modest-sized Midwestern cities, while the BAA was in larger East Coast locales. The merger set in motion economic forces that would move the Blackhawks from the Tri-Cities of Moline, Davenport and Rock Port to Milwaukee, Wisconsin (renamed just “Hawks”) and then finally to St. Louis in order to financially compete with the old BAA teams in New York, Philadelphia and Boston. Not that any of those teams were rolling in dough. No one in professional basketball was then. But these moves were the difference between life and death for Kerner.
Before leaving the Tri-Cities, though, Kerner employed a plucky coach with a loud mouth and an enormous chip on his shoulder: Arnold “Red” Auerbach.
Although only 32, Auerbach, already had a good track record as coach with the Washington Capitals before arriving in the Tri-Cities in 1950, the year of the NBL-BAA merger. With the Caps in the BAA, Auerbach had amassed a .684 win percentage overall and a single-season win percentage of .817 in 1947. That would not be bested until the 1967 76ers. Auerbach had also demonstrated a keen touch in making personnel decisions in Washington.
Upon being hired in the Tri-Cities, Auerbach extracted from Kerner a promise to leave him total control over personnel. As you may guess, that pledge was quickly broken by Kerner who meddled in affairs and ultimately drove Red from the Tri-Cities after just one season. The broken promise and their clash of personalities, however, had cast the dye for the vitriol of the 1957 NBA Finals.
