Last night, as the New Orleans Hornets were trying to even their series with the Los Angeles Lakers, two tweets caught my eye. One came from the progenitor of this very site, Matt Moore (@HPBasketball):
BEST FIRST ROUND EVER!
The Knicks and their fans may disagree with that sentinment, but at least the Knicks put up a fight in the first two games in Boston. Amar’e Stoudemire’s balky back and the C’s typical stingy D made sure the Knicks didn’t get any strange ideas such as making a series of it.
It’s hard to argue with Mr. Moore’s sentiment, especially if you’re an NBA fan. The level of play has been consistently excellent. Combine that with the lack of clear cut favorite (the West’ No. 1 seed is down 2-1 and the No. 2 seed is tied at 2-2 and add to that, the drama of Kobe Bryant’s sprained ankle) and fans can now factor in the element of surprise. Or at least the prospect of it.
Which brings us to the other significant tweet of Sunday night from Sporting News columnist David Steele:
All the people back in March saying how college was better than the NBA went to bed early last night.
His tweet cuts to the heart of what the NBA and the NBA Playoffs truly are: a committment to basketball.
If you could get any light into the deep and dank basement of any blogger, you would see the dark circles under their eyes and the caffeinated beverage containers strewn across the floor. You’ll see 72 tabs open on Chrome, all to NBA sites and blogs. SportsCenter or NBA TV’s replays of “Inside the NBA” run on a constant loop on the flatscreen.
Why? Because compared to the NBA Playoffs, the NCAA tourney is a one-night stand.
After ignoring the college regular season, we as a nation come to the tourney looking to win the pool and not necessarily for the best basketball. You spritz the Binaca to cover the smell of Keystone Light, you mat down the cowlick with saliva and you try to slur your best lines in order to pick a national champion. If your pool drains before the end of the tourney, that’s just the nature of the amateur beast. These are kids, we’re told, after all and anything can happen. That’s what makes it exciting: the surprises.
Or that’s what college basketball defenders (usually playing a not-so-taxing 2-3 zone) want you to think. Even the little guys have a chance to win.
They may have a chance, but they don’t win, especially when you consider the lowest seed ever to win an NCAA title was a No. 8 Villanova team in 1985. A team from the Big East, beating another team, Georgetown, from the Big East. Milan (Ind.) High that ain’t.
Often the NBA Playoffs lack surprises or monumental upsets, but that familiarity may the most interesting thing about the NBA Playoffs. They’re like a relationships in that they ebb and flow, in that they take work and in that, yes, at times it can become a grind.
Yet in the end, we often get the best two teams playing each other for the Larry O’Brien trophy in June. Consider what many consider the NBA’s “Golden Age” in the 1980s. The Celtics and the Lakers met three times while the two teams snapped up 13 of the 20 Finals appearances.
Just look what happens when you get an “upset” in the NBA? You get the Cavs’ getting swept by the Spurs in the 2007 Finals. That was fun only for the Spurs.
Conventional wisdom tells us that experience — both the Spurs and Lakers have it in bunches — and talent — ditto — that the Memphis Grizzlies and New Orleans Hornets will regress to the mean and that hustle and heart can only take a team so far. Because when a talented team recognizes their passion (i.e. “flipping the switch), the less talented team often is all but making tee times. That’s not to say it wouldn’t be wonderful for the Grizzlies or the Hornets to advance to the Western Conference semis.
Thanks to days off between games, weaknesses get exposed and exploited by better teams. The proper preparation of talent will often bear itself out and after two months of playoff basketball, you know you’re getting the two finest teams in The Finals. There’s something comforting and compelling in that you will be witnessing excellence. It may not always be a great series, but you can take solace in the fact these teams have earned the chance to be playing in June.
Even if you don’t or can’t root for the final two teams, at least your mind can reconcile with your heart that, yes, this is the correct conclusion, that, yes, this is the most appropriate place for this journey to end and that, yes, this is the best spot for our passion for and committment to basketball to bloom.
After all, that’s not too much to ask from the thing you love.
