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Tag Archive - Denver Nuggets

Tremendous Tandems: Kevin Durant And Russell Westbrook Aim To Make A Baker’s Dozen

April 3, 2012 in by with 1 Comment

Through 52 games the prodigious pair of Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook have scored 2,711 points this NBA season, a shade more than half of the Oklahoma City Thunder’s entire point total. Both lead not only at their position in points-per-game, but have been mainstays in the top five on the PPG leaderboard all year long.

Twenty two times this season has this potent pair of assassins posted at least 25 points in the same game, 42% of the entire OKC schedule. Any given night you have to pick your poison, choose which to tie up hoping your roulette gamble pays off and you don’t get torched by the other. Should RussWest, averaging 24.5 PPG as I write this a few hours before the Thunder will square off with the Memphis Grizzlies, go on one more tear and manage to bump up his scoring average to 25.0, he and Durant will become just the thirteenth tandem in NBA history to post 25 PPG for the same team.

The feat has been accomplished only 15 times previously in NBA history by a dozen sets of twosomes.

• Accounting for 57% of their team’s 100.6 average scoring in 2000-01, Shaquille O’Neal put up 28.7 PPG while Kobe Bryant chipped in 28.5 PPG. The Los Angeles Lakers would take the title in dominating fashion.

• Accounting for 57% of the Lakers’ scoring once again in 2002-03, 100.4 PPG, Kobe would knock back 30.0 PPG while Shaq played an increasingly disgruntled second-fiddle to Bryant putting up 27.5 PPG. The Lakers would lose to the eventual champion San Antonio Spurs in the second round of the playoffs.

• Accounting for 52% of the Lakers’ 101.3 points-per-game in 2001-02, Shaq continued his prime with 27.2 PPG to Kobe’s up-and-coming 25.2 PPG en route to the last three-peat seen in the NBA.

One other tandem, also of Royal Blue and Gold, decorates the annals of prolific pointdom with three appearances on this list of copious scoring in combos.

• Accounting for 52% of the 1964-65 Lakers’ 111.9 points, the logo himself, Jerry West, dropped 31.0 PPG to Elgin Baylor’s 27.1 PPG. The team would lose their third trip to the Finals since moving from Minneapolis to LA to the Bill Russell-led Boston Celtics. You will see these super-twins again shortly.

• Accounting for 51% of last season’s superteam Miami Heat 102.1 scoring on average, LeBron James threw down 26.7 PPG while Dwyane Wade followed closely with 25.5 PPG. Still fresh in the memory is their Finals loss to the Dallas Mavericks.

• Our current tandem chimes in here currently accounting for 50% of the Thunder’s 103.7 PPG offensive output, Kevin Durant in a heated scoring champ battle with Kobe knocking down 27.7 PPG as of April 1 to Russell Westbrook’s much-improved efficiency leading to 24.5 PPG. Postseason fate: TBD

• Dipping under the majority mark for the first time on this list with 49% of the total 109.7 PPG we find the 1963-64 Lakers led by Jerry West’s 28.7 PPG and Elgin Baylor’s 25.4 PPG. They would be bounced by the St. Louis Hawks in what was then the first of three rounds of playoffs, who would in turn be bounced by the eventual Finals-bounds San Francisco Warriors led by Wilt Chamberlain.

This season’s Heat also finds 49% of their 101.3 PPG led by LeBron’s 26.5 PPG and D Wade, although Wade is not near enough the 25 PPG highlighted here with 23.0 PPG. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing though. Dominating your team’s scoring in tandem is by no means a guarantee of a title. Only three on this list have managed to reel one in — all Lakers squads — and only three others even have a Finals appearance the year of making this list.

I can’t be the only one to be at least a little surprised that the Boston Celtics, in all their historical glory, only give us one fleeting glimpse in this group. Without looking I’d wager they do appear on more passing lists though. Nevertheless, I present to you…

• Larry Bird and Kevin McHale, accounting for 48% of the 1986-87 Celtics’ 112.6 PPG, Bird hitting at 28.1 PPG, McHale at 26.1 PPG. However, Magic Johnson and the Lakers would take the playoff cake. Sadly, this would be Larry Bird’s last Finals appearance.

Four different dynamic duos accounted for 47% of their team’s scoring, listed here in order of team PPG. Two would fail to reach the postseason, two others would get relatively early vacations, losing at the conclusion of round one.

• In 1960-61 the Cincinnati Royals would put up an astounding 117.9 PPG behind Oscar Robertson’s 30.5 PPG and Jack Twyman’s 25.3 PPG. But it would be in vain as Cinci would finish the season dead last in the Western Division, then the Western Conference, failing to make the playoffs.

The Big O and Jack Twyman

• Before Willis Reed and Walt Frazier there was Rich Guerin and Willie Naulls who, in the 1961-62 season, led the New York Knicks and their 114.8 PPG with 29.5 and 25.0 PPG, respectively. Despite leading the NBA in attendance in the famed Madison Square Garden that year the Knicks would finish ahead of only the expansion Chicago Packers in the regular season standings, missing the spring season.

• When you think Pistol Pete Maravich you think… Lou Hudson and the Atlanta Hawks?! Putting up a third-best-in-the-NBA 112.4 PPG in 1972-73, Lou Hudson would lead the Hawks with 27.1 PPG with Maravich a free throw behind at 26.1 PPG. Although his most prolific scoring years would be with the New Orleans Jazz, Maravich would never see the playoffs there. This particular year the “Hudson Hawks” would lose to the Boston Celtics in the “first round.”

• The Knicks and Amar’e Stoudemire isn’t the first time someone tried to build a super-core around Carmelo Anthony. In 2007-08 the Denver Nuggets acquired Allen Iverson to pair with Melo and put up an NBA second-best 110.7 PPG, AI dropping 26.7 to Melo’s 25.7 PPG. Hopes were high coming in.

But the Nuggets would fizzle rather than sizzle, getting swept in their first round playoff series with the LA Lakers. Denver is the only other team on this list aside from the Lakers that can boast more than one dynamic duo. Read on to find out who.

• For the third time in four years, in the 1966-67 season, Jerry West and Elgin Baylor would be most prolific on offense, leading the Lakers’ 120.5 PPG with 28.7 and 26.6 PPG each. Yet that elusive ring continued to evade The Logo, and would for a few seasons more as LA would fail to reach the Finals for the only time in a six-year span this year (they lost all five Finals visits between 1964-65 and 1969-70). But West isn’t done yet…

Our other Denver Duo checks in twice in the space of three years here:

• Accounting for 45% of the Nuggets’ 1981-82 point total of 126.5 PPG, Alex English at 28.4 PPG, and Kiki Vandeweghe at 26.7 PPG, terrorized teams with a fast-paced attack in Doug Moe’s first year in charge in Denver.  And then…

• …in the 1983-84 season the tandem would flip-flop, English leading with 28.4 PPG to Kiki’s 26.4 PPG accounting for 44% of the Nuggets’ 123.7 PPG. But like Carmelo Anthony they would be plagued by first and second round playoff exits.

• Battered but not broken, Jerry West would finally break through and get off the schnide in the NBA Finals, albeit it not with Elgin Baylor carrying the bulk of the load of sidekick scoring duties. West is the only player to appear four times on this list of monumental immortality, and the only one to lead the points punch for every tandem appearing more than once. But his partner in crime this time would be Gail Goodrich. In 1971-72 the Lakers would put up 121.0 PPG, West and Goodrich accounting for 43% of the total output, 26.6 and 25.9 PPG apiece.

• Russell Westbrook needs to average 26 PPG over the Thunder’s final 14 games to solidify his and Durant’s standing on this list of scintillating scoreboardery.

A Final Note, Taking It To A Trio

Last season, the trio of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh all scored at least 25 points in a game four times, although two of those times were after the 66 game mark. This season they have done so only once thus far with the 66-game season quickly winding down.

This season, the trio of Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, and James Harden have scored at least 25 points each in a game two times. Don’t be too surprised if they do so a lot more often in the near future.

Can’t Knock The Husserl: The Phenomenology Of Courtside Seats

March 27, 2012 in by with 0 Comments

Photo by ZeroOne on Flickr

Thanks to the kindness of strangers (or rather, the kindness of someone I only knew through Twitter) I got to sit courtside for the Timberwolves’ 117-100 drubbing of the Denver Nuggets on Sunday. I feel a little like Ferris Bueller saying this, but seriously: it is so choice. But is it the end-all, be-all of NBA basketball? Not exactly.

One of the truly important things to understanding is perspective. And being that close to the game, having your feet actually resting on the hardwood puts you right up close to the physicality of the game and its humanness. And let me tell you: it doesn’t get much more human than being about five inches from Andre Miller’s rear end, which is what happened on one sideline out-of-bounds play. I could see the stitching on his jersey number. Luckily, Miller doesn’t get as sweaty as some playing basketball.

But take a look at this play from late in the third quarter: Wilson Chandler gets the ball on the wing with Anthony Tolliver guarding him.

Kevin Love is in the post guarding Al Harrington and Chandler fakes the pass into Harrington, who recognizes that having the slashing Chandler on the bigger, slower Tolliver is a mismatch, and heads out of the area to give Chandler an iso opportunity.


However, Love recognizes the mismatch as well and lets Harrington leave, essentially creating a mini zone defense on the strong side of the floor. What being so close afforded me was the chance to hear Love say, “Send him here, send him here!” to Tolliver. That nuance of player communication often gets partly lost on TV and almost completely lost when you’re farther away from the court.

Tolliver hears him and hops out to his right and forces Chandler into just the kind of mistake a zone defense encourages. Chandler crosses Tolliver over but drives directly towards Love.

 

He then makes the ill-advised pass over the top to Harrington and Wayne Ellington spots it and intercepts, forcing Harrington to foul him and send him to the line. Here’s the whole thing put together:

You also get a much better sense of the players’ interactions with each other and with the refs, plus you get a much more direct sense of the emotion on the court. When Kenneth Faried fell to the ground after getting the contact and making the basket (and kicking Kevin Love in the jimmies, it should be noted), it was amazing to hear just how loudly Javale McGee yelled at him as he came to pick him up. It was like a blast torn from somewhere deep in his soul, and it was just an and-one late in a blowout. McGee might not always have his head in the game, but when he does, it’s clear he plays with some serious intensity. If Karl can harness that in Denver watch out.

But there’s a cost to sitting so close as well. With the action moving so rapidly and you sitting down in a chair, you spend an awful lot of time trying to see around some seriously large men. It’s harder to grasp the overall flow of the game, easier to lose track when you have to crane your neck to check the score. It was actually pretty late in the first quarter before I realized the Wolves were up by so much and that Luke Ridnour hadn’t missed a shot yet.

You see, from my usual season ticket seats, I have an almost midcourt view of the action and I barely have to move my head to see the score and other stats on the scoreboard. It’s easier to see plays develop in transition and it’s also easier to get involved with the arena as a whole. I caught almost nothing of what B-Wright was saying (not that I’m complaining, exactly) when I was courtside, and it’s a little weird not to really have people directly in front of and behind you. You’re really more in front of the crowd than part of it.

Of course, being in the arena—even with a TV-like view—means you miss out on commentary and replays. Some things only make sense when you can see them a second time and yes, some commentators are better than others, but a great call can make a great play epic.

And then again, you can pull back even further. I’ve been watching a lot of games the next day on Synergy Sports, which breaks down the plays by their type, so you can watch, say, all of Kenneth Faried’s offensive rebounds, or every Kevin Love three-pointer. When you watch plays clustered by type, rather than in the flow of the game, you begin to see patterns in how they play out, begin to see wrinkles and how players react or change it up as the game progresses.

At the most abstract level, there’s the box score, and just looking at that can show you things your eyes might miss and reveal players who made more of a difference than you realized. Luke Ridnour, for example, is a guy who almost always has a quiet game, but then you look at the box score for a game like Sunday’s, you suddenly see what a difference he can make when he shoots 64% from the field, 67% from the arc, and ends with 25 points.

So what’s the best way to watch a basketball game? Some people think stats are the truest measure of a game—cold hard numbers lining up on the page to let you know what’s happening underneath all the blood and emotion. Others could care less about stats, believe only what they see with their own eyes, decry anyone talking about basketball who isn’t a player. But they’re all right and they’re all wrong. When you’re watching a game, you’re building your understanding, building it from scratch, and all the pieces matter. Perspective doesn’t come from having the single best view, but from having multiple vantage points, from learning to see the game as a plurality of experiences overlapping and obscuring or revealing each other. Every viewpoint shows you something unique.

And if it’s a courtside view, that something just might be Andre Miller’s ass.

Ben Gordon And An Alternate Conception Of The Hot Hand

March 22, 2012 in by with 2 Comments

Photo by wnd.andreas on Flickr

Over at the mothership, Henry Abbott has done as much work as anybody at debunking the hot hand as a statisical phenomenon. Here he looks a study that finds that players who make a 3-pointer are more likely to take another one and more likely to miss it. He says that the study “noted that after hitting a 3, in his MVP 2007-2008 season, Kobe Bryant’s next shot would be another 3 53 percent of the time. After a miss, his next shot would be a 3 a mere 14 percent of the time.” And here he delves into research that looks at why “[w]e often see patterns where, in fact, there is randomness.” Given the reams of research that have gone into the broader phenomenon that the hot hand is a part of, I would consider the matter of whether or not it exists as a statistical phenomenon to be settled and the answer is that it does not.

But then a thing happens like Ben Gordon in Denver last night happens and it makes me wonder if there’s not another way, a non-statisical way, of looking at the hot hand that will help us understand it–or, perhaps, conceptualize of it–in a different way. Gordon did, after all, score 45 points, more than half of them from 3-point territory, where he shot an NBA record-tying 9 for 9. For the game overall he shot 59%. Detroit, by the way, lost the game on a Javale McGee dunk on a missed free throw. Statistically speaking, this is an aberration, and simply the kind of performance that offsets those inexplicable games where a shooter can’t hit a shot to save his life. It’s happened even to Ray Allen, and in the playoffs, no less.

But what if we think about the idea of the hot hand from the perspective of basketball as an expressive or creative endeavor? (This is kind of my thing.) If we consider writing, particularly the writing of fiction, there are many stages to the work that goes into creating a short story or novel, but the first is almost always generation. At this stage, the most important thing for the writer is turn off his or her inner critic and let whatever comes out onto the page with little regard for how useful the material will be in the end. Charles Limb’s TED talk addresses this method of creating with regard to music and improvisation, backing up the idea that feedback loops in the brain shut down when a musician is improvising. And both musicians and writers will be familiar with the feeling that comes along with genuinely fertile moments of generation: it feels like you can do no wrong, feels like you’re hearing your authentic voice, like you’re almost just a conduit for something greater than yourself.

Is that so different from what a shooter seems to be feeling when the shots are falling? If we take a look at the beginning of Ben Gordon’s ridiculous evening, we can see how his confidence, his sense that he’s tapped into something, grows.

His first shot comes off a curl and misses. His next opportunity comes off another curl, but this time Jason Maxiell sets another screen off the catch and Gordon moves into open space and drains it. He scores his next two off the exact same play.

This is where you get the sense he’s feeling it, because his next shot is a little less open but he takes it anyways and misses. But the next time he gets the ball is another curl and here he refuses the pick, spins into open space and drains another 2:

Then, three things happen: he makes a wide-open 3 in transition, pump fakes his way into a layup that misses, and then makes another wide-open 3 in transition. It’s clear at this point to Gordon that his jumper feels right and that the attempt to drive the lane was ill-advised, so he starts firing, and everything is going in:

Off the curl, in transition, covered, uncovered, drawing the foul–any shot he was taking was going in. That second-to-last shot, the pull-up jumper in transition, is a particularly egregious example of an essentially stupid basketball shot that Gordon took because he was “feeling” it. And last night, it worked for him as a player.

But it’s not at all clear that it worked for the Pistons as a team, and this is where it comes back to writing. When you’re in that generative state, where everything is flowing easily, you write some of the best lines, the best chunks, the best bits and pieces you ever write. But you’re not necessarily writing the best story. Most any veteran writer or writing instructor will quote Quiller-Couch to you and tell you to, “Murder your darlings,” but it’s only through the hard work of revision that you learn to feel this in your bones, that you feel it the same way you feel the true things you’re writing that you must sacrifice.

Ben Gordon on the court last night in Denver was generating like a motherfucker. A volume shooter on a bender like that brings to mind the legend of Jack Kerouac writing On The Road in one monster, three-week jag on a continuous scroll of paper. But what you don’t hear as much about is how Kerouac worked for three years on the idea of the novel before that compressed effort and then worked for six more on revising it. In writing, the heat and fire of generating new work can only carry you so far before you have to go back and begin to carefully revise what you’ve done. Unfortunately, this isn’t precisely possible within basketball, although players can certainly study tape to try and learn from past efforts.

But wouldn’t the Pistons maybe have been better off if Gordon had revised some of those jumpers–even the successful ones–into assists? This is where he would really be murdering his darlings because it might be the case that sometimes he shouldn’t have even been taking the good shots in favor of promulgating a more balanced offense. Not that the Pistons are overflowing with offensive options, but maybe if the love is spread around a bit more, Gordon doesn’t force up that final jumper and miss the game-winning shot.

And thus does the notion of the hot hand as a psychological construct and not a statistical phenomenon place approaching it in a game in a precarious position. Looking back at a performance like Gordon’s, we might wish he considered his shooting a little more carefully. But even asking him to consider it risks removing him from that free-flowing, generative mindstate that’s making him so successful. Nothing stops up your process quicker than thinking about your process. Writers have the luxury of creating reams of paper that never see the light of day, picking and choosing not only the best parts, but the parts that work best together to make something that works as a whole. It’s best for them to separate the generating mind from the revising mind as strictly as possible.

But basketball players have to do it all right there in front of us, writing their rough and final drafts simultaneously and hoping they’re not sacrificing the great of the win for the good of the hot hand.

A Tale of Two Endings

February 23, 2012 in by with 0 Comments

Photo by Anthony Mattox on Flickr

(Steve McPherson joins Hardwood Paroxysm today. You can find him on Twitter @steventurous. He likes long walks on the beach and the company of close metrics. Please annihilate his articles in the comments as you would mine. Enjoy. -Ed.)

Whatever your feeling about advanced stats—about player efficiency ratings and win shares per 48—basketball is undeniably a game of numbers. At the end of the day, somebody wins and somebody loses, and not because of how aesthetically pleasing their team’s play was. The ultimate stat is wins and losses because with out those two columns, none of the others need exist. It’s easy to joke about how analysts and commentators talk about the game: “The team that wins tonight if going to be the one that scores more points.” It’s so obviously true, but amazingly, who wins and loses can come down to the firing of a few neurons here or there. It’s pretty well demonstrated by the Timberwolves last two games: a loss to Denver in overtime on Monday and a win against the Jazz last night, both decided in the last few seconds.

But since we’re talking about numbers, let’s simplify the equation a bit. First of all, every team in the NBA looks like they’ve stumbled out of The Walking Dead right now. This compressed schedule is crushing teams physically and several games this week leading up to the All-Star break have had the feel of class on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Kevin Love, in particular, looked flat-out tapped last night. Secondly, the game against Denver was on the road, so Denver’s altitude certainly didn’t help, and the game was close through the fourth quarter and overtime, whereas the Wolves started the fourth quarter down 13 against the Jazz and rallied to win 100-98.

That second point is important, though, because while the Denver game felt like a war of attrition (neither team scored for the first 3:08 of OT), the game against the Jazz featured a much greater swing emotionally for both teams. Here’s a play from early in the fourth quarter:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoh3jff2vVw

With Utah up 12, Earl Watson’s shot misses badly. As the ball heads out of bounds, Nikola Pekovic just watches it go while Watson dives out of bounds and heaves it back to Derrick Favors, who dunks it for an easy 2. The play exemplifies how things were going for the Jazz at that point: they were outworking the Wolves and getting the bounces while the Timberwolves were flat-footed.

But with about seven minutes left, the dynamic of the game started to shift. On back-to-back trips, J.J. Barea and Luke Ridnour both drove the lane and got fouled, making their free throws. Between these possessions, the Jazz had a quick, empty trip on their own end. This sequence felt something like when a football team keeps its offense on the field. The Jazz had the equivalent of a three-and-out while the Wolves ground their way slowly up the field.

That sequence led to this one:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_Xo522phiE

Having cut the lead to 7, the Wolves defend Josh Howard’s cut into the paint well and get the rebound off the tough shot. Love misses the wide open 3 at the other end but tiny J.J. Barea (who’s already playing out of his mind at this point) grabs the rebound. You can see him consider forcing the action into the paint, but instead he pulls it back to reset. His iso creates a lane for Derrick Williams, who dishes to an open Ridnour, who drives and kicks to a wide-open Barea for the 3. The basket cuts it to four. It’s a beautiful sequence of basketball, with every player making fundamentally good choices.

And now, as Monty Python would say, for something completely different:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOVafPBmHWU

There’s not much to say about this play by Martell Webster that hasn’t already been said here. Bottom line: a great defensive play turns into a woeful offensive play and the Timberwolves get 2 when they needed 3 and ultimately fall 103-101.

In the wake of each of these games, narratives emerged. The Denver game is evidence that the Timberwolves still make dumb mistakes, that they haven’t learned to play together, that Adelman still doesn’t understand how this team works best. The Utah game is evidence that the team is scrappy, that they can win without a great game from either Rubio or Love, that Adelman is a coach who knows how to ride the hot hand (Barea’s, in this case).

But maybe what each of these games points out best is just what a coach has control over. In the Denver game, no one on the Wolves was playing all that well. Nikola Pekovic had gone down early when he rolled his ankle. Ridnour and Michael Beasley were the only players who’d shot close to consistently (hitting 50% and 44% respectively), and they were both on the court to finish the game. In the Jazz game, the Wolves made their run with Rubio on the bench. Once it was close, Adelman put him back in, but only long enough for him to get to the foul line and miss 1 of 2, bringing him to 1-6 from the stripe. At that point, taking him out is a no-brainer. A close game is likely to come down to free throws, so don’t leave a player having an off night from the line in the game. The unit on the floor to end the game was the unit that got them there: Barea, Ridnour, Webster, Williams, and Love. The Jazz game shows Adelman going with what’s been working, whereas in the Denver game, nothing had really been working. It was a toss-up.

And so looking at the torpor and stagnation of the Denver game, Webster’s ill-timed dunk is just more evidence of a lackluster performance. Ridnour’s floater to win the game against the Jazz looks, likewise, like proof of the team’s scrappiness and Adelman’s coaching acumen. But if Ridnour misses that floater like he missed a late layup against the Nuggets, the game goes to overtime, where the Wolves might have fallen apart. Had Webster pulled up for the 3 and made it, they would have given themselves a chance to win.

But that’s the trick with narratives, with the stories we tell to make sense of what’s happened: they only work in reverse. In the moment, the game exists in the slimmest of margins, in the decision to pull up for the shot or drive, to go for the runner or dish it out. A neuron here or a neuron there is all that separates the two most important columns on the stat sheet: wins and losses.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEtfgsd0haA

Before Mike D’Antoni and George Karl There Was… Paul Westhead

February 14, 2012 in by with 0 Comments

Via Flickr - B Rosen

In the spirit of HP’s own NBA historian, Curtis Harris, today we have a very special guest who takes a look back at an historic time in the NBA: One of the most dynamic offensive battles to have ever taken place in the game of basketball.

Steve Smith is an award-winning Australian basketball writer who recently shared an inside look at this most prolific of battles with me, and asked me to share it with you. What follows is an exclusive inside peek into this, one of the greatest games ever played. We’d like to thank Smitty for taking the time to dig up this bit of previously unpublished history of the game for Hardwood Paroxym, and we encourage you to follow him on Twitter at @smittys07 for more scintillating nuggets and great conversation about the beloved game.

Let ‘Em Loose: The 1990-91 Denver Nuggets

by Steve Smith

Conceding an average of 130.8 points per game, the 1990-91 Denver Nuggets have, over time, been dismissed as a statistical anomaly wrought by an eccentric coach intent on bringing a college fast-break system to the pros. Think you’ve got a good grip on run-and-gun basketball? Think again.

On Saturday, November 10, 1990, the Denver Nuggets made their way to the team’s morning shootaround at Phoenix’s Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Players shuffled on to the floor in dribs and drabs, still weary from the previous night’s 135-129 defeat to Seattle.

Their NBA campaign was just a week old and they were already the talk of the league, for all the wrong reasons.
Having conceded an average of 148 points in their first five games – including 162 to the Run TMC-powered Golden State Warriors in the season opener – NBA analysts from Orlando to Oakland and everywhere in between were wondering just what the hell new coach Paul Westhead was doing.

In his own mind, Westhead was certain he knew what he was doing, saying before the season started, “We’re gonna run, we’re gonna keep on running, if the pace ever slows down, we’ll speed it up and we’re gonna run and run and run some more! … There will be 200-point games. I feel very confident that we will be on the upside of that score but 200 points is gonna happen.”

With a furrowed brow, the 51-year-old coach watched rookie Chris Jackson prepare for his first NBA game, his mind racing as fast as his hyper-kinetic offense …

What followed that evening was an offensive gala for the ages, as the Suns and the Nuggets broke all the borders of the boxscore.

Unfortunately for Denver, Phoenix was a team perfectly built to exploit the idiosyncratic nature of Westhead’s warp-speed tactics, and racked up 50 points in the first 12 minutes.

And they were just getting started.

By half-time, even Phoenix fans were wondering what in the world had just happened as the Suns poured in another 57 points in the second period to take a remarkable 107-67 lead at the main intermission. That’s 107 points. By one team. At half-time.

More than twenty years later, Paul Westhead sits in his office at the University of Oregon – where he is entrenched as the women’s basketball head coach – and, looking back at that game, recalls not being overly concerned at having conceded a century-plus in just 24 minutes of defense-deficient ball.

“I remember one of my assistants, Jim Boyle, said to me, ‘We have a problem here. They’re gonna score 200 points!’ Westhead says. “And I said, ‘Well, I always wanted to be in a 200-point game, just not on the losing end!’

“So I said, ‘Don’t worry about it, don’t worry about it, they can’t keep the pace, that’s not the worry’, I knew they couldn’t keep that up.”

And while the white-hot Suns cooled off a little after the break (see, Westhead knew what he was talking about), Denver were left to lick their wounds yet again when the final horn sounded.

At first glance the 30-point margin looks like an ordinary November blowout, except the score was an unfathomable 173-143.

Two decades after the fact, the boxscore still reads like something out of fantasy hoops heaven. Rookie Cedric Ceballos tallied 32 points and backcourt duo Kevin Johnson (23 points, 17 assists) and Dan Majerle (21 points, 13 assists) feasted on the non-existent Denver defense.

For the Nuggets, high-flying forward Orlando Woolridge led all scorers with 40 points, while debutant Jackson had 26 points and six assists but gave up seven turnovers in a first game that probably still has him shaking his head at the sheer absurdity of it all. To this day, the 173 points scored by the Suns is the equal highest in NBA history for non-overtime games; the 107-point outburst stands alone as the greatest scoring splurge for the opening half of any NBA game.

But for Westhead, the game remains the prime example of why he always felt – and still feels – that 200 points is not only possible but probable.

“I only say that because we created that run,” Westhead says. “We could sustain it but we weren’t good enough to score well enough and defend well enough but that’s an example where it’s possible. You’ve got a game where it’s 173, well, had we’d been better we’d have been above 173, into the 180s, the 190s or perhaps even 200. So I wouldn’t say it’s as difficult as the four-minute mile that no-one ever thought we could do, it’s like that though, people say, ‘nah that’s crazy, that’s impossible’, but sure you could!”

“Let em loose” was the Nuggets’ pre-season slogan and could not have been more prescient.

Unfortunately, the slogan applied more to the opposition than it did for Denver, as the Nuggets proved in the space of eight days the absolute audacity of their shoot-first-and-ask-questions-much-much-later style.

In the NBA record books, the top-three games for “Most points, both teams, first half” read as follows:174 — Phoenix (107) vs. Denver (67), Nov. 10, 1990; 173 — Denver (90) at San Antonio (83), Nov. 7, 1990; 170 — Golden State (87) at Denver (83), Nov. 2, 1990. Eight days, three records. It’s a record for offensive blitzkriegs and defensive futility all rolled into one crazily endearing up-tempo package.

Giving up 130.8 points per in the pros beggars belief but as Westhead noted at the time, “We want to create a pace in the game that will break anybody – except us.”And remarkably, for Westhead anyway, the squad actually performed better than he expected, despite winning just 20 games all season and never once keeping an opposing team to under 100 points.

“Well, we had an interesting team,” Westhead recalls. “The Nuggets, prior to my arrival, were a good established team but their players got old, they were retired or were traded off so the team we had when I arrived was a couple of young players and some veteran free agents so it was kind of a put-together team.”

Having previously coached the Lakers to a title in 1979-80 before moving on to the pre-Jordan Bulls, Westhead arrived in the Mile High city in 1990 after successfully implementing his turbo-driven offense at Loyola Marymount.

“When I arrived I kind of changed the approach,” Westhead says. “We tried to play breakneck fast-break basketball, you know, try to shoot the ball every four or five seconds, as quickly as we could get down the court. The players did a better than average job in doing that, it’s not an easy thing to do but they picked up the speed game and responded pretty well.”

Westhead swears to this day that the system works – with the right personnel and the right environment.

He knows within himself his plan was sound: get his players ultra-fit in training camp and then leave opponents in their dust in the thin air of the McNichols Sports Arena with a tempo that was supposed to make Showtime look like Slowtime.

In hindsight though, should the fact that some of the key rotation players on his roster included Joe Wolf, Blair Rasmussen and Todd Lichti have sounded a warning bell? Or that his best scoring options were Woolridge (who had a well-earned reputation for a Tarzan-like physique and a Jane-like ability to avoid contact), pint-sized point guard Michael Adams (who had injury problems throughout the season), an out-of-shape Jackson in his rookie season and a 36-year-old Walter Davis, who could be generously described as only just past his prime?

Not according to Westhead.

“I wouldn’t say it didn’t work,” Westhead counters. “I would say if you looked at wins and losses then you’ll say it didn’t work because you didn’t win enough games. My easy answer to that is to say we just didn’t have a top-level player or two to win the game in the last two or three minutes when you needed to close out games. It’s a little bit of both but nonetheless, the players did a good job in running the ball and causing problems with opponents who weren’t accustomed to playing at that fast pace.”

In fact, Westhead maintains his system rejuvenated the careers of veterans like Woolridge and Davis.

“Orlando Woolridge, was an example of a player who was a free agent, he’d left the Lakers because he was too old, he was 33-34 years old and he came to us,” Westhead says. “Because he ran our system, half-way through the year he was leading the NBA in scoring, he was averaging 32 points a game. He then got injured, he had an eye injury and had to sit out a couple of weeks, when he came back he had to wear a mask and his scoring went down. But he was like the perfect example of a player rejuvenated with a speed game that allowed him to score at will.

“If Orlando (Woolridge) had played in a slow game, at his age, he would’ve struggled to get 10-15 points in a game and now here he is getting 30 points a game, easy. So for a player like that, it was the perfect thing for him.”

As for Davis, Westhead smiles at the thought of putting new life into the old Greyhound.

“I have a fond memory,” Westhead remembers, “of Walter Davis coming to me – his knees were gone – and saying to me he could only play a certain amount of minutes, he could barely practice, in fact one time he came to me and said ‘Do you want me to practice or play games?’ So I said, ‘OK, let’s just play games.’ So he was in one game and he had made six or seven shots in a row and he put his fist up.

“Now, in his world, when you put your fist up – the Dean Smith/North Carolina world – meant he wanted to come out of the game. And I yelled out to him, ‘I’m not Dean Smith, and you’re not coming out until you miss!’ So I think he made about three or four more shots and then he missed and then I took him out. He came out with this big smile on his face but he was exhausted.”

And interestingly, Westhead theorises that any chance of extended success was only stymied by injuries to Adams, his floor general, who was the ignition sequence to his offense.

“Michael Adams was the key player for us,” Westhead says. “When he was fit and played well, he was a great fast-break point guard. But when he had to sit out – he had hamstring problems – our effectiveness went down, oh, maybe 50 per cent, because the point guard is the key to that system.”

But would his system work in today’s NBA, where even the quote-unquote 07 Seconds Or Less Suns could never quite get over the play-off hump?

“I have a couple of reflections,” the ever-Shakespearean Westhead muses. “Yes, it could work with the right group. That pace can be very effective because teams aren’t accustomed to it, teams don’t like to defend against that. The hitch always is, ‘will players agree to do it for the long haul?’ It’s an 82-game season plus playoffs and exhibition games, so a normal NBA team may play 100 games in one year.

“I’m convinced that if they would buy into the speed game, they would be – if they had enough quality – they would be very successful. Will they do it? There’s the rub. And if they back off on it, then it immediately turns south on you and it turns against you.”

And turn against him it did.

Even with the drafting of Dikembe Mutombo and a belated effort at a more conventional offensive system, Westhead was fired at the conclusion of the following season with a two-year record of 44-120.

Following his departure from Denver, Westhead went back to the college ranks at George Mason, rather less successfully than with Loyola, as it turned out. He became something of a coaching nomad after being replaced at Mason in 1997, taking the reins of the LA Stars in the ABA and then heading to Japan’s Pro League.

Westhead made a return to the NBA coaching ranks with Orlando (under Johnny Davis) in 2003 before the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury handed him the top job in 05.With the Mercury’s title run in 2007, Westhead became the first man to coach both a NBA and WNBA team to a championship.Nowadays, the 72-year-old Westhead is still pushing his teams to run – getting his Oregon girls to score 100 points rather than the magical 200-mark is the aim – but the memory of a bold (critics might be less generous) experiment in the Mile High City remains etched in his memory.

“Denver doesn’t seem that long ago,” Westhead laughs. “I don’t know if it’s because you play a fast game everything goes fast, the years go fast. I can clearly picture our attempt to get out and run and some of the fast games we played. And some of the teams we played, see, teams just don’t like to play against you, they ultimately may beat you if they’re better than you but it’s not an easy win for them.”

Even today, deep down, Westhead knows there’s no middle ground with what he runs, that his hyped-up offence will only work if everyone is on board and the talent level matches the intensity.

“There is some truth that it can be doomed to fail,” Westhead admits, somewhat echoing ESPN’s Guru of Go documentary about his coaching career. “This style of play, you either get it or you don’t. You either do it or you don’t, there’s no in-between. So, if you’re gonna try this as a coach and as a team, when it works, you win, you win championships.

“But when it doesn’t work, you’re doomed, there’s no in-between.”

The Lowdown: Fat Lever

January 22, 2012 in by with 3 Comments

CBS Sacramento

 Lever’s low profile has been largely of his own doing. On the court his moves are efficient and, thanks to his stamina, relentless rather than spectacular. And he shows all the apparent passion of a CPA at a Chapter 11 hearing. “Some guys show their feelings, some guys don’t,” he says. “I may not, but they’re jumping around inside.”

- Via Fat is Lean and Tough

Years Active: 1983 – 1994

Career Stats: 13.9 ppg, 6.2 apg, 6.0 rpg, 2.2 spg, 0.3 bpg, 44.7% FG, 31% 3PT, 77.1% FT

Accolades: 2x All-Star (1988, ’90), All-NBA 2nd-Team (1987), All-Defensive 2nd Team (1988)

Lafayette “Fat” Lever was indeed “relentless rather than spectacular.” But in a peculiar twist, that relentlessness became spectacular. Think of him as the stream of water that unerringly flows forth through the years, centuries and millennia and eventually turns into the mighty Mississippi or carves out the Grand Canyon.

This 6’3″ point guard was like that mighty stream. He just wore on you in every stat, every facet and every way.

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The Lowdown: Paul Silas

December 11, 2011 in by with 0 Comments

Photo via Sports Illustrated

While Havlicek is a quiet, gentlemanly sort, Silas is a cordial, beaming man who could teach smiling at a stewardess school. And while Havlicek is exacting of himself and his teammates, Silas may be doubly so.

- They’re Replaying The Sixth Man Theme

Years Active: 1965 – 1980

Career Stats: 9.4 ppg, 9.9 rpg, 2.1 apg, 43.2% FG, 67.3% FT

Accolades: 2x All-Star (1972, ’75), 2x All-Defensive 1st Team (1975-’76), 3x All-Defensive 2nd Team (1971-’73), 3x Champion (1974, ’76 Celtics, 1979 Sonics)

In 1972, Paul Silas was traded from the Phoenix Suns to the Boston Celtics. The 6’7″ forward wasn’t too thrilled at the prospect of moving from sunny Arizona to Massachusetts. It wasn’t just the weather that he was wary of, however. Already an 8-year veteran, he had heard tall tales of the Celtic mystique all his career. His skepticism soon dissipated:

“To be truthful, I thought it was a lot of nonsense. But when I arrived it was amazing. It’s almost like a collegiate atmosphere in a pro world—an atmosphere of total sacrifice for the good of the team, on and off the court. It’s a way of life. You just fall into it.”

Those Celtics of John Havlicek, Jo Jo White and Dave Cowens fell into Silas at the right moment. Just a year earlier in 1971, Silas had shed a commendable 30 pounds to drop his weight from 240 to 210. Before, during his days with the St. Louis Hawks, Silas was known as one of the NBA’s premier tough guys. A mountain of a man patrolling the lane and dominating the boards. It was an era overly focused on beefing up frontlines to thwart Wilt Chamberlain. After the weight loss, Silas stunned opponents with a new-found ability to gracefully run the court and beat his man for easy buckets. And in the halfcourt set, his lighter frame allowed better lift on his jumper. His defense remained almost as stout as it was before, but he did concede his lost weight allowed opponents to sometimes get him out of rebounding position.

Watching Silas’s transformation was Red Auerbach who exchanged Charlie Scott’s draft rights for Paul. Red  correctly surmised that Silas was just what the Celtics needed. Already a 56-win team the season before, the Celtics had arisen from the short slumber following Bill Russell’s retirement in 1969. They needed a veteran ready to contribute immediately alongside center Cowens. The addition of Silas catapulted the Celtics to 68 wins.

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The Lowdown: Dan Issel

September 4, 2011 in by with 2 Comments

Issel

Via 1043thefan.com

Pat Williams, general manager of the Philadelphia 76ers, says of Issel, “He’s not a pro-type center, not defensive-minded, not an intimidator, and you can’t win a title with him. But when his career is over, he’ll be an immortal.”

Via “King of the Rocky Mountains” by Douglas Looney

Years Active: 1971 – 1985

Career Stats: 22.6 ppg, 9.1 rpg, 2.4 apg, 1.0 spg, 0.5 bpg, 50% FG, 79% FT

Accolades: ABA Rookie of the Year (1971), All-ABA 1st Team (1972), 4x All-ABA 2nd Team (1971, 1973-74, 1976) 6x ABA All-Star (1971-76), NBA All-Star (1977), ABA All-Star Game MVP (1972) ABA All-Rookie 1st Team (1971), ABA Champion (1975 Kentucky Colonels)

The complaints of so-called dainty “bigmen” that prance around the perimeter are nothing new basketball fans. Elvin Hayes and Bob McAdoo took their fair share of heat in the 1970s for not being tough enough and so did Dan Issel despite the evident utility of such bigmen then and now (Dirk Nowitzki).

Issel, simply put, was a scoring machine. He still remains the University of Kentucky’s all-time leading scorer despite only playing 3 years there. In professional basketball, he retired as the 4th all-time leading scorer behind only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain and Julius Erving. Issel did put up some highly impressive single season scoring averages, but like any accomplishment of this sort, it was heavily indebted to career longevity. Issel only missed 24 of a possible 1242 games in his career.

The course he took to these points was unorthodox for a center. Like Hayes and McAdoo, Issel was a marksman from long-distance. His jumper extended nearly out to the three-point line, which invariably drew opposing centers out of their comfort zone. Issel would either calmly sink the jumper or deceive the defender with a pump fake and make his way toward the rim. Another favored method for Issel was scoring on the break.

He was by no means someone you could describe as fast, but neither were opposing centers in his era, for the most part, and Issel had the bonus of a motor that never stopped running. And he hit the ground running in his professional basketball career.

As a rookie, he led the ABA in scoring with 30ppg in 1971 and led the Kentucky Colonels all the way to the ABA Finals where they lost in 7 games to the Utah Stars. The next season, the 6’9″ Issel was shifted to power forward to accommodate the arrival of 7’2″ Artis Gilmore to the Kentucky lineup. Issel showed no slowing down averaging a career high 30.6ppg that season. The Colonels were a huge success during these years. Losing another game 7 Finals heartbreaker this time in 1973 to the Indiana Pacers and getting revenge in 1975 in a 5 game championship route of Indiana.

That would be Issel’s last act as a Colonel. In the summer of 1975 he was traded 1st to Baltimore, which quickly folded, and then to the Denver Nuggets. Moving back to center, Issel teamed up with David Thompson and Bobby Jones to lead Denver to the ABA Finals in 1976 (beating Kentucky along the way) before losing to New Jersey in 6 games.

Merging with the NBA that summer, Issel and the Nuggets took their act to the NBA and there was no drama to their play. Despite roster changes (Thompson and Jones making way for George McGinnis and then Alex English and Kiki Vandeweghe in the early 80s) and coaching switches (Larry Brown for Donnie Walsh and then Doug Moe) the Nuggets always scored like Chicagoans voted: early and often.

This style reached its zenith between 1981 and 1985 when the Nuggets never failed to average less than 120 points a game for a season.  And 5 different times Issel was part of a troika of teammates that averaged at least 20ppg a piece. Something that rarely happens ever let alone this many times on one team.

With all that high-flying amazement, the Nuggets never got back to a finals with Issel. The closest they came was the Western Conference Finals in 1978 (losing to Seattle) and in 1985 (losing to the Lakers). That ’85 series would see Issel score his final NBA points. Going out in style, Dan swished a 3-point bomb as the Great Western Forum crowd cheered him on.

A 6’9″ perpetually-balding center with a devilish grin is certainly not what we expect when thinking of ABA personalities and NBA legends. But Dan Issel was certainly one of the best and, indeed, he is immortal: his number is retired by the Nuggets, he’s a Hall of Famer and to this day retains the most successful pro career of any Kentucky Wildcat. Eat your heart out, Ron Mercer.

The Lowdown: Bobby Jones

August 28, 2011 in by with 1 Comment

Bobby Jones Flying

Photo by Ernie Layba from RemembertheABA.com

Bobby Jones, 6’9″ second-year man out of North Carolina. Best defensive forward in basketball. Shot 60.5% last year (only man other than Wilt Chamberlain ever over 60). Leading league again this season at 59% despite worst form and shortest range in history of mankind. Just never takes bad shot. Great leaper. Denver MVP, easy. Thrifty, devoted, straight arrow. Brown says that during pregame talks, while other players scratch, read, go to bathroom, Jones “stares at me and actually listens. He’s scary.” Bob Goldsholl, Nets TV announcer, says Jones is so clean that when he went to the movie Story of O, he walked out when he discovered it was not the life of Oscar Robertson.

Via “They Run And They Gun-and They’re A Mile High” by Curry Kirkpatrick

Years Active: 1975 – 1986

Career Stats: 12.1 ppg, 6.1 rpg, 2.7 apg, 1.4 bpg, 1.5 spg, 55.8% FG, 76.6% FT

Accolades: NBA Sixth Man of the Year (1983), ABA All-Star (1976), 4x NBA All-Star (1977-78, 1981-82), All-ABA 2nd Team (1976), 2x ABA All-Defensive 1st Team (1975-76), 8x NBA All-Defensive 1st Team (1977-84), NBA All-Defensive 2nd Team (1985), All-ABA Rookie 1st Team (1975), 1983 NBA Champion (Sixers)

Bobby Jones: an average name for maybe the best defensive small forward of all-time. The only real competition for the honor is Scottie Pippen and Tom “Satch” Sanders. But during Jones’s playing days, he was certainly the best. Possessing a wiry, yet toned 6’9” frame, Jones had the perfect height, length, speed and, above all, desire to frustrate and dominate his opponents.

He was near-perfect at every conceivable defensive measure: ball denial, man-to-man defense, weakside help, steals, blocks, interceptions, miraculous saves. Jones did all of this dirty grunt work with an air of nobility: “If I have to play defense by holding on, that’s when I quit. If I have to use an elbow to get position, then I’m going to have to settle for another position.”

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Film Don’t Lie: The Denver Nuggets and “Gattaca”

April 28, 2011 in by with 4 Comments

Teambuilding is merely an exercise in collective eugenics; a geneticist of sorts hand picks desired traits and abilities, and engineers a finished product to incorporate them. The logistical realities of operating with entire human beings rather than sequences of genetic code require more imprecise maneuvers, but the underlying goal is the same: perfection, in all of its pragmatic glory.

There are, however, those teams that come to exist as a matter of random chance rather than designed formula. Their point guards don’t have perfect vision. Their bigs don’t have the ideal height and hops. Their wings have imperfect jumpers. They consist of the same guanine, adenine, cytosine, and thymine that constitutes those perfectly engineered specimens, but the sequence is subtly different. In the world of Gattaca, they are the in-valids, those made — and made imperfect — by nature itself, in stark contrast to the orchestrated makeup of all that surround them.

The Denver Nuggets as we knew them — the wonderful, inspired, and deeply flawed team left in the wake of the Carmelo Anthony trade — were unquestionably in-valid. The limitations ingrained in their very code were supposed to keep them from ever entering Gattaca’s gates; without Anthony and without Chauncey Billups, the collection of supporting pieces in Denver was supposed be rebuffed at the playoff threshold altogether. No team can fully fake their way into a playoff-worthy record, and the players on the Nuggets roster were destined to be something inferior.

The Nuggets found their way in. There were tests of blood and vision and resolve, but none could turn away a capable team that knew it belonged. Obviously Denver would have been better off with a perfect profile, but chance’s creation was good enough to pass as legitimate perfection. They weren’t, however, good enough to win. The fact that the Thunder — a team of two stars, a deliberate model, and all the trappings of a valid contender — took the series and eliminated the Nuggets from the playoffs is no surprise, but then again, it’s also not the point. 

Vincent (voiceover): We used to swim as far out as we dared — it was about who would get scared and turn back first. Of course, it was always me. Anton was by far the stronger swimmer, and he had no excuse to fail.

It should have been expected that the “genetically superior” team would win out in any measure of competitive worth, but those rare exceptions beg for us to look at something beyond mere expectation. In the film, Vincent “always” lost to his biologically perfect brother in their battle of wills. The system was built for him to fail, and fail he did — many times, we’re led to believe.

Yet twice in the film, we see Vincent win in a race against his brother. First as a young adult:

Vincent (voiceover): It was the last time we swam together out into the open sea. Like always knowing each stroke to the horizon was one we’d have to make back to the shore. But something was very different about that day. Every time Anton tried to pull away, he found me right beside him. Until finally, the impossible happened. It was the one moment in our lives when my brother was not as strong as he believed, and I was not as weak. It was the moment that made everything else possible.

And finally, in the analogous representation of Vincent’s journey to the elusive “other side” of the world that had been denied him for so long on the basis of his makeup:

 

The Nuggets, in-valids though they were, haven’t yet won. They failed, just as so many other in-valid playoff teams have failed before them. Anton still swims harder and farther, leaving the Nuggets behind to face their own limitations.

Gattaca may be, in part, a story of the triumph of human spirit, but that resilience is hardly the lesson here. Sure, the Nuggets went hard and believed, but there’s no revelation in the fact that a playoff team trusts in its potential. Instead, it would do us all good to reflect on one of Gattaca‘s other themes: makeup can tell us all kinds of practical information, but internal sequence and structure alone don’t offer sufficient basis to discriminate. Denver didn’t follow the model of other championship contenders, but it wasn’t the oft-diagnosed lack of a star player that damned the Nuggets to their first round exit. It was their struggles to contain Kevin Durant, the failure to create shots against pressure, and the inability to utilize all of their available assets effectively.

Denver would have been better off with a star, but that privilege isn’t the only way to achieve success. Vincent, for example, was able to do brilliant work once given the opportunity, despite all of his flaws:

Director Josef: Godliness. I reviewed your flight plan. Not one error in a million keystrokes. Phenomenal. It’s right that someone like you is taking us to Titan.

It was somehow right that Vincent, with his likelihood for heart failure, his myopic vision, and his various other limitations, was to lead the human race to a brave new world. Just like someday, it will be right for a new breed of championship contender — not at all unlike these Nuggets — to bring home the title, and debunk a generation of critics who claimed that “no team could ever win a title by doing X.” Certain skills and production are mandatory for success in this game and this league, but the formation — the very makeup — of a team is fully flexible. Star power isn’t important, so long as that aforementioned production comes from somewhere on the roster in a reliable fashion.

The Nuggets don’t need one star, nor two; after all, every atom in our bodies was once part of a star, which makes the Nuggets already glow with their own star power. Moving forward, they need a composite fix to either address their team weaknesses or bolster their strengths. In this series, Denver simply failed to break through. That event, whether through these Nuggets or some other in-valid team either known or unknown to us now, is coming. Those teams will swim out together into the open sea time and time again, until finally, inevitably, they experience the kind of moment that makes everything else possible.

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