NBA: 2011/12 Conference Finals.

For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com

“SPORTS NOTEBOOK” posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of every week---Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone.

SPECIAL OLYMPICS SUMMER GAMES, COLORADO, June 2, @ UNC, Greeley, Colorado. For more information, go to specialolympicsco.org , or: 800-777-5767.

35^th Annual Rocky Mountain Senior Games, June 6 – 10, Greeley, Col., for info:

970-350-9443; or: Sheri.Lobmeyer@greeleygov.com.

NBA:    IF the oustanding shooter and defender Tim Duncan of the San Antonio Spurs is really NBA-old, and if the Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich is indeed an example of the basketball leader who’s been many times through the mill, then the Spurs/Oklahoma City Thunder NBA-Western Conference battles that continue this week will be a test between an older generation of greats and the young and upcoming greats of the Thunder that are Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and Thunder head coach, Scott Brooks. Also, the battles between the Boston Celtics and the Miami Heat for an NBA-Eastern Conference title that kicked in yesterday will compete some already crowned NBA existing greats, that is, possibly the NBA’s best shooter, Ray Allen (Boston) versus the year’s MVP and super shooter, LeBron James (Miami).

In addition, viewers will be watching a team that boasts a super star but stresses teamwork over star-power and spreads the opportunities for netting baskets (the Spurs), versus a team that relies more on the prowess of its two stars for its field goal + three pointer completions (Durant and Westbrook). In front of viewers, then, will be the ongoing controversy as to which kind of “rostering for the win” is best, hardwood equality (teamwork), or star-power, or the ability to maintain both for switchbacks among the two strategies? Similarly, the Celtics/Heat contests will have something to say about the extended star-power triumvirate that is Chris Bosh, James and Dwyane Wade along with Miami’s above the margin but not best of all reserves, vs. a franchise of players of greater experience over the years and of a strong bench for that very reason (Boston).

Surely this, strategies will be tested during the remaining NBA conference games, influencing how the East/West finals will be adjusted to by the conference winners. Moreover, the conference games will affect how NBA teams will adjust for the next NBA regular season. Clear, of course, will be something that has been noted during NBA conference and national championship games for several years, that you can’t get the ring without being nearest to execution of a perfect D, of a defense that keeps the opposition’s planned plays from completion and enemy shooters from shooting well, which means lots of successful blocking and numerous defense rebounds; and, you can’t score enough points without numerous defense rebounds enabling turnovers and fast breaks, or without offense rebounds and their chances for follow-on points; and, an offense had better minimize failed free-throws.

Yes, speed can beat height and power in basketball if the height and power of the opposition comes from players lacking the endurance to stay sharp in a fourth quarter, a more likely happening during the regular season but rare against NBA teams capable of reaching the post-season.

Noted from a Los Angeles Lakers win against the Denver Nuggets this post-season is that a quick change in style of offense can trigger confusion within an opposition’s defense, example: defenders thinking that a super shooter being double-teamed will keep trying to net the ball anyway and waste shots and time, but the star shooter then passes the ball superbly to men least likely to shoot from the corners, who score. Or, you decide not to double-team the super star so you can double-up on the opposing seven-footers and prevent rebounds. In effect, you allow the star to shoot, thinking he’ll finish with, at best, 27 points. Instead, he scores 38 in addition to passing well to his big guys, who, to be stopped from shooting, risks fouls, those enemy free-throw points adding up.

The NBA conference title outcomes will remain hard to predict until after three games each, and then prediction still won’t be easy. Both series could go to seven games each, yet the slightest new chinks in the armor of either team could cause one or the other to lose four straight, or fade away at 4-1. Among vulnerabilities, the Celtics will play hard but they can be accident-prone during make or break competitions (too late now for rehab). And, the Heat needs each of its three stars to be revved and ready at the same dynamic level for either to play well off of the other (when one slackens, the others tend to fall back some).

Of merit is that neither team in this year’s conference finals is without the variables that make for a championship season. Without question, watching the four franchises will be clear observation of NBA play at its very best.

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ALL SPORTS: Soldier-Athletes // MLB: Colorado Rockies & Looking Ahead.

For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com

“SPORTS NOTEBOOK” posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of every week---Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone.

SPECIAL OLYMPICS SUMMER GAMES, COLORADO, June 2, @ UNC, Greeley, Colorado. For more information, go to specialolympicsco.org , or: 800-777-5767.

35^th Annual Rocky Mountain Senior Games, June 6 – 10, Greeley, Col., for info:

970-350-9443; or: Sheri.Lobmeyer@greeleygov.com.

ALL SPORTS: Soldier-Athletes  --- AT many an American sports arena and stadium a statement of appreciation for the nation’s men and women in uniform occurs just before game time, and on Memorial Day there are special activities recognizing the sacrifices that members of our army, navy and air force make to guarantee our security and our freedom. This sports/armed forces connection has been a mainstay since World War Two, which many of the country’s great athletes have been a direct part of, the more famous example that of the great Ted Williams interrupting his baseball career to become a fighter pilot in WW2 and during the Korean War, a less known example the more than 260 professional football players who have gone overseas as soldiers, sailors and airmen during and since WW2. Also, numerous super athletes from West Point, Annapolis and the Air Force Academy have gone to war and will continue to do so.

Without question, the sports/military connection runs deep. Courage and sacrifice for soldiering are among the important variables that make the superb athlete. A stand-up “tell” about the military/sports relationship is this: at nearly every military base in the U.S., and at U.S. bases overseas, there is a baseball field, often a football field and indoor and outdoor basketball courts. Signaling who we are as a people is that when any game begins at these bases, the uniform shirts and the insignia come off. Corporals and sergeants, lieutenants, captains and colonels are suddenly but athletes on a team. Rank and authority are set aside. At the forefront are individuals respecting one another’s appreciation for a game and each other’s skills---it’s a statement that says that freedom and respect for the individual remain paramount for Americans.

Too, sports are combat, except that in sports real bullets aren’t flying and there are referees and umpires helping to reduce those physical actions that could lead to violence and serious injury. Former Green Bay Packers coach, Vince Lombardi, was quick to remind that he learned many of his strategies while an assistant coach at West Point under Colonel Red Blaik, a trained combat leader. Surely sports have been the activity that resembles real war the most with its need for bravery, discipline and sacrifice, for knowing how to win with humility and how to lose with grace.

So, it isn’t just coincidence that at arenas and stadiums on Memorial Day (this Monday, May 28) that the military personnel who have sacrificed their lives for the nation will be honored---beneath their uniforms, America’s athletes and soldiers are indeed kin of the close-knit kind.

MBA (Colorado Rockies):   Phoenix is a city in Arizona—it’s also a mythic bird, the symbol for “diehard comeback,” noted in a phrase from classic literature, “I rise in flames, cried the Phoenix,” which is what the Colorado Rockies would want as a bumper sticker after losing six games straight. Well, it could fasten, the Rockies having ended a painful losing streak with an 8-4 win against Miami’s Marlins on Wednesday, thanks to three runs from a homer by Rockies shortstop, Troy Tulowitzki, and a triple-RBI from outfielder, Carlos Gonzalez, and that starting pitcher, Alex White, hadn’t suffered serious derailment.

What, then, are the flames that the mythic bird is now trying to rocket away from? Surely they are the limitations that settled in May upon the arms of Colorado’s hurlers, among them, Jamie Moyer, Jhoulys Chacin, Christian Friedrich, Juan Nicasio, Matt Belisle, Rafael Betancourt, Drew Pomeranz, and White. Add, Jorge De La Rosa’s rehab not moving fast enough for him to be back on the mound frequently. In effect, the status quo conjured up by the Rockies starters and bull pen in May has to trade quickly for lower ERA’s, more strikeouts and fewer walks; otherwise, the team won’t be zooming ahead, surpassing mediocrity and reaching post-season competition, in that no line-up, not even that which could include hitters such as Tulowitzki, Gonzalez, Todd Helton and Jason Giambi, can sustain the high momentum needed to offset marginal pitching.   

Yet a path for the Rockies to exploit lies just ahead---six games that if won could push the team’s toughest competition down and the Rockies upward: three games against the Los Angeles Dodgers, then three versus the Arizona Diamondbacks, rival franchises that are now ahead of the Rockies in the National League-West by multiple games.

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MLB: Posting Losses, and some words about the Colorado Rockies   

For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com

“SPORTS NOTEBOOK” posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of every week---Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone.

SPECIAL OLYMPICS SUMMER GAMES, COLORADO, June 2, @ UNC, Greeley, Colorado. For more information, go to specialolympicsco.org , or: 800-777-5767.

35^th Annual Rocky Mountain Senior Games, June 6 – 10, Greeley, Col., for info:

970-350-9443; or: Sheri.Lobmeyer@greeleygov.com.

MLB:  A record below .500 after two months of an MLB season can be the start of a long and depressing goodbye, during which only Roy Hobbs from the novel and sports movie The Natural could make a difference, turn a team upward and guarantee a post-season billet. Not that such sudden and welcoming upturns haven’t happened, and this isn’t to say that any MLB team is today beyond a point in time from which recovery is impossible, and not to say that there aren’t honorable stations during a baseball season other than being able to play the game in October.

Rather, this is a brief take on the subject of losing in baseball, with some words about the Colorado Rockies.

Numerous MLB teams are under .500 today, several unsure why the variables that can spur frequent losses visited them, few with enough clues as to what those variables are. The Colorado Rockies are among these losing franchises, now in last place of the National League-West, at 15 wins and 26 losses. Is it from normally good hitters not hitting well anymore? Is it from pitchers now psyched by opposing team hitters, or just good arms turning out to be those that go bad after only four innings? No matter the switches in a line-up implemented by this losing team’s manager, how come nothing works the way it used to, when the team won frequently?

Uninvited mediocrity can begin to seem viral, unstoppable, and it will be if losing teams can’t indentify its problems and come up with the right solutions. Colorado Rockies manager, Jim Tracy, knows that when unmet expectations begin to define a team’s season, it has to go on the hunt, find what’s wrong, hit the mend and stay with it, thinking less about placement in the daily standings and more about being in the moments of each game, team members giving their all in spite of existing conditions and what the numbers say. Of course, easier said than done when players, manager and coaching staff haven’t had the time between games to gather enough information as to why they hit a wall and can’t seem to escape it.

Yet a losing team can still be awesome, for instance, producing in a single game numerous base-runners from lots of doubles and triples (never mind that they were left on base after the half inning), maybe also producing more successful stolen bases than the opposing team could deliver. There’s the beauty of a greater than 410 foot grand slam home run by a losing team’s hitter back from rehab in the minors (never mind that this hitter’s team would still lose the game in which the HR occurred). Add that back-to-the-ball catch by a losing team’s outfielder, which even the most respected analysts thought only the great Willy Mays could execute (never mind that the hit was a sacrifice fly, the opposing team having another RBI). And, how about the losing team’s best slugger producing that hit that caused him to have the highest batting average in his league?

During the Colorado Rockies narrative of more losses than wins, we’ve seen the team’s LHP Jamie Moyer become the oldest starting pitcher in baseball to win a game, veteran Todd Helton belt a walk-off grand slam HR, slugger Carlos Gonzales attain a better than .300 batting average versus every team played in May, except vs. the Mariners. We’ve seen the team accrue 11 runs in a single inning, and win games against each of the teams that are now ahead of the Rockies in the rankings.

So, what’s the point being made here? That within the framework of a team being in last place and under .500, there’s still exciting and positive baseball to be had. Final comment, there’s never a good reason to abandon a ballpark the way that Boston fans have been avoiding Fenway with each Red Sox loss. Real fans are of the game and not only of a chosen team. Make no mistake, the losing Rockies “have game!”

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MLB: Colorado Rockies & That Up/Down Cycle  

For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com

“SPORTS NOTEBOOK” posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of every week---Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone.

SPECIAL OLYMPICS SUMMER GAMES, COLORADO, June 2, @ UNC, Greeley, Colorado. For more information, go to specialolympicsco.org , or: 800-777-5767.

35^th Annual Rocky Mountain Senior Games, June 6 – 10, Greeley, Col., for info:

970-350-9443; or: Sheri.Lobmeyer@greeleygov.com.

MLB:    IT seemed that the Colorado Rockies had reached the start of an upturn from its numerous May losses with LHP Jamie Moyer’s 6-1 win against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Wednesday, May 16, and as the Rockies were ahead of the DB’s mid-game the following afternoon, 4-1---but the Rockies couldn’t advance enough during innings five through nine on Thursday to keep ahead of an Arizona line-up demonstrating that a string of base runners, even from successive singles and walks, can win a ballgame easier than the sporadic power shot. In those later innings of Thursday’s game, the DB’s were placing line-drives and fast grounders everywhere on the map, overcoming a deficit and pulling the score to a 9-7 win.

Observed of late, and certainly during Thursday's vs. Arizona game, have been too many Rockies pitches fed to opposing teams just the way hitters would want them for the base hit, plus some Rockies fielding that hasn't been where struck balls can land shallow but out of the infield, or low through an infield. Also, of late the Rockies line-up hasn’t been outsmarting opposing starters, relievers and closers enough to overcome the Rockies pitching that has allowed too many runs. Disappointing yesterday was a ninth inning opportunity for a Colorado game-winning smash vs. the DB’s, with men on base and Todd Helton at the plate. Helton had smacked a walk-off grand slam home run on April 14. Could that happen again? Nein, Nada, Nyet, Nope! Baseball's mathematical odds and Gods were elsewhere.

A good rotation and bull pen produces low ERA’s consistently. Saying that runs win a ballgame is stating the very obvious---it isn’t hard science knowing that the fewer runs that a team gives away to the opposition, then the easier it becomes to prevail and win, even with marginal hitting. And in light of the fact that hitting a baseball well in the MLB is among the hardest tasks that any athlete could achieve, even for the Josh Hamiltons and Albert Pujols of the game, "there is just so much that a competent line-up can do.” Surely there’s sufficient competency within the Rockies line-up to put runs on the board. They accrued 13 runs against the DB’s in the last two days, and though the Rockies lost to the DB’s yesterday, that’s five more runs than the Arizona line-up scored during the two contests.

Not that an improved line-up wouldn’t enhance the Rockies chances for winning more games; rather, even with a Moyer win, and some promise shown in LHP Christian Friedrich, and yesterday starter Juan Nicasio allowing only one run in his five innings of play, “the Rockies rotation and bull pen still need to advance in skills several more rungs up the ladder of competency for the ERA reductions that bring on wins a lot faster than could a surge in hitting.”       

Presently, the Rockies are 15 wins/22 losses, below .500 and second from the bottom in the National League’s West Division, and two games from last within the NL. Not good, and no-one within the Rockies organization is exactly sure why, but more for thought now is what it will take to win more games.

Yet according to some hidden laws that not even Nobel prize scientists can figure out, the Rockies will begin winning some games in late May and June, and when they do no-one on the team or staff will be exactly sure why it has happened.  .  .  Quite often in baseball a team that’s been winning a lot gets like persons winning at poker; they want to up the ante, they want to reach for an even higher percentage of wins, ignoring that doing so causes change, alters what has caused win after win and so the team starts to lose. As April came to a close for a Rockies team above .500, maybe someone needed to shout out the cliché, “If it aint broke, don’t fix it!”

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NBA: Denver Nuggets Lose Game Seven of First Playoff Round // MLB: The Colorado Rockies & Falling Back.

For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com

“SPORTS NOTEBOOK” posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of every week---Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone.

SPECIAL OLYMPICS SUMMER GAMES, COLORADO, June 2, @ UNC, Greeley, Colorado. For more information, go to specialolympicsco.org , or: 800-777-5767.

35^th Annual Rocky Mountain Senior Games, June 6 – 10, Greeley, Col., for info:

970-350-9443; or: Sheri.Lobmeyer@greeleygov.com.

NBA:    THOUGH finishing three of four during a seven game/first round playoff series vs. the Los Angeles Lakers, the Denver Nuggets remained an NBA franchise deserving much praise and lots of respect. Not many professional basketball teams can rise up from the short end of a three-games-to-one situation, forcing a seventh challenge. No serious sports fan will define the Nuggets only by its seventh game loss to the Lakers, 96-87, on Saturday night.

Except for game one of the vs. Lakers series, the Nuggets kept performing above-the-margin, and in games five and six they excelled at speed-over-power offense and at jump-high/block-and-rebound/in-your-face defense. Yes, game seven saw the Nuggets offense unable to evade the machinations of the Lakers bigs (Andrew Bynum, Pau Gasol and Metta World Peace) for a greater shooting percentage, and though the Nuggets recovered from a 16 point deficit to command a lead in the third quarter the Lakers offense managed to escape the Nuggets just enough for shots that widened a point spread in their favor---still, winning four of the seven games wasn’t a cool breeze for the Lakers (had the game another five minutes to go, who knows?).      

Noteworthy, of course, is that the Nuggets finished the regular season 38-28 and got to the post-season, this as a young team, its players starting with insufficient experience of each other’s strengths and vulnerabilities, eight of whom managed to maintain double-digit points-per-game averages throughout the season. The Nuggets team-wide ppg average exceeded 109 points, around 10 points higher than that held by almost all opposing teams. In 39 of its games played since December 26, 2011, the Nuggets scored 100 or more points during each. Too, in the regular season the Nuggets managed to beat nearly every Western Conference team that held either first or second place of a division, and the Nuggets defeated several Eastern Conference teams in that category, as well.  

Odds are that Nuggets point guard Ty Lawson will shine even brighter next season from lessons learned during the playoffs, and no longer a rookie Kenneth Faried will probably rise a rung or two upon the skills ladder for the same reason. If Nuggets forward Danilo Gallinari, guard Arron Afflalo and forward Al Harrington play as well next season as they had during most of their 2011/12 appearances, the Nuggets will probably purchase a leading spot within the NBA-West before the All Star break .  .  .  In no way are the Nuggets a team to be written off for the 2012-2013 season.             

MLB:   A ballclub falling back from first to second place, from somewhere near .600 to, say, .540, won’t be listed as a losing team, not as a franchise that hovers over an abyss. Yet a team that has held third place and has remained at the margin, that is, at around .500, and then suddenly falls to under .400 and is next to last in its division, well, that team is thought to be near a zone from which recovery may be impossible. As April ended, the Colorado Rockies were “at the margin,” they could boast about some big wins; they showed the stuff of teams that rise upward steadily, that glow with some post-season possibilities. Then by mid-May, ugh! Fourth place in the National League-West, the team’s average starting this week .394, 13 wins against 21 losses. Last night’s 3-2 Rockies loss to the San Francisco Giants became the team’s 12^th loss of its past 15 games. How could this be? Is it the pitching rotation’s slowdowns that resulted in a starter/bull pen 5.67 ERA recorded by around May 9? Is it the middle of the line-up failing to offset weaknesses from the mound with extra base hits and home runs? Neither the Rockies pitching nor its slugging have seemed to be in synch since May began.

Rooting out the now unseen, the reasons for a fallback, is never easy, not even for a ballclub manager as experienced and as effective as is Rockies field boss, Jim Tracy. It’s hard to know if the Rockies current below-the-margin pitching is as good as it can get because many of the team’s hurlers haven’t shown themselves to be much better at any time in their brief career with the Rockies, while the team’s preferred hitters have showed often enough that they have the bounce-back for those extra base hits and home runs that have helped to pull the Rockies above .500 in the past. Who has peaked, and who has fallen, who can come back stronger, be more skillful? Meanwhile, until the flaws can be identified and fixed, it’s best to kick butt vs. the enemy that is identifiable, “Despair,” which has to be ignored, for the MLB season is still young---there’s time for repair, for restoration. “Despair” is that bat with a hole in it, it’s the ball that immobilizes the hand and the glove.

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NBA PLAYOFFS: Denver Nuggets Up, and UP!! (Games 5 & 6 vs. the L.A. Lakers)

For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com

“SPORTS NOTEBOOK” posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of every week---Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone.

SPECIAL OLYMPICS SUMMER GAMES, COLORADO, June 2, @ UNC, Greeley, Colorado. For more information, go to specialolympicsco.org , or: 800-777-5767.

35^th Annual Rocky Mountain Senior Games, June 6 – 10, Greeley, Col., for info:

970-350-9443; or: Sheri.Lobmeyer@greeleygov.com.

NBA:   Rarely can speed alone put an NBA team ahead of an opponent by the end of a game’s first period, but add smarts and skill to speed and a team can make a real difference, even against a franchise that includes Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, Andrew Bynum, Ramon Sessions and Steve Blake. During game five of the Denver Nuggets/L.A. Lakers post-season series, the Nuggets began as if bulls chasing torero-wannabe’s in the narrow streets of Pamplona during that Spanish town’s annual fiesta, applying basketball wisdom (keeping away from the bigs and preventing Bryant not just from sinking more baskets than he had, but from passing to his go-to-guys). The Nuggets netted successfully enough to finish the quarter, 26-23.

In that first quarter, the Nuggets bested the Lakers in every major game category, including 10 successful field goals of 22 attempts, while the Lakers completed nine of 16. Add, six good Nuggets free throws of six attempted, the Lakers achieving but five for eight, plus 14 Nuggets rebounds vs. the Lakers 13. Include six Nuggets assists, the Lakers with four.

During the second quarter, the Nuggets completed nine field goals and two of five three-pointers, plus 11 rebounds, three assists, three steals and a block, the score at the half, Nuggets 49, Lakers, 43.

During the third quarter, the Nuggets 10 rebounds, six assists, 11 completed field goals and a three-pointer lifted the score to Nuggets, 76, Lakers, 65. Then in the fourth quarter, the Nuggets seemed to have peaked, beginning a downhill slide, going from a 15 point lead to a three point edge, where the team could have lost the game to Kobe Bryant’s sudden avalanche of points (by endgame, Bryant had scored 43). Were it not for the Nuggets Andre Miller and JaVale McGee defending and shooting well enough, the Nuggets 102-99 win against the Lakers could have been the reverse. Miller finished with 24 points, and McGee, 21 points, 14 rebounds and two blocks. Five Nuggets players ended the game with double-digit points, the Lakers finished with three in that category.  

From winning game five of its series vs. the Lakers, the Nuggets created three important outcomes. First, they weren’t sent over the cliff in the first round of the Western Conference finals---there would be a game six between the Nuggets and the Lakers, and maybe a game seven on Saturday, May 12, at Los Angeles. Second, the Nuggets showed that they could close a tight game in the final minutes of a fourth period, taking away smirks from the numerous doubters. Third, if the Nuggets could escape from the sorry end of a 3 games to one count and win the fifth, they could win game six, possibly game seven, as well.  .  . 

.  .  .  and game six belonged to the Nuggets from the get-go. It was nearly 10 minutes into the first quarter before the Lakers were able to score, the Nuggets up by more than 12. They continued to dominate, finishing the game, 113-96. Nuggets guard Ty Lawson, who was almost invisible in game one and again in game five, was the Nuggets high scorer with 32 points (he completed five of six three pointers), the catalyst of a momentum that hadn’t let up as long as he was on the court. Because of that momentum, the Lakers were unable to keep from being at the effect of the Nuggets offense; they could not shield against the Nuggets except now and then. The Nuggets reflected relentless speed and accurate shooting in every quarter, none of the slowdown and inefficient shooting that often plagues the Nuggets during the last minutes of a fourth quarter, especially in post-season games versus the Lakers. Two Nuggets guards and a forward scored more than 15 points each (Lawson with 32, Corey Brewer 18, Kenneth Faried, 15 // Brewer’s 18 occurred within only 19 minutes of his being on the floor), the Lakers having only one shooter finishing above 15, Bryant---31. The Nuggets led in field goals, 47 over the Lakers 35, and in three pointers, 10 above the Lakers four.

Keys to the Nuggets game six win: (1) That same punishing “tigers out of the cage” start against the Lakers at the beginning of game five, executed faster and yet with greater control; (2) Less concern about imprisoning Bryant, meanwhile increased effort on keeping Gasol and Bynum from other than running up and down court, in effect, letting Bryant shoot to a minimum relative to his possible 40 or more (he had 31 points by endgame, but he had little help from Gasol and Bynum for more than that); (3) Avoiding the Lakers’ bigs by forcing direct breakthroughs into the paint, seeking ways around them; (4) Sustaining momentum through rebounding, highly key to any win.

All this said, the Lakers hadn’t managed a 3-1 advantage in this series by being fragile and of mediocre skill-sets---game seven won’t be an easy ride for either team.

END/ml

NBA PLAYOFFS: Nuggets & Lakers, Game 4  

For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com

“SPORTS NOTEBOOK” posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of every week---Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone.

SPECIAL OLYMPICS SUMMER GAMES, COLORADO, June 2, @ UNC, Greeley, Colorado. For more information, go to specialolympicsco.org , or: 800-777-5767.

NBA:   COMING up with all sorts of “what if this happened” and “if only that had occurred” wouldn’t change the fact that a preferred team is down by three in the first round of the NBA playoffs---best to look at what was and try to make sense of it.  .  .  Seen on Sunday night during the Denver Nuggets/Los Angeles Lakers fourth meet of a first round/post-season series was first-half Nuggets dominance, after which the Nuggets defense grew clumsy and its offense, while fast with the basketball and getting in place for points, lost shooting efficiency, too many of its two- and three-pointer attempts wasted. The Lakers became stronger then, exploiting newfound weaknesses in the Nuggets game. But the Nuggets recovered some, exchanging leads with the Lakers (point/counterpoint). Still, the Nuggets couldn’t close skillfully in the game’s final moments, Lakers finishing with 92, Nuggets, 88.  .  .  Tonight, at L.A., the Nuggets will try to win game five. If they do win game five, it’ll be back to Denver, the Nuggets hoping to set up a seven-game series by winning game six.

Disappointing for the Nuggets and their fans is that game four was one of those playoff competitions when the losing team was often the winning team and seemed to have victory nearly in tow. The Nuggets led the Lakers at the end of the first period and at the half, and at the end of the third period although not by as much as in the first two periods. The quality of effort by the Nuggets in the game’s final minutes was not the better playmaking and defense exhibited earlier, the last good moment for the Nuggets occurring under two minutes during the fourth Q when Nuggets forward, Danilo Gallinari, scored a two-pointer that tied the game, 86-86. Then, with less than a minute to go, Lakers guard, Ramon Sessions, delivered a three-pointer, score 89-86, Lakers ahead. Counter-moves from the Nuggets failed to produce points. From the shadows of fatigue, Lakers guard, Kobe Bryant, passed the ball to L.A. guard, Steve Blake, who scored a three-pointer with less than 20 seconds before endgame.

How did the Lakers endure and leap ahead? Mostly by containing Nuggets guard, Ty Lawson, who shot for only 11 points, and by exploiting their height for super rebounding (L.A. had twice the number of successful rebounds over the Nuggets---14-7). As expected, Bryant was the team’s high scorer with 22 points, but five other Lakers players scored in double-digits while only three Nuggets players hit double-digits. Too, the Lakers found space for three successful three-pointers out of six attempts. The Nuggets managed only one successful three-pointer from five attempts. The Nuggets led the Lakers in steals, blocks and free throws, and came close to the Lakers re. number of assists, but it’s points that purchase victory and the more rebounds achieved the more the opportunities for scoring.

Yet a Nuggets comeback extending the series is possible, requiring the Denver team to work around the Lakers height and develop a long string of rebounds, meanwhile improving shooting accuracy over what was seen in the last Q of game four, with guard Lawson evading the Lakers as he had in game three.

END/ml

 

THE DENVER/L.A. WARS---Rockies & Dodgers, Nuggets & Lakers  

For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com

“SPORTS NOTEBOOK” posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of every week---Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone.

SPECIAL OLYMPICS SUMMER GAMES, COLORADO, June 2, @ UNC, Greeley, Colorado. For more information, go to specialolympicsco.org , or: 800-777-5767.

ROCKIES, NUGGETS --- Tuesday’s was a hard and disappointing night for the Colorado Rockies baseball club and the Denver Nuggets basketball team. Each failed to avoid defeat handed down from a Los Angeles adversary, the Rockies losing to the Dodgers at Coors Field, the post-season Nuggets losing for the second time in a row to first-round-playoff competitor, the L.A. Lakers.

Yet some good was shown by the Rockies and the Nuggets during their losses to the Dodgers and the Lakers, for instance, the Rockies coming back from a seven run deficit on Tuesday night (losing 7-5 instead of 7-0), and the Nuggets closing a 14 point gap around the same time, finishing 104-100, which otherwise would have been as embarrassing as Sunday’s Nuggets 103-88 loss to the Lakers.

For the Rockies, Tuesday night wrapped up the first month of its MLB season, while ending two series that addressed what could be the club’s best capabilities and more serious limitations for upcoming competition and September’s run for division and league supremacy. Today, the Rockies are 12-12 and in fourth place of the National League-West, though only four games behind the NL-West’s first place team, the Dodgers, and still at .500, with some thanks to Rockies DH and first baseman, Jason Giambi, delivering a walk-off home run on Wednesday night, enabling an 8-5 win over the L.A. team.

In the NL, the Rockies are ranked eighth among 16 teams. Up against American League clubs, the Rockies record is roughly equal to those of the Oakland Athletics and the Chicago Cubs, second place franchises within their respective divisions. All told, the Rockies finished the month of April as an above-the-margin franchise, its team batting average above .250. Too, the team avoided series shutouts in April, and hasn’t lost three games straight since April 4. Of the seven three-game series that the Rockies faced in April, they’ve won four.

THE DAYS AHEAD---- Rockies manager, Jim Tracy, and Nuggets head coach, George Karl, can reflect now on that which within their teams can be exploited favorably so that, in the Rockies case, the team can advance up the ladder from .500 and get to first place in the NL-WD; and, in the case of the Nuggets, so that they can win two at home starting this evening, and two more at L.A., in hope of getting to the second round of the NBA Western Conference playoffs.

The Rockies know that they could take advantage of opposing team weaknesses and accrue 11 runs in a single inning---such goes a long way toward maintaining confidence and the will for winning future battles, as happened against the N.Y. Mets on April 17, the Rockies finishing that game 18-9. An earlier double-digit Rockies win occurred against the San Francisco Giants, 17-8, on April 11. Of course, skills count for more---April’s better Rockies maneuvers in this category have been many, among them, the team’s early- and mid-lineup power-settings, which included outfielder Carlos Gonzalez, first baseman Todd Helton, and shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, each not only banging out home runs and extra-base hits, but doing so when needed the most, e.g., in the third week of April, Gonzalez smacking four home runs with 11 RBI’s. Add the Helton grand slam walk-off homer versus the Mets, April 29, and Tulowitzki achieving a .333 batting average since the season’s opening day.

Moreover, the inconsistency of Dexter Fowler’s hitting seems to have diminished some, and Marco Scutaro, Michael Cuddyer, Ramon Hernandez and Eric Young, Jr. have been superb choices for the Rockies starting line-ups, each at defense and also as base-runner. Combined, the four have had multiple hits across nine games. As to a surprise, while not leading the NL in significant categories, the Rockies starting pitchers and relievers have exceeded expectations---during a total of around 195 innings pitched, the Rockies starters and relievers have allowed as many as 235 hits, implying an exceptionally large number of hitless innings thrown. And, the Rockies pitching staff ERA hasn’t been the sky-high number feared by the end of April, its 4.71 an acceptable stat after 24 games.

Tuesday’s loss by the Nuggets to the Lakers indicated that the Denver team’s embarrassing drop on Sunday was a fluke. Though its defense on Tuesday remained spotty, it kept the Lakers from scoring in three digits until late in the fourth period and helped enable the Nuggets offense to have the time needed to narrow differences in points and reach positions from which the team could have defeated the Lakers. The Nuggets also began carving court space for speedy breakthroughs, finding holes for reaching edges of the key and going into the paint for field goal attempts, including three-pointer attacks. Had the Nuggets shooting greater accuracy on Tuesday, the Denver team would not have experienced a large deficit in points at any moment of the game; they might have won the game.

For tonight, the Nuggets will need to keep three Lakers players from the coordination that they displayed during playoff games one and two: Kobe Bryant, Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol. Though Bynum and Gasol have had the height to set up shots for Bryant, who scored 38 points during game two, they’ve shown that they can be stopped with more aggression than the Nuggets demonstrated throughout much but not all of Tuesday night. And, the Nuggets offense, especially guards Arron Afllalo and Ty Lawson, plus forwards Danilo Gallinari, Kenneth Faried and Al Harrington, will need non-stop support for evading Bryant, Bynum and Gasol as these five fast and agile Nuggets players rush to score.

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NBA:  the PLAYOFFS

For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com

“SPORTS NOTEBOOK” posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of every week---Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone.

SPECIAL OLYMPICS SUMMER GAMES, COLORADO, June 2, @ UNC, Greeley: for more information: specialolympicsco.org , or: 800-777-5767.

NBA:   THINKING last week that the Denver Nuggets could lose to the Los Angeles Lakers in a first game of this year’s NBA Western Conference/first-round playoffs wasn’t by any means an irrational expectation. But an L.A. Lakers win of 103 to the Nuggets 88 would have seemed illogical, for the Nuggets had beat the L.A. Lakers during the 2011/12 season and when they lost to them it was by fewer points. Moreover, the Nuggets finished the regular season appearing to be a better team than when they had faced the Lakers earlier in the year, capable of taking them down in their first post-season contest.

On Sunday, the Lakers seemed to be the Denver Nuggets more than they were the usual Lakers, a team reflecting the values of teamwork more than the dominant star power usually put forth in a post-season match by Lakers guard, Kobe Bryant, and like the Nuggets at a much higher level, which can be taken two ways when factoring in the Lakers seven-footers, Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum, the latter a master of the “borderline block,” the kind that may or not have been illegal, or as Nuggets head coach, George Karl, might say, “the illegal block looking legal.” Anyway, like the Nuggets in previous games, the Lakers were passing patiently, and assisting, rebounding, blocking, they were “all hands on deck,” and yet Bryant managed to get in his 30+ points.

NBA post-season games are often about teams attacking each other’s known strengths and vulnerabilities with new ways and means, each now having better knowledge of the other’s limits from studying them during final challeneges of the regualr season. For example, key strengths belonging to the Lakers have become power, height and flexibility for the defense, and more accurate shooting within and outside the paint from other than the team's guards. Drawbacks have been the Lakers lack of speed compared with several other franchises, among them, the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Nuggets. As to Nuggets strengths, the team has relied heavily on lightning fast plays leading to shots inside the paint (when least expected), on hard and swift passing every which direction for field goals from the corners, plus assists and exploitation of steal opportunities.

As to Nuggets vulnerabilities, it’s been an improving defense that still needs more verticality and in-your-face domination that forces opposing players to pass weakly and make poor shots. Against the Nuggets on Sunday, the Lakers managed 64 points in the paint, a sign of effective penetration in spite of the Nuggets double-teaming faster than in other losses to the Lakers.

A comparison of defenses shows the Lakers having accrued 15 blocks, the Nuggets only four. The Lakers netted seven three-point attempts, the Nuggets, four, the Lakers three-pointers accounting for more than half the deficit that the Nuggets lost by.

In game one/round one of the playoffs, the Lakers not only attacked the Nuggets number one vulnerability, it’s defense; they went after the Nuggets best offense asset, preventing Nuggets guard and high scorer, Ty Lawson, from being the rolling thunder that he’d been throughout the regular season. Lawson’s regular season 19 ppg average was mocked by his achieving less than 10 points on Sunday. The only Nuggets player stepping up for a high number of points was forward, Danilo Gallinari, scoring 19. Andre Miller’s 12 points and seven assists were diminished by his four fouls. Al Harrington finished with 10 points, having made two three-pointers, this within 22 minutes of play. Corey Brewer also completed two three pointers, accruing 11 points during 23 minutes of play.

Of course, one can’t help but wonder what the first Nuggets/Lakers game would have been without the Lakers giant freight train booming on and off the tracks, a.k.a., Andrew Bynum. He recorded 10 of the Lakers 15 blocks. Breaking it all down, from the Lakers high string of blocks and the Nuggets Ty Lawson unable to hustle past rows of timber and Bryant scoring high, the Denver team caved .  .  .  To all this, a fan wrote, “A famous heavyweight boxer once took a terrible beating from a challenger in the first round of a championship bout. Back in his corner, his manager said, ‘What’s wrong with you, are you trying to lose the match?’ The fighter responded, ‘I just wanted to see what the other guy had to give.’ In the second round, the heavyweight won the bout via TKO.” If that fan is referring to the Nuggets of Sunday afternoon, our response is, “The Nuggets are not tricksters in that manner, they are an extremely resilient team and they have come back immediately from worse defeats and have won.” Tonight, it’s game two of what could be a seven game series ending May 12.

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