NBA: Regular Season & Playoff Observations; Denver Nuggets, Down // MLB: AL, NL Standings; Tampa Bay Rays & the Colorado Rockies .
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NBA --- Deciding months ago that the regular NBA season would finish fairly close to how the 2011/12 NBA season ended, such wasn’t irrational thinking and isn’t so now. NBA standings rarely change dramatically from year to year the way standings do within other team sports, in spite of the many trades and draft picks that appear to cause some NBA franchises to appear new, to wit: the remodeled Los Angeles Lakers and the reshaped Denver Nuggets having reached the playoffs again.
While this year, and like the last, the Oklahoma City Thunder, San Antonio Spurs, Miami Heat, New York Knicks, Boston Celtics, and the Indiana Pacers have returned for playoff billeting, some unlikely October 2012 picks made the cut---the Golden State Warriors, which finished the 2011/12 season poorly, and the Brooklyn Nets, which, as the New Jersey Nets, finished 2011/12 fifth worst in the East.
A point being made is that the 2012/13 NBA season finish has seemed to be a clone of the 2011/12 closeout but only at the surface. It’s the individual games that keep any NBA season from Groundhog Day-boredom, from being one game played over and over. If you’ve watched “closely” several NBA games night after night, you may have noticed that no two were anywhere near being identical, while many baseball and football games could appear the same as that seen the day before.
And, if you’ve switched channels a lot you’ve perhaps noticed the numerous differences in style among NBA teams, distinctive enough so that if all NBA players wore the same uniform you’d still identify one team from the other rather quickly.
Evident is that the NBA game includes many more possibilities for the win than available in other sports, i.e., basketball has a greater number of tactics and ways to implement them than, say, baseball: lay-ups, the dunk, jump shots in and just outside the paint, corner shots, the hook, three-pointers, strategic passing, assists, rebounds, blocks, steals, the fast break, the enduring pick-and-roll, a head coach’s floor-rostering relative to game situations, speed as a tactic, choice of time-outs, proper transitioning from offense to defense, so much more . . the irony here is that so much can occur in such a limited amount of space and time. Among observers who fail to get this about basketball and variance are usually those that shout, “All those players do is run back and forth from one side of a court to another and haul the ball up. Besides, they miss putting the ball in a lot,” saying afterward, “It only makes sense to watch basketball during the last five minutes of the fourth period.”
It’s the variety of play, then, the different styles and how the myriad basketball tactics are implemented that intensifies the playoffs. Why care if the Knicks and the Heat are matched for the Eastern finals, and if the Heat and the Thunder battle for the year’s NBA championship title, when the games these teams will play will definitely be new, filled with the unexpected?
Yet from the way that the NBA playoff game is played today a potential dynasty can still falter, and expected also-rans can rise quickly to the top and destroy the appearance of a playoff season seeming like the last---so, it’s not over for the East’s Pacers, nor for the West’s Memphis
Denver Nuggets --- The first round elimination of the Denver Nuggets from the 2012/13 NBA playoffs is most disheartening this year for fans, in that the Nuggets just had a better regular season leading up to the playoffs than in previous years, finishing 56-25. You could be sure that Nuggets head coach, George Karl, and his team, feel rotten about having lost to the 45-35 Golden State Warriors in a post-season first round. Still, Denver
Regarding the Nuggets, three factors have risen above the team having again been dropped from post-season play early on, (1) The team’s losses were not caused by any one individual nor from a single reason, instead from multiple reasons, (2) It will take many weeks of analysis to determine the reasons why the Nuggets lost post-season games, (3) Whatever the variables behind the Nuggets 2012/13 post-season/first round losses turn out to be, they will be correctable, and (4), Throughout the 2012/13 NBA season, the Nuggets were a terrific basketball team.
The guesses about what contributed to the Nuggets post-season performance have been sketchy, they are still blurred, among them, that forward Danilo Gallinari was absent due to injury, another that the Nuggets couldn’t transition from offense to defense effectively enough; and that guard Ty Lawson was unable to convert his speed and brilliance for finding “the shot” into a number of points making up for lack of shooting accuracy among teammates; that the Warriors went to the max of roughness in order to offset being less tactical, less skillful, less canny than the Nuggets, which strengthened the Warrior defense.
But the above paragraph is about a small set of games. Appropriate at this time is mention of some regular season Nuggets accomplishments. Overarching is that during the 2012/13 season, the Nuggets finished third in the Western Conference and had managed to win games against nearly all of the teams that are still in the playoffs, including the Heat, the Knicks, the Thunder, the Spurs. Noteworthy is that during the pre-season and regular season, the Nuggets defeated playoff nemesis, the Warriors, in four of five games played. And, since January 1, the Nuggets achieved six, nine and 15 game winning streaks, which no other NBA team managed to accomplish from October into April.
Too, the Nuggets usual starters and a top sixth man maintained double-digit ppg averages throughout most of the season, adding up to many more total team points than that obtained by teams that have star shooters (23+ppg). Also during the 2012/13 season, the Nuggets led all opposing teams in number of netted field goals, excluding three-pointers (yes, the Nuggets need a super three-point shooter), and the Nuggets led all competing teams in total rebounds (largely offense), in assists and in steals.
An attitude in sports after a post-season dumping is often that which calls for serious revision, for team remodeling, for hires and fires. Regarding the Nuggets, the attitude ought to be, “If it aint broke, don’t fix it!”
MLB: A full month into their 2013 season, MLB teams seem to be like the NBA, at the surface déjà vu all over again---among professional baseball’s leading teams today are the San Francisco Giants, the St. Louis Cardinals, the Washington Nationals, the Detroit Tigers and the Texas Rangers, plus the New York Yankees, teams that led in 2012 and won post-season billets. Yet a team that hadn’t fared as well in 2012 is now leading all of baseball, the Boston Red Sox, as of today 21 wins, 11 losses. Also reflective of last season is that teams that fared badly are still at the bottom, worst among them the Houston Astros, eight wins, 24 losses, with the Miami Marlins again near the bottom, 10 wins, 22 losses.
Indicative of quick changes, however, exist, for only two of MLB’s division second-place teams are more than two games behind first place teams, the Yankees back of the Red Sox by three, the Pittsburgh Pirates behind the Cardinals by three. Surprises are that the Los Angeles Angels are 11-20 and so under .500, and that the Chicago White Sox have been performing poorly, 13-17/.433, teams that fared well in 2012.
Rays, Rockies . Many, though not all baseball games reveal cogent facts about the sport. A match last Friday between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Colorado Rockies was one of those addressing a big question about how a baseball game is won. During extra innings, the Rockies gave up a 4-3 lead to a Rays home run and couldn’t recover, final: 7-4. Earlier in the game, the Rockies gave up a 3-0 lead that evolved into a weaker lead, 4-3. What was it that put the Rockies down? It was two deep home runs.
In a subsequent game vs. the Rays, however, the Rockies managed to put three home runs on the board, which hadn’t produced a win.
The unresolved issue, the big question, then, is, “How important, how effective is the home run for the W?”
Without question, it is runs that win a baseball game, and this can be from home runs, even solo home runs, but the latter is less likely to pull up a win if the hitter’s team is several wins behind. Shown in the earlier Rays/Rockies game is that the home run pushing base-runners across the plate is the one-two punch, the right combo, and demonstrated by the latter Rays/Rockies game is that the home run failing to do that may not be enough for success.
It’s a fair guess that a high enough quantity of walks, singles and extra base hits resulting in no men left in position as a half inning ends will prevail over application of the home run when it comes to achieving victory, and this is what Rockies manager Walt Weis insists he will concentrate on in coming weeks, necessary for a team that has to offset a still improving starting pitcher + reliever rotation with an offense that is more than power, that can move runners beyond third base without and with the home run. Until that comes to be, the Rockies Achilles Heel will be lack of runners able to cross home plate from hits inside the park as well as from over the fence.
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