NBA: Denver Nuggets New Head Coach, Brian Shaw // MLB: Colorado Rockies, “Where Goest Thou? // All Sports: “So You’re ‘King Of Sports’ For A Day.”   

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 each week. Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone; Copy & Mng. Ed., Gail Kleiner).  

Denver Nuggets, Brian Shaw   ---    WHEN new head coaches fail it’s usually from negative attributes that went unseen and unheard during interviews for the job and which never appear on a resume. It won’t be that way with new Nuggets head coach, Brian Shaw, a forthright individual, an open book.

Given that Shaw has five NBA championship rings as player and as assistant coach for the Chicago Bulls and the Los Angeles Lakers, and that he has also has had hands-on experience as assistant coach for the 2012/13 playoff-billeted Indiana Pacers, well, he won’t be an example of fallibilities coming into existence unexpectedly and fusing into a wrecking ball. Here’s what we won’t see from Brain Shaw ---

• Deciding on “My way or the highway.”
• Ignoring that among a head coach’s early tasks is establishment of a high degree of “Mutual Receptiveness,” e.g., players, head coach and assistant coaches listening and learning from each other “willingly.”
• Paying little or no heed to the fact that the Nuggets did not “flatline” without Carmelo Anthony. The Nuggets became a winning team by embracing the values of teamwork. 
• Telling the Nuggets starters and bench that only “the triangle offense” matters.
• Going to the front office with, “I need three big stars, as in ‘Heat.’
• Saying to a player, “You can’t matter, only the team matters,” and to another player, “The team doesn’t matter, only you matter.”
• Telling the Nuggets that they can rest on their way up in the standings, that it’s okay to trade away being at your best when you’re ahead.
• Commenting to the Nuggets that they can rest on the way down. Practice now? "Why bother, we’re already losing."
• Saying to players that there’s no art to basketball, it’s all science, all you have to do is “paint by the numbers.” Or, arguing that there’s no science to basketball, it’s all art, so forget about the X’s and O’s.
• Shouting to the team, “Everything George Karl advised you to do, fuggaboutit!”
• Failing to nurture, grow and exploit positively each player’s unique strengths, while responding negatively to a player’s vulnerabilities, i.e., ignoring Basketball-101.
• Sticking to a belief that “Defense” is “one shirt fits all,” same system versus any team.
• Announcing that sportswriters always know what’s best for an NBA team as long as they agree with the head coach .  .  .  So, from using what the NBA’s best coaches and players have been saying about Brian Shaw and also examining Shaw’s record, we can conclude that none of the above will ever happen. We can expect the very opposite. Prediction: Brian Shaw will join the pantheon of the better active NBA head coaches within a year’s time, and that means a Nuggets team shining during the 2013/14 NBA playoffs.     .     .    Colorado Rockies   ---     IT could appear as if the Colorado Rockies were programmed starting early May of this year for basement-living. Yet maybe NOT, though of late they’ve been visiting the lower depths.  .  .  Yes, the Rockies can lose, lose and lose; they are now 2-7 of a road experience and below .500, during which they were swept twice, first by the Toronto Blue Jays, then by the Boston Red Sox, in between losing two and winning two off of a four game series versus the Washington Nationals.  .  .  BUT---the two wins against the Nationals and the several three- and two-game Rockies winning streaks since April 1 reflect a pattern of comebacks siding with likelihood of a .Rockies .500 or higher end-of season finish. Besides, the Rockies were, as of Wednesday, just three games behind the National League West’s number one franchise, the then 41-35/.539 Arizona Diamondbacks, which signals that the Rockies are still in contention for post-season candidacy.  .  .  Of course, some credit for the upside of the Rockies year to date belongs to manager Walt Weiss and his line-up choices in the face of drawbacks from player injuries and unexpected player slumps. His trust toward certain players has paid off well, for example, in May and early June OF/IF Michael Cuddyer hadn’t reached base as often as expected; he looked like the poster-guy for lethargy. Then suddenly Cuddyer became Mr. Streak, hitting in 23 games straight, a significant portion being multiple-hit days. Also, IF’s Josh Rutledge and Johnny Herrera have proven to be suitable SS Troy Tulowitzki-surrogates re. the team’s defense while Tulowitzki heals from an injury; and, CF Dexter Fowler keeps bouncing back quickly from injuries, adding to his double-digit home run record.  .   .  Unfortunately, pitchers do not seem to heal as quickly as other ballplayers do, which has Rockies fans hoping that RH Rafael Betancourt’s return to the Bull Pen will have positive results.  .   .  Nor do pitchers normally have the staying power noted among other position players. Question: Can Rockies starting hurlers LH Jorge De La Rosa and RH Jhoulys Chacin’s combined ERA maintain---it’s now under 3.0.  .  .  Sadly, the LH Jeff Francis makeover failed, leaving him with low marks, result: Walking papers. Under-the-margin RH Juan Nicasio could be the next Rockies pitcher saying goodbye to big park baseball .  .  .  On Friday, June 28, the Rockies will begin facing a string of games vs. NL West teams, a 16-game haul possibly the most crucial period of the year for the Rockies if indeed they wish to stay in post-season contention. First up will be the San Francisco Giants. Being swept by the Blue Jays and Red Sox means that the Rockies need victories vs. NL West teams more than ever, if only to rise and stay above .500.          KING FOR A DAY   ---   It’s a dream, and a nice dream: You are King of Sports for a day and can initiate any changes that you wish have happen. I asked the question of several professionals, “What would you change in your sport if King?” Former Denver Nuggets head coach, George Karl, responded with, “The NBA season’s too long, too tight. I’d shrink it to around 60 or 65 games and spread these games out a bit, and there’d be no back-to-back games.” Colorado Rockies first baseman and super hitter, Todd Helton, said, “I’d have the sacrifice fly be recorded as a hit for the batter and for the team,” and Pittsburgh Pirates manager, Clint Hurdle, said that he’d have any questionable issue during a game subject to electronic review, i.e., TV replay, not just an umpire’s call .   .  .  Here’s a few more King For The Day ideas from athletes and fans, some as if from outer space and weird, others right on. Decreed---:
• All baseball games will be seven innings or 2.5 hours.
• NFL players will have advanced technology headgear with 100 percent anti-concussion effectiveness.
• The World Baseball Classic will be held every other year instead of every third year.
• The NBA will organize the World Basketball Classic, to be held every other year.
• Pete Rose will be entered into Baseball’s Hall of Fame because his 4,000+ hits beats his gambling actions in the first round.
• There are to be no more published biographies by athletes who feel sorry for themselves, or because they can’t resist the urge to tell the world that they’ve been jerks, which means they still are jerks.
• Mike Tyson is hereby ordered to stay away from wrestling, from all forms of MMA and from stage and film acting, while his prowess as a boxer should be revisited and then applauded more than in the past.
• TV and radio sports reporters, talk show hosts and analysts will no longer show off their knowledge of statistics when such has little bearing on team and individual player standings or on why this or that went down during a game; and no ‘Geek’ jargon is to be used as they speak.
• As of this reading, fans will no longer shout “Defense, Defense, Defense” to NBA players during any regulation game or post-season game.
• Fans performing “the Wave” when bases are loaded and there’s a three-two count on a batter will be told to leave the stadium, having proven that they don’t go to baseball games to watch baseball.
• Any famous athlete who punches out Paparazzi attempting to film he, his wife, his kids, his mama and papa while all are out for the day or night will be forgiven and awarded the NBA Medal for Proper Behavior.
• Any team owner can fire a player or staff over “doping,” and any athlete proven to be have been doping for a third time is to be banned from his/her sport for life.  .   .  READERS:   Send in your King For A Day ruling, to: MLResources1@aol.com.  END/ml

TENNIS: “Wimbledon” //  MLB: NL & AL  Standings, Then & Now.  

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 each week. Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone; Copy & Mng. Ed., Gail Kleiner).  

Wimbledon   ---       Wimbledon, which is the third of four annual major Grand Slam tennis events, began Monday, June 24, and will continue through July 7. On grass in the United Kingdom, it is being presented for the 127th time and includes an expected assembly of tennis greats vying for a championship/Grand Slam title.

If Roger Federer takes the men’s title, it will be his eighth Wimbledon win, matching the 2013 French Open winner Rafael Nadal’s eight Paris takeaways. If Serena Williams takes the women’s title at Wimbledon, she will have 17 Grand Slam wins to her career, same as the number now held by Federer.

Both Federer and Williams won at Wimbledon last year. If competition overtakes Federer in 2013, it will probably be from either Serbia’s Novak Djokovic, who won at Wimbledon, 2011, and is now rated as the world’s number one tennis player, or from Spain’s Nadal, the Wimbledon men’s title winner, 2010, and maybe from Great Britain’s Andy Murray, often a threat at Wimbledon, though never a finals winner. This year, America's Andy Roddick won’t appear at Wimbledon. He retired from professional tennis, and so an American reaching the finals is unlikely.

As for a threat to Serena Williams at Wimbledon, analysts are saying it could only come from Russia’s Maria Sharapova, but we are not to hang with this because Sharapova hasn’t been at her potential in several recent matches, while Serena is enjoying a 31-match winning streak.

Some history:

Wimbledon has been held since 1877, interrupted only by World Wars One and Two.

The last British tennis player to win the men’s title at the British-held event was in 1936. In the next three years, the Americans Don Budge and Bobby Riggs took the men’s title at Wimbledon. Among other famous American men who have won at Wimbledon are Arthur Ashe, Jimmy Connors (2X), John McEnroe (3X), Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras.

The last American to win the men’s title at Wimbledon, that’s Pete Sampras, year 2000. Sampras held the record for number of Wimbledon wins after surpassing Bjorn Borg’s five wins---seven Sampras takeaways from 1993 through year 2000, a record matched in 2012 by Federer.

Among the better known U.S. women tennis players who have won at Wimbledon are Billie Jean King (6X), Chris Evert (3X) Martina Navratilova, and Venus and Serena Williams.

Navratilova holds the record for most Wimbledon women’s title wins---nine. Germany’s Stefi Graf is directly behind her with seven Wimbledon wins. Since year 2000, Venus and Serena Williams have dominated the women’s Wimbledon events, combining for 10 titles, each owning five.

MLB   ---    Four National League teams that were ranked in the bottom 10 as MLB season-2012 closed are now above .500 and holding second, third and fourth positions within their respective divisions. They are the NL West’s Colorado Rockies and San Diego Padres, and the NL Central’s Pittsburgh Pirates and Philadelphia Phillies.

And a NL team that finished just at .500 last year is a division leader today, the NL West’s Arizona Diamondbacks.

Also, last year’s World Series winner, the San Francisco Giants, they are three games back of the Diamondbacks.

Meanwhile, teams now leading the NL East and NL Central finished last year in the top eight among all MLB franchises---the NL East’s Atlanta Braves, then six games ahead of the NL Central’s St. Louis Cardinals. Today, the Cardinals are three games ahead of the Braves and leading both leagues, while the Braves are second in the NL and third within both leagues.

Within the American League, the Cleveland Indians and the Seattle Mariners finished 2012 under .500/bottom 10, all franchises. Today, the Indians are in second place, AL Central, and the Mariners are in third place, AL West.

Too, last year the AL East’s Baltimore Orioles and Boston Red Sox completed inside the bottom 15, all teams. Today, the Red Sox are leading the AL East, and the Orioles are behind them, second place. Re. both leagues, the Red Sox are in second place, behind first place team, the NL’s Cardinals.

It’s worth repeating---“No way is professional American baseball the same season year after year.”

END.ml

NBA: Finals, “the Heat Victory”; Leadership Anew---Brooklyn Nets, Denver Nuggets // MLB: AL/NL Standings; Colorado Rockies“On The Road.” 

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 each week. Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone; Copy & Mng. Ed., Gail Kleiner).  

NBA   ---    THE Miami Heat won the NBA Finals trophy last night, second time in a row, by defeating the San Antonio Spurs, 95-88, during the last game of a best-of-seven series. Yet there’s still a big “if” to the notion that Miami’s “three superstars strategy” is the definite and overarching answer to what makes a championship season easy to achieve. We can certainly say that the “Bosh/James/Wade” concept has a great deal of merit, but the Heat did not get to be the 2012/13 number one NBA team from that alone, or with any ease.  

An asset that exists between (a) Strategy & tactics, and (b) Winning, is what we often call “Guts,” a.k.a. “Powerful determination,” “Rabid desire to come out on top,” “Do-or-die,” which coaches pay homage to before and at half-time and during time-outs, shouting words they hope will inspire players to go beyond their best, give more than their “all.” Such had a great deal to do with the Heat prevailing over the Spurs in Games Six and Seven of the 2012/13 NBA finals, an attribute that transcends the tres amigos application. It certainly empowered the Heat in the last period of Game Six, especially when the team’s Ray Allen escaped a Spurs defense to activate the win with a field goal.

Too, Finals MVP, LeBron James, went to second-power level in Game Six’s fourth quarter, during which he scored the better portion of his more than 30 points, and it existed afire throughout Game Seven as James scored 37 points, while the Heat’s Wade battled back from a knee injury as if the pain he raced against moved faster than a cheetah, his 23 points helping to keep a Spurs lead from being unreachable and unsurpassable.

Also, in Game Six and in earlier post-season games the three-star strategy was benched, if you will. Performances by the Heat’s Allen, Mario Chalmers, Chris Andersen and Shane Battier were carrying the team for more than just fleeting moments. Note, too, the many superb passes and assists from James re. collaboration with other than Bosh or Wade, when James could have attempted to dominate the court for additional shots, much the way that Michael Jordan piled on points solo in his early days with the Chicago Bulls, a selflessness that allowed for easier-to-make points by these teammates.

And, the Spurs Duncan/Ginobili/Parker-trio hadn’t the offense-consistency expected during Games Six and Seven. When free to net the basketball, they often missed. Were it not for their backing off as shooters and passing to teammates guard/forward Danny Green, small forward Kawai Leonard and others, the Spurs would not have been the difficult challenge to the Heat that they became in the latter part of the series, they wouldn’t have had a 10 point lead vs. the Heat in Game Six’s fourth period, which James helped put asunder with his comeback shooting---a triple-double contributing to the Spurs 103-100 loss.

The Heat/Spurs series was the first to go seven games since 2010 (Lakers over the Celtics, 4-3). It’s not irrational to think that had this year’s Finals-Game Seven kept on, the two teams would have traded leads quite often, and that without the Heat having more “fire in the belly” the Spurs may have won Game Seven also by six points, collecting a Finals trophy for the fifth time.

Surely the Heat will be thinking about a 3-peat, 2013/14. The first team to accomplish that was the Minneapolis Lakers, 1951-1953. It didn’t happen again until the Boston Celtics repeated as NBA champions eight years in a row, 1958-1966. Then it seemed impossible until the Chicago Bulls wrapped up three straight, 1900-1993. The Bulls captured three in a row again, 1995-1998. The Los Angeles Lakers were last to pull it off, 1999-2002.

The Heat’s first NBA championship occurred 2005/6, when they beat the Dallas Mavericks, 4-2, a team they lost to at Finals-2010/11. The Heat became NBA champions the following season by defeating the Oklahoma City Thunder, 4-1, but no NBA team has come close to the eight consecutive NBA end-of-year trophies obtained by the Celtics, five taken vs. the Minneapolis/L.A. Lakers.

NBA, Leadership  ---   Within a day or so after his retirement as an NBA player, Jason Kidd became the Brooklyn Nets head coach. That he’s been one of the game’s more intelligent floor leaders as point guard for the New Jersey Nets, Dallas Mavericks and New York Knicks was a major factor over-riding that Kidd’s never held the title “coach.”  From asking any teammate of his, we’d learn that in the heat of any game Kidd’s been a coach’s hardwood surrogate, and off the court a teacher to his younger and less experienced teammates, always the superb tactician within the flow of competition.

Elsewhere in the league, the Denver Nuggets hired Tim Connelly as General Manager, who seems to see duality correctly within the GM role---leadership + responsibility for building an effective team architecture that includes adaptability to change, thus creation of a team that matches owner/president-intention, presumably for the Nuggets a post-season within which the team reaches Conference and then League Finals. Connelly comes with executive experience obtained with the New Orleans Penguins, a team that has delivered praise for Connelly’s potential as a superior GM, impressing Nuggets owner/president, Josh Kroenke.   

Now the Nuggets have another leadership role to fill, that of a head coach that can, like George Karl, get the Nuggets to win 50+ games season after season, reach the playoffs and ascend to a championship. Presently, the top candidates are Brian Shaw, assistant coach for the Indiana Pacers 2012/13, and Lionel Hollins, released as coach from the Memphis Grizzlies. Both the Pacers and the Grizzlies made the 2012/13 playoffs, which speaks well for both men.

Former Nuggets head coach, George Karl, saw defense as one of the weaker Nuggets attributes. From as far back as 2007, Karl helped improve that beyond expectations, but it wasn’t enough to lift the Nuggets past a playoff’s first round except once during his nine years as Nuggets head coach. Hollins’ reputation as head coach has relied much on his defense emphasis, chiefly what brought the Grizzlies to the playoffs 2012/13.

Shaw is the more all-around of the two candidates, exceptional at modifications of the “triangle offense” and regarding fast transitions into defense via systematic means, but he’s not one to insist on rigid attention to systems. From working with L.A. Lakers legendary coach, Phil Jackson, he’s learned to master unexpected situational flow and, like Karl, allows players on the floor to improvise their next move, meanwhile Shaw concentrating on the right rostering from the bench as situational changes dictate. This versatility could be several points in Shaw’s favor, moot, however, if Shaw is drawn toward a better deal from the L.A. Clippers.

The Nuggets are among the few NBA franchises without superstar power, without players of ppg averages higher than 20. Yet the Nuggets team-wide ppg is high, from six players building up double-digit ppg averages early in a season and sustaining that. The choice between Shaw and Hollins for Nuggets head coach could---no, should---have a lot to do with which candidate has greater faith in “teamwork over star power.”

MLB Standings    ---   Eight among all MLB teams have 40 or more wins to date, and each holds a first place division slot, yet only two have substantial leads over second place franchises, the NL East’s 43-31 Atlanta Braves being six games ahead of the 36-36 Washington Nationals, and the AL Central’s 40-31 Detroit Tigers having four over the 36-35 Cleveland Indians. All other division leaders are but two or three wins ahead of teams directly behind, so their status could drop in a week’s time.

The NL West’s 39-33 Arizona Diamondbacks are the only division/number one team with fewer than 40 wins, just two up on the 37-34 San Francisco Giants, and all division third place teams except for the Colorado Rockies are four and more wins behind first place, worst being the L.A. Angels, nine games back. The Rockies are three back of the Diamondbacks.

Right now, the NL Central’s St. Louis Cardinals are the leading franchise within both leagues, 47-26, the AL East’s Boston Red Sox second, 44-31.

However, were least number of losses the measure determining which MLB team was best the picture would be quite different than with wins as the measure. For instance, the 44-30 Cincinnati Reds and the 43-30 Pittsburgh Pirates would be tied for second place within both leagues behind the Cardinals (not so now). Also “not so now,” four teams would be tied for third place within both leagues, the NL’s Braves and the AL’s Tigers, Red Sox and Baltimore Orioles, 31 losses each. The Reds and the Pirates, now second and third within the NL, would instead be tied at second place within the NL, ahead of the NL East’s number one team, the Braves; and, the Tigers, the Red Sox and the Orioles would be tied at first place within the AL, a position that from number of wins is now held by the AL West’s 43-32 Oakland Athletics.

Least number of wins held by a last place division team belongs to the AL East’s Toronto Blue Jays, 36. All other last place teams have 40 or more losses, worst being the Miami Marlins, its 49 losses just two less than the number of wins held by the season’s current most wins franchise, the Cards.

Colorado Rockies  ---  Is it “the Road to Ruin” or a repeat of past summers when during road trips the Rockies lost several games in a row and then recovered enough to return home without great embarrassment, with still more losses than wins to speak of? After being swept in Canada by the Blue Jays, the Rockies dropped the first of a four-game road series vs. the Washington Nationals, 5-1, dropping to 37-37 and third place within the NL West, now being at that .500 watermark below which any team is classified “loser.” This has happened after a 10-5 pummeling of the Philadelphia Phillies, when nearly every member of the Rockies line-up became a base runner.

Trust that it isn’t one thing that has stymied the Rockies suddenly on the road, and maybe “stymied” isn’t a strong enough word when a team loses three in a row to a weaker MLB club, the AL East’s last place 35-36 Blue Jays. It’s been a pile-up for the Rockies, multiple crashes, e.g., top hitter and superb SS Troy Tulowitzki, and lead-off hitter, CF Dexter Fowler, injured and being benched, plus starting pitchers LH Jeff Francis and RH Juan Nicasio plateauing beneath what’s needed for as many as five inning suppressions of runs, leaving need for a starter who can pull that off every four or five games; next a bull pen with ERA’s diminishing rapidly; and, no Rockies hitter, not even LF Carlos Gonzalez, catcher Wilin Rosario or RF Michael Cuddyer able to offset the losses of Tulowitzki and Fowler.

But hope has been spurred by acquisition of National League Cy Young pitcher, RH Roy Oswalt, who against the Nationals last night struck out 11 batters, of little difference, of course, when the opposing team also gets 11 hits from which five runs occur. Too, a pitcher can strike out 20 batters and it can make little difference when a line-up fails to put up more than one run versus five. Still, 11 K’s, that’s no minor accomplishment---Oswalt could be the right replacement for the Francis/Nicasio fallbacks, and that Rockies 10-5 defeat of the NL East’s third place Phillies was without Tulowitzki and with Fowler’s hitting capacity turned down by injury. There’s still some hitting depth that can turn the Rockies road mess around, as such has happened before, which consists of OF Tyler Colvin, IF D.J. LeMahieu, IF Josh Rutldege, 3B Nolan Arenado, and catcher Yorvit Torrealba; they are all Ferris Wheel players in that they go up and down steeply from multiple-hit to no-hit days. More hits from these players, yes, but more than that, “RBI hits.”

On the dark side, were it not for the Rockies 16-11 record in April, surely the team’s 12-16 May record, and now 9-19 June record, would have the team lower in the standings. On the bright side, with but thee games behind first place in the NL West, the Rockies are still contenders for a post-season billet.

END/ml 

NBA: Finals, Games One through Five; Head Coaches, GM’s & Musical Chairs // MLB: Mid-June Standings; Rockies & Phillies.

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 each week. Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone; Copy & Mng. Ed., Gail Kleiner).  

NBA  ---   Except for the NBA Finals Game One resulting in a San Antonio Spurs defeat of the Miami Heat, 92-88, the point spread in subsequent challenges has been unexpectedly wide. Each of Games Two through Five ended with a win by 10 or more points, Game Three being the blockbuster, Spurs over the Heat, 113-77. The Heat took Game Two, 103-84, and Game Four, 109-93. The Spurs bought Game Five, 114-104.

While it’s now a 3-2 series and the Spurs a game away from “the ring,” when adding up the points earned by the two sides it’s 496 for the Spurs, 481 to Miami, a difference of 15 points, the Heat at the low end. But how low is this really? Any single game lost by 15 points in the NBA is just short of humiliation, but when averaging the 15 points across the five NBA Finals events held, it becomes only three points down per game for the Heat, data that tells us that the Heat isn’t a Finals version of the regular season’s Charlotte Bobcats.

Too, the scoreboard switchbacks, that is, the team that finished far behind in a previous game suddenly being the victor by 10 in the next, signaled from it is that a Game Seven can start with the Heat having achieved frontline balance, the point deficits only history, the Spurs and the Heat roughly even for a final shot at the NBA championship.

But Game Five showed how difficult defending against the Spurs can be. Some teams look for the shot to take immediately, while others, like the Spurs, they often create the shot methodically and still carefully against the clock. Noted throughout the series so far, is that the Spurs offense maximizes ‘economy of force,’ for them ball-handling just isn’t about a player grabbing the ball, stopping and looking to his teammates for the opening of a play or for his own hurl to the basket, be it for a standard field goal, three-pointer or a drive to lay the ball up and buy the net. The Spurs offense seems to create the space for drives toward pre-selected shooting positions, and they seem to do this with minimum breaks in movement of the ball, the basketball constantly in motion for a purpose, primarily for reaching a shot position with least amount of effort and least amount of seconds going by. Whether rehearsed pre-game, or if this is controlled improvisation, is hard to tell, and that’s part of Spurs coach Gregg Popovich’s magic.

Also, the Spurs have a star power trio just like the Heat---Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, and Tony Parker. On Sunday (Game 5), the three combined for 67 points, Duncan 17, Parker 26, Ginobli contributing 24. Compounding this and sealing the Heat’s fate were 24 points earned by the Spurs Danny Green, who completed six three-pointers and now holds the NBA record for most netted three-pointers during NBA Finals.

Not that Game Five painted the Heat in shame---LeBron James and D. Wade scored 25 points each, and Ray Allen had 21. Combined, these three stars put up 71 points, more than that which the Spurs three stars produced; the argument that Danny Green’s deliveries made the Game Five difference for the Spurs is far from irrational. But no matter what the offense of either team provided on Sunday, collectively the Heat’s defense lacked the smothering power seen from them in Games Two and Four. Unless the latter improves for the Heat during Game Six (tonight), a Spurs championship takeaway is likely.

Coaches, GM’s & Musical Chairs  ---  Six franchises that failed to make the 2012/13 NBA playoffs released their head coaches, and six that had made the playoffs also released their coaches. Several of these have lost their GM’s. That’s nearly half the NBA floor leadership. Among those fired is 2013 NBA Coach of the Year, George Karl, who delivered the Denver Nuggets to NBA playoffs nine years straight and this year got them there with 57 regular season wins. So, what can be discerned from these moves? For starters, there will definitely be 12 makeovers, 2013/14. Is this because there’s something new and powerful that hasn’t been identified yet within the NBA culture? Is it that owners and front-office execs no longer believe in head coaches growing steadily from their failures, turning lessons learned into victories year after next? If so, how will this impact prospects for a next-generation of coaches?

And, while all the coaches likely to be honcho-ing other teams have proven they can be counted upon for a good season run, only two, maybe three stand out above the rest, anyway data-wise. That is, except for Karl there are no recently released coaches of the Phil Jackson/Gregg Popovich/Pat Riley/Red Auerbach/Doc Rivers/Red Holzman caliber. Does this mean that though faces and names on city sports pages will be new, analysts and fans will be agreeing by the next NBA All Star break that the more things change the more they stay the same?

Also, the head coaches of the two teams competing in the current NBA Finals, they reflect the opposite of change---Gregg Popovich has been with the Spurs more than a decade, Erik Spoelstra has been with the Heat for several years. Next question, “Is building and maintaining ‘effective permanence’ a more important factor for an eventual post-season championship than any series of makeovers?

MLB   ---    Baseball’s All Star break is approximately a month away, when any team behind first place in its division by double digit losses is deep enough in a hole that only handicap numbers could bring them to the surface, and baseball isn’t Sunday morning amateur golf, no sweetened handicaps allowed. Right now, seven MLB franchises are in that lowly situation, worst the National league East’s 21-47 Miami Marlins, 19 games below the 41-28 Atlanta Braves. Next, the NL Central’s 28-40 Chicago Cubs and 28-40 Milwaukee Brewers, each 16 games behind the 45-25 St. Louis Cardinals. Then it’s the AL West’s 26-45 Houston Astros, 15 back of the 42-30 Oakland Athletics, followed by the NL East’s 25-39 New York Mets, 13 back of the Braves, and AL West’s 30-39 Los Angeles Angels, 10 behind the Athletics; and, the AL Central’s Chicago White Sox have 10 fewer wins than the 39-29 Detroit Tigers have.

All of the NL double-digit "lost" games, they add up to 64 vs. the AL’s 35. Moreover, the fact that four of the seven teams now with double-digit losses reside within the NL, and that the NL’s total double-digit loss column is now 166 games down vs. the AL’s 122, such suggests that the AL has the better line-up of teams and is the superior league. But then the two winningest teams in both leagues are NL franchises, the NL Central's 45-25 Cardinals and the NL Central’s 43-28 Cincinnati Reds. And, the NL Central’s 41-29 Pittsburgh Pirates and the NL East’s 41-28 Atlanta Braves are just behind the AL West 42-30 A’s and the AL East’s 42-29 Boston Red Sox. Also, the NL has four teams with 40 or more wins, the AL three. Bottom line here, the leagues are still a lot closer to parity this year than first glances at the numbers suggest.

Rockies, Phillies  ---  Few three and four-game series characterize professional baseball completely, standing out as having all the ups and downs, the highs and the lows, that can occur when two MLB franchises face off. A recent Colorado Rockies/Philadelphia Phillies series belongs with that rare set of games, when the best and the worst, the proverbial good, bad and ugly surface unexpectedly, causing witnesses to grind their teeth and have to be satisfied with the French phrase, “Cest Le Guerre (such is war)!” Here’s some of the picture attained by the Rockies: Game One, a smooth-sailing Colorado RH Juan Nicasio start of five runs against the Phillies zip was upturned fast by a string of Philadelphia hits, final score: Phillies 8, Rockies 7, this after news that a Thursday injury will keep Colorado star, SS Troy Tulowitzki, unable to play for six or more weeks. Yet in that game, Colorado’s LF Carlos Gonzalez banged out his 19^th home run of the season, finishing the game 4-4, both teams ending with 13 hits each, implying that the Rockies offense was as effective, if not more so, than that of the Phillies, but it was the Rockies defense that caved, primarily the sudden Nicasio fallaway allowing several hits + Rockies reliever, RH Wilton Lopez, giving up three of those Phillies hits + a walk, which resulted in two more runs for the Phillies. Game Two, and as if to avenge, the Rockies whipped the Phillies, 10-5, the team’s starting pitcher being the earlier underestimated Tyler Chatwood---he held the Phillies down with the help of an amazing catch by LF Carlos Gonzalez, by a difficult stop by 3B Nolan Arenado, and by an offense led by catcher Wilin Rosario’s triple and two doubles. Here we saw what has been missing in previous Rockies games, numerous runners on base reaching home “early on,” to wit: the Rockies achieved six runs against Philadelphia in the first inning. Game Three of the series edged forward with a Colorado/starting pitcher RH Jhoulys Chacin "shutout" spoiled in the ninth inning by a double from Phillies IF Jimmy Rollins. Still, the Rockies thwarted a subsequent near-rally, final score: 5-2, Phillies down, Rockies owning the series, 2-1.

Presently the NL West 37-34 Rockies are in second place of the division, a game behind first place Arizona Diamondbacks, and two wins ahead of the San Francisco Giants. By our standard, the NL West is currently the more interesting of the NL’s three divisions, in that it’s the more competitive. Including all five teams, its last place team is but seven games behind first place, which is the lowest in the AL as well as within the NL. The three teams back of the Rockies can still overtake and occupy first or second spot. Starting June 28, the Rockies will be facing 16 straight games versus NL West teams. Given the Rockies present status, this could be the most important series of games between now and late September if the Colorado franchise is to be seen upon a post-season MLB field.

END/ml          

NBA: Finals, Games 3 & 4; More on the firing of Nuggets Coach, George Karl  // NFL: Tebow, finally leveled (well, maybe) //  MLB: the .600 Gang; Colorado Rockies---still strong.      

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 each week. Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone; Copy & Mng. Ed., Gail Kleiner).  

NBA  ---   Should you replay moments of Games 3 & 4 of the 2012/13 NBA Finals, you’ll have glimpses of what could be scenes from a Hong Kong martial arts movie, starring Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, LeBron James, D. Wade and Chris Bosh, each alternating as perp and victim of various blows. Yet still dominant has been the grace and athleticism displayed by both the West’s San Antonio Spurs and the East’s Miami Heat, though in Game 3 the Heat so lacked adhesiveness an observer may have wondered if that which got them to the Finals was a working luck-charm left in a locker room. Something belonging to the Heat had vacated, split, went out the back, got on a bus: Miami lost Game 3 to San Antonio113-77, third worst Finals loss in NBA history, and this after walloping the Spurs 103-84, Finals Game 2.

Noted is that as the Spurs couldn’t catch up to the Heat in Game 3, they never seemed to lose what basketball superstar, Michael Jordan,  has referred to as “collective think power,” a team playing aggressively but always reacting mindfully, tactically, to the game’s changing situations. The Heat seemed to lose Game 3 without that team-wide awareness of what to do next. Not so last night, Game 4---James, Wade and Chris Bosh combined for 85 points of the 109 that bested the Spurs 93. Here again, the Spurs were tactical to a man, but unable to transition effectively into a defense capable of smothering James, Wade and Bosh, the three Heat being supported sufficiently by passes directly to arm-shooting position and their drives-in-motion---James completed 15 of 25 field goals..

Coach Karl ---   Given several facts, the Nuggets loss of George Karl as head coach can hurt a lot more than offer up gain, in spite of the fact that owner/president Josh Kroenke has basketball savvy and managerial astuteness---Mr. Kroenke just might put together a GM/Head Coach duo that can provide the breakthroughs needed for a championship year, which today is probably closer to being the impossible dream than being a strong dose of reality. That said, the NBA isn’t a market that yields up whatever it is that you want. Super GM’s and high above-the-margin head coaches are at a premium, not just these days but it’s been that way throughout the league’s history. You could give up a diamond and find out that there are only zircons left on the shelf.

Kroenke firing the man largely responsible for the Nuggets winning 57 games during the recent regular season is definitely high risk. For starters, there’s no coach available today of Karl’s ability for moving a team into a post-season “regularly;” he’s done that nine years straight for Denver. Second, would any sensible candidate for the Nuggets head coach job feel safe working for an owner who would fire the man that helped his team win 57 regular season games and was selected as NBA Coach of the Year? Third, pride in leadership says you’ll stick with the better talent until absolutely certain that it has stopped rising toward a higher level of achievement and can go no further in shaping the goals that you set out for your team to accomplish. Karl’s 2012/13 coaching record is clear evidence that he hasn’t peaked as a leader or as a basketball tactician. Should Coach Karl lead the Memphis Grizzlies or the L.A. Clippers next season, such could be the very force preventing the Nuggets from a second round/playoff experience, 2013/14, which brings us to an old saw that could haunt the Nuggets front office for years---“If it aint broke, don’t fix it.”  Then again, Kroenke could end up vindicated. Denver shouldn’t forget that the Broncos firing of QB Jay Cutler led strangely to the hiring of QB Peyton Manning. Another saying applies---paraphrasing Forrest Gump, “It’s a box of chocolates, you never really know what you’re gonna get next.”   

Tebow   ---    When with the Denver Broncos, quarterback Tim Tebow helped his team win six games that contained situational factors for which a QB with his running ability was the ideal conveyor, but these were short-yardage situations that show up rarely. When it came to offense smarts and especially the passing needed to actualize the better plan, Tebow fell short. His display of prayer-in-sports/sports in prayer, plus a popularity that seemed to be the making of advertising execs the likes of those on TV’s show “Mad Men,” kept him off the bench and into the fray, where he turned out to be marginal.

Then came the Broncos hiring of QB great, Peyton Manning, which is when analysts thought, ‘Hey, Tebow can now learn something, spend two, maybe three seasons learning from Manning.’ But Tebow went east, to the N.Y. Jets and to more of his being not so hot, not what coaches, teammates and fans had expected. In sports, the shadow between hype and reality widens quickly.

Released from the Jets, Tebow is now with the New England Patriots. Alas! This could be the Godsend for Tebow, a chance to learn and to prove he’s NFL caliber for the long term, providing that he loses the baggage of hype, enough so for super coach Bill Belichick to spend enough time with him. A leveling of this sort could be the appropriate Chapter One if there is to be a worthy Tebow saga.

MLB   ---    Only three MLB franchises are at .600 or higher today, the National League Central’s 43-23/.652 St. Louis Cardinals, the American League West’s 41-27/.603 Oakland Athletics, and the AL East’s 41-27/.603 Boston Red Sox. Last week, there were five teams at or above .600. The then .600 Cincinnati Reds dropped back to 40-27/.597 behind the Cardinals, and the now 38-28 Texas Rangers went from .610 to .597, back of the Athletics.

Should the win/loss ratio of each of the three .600+ teams remain as is, they will be division leaders come September and post-season billeted, with the Cards a good bet for NL supremacy if the Reds and current NL East leading team, the 39-27/.591 Atlanta Braves, fail to rise above their current win/loss spreads, or if the AL West’s 37-29/561 Arizona Diamondbacks, 34-31/.523 San Francisco Giants or the 35-32/.522 Colorado Rockies start adjusting to more wins (these three clubs are but one and two games apart). In the AL, the Red Sox could have supremacy unless the Rangers and the now AL Central’s 36-28/.563 Detroit Tigers and the AL East’s 38-29/.567 Baltimore Orioles angle upward dramatically.

But---we’re not half way into the MLB season, there’s more than just wiggle room for teams to alter the shape and balance of both MLB leagues, for instance, two third place teams in the NL are only two and four games behind first place clubs, the NL West’s Rockies and the NL Central’s 39-27/.591 Pittsburgh Pirates. Third place AL East’s N.Y. Yankees are but three games behind the Red Sox, and the third place AL Central’s Kansas City Royals are five games behind first place team, the Tigers. The only third place teams with steep hills to climb are the NL East’s 32-35/.478 Philadelphia Phillies, seven games back of the Braves, and the AL West’s 29-38/.433 Seattle Mariners, 11 games behind the A’s.

Two MLB clubs are no longer lagging behind because they are so far back it seems that they are swinging alone on a distant planet, the NL East’s 19-46/.292 Miami Marlins, and the AL West’s 23-44/.343 Houston Astros.

Colorado Rockies  ---    The mending and remaking of a baseball team, it’s not like demolitioning a building and putting up a new one perfectly in accordance with specifications laid out by an architect. The Colorado Rockies have been on the mend, living inside the remake cocoon. As it is with most team sports, reconstruction projects are essentially trial and error, often of what happens in spite of what’s been planned---if viewed and understood patiently as a learning process and the fixes are noted and put into practice, there can be progress, though sometimes it’ll be one step forward, then two back.

To date this season, the Rockies have won 35 games and lost 32, they are above .500 and in third place, two games behind first place team, the 37-29 Arizona Diamondbacks. The Rockies are still a post-season possibility. Yes, they just lost a series to the Washington Nationals. Of course, they can win games well, but they don’t win for long---they’ve no winning streak exceeding three games this year; it seems that they win one, then lose two, and then it’s two won, two more losses, maybe three lost. Not a lot of consistency here, yet within each game played the Rockies deliver when it comes to good and lively baseball, and there isn’t a team in either league that sees the Rockies as a pushover club. Wednesday night’s 5-1 loss to the Nationals proved this point: until the fourth inning, it looked as if Rockies LH starter Jorge DeLaRosa might have a shutout; it was then that the Nat’s batters had him scoped and by the 6^th inning DeLa Rosa had given up several runs and was taken out. Then, bottom of the sixth, Rockies batter/LF Carlos Gonzalez tripled and sent in the Rockies only run of the game. A few nights earlier, Rockies batters 3B Nolan Arenado, RF Ty Colvin, CF Dexter Fowler, Gonzalez and SS Troy Tulowitzki were banging out home runs and extra-base hits. This Ferris Wheel of win a few, lose but a few, it seems to be the team’s constant, to which the only antidote being applied is revised rostering, some of this caused by players being hurt, the latest being Tulowitzki and a broken rib. Looking at the rostering possibilities, there’s still enough Rockies hitting + fielding depth to make up for loss of Tulowitzki and some others. Pitching depth? That’s another story, where the emphasis for winning games has to shift even more, so that what hitters put on the board cannot be surpassed by the opposition.

END/ml 

NBA: Finals, Game Two; Nuggets & Moving Ahead  // MLB: NL/AL Standings; Colorado Rockies---the Upside; Sports & Summer Reading.      

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 each week. Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone; Copy & Mng. Ed., Gail Kleiner).  

NBA  --- Game Two of this year’s finals---“a thrashing, a pummeling, a humiliating defeat for the NBA West’s best.”  There’s no other way to describe the Miami Heat’s runaway win over the San Antonio Spurs on Sunday night, 103-84, revenge written all over it but not so much against the Spurs having beaten the Heat in Game One of the Finals, instead a vengeance aimed at those hard to decipher post-season nuances that have placed the Heat in situations where two or more straight losses in a best of seven situation has signaled the possibility of  “do or die, three games up each team,” at risk a dark and lonely ride back to Miami after Game Seven.

And, it was an unexpected kind of win for Miami, in that it wasn’t a 48 minute continuum of James, Wade, Bosh and Allen pushing up the points. Mario Chalmers, Mike Miller and Chris Andersen were the hammers when leaping ahead mattered the most. Surely the Spurs weren’t prepared for this new Heat bonding, and for the defense that evolved from it, James as if he morphed into being a polished center, with blocking and rebounding his only reason for living (eight rebounds, seven assists).

Whether the Heat spreading the power was deliberate or moment-by-moment improvisation, the Spurs couldn’t activate the pace and precision that helped them to beat the Heat during Game One, their rhythm for accurate shots was way off: neither Parker nor Duncan could put enough points on the board; the Spurs finished six points back of that which enabled their Game One victory. Though Parker and Duncan got to prime spots for the accurate hurl, Miami’s “Bigs” were there to offset, therefore too few of those shots were netted.

But the Spurs are also more than two star shooters. They can also whip up surprises, eg., credit has to be given to the Spurs defense, if indeed that is what kept James, Wade, Bosh and Allen to less than 20 points per man, what many analysts would call a remarkable feat.

Nuggets ---   MLB catcher and Yankee manager,Yogi Berra, said, “If you find yourself at a fork in the road (a crossroads), take it,” which links easily to that line from a Robert Frost poem, here paraphrased, “I came to a road that diverged in the woods, and the path taken made all the difference.”  Whichever of the two descriptions that we may be relating to on any given day, it’s a crossroads that the NBA’s Denver Nuggets are now facing, the turning back from it impossible, for a super GM, Masai Ujiri, and one of the NBA’s best ever head coaches, George Karl, they’ve become Denver history, the former having gone from Denver to the Toronto Raptors, the latter, well, his narrative within the NBA is far from over. If current GM prospect, Pete D’Allessandro (he was Masai Ujiri’s deputy) soon goes (he’s had offers), and if now free agent/guard & forward  Andre Iguodala, goes, then Nuggets owner, Josh Kroenke, will be looking at several crossings, i.e., the roads for GM, for Assistant GM, for Head Coach and the pathway for new player opportunities, all at this time quite narrow from the perspective of that which the Nuggets treasury could yield up.

Want to dream? Okay, current San Antonio Spurs head coach, Gregg Popovich, decides against retirement and he comes to Denver to remake the Nuggets and win the 2013/14 NBA Finals. How about the now retired Phil Jackson deciding to take up Colorado skiing, so while not on the slopes why shouldn’t he remake the Nuggets into all that he learned from coaching the Bulls and the Lakers? But that’s not going to happen, and anyway any possibility of it would have as a written clause that owner Kroenke stay far removed from on-court business, and that isn’t what Mr. Kroenke wants at a time when his vision is to be the main inspiration and the primary architect of a reformed Nuggets franchise, result, so he hopes: proper leadership, financial savvy, management expertise, team/front office unity, team bonding and primed performance skills pushing the Denver franchise past any post-season second round.

Soon, Josh Kroenke will be interviewing Memphis Grizzlies coach, Lionel Hollins, and also Indiana Pacers assistant coach, Brian Shaw. Though not in the category wherein we’d find Popovich or Jackson, both are above-the-margin hardwood commanders. As for the Kroenke vision, from what we’ve seen of him during the past two seasons he’s more than just likability, he’s by no means that pain-in-the-butt boss who never can admit he’s the problem, nor is he the kind of owner who simply rubber-stamps whatever his GM and coaches want.

Kroenke is “game smart,” he can lead through others, he has a handle on where the risks and benefits are, he’s not in the NBA for the power, the glory or only for the seven and eight figure$. A good bet is that he'll soon arrange for the Nuggets, and the team’s fans, to see more sunlight than shadow along and at the end of each crossing that all are facing, which is a good thing.

MLB    ---   Fifteen MLB clubs are at or above .500, and four of these are above .600. Leading all are the NL Central’s St. Louis Cardinals, the only club that reached 40 wins, now 41-22, the teams nearest the Cardinals being the NL East’s 39-24 Atlanta Braves and the AL East’s 39-25 Boston Red Sox, which this week topped the AL West’s Texas Rangers, the team that had led the AL since the current MLB season began.

Only two MLB divisions are today without a .600+ leading franchise, the NL West, led by the 35-28/.556 Arizona Diamondbacks, and the AL Central Division’s 35-27/.565 Detroit Tigers. The tightest difference between a first place and second place division club exists within the AL West, both the leading Rangers and second place Oakland Athletics having 38 wins. The greater difference between a first and second place franchise is inside the NL East, the Braves ahead of the 31-31 Washington Nationals by seven games. The greater span between a first place and last place club also exists within the AL East, the 18-45 (ugh!) Miami Marlins behind the Braves by 19 games. 

Colorado Rockies   ---  A win is a win, and by any other name is still a win, and it’s wins that gets a team to the post-season and then to the WS. The Rockies have been winning games from the baseball mastery exhibited by the few rather than by the desired many, and that could be okay if such keeps up, but there’s no guarantee of this. What will Rockies manager, Walt Weiss, do if suddenly the magic exhibited recently by Nolan Arenado, Carlos Gonzalez, Dexter Fowler and Troy Tulowitzki starts to thin, worse: vanishes? No matter right now, the Rockies are not just in third place within the NL West, they are 34-30, therefore less than two games behind first place Arizona Diamondbacks, and one behind second place team, the San Francisco Giants. Yet  there’s no guarantee that the foursome of Arenado, Fowler, Cargo and Tulo will crash and burn easily. Besides, enough of the rest of the Rockies line-up and pitching staff still contributes above the margin---Todd Helton, Michael Cuddyer, Wilin Rosario, pitchers Jorge De La Rosa, Rex Brothers.

Want to build faith in the Rockies? Get it that the Rockies had three 3-game winnings streaks in April, its first double-digit win within the first 18 days of that month, plus many more double digit wins since. The Rockies also won a series against last year’s WS championship team, the S.F. Giants, one of the three games a shutout. Too, the Rockies defeated the current MLB leading club, the St. Louis Cardinals, 8-2, in May. Also in May, the Rockies won a series vs. the AL West’s top team, the Diamondbacks. A mark of efficiency also exists with the fact that as of last Friday the Rockies were fourth best in the NL for number of doubles hit---106.

Yes, the Rockies get on base, it’s converting those doubles and other hits into runs that became a weak spot for the Rockies starting in early May and continuing into June, but becoming less of a problem lately, to wit: base-runners were there for the one walk-off run enabled by a Dexter Fowler hit in a recent series game vs. the San Diego Padres, the eight walk-off win for the Rockies this season. If this continues, it will be a plus for the Rockies in July, when they will be challenged by 13 games vs. NL West teams. Those 13 could be the make-or-break turning point for the Rockies chances to reach the NL’s 2013 playoffs and maybe the WS.   

Sports, Summer Reading --- Still available by ordering through barnesandnoble.com, or amazon.com, or directly from publisher XLIBRIS at: xlibris.com---SPORTS & THE HEROIC, 153 pages, hard-cover, paperback or on-line; author: Marvin Leibstone. This book is an ode to all U.S. sports, illuminating that which can be derived from them for the good life. Of real events, facts and portrayals of well-known athletes, plus segments that are fiction, this slim volume pulls no punches, describing the good and the dreadful that make up sports in our time, yet reminding us that sports, as a whole, can empower the very best that any of us has to offer in a complex world (Not too late as a Father’s Day gift) .  .  . ELEVEN RINGS, 334 pages, Penguin Press, available at any book store, hard-cover; author: Phil Jackson. This book is all Jackson and the men he has coached, an extremely-readable mix of the strategic, the technical and, of course, the spiritual drivers behind effective leadership, the kind that helps to win eleven rings, six for the Chicago Bulls and its coach (Jackson) and five for the Los Angeles Lakers + coach (again, Jackson). Readers of ELEVEN RINGS will find insights into what it takes to deal with and draw back the high octane egos of Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and others, fusing the better essence of the values that can emerge from team bonding. The book also delves into what makes Phil Jackson the unique individual that he is, a man always in search of his better angels through the many mysteries of basketball, and via intellectual and spiritual pursuits---metaphorically, the guy is a mountain climber, and he has summited the very highest of peaks.

END/ml

NBA: Finals, Game One; Nuggets George Karl, Fired //  MLB: Best of the Best; PED Scandal.      

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 each week. Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone; Copy & Mng. Ed., Gail Kleiner).  

NBA     ---   Guerrilla fighter, sharpshooter and a fully-armed infantryman led by a four-star general, a.k.a., the San Antonio Spurs Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, Tim Duncan and head coach, Gregg Popovich---a foursome hard to put asunder and humiliate. Not even the Miami Heat’s superb guerrilla fighter, LeBron James, sharpshooters D. Wade and Ray Allen + armed trooper, Chris Bosh, and one-star general (head coach) Erik Spoelstra could get the job done (the stars are for number of NBA championships each coach has helped to steer).

The Heat lost game one of the 2012/13 NBA finals last night, 92-88, an event during which the Heat dominated across the lion’s share of minutes from first period on, though rarely with more than three points---a Heat narrative that at mid-fourth Q began to fizzle, fade, lose momentum. The Heat’s speed, player precision at ball-reception and follow-on shooting-prowess dropped just enough for the Spurs to accelerate and maintain the efficiency needed to place them as victors four points up (basketball’s version of baseball’s bottom-of-the-ninth home run breaking a tie, delivering a  win.)

Telling during game one was this: how either side selects and manages its defense vs. the opposing team’s offense could be the number one factor separating winner from loser during each remaining Finals game. Double-teaming James, or double-teaming Parker, such leaves more freedom for Duncan and Ginobli, for Wade and Allen or Bosh to position themselves for the shot. But---lending additional power to defend against these others could free the Heat's James or teh Spurs Parker for the shot, though awareness of the opposition’s play being put in motion could call for a switch in tactics from one-on-one to double-teaming lightning-fast, or such could call for the opposite to occur.

Most important, then, will be speed of transition, how quickly either side can process the right defense vs. the immediate situation. Loss of this speed of transition from offense to defense, coupled with the wrong choice of type defense coverage (including those chosen to smother whom, who shouldn't have been selected for the role), such could easily empower James and opponent Parker for those high-end double-digit points per game.

All good generals know that during a battle involving sides that are strong and savvy almost equally, “an exposed flank can mean disaster.” Head coaches Popovich and Spoelstra know that allowing space repeatedly for any opposing player of extraordinary skill to operate freely means exposure and points given away.

Our guess is that from game two on it’ll be about the D---Defense, Defense, Defense, or clever and powerful penetrations of!

Coach Karl   ----    SOME mid-market/mid-size city NBA teams that win 50 or more games during a season and that get to the playoffs but are dumped in the first or second round, they remain content. Hey, it’s a mark of being within the better portion of the league, what’s to complain about? Other teams/cities see only "the unfulfilled yearning," the team of 50 or more wins not having reached the very top, not having represented a Conference at the NBA finals. The latter team/city always decides that fixes are then necessary, and too often they rush to judgment. What? A GM that helped build a team that could win 57 2012/13 games and a post-season billet is off suddenly to Toronto? Within a few days, boom! the head coach that strategized and rostered efficiently so that those 57 wins could happen, fired?

From the abovementioned, one may think of a proverb, “If you are going to replace something of value, be certain that you can replace it with value.” Right now, the Denver Nuggets are without a GM or a head coach of a caliber that’s now history, the team is at Go, at Zero with regard to leadership (above-the-margin GM’s and head coaches are not like busses, where there’ll be several others appearing in 10 or so minutes). The Denver Nuggets are now in a mode best characterized as “Holy sh .  .  .   what the f .  .  . do we do now?”

The talk is that Coach Karl could get a team to the base of a summit better than most, but getting to the very top of the mountain, well, that’s been something else. In his nine years as Nuggets head coach, a Karl-led Nuggets team reached the playoffs, only to be eliminated in a first or subsequent round, losing to teams they’d defeated during the regular season, e.g., the Spurs, the Clippers, the Lakers, the Jazz, the Thunder, the Warriors.

Of course, no two post-season eliminations can be precisely for the same reason or reasons, but what stands out is a comment from George Karl when he and the writer/editor of this page talked briefly about post-season play. Karl said (paraphrased:), “The playoffs are always a quite different game than those of the regular season.” The comment now seems an undercurrent, causation, for if a head coach believes that post-season play is different from regular season play then surely he’s going to prepare and coach for the post-season differently, he isn’t going to enact all of that which enabled his team to win 50 or more games during the regular season, there’ll be a different strategy, a change in tactics, the use of starters and the bench in new ways, and so on.

Not that Karl’s comment isn’t so. Maybe the new always applied by him just isn’t the workings required to go all the way, reach the Finals. Maybe we are riding a hunch here, and perhaps another comment that Karl made to us has lots of heft (also paraphrased:) “Way too often, the sports media gets it wrong.”

Still, other determinants exist, e.g., Nuggets top shooter Danilo Galinari unable to play in the post-season due to injury, or the Nuggets facing a team in the post-season that can be beaten now and then but not in a best of seven situation primarily because of differences in approach to the NBA game, e.g., that application of big star players like Kobe vs. the teamwork-only/five equals on the floor that Karl has taken pride in developing and employing. In recent years, has there been a team at the Finals that didn’t have a particular star or two for the Hero role?

Too, no NBA coach can control what happens in a game one-hundred percent of the time. Like most sports, professional basketball has its “fog of war.” A coach who can beat odds favoring that is a star coach indeed, and Karl’s 432 wins at Denver and his being one of the most winningest coaches in NBA history point to his being among the NBA’s best---Auerbach, Jackson, Popovich, Riley, Karl.

MLB   ---    Four of the six division leading MLB clubs are ahead of second place teams by three or more games, top of the pack the NL East’s 37-22 Atlanta Braves leading second place Philadelphia by six. The NL West’s 34-26 Arizona Diamondbacks are above the San Francisco Giants by three, the NL Central’s 39-21 St. Louis Cardinals are ahead of the Cincinnati Reds by three, the 37-24 AL East’s Boston Red Sox are above the N.Y. Yankees by three. The 36-23 Texas Rangers are only one up over the Oakland Athletics, and the 32-26 Detroit Tigers are ahead of the Cleveland Indians by two.

Four of the above-cited division leading clubs are much-improved, having finished last year’s regular season just at or below .500---the Diamondbacks, the Phillies, the Red Sox and the Indians. Though the current first place Cardinals, Rangers and Tigers finished high-end last season and went to the playoffs, we can no longer say that this year’s MLB is a carbon copy of last year, even with the Cards, Braves and Rangers among the top four franchises/both leagues (37 wins has Boston atop the AL).

Given recent wins that included inning-by-inning smart baseball joined with power hitting, the teams with greater comeback likelihood for second place positions are the NL West’s Colorado Rockies, the NL Central’s Pittsburgh Pirates and the NL East’s Washington Nationals; in the AL, it’s the Baltimore Orioles.

Only two of the above four finished 2012 in the top half of both leagues.

While not of huge yardage and amazing gain, change and diversity is prevailing in pro-baseball---a good thing.

PED’s   ----     There was a time in the history of just about every endeavor when the guilty person experienced shame, allowed it to be and to dominate, to flow into a decision to disappear from public view. With or without tears, so-and-so apologized, packed a suitcase and moved on, never to be heard from again, or depending on the crime he went to jail. Today, it’s big-time denial, lots of I done nothin’ wrong or I’m sorry I just wasn’t myself that day, please forgive, let me get on with my career.

There’s no shame anymore, it’s a forgotten moral stance. There’s so little action at confessionals these days, priests may be looking for part time jobs just to cure the boredom.

In sports today, athletes accused of using PED’s they fight back, they argue a case put together for them by big-gun media spinners and law manipulators, much of this the fault of sports commissioners and team bosses fearing the impact of what happens when a star athlete is discovered to be a PED user. The accused fights back, and not just within a court of law but within the court of public opinion---more than one PED-related media circus has brought sports manegement "leniency" to the foreground, in some cases an easy aquittal.

Put aside too often by sports management is the long term effect, so that the immediate, the short term pain can go away; for instance, not doing enough of what needs to be done to undo PED "lenience" in baseball undermines the game’s credibility, builds distrust when it comes to recognition of individual player skill-sets and stats, meanwhile dirtying a long-standing tenet about baseball, a belief that it’s an American tradition, and though not a religion in the truest sense of the word it has had the same moral base, “In baseball, there’s not to be any cheating on the rules, Dudes!” and that’s why the baseball player with most hits ever, Pete Rose, was banned from the game for gambling and will probably never be elected to the sport’s Hall of Fame.

Final word on the subject, one PED-related strike and you ought to be heavily fined with a short suspension, two strikes and you should be fined bigger and suspended for a year or two, three strikes an’ you’re out, gone, done away with---banned from baseball forever.

END/ml