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.
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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
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
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
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.
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 6th 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.
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