NFL: PLAYOFFS, ROUNDS 2 & 3 // NBA: OLD GUARD, DOWN; NETS, NUGGETS & FIRE CHASING FIRE

sports-notebook.blogspot.com . . . 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. . . //. . . NFL: PLAYOFFS, ROUNDS 2 & 3 // NBA—OLD GUARD, DOWN; NETS, NUGGETS & FIRE CHASING FIRE. . . // NFL---IT’s down to a “big four” and conference championship competition. On Saturday, January 18, the NFL-2013 National Conference championship team will either be the 13-3 Seattle Seahawks or the 13-4 San Francisco 49ers, on Sunday, January 19, the American Football Conference champions will either be the 13-4 Denver Broncos or the 12-4 New England Patriots. Appropriate about this is that three of the four teams now ready for Round 3 of the playoffs have been the hardest working and “winningest” franchises within their divisions throughout most of NFL-2013, yet they are accompanied by a wild card selection, the 49ers, emphasizing the existence of a ladder for a back of the group team to climb up through playoffs and get to the Super Bowl, while gone for the year are the 12-5 New Orleans Saints, the 12-4 Carolina Panthers, the 11-6 Kansas City Chiefs, the 11-6 Cincinnati Bengals, the 12-5 Indianapolis Colts, franchises that had summited early in NFL-2013 and maintained their high positions until the regular season’s very end. Disappearing alongside them from playoff losses were the 8-8-1 wild card Green Bay Packers and the wild card 10-7 San Diego Chargers, these two teams being more evidence of second tier franchises climbing the ladder during a regular season’s final games. What’s inappropriate about this? Nothing---there’s a vestige of democracy in professional football, may it stay that way. More proof of there being windows of opportunity for other than the near-perfect teams, is that of the four NFL franchises that bought elimination during Saturday and Sunday’s Round 2 of the playoffs, none went that way in humiliation, competency prevailed. Yes, it was an embarrassing first half for the Saints, but full recovery was nearly there for them in a fourth quarter. And, the Panthers demonstrated why they’ve been the epitome of a comeback franchise after years of a bottom-of-the-pile existence. Also, a single touchdown and a field goal could have put the Chargers ahead of the Broncos in a fourth Q, and a few more minutes of last Q ball possession could have placed the Colts above the Patriots. Obvious, too, from the past weekend’s four games is that for a sport that takes place upon a restricted field, no two playoff games have been conducted in exactly the same way, though it can seem even to the standard fan that events have been repeating themselves. Surely within the depth and width of a regulation football field are hundreds of different angles to either side of a down-the-middle straight line, each available for a team’s offense to choose for going forward, and it’s been the usually unexpected choice for a pass or rushing play that we have been following visually in the current NFL post-season, observing it succeeding or failing. If anything has been the same in NFL-2013’s playoffs to date, it’s been “risk” and “flexibility,” with the cards of “conservative decision-making” and of the “rigidity” that evolves from sticking to pre-game playbook choices slipped under the tray from the get-go. Exploitation of the “element of surprise” has seemed to be at the front edge of winning factors for the winning teams of Rounds 1 and 2, for example, Broncos QB Peyton Manning’s unexpected reliance on the rush, on RB Knowshon Moreno crashing through walls for TD’s that helped to sustain a Broncos lead against the Chargers, and 49ers QB, Colin Kaepernick, throwing way deep and accurately as if to inform Manning and Patriots counterpart, Tom Brady, that he’ll be throwing as they can and maybe against one or the other on February 2. Notable, too, has been a team’s offense relying steadily on awareness of its limitations, for instance, an offense’s unusually quick awareness of opposing defense capabilities, that offense QB seeing what the moveable and static barriers are to he and his receivers or runners pushing ahead, choosing what to do based on the situation and not on a pre-game choice (playbook), and so the lion’s share of tactics has included “Read-option,” “Audibles never tried before,” “FG’s from far off,” “Fourth down rushes from behind the five,” “Two-point conversions,” “Pass protection via the team’s expert re. the block,” all seen as more essential for the playoff game than during the regular season. Well, it’s been repeated to ad nauseam, that the team that plays every game as thought it were for a conference championship game, starting with Week One of the NFL regular season, that’s the team that secures a playoff berth and makes it to Round 3---no-one has had to shout that into the ears of QB’s Manning, Brady, Kaepernick, or Wilson. . . // NBA---WERE some basketball fans living and working for more than two years in an environment where they couldn’t observe U.S. sports, they’d experience bewilderment were they to return to the U.S. today and gaze at the NBA standings, for the NBA franchises that had reigned for long periods of time would be found near or at the bottom of the league’s pack of 30, beneath the .500 margin. It could be so that the 14-23 Los Angeles Lakers, 13-26 Boston Celtics, 10-28 Orlando Magic,the 13-26 Utah Jazz and the 15-22 New York Knicks,all being well below .500 today, would lower that bewilderment to days of tears. Is it so that “the Old Guard” has faded and will never be as before, champions or near-champions year after year, now relegated to winters of getting nowhere and an early spring of being dubbed,“Has-beens? Even though the Knicks just slipped into second position of the East’s Atlantic Division, they are but .405, not much better than the 15-23 fourth place Charlotte Bobcats (Eastern Conference-Southeast). And, the irony in this is that three of the former squads of top guns have been outdone by former opposites, by a gaggle of the weaker franchises of not long ago, the now 26-13 L.A. Clippers, 19-17 Toronto Raptors, 17-19 Washington Wizards, the 15-23 Bobcats. One excuse for this is that “the Old Guard” is really “the New,” in effect, new coaches, new players, but less so with regard to the Lakers and the Knicks. Can’t say that a franchise that includes Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash is new, or that a team that fronts Carmelo Anthony and J.R. Smith is new. So, where’s the blame? Perhaps from watching enough games this season, our fans back to the U.S. from basketball-exile would notice that it is the NBA game itself that has changed a lot more than have the once odds-favored teams, noting that perhaps “the Old Guard” would not be that if the games that they played in the past were that which is seen today. Enhanced have been full-team speed at the outset of a game in order to obtain control and a lead that is insurance against opposing top shooters reaching double-digit points before the half. Add, speed of transition from defense to offense, and increased reliance on accumulation of turnovers and on fast break dominance, on greater number of attempts for effective three-point shooting percentages, and more emphasis on the “assist” and on “defense variance” if you haven’t a pair of seven+ reachers, that is, there is greater reliance on a defense switching unexpectedly from two-man coverage to “zone” or “one-on-one.” Also, add acceptance of the “defense rebound” as among the more crucial tactics for the win; and, there is “more reliance on teamwork instead of a star-shooter’s performance capacity,” where one or two super-shooters become the core of a strategy, all others on the floor in support of his expertise, e.g., the Oklahoma City Thunder losing to the Denver Nuggets, when star Thunder shooter, Kevin Durant, had scored 30 points and the best Nuggets one-man shooting was much less than that. Those 30 points from Durant had required many minutes of play, but in that same number of minutes the Nuggets had scored enough points to maintain a lead, though not one of the Nuggets scored similarly. In sum, it’s not just that “the Old Guard” is bent from some waning proficiency, and that some of the former championship teams are actually “new;” it’s mostly that much of “the Old” is playing an old and different game, employing old tactics. . . NETS, NUGGETS---OF the middle of the pack teams, those holding third position slots within their divisions, the 15-22 Brooklyn Nets, and the 19-18 Denver Nuggets, they seem to be more afire, poised for leaps forward instead of sliding back from consecutive losses. Interesting for observance and to compare is that the two franchises have much in common. Both are led by rookie coaches with NBA player experience, Jason Kidd (Nets), Brian Shaw (Nuggets). Both teams comprise new starters, each has a relatively new bench, plus a player or two that have been known to have super star qualities---Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnettt (Nets), Ty Lawson (Nuggets). From whatever explanation, the Nets have the better chance of upward travel, in that they are in a division of second and third tier teams, the Raptors leading with but 19 games (same number of wins as the Nuggets), and that the Nets have the same number of wins as second place team, the New York Knicks, and they are but four games behind the Raptors, while the Nuggets are nine behind first and second position teams within the West’s Northwest Division, the 28-9 Portland Trail Blazers, and the 28-9 Oklahoma City Thunder, each of the latter being third within the entire league today behind the 30-8 San Antonio Spurs and the 29-7 Indiana Pacers. Still, the Nuggets just finished a five game winning streak, a gift to themselves from themselves after experiencing an eight-game losing streak. This has portrayed the Nuggets as more mercurial than the Nets, the latter a team that started the season poorly but recovered and has moved upward steadily, easier, of course, in a division that of the six NBA divisions is weakest, while the Nuggets are playing in the division that includes teams very hard to defeat---the Trail Blazers and the Thunder. Perhaps the question of which will ascend higher, the Nets or the Nuggets, or if the two will meet in playoffs, is not an important one now, for they are in conference + division positions from where the question could only matter come late March and early April of this year. Still, NBA experiences of unexpected current first and second position teams (the Trail Blazers, the Atlanta Hawks, the Raptors) advise that it is possible for the Nets and the Nuggets to be at doors opening up for the 2013/14 post-season. END/ml