NBA: CURRENT STANDINGS, TOP TEAMS; NETS DEFEAT NUGGETS // MLB: THE BIG EIGHT, 2014

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. . . // . . . NBA: CURRENT STANDINGS. TOP GUNS; NETS OVER NUGGETS // MLB: THE BIG EIGHT, 2014 . . . // . . NBA---SINCE two weeks ago, the one steep fall within an NBA division happened to the Eastern Conference-Southeast’s 26-31 Atlanta Hawks, going from second to fourth place, now 16 games behind first place team, the 41-14 Miami Heat. Holding the Hawks former slot are the 30-28 Washington Wizards, 12 wins behind the Heat, the latter second best in the East behind the Central Division’s number one + NBA top team, the 44-13 Indiana Pacers, followed close for the league’s leading position by the Western Conference-Northeast’s 42-12 Oklahoma City Thunder. The Pacers also own the best edge among division leading franchises, being 13 games atop the 31-26 Chicago Bulls. The West’s Southwest Division leading team, the 41-16 San Antonio Spurs, has the more fragile lead within the league, just two games above the 39-19 Houston Rockets, and the East’s Atlantic Division leading team, the 32-26 Toronto Raptors, they’ve but a four game lead over the 26-29 Brooklyn Nets. The only other franchise to fall from second place since February 14th is the West’s Pacific Division’s now third place team, the 33-24 Phoenix Suns, replacement the 40-20 Golden State Warriors. Only two division third place teams appear to have a stretch of lost games that can be overcome before April, the West’s Southwest 36-23 Dallas Mavericks, six games rear of the Spurs and four behind second place team, the Rockets, and the West’s Suns, now four back of the Clippers, one behind the Warriors. The four other third place teams---the East’s 21-37 N.Y. Knicks, 27-30 Charlotte Bobcats, 23-35 Detroit Pistons, and the West’s 28-29 Minnesota Timberwolves and the 36-23 Dallas Mavericks---, all are eight and more games behind their respective division leading teams, worst being the Pistons, 18 to the rear. Of last place franchises of two weeks ago, only the West’s Pacific 19-39 L.A. Lakers have joined the dismal party, reaching last place from fourth, replacement team the 20-37 Sacramento Kings. Worst in the league still---the 11-46 Milwaukee Bucks. . . // . BROOKLYN NETS, DENVER NUGGETS---THE now 26-29 Nets and the 25-31 Nuggets began the current NBA season with noticeable similarities. Both would be steered by rookie head coaches, both would be integrating numerous new players. And, each punched in at third position within their divisions early on, maintaining that awhile, then shifting down for long spells, elevating occasionally. Yet within these similarities existed key differences, for example, the Nets new head coach, Jason Kidd, has had no management experience; he parachuted in with player/point guard experience only, coming to the Nets the N.Y. Knicks, before that the Dallas Mavericks. Meanwhile, Nuggets new coach, Brian Shaw, brought to Denver several years of assistant coaching expertise from stints with the L.A. Lakers and the Indiana Pacers, this atop his player savvy. Offsetting the Nuggets coaching advantage would be the Nets acquisition of center Kevin Garnett and forward Paul Pierce from the Boston Celtics. But while the Nuggets began the season with guard Ty Lawson, center JaVale McGee, forward Wilson Chandler and savvy, sometimes savior guard, Andre Miller, neither Lawson, McGee nor Chandler could be on the floor last night for point points per minute, this due to injuries except in Miller’s case, who injured his status and reputation via out-of-line comments to HC Shaw, anyway Miller traded to the Wizards this month. Nor could guard Nate Robinson put up his effectiveness over a sufficient course of minutes versus the Nets. So, it wasn’t the Nuggets A-Team that battled the Nets last night and lost, 112-89, handing the Nets their first win at Denver in seven years. Nor was it the Nuggets that in January defeated the Indiana Pacers, 109-96, the Golden State Warriors, 123-116, and on February 3d the L.A. Clippers, 116-115. The only other Nuggets wins this month have been against the league’s last place franchise, the 11-46 Milwaukee Bucks---110-100, and 101-90. To date, the Nuggets are 3-12 for February, 2014. Yet were the Nets and the Nuggets of the same division, they’d be close in the standings, the Nuggets back by one game. Impressive last night was the Nets superiority as turnover speedsters, as shooters from all angles and distances, as rebounders, and as perpetrators of timely assists and sharing the ball. The Nets played classic basketball, not many unneeded frills, advantaging their free throw opportunities, and they allowed transition to a one-man game now and then, Paul Pierce and center Jason Collins owning it as if planned for them to alternate, though the Nets were mostly a coordinated team. The Nets starters + bench were a lot like the Nuggets could be with Lawson and Chandler and forward Danilo Gallinari aboard, e,g., those long winning streaks “back in the day,” especially those begun with an exceptionally fast pace, in-your-face defense performed consistently + defense rebounds converted swiftly to fast break points. Without these players, the Nuggets were at the effect of the Nets from tip-off, unable to establish lasting initiative, the deficit looming from first period on. The Nuggets were behind as this period ended, 29-8, recovery for a deep lead never surfacing throughout the full game. Clearly, the Nets are at a fixed level, the Nuggets are not, in that Coach Kidd has an established starter formation and an experienced bench, he has a better sense of the who and what as a game commences, while the Nuggets are a team forced to struggle with what is usually pre-season and early season experimentations, rostering differently as game follows game. Coach Shaw hasn’t firm knowledge as to when Lawson, McGee, Chandler or Robinson will be on the wood, and so he has to mix and test, which isn’t what any coach would want as a season begins its descent. A NOTE to Shaw---before the game, we watched a few Nuggets starters practice shooting from all angles and rational distances. Were this a contest, Aaron Brooks, a guard new to the Nuggets, would have won by a mile-and-three-quarters, hardly missing a shot. The more difficult it got for Brooks, the better his accuracy. Among our thoughts then, “Give this guy more minutes!”. . . // . . MLB---EIGHT teams keep appearing on forecasts for the 2014 MLB season playoffs and a shot at the World Series, from the American League the Boston Red Sox, the Texas Rangers, Tampa Bay Rays and the Detroit Tigers; from the National League the St. Louis Cardinals, the S.F. Giants and the L.A. Dodgers, our 2014 LC picks being the AL’s Tigers and the NL’s Dodgers, with the Tigers taking the WS, 4-3. Given team construction, power rankings and 2013 stats, neither of these eight teams will be sailing toward playoff positions easily, and some may not make it. Surely the AL’s N.Y. Yankees, Cleveland Indians, Oakland Athletics, Blue Jays and Kansas City Royals will be formidable in 2014, as will the NL’s Arizona Diamondbacks, Washington Nationals, Cincinnati Reds, Atlanta Braves, Pittsburgh Pirates, and a reinforced Colorado Rockies. Why the Tigers? We can begin with pitchers RH Justin Verlander and RH Max Scherzer, and 1B Miguel Cabrera, the latter named AL batting champion three times, plus a string of hitters that enabled a .283 team batting average and a team .346 OBP, stats above the AL average. If there’s reason for doubt, it’s that manager Jim Leyland is gone, new manager being former Tigers catcher, Brad Ausmus, only in that new managers may need more than one season to hit highest potential. And, gone are former 1B Prince Fielder to the Rangers, and SS Johnny Peralta to the Cardinals. How come the Dodgers as fierce competition? Largely this, “If it aint broke, don’t fix it.” Nearly all of the Dodgers that got to the WS in 2013 have returned.” The Dodgers hill will include LH Clayton Kershaw and RH Zack Greinke. Unlike the Tigers, the Dodgers will likely have a greater spread of on base percentage hitters and a lower rate of runners left on base at third outs---CF Matt Kemp, 1B Adrian Gonzalez, 2B Alexander Guerrero, catcher A.J. Ellis, SS Hanley Ramirez and RF Yasiel Puig, these six expected by some analysts to deliver a higher team BA and team OBP than can the Tigers, especially now that Fielder and Peralta are no longer with the Tigers. This hitting factor could have the Dodgers taking the NLLC with better stats than the Tigers will have when winning the ALLC. Pitching superiority could be the Tigers final win factor for the WS, possibly the clincher for game seven. As to wild card potential, look to the AL’s Athletics and Rangers, and the NL’s Giants and the Colorado Rockies. END/ml

NBA: HEAT, THUNDER, PACERS. . . NUGGETS

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. . . // . . . NBA: HEAT, THUNDER, PACERS. . . NUGGETS . . . // . . NBA: FOUR of the six division leading franchises of the NBA have accrued 40 and more wins per of 82 games that each of the league’s 30 teams will have played when the 2013/14 regular season closes come April and playoffs kick in. Leading them are the Western Conference-Northwest Division’s 43-14 Oklahoma City Thunder, followed by the Eastern Conference-Central Division’s 42-13 Indiana Pacers, next the East’s Southwest 40-14 Miami Heat and the West’s Southwest 40-16 San Antonio Spurs. The West’s Pacific Division L.A. Clippers and the East’s Atlantic Toronto Raptors have 38 and 31 wins respectively. We wouldn’t be from Fantasy-land saying that the season is only half over and so each of these teams could experience setbacks and lose their current ranking. Nor would we be straying far from reality by commenting it’s likely that these franchises will finish the season just where they are now, top of the heap. In fact, during most NBA seasons many teams that are ahead of others just after the All Star break stay that way, though it could be more difficult for some to do so. Right now, the Heat and the Pacers have the more comfortable positions, each 13 games ahead of respective second place teams, the Washington Wizards and the Chicago Bulls, while the Thunder has a five game lead above the Portland Trail Blazers, the Spurs have but a two game edge over the Houston Rockets, the Clippers four above the Golden State Warriors, the Raptors five atop the Brooklyn Nets. But if the win-loss ratio of each of the six division leading teams stays roughly the same, it will be the Thunder, Pacers and the Heat receiving chances for best shot at preferred post-season seeding. Of interest is that the three teams reflect three different approaches to construction of an NBA franchise, the Thunder a kind of hybrid in that it can play as a team of equals and exploit widely-shared passing, assists, shooting and rebounding and yet convert quickly to reliance on superstar Kevin Durant and a preferred wing man for game control. The Pacers are more of a teamwork team, and the Heat will rely more on which of three top stars will drive the quality and quantity of developed plays and shots, usually LeBron James in command. Not that either strategy is without flaws. Sunday last,the Clippers defeated the Thunder, 125-117, in spite of Durant scoring more than 40 points; and, the West’s Pacific 19-37 L.A. Lakers, a team constructed for reliance on star power in ways similar to the Heat’s process, is last within its division and fourth worst in the NBA, just nine wins ahead of bottom of the pile Milwaukee Bucks, 10-45. . . // DENVER NUGGETS---HERE is a team without a superstar, possibly the franchise most determined to win via the key elements of teamwork, now holding a 2013/14 record that is incredibly Ferris-wheel, high up suddenly from a seven game winning streak, sooner than later of eight straight losses, most notably 14 losses since January 1. Now at 25-30, and in fourth place and 17 games behind Western Conference-Northwest Division first place team, the Thunder, surely another playoff berth is off the horizon for the Nuggets. It can still rise above .500, however, and finish the current season with respect, even retake third place by winning around 15 games by April, and if third place Minnesota Timberwolves slide back considerably. But the Nuggets seem to have made losing a habit. Of the team’s 14 losses since January 1, around half have been by 10 or more points, five of those by 15 or more, one by 39, another by 27, and only one of the losses could be called “close,” a three point loss to the Charlotte Bobcats. And, four of the last seven Nuggets losses were one after the other and higher in number of points behind within all of the Nuggets losses since January 1 (17, 17, 39, 27). Worst of the 14 losses was dealt by the Pacers, Nuggets 39 down at endgame. Yet January saw the Nuggets achieve five straight wins, one of them against top team, the Thunder, 101-88. Several days later, the Nuggets defeated a second place team, the West’s Pacific Division Golden State Warriors, 125-116, and on January 25 the Nuggets beat the Pacers, 109-96. February has been the cruel month, and looking for the one factor behind teammates doing the wrong thing at the wrong court location and at the wrong time, such makes little sense, for in almost all cases, and no matter the sport or other endeavor, losing usually has numerous causes---injuries to players; coach/player differences; stubbornness against changes in tactics; dropbacks in skills and in percentage of shots that become points; ineffective rostering; team failure to improvise effectively when opportunities for scoring become obvious; opposing team scouts and coaches figuring out a team’s vulnerabilities from film and learning how to exploit that; poor distribution of minutes allocated to relievers; excessive reliance on one or two players; patches of hard scheduling; loss of steam and motivation as a season progresses. The best of the best NBA teams lose multiple games during a regular season---losing now and then is inevitable, but losing very frequently doesn’t have to happen. Figuring out how to eliminate that which causes a team to lose frequently isn’t a task that can be completed overnight. . . "Past, Present, Future.” Twelve of the Nuggets remaining 27 games will be against first and second place franchises, and so the Nuggets have to be focused in the present. Yet returning to .500 won’t be easy without clarity regarding mistakes that have been behind the frequency of loss across January and February, and then without clarity of purpose for winning tomorrow’s game. Having to be in the three dimensions of time "almost always" makes winning a lot harder to achieve, it’s the predicament that any team would wish to avoid as a season nears completion, it’s probably the rookie coach’s worst nightmare. END/ml

MLB: OFF-SEASON BOOSTS; COLORADO ROCKIES

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. . . // . . MLB: OFF-SEASON BOOSTS; COLORADO ROCKIES . . . // . . MLB-- MLB teams “tinker” all year long and it gets more intense starting the last moment of the last day of the World Series. Owners and managers, well, they just can’t let go, like sculptors who can never see or believe that their work is finished. Of course, the scrambling, the contracts and payouts, they matter most for teams across the lower depths, even if a club way below in the standings like the Houston Astros, which has averaged more than 100 losses of 162 games per year over the last several years, still made a profit in 2013 of nearly $99 million. That’s almost $1.0 million per loss, enough to begin spending for the future, and the Astros front office has been trying to get that right since off-season “tinkering” for MLB’s 2014 season began, this by emphasizing defense with the acquisition of three RH pitchers and an above-the-margin outfielder/hitter. Another low in the rankings team, the Seattle Mariners, paid large during the off-season for star power, acquiring 2B Robinson Cano from the N.Y. Yankees (BA, .314), in spite of such moves not having met expectations in the recent past, example: 1B Albert Pujols and LF Josh Hamilton to the L.A. Angels from the Cardinals and Rangers not being last season’s WS heroes. Meanwhile, last year’s WS winning team, the 97-65 Boston Red Sox, during the off-season purchased IF Jonathan Herrera from the Colorado Rockies, catcher J. Pierzynski from the Texas Rangers and RH Edward Mujica from the St. Louis Cardinals, which appears to be only slightly added punch to a line-up that includes the still batting well enough DH David Ortiz and 2B Dustin Pedroia, but more of a kick for a Red Sox pitching staff ERA above 4.0. Yet a much better pitching staff ERA is that of the St. Louis Cardinals, 3.4, sure to receive help for sustainment from starter/RH Adam Wainwright (ERA, 2.9), therefore the Cards absented new hurler acquisitions during the off-season, even with team ace Chris Carpenter retiring. The Cardinals placed off-season emphasis on defense and hitting power by acquiring 2B Mark Ellis from the L.A. Dodgers, SS Johnny Peralta from the Detroit Tigers and OF Peter Bourjos from the L.A. Angels. The Sox finished the post-season ahead of the also 97-65 Cardinals last year, though the Cardinals had the better team batting average, .269, better OBP, .332 and had accrued more runs per regular season game, 4.8. Now, and in sum, the above-cited changes, additions and deletions that have occurred since last October are just a smattering of the MLB total. To what great avail, an observer might ask? Across the board, it’s quite rare when off-season machinations produce giant upward moves, such as that of a change in managers and new acquisitions helping the Red Sox go from a meager 69 wins in 2012 to winning the WS the following year. Even so, off-season “tinkering” has kept those teams that have done their homework and worked trades well from folding badly in the coming season; in fact, such teams usually go up a notch or two on the 162 game ladder. BUT ALL TOLD, no-one has figured out how to eliminate the crapshoot and wheel of fortune aspects from off-season deal-making, and probably that won’t happen, so let the games begin, Play ball! . . . // . . . COLORADO ROCKIES ---LABELING the Rockies as one of baseball’s current big mysteries is easy. How could a team land so low in consecutive years when its line-up included the National League’s top 2013 batting average holder, RF Michael Cuddyer, at .331, and ninth in that category, SS Troy Tulowitzki, .312. These two also held eighth and ninth position within best OBP for 2013. And, OF Carlos Gonzalez was last season’s seventh best home run hitter with 26 HR’s, Tulowitzki was ninth, 25 HR’s. Too, OF Dexter Fowler was ninth in number of steals “least caught,” nine. Add, 3B Nolan Arenado, first NL rookie 3B to win a Gold Glove. Also, RH Juan Nicasio had the ninth best number of earned runs among NL hurlers last season, just 90, and LH Juan De La Rosa came in third for most wins during 2013---16; and, De La Rosa was second regarding win/loss percentage, .727. Moreover, Rockies RH Jhoulys Chacin came in 11th re. number of wins, 14. Except for Fowler over to the Astros, these players are back for 2014. The boost? It begins with faith in injury prone Tulowitzki not getting injured, with Gonzalez dealing out errorless defense as CF and matching or surpassing Cuddyer’s and Tulowitzki’s 2013 BA’s, to Arenado having gained more power for his swing and being able to run faster, to the return of LH Franklin Morales to the Rockies from the Red Sox as successful reliever and perhaps as closer, maybe alternating in these roles with LH Rex Brothers. Additionally, faith is being shown in LH Brett Andersen over from the Oakland A’s, who suffered from injuries last season but has had an ERA below 4.0 for around 85 career games. And keep in mind that retired Rockies player Todd Helton’s superb fielding at 1B was overshadowed by his hitting prowess. If replacement Justin Morneau, over from the Pittsburgh Pirates, can field nearly as well as Helton, then, with Arenado at 3b, Tulowitzki SS, D.J. LeMahieu at 2B plus Morneau at 1B, the Rockies will have the defense needed to back up the team’s rotation and relievers when at mid-game mound-vulnerabilities begin to show. Note, too, that the Rockies have a more complex mystery to solve, the RISP at third outs problem. END/ml

MLB: The Many Faces Of Spring Training; Colorado Rockies, Suiting Up // NBA: After The Break + Denver Nuggets On The Slide

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. . . // . . MLB: The Many Faces of Spring Training; Colorado Rockies, Suiting Up // NBA: After The Break, + Denver Nuggets On The Slide. . . // . . . MLB---Spring Training is a basket filled with myriad opportunities. Managers and coaches zero in on preferred wish lists as though vengefully, which could include full batting order concentration on strikeout reduction occurring any which way that it can happen, from singles, bunts, balks or walks, while other managers will prefer singling out his team’s top two, maybe three hitters for optimum training toward repeats of the long ball and extra base hits, hoping that with less coaching the rest of his line-up will be base-runners from whatever it takes, after all they are signed pro’s. Some managers will put the emphasis on starting rotation and bull pen relief, on winning games from the mound. The trend could be the latter, based on MLB 2013 producing a record number of strikes, 36, 710. Yet other managers could attempt to shape their teams for combat with clubs likely to be hardest to beat within their respective divisions, for instance, four AL West teams could worry most about competition from likely top team, the Texas Rangers, while four NL West managers might fear the L.A. Dodgers more than any other club. Too, Spring Training will disappoint a slew of ballplayers in return for not measuring up during “let’s see what you got” moments---heartbreak avenue, back to the minors. . . During Spring Training, last year’s top club, the AL East’s Boston Red Sox, won’t be trying to fix what isn’t broken. Year 2013 was magical for the Red Sox, going from the basement the year before to winning the AL-LC and then the World Series. Telling for all MLB clubs from the Red Sox is that the team came close to finishing the season with a .350 On Base Percentage, which is more than 30 percentage points higher than the league average, perhaps a sign that hitting, and possibly a different kind of hitting, could take the lead in that age-old competition, “hitting era vs. pitching era,” singles and extra base hits lording it over the home run. Yes, OBP isn’t a big deal if it doesn’t translate into runs. During 2013, the Red Sox scored more than 850 runs, no other MLB team reaching 800, and that evolved less from the long ball into the stands---the Red Sox were in sixth place among teams with the most HR’s last year. Is there a Red Sox model, then, for other teams to emulate? An informed guess is that the Red Sox were an example of player chemistry more than anything else, a line-up to kill for, lead-off hitter Shane Victorino, Dustin Pedroia, David Ortiz, Mike Napoli, and a pitching staff of only one hurler with 10 starts or more having an ERA above 4.3. Except for the N.Y. Yankees, no MLB team has won consecutive WS since the N.Y. Yankees purchased their third straight during year 2000---the Red Sox could upend that record during 2014 even by maintaining a status quo. . . Within the NL, it’s likely that last year’s NL pennant winner, and WS loser to the Red Sox after six games, the St. Louis Cardinals, will seem re-invented during Spring Training, having acquired SS Johnny Peralta from the Detroit Tigers, 2B Mark Ellis from the Dodgers, and OF Carlos Beltran having left under free agency for the Yankees, plus Matt Carpenter’s shift from 2B to 3B. But, solid returnees such as OF Matt Holiday and catcher Yadier Molina can offset that considerably along with a pitching staff of one of baseball’s lowest ERA’s. Still, much of the Cardinals pre-season workouts will surely emphasize integration of the new. As to teams looking to rise up from the lower depths, the Houston Astros have been working hard. While WS winning teams rarely repeat their success in a following year, the lowest among losing teams seem to suffer from the opposite---they repeat, as if being last or next to last were a comfort zone. The Astros have had a way of proving this, last year and the year before being far below the margin. During 2013, the Astros lost 111 of their 162 games. Of the year’s total number of MLB strikeouts, the Astros committed 1,530, this lack of successful hitting obviously in need of attention prior to Opening Day. Too, the Astros pitching staff ERA above 4.7 was the year’s worst in professional baseball. When basement living repeats, among medicines are key draft picks, and that is what the Astros will be counting on via development for future seasons of top-of-the-line picks SS Carlos Correa and RH Mark Appel. During Spring Training, the Astros will begin building power and skill from OF Dexter Fowler, over from the Colorado Rockies, RH Scott Feldman from the Rangers/Baltimore Orioles, and RH Chad Quills from the Miami Marlins. But what was it that enabled the Astros to win more than 50 games during 2013? Will anyone at Houston be looking into that with a sense of trust, asking if whatever that was could expand, grow and lift the team? . . . // . . COLORADO ROCKIES ---ONE way to describe inequality in baseball is to reflect on the gap between games won at home and those victories that occur on the road. Between the two, the Colorado Rockies have a gap so wide it can make one think of Grand Canyon. Though finishing last in its division in 2013, the Colorado Rockies held the NL’s at home team batting average record---.270, while coming in 12th with regard to the away from home team batting average. Closing this gap is an essential task if the Rockies are to prevent another back-to-back bad year. Appearance-wise, the Rockies could seem to be the same team as last year minus a troubling loss, that of 1B super-hitter Todd Helton retiring, and from only a partial overhaul of a rotation that has never met expectations, though the talent is still there re. LH Jorge DeLa Rosa (good home record, 10-1, but quite poor on the road). Add, RH Juan Nicasio, RH Tyler Chatwood and RH Jhoulys Chacin. This rotation will be reinforced hopefully by an acquisition from the Oakland A’s, LH Brett Andersen, providing that Andersen can override ailments and return to promise shown several years ago as a rookie, when he won 11 games. Also new within the pitching staff will be LH Franklin Morales chosen to start instead of being relied on solely as reliever. As for more of the new, in for Helton at 1B will be Justin Morneau, over from the Minnesota Twins, batting average .259, 74 RBI’s, 17 HR’s. And, no-one’s quite sure what the Carlos Gonzalez move from LF to CF with Drew Stubbs, over from the Cleveland Indians replacing Cargo at LF, will mean for the Rockies defense, or how effective Stubbs can be as lead-off batter if Spring Training suggests he stay that way in the line-up. For base-running translated into runs, the Rockies will again rely for power and skill on SS Troy Tulowitzki, CF Gonzalez, RF Michael Cuddyer, and catcher, Wiln Rosario. With some luck, much of this will be sorted out during Spring Training, when the Rockies meet teams likely to press hard against their strengths, for example, the Arizona Diamondbacks, L.A. Dodgers, L.A. Angels and the Seattle Mariners, especially if emphasis goes to chasing and reducing, if not eliminating, the vulnerabilities that have caused the team’s road losses, namely downturns in OBP, plus runners that do get on base being left there at half-innings, and lack of HR’s offsetting the low OBP. . . . // . . NBA---IF forced to choose only three teams to finish the NBA 2013/2014 regular season, while all others would leave on vacation, some analysts and sportswriters would consider selecting three that reflect major differences in the team construction/strategy equation, that is, the building of a team to serve what front office management and coaches believe will keep winning games. There is the essentially “star power” team that contains two or three super shooters + a big or two, like the Miami Heat, and there is the team that relies solely on “no star whatsoever but on “teamwork across the board,” like the Denver Nuggets, and then there is the hybrid, that team that relies on a star player or two operating with starters and relievers first selflessly, team- players until opportunities arise for them to overtake a game almost solo and shoot high-end, such as the Oklahoma City Thunder’s Kevin Durant. So, this page will be following three teams more closely than others now that the all-star break is over with, for most NBA teams less than 30 games to go before the playoffs kick in: “the Heat,” “the Nuggets” and “the Thunder,” keeping in mind that we may learn much about what causes one team to succeed at winning more than others, or we may learn that the differences in the three strategies really mean little, that it is mostly other factors that cause a team to win, or lose, more than others. Right now, the Heat is leading the East’s Southeast Division by 12 games over second place club, the Atlanta Hawks, and the Nuggets have fallen to fourth place within the West’s Northwest Division and below .500, while the Thunder leads the East’s Northwest Division by five wins above second place team, the Portland Trail Blazers. But, while the Heat is a division leading franchise and holds second place behind the Indiana Pacers within the entire East, it is five wins back of the Thunder. And, were the Nuggets within the East and of the same division as the Heat they’d be but one win behind the second place Hawks, and if of the East’s Atlantic Division the Nuggets would be tied with second place team, the Brooklyn Nets. Implied here is that the Nuggets are within the toughest among the NBA’s six divisions for that playoff reach. But, the downside is center-stage now, the Nuggets have been on a long slide, playoff candidacy for them that which only a miracle could deliver. Today, accusations about the Nuggets never showing enough consistency when it comes to winning could seem false because the Nuggets have been “extremely consistent” about being “inconsistent,” they’ve become mercurial, e.g., a seven game winning streak, soon an eight game losing streak. Are we now to believe that the teamwork/no star interference concept for team construction and winning games is deeply flawed, or are other matters the culprit behind the Nuggets current slide? Exactly what’s behind the Nuggets not being playoff-bound this year won’t be known for some time, though some negatives are quite apparent---injuries to point guard Ty Lawson, a bench minus Andre Miller, a recent road trip that pitted the Nuggets against four teams packed with more skills, and maybe from a fact that former Nuggets Head Coach George Karl probably operated with, that while the teamwork/no star concept can win game after game, it is also a most fragile concept, for it demands a lot more finesse than when star shooters who can also defend are afield. Teamwork reliance means greater dependence on playbook adherence, less improvisation. In other words, when one piece of the puzzle is gone, things go awry. It could be that successful recovery from absence of key components of the whole is now what’s absent among the Nuggets, and so all has gone awry. END/ml

MLB: 2014 & Spring Training // NBA: Today's Standings; Denver Nuggets, Slipping Back

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. . . MLB: 2014 & Spring Training // NBA: Today’s Standings; Nuggets, Slipping Back. . . // MLB---SPRING training for the year’s baseball is about to happen, and on opening day in early April it won’t seem to have been enough for attacking 162 games across six MLB months. Of course, no MLB club or player can start the season perfect, but some will get closer to that than others, and they will probably be the clubs and players that during Spring training advanced the three S’s---Skills, Strengths and Smarts---by raising expectations slowly yet surging past innings when embarrassed by mistakes quickly, never sulking, moving on to new innings and purchasing game-winning pride through “the right fixes,” that is, looking at Spring training as “starting at the beginning, blowing away that which is excess and that which isn’t enough very carefully.” It’s been obvious over the years that during Spring training, some managers and GM’s make the mistake of understanding what they see “too quickly,” they make judgments sooner than they need to and the wrong guy gets sent back to Triple A . . . Also, different philosophies, strategies and tactics will apply in late February and March, ranging from line-up manipulations differing almost day by day, to starter rotation and bull pen experimentation, on to changes in defense and tests imposed on individual players. Theories will be spouted by fans---“It’s ‘base-running’ that wins a game, so a bunt’s as good as a hit.” “No, it’s ‘outs’ that matter most, therefore the strikeout hurled is the best trick for winning.” “No, it’s that lead-off hitter doubling and next man a triple, then the HR, and so heavy hitting is key to a post-season billet (as if teams could always enact this).” “No, it’s ‘a starting rotation’ that can create leads and keep them for six innings straight---pitching is where it’s at.” But analyze all this and each concept will be found to mean the same, each surely matters, some ideas more than others depending on the team being faced. Boiling it down, the more rational manager will say, “It’s the most runs that wins the day, and you go for that any which way you can and it’s never from just one thing.” . . This month and next, some ballplayers, having failed to stay in shape during the off-season, will be pushing through sorrow and anger about that, while others will wonder why having stayed in shape and played in a South-of-the-border league hadn’t upgraded their skills and value as much as they’d hoped. Middle of a line-up batters will be differently located and no two will appear to be as they were the year before, some better, others less so, and who in heck is this new guy who might be taking over in left field? Uh-oh, the promised magic that the Angels expected to have last year from 1B Albert Pujols, OF Josh Hamilton and OF Mike Trout, seems like another “less than expected” outcome. This March, scouts and reporters at Tampa, Florida, might be saying that the dude taking A-Rod’s place at third base can’t be the hitter that A-Rod may still have the juice for. But this team is banking now on pitcher dominance, having signed RHP Masahiro Tanaka from Japan, his ERA last year, 1.27. Much attention will drift to Texas, where the Houston Astros will begin a push from the bottom through broad reformation. Unexpectedly, the USA Today-Sports Weekly listing of what the newspaper’s sportswriters believe are the top new 100 MLB players, includes 13 from the 2013 battered Astros, more than from any other club. Astros OF George Springer ranks number seven, SS Johnathan Villar number 13, LHP Brett Oberholtzer, 23. Another team that finished low in the 2013 standings, the Colorado Rockies, has but one player on the list, OF Corey Dickerson, number 14. And, why would the Rockies give up the competent OF Dexter Fowler and LHP, Drew Pomeranz, for players of questionable qualities, and will the Rockies relievers not just protect but advance leads established by starters, with a closer that can close consistently?” Will 1B Prince Fielder, traded by the Tigers, make a major difference for his new team, the Texas Rangers? Will 2B Robinson Cano, over from the Yankees, be the difference for the Seattle Mariners this year? Spring training and the first months of the 2014 season will appear, for the most part, and as in all baseball seasons, like the early chapters of a whodunit---Uncertainty will reign! . . . // NBA---OF six NBA division leading teams of a week ago that have kept their leads, four have lifted to where those leads are commanding, hard to catch up to, the exceptions being the Western Conference-Southwest Division’s 38-15 San Antonio Spurs two-game lead over the Houston Rockets, and the Eastern Conference-Atlantic Division’s 28-24 Toronto Raptors two-game lead atop second place team, the Brooklyn Nets. Of today’s division commanding leads, the Eastern Conference Central Division’s 40-12 Indiana Pacers is far ahead with a 13 game lead over second place team, the Chicago Bulls. The Pacers are also the East’s leading team, next in line the East’s Southeast Division’s top franchise, the 37-14 Miami Heat, which has a 12 game lead above second place franchise, the Atlanta Hawks. The West’s Northwest Division’s 42-12 Oklahoma City Thunder leads the West and has a six game division edge over the Portland Trail Blazers. The West’s Pacific Division’s 27-18 L.A. Clippers has seven more wins than second place team, the Phoenix Suns. The Thunder is now the leading NBA team, two up on the Pacers. . . // DENVER NUGGETS---OF teams that have dropped considerably in the past week, the now 24-27 Denver Nuggets lost four games, going below .500 and into fourth from third place within the West’s Northwest Division. It’s the All-Star break now, and the Nuggets have to decide how to regroup, get their all into their game, return to how they played when they beat the Pacers and the Spurs in January, when they enabled a seven game winning streak November into December, and a five game winning streak in January that included a win vs. the Thunder. Looking at the Nuggets losses since January 1, standing out are injuries, especially that to a team’s indispensible player, guard Ty Lawson. No player on any team should be “the indispensible starter,” a player without which a team will always have much difficulty winning a game. Even Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, now LeBron James and Kevin Durant have understood it’s the “We” that gets the victory, not the “Me.” Lawson’s absence has hurt the Nuggets more than it should have, in spite of grand efforts by guard Randy Foye and forwards Wilson Chandler and J.J. Dickson. Lawson has been key to plays kicking in swiftly at the right time and in the right way, positioning himself for back-up shooting and for exploiting the opposing defense’s mistakes hurriedly and driving to the glass. When Lawson isn’t afield, hesitancy and loss of momentum has been a problem for the Nuggets. So, too, has weak transitioning from offense to defense been a problem, it’s when a team is most vulnerable to turnovers and the opposing team’s fastbreak points. And, Nuggets defense improvements of earlier months within the 2013/14 season have become readable, predictable, allowing opposing players to make points from their sidewinder shots, rebounds and a return to the offense. Also, the systematic rostering for fair breakout of minutes per starter and bench player, this could be interfering with what could be the better combos for what the court situation demands at a given moment, that is, it may be best for forwards Wilson Chandler and Kenneth Faried and for guard Evan Fournier to stay or leave based more on existing situational factors than on anything else. END/ml

SOCHI OLYMPICS // MLB: "the GREAT RETURN."

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. SOCHI OLYMPICS // MLB:‘the Great Return . . . SOCHI OLYMPICS---HOW could anyone watching the last five days of Olympic sports competition not come to revere the athletes from around the world dazzling us with their physical, mental and highly spirited accomplishments. If only to demonstrate to viewers how athletes keep stretching the envelope of human capacity for future endeavors within and away from sports venues and gyms, the Olympics make sense. Let the dollars for Olympiad infrastructure and opening ceremonies go to the cities in Brazil and South Korea, where the next summer and winter games will take place, the results paying forward in inspiration and knowledge for what future generations can do with learning abilities, courage and persistence. In the days since February 7, we’ve seen skiers negotiating steep moguls rapidly, telling us that obstacles can be challenged and dominated with skill and grace; Nordic-style skiers going double-digit kilometers, stopping twice to strike targets with rifles and never missing a shot, operating not too fast, never too slow, economizing energy in order to maximize it across the time required to reach a prescribed goal, signaling that there has to be order in our efforts; Downhill skiers following critical paths with lightning speed, showing necessity of strategizing a journey in order to accomplish it optimally, be it for seconds, minutes or hours; Speed-skaters charging ahead as though super-heroes headed to stop meteorites from striking the planet, showing determination to give all that can be given yet always under control; Curlers reminding us of what sharpest focus for studied movement and carefully measured energy can do. And, there’s more to come. Here’s a schedule, today through Friday---FEBRUARY 11: Ice Hockey, Speed-skating, Figure Skating, Curling, Ski-jumping, Biathlon, X-Country Skiing, Freestyle Skiing, Snowboarding, Luge // FEB. 12: Ice Hockey, Speed-skating, Figure Skating, Curling, Nordic-combined, Alpine Skiing, Freestyle Skiing, Snowboarding, Luge // FEB. 13: Ice Hockey, Speed-skating, Speed-skating/”short track,” Figure Skating, Curling, Biathlon, X-Country Skiing, Freestyle Skiing, Skeleton, Luge // FEB. 14: Ice Hockey, Figure Skating, Curling, Ski-jumping, Biathlon, X-Country Skiing, Alpine Skiing, Freestyle Skiing, Skeleton. . . // . . . MLB---OUT of seasonal and rising expectations, American professional baseball will kick in come April, reminding us that punishing winters cannot last, though many of us will miss the NFL---well, for a few seconds anyway after that first pitch is thrown on Opening Day, spinning forward another year of “recorded” U.S. pro-baseball. We were playing the game in the latter half of the 1800’s, but it was in 1900 that professionally organized teams in cities across America began record-keeping as they competed in pennant races, and in 1903 the first World Series was held, won by Boston against Pittsburgh. There are now 30 MLB teams divided equally within the American League and the National League, but until the late 1960’s the game was still dominated by less than a dozen ball-clubs, the most American League races being won by the New York Yankees (31 victories from 1921 until 1962), and the Philadelphia Athletics (nine wins from 1902 until 1931), the most within the National League by the N.Y. Giants (13 victories from 1904 until 1951) and the St. Louis Cardinals (14 wins from 1926 until 2011). So, never before has the playing field been as level as it has been since year 2000. In the past 13 years, 18 different teams have reached the World Series, no team there more than twice. If there’s an era now, it’s the era of increased diversity, though maybe not enough diversity. While different teams have won during playoffs and competed in the WS during most years since Y-2000, usually the same teams have comprised the playoffs year after year, and the teams residing middle of the standings and at the bottom have been repeats. Within the AL West the Texas Rangers began 2013 in first position and finished second, within the AL Central the Kansas City Royals and the Detroit Tigers remained within the top three all season, and in the AL East the Boston Red Sox began the season at the top and finished at the top. The Houston Astros, the Toronto Blue Jays and the NL’s Miami Marlins began 2013 at the bottom of their respective divisions and they finished the season that way. The majority of these teams began and finished with similar standings the year before. The Colorado Rockies finished low-end in 2012 and 2013. However, changes in rosters occur in ways making the game seem different. New additions and switches within the Rockies rotation will probably alter the Rockies fate, sending the team upward. Questions abide? Can the N.Y. Yankees get to the top without Derek Jeter? Will the Tigers maintain? Have the L.A. Dodgers ever repeated success in the annual standings? Will numerous hitters demonstrate breakthroughs and frustrate pitching staffs from coast-to-coast? Can the Astros rise up from the bottom by again moneyballing the game? Have the Oakland A’s solved the mystery, why they lost their touch for success under the playoff shadow? What can the Rockies batting order complete without Todd Helton? END/ml.

NBA: Standings; Denver Nuggets

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. NBA: Standings; Denver Nuggets. . . // NBA: Standings---WITHIN the NBA Western Conference/Northwest Division last week, a first place 36-10 Oklahoma City Thunder held a three game lead over second place team, the Portland Trail Blazers, and the West’s Southwest Division’s 33-11 San Antonio Spurs owned a four game lead above the Houston Rockets, while the 32-15 Los Angeles Clippers purchased a five game edge atop the Golden State Warriors. That’s a total of 190 first and second place wins for the West. Meanwhile, inside the Eastern Conference/Atlantic Division the 23-21 Toronto Raptors led second place team, the Brooklyn Nets, by three, while the East’s Southwest Division’s 32-12 Miami Heat rose above the Atlanta Hawks by nine, and the East’s Central Division’s 34-9 Indiana Pacers stayed ahead of the Chicago Bulls with 12. This brought the total number of Eastern Conference wins to 144, putting the West ahead by 46 wins. Today, the positioning of these teams haven’t changed, that is, we now have the same teams in first and second place of their respective divisions, and while the total number of wins per conference has advanced some, when it comes to number of victories there is still the appearance of the West having the better first and second place teams by a wide margin. The West’s leading position regarding total division wins had the same story on Wednesday, in that the division leading the entire NBA was from the West, the West’s Southwest Division having 141 wins, while the second and third winning divisions were also from the West and still are, the West’s Northwest Division having 136 wins, and the West’s Pacific Division, 124 wins. Best division within the East on Wednesday was the East’s Southeast Division, with 117 wins, followed by the East’s Central Division’s 106 and the Atlantic Division’s 97. Total wins as of Wednesday reached 401 for the West, 320 for the East. But holding the East back were a single division, and one team, the Atlantic Division not having reached the three-digit win mark yet, and the Central Division’s Milwaukee Bucks having achieved only eight wins as of Wednesday. Noteworthy is that one of the East’s first place teams, the Pacers, today holds the greater lead within all of the NBA, 14 wins up on the Bulls, indicating likelihood of a comfortable NBA-2013/14 playoff slot. Sadly, except for the 29-20 Phoenix Suns, the 19-30 New York Knicks, and the 29-21 Dallas Mavericks, the remaining four third place teams within the full NBA are behind by 10 and more games, in worst shape the Eastern Central Division’s Detroit Pistons, behind by 17. . . // DENVER NUGGETS---BY defeating the Los Angeles Clippers, 116-115, on Monday, February 3, the day after the Denver Broncos fell to the Seattle Seahawks at the Super Bowl, the Denver Nuggets lifted city pride. The Nuggets also soothed Denver’s sports fans with January defeats of higher ranked NBA teams, the currently 40-11 Oklahoma City Thunder, 38-10 Indiana Pacers and the 29-20 Golden State Warriors. Earlier during the NBA-2013/14 season, the Nuggets put seven and five game winning streaks into the weave. They Nuggets are now 24-23, however, and 14 games behind the Western Conference’s Northwest division leading team, the Thunder, largely from a mercurial presence within the NBA season, e.g, the team’s winning streaks offset by an eight game losing streak (December 17 through January 1). Also, the Nuggets have rarely followed a single loss with a win. Nearly all of the team’s remaining losses are two or three in succession, this ironically from a team with five starters and a sixth man having double-digit ppg averages, guard Ty Lawson highest, 17.9. Moreover, the Nuggets field goal shooting percentage is around .451, and the Nuggets have a decent three-point shooting average, 360. So, it’s the win column inconsistency that can keep the Nuggets from finishing NBA-2013/14 as an above-the-margin franchise, if it cannot win 20 or more games of the 35 that the Nuggets must play before the current season ends, starting with tonight’s Nuggets/N.Y. Knicks match. Can they accomplish that? Yes, but odds based on recent past performances dictate need of hard and relentless scrambling for the W. In December, 2013, the Nuggets won five games and lost 10. In January, 2014, the Nuggets won eight and lost seven. To land above the margin and maintain winning team ranking, be it third or even fourth place within its division, the Nuggets now have to win a minimum of eight games in February, eight in March and four in April, or any other combination of 20 wins, this taking the team to 43 victories and so above .500, which at the end of a season is the dividing line between losing and winning franchises. END/ml

NFL: SUPER BOWL XLVIII---"LOOKING BACK, the OUTCOME EXAMINED

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: SUPER BOWL XLVIII---“Looking Back, the Outcome Examined”. . . // NFL: SUPER BOWL XLVIII became a sad event for Denver, Colorado, a death in the family. It wasn’t supposed to happen, the Denver Broncos being downhill from coin toss on, as if some Star Trek thing transported the NFL’s 2013 AFC championship team onto the lowest plain of football Hell, holding them there for four Q’s, except for moments when ascension was promised by a third Q TD followed by a two point conversion. Had that eight point pile-on not occurred, the Broncos would have been the first team in Super Bowl history to lose without scoring---zip, zero, Nada! . . . The victors on that dark and cold plain, the Seattle Seahawks, they were fearless against NFL-2013’s best offense and versus the season’s MVP, Broncos QB, Peyton Manning; the Seahawks defense quickly handed the football back to Seahawks QB, Russell Wilson, for a total of 31 ball possession minutes, during which Wilson led an offense that penetrated a Broncos defense for four touchdowns and two field goals by endgame. . . How could it have happened the way that it did, when so many credible football analysts had predicted a Broncos Super Bowl win? What happened to that Broncos force-of-will, those purpose-driven skills, that command of space and time for throwing and running a football for first downs, then points? What occurred exactly, or didn’t occur, for a Broncos defense that had kept opposing teams from scoring more than 20 in most of the franchise’s December and January games? . . . Scary was that the Broncos Manning-led attackers looked as if they had chosen to roll over and let the Seahawks own the day. Of course, this was an illusion, caused by a triple-threat Seahawks defense---“Optimum Speed,” “Incredible Strength,” “Super Bowl Smarts,” therefore we saw Seahawks defenders move to places where the Broncos pass receivers and ball runners had hoped to be open but were then covered/blocked as if defenders came down from the sky at Mach-5 speed. The operative words for the Seahawks defense were “impenetrable” and “suffocating.” From that, QB Manning couldn’t find space and time for his preferred air and ground options. Manning rarely had situational control; he was nearly always at the effect of the Seahawks pass rush and full field coverage. Were persons unfamiliar with American football to receive a briefing from NFL commissioner, Roger Goodell, his best chance for an explanation of all that one team can do to defeat another would be to show film of Super Bowl XLVIII, where the Broncos were flailed by more than TD’s and field goals---intercepts, fumbles, an 87 yard kick return-TD, a two-point safety. Super Bowl XLVIII was Manning’s worst day since joining the Broncos two years ago. And, the Broncos defense couldn’t avoid regression, returning to performance factors of the early part of NFL-2013, when Broncos defenders couldn’t keep from allowing 20 and more to opposing teams. . . Throughout most of NFL-2013, and during the post-season (until the Super Bowl, that is) the Manning-led offense remained a luck charm for the Broncos defense, in that Manning’s MVP-earned performances, enhanced by superb receivers and ball runners, remained capable of making up for, and then surpassing, the number of points allowed to opposing teams by the Broncos defense. This did not happen for the Broncos as they faced the Seahawks at MetLife Stadium on Sunday. . . LESSONS LEARNED---WHETHER deliberate or improvisational, surely keys to the Seahawks being able to keep the Broncos offense down will be studied carefully by NFL coaches and players in coming months. Here’s a take on likely findings regarding the Seahawks defense versus the Broncos offense: ONE, and it couldn’t be more of a basic truth for Super Bowl play: When unsure if an opposing team’s receivers can be open for catching the football, highest priority for a defense should be elimination of the opposing QB’s ability to locate options for moving the football forward. In other words, denying QB power should be the primary “must-do” among several, which implies that on Sunday the Seahawks Head Coach, Pete Carroll, probably had as his number one goal, making Broncos QB Manning “IRRELEVANT.’” Probably Carroll went to the Super Bowl believing that the more important key to keeping the Broncos from winning the Lombardi trophy was stopping Manning, and that key to stopping Manning was the fast and accurate pass rush that could keep him from obtaining line-of-sight for a preferred and possibly open receiver. Carroll’s defenders gave that to him on a platter. . . TWO, Defenders should always view catch interference and the stopping of ball runners as prelude to higher objectives, for instance, exploiting a QB’s inaccurate throw or a receiver’s faulty positioning for the intercept and the fumble, so as to enact a turnover. . . THREE, Coverage of receivers should include readiness for instant switches to “styles of coverage” that are relevant to existing situations, so that coverage is always wide, deep, i.e., comprehensive, essentially of expansion and contraction, going for the impossible anyway (being everywhere where the ball might go), while also attempting to be the aggressive defense that can force opposing receivers and runners to have to go where they least desire to go, which is the defense that doesn’t allow an enemy to obtain many points. . . OFFENSE: A lesson learned from the Seahawks Super Bowl win is that a QB should not attempt to perform beyond his known capabilities. He should accept his limitations while doing his best to utilize his known strengths to full capacity. Seahawks QB Wilson seemed to be that QB on Sunday. Manning attained a Super Bowl record of 34 passes, but he had 14 incompletes, while Wilson completed much less, 18. However, Wilson suffered only seven misses and his completed passes led to two TD’s, while Manning’s larger number of completed passes led to one TD. Wilson did not attempt the long pass often. For the passing tactic, he relied mostly on the direct or off-to-the side short pass, on handing the ball to a runner for whatever number of yards could be gained, and on running around a widespread Broncos defense for considerable yardage when no other tactic was available for him. Wilson’s running game included 135 net yards, Manning’s a paltry 35. Wilson relied very little on fourth down efficiency, which is when he went for the field goal. Too, the QB of less experience and of fewer skills than that of an opposing QB, as in the Wilson/Manning comparison, can make up for shortfalls by having sufficient ball possession minutes to work downfield with, such as that awarded to Wilson during Super Bowl XLVIII by his team’s powerful and canny defense. As for making the most of ball possession minutes, Wilson directed 55 plays for nearly all of his team’s 43 points, while Manning led 64 plays for eight points (Ugh!). Oh, yes, a marginal enemy defense makes the job of accruing first downs and end-zone occupation a lot easier for the less experienced but still quite competent QB. . . But putting all of the above aside, the Denver Broncos finished NFL-2013 regulation at 15-3 and became the year’s AFC championship team, and Peyton Manning threw 55 TD passes in the year and became NFL MVP. That’s a great season, and a great football team, in spite of the poor Super Bowl showing; and, there’s NFL-2014 up ahead and the anti-grief medicine labeled, “Movin’ On.” END/ml