MLB, BEST STARTS-2014; RULE-BREAKING // NBA, PLAYOFFS, 2013/14. . . NOTE: OUR NEXT POSTING WILL BE MAY 16, 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 . . . (NOTE: Our next posting will be May 16, 2014) . . . // . . MLB, Best Starts, 2014; Rule-breaking // NBA, Playoffs-2013/14 . . . MLB---BEST STARTS, 2014---THAT the Oakland A’s and Texas Rangers would now be battling at the top of the American League West and tied at 14 wins, eight losses is no surprise. Nor is it a surprise that the Detroit Tigers would be atop the AL Central as the first month of the 2014 season begins to close. That the 13-9 N.Y. Yankees are leading the AL East and ahead of the 10-12 Tampa Bay Rays (fourth position) and 10-13 Boston Red Sox (fifth and last) is a surprise. Within the National League West, the L.A. Dodgers and S.F. Giants being in first and second positions respectively is a case of expectations being met, while the 16-6 Milwaukee Brewers being atop the NL Central is the biggest of MLB-2014 surprises (thus far), and from a larger Brewers accomplishment, that of being ahead of the remaining 29 MLB clubs. Yes, the Brewers are leading both leagues, having finished the previous season 74-88 and within the bottom 10, reinforced now by the return of last-season suspended RF Ryan Braun (PED’s) and IF’s Aramis Ramirez and Rickie Weeks from injuries, thus a commanding line-up, plus a starting rotation and bull pen reaching low ERA’s, the latter toward a high rate of saves. The team expected to be where the Brewers are today, that’s the St. Louis Cardinals; they are four games behind the Brewers (12-11), one up over a team thought to be better than now, the Washington Nationals. Less of a surprise is the NL East’s leading team, the 14-7 Atlanta Braves, two games ahead of second place team, the N.Y. Mets. As of today, 17 of the 30 MLB Clubs are at or above .500, eight from the AL, nine from the NL, overall a good start for MLB-entire. So, too, is the string of third place teams showing promise of ascension, of climbing upward in the rankings. The now 12-11/.522 Colorado Rockies are just one win behind the Dodgers and the Giants, and within the AL Central the 11-10 Minnesota Twins and 11-11 Cleveland Indians are one back of the Tigers, inside the AL East the 11-10 Baltimore Orioles two wins behind the Yankees. Most unexpected, that’s the 10-13 AL East’s Red Sox being second worst re. either league, and the NL West’s Arizona Diamondbacks worst at 7-18. . . // . . RULE-BREAKING---IT’s not the oldest of crimes but athletes cheating surely isn’t new, and it didn’t begin with cyclist Lance Armstrong doping to win bicycle races, or baseball player, Ty Cobb, sharpening his spikes, or ballplayers Barry Bonds, Ryan Braun, Alex Rodriguez and Roger Clemons using PED’s, or Cleveland Indians hitter, Albert Belle, and Chicago Cubs slugger, Sammy Sosa, corking their bats. Since baseball, like all sports and other endeavors, is subject to human factors, its crime base probably started with the second baseball game ever played, wherever and whenever that was. A valid argument is that crimes large and small have been of the planet since Adam and Eve were sent east of Eden. BUT---let’s stick to baseball. N.Y. Yankee pitcher, Whitey Ford, he’d scratch a baseball using his wedding ring, and Seattle Mariners pitcher, Gaylord Perry, coated baseballs with Vaseline, and Tampa Rays pitcher, Joel Peralta, used pine tar in 2012, and now N.Y. Yankee hurler, Michael Pineda, is accused of using pine tar. We can include Cincinnati Reds player/manager Pete Rose gambling on baseball, and sports historians will say that cheating in baseball goes back to the early 1900’s, when eight Chicago ballplayers threw a game to receive money from big city gamblers. We can’t know if these rule-busting permutations will ever stop, for it happens in the shadows, there’s no accurate data showing how much of it is currently defying exposure. Even so, we can grab comfort from a proven fact, that many of the known perpetrators had better seasons before they had crossed the line and insulted and dissed their sport and their teams, suffering personal humiliation. Knowledge of this gets around, permeates clubhouses and maybe acts as a deterrent, so perhaps the cheating is at a minimum of minimums. . . NBA PLAYOFFS--- THAT in the first round of the NBA 2013/14 playoffs, the Memphis Grizzlies defeated the Oklahoma City Thunder, 98-95, and that the Atlanta Hawks punished the Indiana Pacers, 98-85, such highlights that NBA playoffs can be a clean slate and anything could happen. The Grizzlies are now ahead of the Thunder in the first round best of seven, 2-1, and the Hawks are above the Pacers, 2-1. The next Grizzlies versus Thunder game will be Saturday, April 26, and next for the Hawks vs. Pacers will also be April 26. Within the NBA East and round one, the Miami Heat now leads the Charlotte Bobcats, 2-0, next showing Saturday, April 26, and the East’s Toronto Raptors and the Brooklyn Nets are 1-1, up tonight (Fri., Apr 25); and, the East’s Chicago Bulls are ahead of the Washington Wizards, 2-0, next game tonight. Meanwhile, the NBA West’s San Antonio Spurs are tied with the Dallas Mavericks, 1-1, next game, April 26, and the Portland Trail Blazers are leading the Houston Rockets, 2-0, next game also April 26, while the L.A. Clippers are leading the Golden State Warriors, 2-1, next challenge, April 26. END/ml

BASEBALL---NATURE OF THE BEAST

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. . . //. . BASEBALL---“NATURE OF THE BEAST”---// .. “WHAT goes around, comes around!” WHO hasn’t heard that from a parent or grandparent? And, it applies everywhere within most endeavors, especially in sports. The Colorado Rockies defeated the Philadelphia Phillies 12-1 in the first game of a three-game series this month, but later the Phillies ended the series 10-9 over the Rockies. Soon, however, the 10-10 Rockies defeated the National League West’s number two team, the 11-8 S.F. Giants, 8-2, with five of the eight being home runs, two smacked by lead-off hitter/RF, Charlie Blackmon. Presently, the Rockies are 11-10 and so above .500 and in third place behind the Giants within the NL West by one win and back of first place team, the L.A. Dodgers, by two wins. Moreover, the Rockies can boast now about having achieved the most runs to date within the NL, 114, also of having the most RBI’s accrued by infielders within the NL, 63 as of Sunday close-of-business. Moreover, the Rockies Blackmon is tied at the top of the NL with the Phillies Chase Utley for highest NL batting average, .406, and Rockies SS Troy Tulowitzki now owns the NL’s highest On Base Percentage, .493. Surely at the top of the Rockies agenda today is “avoidance of inconsistency,” that is, holding to whatever Rockies players, therefore the franchise, has been doing correctly. Elsewhere are the American League East’s Boston Red Sox, the franchise that won the 2013 World Series after starting the 2013 season way low in the rankings. Today, the Red Sox are 9-11 and in last place of the AL East. Obvious here, then, is that the quest for all MLB clubs is to rise to the top and to stay there, but most of the 30 MLB franchises are Ferris Wheel, they are Yo-Yo, they are up, down, back up again, down once more, fluctuating between top and bottom from inability to keep to a chosen goal for long periods of time, say, across nine or 10 games won in a row, which rarely occurs. “Inconsistency of performance” threads through professional baseball as if the game’s very spine, with some franchises up or down at a high end, that is, from first to second position within a division and back up, while others will dance up and down between second and fourth positions. Also, there are those teams that obsess staying just above .500, submerging again and again, back up slightly until at .486 or .512 as a season closes. There’s no escaping that even the best and steadiest of teams lose plenty of games. Last season, the AL’s Red Sox and National league’s St. Louis Cardinals won the most games, 97 each, which means that each team lost 85 (That’s more losses than the total number of games played by a basketball franchise during the annual NBA regular season, October through mid-April.). No MLB team can send inconsistency out with the garbage. Fact: You won’t find any sport team’s eventual fallbacks at any landfill. Inconsistency is an athlete’s enemy to contend with, no matter how good that athlete is. It’s what the good athlete battles seriously day after day; it’s his and her loyal devotion to the concept of victory, of being the best that he or she can be. Pro- baseball players understand that they are part of a whole, each an individual participant affected by the possibility of obstacles preventing their best shot at contributing to the success of their team during a single game or a series of games, for instance, an injury, or there’s a pitcher that a batter has never faced before and knows nothing about, or a slump that a hitter can’t figure out, too the impact of weather and altitude, or a starting hurler who has the beginning of a cold, or there’s a family distraction. The variables that can take from an athlete’s best are many, and so it becomes what happens to a team, it can bring on those losses. So, no team is a perfect machine because the parts that make up the whole are impacted daily by obstacles that can deny perfection, and there are no exceptions to this, which is why the smartest and most strategic of managers and team owners still embrace a percentage of hope sometimes bordering on fantasy that their players will seek to be the best that they could be during every game, knowing full well that the .406 hitter in April will even with great skill, grace and “luck” drop to anywhere between .280 and .310 by mid-season. Baseball’s inconsistency hang-up is what causes team managers to be in the business of “loss management,” keeping it to a minimum even before mid-season. Yet, for different reasons each, the MLB clubs that fill the bottom positions of the six MLB divisions seem to have a monopoly on the opposite of all this, on “least inconsistency,” as if they’ve been practicing “bottom-dwelling inertia (Hey, we are comfortable down here!),” e.g., the Houston Astros, the Chicago Cubs accruing the most losses year following year. BUT, with all of this being said, should the inconsistency that is inherent within the game of baseball be that which players, teams and fans ought to fret over? Well, maybe yes if you own the Astros or the Cubs and you are getting more and more empty seats and the TV ads are less by the week. Otherwise, inconsistency is a large part of “the joy of the game.” Who would want to watch robots afield, no mistakes ever made, in effect, a scoreless game, the cure for insomnia? We’d have to program in the means for error, so that a game could end. Inconsistency is a factor for sports competition, without which a baseball league would be no more exciting than a knitting club at an old folks’ home. END/ml

NBA--Playoffs, 2013/14; Denver Nuggets, a Wrap // MLB: April Soundings // Motor Sports: Formula 1

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--Playoffs-2013/14; Denver Nuggets, a Wrap // MLB—April Soundings // Motor Sports, Formula 1. . . // NBA—NOT completely the same year over again but there is a definite stream of similarities between last year’s NBA playoffs and what as of yesterday is the NBA-2013/14 post-season card, in that 11 of the 16 franchises making the about-to-be post-season were also slotted for NBA-2012/13, six from the NBA West, among them, the Oklahoma City Thunder, San Antonio Spurs, L.A. Clippers, Houston Rockets, Memphis Grizzlies and Golden State Warriors, and five from the NBA East---Miami Heat, Indiana Pacers, Brooklyn Nets, Atlanta Hawks and Chicago Bulls. Added for playoffs this year are surprise takers, the East’s Southeast Washington Wizards and the Charlotte Bobcats, which hit bottom during NBA-2012/13, and failing to meet expectations for 2013/14 post-season repeats are the West’s L.A. Lakers, Denver Nuggets, the East’s N.Y. Knicks, Boston Celtics and the Milwaukee Bucks. Unable to make the playoffs last year, and contenders within the current line-up, are the West’s Portland Trail Blazers and the East’s Toronto Raptors. Best of the West now are the Spurs with their 62 wins, best from the East the Indiana Pacers, 56 wins. Of the eight teams now listed for the year’s playoffs, all have won 50 and more games. Of the East’s eight, five are playoff-headed with less than 50 but with 44 and more wins. . . DENVER NUGGETS---A HOPED-FOR set of at least eight won of 11 games to be played by the now 36-46 Denver Nuggets since March 14 wasn’t to be, each against a team holding first or second place within a respective division, among them, the Miami Heat, the L.A. Clippers twice, the Washington Wizards, Oklahoma City Thunder, San Antonio x two, Houston Rockets x 2, the Golden State Warriors x 2. Winning the lion’s share of these games would have underscored the Nuggets as a better than marginal team, though in fourth position of the West’s Northwest. The Nuggets won five of the 11, last of these being a 116-112 loss to the Warriors on April 16, also last game of NBA-2013/14 for the Nuggets. Of the five wins, one was nearly a loss, the Nuggets 100-99 victory taken from the Warriors on April 10. The four other wins were by three or more points, best Nuggets victory spread a 110-100 win against the Clippers. Of the six losses, four ended in double-digit points behind the winning team, e.g., a Spurs 133-103 win and a Thunder 117-96 victory. Telling about the Nuggets during the 11 games versus the NBA’s highest ranking teams is from a look at points that the five games were won by atop points gained by the opposing teams, this alongside the total number of points that the six Nuggets games were lost by beneath points accrued by the opposing franchises. The total number of points won above those of the five opposing (losing) teams is quite low---27, while the number of points lost to opposing team ppg’s is 63, which is almost three points given away for each point earned by the Nuggets, indicating a defense that cannot secure a lead often enough and an offense that cannot put enough points on the board so as to offset defense weaknesses. Yet some consolation can be drawn from the Nuggets having scored more than 100 points per in seven of the 11 games vs. the NBA’s higher ranked teams, and certainly from Wednesday night’s battle vs. the Warriors, one of those defeats that carry triumphs within, e.g., Nuggets Randy Foye finishing with 32 points and 11 assists, Kenneth Faried with 15 points and 13 rebounds. The talent is there for Nuggets Coach Brian Shaw to reset a team that’s been weakened considerably by injuries to top players and that until this year made it to nine consecutive post-seasons and last year entered the post-season with 57 wins. . . // MLB---NO-one’s singing the blues yet over a string of losses, no-one’s decided that the poet who said April is the cruelest month knew exactly what he was talking about. In light of many expectations, the 2014 transitions from an off-season and from way too short Spring Training haven’t reflected severe downturns for the majority of MLB clubs. Of course, we know that the world hasn’t been changing too dramatically when the Houston Astros, the Chicago Cubs and the Miami Marlins secure bottom of league positions as April shows signs of sliding into a season a lot like the year before. Too, many starts have been justifying several predictions, for instance, the L.A. Dodgers and the S.F. Giants atop the National League West, the St. Louis Cardinals now among NL Central’s top two teams, and the Washington Nationals a number two team within the NL East. Within the American League West, and as predicted, the Oakland A’s and the Texas Rangers are the top two teams, and the Detroit Tigers are at second within the AL Central, while the N.Y. Yankees are leading the AL East. Differences from last year do exist, however, and surprisingly so, e.g., the Boston Red Sox are in last place of the AL East and within the bottom five of the 30 MLB teams, while the NL West’s Arizona Diamondbacks are also holding a last place position and are faring worse than the Astros and the Marlins. Well, for some, April may really be the cruelest of months. . . // FORMULA 1 (Column repeated from Tuesday, April 15)---OKAY, you saw the film RUSH last year, so you know that Formula 1 (F1) motor racing is a most popular sport, second to soccer as the world’s richest and most viewed from stands and in front of TV sets. If the film hooked you and you performed some research, you also know that F1 Grand Prix (GP) races have been happening around the world for several generations and that every other weekend March through mid-November, 11 teams send two F1 cars and two drivers each to compete in 19 events in 18 countries, starting with the Australian GP, ending with the Abu Dhabi GP, including a U.S. F1 event that will take place this year at Austin, Texas, November 2. Unique about these races is that none occur on strictly oval racetracks, such as that for the Indy 500 and Nascar events. Instead, the F1 GP events occur on tracks similar to the design of real roadways, they include uneven though linear stretches and also angular distances and exceptionally hard turns, dips, etc., with a single F1 GP race being anywhere from 50 to 60 laps amounting to between 250 and 320 miles in distance, the F1 cars averaging between 130 and 180 mph along the linear. Also, F1 is unlike other motor sports from its universality. Though each F1 team is privately owned, they come from a large assortment of countries, as examples, Team Ferrari (Italy), Red Bull (Austria), McLaren (the U.K.), Honda (Japan), Sauber, Renault (France), Team India, Team MaRussia, their drivers from numerous countries, as well, and not necessarily from the country that a team is from. But this year is different from all other F1 years because of required major changes to engines and energy efficiency, to aerodynamics and so car configuration, to cockpit and brake demands and re. new tire requirements, therefore a year different in that each team has had to enter F1-2014 with new or dramatically reconstructed F1 cars and with drivers new to the alterations. Calling the current F1 season an experiment in ground vehicle power resulting from innovative construction and the marriage of various materials is far from verbal fabrication, and the observed results could exist within the next generation of privately owned vehicles. Among the year’s F1 requirements are a switch from V-8 to V-6 engines packaged with formulated electrical systems so that F1-2014 cars can meet the hybrid challenge successfully. Too, there’s a new limit on amount of fuel that an F1 car can contain per race (35 percent less than in recent years), and a new regulation has called for means capable of capturing, holding and re-using energy that can escape mostly from brake applications (Whenever a foot goes from gas pedal to use of brakes, a certain amount of energy seeks the atmosphere and so has been wasted but today can be held and re-used), also there’s mandatory employment of tires that can meet nearly all weather and surface conditions. Too, from dropping the nose shape of the F1 car this year, and narrowing the position of the car’s front wings while requiring a smaller rear wing, and there being minimum allowed car weight to 691 kilograms from 642 kg’s, all will reduce downforce and increase torque, allowing for faster yet more controllable gear shifting for the deep turn and for moving into imagined lanes right or left at higher speeds. So far, three F1-2014 GP events have occurred, the Australia, Maylaysia and Bahrain GP’s. This weekend is the China F1 GP, to be followed in May by the Spain and Monaco F1 GP weekends. Ahead in the championship competition so far, that’s Team Mercedes (U.K.), the drivers Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton, both F1 veterans. END/ml.

Motor Sports: Formula 1 // NBA, the Playoffs // MLB: the Standings

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 . . . // Motor Sports, Formula 1 // NBA, the Playoffs // MLB, the Standings . . . // Formula 1---OKAY, you saw the film RUSH last year, so you know that Formula 1 (F1) motor racing is a most popular sport, second to soccer as the world’s richest and most viewed from stands and in front of TV sets. If the film hooked you and you performed some research, you also know that F1 Grand Prix (GP) races have been happening around the world for several generations and that every other weekend March through mid-November, 11 teams send two F1 cars and two drivers each to compete in 19 events in 18 countries, starting with the Australian GP, ending with the Abu Dhabi GP, including a U.S. F1 event that will take place this year at Austin, Texas, November 2. Unique about these races is that none occur on strictly oval racetracks, such as that for the Indy 500 and Nascar events. Instead, the F1 GP events occur on tracks similar to the design of real roadways, they include uneven though linear stretches and also angular distances and exceptionally hard turns, dips, etc., with a single F1 GP race being anywhere from 50 to 60 laps amounting to between 250 and 320 miles in distance, the F1 cars averaging between 130 and 180 mph along the linear. Also, F1 is unlike other motor sports from its universality. Though each F1 team is privately owned, they come from a large assortment of countries, as examples, Team Ferrari (Italy), Red Bull (Austria), McLaren (the U.K.), Honda (Japan), Sauber, Renault (France), Team India, Team MaRussia, their drivers from numerous countries, as well, and not necessarily from the country that a team is from. But this year is different from all other F1 years because of required major changes to engines and energy efficiency, to aerodynamics and so car configuration, to cockpit and brake demands and re. new tire requirements, therefore a year different in that each team has had to enter F1-2014 with new or dramatically reconstructed F1 cars and with drivers new to the alterations. Calling the current F1 season an experiment in ground vehicle power resulting from innovative construction and the marriage of various materials is far from verbal fabrication, and the observed results could exist within the next generation of privately owned vehicles. Among the year’s F1 requirements are a switch from V-8 to V-6 engines packaged with formulated electrical systems so that F1-2014 cars can meet the hybrid challenge successfully. Too, there’s a new limit on amount of fuel that an F1 car can contain per race (35 percent less than in recent years), and a new regulation has called for means capable of capturing, holding and re-using energy that can escape mostly from brake applications (Whenever a foot goes from gas pedal to use of brakes, a certain amount of energy seeks the atmosphere and so has been wasted but today can be held and re-used), also there’s mandatory employment of tires that can meet nearly all weather and surface conditions. Too, from dropping the nose shape of the F1 car this year, and narrowing the position of the car’s front wings while requiring a smaller rear wing, and there being minimum allowed car weight to 691 kilograms from 642 kg’s, all will reduce downforce and increase torque, allowing for faster yet more controllable gear shifting for the deep turn and for moving into imagined lanes right or left at higher speeds. So far, three F1-2014 GP events have occurred, the Australia, Maylaysia and Bahrain GP’s. This weekend is the China F1 GP, to be followed in May by the Spain and Monaco F1 GP weekends. Ahead in the championship competition so far, that’s Team Mercedes (U.K.), the drivers Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton, both F1 veterans . . . NBA---THIS week marks the end of another NBA regular season and the closest for team selection for 2013/14 playoffs and a shot at the year’s NBA championship title. Of the 30 NBA franchises, 16 (eight per conference) will be in said playoffs for rounds of play and then the finals. If we go only from end of the regular season findings, a guess that the now Western Conference-Southwest 62-19 San Antonio Spurs will represent the NBA Western Conference in final games is rational yet slightly suspect with the West’s 58-23 Oklahoma City Thunder close at the Spurs heels and the West’s 56-24 L.A. Clippers just two games back of the Thunder, therefore either of these three positioned for final games versus the East’s Central Division 55-26 Indiana Pacers or the East-Southeast’s 54-27 Miami Heat. While seeking the top of the West, the Spurs will be in a mix of challenges involving the Thunder, Clippers, the 54-27 Houston Rockets and the 53-25 Portland Trail Blazers, the 49-31 Golden State Warriors and the 49-32 Dallas Mavericks, while within the East the Pacers and the Heat will be in a mixing bowl comprising the 48-33 Toronto Raptors and 48-33 Chicago Bulls, the 44-36 Brooklyn Nets, 43-38 Washington Wizards, the 42-39 Charlotte Bobcats and the 37-44 Atlanta Hawks. In other words, the now top leading NBA franchises could get knocked out of the playoffs by teams that finished lower in regular season standings---in this regard, the NBA playoffs are nearly a clean slate, though set for an elite, for a collective of the 16 teams that made it to top positions within their conferences, but definitely for viewers the flames of professional basketball turned up highest and lasting into June. The conservative take for now is the Spurs and Pacers or Heat battling for the NBA championship title . . . MLB---EXCEPT for the American League West’s Houston Astros being at fifth position from having won but five of 13 games played to date, and the NL East’s Miami Marlins being at last place from a 5-9 record, the MLB clubs at the bottom of their respective divisions are a surprise against the run of pre-season predictions, for example, 2013’s World Series winning team, the Boston Red Sox, are in last place of the AL East today, at 5-8 no different than the Astros. Also expected to be in a better way after two weeks of play within the AL are the AL Central’s last place 4-7 Kansas City Royals, also the AL Central’s fourth place and 6-7 Cleveland Indians, and the AL West’s fourth position 6-7 Texas Rangers. Bottom of the pile surprises within the National league are the NL West’s Arizona Diamondbacks, last place, 4-11 (worst in either league), and the NL Central’s last place 4-8 Cincinnati Reds. But at the top, there isn’t a proportionate number of surprises. Of course, a surprise is that the NL Central’s leading team, the Milwaukee Brewers, they are the lead ball club re. both leagues at 10-3, but it isn’t a surprise that the AL West’s leading team, the 8-4 Oakland A’s, leads the AL today and holds third re. both leagues, or that the 7-6 N.Y. Yankees are leading the AL East, the 6-4 Detroit Tigers the AL Central, or that the 9-4 L.A. Dodgers are at first place within the NL West and second re. both leagues, meanwhile the 9-4 Atlanta Braves at the top of the NL East. END/ml

MLB: April Starts; Colorado Rockies, Going Forward // NBA: Best & the Rest; Nuggets of Value

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: April Starts; Colorado Rockies, Going Forward // NBA: Best & the Rest; Nuggets of Value. . .//. . MLB---IF a few MLB clubs owning deep and hot starts has been your mid-April wish, well, you haven’t much to your favor. Except for the National League East’s Washington Nationals being up by two wins, no division leading MLB club is ahead of a number two franchise by more than one won game. And from the seven to nine games that have been played by the 30 MLB clubs, eight are back of their respective division leading clubs by just one win, and only four clubs within both leagues are to the rear by four. This near-stasis, as if the 30 MLB franchises were roughly the same regarding skills and power, is reflected best within the American League East, where last year’s World Series winning team, the now 4-6 Boston Red Sox, is in last place, yet the Sox are behind first place team, the 5-5 N.Y. Yankees, by only a single won game. Presently, the NL’s Nationals are tied with the NL Central’s number one team, the Milwaukee Brewers, for the lead within both leagues, each at 7-2, while the Oakland A’s are atop the AL at 6-3. The A’s are also tied with the NL West’s number one team, the 6-3 S.F. Giants, for second best within either of the two leagues. So, April hasn’t been the meanest of months yet for any of MLB’s 30 clubs, in that 18 are still at and above .500, eight of which are above .600. Surprisingly, the four clubs that are behind by four games and so dwelling at the bottom are within the NL---the NL West’s 3-8 Arizona Diamondbacks, NL Central’s 3-6 Chicago Cubs plus 3-6 Cincinnati Reds, and the NL East’s 3-6 Philadelphia Phillies. Like irony? Last season’s worst among the worst, the AL West’s Houston Astros, they’re tied now with last season’s best, the Red Sox, at 4-6/.400. . . COLORADO ROCKIES---THE 6-3 S.F. Giants and the 6-4 L.A. Dodgers are at first and second place within the National League West, and, like the Dodgers, the 5-5/.500 Rockies are but one won game behind first place. Last year’s stats and recent games would suggest that the Giants pitching + the combined hitting and pitching excellence of the Dodgers could keep the standings of the three teams roughly the same throughout the current season, were it not for the hitting display of the Rockies during its five wins and the more than occasional sparks suggesting that the Rockies pitching staff can keep the number of opposing runs below those that the Rockies line-up can produce. Rockies RF Michael Cuddyer, who last season achieved the NL’s top batting average, is on a 10 game hitting streak, LF Carlos Gonzalez has an amazing 1K+ OPS, and lead-off hitter OF Charlie Blackmon, 3B Nolan Arenado and 2B D.J. LeMahieu have been purchasing RBI’s and been base runners = runs regularly, exceeding their mid-April numbers of last year. Meanwhile, except for the RH Wilton Lopez disaster of a few days ago (too many runs given away in his half-inning), the Rockies rotation and bull pen have been reducing ERA’s efficiently enough if not per game, contributing to Rockies wins being other than close, e.g., the Rockies 10-4 smash vs. the Chicago White Sox on Wednesday. . . //. . NBA---THE disparity between best and worst in the NBA is huge now, the Western Conference Southwest’s San Antonio Spurs on top with 61 won games, the Philadelphia 76er’s and Milwaukee Bucks at the bottom with 17 and 14 wins respectively (Ugh!). Too, the number of games that division second place teams are back of their number one is also suddenly and unpredictably wide; as examples, the East’s Southeast 40-38 Charlotte Bobcats are behind the Miami Heat by 13 won games, the East’s Central 46-32 Chicago Bulls are back of the Indiana Pacers by seven, and within the West the Southwest’s 52-26 Houston Rockets are behind the Spurs by eight. In addition, the West’s Northwest 51-28 Portland Trail Blazers are behind the Oklahoma City Thunder by six, and the West’s Pacific Division’s Golden State Warriors are behind the L.A. Clippers also by six. Clear, of course, is that no NBA franchise can catch up to the NBA’s top team, the Spurs, without the Spurs losing every game that it has left to play while the Thunder, four wins back of the Spurs, would have to win every game it has left to play. Surely when the season ends, the Spurs will still be on top of either conference, with either the Heat or the Pacers leading the East, the Pacers now being only one win up over the Heat. Another sure bet is that the West’s Pacific 55-24 L.A. Clippers, the East’s Atlantic 46-32 Toronto Raptors and 43-35 Brooklyn Nets, the East Southeast’s 40-38 Charlotte Bobcats and the East’s Central 46-32 Chicago Bulls will comprise the NBA-2013/14 playoffs. . . DENVER NUGGETS---TRACK the 34-24/.436 Denver Nuggets performances since March 14 of this year and the results will fail to indicate a high above-the-margin basketball team---seven wins, eight losses. But a concern here has been 11 games that the Nuggets were scheduled to play since March 14 against NBA teams that have obtained first and second place slots within their divisions---vs. the Heat, the Spurs twice, the Thunder, the Rockets x 2, Clippers x 2, Warriors x 2, and the Wizards. Of note is that winning the greater share of these 11 contests would mean that the Nuggets have indeed been a winning NBA franchise, in spite of it not having secured a playoff slot or finishing the season at or above .500. To date, the Nuggets are five wins, four losses within the framework of the 11 big challenges. Among the teams beaten by the Nuggets since March 14 are the Heat, the Clippers, the Rockets, the Wizards and the Warriors. Up ahead are games vs. the Clippers (April 15), and the Warriors (April 16). Too, during a pre-season game (October 10, 2013), the Nuggets defeated the Spurs, and in January of this year the Nuggets took down the Indiana Pacers. During the current season, the Nuggets also defeated the Raptors, the Nets and the Chicago Bulls. Plain to see, then, is that the Nuggets have defeated 10 of the NBA’s top 12 teams one or more times since October 10, to include each of the currently selected playoff franchises except for the 51-28 Portland Trail Blazers and the 40-38 Charlotte Bobcats. END/ml

MLB: Players To Watch, & Why; Colorado Rockies // NBA: Nearing The Wire; 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 . . . MLB: Players To Watch, & Why; Colorado Rockies // NBA: Nearing The Wire; Denver Nuggets. . . //. . MLB---IT’s been thought to be a kind of chicken or the egg question, whether it’s players, teams or overarching rule changes that can cause professional baseball to evolve two staeps forward and one back. Looking to the past, a starting pitcher throwing at 95mph or better for a strikeout record motivated many other starters to match that and that is what ahppened. Two years ago, a N.Y. Mets pitcher almost revived the knuckle ball as a highly desired mainstay for strike-outs---knuckle-ball revival retreated. And, several exposed illegal substance users forced up strict drug testing rules after setting up power-hitting as baseball’s wave of the future, causing batting and home records to be suspect. Too, a Mr. Moneybags invested so heavily and deeply for best players from the inhabited continents he created a rich uncle trend until Moneyball theorems arrived and big buck value was reduced greatly in several quarters of the game. Recently, many club managers received what they’ve wanted over the years, TV-replay on request. More than likely, as these and so many other examples could show, baseball’s evolution comes from multiple causes, the more interesting and pure being the contributions made by players reflecting the very best that a baseball athlete can deliver “in our time.” Were these players a technology, we’d call their accomplishments, “State-of-the-art.” Who, then, are top MLB players to watch this year for impacts that in addition to advancing baseball as a sport will also add to richness and enjoyment of the sport? Let’s begin with Detroit Tigers right-hand batter, infielder and three-time American League batting champion, Miguel Cabrera, his last season batting average .348. Cabrera is the second in MLB history to win a batting title across three seasons, the first being Nap Lajoie, 1901-04. Too, Cabrera is, according to scouting reports, still vital, still skilful and young enough to best the record for most career batting titles won, six, now that of the great Rogers Hornsby, 1920-25. A question is whether Cabrera can win a title with a batting average as high as Hornsby’s highest, .424. Right now, Cabrera’s three batting titles positions him alongside Stan Musial and Ty Cobb. Cabrera’s three-in-a-row accomplishment’s value to the game is also highlighted by the fact that Joe DiMaggio, Hank Aaron and Willy Mays hadn’t won three batting titles consecutively. And in a season before 2013, Cabrera became the second ballplayer to reach a .345 batting average while also accruing more than 130 RBI’s and 40 home runs, the other player to achieve that being the recently retired Colorado Rockies 1B, Todd Helton. . . Now to a threesome, the L.A. Angels Josh Hamilton, Albert Pujols and Mike Trout and the question of long-ball hitting power being the panacea for a winning baseball season. You’d think not given the Angels last season below .500 finish, just 78 wins across 162 games, but a single season rarely proves or disproves a concept. Trout closed with the highest batting average of the three players, .323, Pujol reaching .258, Hamilton, .250. The current season could demonstrate that adjustments to a new team configuration kept Pujols and Hamilton from reaching the potential shown when they played for the St. Louis Cardinals and the Texas Rangers, respectively. And, what will we learn from the Seattle Mariners gaining 2B Robinson Cano from the Yew York Yankees for a salary of $240 million across 10 years? Also, what will be seen from last year’s big winners upon the little hill? Detroit’s Max Scherzer won 21 games during MLB-2013, the Cardinals Adam Wainwright, 19, while 14 other hurlers won games in double-digits. Can they repeat? Moreover, 59 of 88 MLB pitchers completed MLB-2013 with under 4.0 ERA’s, and nearly two-thirds of these had ERA’s under 3.5, suggesting pitcher dominance of the MLB game. Will we see this again during MLB-2014? Also to observe, can a ballclub escape the very bottom of its league by data-mining in the manner that the Oakland A’s lifted and sustained over the years via the less can buy more concept if you know where to look? For this, watch the Houston Astros (On Monday, the Angels defeated the Astros, 9-1) . . . COLORADO ROCKIES---A great start in anything brings up the word “Consistency,” and we ask “Can the athlete, or team, gain a lot more than will be lost as a season continues?” Right now, the Colorado Rockies are third in the National League West, 4 wins, four losses and so at .500, but they are just one game back of first and second position teams, the 5-2 S.F. Giants and 5-3 L.A. Dodgers, and of the four won games three may be of a healthy 3-4 pattern, it is certainly reflective of the power recorded by the Rockies line-up last year and the potential noted in Rockies starting pitcher, Juan Nicasio, and that seen in relievers Rex Brothers, Adam Ottavino and LaTroy Hawkins. The Rockies RF Michael Cuddyer had the NL’s highest batting average of MLB-2013, .331. Rockies SS Troy Tulowitzki and LF Carlos Gonzalez followed with .312 and .302. Yesterday, the Rockies slammed the Chicago White Sox, 8-1, with Rockies pitcher Jordan Lyles not only getting the win, he went three for three at the plate and drove in two runs. April 4, Opening Day at Denver’s Coors Field, the Rockies beat the Arizona Diamondbacks, 12-2, with Rockies CF Charlie Blackmon going six for six. On April 6, the Rockies beat the DB’s again, 9-4, with 3B Nolan Arenado having delivered two home runs, perhaps a signal that his inconsistent hitting for value of last year won’t be a future stat. . . NBA---THE leads held by five of the six division leading teams of the NBA’s two conferences have shifted as the last weeks of NBA-2013/14 moved toward playoff billets being filled. Furthest ahead of a division’s number two team today within either conference are the West’s Southeast Miami Heat, 13 wins above the 40-37 Washington Wizards, although the West’s Southwest San Antonio Spurs leads the entire NBA with 60 won games over 17 losses, yet the Spurs are but eight wins above the West’s Southwest second place franchise, the 51-25 Houston Rockets. The Indiana Pacers are third in either league with regard to a lead above a second place team, seven ahead of the 45-32 Chicago Bulls. Next in line are the West’s Northwest Oklahoma City Thunder and the West’s Pacific L.A. Clippers tied at six won games above their second place franchises, the 50-28 Portland Trail Blazers and the 48-29 Golden State Warriors. Of the six division leading teams, throughout NBA-2013/14 it’s been the Toronto Raptors being only a few won games ahead of a number two franchise, always the Brooklyn Nets, the latter now 42-34 and only two wins behind the Raptors. Within the entire NBA, two teams are yet to win 20 games, the East’s Atlantic Division’s last place 17-60 Philadelphia 76ers and the East’s Central Division’s 16-63 Milwaukee Bucks. . . Denver Nuggets--- ON Sunday, the Nuggets lost to the Western Conference’s Southwest Houston Rockets, 130-125. The Rockets, now 51-25, are among 11 first and second place division teams that the Nuggets were to face between March 14 and its final game of the season vs. the West’s Pacific Division second place franchise, the now 48-29 Golden State Warriors, April 16. On March 14, the currently 33-44 Nuggets were in fourth place of the West’s Northwest Division, and under .500, where they are today in the standings. Knowing by mid-March that a 10th consecutive end-of-season playoff selection was outside the realm of possibility for them, the Nuggets have surely also known that winning or coming close to winning the lion’s share of games versus the 11 top NBA teams would restore credibility. Presently, of the aforementioned 11 games to be played, the Nuggets are three wins and four losses, with one of the losses occurring in overtime. Up ahead are games vs. the West’s Pacific first position team, the 55-22 L.A. Clippers, another against the Rockets, and two vs. the Warriors. From winning these remaining games of the cited 11, the Nuggets could finish the challenging segment of 11 games, 7-4, a favorable narrowing of the credibility gap. END/ml.

MLB: Top Rivals, The Race Is On // NBA: Playoffs & Conquest

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: Top Rivals, The Race Is On // NBA: Playoffs & Conquest. . . //. . MLB---WHEN explaining baseball to, say, a visitor from outside the U.S., who has only known soccer, cricket and Formula One racing, we sooner than later mention that Major League Baseball includes the American League and National League and that each of the two leagues includes three divisions; further, that each division has five ball clubs, and of the five in each there are always two that at the start of a season are noted as “rivals” for top division slots capable of guaranteeing a post-season position after each has played 162 games, April through September. Continuing our tutoring, we’d probably mention that in early-April of every MLB season these rivals are picked “informally” by fans and analysts, and usually from the previous year’s standings, a ranking that might not exist by mid-May. Out of the chute, then, for the American League East are the Boston Red Sox versus the N.Y. Yankees or the Tampa Bay Rays, and within the AL Central it’s the Detroit Tigers vs. the Cleveland Indians or Kansas City Royals. Inside the AL West, it’s the Oakland A’s vs. the Texas Rangers. Within the NL East, it’s the Atlanta Braves vs. the Washington Nationals. Inside the NL Central, it’s the St. Louis Cardinals vs. the Cincinnati Reds. For the NL West, there are the L.A. Dodgers against the Arizona Diamondbacks or the S.F Giants. Based on last year’s stats, rivals for the AL’s number one 2014 position are the Red Sox vs. the Tigers, and for the NL League Championship title, it’s the Cardinals against the Dodgers. As to the 2014 World Series, based on 2013 data only, it’s the Sox vs. the Cards. . . SO, where are these teams after games during MLB-2014’s first week of play? The aforementioned rivals are not true to form exactly, for instance, the AL East has the Sox on top, Rays in second position, but the Yankees are at the bottom of five. Regarding the AL Central, the Tigers are ahead, the Indians third, yet the Royals are number five. As for the AL West, whoa! the A’s are fourth, the Rangers third, at the top are the 3-0 Seattle Mariners (Last year, the Mariners had 71 wins, 91 losses, and were 19th in the standings). Within the NL East, the Nationals are now leading, and the Braves are third. Inside the NL Central, the Cards are second, the Reds fourth, and within the NL West, oops! the Diamondbacks are last, first position having gone to the 4-1 Dodgers. The Dodgers are best in the NL now and also first with regard to both leagues, advantaged by having played five games when all other MLB teams have played but two or three. The Mariners, they’ve begun atop the AL and are second re. both leagues, tied with the Nat’s. The NL East’s Nat’s haven’t lost any of their three games to date, nor have the Tigers lost their two games as of today. . . NBA---EXCEPT for the Eastern Conference’s 43-32 Toronto Raptors, the remaining five NBA division leading teams have accrued more than 50 games to date, the West’s Southwest San Antonio Spurs now leading with 59 wins, lowest of the five that of the East’s Southeast 52-22 Miami Heat. Of these five, then, is but a seven game difference, signaling close playoff games, all of them hard to predict a winner of. Not seen in any crystal balls today are there easy playoff rides, not even for the Spurs or the West’s Northwest 55-19 Oklahoma City Thunder, the West’s Pacific 54-22 L.A. Clippers or the East’s Central 53-23 Indiana Pacers. And, that which undergirds this notion is one word—“Consistency.” These teams have been high-end since the previous season and from when NBA-2013/14 began last October. Example, the Pacers and the Heat finished NBA-2012/13 among the East’s top three, and the Spurs, the Thunder and the Clippers finished within the West’s top four. And, a month after the current season began, the East’s Pacers and the Heat were leading their divisions by 12 and eight games respectively, and the West’s Spurs, Thunder and Clippers were atop their divisions, though by fewer games---three, two and one respectively. Come late January of 2014, these teams were still leading their divisions. Mid-March and early April, it’s been the same. But of particular note in all of this, is that the difference in won games among the five leading teams has been minor. Among each other, these teams have been fairly close in number of wins over losses. Even so, a recent Thunder versus Spurs contest may have indicated which of these playoff competing teams will prevail against the other, this: a Thunder pummeling of the Spurs, 106-94, which ended the Spurs 19-game winning streak and saw the Thunder’s Kevin Durant score 28 points, a 39th consecutive game during which Durant reached 25 or more points, a record for Durant and a Thunder record, as well. END/ml.

MLB: A Game That Speaks To All Of Us // NBA: Current Standings, "A Different View."

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: A Game That Speaks To All Of Us // NBA: Current Standings, "A Different View". . . // MLB---OUT from locker rooms and dugouts and onto playing fields begins a competition for determining which among 30 MLB clubs is best after each has played 162 games. Then, from distillation, which can reach an October shootout, a tradition that’s existed since 1903, when Boston won the World Series having defeated Pittsburgh, 5-3. But it’s April, 2014, and we are reminded of how local and not yet national or global pro- baseball can be in the first weeks of a season. It’s our town’s team that we care about most in April, a tribal thing: me, my family and friends, my city and my town’s big league franchise, with all those baseball connections to that which can exist in our personal lives, for instance, in spite of a past season’s dashed hopes we keep coming back. As a new season kicks in, we are in front of the TV or at a game, filled with hope and expectations against the possibility of many disappointments and our having to accept defeat, just as so many of us wake every day hopeful and eager to meet personal challenges, knowing that success or failure is in the balance. Then there’s the inevitable strikeout. We know that the best hitters will strike out more than they will ever get on base, that they will be at bat several hundred times between April and late September and very few will accrue more than 30 home runs after a team’s 162 games. Who in his or her personal life never strikes out, unless they stay in bed 24/7? Baseball mirrors that. And, how about the fact that a walk, a balk or a soft bunt can win a game, be the final win for taking a series, maybe game four gaining the WS title? Yes, what may seem to be the weakest and most uninteresting contribution toward a win can be that which takes us to the summit, to the top of our personal or team Everest, and maybe it’s the weaker partner at work, or at home, who makes that happen. Then there’s the experience of having viewed a moment of perfection, our seeing a hitter send a baseball deep into the stands; or, we observe an amazing slider having caused a powerful and skillful batter to slink away sullenly from the plate after strike three, thus a third out and runners left in scoring position. Yet enacted before us was that which we often aspire to be, simply to do as good batters and pitchers have done, to be the best that we can be under any situation, to train and prepare for that. Note, too, how baseball requires individual expertise, personal skill, the very best that an individual athlete can create by himself, and that baseball also demands maximum cooperation with others, e.g., that shortstop’s pick of a hit ball and his flip of it to a second baseman, who tags a runner and throws to first for the double play, or there’s that long throw from right field to a pitcher who flips the ball to a catcher, who tags a runner for the third out. This individual prowess + cooperation with others within any group, and surely within any family, is surely a success component. Consider also the team that’s been winning 3-0, starter and relievers having combined for a no-hitter until during the last half of the ninth an opposing team loads the bases and the next batter delivers a home run, game over, the opposing team has won 4-3 from the Grand Slam. What’s baseball telling us here? First, that the game is unfair, reminding that the world beyond baseball is also unfair. Second, we can brace against the unfairness in any situation or relationship with proper insurance, for even when ahead we are best served by a margin most difficult for an opponent to overcome. Had the 3-0 team gone into the ninth inning at 5-0, it would have had some insurance for the win providing that following the Grand Slam-HR were strikeouts ending the game, final score 5-4. Okay, enough of the philosopher’s curse. Here are some stats to roll with as MLB-2014 unfurls---Most games won during 2013? That was by World Series winner the American League’s Boston Red Sox having tied with the National League’s St. Louis Cardinals, 97 won games each. Of the 30 MLB clubs, 17 won more games than they lost and so were above .500, leaving 13 teams below that mark and so 13 finishing MLB-2013 as losing ball clubs. And, as MLB-2012 ended, the following year’s WS winning club, the Red Sox, they were among the below .500, having won only 69 games. The NL’s Cardinals, they finished MLB-2012 with 88 wins, eighth in the rankings. Also during MLB-2012, the Washington Nationals had the most won games, 98, but during MLB-2013 they finished with 86, ranked seventh. . . It could be anyone’s game now, which is why April is NOT the cruelest month!. . . // NBA---IF it’s true that there’s nothing new under the sun, then what’s proposed here has been done before, dividing the 30 NBA teams into four categories, “Very Best,” “Best,” “At The Margin” and “Bottom Dwellers,” basing the positioning on won games for the season. For example, atop the league now re. won games are the San Antonio Spurs, Oklahoma City Thunder, the L.A. Clippers, the Indiana Pacers and the Miami Heat, each of the five having won 50 or more games, the Spurs leading with 58, and so these teams can be considered “Very Best.” The next tier, a.k.a., “Best,” includes the Houston Rockets, Portland Trail Blazers, Golden State Warriors, Memphis Grizzlies, Dallas Mavericks, Phoenix Suns, Chicago Bulls, Toronto Raptors and the Brooklyn Nets, all nine with 40 or more wins. Next comes the “At The Margin” crowd, which includes the Minnesota Timberwolves, Denver Nuggets, New Orleans Pelicans, N.Y. Knicks, Washington Wizards, Charlotte Bobcats, Atlanta Hawks, the Cleveland Cavaliers, all eight with 30 or more won games. And, the “Bottom Dwellers?” That’s the Utah Jazz, Sacramento Kings, L.A. Lakers, Boston Celtics, Philadelphia 76ers, Orlando Magic, Detroit Pistons, the Milwaukee Bucks, all eight with less than 30 wins, lowest being the 76ers and their 16 wins, then the Bucks, 14. Sure, all that’s being said here is that there are different ways to view the NBA, different ways to dress the cat. Going deeper, we can argue that among the lower tier teams there is still much prowess, much skill. The Raptors, though having least number of wins within its category, they’ve been leading the East’s Atlantic Division for many weeks, and the Denver Nuggets, though mid-point within its category, they’ve had numerous season packets of superb performances, they are far from being a deadbeat team, to wit: seven and five game winning streaks, and having defeated most of the top NBA teams during the year at least once, among them, the Thunder, the Pacers, the Clippers, the Warriors, and the Rockets. END/ml