NBA: Spurs Ahead At Finals, 3-1; MLB: NL, AL, Which Is Best?; Colorado Rockies, Suddenly Ascending.

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: Spurs Ahead At Finals, 3-1; // MLB: NL, AL, Which Is Best?; Colorado Rockies, Suddenly Ascending . . . // . . NBA---THE Miami Heat lost to the San Antonio Spurs last night, 107-86, landing where the Heat’s elimination from the NBA 2013/14 Finals may be a game away. It appeared that the Heat failed to jack up, to regenerate and capture the skills and the drive that was evident as means for getting to the post-season and the Finals. As last night progressed toward the Heat’s 21 point deficit, surely analysts and fans were asking, “Where’s the Heat’s brilliance that knighted them as collector of NBA championships?” One could say that the Heat lost to themselves, to a fatigue that any team could acquire without full awareness of its existence, that the Heat needed more rest after games one through three vs. the Spurs. Fact: the Heat wasn’t so much off their game as they were overtaken by a better team, by players offering up the unexpected, delivering that which wasn’t seen repeatedly in earlier contests. It was as if Spurs Head Coach, Gregg Popovich, told his team, “Don’t set a pattern, keep the Heat guessing,” adding that the enablers for this had to be “speed and control,” keeping the Heat at the effect of the Spurs controlling the game from tip-off, and via emphasis on “fast” in the “fast break,” and on “be there before the opposition gets there” re. the defense. In the offense, it was the Spurs Kahwi Leonard often front, center and up, dominating and putting up frequency of points, he scored in double digits almost effortlessly, yet Spurs Tony Parker and Tim Duncan escaped to positions for their shots netting a combined 29 points, Duncan delivering 11 rebounds. Deliberately, or by accident, it seemed that the Spurs had activated a rotational defense leaving space for the Heat’s top shooters to go for the field goal or for a layup but without the time and space for enough shooting accuracy. From this, the Heat’s James, Wade and Allen took the opportunities given but couldn’t connect ball to basket as often as in previous games, the result too many blanks in spite of James scoring 28 points, Bosh, 12, Wade, 10. The key to knocking off the Heat could be surprise + speed, thus avoidance of predictability, being where the Heat can’t arrive first in the offense or defense, where space and time are sufficiently available for the anti-Heat hurl or layup, where Heat shooters are lured into ideal shooting positions but pressured by not having enough time for the best of their skills to emerge, the outcome those “blanks.” Game Five, this Sunday, at San Antonio, seven pm. . . / . . MLB---WHEN it comes to number of won games, it appears that the American League has been leading the National League this year, though not by much, now with a total of 498 won games compared with the NL’s total being 489, this with the AL West’s 173 wins being ahead of each of the other five divisions re. won games, the NL West being closest---166 wins. Least number of won games recorded by a division today? That’s the NL East’s 160. The NL East’s leading team, the Washington Nationals, has the second lowest number of won games, 35, just one win over the AL Central’s number one franchise, the 34-28 Detroit Tigers. But the top team within both leagues is not of the AL West, it’s the number one club within the NL West, the San Francisco Giants, which has 43 won games, and 24 losses. Presently, the AL West’s Oakland A’s are the only other franchise to accrue 40 or more wins, their record being 40-26. The other side of this contains the NL West’s Arizona Diamondbacks having lost 40 games to date, and the AL East’s Tampa Bay Rays, 42. . . // . . Colorado Rockies---THE NL West’s currently number three club, the 31-35 Colorado Rockies, are not singing the blues today, though they finished a 10 game homestand at 3-7, following a negative road trip. That’s because the Rockies just split a series this week with the National League East’s number two team, the now 34-31 Atlanta Braves, rather than lose all four games after being at the losing end of back-to-back series versus the NL West’s 29-40 Arizona Diamondbacks and then the 35-33 L.A. Dodgers. Of particular reason for the hoorah is that the two of four games won by the Rockies were 8-2 and 10-3, that is, 18 runs accrued by the Rockies in two days, and the eight achieved in that first win were mostly from singles and extra-base hits becoming RBI’s, i.e., from base-runners, not the home run hitter. So, the ice-cutter arrived, it busted a Rockies slump, a surprise turnaround being that of RH Jhoulys Chacin holding the Braves to zip in seven innings of the 10-3 victory. Suddenly spirited, the Rockies have a tough string of games ahead, six away from home versus the NL West’s first position 43-24 S.F. Giants and the NL West’s second place 35-33 Dodgers, then three games at home against the NL Central’s top club, the 40-27 Milwaukee Brewers. END/ml