NBA 2012

[BruceW]

miami will win tonight!

and tonight!!

and tonight!!!!!

:excited:

hey, hey, hey,

you're not giddy anymore, you're outright testy!! Go OKC, make em play 6

Edited June 21, 2012 by BruceW

[PHILLYQ]

Is it just me, or could this series easily be 2-2 or even 3-1 favoring OKC? A play here or there and we could be talking about Durant getting his first ring.

[Aggie87]

Is it just me, or could this series easily be 2-2 or even 3-1 favoring OKC? A play here or there and we could be talking about Durant getting his first ring.

I think you mean a correct call here or there? Seemed like all three OKC losses had controversial calls that favored the Heat, IMO. Just a coincidence, I'm sure.

[PHILLYQ]

Is it just me, or could this series easily be 2-2 or even 3-1 favoring OKC? A play here or there and we could be talking about Durant getting his first ring.

I think you mean a correct call here or there? Seemed like all three OKC losses had controversial calls that favored the Heat, IMO. Just a coincidence, I'm sure.

A different call, sure, but just missed shots, rebounds grabbed or not, etc. The last three games came down to the last minute, so anybody could have won those games.

[Chalupa]

25 point Heat lead with 2 minutes to go in the 3rd. Not looking good for the Thunder.

Nice of LBJ to tell Chalmers to stop waving to the crowd.

Down 24 to start the 4th. Greatest NBA elimination game comeback ever coming up??

Mike Miller on FIRE!

[Soulstation1]

Howard better get some minutes

[Chalupa]

Here comes Howard!

And Bob McAdoo!

[PHILLYQ]

Kudos to LBJ and the Heat.

[Quincy]

Kudos to LBJ and the Heat.

Yup. And what a relief that we don't have to hear about his lack of ring. Although I'm sure the media can get hot & bothered about what it means if they don't repeat.

[JETman]

YAY! Basketball's over.

[Matthew]

Howard better get some minutes

It was nice to see that Ronny Turiaf got those three minutes of playing time also, he's been through a lot.

[Bright Moments]

miami will win tonight!

and tonight!!

and tonight!!!!!

:excited:

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[BruceW]

miami will win tonight!

and tonight!!

and tonight!!!!!

:excited:

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ok, you were right!

[Soulstation1]

Howard and Jalen Rose in locker room last night

Freakin Cool

JH "We did it Jay"

Edited June 23, 2012 by Soulstation1

[JSngry]

Ok, I've had issues with Mark Cuban for a while now, but this is superb.

http://www.midwestsportsfans.com/2012/06/video-mark-cuban-destroys-skip-bayless-on-first-take/

[Big Wheel]

Ok, I've had issues with Mark Cuban for a while now, but this is superb.

http://www.midwestsportsfans.com/2012/06/video-mark-cuban-destroys-skip-bayless-on-first-take/

Funny how Cuban comes off as semi-likable only when he shares the screen with the Evil Keebler Elf.

[Noj]

As much as I might try to have against him, Cuban really flexed some hoops knowledge and exposed Bayless for the worthless, uninsightful TMZ-level basketball gossiper he is.

[Big Wheel]

I'm pretty surprised they bothered to invite him on. The whole point of the Bayless/Smith duo is that it's just dumb theater repeating the same CW over and over again (I admit that watching Smith go into manufactured outrage mode is a guilty pleasure). Having guests who one of them has savaged in the past like Chris Bosh adds a touch of realism to the whole fake exercise, but I've never seen a guest demolish the whole premise of the show like Cuban just did. I guess the producers figure that anyone who can't see through the schtick won't get that Cuban is tearing apart the whole concept that they find so compelling, and that everyone else will be entertained at the spectacle even though (or perhaps because) they see right through the BS narratives.

Edited June 23, 2012 by Big Wheel

[papsrus]

Watched the Cuban segment(s). Couple of thoughts:

There's no doubt that Bayless is a contrarian for the sake of being a contrarian, and that he will contort facts to fit the contrarian view of the day. But Cuban's claim that a player's desire or, more generally, the "human" element, plays no role at all in sports, and that victory or defeat all boils down to X's and O's, is equally myopic.

Jordan didn't win three straight, twice, simply because of X's and O's. The Miracle on Ice U.S. hockey team didn't beat the Big Red Machine simply because of X's and O's. And anyone who watched the Heat bury the Thunder could see that LeBron James had a will to win that elevated not just his game, but elevated the whole team. There is a human story to be told. It is not simply because of X's and O's. Something else was in play. Desire/fear/anger/joy/love and all the rest.

I'm actually surprised Cuban thinks it all comes down to X's and O's. X's and O's play a big part, but if that was all it was about, sports would not be nearly as compelling as it often is. In fact, overcoming X's and O's is often what it is about. Overcoming a superior opponent (didn't everyone and his mother say the Thunder were the better team going in to this?)

And Steven A. Smith pointing out that Cuban only knows the X's and O's as well as he does because he owns the team and the coaches are showing him basically how to break down tape rings true to me. Maybe Cuban was born a basketball genius and could break down tape at 2 1/2 (like his son apparently can), but I doubt it. Someone showed him what X's and O's are all about, and in all likelihood (since he owns the team) it was the coaches who work for him.

Cuban may come across as some kind of populist for bashing "the media," but he was dead wrong in dismissing the human element in sports.

IMO

Edited June 23, 2012 by papsrus

[Quincy]

But Cuban's claim that a player's desire or, more generally, the "human" element, plays no role at all in sports, and that victory or defeat all boils down to X's and O's, is equally myopic.

"Wanting to win" is not the only human quality. When Cuban says "execution" that doesn't imply that players are robots. Executing a play require intelligence, both in the ability to read a playbook along with ability to quickly see what's happening on the court and adjust accordingly. Execution also almost always comes through hard work in practice. The willingness to work hard to reach a state of muscle memorization is also a very human and special quality.

What Cuban is railing against is the "wanting it more" phrase which this bozos say over and over. As far as players in the series, Derek Fisher may have wanted it more than LeBron just to stick it to Jimmy Buss or maybe because realizes he may not be back. Juwan Howard may have wanted it more because it's probably his last year and he's never won. But both men old and less mobile with less talent than LeBron. The "wanting it" doesn't have as much to do with the other things that lead to winning.

In the US Open did winner Webb Simpson want to win more than Tiger? It didn't look like it. Tiger pumps his fist when he makes a good shot and swears at himself in the 3rd person (not so much this time) when he fails. Webb is Christian so he's not going to swear at himself (not sure if he goes 3rd person). Tiger wanting it more (if he did) doesn't do much good when your swing is screwed up or you can't make putts. Regarding another Big Red Machine, if the wind had been blowing right to left at Fenway Park in Game 6 1975 and blown Fisk's winning home run foul, would it have been for lack of desire? Of course not, sometimes weather & luck play a roll too. In basketball the ball bounces the wrong way many times.

As far as LeBron, think of the following cases.

1) The destruction of the Pistons in Eastern Conference Finals.

2) Getting swept by the Spurs afterwards.

3) Last year vs. Dallas.

4) This year vs. Miami.

I really doubt there much change at all in "wanting it." The Spurs were just a far better team with a great coach in the 2nd case. What angered Cuban about the 3rd case is that it gives no credit to the many human abilities that helped stop LeBron and make him look like he wanted it less - the hard work in practice, drawing up the plays by thinking creative humans, and yes, humans play defense. It usually takes a greater desire to play defense than offense since it's not as much fun (at least for most players), as it does to practice hard. And I imagine it took a lot of hard practice over the years for LeBron to develop those dandy one handed bank shots from all sorts of angles that he finished like every freaking time in this series. Practicing hard is very human quality, and I didn't hear Cuban deny that element at all in the segment.

X's & O's are (created by, and carried out by) people too!

Edited June 23, 2012 by Quincy

[Big Wheel]

Watched the Cuban segment(s). Couple of thoughts:

There's no doubt that Bayless is a contrarian for the sake of being a contrarian, and that he will contort facts to fit the contrarian view of the day. But Cuban's claim that a player's desire or, more generally, the "human" element, plays no role at all in sports, and that victory or defeat all boils down to X's and O's, is equally myopic.

Jordan didn't win three straight, twice, simply because of X's and O's. The Miracle on Ice U.S. hockey team didn't beat the Big Red Machine simply because of X's and O's. And anyone who watched the Heat bury the Thunder could see that LeBron James had a will to win that elevated not just his game, but elevated the whole team. There is a human story to be told. It is not simply because of X's and O's. Something else was in play. Desire/fear/anger/joy/love and all the rest.

I'm actually surprised Cuban thinks it all comes down to X's and O's. X's and O's play a big part, but if that was all it was about, sports would not be nearly as compelling as it often is. In fact, overcoming X's and O's is often what it is about. Overcoming a superior opponent (didn't everyone and his mother say the Thunder were the better team going in to this?)

And Steven A. Smith pointing out that Cuban only knows the X's and O's as well as he does because he owns the team and the coaches are showing him basically how to break down tape rings true to me. Maybe Cuban was born a basketball genius and could break down tape at 2 1/2 (like his son apparently can), but I doubt it. Someone showed him what X's and O's are all about, and in all likelihood (since he owns the team) it was the coaches who work for him.

Cuban may come across as some kind of populist for bashing "the media," but he was dead wrong in dismissing the human element in sports.

IMO

This is talking past Cuban a bit. I don't hear Cuban saying that coaching, play-calling, good execution, etc. are "all" that matters in determining outcomes in sports, but rather that stuff purporting to be legitimate sports analysis that relies heavily on things like emotions and "will" (and this makes up a very heavy chunk of the narrative-based discussion that ESPN peddles) is almost always facile and even unfalsifiable. It operates on the plane of heads I win tails you lose. Whenever the team wins, the will critic can always say "they had more heart and wanted it more," and whenever they lose despite appearing to "want it more," he can always fall back on blaming this or that player's lack of ability, or specific plays that weren't executed, etc.

That's not to say that emotions don't matter at all in determining who wins and loses. But insofar as they do matter it's laughable to claim that ESPN or any other sports media org has any kind of a handle on how they translate to victories. Yes, Michael Jordan's personality in retrospect looks very much like he had the mythical "killer instinct" so beloved of sports reporting. But how do we know he simply wanted a title more than Reggie Miller or Patrick Ewing? Patrick Ewing is the guy who was being scolded by John Starks's mother for screaming at Starks on the court after getting ejected, and responded that if Starks ever got ejected again he'd "smack the living daylights out of him." Does that sound like a guy who doesn't want to win as much as Michael Jordan?

The bit with Cuban's 2-year-old is simply pointing out that Bayless and Smith do virtually zero analysis of the plays themselves. First Take is 99.5% personality-based speculation. When LeBron doesn't hit three shots in a row, a rational observer would notice stuff like that missing three in a row is not a particularly unusual outcome, that maybe the shots were not from particularly favorable spots for James, that James was being guarded by an elite perimeter defender for two of them, and that the Heat had poor floor spacing that led to the shots being tightly contested. Whereas Bayless immediately sees this as an indication that James is "shrinking" and "not ready for the moment." While Mark Cuban has lots of money at his disposal for things like film review that allows him to acquire expertise at analyzing these things in depth, it's not like First Take couldn't employ similar people if it wanted to. This is simply not an excuse for Bayless and Smith's analytical incompetence. ESPN.com gets lots of good, fact-based analysis from the people at TrueHoop TV, it just knows that spending 98% of its airtime on the stuff that drives 98% of the outcome doesn't attract viewers like, say, having That Loud Guy At The Barbershop and the Obnoxious Keebler Elf ranting at each other about "heart" and personality defects for an hour.

Edited June 23, 2012 by Big Wheel

[papsrus]

This is talking past Cuban a bit. I don't hear Cuban saying that coaching, play-calling, good execution, etc. are "all" that matters in determining outcomes in sports, but rather that stuff purporting to be legitimate sports analysis that relies heavily on things like emotions and "will" (and this makes up a very heavy chunk of the narrative-based discussion that ESPN peddles) is almost always facile and even unfalsifiable. ...

That's not to say that emotions don't matter at all in determining who wins and loses. But insofar as they do matter it's laughable to claim that ESPN or any other sports media org has any kind of a handle on how they translate to victories. ....

I agree that First Take is a light on actual analysis (is there any at all?) and heavy on Bayless' contrived controversies and touchy-feely stuff. It's a morning fluff show.

I disagree, however, that this sort of thing extends to "all" media, as Cuban proclaimed (in a sweeping generalization of the sort he was accusing Bayless of making), or even all of ESPN.

The network's NFL coverage is fairly good on the X's and O's, I think, with former players and coaches breaking down tape for viewers, etc. They also do a pretty decent job in their baseball analysis -- with former players and coaches breaking down pitching technique, location, batting technique, etc. Maybe they should do more, but it's not like it doesn't exist at all, as Cuban claimed.

And while he may not have said that X's and O's are the only thing that matters, what he did say pretty clearly was that the will to win, or "wanting it more" than your opponent has nothing to do with the outcome of a game.

I disagree. I think Miami drew a great deal of motivation from their failure last year, and that Oklahoma City may very well succeed next year in no small part because they will derive motivation from their failure this year. This sort of thing -- the will to win, if you want, or imposing your will on your opponent -- has something to do with winning and losing, me thinks. You hear athletes and coaches talk about it all the time. It must mean something.

"The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a person's determination."

-- Tommy Lasorda

"It is not the size of a man but the size of his heart that matters."

-- Evander Holyfield

"Your biggest opponent isn't the other guy. It's human nature."

-- Bobby Knight

"I always felt that my greatest asset was not my physical ability, it was my mental ability."

-- Bruce Jenner

[Big Wheel]

This sort of thing -- the will to win, if you want, or imposing your will on your opponent -- has something to do with winning and losing, me thinks. You hear athletes and coaches talk about it all the time. It must mean something.

A dangerous line of thinking. I hear athletes and coaches talk all the time about how Jesus Christ must have intervened in the outcome of games as a result of their unwavering faith in him; does the fact that they talk about it all the time mean there must be something to their idea?

The "will to win" fallacy also runs rampant in bad scholarship around military issues. Here's IR scholar Robert Farley:

Will provides a simple, easy to understand, and utterly non-quantifiable explanation for outcomes. Lazy arguments will always be more popular than complex arguments. Second, the idea that Will is determinative of outcomes fits easily into a set of pop culture notions about success and victory. Finally, Will is compatible with a masculinist notions of conflict, combat, and victory that have roots in fascist thought.

It is common to hear the refrain, especially in wingnutty circles, that no war has ever been won by a country that lacked Will. Why did the French lose? Not because of insufficient doctrine or poor organization or poor intelligence, but because they lacked Will. Why did the Athenians lose? Because they lacked the Will to do what was necessary on Sicily. What must we do to win in Iraq? Demonstrate our Will. It’s fair to say that this is an explanation for victory and defeat that is wholly immune to any evidentiary evaluation. There is, simply put, no way to measure national Will. The explanation ends up being circular, as defeat demonstrates that a country lacks Will. It is simple, easy, unverifiable, and unfalsifiable.

While undoubtedly losing last year was useful motivation for the Heat there's no way to measure just what would have gone differently if the motivation had been a little less. Where it's very easy to look at the games and pinpoint several causal factors that have only a very indirect relationship to Will.

-The high-energy lineup that emerged with Mario Chalmers and Joel Anthony only at the end of 2011 got even better at defending in 2012 as the players got more experience.

-The play at PG was stronger; Chalmers managed to cut down on many of his more egregious mistakes while shooting well from behind the arc.

-Shane Battier was a consistently strong defender and gave the Heat another perimeter scoring threat with fewer of the liabilities of James Jones and Mike Miller.

-LeBron greatly augmented his game in the post after working with Hakeem Olajuwon over the summer.

-LeBron and Wade figured out how to play together and made what was an excellent fast break game into an unstoppable death machine.

Even with all of this the Thunder had a good chance to win this Finals had it not been for several key changes by Spoelstra that exploited the weaknesses of the Thunder. I was skeptical of benching Anthony entirely in the Finals, but it worked; having to worry about doubling LeBron constantly on the block took Ibaka out of his post game, and he consistently failed to come out to the perimeter to challenge Battier, giving him wide-open looks. They also relentlessly attacked Durant's defense and succeeded at getting him into foul trouble, and did the same with the best Thunder wing defender (Sefolosha) in Game 5. Scott Brooks eventually gave up playing Sefolosha because he was desperate for more offensive firepower from James Harden and Derek Fisher, but this just didn't work.

To be honest (and this is taking nothing away from LeBron) I think the Heat got moderately lucky in game 5 with all the open 3s going in. The game this reminded me most of was their regular season game 1/17/12 against the Spurs. Down 17 14 at the half with Wade out, suddenly everything started going in in the third quarter:

While there were adjustments made at halftime, a lot of this was just a fluke. Gregg Popovich's defense wasn't notably bad; the basketball gods just decided to have everyone hitting from distance. The Heat got lucky enough to approach that touch in Game 5.

Edited June 24, 2012 by Big Wheel

[papsrus]

This sort of thing -- the will to win, if you want, or imposing your will on your opponent -- has something to do with winning and losing, me thinks. You hear athletes and coaches talk about it all the time. It must mean something.

A dangerous line of thinking. I hear athletes and coaches talk all the time about how Jesus Christ must have intervened in the outcome of games as a result of their unwavering faith in him; does the fact that they talk about it all the time mean there must be something to their idea?

The "will to win" fallacy also runs rampant in bad scholarship around military issues. Here's IR scholar Robert Farley:

Will provides a simple, easy to understand, and utterly non-quantifiable explanation for outcomes. Lazy arguments will always be more popular than complex arguments. Second, the idea that Will is determinative of outcomes fits easily into a set of pop culture notions about success and victory. Finally, Will is compatible with a masculinist notions of conflict, combat, and victory that have roots in fascist thought.

It is common to hear the refrain, especially in wingnutty circles, that no war has ever been won by a country that lacked Will. Why did the French lose? Not because of insufficient doctrine or poor organization or poor intelligence, but because they lacked Will. Why did the Athenians lose? Because they lacked the Will to do what was necessary on Sicily. What must we do to win in Iraq? Demonstrate our Will. It’s fair to say that this is an explanation for victory and defeat that is wholly immune to any evidentiary evaluation. There is, simply put, no way to measure national Will. The explanation ends up being circular, as defeat demonstrates that a country lacks Will. It is simple, easy, unverifiable, and unfalsifiable.

Interesting, although whatever its motivations, this doesn't argue that Will doesn't exist (or, by extension, that it plays no role in outcomes). It simply questions whether A) Will can by itself determine or explain an outcome, and B) what is the moral/ethical basis of Will (in some instances), I suppose.

I'd say that associating "the will to win" or "wanting it more than the other guy" with religious zealotry and/or fascism in every case is fallacy, though. As the sole explanation for winning or losing, sure, it's bunk. But that's entirely a different thing than saying it can play some role. As can X's and O's. And clearly Cuban was saying it plays no role at all.

Who knew the NBA could be such an exercise in existentialism?

[papsrus]

To be honest (and this is taking nothing away from LeBron) I think the Heat got moderately lucky in game 5 with all the open 3s going in. The game this reminded me most of was their regular season game 1/17/12 against the Spurs. Down 17 at the half with Wade out, suddenly everything started going in in the third quarter: ...

Well, I'm coming here for my NBA analysis from now on. Nice breakdown. But I'd guess that Cuban might say luck has nothing to do with winning or losing, too.