ESPN NBA

Posted by Kelly Dwyer

My living room is an NBA junkie's dream, and a girlfriend's nightmare (speaking of which, Happy Birthday, Genevee). Not only does it play host to a TV that is usually blaring an average of seven games a night from Halloween until late April ("and then the Playoffs start, babe, and that goes until late June. And then I have to watch the Draft ..."), but it houses hundreds of DVD cases replete with NBA games both young and old. It used to be worse, as the space was full of VHS tapes as well, but I've spent the bulk of this summer converting that analog goodness into digital sheen. Actually, it used to be much worse, but a downtown Chicago flood took out about a third of my collection a little over six years ago.

Something good has to come out of all this - besides, of course, the accrued knowledge and the ability to go "ah-HA!" in the midst of a message board argument - so I thought I'd break down some of the more interesting (if, oft-forgotten) games in recent NBA history during this little turn at TrueHoop. I'm going to start with a matchup between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Portland Trail Blazers, from February 29th, 2000. It was the day this album came out, it was a matchup of two teams riding 11-game winning streaks, and it was the beginning of the end for a Blazer team that had legitimate title aspirations.

1st Quarter, 12:00: Shaquille O'Neal will jump center for the Lakers, with Glen Rice and AC Green at the forwards, with Ron Harper and Kobe Bryant in the backcourt. O'Neal's counterpart is Arvydas Sabonis, with Rasheed Wallace and Scottie Pippen up front, with Steve Smith at shooting guard and Damon Stoudamire at the point. Dick Stockton is excited. Cheryl Miller offers some news on Blazer forward Brian Grant's foot (still sore), Danny Ainge cracks wise about Miller being unable to pronounce "plantar fasciitis." Somewhere in Indiana, Reggie Miller decides never to put on a Boston Celtic uniform. He doesn't know why, but in seven years it will all make sense to him.

1Q, 11:57: The Blazers control the tip. Tim Donaghy is in the refereeing crew, which saddens me for some reason. Portland has won two of three over Los Angeles thus far in the season, but with several players injured on both sides, this is the first revelatory pairing of the two teams.

1Q, 10:57: Ron Harper airballs a jumper as Scottie Pippen closes out on his former teammate. Like many, I thought Pip would be the key to a Blazer championship in 2000, mainly because the NBA loosened its stipulations about playing zone defense on the strong side of the floor entering 1999-00 (making it easier for someone like Pippen to help on Tim Duncan), and partially I thought the Lakers would take a full year to learn the Triangle offense (designed in part to use that sort of strong side aggression against itself).

1Q, 8:57: The Lakers were ahead of the Triangle curve, as evidenced three minutes in when the Lakers turn a strong-side double and sometimes-triple team on Shaq into a screen/roll with Kobe and an open 18-footer for AC Green.

1Q, 7:30: It's been so long, and he's rehabbed his image so effectively, that I've forgotten what used to bug me so much about Damon Stoudamire: he shoots too much, and can't make an entry pass to save his life.

1Q, 6:52: There is a Blazer fan in a Santa Claus suit at the game. He's got a sign that makes mention of creating a list, checking it twice, and doing something horrible to Shaquille O'Neal. Also, it's February 29th.

1Q, 5:40: Brian Shaw, the first Laker off the bench, scores on a nice reverse layup. The TNT crew is quick to quote Phil Jackson, who was always quick with his praise for the heady guard. I love this. Shaw was a Trail Blazer the year before, and played a total of five minutes all season. He signs with a Division/Conference/Championship rival the next summer, and helps put Portland away.

1Q, 3:40: It's so nice to see Shaq in basketball shape, in MVP form, and still needing to push off of Sabonis to get a shot off. Arvydas, by the way, was called for the foul. Who says Tim Donaghy's a rogue? His calls fall right in line with every other ref in the NBA.

1Q, 3:20: Whippet-thin Jermaine O'Neal enters the game for Portland. I think this was the game where I realized that O'Neal - who always seemed to shoot lefty in the few minutes I observed him - wasn't left-handed. Halfway through "The Year of the Resurrection." A few people will get that quote. Most of them were probably running NBA websites during the summer of 1999.

1Q, 2:22: Hubie Brown is aghast at a 14-foot lob pass Greg Anthony threw at Steve Smith. I share in his aghastiation.

22-20, Portland up, after one quarter.

2Q, 11:00: Even after 13 minutes, it's pretty obvious that all the bad sportswriter clichés about having too many hands for one basketball are rearing their ugly heads. The Trail Blazers just can't wait to get shots up - even players (Greg Anthony, I'm looking at you; so stop scratching at that) that aren't known for their offense. There's just no system in place, only attempts at taking advantage of mismatches, screen/roll, and transition offense. Brian Shaw, meanwhile, has seven points. He could never get a shot off in this Blazer offense.

2Q, 10:10: Jermaine O'Neal takes two right-handed shots, makes one.

2Q, 8:30: Derek Fisher hits a high-arching 3-pointer. You can pretty much tell about halfway into to every 3-pointer he takes if he's going to make it or not. It's all about the arc. Try taping a game and pausing his shots when the ball is halfway between him and the rim - if the ball is bringing rain, it's going in. And, yes, I play that little game with the pause button just about every chance I get. Now it's in YOUR head!

2Q, 7:02: Phil Jackson is livid at Donaghy, yelling at him. "How could you endanger the sanctity of the game seven years from now? Why are you creating PTI fodder seven years in advance! PTI's not even on the air, yet! Tony Kornheiser still writes columns! Why are you making it so that Kelly Dwyer has to answer for you everywhere he goes in the summer of 2007? It's 2000! He's just a college boy! He just got a new Steely Dan album! Leave him be!" Pretty sure that's what Phil said. Lakers up three.

2Q, 6:00: Bonzi Wells is confident, aggressive, inefficient. Meanwhile, Hubie Brown is hawking your every move: "the Blazers are 0-for-5 on lob passes."

2Q, 3:50: That old Phil Jackson bugaboo is keeping Portland in the game: the Lakers cannot guard the screen and roll. Still, Phil will take his five-man offense over Portland's two-man (with the other three just standing around) offense.

2Q, 3:32: The Blazers are 1-of-6 on lob passes. Scottie Pippen can pass, and Rasheed Wallace sure can jump. Sh-weet.

2Q, 3:00: Donaghy and Etan Thomas' best friend (Ken Mauer) just missed a blatant over-and-back call when Pippen forces Kobe Bryant into dribbling the ball off of the back of Bryant's left knee (don't ask). Kobe feels bad, agrees with an angry Pippen, and gives the ball back to Portland and says something about "looking out for the best interests of the game." Donaghy overrules him and gives Portland the ball, plus four extra points. I dozed off for a bit, there, so only about half of this paragraph actually happened.

2Q, 0:00: To end the half, Scottie Pippen pulls a Tim Hardaway Special. He waits until after the buzzer sounds to launch a half-court shot. If it goes in, the crowd goes nuts, and he gets high-fived even if the
shot doesn't count. If it doesn't go in, it doesn't hurt his percentage, and he gets to grimace and pretend to kick himself for not getting it off on time. The ploy only works at home, and outside of Hardaway, no player used it more than Pippen - most notably against the Utah Jazz, in December of 1995. I watch a lot of basketball.

Halftime: The Lakers lead 44-37. Bryant, in a halftime interview, mentions something about using Portland's strength against Portland. It is lines like this that let me know that, as contentious as the relationship between Bryant and Phil Jackson was, PJ got through to Kobe. A D'Angelo song plays during an NBA promo during halftime; and, man, I miss D'Angelo.

3Q, 10:03: A familiar refrain made while watching Scottie Pippen in Portland (or Houston, for that matter) - Pippen wants his teammates to move, and they want to stand still and wait for an isolation set. Frustrating. If only Dr. Buss had taken on Pippen's contract in the summer of 1999, we could have seen some really special basketball.

3Q, 8:20: Ainge is smitten with Ron Harper's game, and Harp is giving him reason to be. He's screening, away from the ball, setting players up, making the extra pass, making the pass that leads to the assist after the slow, loping drive.

3Q, 6:52: Portland is down six points, it has the ball and a 4-on-2 break, and all four Blazers run to the 3-point line. Sigh. Pippen misses a trey, Rasheed Wallace pointlessly fouls AC Green, and that's the story of this team in a nutshell, so far.

3Q, 5:20: A 9-0 run, off five Laker turnovers, allows the Blazers to tie the game. The cough-ups are as much Los Angeles' fault as they were a result of Portland's D. For a team learning a new offense and ran a fair amount (14th out of 29 teams in Pace Factor), the fact that they turned the ball over a league-lowest 13 times a game was damn impressive.

3Q, 3:01: Caught without a live dribble, Sabonis throws the ball off the backboard, rebounds it, and is fouled. Somewhere in Tracy McGrady's Toronto hotel room, the mozzarella sticks have arrived. Sabas makes one of two, but the Blazers can't grab a sturdy two-possession lead because all of their isolation moves are so strained.

3Q, .29.2: Damon Stoudamire? Dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble ...

Lakers plus six points after three quarters.

4Q, 11:00: The Blazers go small to start the quarter, a nice looking lineup with Wallace, Detlef Schrempf and Pippen up front; and you can tell they promised themselves to move the ball more between quarters. The result? First two possessions see Wallace and Bonzi Wells jockeying for low post space for 15 seconds at a time while Pippen holds the ball.

4Q, 10:10: Rick Fox nails a trey and has been playing lock-down D on the other end.

4Q, 9:25: Lakers have opened up an 11-point lead. Los Angeles' spacing is so good, and it's amazing to think that this new roster (and new system) is just 56-games into its first season.

4Q, 8:40: Another post-up for Bonzi Wells, because it's worked so well all game long. Wells almost turns it over, nearly travels, but Schrempf comes to meet the ball. He drives, dishes, and finds Wells for an open short jumper. Penetration and ball movement, who knew?

4Q, 7:30: Rasheed Wallace thinks he was fouled on a shot attempt by Robert Horry, and responds by slapping the crud out of Shaq's arms after O'Neal pulls in the rebound. Just a note for anyone who thinks the problem is Flip Saunders.

4Q, 6:12: Kobe streaks down court for a pass and dunk while Greg Anthony and Wells loiter some 65 feet away. The Blazers keep bringing the lead down to four points, but they mitigate every run with boneheaded play.

4Q, 3:30: I have to say, I haven't noticed much out of Tim Donaghy in this game. Other than (and probably because of) the fact that he's been leaning against press row for the last two quarters, watching the NHL ticker on ESPNet Sportszone (a part of the Go! Network).

4Q, 3:03: Pippen hits a 30-foot 3-pointer after yet another Blazer possession had broken down, and Portland is up by one. If Blazer fans haven't already, they may want to click away right now.

The Lakers attack, and get to the line. Portland's next seven possessions result in two turnovers, and five missed perimeter shots - none closer than 21 feet from the hoop. A meaningless Sabonis lay-in finishes it, and it's obvious that Los Angeles' system is far superior to Portland's depth, and the Lakers win 90 to 87.

No referees got in Portland's way, or handed points to the superstars; Portland just lost the game. From here on out, they'll go just 14 and 12 with the best record in the Pacific and Western Conference on the line (a shocking mark, considering the team's 45 and 11 start), and collapse in the fourth quarter of a Game 7 Conference Finals pairing against the Lakers, mainly because they didn't have any sort of consistent team attack to fall back on once the isolation play dried up.

Tomorrow, we'll take a look at a Seattle/Chicago pairing from the 1997-98 season; one that led directly toward the end of Seattle's title hopes, and Vin Baker's status as an elite NBA player. Fun stuff!