Of the six first-round NBA playoff games played last Monday and Tuesday, only one turned out to be really entertaining, complete with high-stakes theatre and an ongoing love-hate affair that ended with a bang! The rest were basically blowouts featuring long stints of uninspired play that led to losses, the least margin of defeat being 16 points. And I foolishly thought that the postseason brought out the best in players, inspiring all with a chance to win a championship to take their game to another level. Wrong!
The Milwaukee Bucks closed out their series with a 4-0 sweep of the Detroit Pistons Monday night with a 127-104 win. That same evening, Houston’s Rockets fell to the Utah Jazz 107-91, cutting their lead in the best-of-seven series to 3-1. Houston eventually closed out the series last night, 100-93. The Raptors moved into the second round with a 115-96 throttling of the Magic, sending them on vacation after five games. Philadelphia torched the Nets by twenty-two to advance, losing just once to Brooklyn while the Denver Nuggets dug their heels into the Spurs to win going away 108-90 to move into the driver’s seat of a matchup they’d eventually prevail in seven games. That’s an astounding average loss in those games of 19.6 points!
The Blazers and OKC Thunder played far-and-away THE game of the first round. Portland, behind Damian Lillard’s fifty points that included a last-second, 37-foot, series-ending trey, ousted the Russell Westbrook, Paul George-led Thunder 118-115 in a scintillating game that kept fans of both clubs and good basketball on the edge of their seats all night long. The loss sent Oklahoma packing for the third straight year but not without a smattering of boos every time Westbrook touched the ball.
You see, while THIS playoff game epitomized what’s right with the National Basketball Association, a couple of its participants, the blowouts and present-day off-court incidents epitomized what’s wrong. In fact, the off-court “Reality Show” NBA has become more entertaining than the on-court action. Much, much more has been said about and made of Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant and college basketball phenom Zion Williamson teaming up in New York Knick jerseys next season to give the East Coast’s major market the star-studded make-up and serious Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy contender it has sorely lacked for, seemingly, decades!
For that to happen, there would have to be some dialogue on the part of the players and their respective franchises amid all of the presumptive speculation. Somewhere between the lines that has to constitute tampering. And the mere mention of Williamson landing in the Knicks’ lap in this era of the Draft Lottery would lend to a conspiracy theory of the “fix” being in. There’s more in the wind with the recent story of Magic Johnson’s sudden resignation as the Los Angeles Lakers’ President of Basketball Operations. It wasn’t fun anymore and Magic has to be who he is. I can’t fault him one bit though it probably would have been a good idea to give Jeanie Buss a “heads up” first.
Then the story surfaced that newly hired Sacramento Kings coach Luke Walton was accused of allegedly sexually assaulting former sports reporter Kelli Tenant while he was an assistant coach for the Warriors. Shouldn’t Golden State’s pursuit of a third-straight championship be the league’s hottest topic of discussion? Instead, we’re being bombarded with news that Ms. Tenant filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Monday, accusing him of pinning her to a bed and forcibly kissing her. Not exactly the kind of exposure, reporting and negative publicity that Commissioner Adam Silver and his front office constituents want or need front and center concerning their league.
Finally, there’s the matter of Westbrook and Paul’s “next question” response to reporter Berry Tramel’s (and others) line of post-game questions that paint the players in a different light, albeit an uncooperative one. When prompted by a reporter courtesy of The Athletic, Golden State head coach Steve Kerr opined, “I think it’s dangerous for the league. I don’t think this is a healthy dynamic. For this league, for any player, any team, any local media, any national media. I just feel that we have to be very careful as a league. Fans love the game, the social dynamic, the fashion. But more than anything, they love the connection thy feel to the players. I think it’s important for the players to understand that it’s a key dynamic to this league.”
The last thing the NBA needs are perceived rogue stars, rich beyond their wildest dreams who use pressers as a platform to negatively cast themselves as being bigger than the game. Whether they say a lot or a little, there is a responsibility to the fans, sponsors, media who help make their lavish lifestyles possible as well as the teams that make up the NBA that one should feel honored to represent an elite fraternity considered the world’s best. For what it’s worth, the on-court product is no longer “FAN-tastic” as once billed when the entertainment value was at its peak. It has now evolved into an off-court “Reality show” whose entertainment value has exceeded its collection of on-court talent. So, where will Westbrook, George and the Thunder be vacationing? Next question.
Sorry Damian Lillard and Golden State. Your storylines deserve so much more attention but they’re not the “new reality”
