Who’s watching? I’ll admit that I enjoy getting to watch a 4th quarter in a meaningful game during lunch. Jazz and Nuggets trading threes and playing a fun game right now.
Carolina delenda est
Loving weekday afternoon hoops of consequence. Sounds like March.
Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things. - Winston Churchill
President of the "Nolan Smith Should Have His Jersey in The Rafters" Club
Right you are. I started watching in the late 3rd quarter. Not sure what was happening before that, but somewhere along the way Denver figured out that Utah just could not stop Murray and Jokic playing off each other. It did not look like classic PnR stuff to me, but I‘m not the in-game analyst other here are.
Either way, in classic NBA fashion Denver exploited the mismatch until they could get a few stops/run outs in OT and that was that. A very entertaining start to the playoffs.
Carolina delenda est
Opening day of the playoffs somehow managed to be 4 games that I have 0 interest in.
To be fair, Lance only played 4 minutes, and Mason 11 (both were easy to miss). When I checked sometime in the 2nd half Lance hadn't yet checked in, and the game was well in hand so I didn't bother to tune in. Much love for both, certainly, but I'm not going to watch two full games I'm otherwise not interested in just for 15 minutes of court time. If it looked like either were going to get any significant burn whenever I checked the stats I probably would have tuned in.
So, who's left? Trent in Portland (Hood injured) Seth in Dallas. Tatum in Boston (Ojeleye, I suppose). Lance in BKN. Mason Plumlee in Denver. Austin in Houston*. Quinn with the Lakers. Not many out of our two dozen or so NBA players. Who am I missing?
Kindly,
Sage Grouse
* As in Most Happy Fella's "Big D:" "Austin? Wouldn't get lost in -- Houston? Wouldn't get juiced in! Fort Worth? Har-de-har-har-har!" Must have been in the encore verses -- doesn't show up in a Google search.
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013
In terms of pure basketball, absolutely. It's the greatest basketball in the world. Also, this is arguably the greatest collection of "athletes" in the world. That combination of size, strength, speed, length, agility... it's truly amazing.
I too love Duke basketball, but I'm losing my love for college basketball. It's just such an inferior product to the NBA.
Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things. - Winston Churchill
President of the "Nolan Smith Should Have His Jersey in The Rafters" Club
I guess if I ever lose my love for college basketball, I'll only love the bouncing golf ball and baseball. I lost my love for the NBA a while back and I don't even know why. I do watch a playoff game if one of my Dukies is playing but other than that, I can take it or leave it. Funny I feel that way when there's mostly nothing on tv other than re-runs.
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge" -Stephen Hawking
I'm not usually that tuned in to the NBA season until at least 2nd round of the playoffs. I watched bits and pieces of bubble games just because I've mised sports so much. Damien Lillard and Portland have caught my attention, so I'm looking forward to seeing them matchup against Lebron and Co. Dame is moving into Steph Curry range almost at will now... I'm talking 2-3 dribbles past half court, pull-up, nothing but net. CJ McCollum can get red hot at any moment and becomes almost unstoppable as well. This can be an explosive, fun team to watch... as an added bonus, they have a Dukie playing better and better in Gary Trent Jr. I hope they give the Lakers at least a couple of close games, but still expect Lebron to advance.
Things get cooking today with Giannis, Dame, Rivers (even though I hate the Rockets), and Gary Trent Jr (we need some kind of nickname for him).
I think you’ve hit on a salient point. The seasons, other than football, have waaaay too many games. MLB has 161 regular season games. The NBA has 82. The NHL has 82.
In comparison the NFL has only16. College Football has only 11 or 12 (not exactly sure on that one). And not only that, but MLB, the NBA, and the NHL also have way too many playoff games.
What helps make a game interesting is the stakes which are riding on it. That is why the majority of NFL and College Football games are at least somewhat compelling while the vast majority of MLB, NFL, and NHL games are not.