Order Of The Court

'X' Marks His Spot

2012-01-06T09:18:00.000-08:00

Xavier McDaniel found mainstream renown in 1992.

Drafted fourth overall by the SuperSonics in 1985, the "X-Man" toiled as a swaggering, hyper-rebounding, Wes Matthews-choking cult hero in Seattle for five seasons in the dark days before the Internet and NBA League Pass fully opened the West Coast to fans.

He was traded to the Phoenix Suns 15 games into the 1990-'91 season and then dealt again to the New York Knicks a month before the next season began.

Amid this career upheaval, McDaniel filmed his scene-stealing cameo in Cameron Crowe's Generation X treatise, “Singles." The film’s release was delayed until September 1992, but the “X-Man” had nailed one of the greatest walk-on parts for an athlete in movie history.

McDaniel also found a propitious fit with the Knicks. Coach Pat Riley was in the first season of bringing his bruising style to the Big Apple, and McDaniel formed a hard-hitting forward rotation with Charles Oakley and Anthony Mason.

McDaniel started every game that season for a team seriously lacking in depth. Looking at a list of bench players for the Knicks that season — Tim McCormick, Carlton McKinney, Brian Quinnett, Kennard Winchester and an over-the-hill Kiki Vandeweghe — the names sound more like a Princeton eating club than ballers ready for Madison Square Garden.

With McDaniel providing the muscle, the hardened Knicks advanced to the Eastern Conference semifinals to face the defending champion Chicago Bulls.

The Bulls’ Scottie Pippen had earned legitimacy as an NBA superstar with an NBA title and a berth on the Olympic "Dream Team," but teams still believed the lithe forward could be bullied into passivity.

McDaniel was singularly wired for that kind of duty.

With McDaniel hounding Pippen's every step, the Bulls forward shot just 30 of 84 over the first six games of a brutal series.

Over those games, the Knicks committed five flagrant fouls, including John Starks' infamous clothesline of Pippen in Game 6. So there was quite a bit of bloodlust for Game 7 at Chicago Stadium.

It didn't take long for sparks to fly. After the Bulls took a 15-10 lead, Pippen and McDaniel went face to face after a timeout.

With 3:30 left in the first period, they were invading each other's personal space again after banging in the paint.

Thirty seconds after that, McDaniel was called for an offensive foul while backing down Pippen with his elbow. After the requisite jaw-jacking on the way down court, Michael Jordan settled the issue.

Jordan put his forehead right on McDaniel's, and even a novice lip-reader watching NBC’s telecast could see the Bulls star saying "F--k you, X" repeatedly.

Double technicals were called, meaning McDaniel didn't have much leeway over the remaining three quarters.

Pippen took the ball hard to the basket on the Bulls' next possession, gladly absorbing a hard foul and hitting two free throws. He seemed freed of McDaniel’s malice. Jordan was particularly juiced and had 29 points by halftime.

The Knicks, with only an eight-man rotation, were enervated in the third quarter, scoring just 13 points. The defanged McDaniel wasn't much of a factor after that rough-and-tumble first quarter.

The Bulls won going away, 110-81. Pippen finished with a triple-double (17 points, 11 assists and 11 rebounds), easily his best performance of the series.

It was the last time McDaniel would wear a Knicks jersey. He signed with the Boston Celtics in the off-season and played five more NBA seasons.

Temperamental power forwards usually have a short shelf life, but McDaniel lasted longer than most. He's one of the archetypes of that particular breed, with that one punishing season with the Knicks galvanizing his reputation.

Passing Interest

2011-12-23T09:57:00.000-08:00

When Scott Skiles first met Brandon Jennings, the Milwaukee Bucks coach sized up the young point guard and asked him:

“Do you know who holds the NBA record for assists in a game?”

The answer, of course, is Skiles, who handed out 30 dimes for the Orlando Magic in a 155-116 victory over the Denver Nuggets on Dec. 30, 1990.

In recent interviews, however, Skiles has seemed ambivalent about his record, often stating that he wishes someone would break it because he is tired of talking about the mark.

Everything surrounding the record seems strange. One would think that Skiles would cling to the fact that he owns a piece of NBA immortality despite being a slightly above-average guard who played for five teams in a 10-season career. Without the record, he might be remembered more for a flashy pass against Georgetown in the NCAA Tournament and also his brushes with the law while at Michigan State.

These days, Skiles is mostly known as a coach that demands defensive excellence out of his players, which is another reason why he might feel a bit awkward about his 30 assists.

A case can be made that the Denver Nuggets of 1990-’91 rank as one of the worst defensive teams of all time. Paul Westhead, that “Guru of Go,” was in his penultimate season as an NBA coach and didn’t seem to have much interest in anything on defense except getting the ball back and pushing it up the floor.

The Nuggets came into the game at the Orlando Arena with a 6-22 record, worst in the league at the time. They would finish the season allowing a mind-boggling 130.8 points per game.

Denver and Orlando combined for 226 field-goal attempts and 37 turnovers. Skiles lost the ball four times in 44 minutes. He also wasn’t interested in just piling up the assists as he contributed six rebounds and 22 points on 7-for-13 shooting.

Early in the fourth quarter, Skiles tied the record of 29 assists set by the Nets’ Kevin Porter in 1978. Skiles had 13 points in the final quarter and he had eight potential assists squandered by teammates’ missed shots.

The record finally fell when Skiles fed Jerry Reynolds for a 20-foot jumper with 19.6 seconds remaining in the blowout.

Surprisingly, Reynolds (27 points) and Terry Catledge (25) were the main beneficiaries of Skiles’ assists rather than Magic sharpshooters Dennis Scott and Nick Anderson, who combined for 35 points. This is likely because the Nuggets’ porous defense allowed so many shots around the rim.

Regardless of the opposition’s defensive indifference, Skiles’ record still stands. It’s likely to be around for a good while as well, with the NBA game played at a more reasonable pace than Westhead’s preferred style, and also the careful attention paid to stopping opponents by today’s coaches.

So Skiles should get used to talking about it.

Summer Dreams

2011-11-03T08:53:00.000-07:00

It seems like an incongruous setting, but the Catskills resorts in upstate New York were the epicenter of summer hoops in the mid-20th century.

Hotels, wanting to provide their guests with top-flight entertainment, recruited pro, college and high school players for outdoor games. Well-paying bellhop jobs were given to stars like Bob Cousy (Tamarack Lodge) and George Mikan (Klein’s Hillside).

Spectators often bet on the games, creating an environment that helped foster the gambling scandals that almost brought college basketball to its knees in the early 1950s.

The Catskills also provided the stage for Wilt Chamberlain to go from regional curiosity to national sensation.

Haskell Cohen, the legendary PR man for the young NBA, helped Chamberlain get a gig at Kutsher’s Country Club in 1953 when the 7-footer was between his junior and senior years at Overbrook High School in Philadelphia. The forward-thinking Cohen likely saw Chamberlain as key figure in the growth of basketball, so it was smart to make inroads early.

Kutsher’s, another client of Cohen, had an established basketball tradition. Owner Milt Kutsher had scored a coup when a frequent lodger recommended his son to coach the hotel’s team. Red Auerbach didn’t have much to do after the Washington Capitals folded in 1949, so he agreed to help out at Kutsher’s and stayed on after he joined the Boston Celtics in 1950.

Imagine Auerbach’s salivation when the coach first laid eyes on the lanky and lithe teenage Chamberlain.

Auerbach pushed Chamberlain hard that summer. The biggest challenge came against Shawanga Lodge, which had the best counter-force for Chamberlain with post player B.H. Born.

Born had played a small role on the Kansas Jayhawks’ 1951-’52 national champions and was about to be an All-American in 1953-’54. Auerbach told Chamberlain that there was no way the youngster could handle the crafty Born.

Details are sketchy, but by all accounts, Chamberlain dominated Born. Writing for Sports Illustrated in 1965, the never-to-be-trusted-with-numbers Chamberlain recounted that at halftime he had 30 points and Born only two. Legend later had it that Born decided to forgo a professional career because he had been humiliated by a high school kid.

Regardless, it was clear to everyone that Chamberlain was the future of basketball. Auerbach tried to persuade the youngster to enroll at Harvard so the Celtics could get Chamberlain’s territorial rights. Eddie Gottlieb of the Philadelphia Warriors got word of Auerbach’s machinations and made sure that the hometown phenom didn’t end up playing with Cousy in Boston.

Born also spread the legend of Chamberlain, telling Kansas coach Phog Allen that Wilt would look good in a Jayhawks jersey.
Chamberlain indeed wound up at Kansas, and Gottlieb managed to keep Chamberlain’s territorial rights with the Philadelphia Warriors.

Even after he ascended to basketball stardom, Chamberlain kept close ties to Kutsher’s Resort. He was tight with Milt Kutsher, always coming back to the Catskills for a summer vacation or to play in charity games. They remained friends until the hotelier died in 1998.

Wizard of Providence

2011-10-12T09:38:00.000-07:00

Other schools might have backcourts with better statistics, but few can claim a history of guards with stylistic flair like Providence.

In the early 1960s, the Friars boasted a lethal backcourt of high-scoring John Egan and a slick-passing defensive ace out of Brooklyn named Lenny Wilkins. The tradition of crafty playmakers continued with Vinnie Ernst, Jimmy Walker, Billy Donovan, Eric Murdock and God Shammgod.

But nobody exemplifies the lineage better than Ernie DiGregorio. The diminutive point guard from the Italian enclave of North Providence was, with all respects to Bob Cousy, perhaps the greatest behind-the-back passer in the history of the game. For Exhibit A, please see the :20 mark of the clip below.

In his three varsity seasons under head coach Dave Gavitt, DiGregorio set the school’s all-time assists mark. The beneficiary of many behind-the-back passes was Marvin Barnes, who hailed from Providence’s south side. The hometown duo formed the core of the 1972-’73 Friars, a team that is legendary in Northeastern basketball circles.

This high-sun period for Providence crested at the 1973 Final Four against Memphis State. The Friars had gone 24-2 with an inexplicable loss to Santa Clara and a tough defeat to the Bill Walton-led UCLA behemoth.

Despite Barnes’ growing “Bad News” reputation — allegedly hitting a teammate with a tire iron during the season — the Friars were expected to easily dispatch Memphis State and get a much-anticipated rematch with UCLA.

Playing on his biggest-ever stage, DiGregorio had his floor game in top form as the Friars raced to a 26-16 lead in the first eight minutes. According to Providence lore — and it may be apocryphal — legendary CCNY coach Nat Holman called it the best eight-minute start to a game he had ever witnessed. This was coming from a guy that had been around hoops since playing for the Original Celtics.

Unfortunately for Providence, Barnes hurt his knee at the end of that glorious eight minutes. DiGregorio had to bear more of the scoring load, netting 17 points as the Friars held on to a 49-40 lead at intermission. Barnes tried to give it a go in the second half, but his knee wouldn’t hold up.

The loss of Barnes was too much to overcome. Memphis State had a 54-39 rebounding edge with Larry Kenon (28 points and 22 rebounds) and Ronnie Robinson (24-16) having an easier time inside without Barnes, who averaged 19 boards a game that season. DiGregorio had 32 points but needed 36 shots to get there, and the Friars’ championship hopes were dashed with a 98-85 loss.

DiGregorio was drafted third overall by the Buffalo Braves, signing after an intense bidding war with the ABA, and he was the 1973-’74 NBA rookie of the year. Already having a tough time guarding the bigger pro guards, a knee injury eventually made DiGregorio a defensive liability on the court and he lasted only five years in the league.

Stories circulated during DiGregorio’s pro career about him being unable to leave Providence behind, flying back to his hometown on days off with Buffalo. Providence is the place where he is venerated most, a town that has certainly seen its share of great guards.

The Long Goodbye

2011-09-30T09:39:00.001-07:00

North Carolina State's 110-103 victory over Wake Forest in four overtimes on March 4, 1989, stands as the longest game in ACC history.

The game seemed to be played with a sense of desperation by both teams. There was good reason for that: Dark clouds were gathering around the two head coaches.

Interestingly, Wolfpack coach Jim Valvano and his counterpart with the Demon Deacons, Bob Staak, had history together. Valvano was a young assistant under the legendary Donald "Dee" Rowe at Connecticut in 1970-'71, when Staak was a senior wing player for the Huskies.

In 1989, when the teams met in Greensboro, N.C., Valvano and Staak were in the crosshairs of the NCAA.

Valvano's trouble started in January that year, when word leaked out of a tell-all book about the Wolfpack program based on the recollections of a disgruntled team manager. When Peter Golenbock's "Personal Fouls" eventually hit the streets, it was riddled with factual errors but nonetheless got NCAA officials sniffing around.

Staak was under fire over alleged recruiting violations involving Anthony Tucker, a transfer player from Georgetown.

The setting also gave the game some added excitement. For a majority of the 1980s, Wake Forest had been playing many of its home games at the Greensboro Coliseum, which helped ensure that half of the crowd would probably be cheering for the other team if the Demon Deacons were playing N.C. State, Duke or North Carolina.

The players fed off the energy. Chucky Brown played a mind-boggling 59 minutes and scored a collegiate-high 34 points for N.C. State. Wake Forest was led by forward Chris King, who powered his way to 34 points. Freshman point guard Derrick McQueen, playing a day after a friend died in a car accident, was on the court for 52 minutes for the Demon Deacons and compiled 13 points and seven assists against one turnover.

The Wolfpack's vaunted "Fire and Ice" combination provided the clutch baskets. The cool Rodney Monroe had the play of the game. With two seconds remaining in regulation and Wake Forest clinging to a 77-74 lead, N.C. State's Kelsey Weems was fouled on a three-pointer. Because a player only got two free throws back then, Weems made the first and missed the second on purpose. Monroe was on the right block and curled around the back of the Wake Forest player designated to box him out. The rebound bounced right to Monroe, who hit a short fadeaway to force overtime.

The fiery Chris Corchiani (10 points, 10 assists) hit the big basket for the Wolfpack in the waning seconds of the first overtime, slicing into the lane for a runner that tied the game at 84. Monroe answered again in the second overtime, tying the game on a jumper with 45 seconds remaining. He finished with 26 points despite a 10-for-29 shooting night.

Fatigue made the game ragged in the third and fourth overtimes, with the Wolfpack having just enough to pull away.

The victory clinched a share of the ACC regular-season title for Valvano and N.C. State. Because of the NCAA investigation, the coach was stripped of his athletic director duties in the off-season. The Wolfpack was later banned from the 1990 NCAA Tournament, and Valvano soon resigned under pressure.

Staak didn't last much longer than the four-overtime game. The NCAA dropped the investigation of Tucker's recruitment, but Staak's 45-69 record (including 9-52 in the ACC) at the school was too much for him to overcome.

Even the crowd at the Greensboro Coliseum couldn't fully savor the epic game. They were forced to disperse quickly because the four overtimes had delayed a MEAC tournament game in the building.

Historical Footnotes

2011-09-20T09:18:00.000-07:00

The 72-10 record of the Chicago Bulls in 1995-’96 is sometimes hard to comprehend. That winning percentage is absurd considering the 82-game season is such a grind of back-to-backs, injuries and cold-shooting spells. You’d have to be off your nut to think that an NBA team could ever go 82-0. That Bulls team might be as close as it will ever get. Here is a closer look at the 10 blemishes that season:

Nov. 14, 1995
Magic 94, Bulls 88: This was Chicago's first meeting with Orlando since the Magic bounced the Bulls in the Eastern Conference semifinals the previous season. In fact, Orlando had won eight of the last 11 meetings. Michael Jordan had spent the summer trying to get into top basketball shape in his first NBA off-season since his baseball hiatus. But Jordan seemed to tire against the Magic in the sixth game of the season with only five points in the second half. Shaquille O'Neal sat this one out with a thumb injury, so the Magic leaned heavily on Penny Hardaway (36 points). The Bulls struggled with 14 points in the third quarter but tied the game with two minutes left. Hardaway, Dennis Scott and Nick Anderson hit key buckets to salt away the victory.

Nov. 26, 1995
SuperSonics 97, Bulls 92: The Bulls also struggled in the third quarter of their second loss, shooting 4 of 20 against the team they would eventually face in the NBA Finals. Jordan had just four points after halftime. With Dennis Rodman unavailable because of a strained calf, Shawn Kemp busted loose for 25 points on 10-for-13 shooting. On the plus side for the Bulls, Luc Longley had a rare star performance with 21 points and eight rebounds.

Dec. 26, 1995
Pacers 103, Bulls 97: At Market Square Arena, Indiana snapped Chicago's 13-game winning streak. This time a bad start doomed the Bulls, who fell behind 24 points in the first half while committing 10 turnovers. Chicago shot 8 for 25 in the first quarter. Jordan had 30 points but needed 28 shots to get there.

Feb. 4, 1996
Nuggets 105, Bulls 99: Chicago's 18-game winning streak was halted by a Denver team that came into the game 18-26. Another slow first half (31.9% shooting) put the Bulls in a 31-point deficit. Jordan had 22 points in the third quarter to give Chicago a shot, but it wasn't enough against a jacked-up Denver team led by Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf (32 points, nine assists) and Dikembe Mutombo (17 rebounds).

Feb. 6, 1996
Suns 106, Bulls 96: Amazingly, the Bulls had a losing streak this season. There was one more game after this matchup before the all-star break, so maybe Chicago was caught looking ahead. Jordan shot 9 for 22, continuing a cold stretch in which he shot 40.9% over five games. Phoenix was carried by a monster game from Charles Barkley, who had 35 points and 16 rebounds.

Feb. 23, 1996
Heat 113, Bulls 104: Miami pulled off the shocker despite a short roster. Tim Hardaway, Chris Gatling, Walt Williams and Ty Corbin were all unavailable after joining the Heat in a blockbuster multi-team trade. Miami still had Rex Chapman, who scorched the nets for 39 points, including 9 three-pointers. Jordan (9 of 21) and Scottie Pippen (4 of 18) suffered through tough shooting nights.

March 10, 1996
Knicks 104, Bulls 72: Jeff Van Gundy was coaching his second game in New York after Don Nelson stepped down. Van Gundy got his first victory on the strength of the Knicks' defense, which limited the Bulls to 32 points in the second half, including 12 in the fourth quarter. Patrick Ewing was a force in the middle with 26 points and 14 rebounds.

March 24, 1996
Raptors 109, Bulls 108: This ranks with the Heat loss as the most shocking defeats of the season for the Bulls. The expansion team scored the upset at the Sky Dome in front of 36,131 fans, the largest crowd for an NBA game that season. Damon Stoudamire hit 6 three-pointers and finished with 30 points and 11 assists. The immortal Oliver Miller hit the go-ahead free throw in the final minute and Tracy Murray knocked the ball away on the Bulls' final possession, leading to Steve Kerr hurrying a three-pointer that clanged off the rim after the buzzer.

April 8, 1996
Hornets 98, Bulls 97: This loss ended Chicago's 44-game winning streak at home. The Bulls, who were playing their fourth game in five nights, squandered a 10-point lead at halftime. Dell Curry sank two free throws to give Charlotte the lead. Toni Kukoc missed a shot at close range, then Jordan and Pippen each couldn't convert taps.

April 20, 1996
Pacers 100, Bulls 99: Indiana was the only team to beat Chicago twice, spoiling the Bulls' regular-season home finale. Chicago fans can point their fingers at a familiar scapegoat. Referee Hue Hollins called a foul on Jordan for closely guarding Eddie Johnson on the Pacers' last possession. Johnson hit a free throw with five-tenths of a second remaining. In the waning seconds of Game 5 in the 1994 Eastern Conference semifinals, Hollins had called a borderline foul on Pippen against the Knicks' Hubert Davis, who sank two winning free throws.

Parallel Lives

2011-09-14T09:47:00.000-07:00

It’s hard to imagine two basketball careers more closely entwined than those of James Worthy and Eric “Sleepy” Floyd.

Their connection started in Gastonia, N.C., about 25 miles outside of Charlotte. Floyd and Worthy grew up playing against each other and went to rival high schools. Although he was a year older, it seemed that Floyd was always playing in Worthy’s shadow. In 1976, Worthy became the first sophomore to be named to North Carolina’s all-state team.

In 1977, Floyd and his teammates at Hunter Huss High School lost four regular-season matchups with the Worthy-led squad at Ashbrook High School. With the help of a serendipitous bracket in the state tournament, the teams met in the 4A championship game played at Grimsley High School in Greensboro, N.C.

This time, Floyd would gain a measure of revenge with a 60-59 victory. But ACC schools still ignored him and focused their recruiting attention on Worthy. John Thompson and Georgetown eventually snatched up Floyd and, a year later, Worthy became one of Dean Smith’s biggest recruits at North Carolina.

The players would meet again on the biggest stage of the next level. The kids from Gastonia earned two slots on the All-American first team in 1982 and, as luck would have it, their teams would meet in that year’s NCAA championship game.

The game was nip-and-tuck. Floyd had 10 points and Worthy 18 as Georgetown took a 32-31 lead at the break.

The Hoyas looked like they might pull away early in the second half, taking a 49-45 lead before UNC freshman Buzz Peterson gathered a loose ball and found a streaking Worthy.

Floyd chased down his old friend and then, inexplicably, tried to block the dunk attempt from one of the game’s greatest fast-break finishers. Worthy got the slam and the foul, converting the three-point play and grabbing momentum for the Tar Heels.

Floyd would give Georgetown a 62-61 lead with just under a minute left after getting Worthy to bite on a pump fake in the lane. Of course, a freshman named Michael Jordan would answer with a jumper that gave UNC its first national title under Smith.

Here’s how UNC’s Matt Doherty recalled Floyd’s fateful decision to try to block Worthy in the documentary “Blue Heaven”:

“After the game I said: ‘James, what was Sleepy thinking?’ Sleepy is 6-2, 6-3, trying to get up and block James’ breakaway. And with James, nobody is gonna block that. And James, he’s really low-key, he said, ‘I don’t know. He tried the same thing in high school, too.’ I asked James, ‘What were the results?’ and he said, ‘The same.’ ”

Worthy finished the title game with a collegiate-high 28 points and was named the Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player. He was the first UNC player since Bob McAdoo to leave early for the NBA, becoming the No. 1 overall pick in the draft by the Los Angeles Lakers. Floyd was drafted No. 13 by the New Jersey Nets.

Floyd eventually played for four NBA teams but, without question, his greatest game came with the Golden State Warriors against, inevitably, Worthy and the Lakers in the 1987 Western Conference semifinals.

There was no way the juggernaut Lakers were going to lose a series to a Warriors team that relied heavily on journeymen like Jerome Whitehead, Joe Barry Carroll and Terry Teagle.

But in Game 4, Floyd served notice to the eventual NBA champions. He scored a playoff-record 29 points in the fourth quarter on 12-for-13 shooting. He finished with 51 points as Golden State earned its only victory in the series.

After that historical performance, even Floyd’s old foe was awestruck.

“I’ve seen him go unconscious before but not like that,” Worthy said. “Not at this level. I’ve seen him do this in summertime pickup games. When we are home this summer, it will be brought up.”

Old Kentucky Home

2011-09-07T09:41:00.001-07:00

Hubie Brown is so beloved as a broadcaster and curmudgeonly fount of basketball knowledge that it almost hard to fathom him as a rising coaching star.

Yet that was what Brown was in 1975 when he took his first professional head coaching job and led the Kentucky Colonels to the ABA championship.

Tempestuous Colonels owner John Y. Brown, head of Kentucky Fried Chicken, had churned through several coaches in search of the man that could lead his team’s talented roster to an elusive title.

Hubie Brown had risen to attention in the basketball world after Oserving as aide-de-camp for his former Niagara teammate Larry Costello with the Milwaukee Bucks. Brown was so thorough and enthusiastic about his preparation that even enigmatic personalities like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson would pay close attention to the assistant coach.

Brown certainly had a lot of talent to work with in Kentucky. Artis Gilmore was one of the game’s all-time physical specimens. Dan Issel and Louie Dampier were exceptional scorers.

What Brown brought to the Colonels was a defensive mentality. Under Costello with the Bucks, Brown had helped coordinate a defense that was ranked second in the NBA in 1972-’73 and 1973-’74.

Gilmore’s size and a top-line perimeter defender in Ted McClain gave Brown a lot of options. A 10-deep rotation allowed the Colonels to employ full-court presses on occasion.

The results were immediate. Kentucky finished with the ABA’s best record in 58-26. The Colonels won 20 of their last 25 games and clinched each of their three postseason series 4-1. Kentucky led the run-happy league in scoring defense at 101.6 points per game.

Brown’s sublime first season culminated on May 22, 1975, with a 110-105 victory over the Indiana Pacers in Game 5 of the ABA Finals at Freedom Hall in Louisville.

Gilmore was a rock in the middle against the much smaller Len Elmore, scoring 28 points and pulling down 31 rebounds. He scored 12 points in the fourth quarter and had a key block of George McGinnis late in the game. His two clutch free throws with 15 seconds left provided the final points.

Whenever Brown reminisces about Gilmore, including during the Hall of Fame festivities this year, the old coach invariably states that the 7-foot, 2-inch center is the second strongest man to play basketball behind Wilt Chamberlain.

That strength was also evident in Gilmore’s picks, an underrated aspect of his game. Against the Pacers, Dampier (12 points and 12 assists) and Issel (16 points) would run off Gilmore to create shots or get into the lane.

Another overlooked part of the Colonels was the defense of McClain, who hounded the Pacers’ backcourt for six steals in Game 5 and 15 overall in the series.

Brown had only one season left with Colonels before the ABA folded up shop. In the NBA with the Hawks, Knicks and Grizzlies, he continued to preach defense. But nothing ever matched that first season.

Court Artistry

2011-09-01T09:38:00.000-07:00

Don Nelson took the reins of the Milwaukee Bucks after Larry Costello, the only coach in franchise history, stumbled to a 3-15 start in the 1976-’77 season. The team had fallen on dark times and needed a more colorful personality.

The 36-year-old Nelson had just signed on to be Costello’s assistant, briefly flirting with becoming an NBA referee after wrapping up a 14-year playing career. (Nelson had been involved with the NBA so long that he was drafted by the Chicago Zephyrs!)

In Nelson’s first full season as Bucks coach, renowned pop artist Robert Indiana was commissioned to paint the basketball court of the MECCA Arena, the old-school basketball venue in Milwaukee that housed the Bucks and Marquette at the time.

After more outrageous proposals for a colorful court were scuttled, Indiana’s design included 3-D lettering of “MECCA” at mid-court, dark paint on the sidelines and a large “M” in different shellacs on each half of the floor.

The playing surface didn’t have a peer in the NBA, and the Bucks took off with the high-art court serving as a backdrop. Milwaukee racked up 50-win seasons in Nelson’s last seven seasons with the team.

As Nelson told Milwaukee Magazine in a 1989 story about Indiana’s design: “The whole thing we developed over the 11 years I was there was really special and the floor was part of it.”

But Nelson could never get the Bucks into the NBA Finals. After losing to the Seattle SuperSonics in seven games in the 1980 Western Conference semifinals, Milwaukee was shifted to the Eastern Conference.

That would prove to be a death knell for any hopes that the Bucks would get a title in the 1980s. In his last seven seasons with Milwaukee, Nelson’s teams were bounced out of the playoffs by powerhouse Eastern Conference teams from the Boston Celtics or Philadelphia 76ers.

The Bucks’ best record under Nelson was 60-22 in 1980-’81. The season ended with a 99-98 loss to the 76ers in Game 7 of the Eastern semifinals. That game featured a tussle between 76ers bruiser Steve Mix and Bucks big man Bob Lanier and an official inquiry to the league office by Nelson after a typographical error by the scorer had the 76ers holding possession of the ball for 31 seconds before Caldwell Jones made two free throws that provided Philadelphia with a 99-95 lead in the final minute.

Nelson was NBA’s coach of the year in 1982-’83. The Bucks were able to sweep the Celtics in the semifinals but then advanced to face one of the greatest teams ever in the 76ers. Philadelphia dispatched Milwaukee in five games and then stormed to the title with Moses Malone, Julius Erving, Maurice Cheeks and Andrew Toney.

Nelson was also named coach of the year in 1984-’85 but was again eliminated by the 76ers, this time in a sweep.

After losing five of six playoff battles, the Bucks were able to defeat the aging 76ers in a seven-game Eastern semifinal battle in 1985-’86. In the deciding game, the Bucks took a 113-112 lead when Craig Hodges’ driving layup was goaltended by Charles Barkley with 28 seconds remaining. The 76ers set up a final play that ended with Erving getting a wide-open 12-foot shot. The shot bounced high of the rim and fans stormed the Indiana-designed court.

The reward for the hard-fought victory? A date with the Boston Celtics, whose outfit in 1985-’86 merits serious consideration for greatest basketball team ever assembled. The Bucks were swept away again.

Nelson’s final season with Bucks in 1986-’87 also ended at the hands of the Celtics. The Bucks pushed the Eastern semifinals to seven games but were edged, 119-113, in the final game.

Nelson soon joined the Golden State Warriors, spearheading the “Run TMC” teams that ran with the coach’s fast-break philosophies but ultimately didn’t have the individual defenders like Quinn Buckner and Sidney Moncrief that Nelson had in Milwaukee.

Not long after Nelson’s departure, the Bucks moved to the relatively antiseptic Bradley Center, leaving the famous MECCA court behind.

Indiana’s court was recently purchased to be part of the Hank Raymonds Educational Center, named for the former Marquette coach whose teams also competed on that magical floor.

The Ties That Bind

2011-08-25T09:21:00.000-07:00

Despite common misconception, Al McGuire wasn’t related to Frank McGuire. Yet the careers of the two coaches were inextricably linked.

Al played for Frank at St. John’s from 1948-’51 and during their three seasons together on the varsity, the then-Redmen went 66-19 and made into the prestigious NIT each year.

Al averaged just 8.1 points per game in college, but he was a scrapper known for his obstinate defense. Frank called Al one of the most competitive players that he ever coached.

That defensive attitude bought Al three seasons in the nascent NBA with the New York Knicks. The pesky guard billed himself as a Bob Cousy stopper and, yes, he did shut down the Boston Celtics’ legendary point guard on occasion.

After his playing career, Al landed as an assistant at Dartmouth in 1955 but the Ivy League didn’t suit his streetwise personality.

By then, Frank had moved on to the University of North Carolina. He led the Tar Heels to an undefeated season in 1957 and the national championship over Kansas and Wilt Chamberlain, a player Frank would later coach in the NBA.

Those bona fides give a coach considerable clout in North Carolina, and Frank used his influence to persuade Belmont Abbey, a small school near Charlotte, to take a chance on his former player at St. John’s.

Al went 109-64 as coach at Belmont Abbey. He and Frank shared similar coaching styles. The charismatic leaders would bring in talented players, preferably from New York City, and then use psychological ploys more than tactical ones to get the most out of their talent.

Al was hired by Marquette in 1964, with another solid reference from Frank, who became coach of South Carolina that same year.

The coaches would match wits against each other nine times at those schools. The first two games were probably the best of the series.

The first meeting came on Dec. 16, 1966, in the Milwaukee Classic tournament at the Arena. South Carolina won, 63-61, after referees waved off a last-second basket by Marquette’s Paul Carbins, who had knocked in the ball as it bounced on the rim after Brad Luchini’s shot.

South Carolina had been called for four technical fouls in the game. Al seemed to think that it got the referees on edge enough to make that gutsy final call. He recognized the tactics of his former coach and said afterward that Frank “used the oldest trick in the book.”

When the teams met again on Jan. 9, 1972, in South Carolina, it was a nationally televised contest between top-10 squads.

The game was intensely physical and tensions bubbled over three minutes into the second half with Marquette leading, 44-35. The Warriors’ Bob Lackey and the Gamecocks’ Tom Riker had enough of the bumping in the post. The haymakers started between those big guys and spread like a contagion.

It took 10 minutes and the South Carolina band to start playing “The Star-Spangled Banner” for order to be restored. Frank, much like in North Carolina’s brawl with Duke in 1961, was right in the middle of the action on the court. Al was on the bench the whole time and said later “a bar-hall bouncer wouldn’t take his coat off for this one.”

Allie McGuire, an actual relation of the Marquette coach, hit two free throws with 1:15 remaining to give the Warriors a 72-69 lead. The Gamecocks got within 72-71, but that would be the final score after South Carolina couldn’t convert on its final two possessions.

Frank and South Carolina would win their next 27 home games before Al and his Warriors returned to Columbia to stop the streak.

Frank notched a victory against Al in 1974, but the pupil ran off with five straight victories in the series before retiring after Marquette’s national championship in 1977. The feisty former guard finished with a 7-2 record against his mentor.

Back Against The USSR

2011-08-19T09:55:00.000-07:00

Anyone associated with USA Basketball has decried the 51-50 loss to the Soviet Union at the 1972 Olympics in Munich. However, the international outrage over the ending to that game has clouded what might be the most impressive two-game winning streak in Olympic basketball history.

The rematch between the Soviets and Americans took 16 years to happen. The teams were in different Olympic brackets in 1976, and boycotts by each country took away any chance at match-ups in ’80 and ’84.

The game finally came to fruition during the semifinals of the medal round in the Seoul Olympics of 1988. This time, the Soviets didn’t leave the final score open to debate with an 82-76 victory over the John Thompson-coached Americans.

As always, an American loss in the Olympics caused outrage and finger pointing. But it really shouldn’t have been that shocking.

The Soviets were a veteran team with an average age of 28. They had top-shelf talent with Arvydas Sabonis and Sarunas Marciulionis, before either player had landed in the NBA. Most important, the Soviet Union had played together for several years.

The Americans had a potent starting lineup of Dan Majerle, Danny Manning, David Robinson, Mitch Richmond and Georgetown point guard Charles Smith. But they were all still college-aged and had come together as a team only a few months before.

The advantages didn’t stop with the players. Thompson was thoroughly outcoached by Soviet mastermind Aleksandr Gomelsky. The Russian is legendary in basketball circles and was enshrined in the Hall of Fame after coaching the national team for over 30 years. Gomelsky hadn’t experienced the victory 16 years earlier in Munich, however. The Soviet regime thought the Jewish Gomelsky might defect, so his passport was revoked.

This game in 1988 was the biggest Gomelsky would ever coach. Marciulionis told the New York Times that the coach imparted to every Soviet player that “the American players are emotional, but also very fragile. We must try to stop their fast break, but at all cost not let them finish it with a dunk. Because when they start dunking they play as if they have wings instead of arms.”

Manning picked up two fouls in the first 2:14 and was promptly yanked by Thompson. Fresh off his “Danny and the Miracles” thrill ride to the NCAA championship with Kansas, Manning was supposed to be the focal point of the U.S. offense. But Thompson sat Manning the rest of the first half and the forward never got into the flow, finishing without a point.

Gomelsky, on the other hand, didn’t seem to mind when Marciulionis and Sabonis got into foul trouble, leaving them on the floor even when Marciulionis picked up his fourth foul in the first half.

Sabonis, the newly minted Hall of Famer, had already suffered leg injuries by this point in his career. He has often said that Soviet apparatchiks forced him to play in 1988 despite a painful Achilles’ injury. Sabonis had the toughest matchup with Robinson, who was often the U.S. foil to the Soviet center during their amateur match-ups. Sabonis more than held his own with 13 points and 13 rebounds.

Marciulionis was key in the first half, scoring 11 points despite those four fouls. He finished with 19 points and was 3 for 3 on three-pointers.

The shooting from behind the arc was the key to victory, as NBC commentator Al McGuire figured it would be in his pre-game monologue. The American defenders sagged into Sabonis, but the center’s superior passing vision found open shooters.

Rimas Kourtinaitas was the biggest beneficiary. He scored a game-high 28 points and was 4 for 10 on three-pointers.

The Americans shot a combined 4 for 7 on threes. Thompson probably wished he hadn’t cut Steve Kerr or Rex Chapman during the U.S. trials.

A late rally led by Majerle and Smith wasn’t enough. The U.S. settled for bronze and the Soviet Union went on to win the gold-medal game against Yugoslavia.

The loss prompted USA Basketball officials to allow NBA players to compete in the Olympics, precipitating the formation of the Dream Team.

Even Gomelsky, with a gold medal already in hand, was OK with the changes, saying that the only way for the rest of the world to catch up with U.S. was to play against the best.

Cajun Flavor

2011-07-22T09:49:00.000-07:00

Former Southwestern Louisiana (now Louisiana-Lafayette) coach Beryl Shipley has rightly been exalted for helping integrate a college basketball team in the heart of the Deep South. His hoops reputation has certainly improved since 1973 when he was forced to resign amid a torrent of NCAA violations, mostly centering on giving cash to some of the poor black players that he recruited to Lafayette.

Those big issues have overshadowed the entertainment value that Shipley’s Ragin’ Cajuns brought to the NCAA.

It’s hard to fathom that on Feb. 23, 1973, the nationally televised game of the week was Southwestern Louisiana at Oral Roberts. But they were the two highest-scoring teams in the country at the time, each pouring in a shade above 98 points per game.

This was Shipley’s last squad at Southwestern Louisiana and undeniably his best. The Ragin’ Cajuns had four players that would be NBA draft picks: Dwight “Bo” Lamar, Larry Fogle, Jerry Bisbano and Fred Saunders.

Lamar was quite a sight to behold, a blur of a point guard with a giant Afro and the temerity to pull up for a jumper from anywhere inside halfcourt. Lamar had scored 36.3 points per game the previous season, becoming the first player to lead the nation in both Division 1 and Division 2 (the Ragin’ Cajuns made the leap to the top division for the 1971-’72 season.)

Lamar’s scoring would dip to 28.9 in 1972-’73 because he had to share the ball with another offensive warhorse. Larry Fogle was a scoring legend from Detroit’s Cooley High, his 73 points against Cody in 1972 still stands as a single-game mark for Detroit’s public league.

Those dynamic scorers would help Southwestern Louisiana dominate Oral Roberts, 104-89. The teams combined for 196 shots.

Lamar was outstanding in the first half, hitting on 10 of 18 shots for 22 points. He finished with 34. Fogle added 13 points and also helped Southwestern Louisiana on the boards. Lamar and Fogle brought a street flair to a game that was still dominated by the buttoned-down approach of John Wooden and UCLA.

The Ragin’ Cajuns would advance to the Sweet 16 that season before falling to Kansas State, 66-63. Soon after, Shipley was out and the NCAA put the program on ice for two seasons.

Lamar was drafted by the Detroit Pistons in the third round of the NBA draft but he opted for the ABA and landed with the San Diego Conquistadors and coach Wilt Chamberlain. Lamar didn’t soften his gunner tendencies as a rookie in the pros, jacking up 247 three-point attempts — more than the totals of three ABA teams. He made it one season with the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA after the ABA ceased operations.

After Southwestern Louisiana’s NCAA turmoil, Fogle transferred to Canisius College, where he set several scoring marks. Fogle’s NBA career lasted all of two games with the New York Knicks, but he surfaced recently on an episode of “Judge Mathis.”

Whatever that team’s future troubles, the 1972-’73 Ragin’ Cajuns anticipated the rough-around-the-edges, immensely talented and freewheeling teams in the next decades like UNLV under Jerry Tarkanian and the Fab Five at Michigan.

The Stars Align

2011-06-29T08:38:00.000-07:00

The NBA will likely never hold its All-Star Weekend in Milwaukee again.

The league’s official line would be that there is not enough hotel space for what has become a bloated event. The reality is probably that Wisconsin in early February isn’t exactly a sexy destination for celebrities, corporate lackeys and assorted basketball hangers-on.

What many people don’t know is that Milwaukee played host to one of the best All-Star Games in NBA history — and maybe the most important. The West beat the East, 125-124, on Feb. 13, 1977, in a well-played game at the Milwaukee Arena, but the box score tells only part of the story.

It was the first All-Star Game since the NBA-ABA merger, and the future of the league hinged on how well the likes of Julius Erving and David Thompson could be assimilated.

Those two former ABA stars were matched up through much of the game. Dr. J lit up the much smaller Thompson and other luckless defenders to the tune of 30 points, 12 rebounds, three assists and four steals. The biggest import to the NBA that season became the second player to be named All-Star Game MVP from the losing team. (Bob Pettit was the first in 1958.)

Erving had 13 points in the fourth quarter as the East made the game tight. The final minutes were highlighted by what everyone agrees is missing in recent All-Star Games: Defense.

The West’s Bobby Jones blocked a shot by a driving Pete Maravich, leading to a dunk by Paul Westphal that gave the West a 125-122 lead with 38 seconds remaining. Bob McAdoo followed with two free throws that got the East within one.

McAdoo then made a steal on an entry pass that gave the East a final possession. But Westphal fought around a screen and knocked the ball away from Maravich for a steal that clinched the victory for the West.

The game was an unqualified success. Denver Nuggets coach Larry Brown earned some NBA bona fides after toiling away for years in the ABA. He had the West team humming with 42 assists, an unheard-of number for an All-Star Game. Even a largely forgotten ABA player like the Indiana Pacers’ Don Buse, an injury fill-in for Bill Walton, made a seamless transition to the NBA and helped spark the West’s 39-point third quarter.

The dunk contest also took root in the NBA that year. The ABA’s inaugural event in 1976 had burnished the legend of Dr. J with his free-throw line dunk. The NBA’s first foray did not have that kind of star power, with Larry McNeill and Darnell Hillman making it to the finals.

McNeill, a former Marquette jumping jack, wasn’t even in the NBA at the time. He had been waived by the New Jersey Nets early in the season. McNeill was playing with Wilkes-Barre of the Eastern League but was allowed to dunk because the Nets had submitted his name for the contest earlier in the season.

Nonetheless, the NBA was intrigued by this new sideshow. The league looked ready to embark on a new era with this infusion of ideas and talent.

As for the atmosphere in frigid Milwaukee? Fans packed the Arena, and the sold-out crowd of 10,938 lustily booed Erving for earning the MVP in a losing effort. The hoops-savvy contingent probably saw through the forced marketing of the league’s newest star and thought Westphal (20 points, six assists, three steals, clutch plays) more deserving of the honor.

The Milwaukee fans also surprisingly cheered Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who had forced his way out of town just over a year before. Abdul-Jabbar had shown up for the game in a Bucks warm-up jacket, borrowed from Milwaukee trainer Tony Spino because Kareem had left his Lakers jacket in Los Angeles.

It was just another memorable moment from a memorable game.

Business Class

2011-06-21T10:54:00.000-07:00

Jack McCallum is a fixed star in the firmament of great basketball writers. He’s one of a chosen few that can actually be called a Hall of Famer. With all due respect to McCallum’s season-long courtside seat to the “:07 Seconds Or Less” Phoenix Suns in 2005-’06, the longtime Sports Illustrated scribe never had a more dramatic story than the 1990-’91 Boston Celtics. McCallum’s chronicle of that season became “Unfinished Business,” an essential text for any hoops scholar.

The Celtics provided plenty of grist for the narrative. The franchise’s holy trinity of Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish were nearing the end of their careers but weren’t exactly ready for the pasture. Head coach Chris Ford wanted to exploit the athleticism of young players like Dee Brown, Brian Shaw and Reggie Lewis and push the pace. The older players balked, and Ford was placed in an unenviable position because he had been a teammate of the Big Three just a few seasons before. Red Auerbach was still an overweening presence, puffing his ubiquitous cigar in “No Smoking” areas and loudly proclaiming his opinions. The backdrop for the story was the Boston Garden, one of the holy sites in the NBA that had become almost unusable because of its decrepit state.

All the drama of that season is encapsulated in the Celtics’ 135-132 victory in double overtime against the Chicago Bulls on March 31, 1991. The banged-up Celtics were trying to get patched up enough to make another run in the postseason. The ascendant Bulls were on a mission to be the team of the 1990s. Chicago had won the last two match-ups in the season by an average margin of 25 points.

There is a subtext of sadness to “Unfinished Business” that McCallum never could have anticipated. He got to witness the season that Lewis firmly established himself as the next great Celtics player. Lewis went to become an all-star for the first time in 1991-’92. Then on July 27, 1993, he would collapse after shooting baskets and die because of an enlarged heart.

This game could have been Lewis’ finest work, despite some missed free throws late in the second overtime. He had been torched by Michael Jordan in the teams’ meetings earlier in the season. Lewis came out determined not to let that happen again, rabidly chasing Jordan around screens and hounding the Bulls superstar whenever he got the ball. This was Jordan about to enter his prime, and Lewis blocked two of his shots in the first quarter. Jordan seemed almost frazzled, and shot 3 of 11 in the first half for seven points. Of course, Jordan finished with 37 points, but he needed 37 shots to get there. Lewis had four blocks for the game. Jordan often hung in the air on double-clutches to avoid the athletic defender, causing several misses, including on a three-pointer in the waning seconds of double overtime.

Lewis also flashed his still-developing offensive game, including a nascent outside shot. He drained a long jumper at the end of the first quarter that seemed to spur his confidence. Lewis’ biggest shot came when he calmly drilled a game-tying three-pointer with 19.4 seconds remaining in regulation. It was Lewis’ first three-pointer of the season and only the eighth in his four seasons.

Lewis finished with 25 points. The young Celtics made it look like the future was in good hands, with Brown adding 21 points in 25 minutes and Shaw contributing 11 points and 15 assists. Even “Easy” Ed Pinckney, often criticized for his lack of emotion, looked good around the basket and showed great instincts on a three-point play and a nifty assist to McHale.

But the Celtics still needed the elder statesmen to finish the job. McHale was playing for the first time in 16 days because of an ankle injury and had 10 points and six rebounds despite the rust. Parish made three big baskets in the first overtime.

Then there was one Larry Joe Bird. Bothered by back problems all season, Bird was ready to ramp it up for the playoffs. He played an absurd 52 minutes and dropped in 34 points to go along with 15 rebounds and eight assists. Bird took 36 shots but finally found the rhythm in the second overtime when he scored nine points. He hit two straight step-back jumpers and then a three-point play against the defense of Horace Grant, nine years younger than Bird.

The Celtics didn’t seem dead yet with the victory over the Bulls. But Bird’s back eventually gave out and he was limited as Boston lost to the Detroit Pistons in six games in the Eastern Conference semifinals.

McCallum’s book caught the Celtics at the dramatic stretch where the future was hanging in the balance. Unfortunately for Boston fans, Bird’s back was never the same, McHale lasted two more seasons, Lewis tragically was lost, and the young core of Brown, Shaw and Pinckney never reached the next level. The Celtics stopped playing in the Boston Garden in 1995, and the building was demolished in 1997.

Different Racket

2011-06-09T09:20:00.000-07:00

John Lucas’ name still crops up around the NBA, even though he hasn’t had an official affiliation with the league since being an assistant coach with the Los Angeles Clippers in 2009-’10.

Draft hopefuls often flock to Houston to be put through the paces of Lucas’ basketball drills. More famously, whenever a player runs into substance abuse issues, Lucas inevitably steps in as a de facto “life coach.” Lucas has counseled everyone from Richard Dumas to Lloyd Daniels to NFL washout JaMarcus Russell.

That humanitarian work is probably Lucas’ biggest contribution to the game over the last couple decades, considering his 173-258 record in six seasons as the head coach of three NBA teams.

It also eases some disappointment about the playing career of the No. 1 overall pick in the 1976 NBA draft. Lucas spent most of his early career trying to outflank personal demons but eventually got clean and managed to play 14 seasons in which he averaged 10.7 points per game and seven assists per game for six teams.

There are so many narrative threads to Lucas’ story that most people have forgotten the former point guard was also an ace tennis player in his youth.

Lucas learned tennis at the foot of Carl “Bear” Easterling, a legendary figure in Durham, N.C. Easterling is probably best remembered as coach of Durham Hillside High School’s basketball team, which played at a breakneck pace unusual for prep squads in the 1960s. His 1965-’66 “Pony Express” team averaged an absurd 105 points per game.

Easterling was also the fulcrum of a hotbed of African-American tennis players in Durham. Lucas, who was the son of Hillside’s principal, became one of Easterling’s most prized pupils.

Lucas ripped off a 92-match winning streak and captured three straight 4-A NCHSAA singles titles from 1970-’72. He was named to the Junior Davis Cup team in 1971. On the basketball court, Lucas toppled some of Pete Maravich’s state scoring records and was one of the nation’s most sought-after recruits.

Lucas wanted to play basketball at a college where the coach would also let him play tennis. Maryland’s Lefty Driesell was happy to oblige. Lucas’ tenure as a four-year starter for the Terrapins’ basketball team is widely documented, but his tennis career seems to have been largely lost to history.

The left-hander won the No. 1 ACC singles titles as a sophomore in 1974 and again as a senior in 1976. Lucas teamed with Fred Winckelmann to take the conference’s No. 1 doubles crown in 1973.

Lucas debated about which sport to pursue as a professional, but the money offered by the Houston Rockets after the 1976 draft swayed him to stick with hoops. He still dabbled in professional tennis, playing World Team Tennis with the Golden Gaters of San Francisco/Oakland in 1976 and ’77 and the New Orleans Nets in 1978. With the Nets, Lucas played doubles with another left-hander, transgender athletic pioneer Renee Richards, in what has to be the most unusual pairing in that sport’s history.

Tennis also reentered Lucas’ life in the late 1990s, when he coached Lori McNeal on the WTA circuit after getting canned by the Philadelphia 76ers.

Lucas passed on his two-sport prowess. One of his sons, John Lucas III, was also talented at both tennis and basketball. He was a nationally ranked USTA junior player before concentrating on basketball and eventually playing in the NBA, including two games with the Chicago Bulls this season.

Old 'Bones"

2011-05-09T08:43:00.000-07:00

Horace "Bones" McKinney is probably the most Zelig-like figure in basketball history.

He first rose to prominence as a 6-foot-6 power forward on a legendary team at Durham High School in the late 1930s and early '40s. One of the greatest prep teams in North Carolina's rich history, Durham won 73 straight games with a schedule that included college and professional barnstorming teams.

McKinney spurned coach Eddie Cameron and the hometown Duke Blue Devils in favor of North Carolina State. After his college career was interrupted by World War II, McKinney finished at the University of North Carolina — likely becoming the only player that will ever play hoops for both the Wolfpack and the Tar Heels. McKinney helped lead UNC to the 1946 championship game, which the Tar Heels lost to Oklahoma A&M, 43-40.

Pro basketball was still finding its footing at the time, and McKinney was there to witness epochal moments. He played with the Washington Capitals for three seasons in the Basketball Association of America before that league's teams were absorbed to form the NBA in 1949-'50.

McKinney also played two seasons for the Boston Celtics. At both of his professional stops, McKinney played under Red Auerbach. The coaching deity became a lifelong confidante. Auerbach drafted Sam Jones out of North Carolina Central University sight unseen in 1957, strictly on a favorable report from McKinney.

After his pro career ended in 1951, McKinney struggled to find direction. Famously silver-tongued, he became an ordained Baptist minister and an assistant coach at Wake Forest under Murray Greason.

McKinney took over for Greason and coached at Wake Forest from 1957-'65. McKinney still climbed onto the pulpit from time to time, but his best preaching probably came when he talked Len Chappell and Billy Packer into playing for the Demon Deacons. That duo formed the core of a team that made it to the Final Four in 1962, the high-water mark in Wake Forest's history.

McKinney cut an eccentric figure on the sideline. He was a spiritual precursor to Al McGuire with his antics and garrulous nature. McKinney claimed to drink 25 Pepsis a day and sweat through 10 pounds during an ACC battle. When the ACC wanted to cut down on coaches’ tantrums, McKinney installed a seatbelt on his chair.

Soft drinks weren't McKinney's only vice. His manic actions became increasingly fueled by booze and amphetamines. Wake Forest quietly let McKinney go in 1965 after just eight seasons at the helm. He was 122-94 with the Demon Deacons, including 8-2 against a young UNC coach named Dean Smith.

The next coaching gig didn’t come until 1969 when McKinney took charge of the Carolina Cougars in the upstart ABA. He finished 42-42 in his first season and then stepped down after starting out 17-25 in 1970-’71.

After that, McKinney lived the life of an itinerant preacher and professor emeritus of hoops. Befitting his gregarious personality, he often worked as a color commentator for ACC and Campbell College games.

McKinney died at 78 in 1997. The inimitable “Bones” left behind a body of work that is likely unrivaled in its historical scope.

Dream Shakers

2011-05-04T08:30:00.000-07:00

The Dream Team put together for the 1992 Olympics has acquired a veneer of invincibility and been venerated as the greatest collection of basketball talent ever.

You can start poking holes into those claims by pointing out that Larry Bird and Magic Johnson were well past their primes; that the best point guard in the game wasn’t included because of backchannel efforts; that the breakup of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union eliminated any real competition; and that the inclusion of Christian Laettner seems laughably anachronistic in hindsight.

As everyone knows, the team romped through its overmatched international competition. But its toughest matchup came in La Jolla, Calif., in late June.

USA Basketball brought in a collection of college talent to prep the Dream Teamers. George Raveling and Roy Williams coached this Developmental Team that included Penny Hardaway, Grant Hill, Bobby Hurley, Allan Houston, Jamal Mashburn, Rodney Rogers, Chris Webber and Eric Montross. If the U.S. had not opted to use professionals for the first time, those kids would have challenged the world’s best.

“You take that team, they’d all be No. 1 picks,” Karl Malone said at the time. “Those guys are great. They’d be in the top five this year. They could go over there and win the gold this year.”

The NBA stars were primed for a reality check. After their grinding season, most of them were more concerned with hitting the sun-spackled golf courses of La Jolla than preparing for some scrimmage that wouldn’t even be open to the public.

Charles Barkley hadn’t touched a basketball since his season ended in April. Johnson had retired because of HIV and had been playing only in posh health clubs in Los Angeles. Bird could barely move with a bad back that would never allow him to play in the NBA again. David Robinson was still recovering from wrist surgery in March. Patrick Ewing had already hurt his thumb in practice. Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Clyde Drexler were physically spent after wrapping up the NBA Finals only a few weeks earlier.

Dream Team coach Chuck Daly wanted the collegians to push the tempo and bomb away on three-pointers, which would be the drive-and-kick strategy employed by most of the foreign teams later in the summer.

By most accounts, Houston and Hurley did the most damage against the NBA guys. Houston drained 10 three-pointers and Hurley’s quickness caused trouble for Johnson and John Stockton.

The scrimmage wasn’t taped and was held behind closed doors. There was no official scoring, so accounts widely differ. Michael Wilbon reported in The Washington Post that the collegians won, 88-80. David Halberstam has the score as 58-52 in “Playing For Keeps.” Johnson and Bird recall losing the 20-minute scrimmage 62-54 in “When The Game Was Ours.”

While the details are fuzzy, the college kids certainly made an impression. They reinforced the victory with some vociferous trash talking, so much so that Williams apologized to Jordan on the golf course.

The next day, Jordan and the other Dream Teamers made their rebuttal, blowing the college kids out of the gym. Jordan took special delight in shutting down Houston.

In their book, Bird and Johnson said it was the wake-up call that the team needed. The Dream Team’s average margin of victory was 51.5 in the Tournament of Americas and 43.8 during its eight games in the Olympics.

Memorable Dream

2011-04-06T11:53:00.000-07:00

Dean "The Dream" Meminger might have set the template for the prototypical modern New York guard.

The three-time All-City pick out of Harlem's Rice High School in the 1960s had superior handle, uncommon passing vision, smothering one-on-one defense — and an outside jumper that left a lot to be desired. With that skill set, he antedated Pearl Washington, Kenny Smith, Kenny Anderson and scores of other citified point guards.

Meminger was one of coach Al McGuire's prized New York recruits at Marquette, and "The Dream" didn't disappoint. He scored 1,637 points in his three seasons with the then-Warriors, who went 78-9 in that stretch.

Meminger was drafted 16th overall in 1971 by his hometown New York Knicks. But playing time was scarce in a crowded backcourt that included Walt Frazier, Earl Monroe and Dick Barnett.

Despite being undersized for the NBA at just under 6 feet, Meminger showed flashes of brilliance.

His greatest performance came in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals in 1973 against the Boston Celtics.

The Knicks had squandered a 3-1 lead in the series. The Celtics had never lost in their nine previous Game 7s. To make things more difficult for New York, Monroe was out with an ailing hip and the game was being played at the imposing Boston Garden.

Meminger stepped into the breach left by Monroe in the starting lineup. Knicks coach Red Holzman handed Meminger, not defensive ace Frazier, the assignment of guarding Boston's red-hot Jo Jo White.

The Celtics were able to take a 22-19 lead after the first quarter, but Meminger flipped the script in the second quarter. He scored nine points as the Knicks headed into halftime with a 45-40 lead.

Meminger finished with 13 points, six rebounds, three assists and four steals in 36 minutes. His harassing defense held White to 10-of-22 shooting.

The Knicks pulled off a surprisingly easy 94-78 victory. The Celtics shot just 31 of 83 and turned the ball over 23 times.

Meminger was the catalyst that propelled the Knicks into the NBA Finals, where they beat the Los Angeles Lakers in five games.

Thirty-seven years later, former Knicks reserve Phil Jackson remembered that Game 7 against the Celtics:

“Jo Jo White was punishing us with high screen-rolls, and Dean Meminger was saying, ‘I don’t get any help,’ ” the Lakers coach said during the 2010 NBA Finals. “And Red Holzman barked at him, ‘The job has got to get done.’ As you know, Dean Meminger had the game of his life in the seventh game."

Meminger ended up playing six years in the NBA, including two with the Atlanta Hawks, averaging 6.1 points and 2.5 assists per game.

He's been all over the map since, cropping up as a coach at diverse locales like Manhattanville College, the Women's Professional Basketball League and the CBA, where he preceded Jackson with the Albany Patroons. Like many players of his era, Meminger battled substance abuse. He last surfaced as the victim of a housing fire in New York in 2009.

Based solely on career stats, Meminger's NBA stint can be viewed as a disappointment. But he had flashes where "The Dream" had to be seen to be believed.

Fab Four

2011-03-30T09:58:00.000-07:00

Al McGuire, as only he could, went out in style. With the Marquette Warriors putting the finishing touches on a 67-59 victory over North Carolina in the 1977 NCAA championship game, the retiring coach sat down on the MU bench and bawled his eyes out.

It’s a powerful image, one that came to represent college basketball that season. But it also overshadows that year’s semifinals, which should rank among the greatest Final Fours.

It was a field bursting with storylines. There were the blue-blooded Tar Heels, the clear favorite but also ravaged by injuries. They were also still looking to get Dean Smith his first title. UNC-Charlotte, from the same state as the Heels but miles apart in talent, made its first Final Four appearance. UNLV was led by its charming rogue of a coach, Jerry Tarkanian, and led the nation in scoring at an absurd 107 points per game. Marquette had been in a late-season tailspin, but the Warriors faithful hoped McGuire’s imminent retirement would galvanize the team.

The two semifinals at the Omni in Atlanta would be decided by a total of three points.

UNC-Charlotte and Marquette squared off in the opening match. The 49ers, in their first NCAA Tournament, were led by stars Cedric “Cornbread” Maxwell and Lew Massey. McGuire’s final team had irrepressible offensive talents Bo Ellis and Butch Lee and key role players like Jim Boylan, Jerome Whitehead and Bill Neary.

Charlotte seemed overwhelmed by the moment in the early going. The 49ers were flummoxed by Marquette’s changing defenses and fell behind by 14 points. Charlotte’s defense dug in, however, switching easily between man-to-man and exotic zones (even the obscure 1-1-3 set). The 49ers went on a 13-2 run and headed into the locker room facing only a 25-22 deficit.

The second half would be tight the whole way. Marquette had shot poorly, but the 49ers’ zone defenses had given Whitehead (16 rebounds) enough space to attack the offensive glass. Charlotte’s swarming defenders had taken Lee (who shot 5 of 18) out of the flow until the final minutes, when the star of the Puerto Rican national team hit two clutch buckets.

Marquette eventually went ahead, 49-47, until Maxwell sank a tough leaner in the lane with five seconds left.

McGuire called time out with three seconds on the clock, then took the time to examine the height of the scoreboard at the Omni and calculate how the parabola of a court-length pass would be affected. Satisfied with the answer, the coach of the Jesuit school’s team drew up a play in which Lee heaved a “Hail Mary” to Ellis or Whitehead at the other end.

The prayer was answered when the ball glanced off the hands of the long-limbed Maxwell and right to the waiting Whitehead, who found himself wide open for a half-dunk/half-layup that almost bounced off the rim. The ball found the net, though, and after some anxious discussion among officials at the scorer’s table, Marquette was awarded the 51-49 victory.

Lee-to-Whitehead has been shunted aside in the annals of full-court final plays, getting lost behind U.S.S.R’s controversial bomb against the U.S. in the 1972 Olympics and the Grant Hill-Christian Laettner connection in the 1992 tournament. Milwaukee is probably the only place that remembers Marquette’s miracle play as well as those others.

How could the second semifinal in 1977 ever top that? The Tar Heels and Runnin’ Rebels tried to burn their own mark in the popular memory by playing at warp speed.

Tarkanian’s first great squad at UNLV boasted six players that would be chosen in the 1977 NBA draft. The draft was eight rounds deep back then, but UNLV’s Glen Gondrezick, Eddie Owens and Larry Moffet were all picked in the second round.

The Tar Heels had battled injuries all season. Team leader Tommy LaGarde was out for the season with a broken leg. Walter Davis (broken finger) and Phil Ford (elbow) were both not quite right in the NCAA Tournament.

The Rebels, who also had Reggie Theus, took a 49-43 lead at the break. But the Tar Heels caught fire in the second half, including a 14-0 run that gave UNC control. John Kuester made 5 of 6 free throws in the final minutes, giving the Tar Heels the 84-83 victory.

Fans who watched both games got the defensive chess match and a once-in-a-lifetime finish in the first semifinal. Then they were treated to offensive fireworks in the nightcap, with UNC shooting 59% and UNLV at 51%. That Final Four should be remembered as fondly as McGuire’s last game.

Origin Story

2011-03-03T09:22:00.000-08:00

A lot of University of North Carolina fans like to proclaim that they are "Tar Heel born and Tar Heel bred."

I was indoctrinated in a different manner.

It was a few months into the third grade when I moved from Illinois to North Carolina. I showed up in Ms. Nelson's class desperate for a friend of any kind.

The first kid that talked to me eyed me up and asked: "Do you like Carolina, Duke or State?"

The question took me aback. I recognized all the words in his sentence, but didn’t comprehend the meaning of them placed together.

He was wearing a sweatshirt that had “Carolina” emblazoned across the chest. So, eager to fit in as the new guy, I quickly responded: "Carolina."

It so happened that the real estate agent who sold my parents their house in Greensboro, in our first brush with Southern hospitality, offered up tickets to a Tar Heels game at the pleasant-sounding Dean E. Smith Center in Chapel Hill.

I was an official convert. The Heels' game against UCLA on Dec. 17, 1988, would be the baptism.

Looking back at the tape and box score of the game, I had no idea what was going on during the action on the court.

There's no way that I knew the Heels were ranked eighth in the nation or that they had gone 8-1 despite the absence of All-American forward J.R. Reid, who was about to return from foot surgery.

Certainly I had no clue about UCLA, which had started 4-0 behind new coach Jim Harrick and the stellar play of guard Pooh Richardson.

I was just happy to be one of the 20,712 fans at Dean Dome, teeming with the evangelical spirit.

The crowd reached a fever pitch when Reid and his imposing flattop checked in at the 15:41 mark. A few minutes later, Reid worked himself free in the post with his ample backside and hammered home a one-handed dunk that gave the junior his first points of the season and UNC a 19-10 lead.

The game turned out to be a 104-78 dismantling by the Tar Heels. At the time, it was the third-worst loss in Bruins history. Dean Smith’s trapping defense flustered Richardson. Reid finished with six points and four rebounds in 10 minutes. Harrick and the UCLA bench were whistled for two technicals.

None of that registered in my 9-year-old mind, however. I was just taken by the rise and fall of the crowd with each three-pointer by Jeff Lebo, offensive put-back by Pete Chilcutt or defensive hounding by King Rice.

I was hooked for life even before Marty Hensley and Jeff Denny closed out garbage time against the Bruins. In subsequent seasons, I paid witness as Reid begat George Lynch, who begat Rasheed Wallace, who begat Antawn Jamison. And so on.

That passion followed me even after I moved away from the Old North State. It led me to the wayside televisions of State Street Brats in Madison, Wis., where I watched every Duke-UNC game alongside a UW graduate student and native of Boone, N.C. He got me in the habit of saying, in a drawling Appalachian accent, “Fuuuuuuck yoooooou, Wooo-joooo” every time ESPN cameras would catch a shot of Blue Devils assistant coach Steve Wojciechowski.

I don’t think I ever knew that guy’s name. We just recognized a shared passion that had long since hooked itself into our souls.

The Legend of Billy Ray

2011-02-23T09:24:00.000-08:00

For a writer, it is impossible not to be taken by the story of Billy Ray Bates.

The enigmatic Bates played in only 187 games in the NBA from 1979-'83, but he achieved immortality from his bit part in David Halberstam's "The Breaks of Game," cited in this space and nearly everywhere else as the greatest basketball book ever written. Bates also pops up in Rafe Bartholomew's immensely enjoyable "Pacific Rims," a study of the insatiable basketball jones in the Philippines.

Bates is that elusive complex character whose tale might be without rival in sports history. You'd be hard-pressed to find another son of sharecroppers in the backwoods of Mississippi who rode his athletic talent from a small college like Kentucky State to the minor leagues and then to the NBA. All of that despite a legendary wild streak and a body constitution that could overcome world-class drinking bouts to play basketball at the highest level.

That's just the beginning. When the booze eventually washed Bates from the NBA, he took his talents overseas. Bartholomew chronicled Bates' improbable second act as a near-deity for the hoops-mad Filipinos. Bates couldn't outrun his demons there, either, and he bounced around a few more basketball outposts before drunkenly trying to rob a Texaco attendant with a knife in 1998. Since his release from prison, Bates has tried to scrape together a life by trading on his basketball fame and working menial jobs.

It's almost too much to believe. With so much excellent reporting on Bates, you're often left hankering to see footage of him in action. On YouTube, you can find clips from his apex in the NBA, when he averaged 28.3 points per game against the Seattle SuperSonics in the 1981 playoffs, and also from his run in the Philippines Basketball Association.

But what about witnessing Bates in the full context of a complete game? How about Dec. 30, 1980, when Bates and the Portland Trail Blazers beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 109-108?

That game came during Bates' most successful regular season the league, when he played 20.3 minutes per game and averaged 13.8 points.

Against the 76ers, Bates checked in at the 1:31 mark of the first period. He quickly got in on the action, knocking the ball away from 76ers guard Lionel Hollins and missing a half-court shot at the final buzzer of the period.

Bates played for nearly the entire second quarter. A few minutes into the period, the Blazers' Mychal Thompson snared a defensive rebound and loosed a long outlet to a streaking Bates just across mid-court. Bates got a couple steps ahead of Hollins then took off for a "Statue of Liberty" dunk from just inside of the free-throw line.

The crowd at Memorial Coliseum went crazy. In a game that included pantheon dunkers Julius Erving and Darryl Dawkins, Bates stole the show with that slam. His effortless athleticism looked remarkably similar to a player that would thrill those Portland fans in the coming seasons, Clyde Drexler.

Bates was incredible on the fast break, but often looked out of sorts when coach Jack Ramsey had the Blazers run their disciplined half-court sets. Later in the second quarter, when it looked like the 76ers' Steve Mix was going to drop in an easy lay-up, Bates flew in to force a mix. Then Bates sprinted up court and found Jim Paxson with a nice pass under the basket.

That freakish athletic ability could also spin out of control, as Bates missed two wild forays to the basket in the final minutes of the second quarter.

It's easy to see how Ramsey could get frustrated with Bates, even without bringing all the off-the-court nonsense to bear. After Bates looked like he was lost on defense in the fourth quarter, Ramsey pulled him in favor of Michael Gale

But all that talent was too tantalizing to keep on the bench. Bates checked back in with one second remaining and the Blazers trailing, 108-107.

Kermit Washington took the ball out on the side for the Blazers. Bates started on the opposite side and sprinted toward the basket. Washington lofted the ball toward the rim. Bates leaped from one side of the basket to the other, catching the ball at the peak of his leap and laying it in for the winner. He was tackled by Washington and Calvin Natt in the euphoria.

Bates scored only six points in the game, including a long jumper over Hollins. It was a game befitting his career: Flashes of brilliance that somehow make you forgive Bates for everything else.

Long, Strange Trip

2011-02-07T09:45:00.000-08:00

Bill Walton is a national treasure. He could have been a tragic figure when horrific foot injuries derailed his professional career. But the big redhead, who overcame a childhood speech impediment, created a comic second act for himself as a beloved — often divisive — broadcaster. On the mic, Walton achieves an alchemy of John Wooden philosophies, stoner axioms, dated Grateful Dead references and non-sequiturs that would give comedian Steven Wright pause.

Sadly, a painful back condition almost ended Walton’s broadcasting gig. This season, he has dipped his toes back in the water, including filling in for Tommy Heinsohn on some Boston Celtics broadcasts.

Walton’s return sparked this question: How would he sound calling one of his own games?

How about Walton’s piece de resistance, the 1973 NCAA championship game in which he scored 44 points on 21-of-22 shooting and lifted UCLA over Memphis State, 87-66, for the Bruins’ seven straight title and 75th consecutive victory?

Here is a sampling of what could have been:

Walton’s first shot. He got the ball with his back to the basket on the left block, then hit a fade-away, eight-footer off the glass:

“What a transcendent moment in time, to play for the championship of all the world. It’s as if the Medicis of Florence gathered all of the artists in creation, placed them in a salon with a giant canvas and said: Paint, my friends.”

Walton’s second shot. He spun away from Memphis State’s Larry Kenon and took an inbounds pass from Larry Hollyfield for an easy layup:

“Most people will never experience a complete telepathic connection. I am reminded of the time Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir exchanged licks during a symphonic 47-minute rendition of “Brown-Eyed Women” at Winterland in ’72. It was a virtual dissertation on the nature of time and space.”

Walton’s third shot. Another spin on the blocks, this time leading to an acrobatic reverse:

“Coach Wooden taught us that all things are possible. This professor emeritus instilled in us the confidence of conquering heroes twice our age. When the final chapter in the history of this great nation is written, John Wooden will be mentioned in the same sentence as Allen Ginsburg and George Washington.”

Walton’s fifth shot. An up-and-under move into the lane, finishing with a jump hook despite a foul:

“My parents knew nothing of sports. My father was a man of letters, more interested DeBussy than Tom Meschery. But he understood the essence of artistry. So when he saw me play, he said: Billy, even I realize that your movements are on the order of philosopher kings.”

Walton’s eighth shot. A beautiful back cut for a lay-in that was disqualified for being a “dunk,” which was verboten by the NCAA at the time:

“Sometimes you must fight the oppressive forces of your day. Don’t believe that might makes right. Stand up for your ideals for that is truly all we have to show for during our brief stay here on Earth.”

Walton’s only missed shot. An alley-oop that he caught and tried to flip over his head, but the ball bounced off the back of the rim:

“Bill Walton, what are you doing out there? You had the opportunity of a lifetime, to catch immortality by its tail. This is a travesty, a soul-crushing exercise in futility. Coach Wooden needs to take Walton out of the game and let him know that this behavior is unbecoming of a champion.”

Walton picked up his third foul with 4:18 remaining in the first half. Swen Nater filled in until halftime, when both teams went into the locker room with the score tied at 39. Walton had 22 points:

“This young man needs to understand the gravity of the situation. 20 minutes amount to just a small bit of salt in the hourglass of time. But what inspiration can come from just a few seconds of concentrated effort.”

In the second half, Memphis State switched to a zone and packed its defenders in to try to cool down Walton. UCLA’s center instead found the holes at the back end of the zone and scored the majority of his 11 second-half baskets on lobs from Greg Lee:

“These are heady times indeed. Chaos on the streets of Los Angeles. Unjust wars in the jungles of Vietnam. But sometimes, supreme beings can block out the travesties and deliver what gods and goddesses have done since time immemorial.”

Walton’s greatest game ended three minutes early, when he rolled his ankle on a shot-block attempt. It was a dark foreboding of all the foot problems Walton would have as a professional:

“Glory is fleeting. One must drink from the cup of wisdom when it is placed in front of him. Delight in your youth, they say. But the irony of it all is that you can never understand that statement until it is too late.”

Road to Redemption

2011-01-19T10:21:00.000-08:00

I've always been a sucker for tales about basketball players with dark sides.

Stories like Chris Herren as a basketball junkie in the literal sense. Charles Shackleford locking himself in his North Carolina State dorm room and listening to Phil Collins' "In The Air Tonight" on repeat. Former Detroit Pistons center turned seven-foot stickup artist Reggie Harding. ABA tough guy turned Ugandan guerrilla fighter John Brisker.

I guess the fascination started with Lloyd "Swee' Pea" Daniels.

Daniels is definitely on the starting five of the All-Squandered Talent team. The excellent book "Swee' Pea and Other Playground Legends: Tales of Drugs, Violence and Basketball" by John Valenti and New York City high school coach Ron Naclerio traces Daniels' spiral from being "Magic Johnson with a jumpshot" to never getting to suit up for UNLV after getting arrested in a crack house.

The six-foot-seven forward, more of the crafty type than the typical flashy New York City player, was recovering from a gunshot wound to shoulder and getting his bloated, alcoholic body into shape for another comeback attempt in 1990. He struggled with the Miami Tropics of the USBL before falling off the wagon. He spent some time with John Lucas, the resident drug counselor for hoops stars, before seeking out another chance.

Fortunately for Daniels, the upstart Global Basketball Association was formed. The league had solid renegade credentials, starting at the top with former ABA commissioner Mike Storen (father of ESPN's Hannah Storm). The GBA had too-cute nicknames and hometown heroes, like the Raleigh Bullfrogs (yes, Jeremiah was the mascot) with former scrappy N.C. State point guard Chris Corchiani playing for former scrappy N.C. State point guard Monte Towe. The ABA had the iconic red, white and blue ball. The GBA went with the all-white rock.

My home of Greensboro, N.C., was one of the lucky townships to get a charter GBA franchise. The Greensboro City Gaters were named after the seldom-used nickname "Gate City" and illogically had their mascot be a gator.

Daniels was signed by the Gaters in October of 1991. The coach was Ed McLean, a former Jim Valvano assistant who also coached Pete Maravich at Raleigh Broughton High School.

The league couldn't hitch its wagon to washed-out NBA players like Milt Wagner (Louisville Shooters) and Chuck Nevitt (Bullfrogs), so the GBA heavily promoted Daniels.

I remember reading the requisite takeout feature on Daniels in the Greensboro News & Record and, being 12 years old without much sense of nuance, thinking how much of a coup it was that this rare talent had landed in my city.

I badgered my parents into taking me to see the Gaters at the venerable Greensboro Coliseum. My strongest memory is how the Coliseum — host to many Final Fours, ACC tournaments and NBA preseason games — seemed so small with a crowd that couldn't have topped 1,000 fans.

You could hear the kiss of the sneakers on the hardwood and the conversations on the court. I unwaveringly tracked Daniels. He looked almost middle-aged with a bald pate and battered body. He even looked slower than the other GBA players, but inevitably he would fill the box scores I pored over in the News & Record.

That season kick-started Daniels' comeback. He thrived under McLean and Jim Price, a former NBA journeyman who took over as coach a few months into the season. Daniels averaged 24.3 points, 6.6 rebounds and 3.9 assists per game and was named the GBA's inaugural MVP. He was also the All-Star Game MVP. The Gaters finished 30-33 and were bounced in the first round of the GBA playoffs. For the record, the Music City Jammers, who finished 24-40 in the regular season, won the championship.

It was the first full winter of basketball for Daniels, then 24, since his junior year in high school. He hooked up with the Long Island Surf for the USBL's summer season.

In 1992, Daniels finally got his chance at the NBA. He signed with San Antonio Spurs, where he would play for Jerry Tarkanian, the coach who coveted Daniels so badly when "the Shark" was at UNLV.

Tarkanian lasted only 20 games as coach of the Spurs. The Greensboro City Gaters folded after that one season because of sparse crowds. The GBA made it only a month into its second year.

Daniels appeared in 200 games with six teams in the NBA, averaging 7.1 points per game.

I always checked the box scores for his name.

National Pride

2011-01-12T13:00:00.000-08:00

There always seems to be a sense of entitlement when it comes to the United States and international basketball tournaments. Even with foreign players among the best in the world, there exists some irrational distress when the Americans don't obliterate the competition.

The shock of the U.S.'s loss to the Soviet Union in the 1972 Olympics has yet to dissipate. The American players have famously never accepted their silver medals.

The controversy of that defeat, when the Soviets were given multiple chances at the winning shot, in Munich is justified. Four years later in Montreal, the U.S. was on the other side of a narrow result in the Olympics. The record shows the Americans winning, 95-94, over Puerto Rico. It is forgotten how close the U.S. came to another shocking loss.

Butch Lee wanted to play for the U.S. But Lee wasn't granted an invitation to the Olympic trials by coach Dean Smith, even though Marquette teammates Earl Tatum, Lloyd Walton and Bo Ellis were.

Lee was born in Puerto Rico. His family decamped shortly thereafter for New York City, where Lee became a hoops legend at the Bronx's DeWitt Clinton High School. Still, he was eligible to play for the Puerto Rican national team.

Puerto Rico coach Tom Nissalke, a longtime ABA and NBA fixture, certainly must have been glad to have Lee.

The Puerto Ricans opened with a 21-point loss to the Yugoslavians, which didn't bode well for the match-up with the Americans. Smith's roster boasted Phil Ford, Adrian Dantley, Mitch Kupchak, Ernie Grunfeld, Scott May and Quinn Buckner.

Lee came out to prove that he belonged on the world stage. Guarded mostly by Indiana star Buckner, Lee finished with 35 points on 15-for-18 shooting and 5 for 6 from the free-throw line. Eight of Lee's baskets gave Puerto Rico leads as the game was tight throughout. Lee's backcourt mate Neftali Rivera added 26 points. They combined for 36 points in the first half as the game was tied at 50 at the break.

Rivera's biggest points came with just over one minute remaining as he hit a jumper to give Puerto Rico a 92-91 lead. Dantley gave the lead back to the Americans on a tip-in with 22 seconds left.

Then came the controversy. Nissalke drew up a play to clear room for one of Lee's patented mid-range jumpers. There was contact in the lane as Lee rose up for an eight-footer. The whistle blew. Everyone held their breath to see which way the age-old, block-charge conundrum would go.

It was a charge on Lee. The Puerto Rican bench howled with incredulity.

Ford hit two free throws. The Puerto Ricans hit a meaningless shot at the buzzer for the final margin. The chances of a monumental upset were gone.

The loss to the Soviets four years earlier could at least be explained away, with the opposition having placed high emphasis on beating the Americans and the finish that reeked of conspiracy. A loss to tiny Puerto Rico would have been inconceivable, no matter how good Lee was.

Lee would get a measure of revenge against Smith in 1977, scoring 19 points as Marquette beat North Carolina in the NCAA championship game.

Lee played two seasons for four teams in the NBA, averaging 8.1 points and 3.2 assists per game. He had a long career as a player and coach in the Baloncesto Superior Nacional, Puerto Rico's professional league.

Despite that missed opportunity in 1976, Lee undoubtedly cracked a smile in 2004, when Puerto Rico shocked the U.S., 92-73, at the Athens Olympics.

Race Matters

2011-01-05T09:27:00.000-08:00

Race is an inescapable subject in basketball. It’s front and center, not hidden under helmets or long-sleeved uniforms.

Race is present at choose-up games at the local YMCA or watching NBA League Pass on the couch. It’s joked about openly when discussing the five best white NBA players of all time, and it surfaces subliminally when clueless commentators decry the lack of fundamentals in the modern game.

All of these strains can get tied together, which makes for fascinating stories. Such is the case with “Chase The Game,” an often-overlooked gem of a basketball book by the inimitable journalist Pat Jordan that was published in 1979.

Jordan has written some wild stories for Deadspin in recent years, but “Chase The Game” is straight reportage with bits of social commentary peppered in. The narrative centers on three friends and standout prep players in the surprisingly fertile hoops vineyard of Bridgeport, Conn. A high-school aged Wes Matthews Sr. even makes a cameo appearance during a pickup game.

Two of the players are cousins, Frank Oleynick and Barry McLeod, who have stylish games that were honed on the playgrounds in the projects of Bridgeport. Walter Luckett is considered the best talent in the city, recruited by the top-tier hoops colleges because of his sweet jumper that was perfected in well-kept gymnasiums.

The twist is that Oleynick and McLeod are white, and Luckett is black. That factors into their development as players. Oleynick and McLeod come from a hard-drinking immigrant family, and they latched onto basketball and labored incessantly on their games. Luckett was from the same projects as the cousins, but had some white benefactors who pushed him to excel.
Luckett went to a rival high school, but the three played pickup games together all over the East Coast. Oleynick and McLeod would win over skeptics by faring well in games against Providence star Marvin “Bad News” Barnes and even at the famed Rucker Park in New York.

The players tried to “chase the game” to the NBA. Luckett ended up choosing Ohio University, where he was featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated as one of the best freshmen in the nation. McLeod landed at Centenary, where his main duty was to feed the ball to a 7-footer named Robert Parish. Oleynick put some distance between himself and his hometown, choosing Seattle University.

Oleynick became a legend in The Emerald City. The white kid with an urban game won a cult following and averaged 22.6 points over three seasons. He was recently voted the ninth-best player in school history. Luckett had a hard time living up to his recruiting hype, but he averaged 20.5 points in three years. McLeod had the greatest team success of the three in college, with Centenary going 68-13 in his three varsity seasons, but NCAA violations involving Parish kept the school from the postseason.

Oleynick and Luckett incessantly measured their success against each other. Both entered the NBA draft a year early in 1975. Oleynick was the 12th overall pick by the SuperSonics and Luckett was chosen by the Detroit Pistons in the second round. McLeod was chosen a year later in the seventh round by the Chicago Bulls.

Oleynick was the only one to make a regular-season NBA roster. Luckett and McLeod were waived in training camp. Oleynick lasted just two seasons (5 points and 1.1 assists per game) with the SuperSonics under coach Bill Russell. Oleynick battled injuries and a crowded backcourt that featured “Downtown” Freddy Brown and fan favorite Slick Watts. Oleynick hinted that race might have played a factor in his limited opportunities.

As an interesting postscript to the book, the trio ended up back around their hometown. McLeod became a longtime coach at Bridgeport Central High School. Luckett worked corporate gigs but now helps Oleynick with basketball clinics.

Still chasing the game.

Frozen In Time

2010-12-21T08:29:00.000-08:00

Isiah Thomas and the landed gentry of NBA stars conspired to keep the ball away from upstart Michael Jordan at the rookie’s first All-Star Game in 1985.

At least that’s the accepted version of history.

It’s easy to see how that conspiracy has gained traction over the years. It fits into the well-established narrative of Isiah-as-nefarious-meddler, and the young Jordan was such an inconceivable alloy of skills that it had to have been discomfiting for the older generation of stars.

What does the tape reveal? Like the Zapruder film, there are just enough moments to back every side of the argument.

The genesis of the “freeze-out” supposedly came out of Jordan’s unwillingness to show proper deference to the veterans. The audacious young star wore a gold chain over his jersey when he competed in the dunk contest. In the locker room he acted like, well, Michael Jordan. He boasted, he embarrassed teammates, he challenged Moses Malone to a free-throw shooting contest (with MJ winning, of course).

There was also the matter of those shoes. In time, the Air Jordan I would revolutionize basketball footwear and marketing. In 1985, however, it looked like Jordan was putting on airs by refusing to wear the standard-issue all-star apparel. The shoes were even brought up during the broadcast, with color commentator Tommy Heinsohn remarking the shoes “look like they have horns on them.”

So that set the stage for the game at the Hoosier Dome in Indianapolis. In the first minutes, Jordan skied for a defensive rebound, then tipped the ball in on the offensive glass for the game’s first points.

Jordan didn’t put himself above the game. He passed to his point guard —Thomas — immediately after getting rebounds or steals. But why did Thomas, the game’s consummate playmaker at the time, not give the ball right back to Jordan on the fast break early in the first quarter?

Jordan’s next point came on a free throw after he was fouled under the basket, where Thomas had found him with a nice dish. But a few minutes later, Thomas refused to look Jordan’s way again on a break, preferring to give the ball to rumbling big man Malone.

You could also read a lot into the flippant behind-the-back pass that Thomas gave to Jordan, before everyone on the East team cleared out so the Bulls star could go one-on-one against George Gervin. Who was this rookie to call for a solo voyage to the basket when he was on the same team with Thomas, Malone, Julius Erving and Larry Bird?

In the second quarter, Thomas also didn’t pull the trigger on a lob to a backdoor-cutting Jordan. Thomas had connected with Erving on the exact play earlier in the game. As the clock ticked down toward halftime, Jordan drove into the paint before kicking it out to Thomas in the corner for a three-pointer at the buzzer that tied the game at 68.

The second half continued in the same vein. Thomas refused to acknowledge Jordan when the rookie was wide open coming off a screen. Then Thomas would feed Jordan for jumpers on the wing.

In the end, Jordan played only 22 minutes and scored seven points with six rebounds, two assists and three steals. Was East coach K.C. Jones in on the conspiracy or was it hard to divide playing time on the wing with Bernard King and Micheal Ray Richardson? Jordan took nine shots, making two, and was 3 of 4 from the free-throw line. Thomas had 22 points on 9-of-14 shooting in 25 minutes.

Several stories have fingered Dr. Charles Tucker, the agent for Magic Johnson and Thomas at the time, for leaking the “freeze-out” angle to several writers. True or not, Jordan probably latched onto it, as he usually did, to use as grist for his competitiveness.

The conspiracy probably took hold as people filled out the back-story on the animosity-fueled battles between Jordan’s Bulls and Thomas’ Pistons in the late 1980s and early ’90s. Then came the rumors that Jordan was a key voice in keeping Thomas off the 1992 Dream Team.

Of course, nobody has gone on the record in saying that Jordan was denied the ball in 1985. But that hasn’t stopped conspiracy-minded fans from scouring the tapes.

Points Well Taken

2010-12-15T08:26:00.000-08:00

High-scoring basketball games are generally better viewed on paper than by actually bearing witness to them.

No video footage exists of Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game in 1962. But while the box score is certainly something to marvel at, it probably would grow a little tedious to watch the Dipper take lobs from Guy Rodgers and put up his 63 shots against the New York Knicks’ undersized defense. The myth is always better when shrouded in a little mystery.

The highest-scoring basketball game — college or NBA — came on Jan. 12, 1992, when NCAA Division II Troy State routed DeVry University in Atlanta by the inconceivable score of 258-141.

Yes, you read that correctly. Yes, the numbers are shocking for a 40-minute game played when college basketball teams still had the 45-second shot clock at their disposal:

- Troy State led at halftime, 123-53.

- Troy State beat its own NCAA record for points in a game -— 187 against DeVry the previous season —with over 10 minutes remaining in the game.

- Troy State took 109 three-pointers, making 51.

- DeVry had 44 turnovers, with 28 coming on steals by Troy State.

- Troy State’s Brian Simpson played 15 minutes but still managed to get up 29 shots, 26 of them three-pointers.

- For the game, Troy State averaged six points a minute.

According to the ESPN College Basketball Encyclopedia, seven statisticians put their heads together for 57 minutes to compile the final box score.

Troy State’s playing style is easy to understand, coming on the heels of Loyola Marymount’s run-and-gun success in the late 1980s. Don Maestri, still the Troy State (now just Troy) coach, had a team that season that was short in both height and experience, so that style likely gave the team its best chance to win.

Troy State’s players should also be accorded some respect. You need to be in superior physical shape to play that type of game, and the 135 points that Troy State put up in the second half is impressive. DeVry had only seven players, and by the end of the game they were clearly spent.

That said, this is train-wreck basketball of the highest order. Dean Smith or John Wooden wouldn’t stomach this type of game, but it is still hard to look away.

Think of your regular pickup game when you are trying to slog through the last game of the night. Everyone is gassed, every pass is lazy and every shot is an unchallenged three-pointer. That’s kind of how the Troy State-DeVry game played out, except with better-conditioned players.

DeVry didn’t even put up the façade of playing defense. Two of DeVry’s players didn’t even cross halfcourt to play defense on most of Troy State’s possessions. They would wait on their own end for Troy State to shoot, then a DeVry player would try to throw a long pass down the court. This resulted in a majority of those 44 turnovers.

Troy State’s effort on defense mirrored DeVry’s. Coach Maestri was content for his opponents to score as long as they did it quickly. DeVry just quickened the pace by blowing layups and losing control of the ball.

The game almost played out in real time. With only one foul called on a shot attempt, there were only three free throws shot in the game. Troy State had to wait until a ball went out of bounds to bring in its constantly rotating cast of five fresh players.

Basketball purists surely would love to burn any existing copies of this game. But those eye-popping numbers put up by Troy State will always draw attention.

Oops. My Bad.

2010-11-10T09:02:00.000-08:00

If you’ve played pickup basketball long enough and in various cities across the nation, the chances are pretty good that you’ve shared the court with a player of some renown.

Maybe in college you teamed with your school’s star shooting guard to form a formidable backcourt for that one game in the student activities center. Maybe one day in the NBA off-season, the eighth man on your local franchise was starting to get back into shape and wanted to get some burn at the posh health club, and you ran up and down the court with him and passed him the ball every time.

Well, I once threw an errant alley-oop to Pat Sullivan.

Sullivan is a fondly remembered figure in UNC’s storied basketball history. He arrived in Chapel Hill from Bogota, N.J., as the least-heralded member of a recruiting class (Eric Montross, Clifford Rozier, Derrick Phelps, Brian Reese) that was considered one of the greatest ever, until it was eclipsed the next year by Michigan’s Fab Five.

Sullivan played 118 games for the Tar Heels and appeared in three Final Fours, with the historical record noting that he scored 478 points, grabbed 223 rebounds and dished 120 assists. But beyond statistics, Sullivan seemed to personify the unselfish ideals of coach Dean Smith. Sullivan took charges, ran the offense, boxed out, helped from the weak side. After three solid years of solid production, Sullivan agreed to redshirt to ease a logjam in the frontcourt. It’s a shame that he is mostly remembered for missing the back end of a one-and-one in the 1993 NCAA title game against Michigan, setting the stage for Chris Webber’s infamous timeout.

It’s a natural transition for a player like Sullivan to get into coaching. He’s carved out a niche for himself as an NBA assistant, currently in his second stint with the Detroit Pistons. He helped coach at UNC in the late 1990s, but when Matt Doherty was hired as the Tar Heels’ coach in 2000, Sullivan was relieved of his duties. Stories circulated about Sullivan packing up his Tar Heels memorabilia in his Carolina-blue apartment. That helped poison the well of Doherty’s UNC tenure.

Sullivan had just finished his playing days at UNC in 1995. He was probably making the coaching rounds of North Carolina when he came to Greensboro to be the featured speaker at the Crown Automobile/Gaters AAU All-Star Camp.

The Greensboro Gaters were a nascent organization that, if memory serves, grew out of the Guilford College YMCA all-star teams. They had not ballooned into the NC Gaters juggernaut that would become a power on the national circuit. Still, it was every Greensboro baller’s fervent wish to be on those teams with the free sneakers and the sleek practice jerseys.

I was never quite good enough to make the Gaters, whose ranks at the time included future ACC players Brendan Haywood, Jason Capel and Justin Gainey. But I kept trying out for those teams, making tiny inroads (like notching the “Most Improved Player” at the Gaters camp the year before) but never earning a spot on the traveling squads. So Sullivan’s make-the-most-of-your-talent, work-hard-good-things-will-happen, I-made-it-to-UNC-and-so-can-you speech was directed mostly at the marginal talents like myself. I had already started dipping my toe into the slipstream that carried me from can-do hustler to self-aware deprecator of my own limitations.

Sullivan was gracious enough after his speech to join the choose-up scrimmage with the bird-chested 15-year-olds on Greensboro Day School’s main court. Fate would have it that Sullivan ended up on my team. This would be my chance to prove my worth to the local hoops cognoscenti.

It was just a few minutes into the action when I brought the ball up the court on the wing. Sullivan set up on the blocks and was fronted by a Northwest Guilford High School standout. Sullivan put his hand up and made eye contact with me, then lifted his chin to acknowledge that the door was open.

I achingly wanted to thread that needle. I snapped my wrist on an overhead pass with the form that had been drilled into me over several years of basketball camps.

The ball seemed to hang in the air for a couple of dramatic beats.

Then it clanged off the rim and skipped out of bounds. A teammate said, “Man, what the hell was that?” Sullivan scrunched his face in confusion. He must have sensed my disappointment, because he winked at me while running down the court and said:

“It was there.”

Here's The Pitch

2010-10-29T10:37:00.000-07:00

Watching the 1998 HBO documentary “City Dump: The Story of the 1951 CCNY Basketball Scandal,” I kept thinking how the material was screaming for the full-length fictional feature treatment.

I thought the same thing about the Jack Molinas-Connie Hawkins story arc, then I did a little research and found out that it was a dream project for Bethlehem Shoals until Free Darko’s mad genius learned that Spike Lee and John Turturro were trying their hand at a screenplay.

Both stories mine the same territory: Basketball in New York City around mid-century. The original Madison Square Garden engulfed with tendrils of cigarette smoke. Low-rent hucksters and cut-rate bookmakers in sharkskin suits and fedoras on the sideline, making side bets on the action. Nattily dressed coaches, pocket squares included, directing the fast-paced, hard-cutting action on the court that was the prevalent style of the time in the city.

The CCNY story is a little less familiar than Molinas-Hawkins. The Beavers had caught the fancy of New York, which was enthralled with baseball at the time as the city still had the Dodgers, Yankees and Giants. CCNY had a team that encapsulated the melting pot feel of the town, with black, Jewish and Irish city natives combining their talents. The team won both the NCAA and NIT championships in 1950, both games against Bradley University, relegating the professional New York Knickerbockers to other accommodations because college basketball was king in the Garden.

But it all came crashing down when crusading district attorney Frank Hogan, an evangelical on issues of corruption, began investigating allegations of point shaving in college basketball. College hoops had become a cottage industry for two-bit hustlers, who found no shortage of enthusiastic bettors at the Garden and also broke-as-a-joke students who were willing to take a dive for some scratch.

The star players on CCNY had dumped a few games. Their careers were over, and the wider net of the investigation had ensnared players across the nation, including the sanctimonious Kentucky team of Adolph Rupp.

It could work cinematically even as a thinly veiled version. Focus on a Jewish immigrant, the first in his family to go to college in America, the pride of his ethnic enclave. At CCNY, he plays with black teammates for the first time. It’s awkward at first, but they work through it and get to championship heights. The coach is a taskmaster, and the players have no money to squire women in this hopping city. A city-slick former college player recruits the CCNY stars to work for his mobbed-up partner. The players make a few dollars, and then in the third act the house of cards falls down.

It’ll work. Get a “Boardwalk Empire” set of the block with the old Garden and neon signs for 24-hour coffee shops and liquor lounges. Slap on a jazzy soundtrack, and we’re in business.

Here’s who I envision as the star: Jason Segel of “How I Met Your Mother,” “Freaks and Geeks” and “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” fame. He’s got the build — no need for the eight-foot rims for tiny actors — and also a visage that wouldn’t look out of place on a Jewish or Irish immigrant.

In point of fact, Segel is a baller. He was the seventh-man on the Harvard Westlake team in North Hollywood, Calif., that won the Division III state championship in 1996, and he played in the same front court as future NBAers and twin brothers Jason and Jarron Collins.

Here is an excerpt from a Los Angeles Times feature in 1996 about the team and Segel, who was known as “Doctor Dunk” as a 6-foot, 4-inch junior:

"I'm not nearly as skilled a basketball player as some of the other guys," Segel says. "But I have a lot of bravado."

Not to mention a made-for-the-highlight-reels dunk.

During Harvard's two-week East Coast trip in December, Segel wowed a Florida crowd with a two-handed slam made with the front of his jersey pulled over his head. Before the dunk, Segel stood poised, calling for silence with outstretched arms. After the dunk, he dove headfirst into the stands.

"He put on an absolute show," (point guard Leo) Da Costa said.

Segel also keeps the team loose with impressions of everyone from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Kermit the Frog. He even does (Harvard coach Greg) Hilliard.

"You spend five minutes around Jason and he'll come up with a pretty good impression of you," Abed Abusaleh said.

An aspiring actor, Segel has dabbled in bit parts and studied in England. After the season, Segel is scheduled to begin rehearsals for a school production in which he will deliver a 22-minute soliloquy on stage.

"I love getting up in front of people," he says.

His most memorable moment this season? The dunk, of course. Not because he made it but because Jarron allowed him to. Jarron qualified for the competition ahead of Segel but deferred to his teammate.

"He knew it was something important to me, so he stepped back and let me do it," Segel said. "I appreciated that."

It might not be blockbuster summer fare, but critics and hoopheads would eat this stuff up. So, budding Hollywood moguls, give me a call and let’s do brunch somewhere.

The Old College Try

2010-10-26T10:05:00.000-07:00

It’s not often that you prepare for the upcoming NBA season by watching an old college game between Oklahoma and Davidson.

But with Blake Griffin and Stephen Curry now plying their trade on West Coast NBA teams with limited nationally televised games, it’s hard to think of them beyond names in a box score or brief images in an Internet video. So a refresher course was in order, even if it was a early season college matchup that the Sooners won, 82-78, in the NIT Tip Off tournament on Nov. 18, 2008, in Norman, Okla.

Griffin missed all of last season for the Los Angeles Clippers after breaking his kneecap in the preseason. By most accounts, the top overall draft pick in 2009 has regained all of his quickness, leaping ability and his non-stop motor.
Those first-rate qualities are the first things that jump out at the viewer in the game against Davidson. Griffin tapped an awkward jump ball, then sprinted ahead of everyone to corral the ball and lay it in with great fluidity.

It also didn’t take long for Curry to justify all those vague descriptions that are pressed upon him: savvy, basketball IQ, court awareness. Curry’s first basket came on a cut across the court, and he fielded a pass with his back to the basket. Curry knew exactly where he was in relation to the hoop (and where his defender was), so he caught the ball and flicked it perfectly off the glass. You’re left with the impression that Curry had done this countless times before.

A basketball fanatic could be wholly satisfied just watching Curry move without the ball for 40 minutes. Oklahoma defenders were overplaying him to deny him the ball. That just left open the possibility for Curry to make precise backdoor cuts and get some higher percentage shots near the basket. With the ball, Curry also made advantageous use of screens. His first three-pointer came as he curled around a pick, then duped the overanxious defender with a pump fake before calmly drilling the shot. Again, it’s like Curry could do this 10 minutes after rolling out of bed on a Tuesday morning.

Griffin took only four shots in the first half, but it’s not like he was missing in action. He went hard to the glass on every play, getting 11 rebounds by halftime. You hesitate to invoke Dennis Rodman, but Griffin would get boards with such intensity and guile and then sprint down the court with such alacrity that the comparisons to the Worm wouldn’t be baseless.

Griffin’s offense came alive in the second half, when he scored 21 of his 25 points. College defenders didn’t have enough quickness to stay in front of him. Commentator Fran Fraschilla kept noting that Griffin would be an outstanding pick-and-pop guy in the NBA with his great hands and quick feet. Griffin’s intensity never lagged either, and he finished with 21 rebounds.
There were lots of questions by pro scouts about whether Curry could thrive in the NBA with longer defenders. He certainly answered those concerns during his rookie year with the Golden State Warriors, especially later in the season as Curry began to sort the league out.

A glimpse at Curry’s ability to score against NBA-level athletes came in the final minute, when he found himself matched up with Griffin on the perimeter. Curry dribbled right at Griffin, then got enough separation on a step-back to get off a high-arching three-pointer that got Davidson within three points.

Griffin would eventually pull down an offensive rebound with 26 seconds left to seal Oklahoma’s victory. Curry had 44 points, made all the more amazing because he missed five minutes in the first half with foul trouble and his outside jumper wasn’t on the mark (he shot 12 for 29). It’s going to be tremendous watching both players’ skills translate to NBA success in the coming years. Maybe it’s time to get NBA League Pass for those West Coast games.

Scaling the Mount

2010-10-11T09:04:00.000-07:00

Shooters are a breed apart. It takes a different kind of cat to spend countless hours in empty gyms, often all by his or her lonesome, hoisting jumper after jumper.

You know them when you see them, the kind of basketball player often referred to as a “pure shooter.” They often have similar personality traits. Most have placid demeanors and often endured strange childhoods. Ray Allen was a peripatetic Army brat. Steve Kerr was the son of an academic who was assassinated while serving as president of the American University of Beirut.

Then there is Rick Mount. One of basketball’s first prep prodigies, Mount was an Indiana legend from the small town of Lebanon. He seemed to be interested in nothing except perfecting his jump shot, taking care from an early age to get in his 400 shots daily. He landed on the cover of Sports Illustrated as a high school senior in 1966 and went on to Purdue.

Watching silent footage of the Boilermakers’ 75-73 overtime victory over Marquette in the 1969 NCAA Mideast Regional final at the University of Wisconsin Fieldhouse, it is easy to get transfixed by Mount’s game. He could be the ultimate archetype of a cold-blooded shooter.

Mount’s best moves were his one- or two-step dribbles, going to his left or right, then pulling up for the jumper. This was a master craftsman. His moves had perfect rhythm, with the dribbles getting a harder bounce to ease seamlessly into his form. Mount also had a high-arching runner in the lane, often coming off his opposite foot. His baseline fadeaway was stunning.

Mount also didn’t have a conscience, going 11 for 32 in the game and finishing with 26 points, Mount shot from 24 feet with two guys in his face. He was gunning after every ball screen he got. The misses wouldn’t deter Mount. As every broadcaster has probably uttered during his or her career, “Good shooters always think the next one is going to fall.”

It’s a good thing for Purdue that he kept shooting, because in the waning seconds of overtime he came around a screen set by center Jerry Johnson. For some odd reason, Marquette’s Jack Burke didn’t step out on Mount, who found himself all alone for from 20 feet out. Everyone in the Fieldhouse that day had to know that the ball was going in to give the Boilermakers the 75-73 victory. Purdue would advance to the championship game, where it became another victim in John Wooden’s UCLA dynasty.

Mount had an uneven professional career in five ABA seasons, averaging 11.8 points per game before injuries forced him to retire. He never lived up to being the top overall pick by his home-state Indiana Pacers, especially under defensive-minded head coach Slick Leonard. Shots were harder to come by in the pros, and the book on Mount was to not let him get open coming off screens because he would sink any open shot.

Mount made it back into Sports Illustrated in the magazine’s “Where Are They Now?” issue in 2001. It didn’t come as much surprise that, even at age 54, Mount was still getting up 500 shots a day in Lebanon, Ind.

After some failed business ventures, Mount is teaching what he knows best. He runs a shooting camp, and he sells a contraption that rebounds the ball for the solitary shooter. There’s an awesome clip of Mount instructing some kids in his driveway with one of those machines. Definitely a different kind of cat.

Training Camp

2010-09-29T09:27:00.000-07:00

The gold standard of basketball blogs, Henry Abbott’s True Hoop, recently went into exhaustive detail about Michael Jordan’s stewardship of the Charlotte Bobcats. Central to most of Jordan’s business dealings throughout his career have been a handful of loyal confidantes, with Fred Whitfield arguably chief among them. Abbott shed some light about the importance of Whitfield, who has been a consigliere to Jordan as a friend/adviser/lawyer during the NBA star’s playing days and later as a partner with Brand Jordan, the Washington Wizards and now the Bobcats.

In an indirect fashion, the partnership of Whitfield and Jordan is also responsible for this blog that you are reading.

Whitfield hails from my hometown of Greensboro, N.C., where he was a standout player at Southeast Guilford High School. Whitfield went on to play at Campbell College, the site of a legendary basketball camp (where Whitfield befriended a young Jordan). Perhaps inspired by his experience at Campbell, Whitfield started his own camp in Greensboro, with a little help from well-known friends like Jordan, Johnny Dawkins and Ralph Sampson.

Whitfield’s Achievements Unlimited camp began in 1984, and grew in popularity every year. I started becoming obsessed with basketball in the early 1990s, when I was around 12. Most of the kids on the Guilford College YMCA all-star teams often sported AU T-shirts, so I figured that if I wanted to play at their level I would have to go to that camp.

Achievements Unlimited is famous around North Carolina for its “World’s Greatest Pickup Game”— featuring pro and college players — that campers and their families can attend at the end of the week. Jordan faithfully played every year, even as his fame reached astronomical levels. It always blew my mind to see the teachers’ parking lot at Western Guilford High School filled with Mercedes Benzes and BMWs. Jordan was the unquestioned king of those games, but in the three years I attended, it was awesome to see Mugsey Bogues, Kenny Smith, King Rice, J.R. Reid, Rick Fox, Dell Curry, Grant Hill and Alaa Abdelnaby. All those players were minor royalty in North Carolina at the time, so seeing them play at this bandbox of a high-school gym was quite an experience.

But nothing could compare with witnessing Jordan in that environment. Remember that this was during the years of the first Bulls three-peat, when Jordan was probably the most famous person in the world. The other players would be warming up, and everyone in the stands would be on edge because Jordan wasn’t there. After all, why would the greatest player ever carve out time to come to this nondescript high school in Greensboro? But then the double doors in the corner would swing open, and Jordan would enter surrounded by a security detail. The buzz at that moment was palpable, and you could hear the electricity spread across the crowd. I remember sitting in the bleachers diagonally across from where Jordan entered. I couldn’t make out his facial features, but the profile of Jordan’s bald dome was instantly recognizable.

There were great players in those games, but Jordan always dominated. Whenever I want to wax poetic about Jordan’s greatness, as basketball fans are wont to do, I think about those pickup games. Jordan knew that every set of eyes in that gym was focused on him, and every spectator demanded that Jordan live up to his reputation as the best in the world. And Jordan always delivered. Even in the summer after a grueling 100-game season. Even in a high-school gym in Greensboro.

For a novice player, the basketball education at the camp was tremendous. It’s where I first learned the pick-and-roll and how to fill the lane on a fast break. My clearest memory of the instruction was Dawkins telling us how to find our shooting range, which he defined as anywhere you can consistently make three of five shots. Dawkins showed us by starting under the basket, then taking a step back after making three shots. He ended up drilling a few jumpers just shy of half court.

But the part about AU that I didn’t appreciate at the time was Whitfield’s insistence that the camp not only be about basketball. We had a list of vocabulary words that we had to learn every night and would be quizzed on the next day. I dutifully studied words like “inevitable” and “exemplary” while I soaked my weary bones in the tub. The test scores would be factored in with the points and rebounds to establish the camp all-stars. Standout campers were awarded dictionaries instead of the traditional plaques or trophies.

I was never that good, so I was insanely jealous of those players that got the dictionaries. Like hoops, words became an obsession of mine. I still put a checkmark next to every new word I look up in my Webster’s New World. The outgrowth of those twin passions is this blog, which owes a debt of gratitude to Whitfield and Jordan for stoking those interests.

Double-Booked

2010-09-21T08:57:00.000-07:00

Home-and-home series on consecutive nights are a scheduling quirk not that uncommon in the NBA. It almost never happens in college basketball.

Even rarer in college hoops is back-to-back games against a bitter conference rival from 25 miles down the road. Yet that was the case on Feb. 6 and 7, 1991, when North Carolina and North Carolina State had the hoops version of a doubleheader.

The teams’ first meeting that season was scheduled for Jan. 16. On that day, however, the game was postponed because President Bush had issued orders to start bombing Baghdad. The only wiggle room for another game in the schedule was the day after the teams’ second meeting.

It was the first time in the 38 years of the Atlantic Coast Conference that teams would play each other on consecutive days. So on Feb. 6 at the rollicking Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh, N.C., the players came out with a sense of history.

They played a classic college battle, with both teams pushing the ball and a rabid crowd that urged the Wolfpack to a 97-91 victory. Chris Corchiani played almost as perfect a game as you would want from a point guard: 10 points, 12 assists, six steals and one turnover with fiery leadership for his N.C. State teammates. His backcourt mate in the historically underrated “Fire and Ice” tandem, Rodney Monroe, dropped in a cool 37 points, including 21 after halftime. Tom Gugliotta went inside and outside to finish with 28 points.

Gugliotta and Monroe combined to shoot 22 of 38, including 11 for 19 on three-pointers. Most of those three-pointers came in transition or when Corchiani knifed into the heart of the Tar Heels’ defense. Corchiani piled up 1,038 assists in his four years with the Wolfpack. He was briefly the all-time NCAA leader until Bobby Hurley eclipsed Corchiani a few seasons later (Corchiani is still second). The amazing thing is that Corchiani got those assists by mostly relying on jump shooters. There’s no telling how many more dimes he could have gotten with better big men than Bryant Feggins and Kevin Thompson (who did get a cup of coffee in the NBA).

The Tar Heels stayed in the game by also having a hot-shooting night (35 of 64). Dean Smith’s masterful use of timeouts and clutch three-pointers by Pete Chilcutt and Hubert Davis got UNC within one point in the final minute, but the Tar Heels couldn’t get over the top.

The Wolfpack left everything on the floor. Corchiani, playing his all-out style, was banged up after several hard hits. The problem for N.C. State was that the teams would meet less than 24 hours later at the Dean E. Smith Center.

The Tar Heels started the second game on a 10-0 run and never looked back in a 92-70 victory. The two games highlighted one of Smith’s many geniuses: substitutions. He made 98 subs over both games. His counterpart on the N.C. State bench, Les Robinson, used only six players in the first game. Fourteen players logged time for UNC in the first game, with eight getting more than nine minutes.

Smith kept those subs coming in the second game, especially against Corchiani. King Rice and Derrick Phelps, both physical defenders, were used in short bursts to wear down the Wolfpack’s sparkplug. Corchiani gamely had 13 points and nine assists, but the N.C. State offense had no flow. Monroe struggled to a 7-for-20 night and Gugliotta was a non-factor with seven points on 2-for-10 shooting. Feggins and Thompson barely made it up and down the court in the second half.

UNC shot 34 for 65 in the second game, almost matching its numbers from the first game. Depth is obviously important, but it has to be deployed the right way.

N.C. State shot only 37% in the second game, including only 28% in the second half with its bone-tired players. Back-to-back games are brutal on the players’ bodies, even those at the highest level, so it is probably a good thing that these home-and-home series are so rare.

The Undervalued King

2010-09-10T10:35:00.000-07:00

Like most people interested in basketball history, I don’t pay enough attention to Bernard King. He hasn’t been elected to the Hall of Fame, despite 19,655 career points in 14 seasons, twice being named first-team All-NBA and making four All-Star Games.

I had read great things about King in Spike Lee’s book “Best Seat in the House,” but I always thought Bernard’s brother Albert King was better because Albert was featured in Rick Telander’s book “Heaven is a Playground.” I knew Bernard from his shoutout in Kurtis Blow’s “Basketball” (Basketball has always been my thing/I like Magic, Bird and Bernard King). And, oddly, I vividly remember his 1989 NBA Hoops basketball card when he was with the Washington Bullets.

But I couldn’t recall ever watching King actually play. He seems to have fallen through the cracks of history. Maybe he was a victim of timing, coming into the NBA when the league was at its fighting-and-cocaine nadir in the late 1970s and early ’80s. King got caught up in that scene for a while, and when he finally got straight, Magic and Bird had taken over, closely followed by Michael Jordan. King verged on superstardom when he landed with the Knicks, including averaging a league-best 32.9 points per game in 1984-’85. But then King blew out his knee and, by all accounts, was never the same player.

I wanted to see King at the peak of his powers, so I watched his back-to-back 50-point games against the San Antonio Spurs and Dallas Mavericks on Jan. 31 and Feb. 1, respectively, in 1984.

It’s implausible to say that a player can get a quiet 50 points, but King has definitely come the closest. A casual fan glancing at the TV between sips of craft beer would be more apt to remember the showier scoring in those games from the Spurs’ George Gervin and the Mavericks’ Mark Aguirre and Rolando Blackman. King could have efficiently dropped in three fast-break lay-ups while you were pondering the mellifluous name of Dallas’ Kurt Nimphius or wondering if the Mavericks’ Brad Davis, with his blond curls and wispy moustache, was the oddest-looking point guard in league history.

King’s two 50-point games came on the road, just after he scored 18 points in 22 minutes in the 1984 All-Star Game. That he scored 50 against the Spurs would have come as no surprise, given that San Antonio under coach Bob Bass runned-and-gunned with little regard for defense.

Gervin and King each had 16 points at the end of the first quarter. Gervin’s baskets were more pleasing to the eye, with his high-arching finger rolls and feathery jumpers. King was ruthlessly effective, filling the lane on fast breaks for lay-ups or lofting quick turnaround jumpers on the baseline. All the while, King showed no emotion. Gervin faded late, getting just two points in the fourth quarter and finishing with 41. King just kept going, getting a wide-open dunk in the final seconds to finish with an even 50 in the 117-113 victory.

King grabbed the opening tap against the Mavericks and got an easy bucket. It looked to be another shootout, with Aguirre scoring 16 points to King’s 11 in the first period. Once again, King would outlast his competition as Aguirre eventually got into foul trouble. King’s third quarter was a brilliant study in economic movement. He made all eight of his shots, filling the lanes on breaks as usual but also creating just enough space so he could unleash his quick jumper. Like a Raymond Carver short story, King’s game was Spartan and precise.

Again, King had 48 points as the final seconds ticked down. Teammates were screaming to get the ball to King, who drained a long jumper over Jay Vincent with seven seconds left to make King the first player since Wilt Chamberlain in 1962 to record back-to-back 50-point games.

How efficient was King? Against the Spurs he was 20 for 30 from the field, and he was 20 of 28 against the Mavericks. There was nothing flashy about King, and he never drew attention to himself. That’s probably why he is so often forgotten.

Bulldog Mentality

2010-09-07T10:01:00.000-07:00

Most documentary filmmakers will tell you that luck is the biggest factor in a successful project. Director Steve James couldn’t have foreseen all the twists and turns to come when he first trained his cameras on Arthur Agee and William Gates for what would become indisputably the greatest basketball documentary ever, “Hoop Dreams.”

Similarly, when a production crew started following the 1997-’98 Fresno State Bulldogs, it couldn’t have envisioned the final cut of the tragically underrated “Between The Madness.” The plotlines of the documentary, which aired on FSN in November 1998, include multiple suspensions, drug rehab, a lascivious Rolling Stone photo shoot, a conniving Mike Wallace, and an alleged assault and robbery involving a samurai sword.

The governing idea of the film was to profile Fresno State coach Jerry Tarkanian, who was infamous for providing safe harbor to troubled hoopsters. So there was obviously the strong possibility that the Bulldogs would be beset by off-the-court issues.

Troubles started piling up early in the season for Fresno State, which boasted several former McDonald’s All-Americans and was ranked in the preseason top 15 by most publications. Point guard Rafer Alston was suspended for the first few games for a domestic incident, and Terrance Roberson and Daymond Forney were out a couple weeks because of testing positive for marijuana.

The cameras found their leading man in charismatic shooting guard Chris Herren (who incidentally is also the subject of a tragically underrated basketball book, Bill Reynolds’ “Fall River Dreams”). To anyone who watched Fresno State’s late-night WAC games on ESPN in the late 1990s, it was plain to see that Herren was the driving force of those teams. The best on-court action in “Between the Madness” shows the fiery Herren igniting the crowd and his teammates. There’s no denying that Herren, with his frosted tips and “Good Will Hunting” accent, had a magnetic presence, something that didn’t escape the notice of Rolling Stone. The magazine profiled the team and singled out Herren for shirtless photos inside the Bulldogs’ locker room.

Herren partied as hard as he played, which is how he washed out of Boston College a few seasons earlier and became another of Tarkanian’s reclamation projects. Three games into the 1997-’98 season, Herren left the team for a few weeks to enter drug rehab (Nothing is specifically mentioned, but Herren admits that his drugs were harder than marijuana). The team’s play deteriorated without its leader. Herren’s demons would continue to plague him, even during his 70-game NBA career. He was busted for heroin possession twice, but now claims to be sober and is working on another book with Reynolds, called “Basketball Junkie.”

The most touching relationship in the film is between Tarkanian and Herren. At the news conference announcing Herren’s decision, a choked-up Tarkanian says that, besides his son Danny, Herren is the player he is closest to. It’s an affecting moment that underscores the biggest revelation of the film: the repudiation of the popular image of “Tark the Shark.”

Many would have you believe that Tarkanian was a Machiavellian coach that would break any regulations in pursuit of victories. But in this film, Tarkanian comes off as an avuncular optimist who refuses to give up on troubled players. The coach was almost naïve when Wallace and “60 Minutes” rolled into Fresno. Tarkanian knew Wallace wanted to cover the salacious stories surrounding the team, but after Wallace repeatedly praised the coach, Tarkanian thought the story could be spun into a positive. Wallace tells Tarkanian that the coach won’t be disappointed in the piece. Of course, when the story aired it focused on all the arrests and suspensions. There is a great moment when Wallace shows up for the Bulldogs’ NIT semifinal at Madison Square Garden and Tarkanian scolds the veteran newsman: “You lied to me.”

It was bad timing for Fresno State that around the time that the “60 Minutes” piece aired, center Avondre Jones and guard Kenny Brunner were arrested for allegedly robbing someone with a samurai sword. Jones had been kicked out of USC and had failed two drug tests already during the 1997-’98 season, so he was dismissed from the team by a wearied Tarkanian.

Herren’s return from rehab sparked a late-season resurgence by the Bulldogs, who in the film also deal with the suspension of Tremaine Fowlkes (failed drug test), the quitting of defensive stopper Willie Farley (he wanted to score more) and a heated spat between Alston and assistant coach Danny Tarkanian (shot selection being the key issue). Fresno State made it to the NIT semifinals, losing to Minnesota, which is pretty amazing given all the players coming and going.

Highlights of the film also include a pre-ESPN Andy Katz, who was covering the team for the Fresno Bee, and Portishead on the soundtrack to give it an ultimate late '90s feel. After the loss to Minnesota, Tarkanian is seen telling Katz, “Boy, I’m glad its over.” No doubt that he was, but that certainly made for a good documentary. The filmmakers were lucky to have been there to catch it on film.

Documentary Evidence

2010-09-07T09:57:00.000-07:00

Watching the documentary on Fresno State’s 1997-’98 team, got me thinking about the best basketball documentaries. My top five:

1. Hoop Dreams: An easy layup of a choice, this film and David Halberstam’s “The Breaks of the Game” are essential works of basketball non-fiction. Like Halberstam’s book, “Hoop Dreams” tackles the big themes of the sport: Race, exploitation, grievous injury, and the tension between individual and team success.

2. The Heart of the Game: Director Ward Serrill captured lightning in a bottle when he chose to document the Roosevelt Roughriders girls basketball team: An eccentric head coach and a troubled star player who come together for an us-versus-them fight.

3. Soul In the Hole: The dark side of the city game. Playground legend Ed “Booger” Smith flashes otherworldly talent, but can’t resist the pull of the streets.

4. Winning Time: Basketball is supposed to be fun, after all. The film doesn’t examine weighty issues, but it doesn’t get much more enjoyable than pairing Reggie Miller’s heroics with an operatic soundtrack, grainy Cheryl Miller highlights and also hearing John Starks say “Man, did this dude just did this?”

5. Between The Madness: The ultimate hoops reality show. Fresno State’s 1997-’98 team was a train wreck of arrests, suspensions and occasionally brilliant players.

Honorable mention: “Black Magic” (highlighting a too-often forgotten period of hoops history), “The Street Stops Here” (Bob Hurley Sr.’s profane genius), “Through The Fire” (the sheer hard work of modern players, although the film has been dimmed by Sebastien Telfair’s lack of pro success).

Dante's Peak

2010-08-31T09:48:00.000-07:00

I own a No. 17 jersey worn by Dante Calabria during his preseason stint with the Chicago Bulls in 1997. A precious few can write that sentence, probably just me and Calabria himself and maybe one of his close relations. The jersey was a gift from my wife on our wedding day, which arguably ranks among the coolest things ever.

The reason that my blushing bride scoured the Interwebs for that present is that Calabria is among my favorite players of all time. And since Calabria recently retired after 13 successful seasons in Europe, it seems an appropriate time to sing his praises.

Most U.S. basketball fans, of course, remember Calabria from his four years at North Carolina, where he was around for some heady times with the Tar Heels. Despite being a 2,000-point scorer under legendary coach John Miller at Black Hawk (Pa.) High School, Calabria was an under-the-radar recruit. Nonetheless, Calabria earned limited action as a freshman and played a minute in the Tar Heels’ 77-71 victory over Michigan in the 1993 NCAA championship game. Calabria’s role expanded from there, and his well-rounded skill-set meshed with Rasheed Wallace and Jerry Stackhouse for two years, then with Antawn Jamison and Vince Carter for one season.

Dean Smith always praised Calabria’s hands. UNC’s coaching deity also loved Calabria’s passing ability and versatility, sometimes even inserting the 6-4 wing player at point guard. Calabria was also skilled practitioner of one of the game’s subtle arts: the entry pass to the post. If you watch a highlight package of Wallace’s college dunks, a lot of them came on gorgeous feeds from Calabria that perfectly led Wallace away from the defense and into scoring position.

Calabria’s most overt skill was his shooting touch. He had classical form on his jump shot, learned from his father, Chad Calabria, who starred at Iowa in the late 1960s. Dante Calabria shot 41.4% (188 of 454) on three-pointers during his four years with the Tar Heels. His best season came in 1994-’95, with defenses keyed on stopping Stackhouse and Wallace. That space allowed Calabria enough good looks to finish a remarkable 49.6% (66 of 133) on three-pointers.

Rare was the game in which Calabria carried the scoring load for UNC, but it happened in the third-ranked Tar Heels’ 100-70 victory over Florida State on Jan. 25, 1995. Seminoles coach Pat Kennedy started out with Bob Sura on Calabria, who drilled his first three-pointer after the defense lost track of him at the 17:40 mark of the first half. After the first eight minutes and a variety of zone looks by Florida State, Calabria had 11 points and made his first 3 three-pointers. He finished with 8 three-pointers in the game, including three during the game-clinching run in the second half, to tie Hubert Davis’ UNC record.

Calabria’s persona was also essential in his appeal. He played with a remarkable placidity, a common trait among great shooters. Calabria rocked low-top white sneakers with no socks showing, a rebellion against what was sartorially popular at the time (think of the high socks and heavy black shoes of Kerry Kittles and Glenn Robinson). Calabria’s singular style also often included an arm band just below his shoulder with the initials “C.S.” a tribute to his friend Chris Street, the Iowa player who died in a car wreck during the 1992-’93 season.

Calabria was categorized as a “grunge” player, a designation that was as cringe-worthy then as it is dated now. He was tagged with the label mostly because of his unkempt locks and an often-cited affection for Pearl Jam. It seems benign now but it went against the often buttoned-down approach of most UNC players under Smith. The cultivation of this “alternative” image, along with his leading-man looks, undoubtedly explained Calabria’s popularity with the female demographic.

All of this explains why I was such a fan of Calabria. Being in high school during Calabria’s heyday, all I wanted to do with my life was shoot threes, listen to “Vitalogy,” impress girls with my indifferent demeanor and be the cool white dude who got to play with the likes of Stackhouse and Wallace.

Calabria wasn’t drafted by an NBA team, but quickly found his niche overseas. He would surface Stateside during the summer leagues and show flashes of brilliance for the Utah Jazz or Los Angeles Lakers (including 33 points on 14-for-16 shooting for L.A. against the Rockets in a 2001 summer league game).

But Calabria never played a regular-season game in the NBA. The closest he came was his preseason run with the Bulls in 1997-’98. Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman weren’t playing because of injuries, so Calabria filled the team’s need for warm bodies. Calabria accompanied Chicago to the McDonald’s Open in Paris, where adoring crowds filled the Palais Omnisport de Bercy for a chance to watch Michael Jordan.

Calabria didn’t see any action as the Bulls wore their red jerseys in an 89-82 victory over PSG Racing. But in the championship game against Olympiakos Piraeus, with the Bulls leading, 93-70, Calabria and his white jersey checked into the game with 4:12 remaining. He shared the court with Rusty LaRue, Keith Booth, Boris Gorenc and Joe Klein. Calabria brought the ball up the court, got an offensive rebound, missed two shots and notched a steal during garbage time of the 104-78 victory.

I remember watching that game and fervently wishing Calabria could reprise that game against Florida State and earn a spot on a team that was destined to win its sixth championship of the 1990s. That didn’t stand to reason because the Bulls didn’t have a roster spot and Calabria’s game was more suited for Europe. He was waived shortly after the Bulls returned home. I didn’t give up hope for an NBA career, though, because that was my guy and there are always players who hit you at just the right times. And, little did I know that I would one day own that Bulls jersey.

The Other Guys

2010-08-27T10:01:00.000-07:00

Few games have more historical significance than the 1979 NCAA championship game. Michigan State’s 75-64 victory over Indiana State in Salt Lake City gave fans the first taste of Magic Johnson vs. Larry Bird. It remains one of the most-watched basketball matchups ever.

But, quick, what happened in the semifinals of the 1979 Final Four? It’s easy to forget about Penn, which was dominated by the Spartans, 101-67. And despite all that sprang forth from the title game, Bird would probably rather have people remember the Sycamores’ 76-74 victory over DePaul.

Often lost among all the mythologizing and rhapsodic re-telling is the fact that Bird struggled against Michigan State, playing with a hurt thumb and scoring 19 points on just 7-for-21 shooting. He was the focus of double teams by the Spartans throughout the game. That stood in stark contrast to the strategy of DePaul coach Ray Meyer in the semifinals. The Blue Demons thought that they would let Bird score, but completely shut down the rest of his less-heralded teammates.

In retrospect, that probably wasn’t Meyer’s smartest coaching decision. Bird had gotten a fair amount of publicity, but the Sycamores’ game against DePaul would be the first time that a large national audience got to see him play.

Bird didn’t leave anyone disappointed. He was outstanding from the jump ball, which fell to Bird, who expertly tapped it to a streaking Carl Nicks for a layup. A few minutes later, Bird found some space against DePaul’s Curtis Watkins and got his first points on a 15-footer off the glass.

It was a sign of things to come. After the first 20 minutes, Indiana State had a 45-42 lead and Bird had 23 points on 11-for-12 shooting. He scored from all over the court, with either hand, making true believers of the venerable NBC announcing crew of Al McGuire, Billy Packer, Dick Enberg and sideline reporter Bryant Gumbel.

Watkins was hampered by a bum knee and couldn’t slow Bird. The Blue Demons also played their five starters for the entirety of the game, so they sometimes switched to a 2-3 zone to conserve energy. There probably isn’t a player in basketball history more equipped than Bird to destroy a zone. He had the brains to find the soft spots, the shooting touch and the passing vision when the defense collapsed on him. Bird finished with 35 points on 16-for-19 shooting, with 16 rebounds and nine assists.

Still, Indiana State could not put away DePaul. All five of the Blue Demons’ starters would be drafted by NBA teams, and they were led in this game by hotshot freshman Mark Aguirre and Gary Garland, who went by the nickname “the Music Man” and later worked as a backup singer for half-sister Whitney Houston.

Aguirre had 19 points, but missed his chance to alter history. With DePaul trailing, 75-74, in the waning seconds, Aguirre’s long jumper bounced off the rim and into the hands of Indiana State’s Leroy Staley, who added a free throw for the final margin.

If Aguirre’s shot had fallen, who knows how the next few years of basketball would have played out. Johnson and Bird certainly still would have been NBA stars, but there wouldn’t be the narrative of their rivalry without the founding story of the 1979 NCAA championship game. You just don’t mess with destiny.

Basket Case

2010-08-20T07:08:00.000-07:00

Scottie Pippen now has a rightful place alongside the best players ever. But in the run-up to his enshrinement in the Hall of Fame, it seemingly was a must to bring up the 1.8 seconds.

Pippen infamously refused to come back onto the court after Phil Jackson drew up the winning shot for Toni Kukoc in the Chicago Bulls’ 104-102 victory over the New York Knicks in Game 3 of the 1994 Eastern Conference semifinals. The incident has been used to darken Pippen’s reputation as a selfish player. Somehow it also cemented the idea in some people’s minds that Pippen didn’t know how to handle being the locus of attention on a team.

The 1.8 seconds, of course, are merely a blip on Pippen’s remarkable road from abject poverty to team manager at Central Arkansas to one of the greatest NBA players of all time. But that shot should have been Pippen’s, and it is a good surmise that if Phil Jackson had to do it over again, Pete Myers would have been lobbing the ball in for No. 33.

Pippen momentarily lost his mind. It was a childish decision, to be sure, but it was a split-second response to a highly emotional situation. It helps Pippen’s side of the argument to get the full back story.

There was already the emotionally fraught dynamic between Pippen and Kukoc. This was also Pippen’s first year playing in the NBA without Michael Jordan, and the running theme of the season was whether Pippen could truly be a top dog.

Then there were the Knicks. Pat Riley’s teams had tried to scrap and pull and grab their way past the Bulls for years, often targeting Pippen for the most physicality. With Jordan off on his baseball sabbatical, the Knicks sensed a window of opportunity and were going to do whatever it took to knock the Bulls aside.

Pippen was often frustrated by the physical play. In this series, he had five fouls in Game 1 and fouled out of Game 2. It didn’t take long for the Knicks to go hard at Pippen in Game 3. Charles Smith checked into the game with eight minutes left in the first period and was involved in two shoving matches with Pippen in the span of 60 seconds.

All the grappling spilled over in the second quarter, when Bulls reserve Jo Jo English and Knicks guard Derek Harper touched off a brawl that spilled in the stands at Chicago Stadium just a few feet from the watchful eyes of NBA Commissioner David Stern.

So emotions were definitely running high in this game. Pippen was in the middle of the scrum but was mostly acting as a peacemaker. This was his team, the Bulls needed him on the court, and he took his job very seriously. He set the tone defensively, as always, guarding Harper on the ball, chasing sharpshooter Hubert Davis on the perimeter and bumping with Anthony Mason on the blocks. Pippen also got on teammate Luc Longley for being too passive and got in the ear of Scott Williams for being too reactive.

Pippen was also in the groove offensively. He had 14 points on 5-for-10 shooting at halftime. He pushed the tempo of the game as the Bulls upped the lead to 22 points at one point in the third quarter. Stupid fouls and mental mistakes by the Bulls let the Knicks back into game. Pippen scored his final basket to give him 25 points and the Bulls a 98-86 lead with just under five minutes remaining.

Pippen was obviously going full-tilt to get the Bulls past a hated rival. What was Kukoc doing? Not much. The rookie made a few nice passes, had some nifty post moves, but played only 13 minutes. Kukoc hadn’t been in on the court at all in the fourth quarter until checking in after the Knicks cut the lead to 102-100 in the final 30 seconds.

Pippen had his chance to the play the hero here but was caught with the ball as the shot clock was running out. He tried to make a one-on-one play but ran out of room on the wing because Kukoc was firmly planted in the corner. After Pippen’s wild three-pointer missed badly and the Knicks called timeout, he was seen yelling at Kukoc as the teams headed to their huddles.

So after Patrick Ewing’s runner tied the game, leaving those famous 1.8 seconds, and Jackson put the ball in Kukoc’s inexperienced hands, it was all too much for Pippen.

He melted down in an impossibly charged atmosphere. Who knows why “The Zenmaster” entrusted a rookie that was often criticized as being soft? Perhaps he knew that, with the Bulls inbounding on the right side, the left-handed Kukoc could field a lob pass against Mason and get off an easier shot than a right-hander could.

You can’t argue with the result: Kukoc calmly sank the jumper at the top of the key. But you can certainly argue with those who permanently grade down Pippen for refusing to play those 1.8 seconds. It was his team and his game to win against an opponent that had bullied and bloodied him in the past. That should have been Pippen’s shot.

Friars Club

2010-08-18T09:28:00.000-07:00

The 1988-’89 St. Anthony (N.J.) Friars can legitimately lay claim to being one of the greatest high school teams of all time.

A cogent argument can be made for any of the Baltimore Dunbar Poets teams that went undefeated from 1981-’83 and, at various times, featured future NBA players Mugsey Bogues, Reggie Williams, David Wingate and Reggie Lewis. LeBron James’ teams at Ohio’s St. Vincent/St. Mary have gotten a fair amount of hype recently as well.

But the reason St. Anthony coach Bob Hurley Sr. can now call himself a Hall of Famer is that his teams are always tough defensively and highly disciplined on offense, with the ’88-’89 team best personifying his philosophies. Hurley’s teams also boast big names, and these Friars had Bobby Hurley, Terry Dehere, Jerry Walker and freshman big man Rodrick Rhodes.

That team was at the vanguard of the explosion in popularity of high school basketball. The Friars played a national schedule, flying to big tournaments from coast to coast. This is commonplace for powerhouse teams now, but it was rather revolutionary at the time. Hurley and other elite coaches drew criticism for what some deemed the “professionalization” of amateur athletics. But it is hard to argue with a loaded team like St. Anthony that needed to seek out the best competition available. What is the point of sticking around New Jersey and beating vastly inferior teams by 40 points every game?

The Friars also got national publicity. They even had a game televised by ESPN: a 64-45 victory over Flint Hill (Va.) in the championship game of the King Cotton Classic on Dec. 29, 1988, in Pine Bluff, Ark.

The tournament was one of the biggest for top-shelf prep teams, along with the Big Time in Las Vegas and the Beach Ball Classic in Myrtle Beach, S.C. ESPN’s first televised regular-season high school game was the 1987 King Cotton title game.

A year later, the nation had the chance to see how far prep hoops had come. St. Anthony’s opponent, Flint Hill, epitomized the new order. The prep school had taken its cues from another Virginia institution, Oak Hill Academy, in piecing together teams of all-stars.

Whereas St. Anthony largely took players from its area (granted it is a very fertile vineyard for the game), Oak Hill had set the standard of bringing in blue-chip recruits from anywhere, which in turn brought prestige and money to the school. This set the stage for the cash grab of the bloated 1990s, when fly-by-night schools cropped up across the U.S.

Flint Hill didn’t yet have that national reach, but it had struck gold by mining players from the Washington, D.C., area. The 1988-’89 team was anchored by senior forward George Lynch and junior guard Randolph Childress, both future ACC stars, and was widely seen as the No. 2 team in the country after St. Anthony.

So the nationally televised matchup was highly anticipated. It didn’t take long for St. Anthony to show that it was on a different level than Flint Hill. The Friars’ swarming help defense held Lynch scoreless in the first half, and the future stalwart defender was repeatedly torched by Walker (19 points and nine rebounds.)

Childress had just as much trouble with the younger Hurley, whose heady game was already fully formed. Hurley, as he always would, looked like a player that wouldn’t be out of place on a JV team. But he was the fearless leader of this team, and by the time he came out of the game late in the fourth quarter, he had 24 points, four rebounds and four assists. True to the breed of coach’s sons, Hurley rarely made bad decisions with the ball. Childress and Lynch combined for only 14 points. In fact, Flint Hill’s best prospect looked like future Villanova player Aaron Bain.

St. Anthony easily passed its biggest test of the young season. The Friars would run the table, finishing 32-0 and claiming that mythical national championship. The best prep team ever? Impossible to say, of course, but you certainly can’t go wrong by backing the 1988-’89 St. Anthony Friars.

The Art of the Steal

2010-08-10T09:26:00.000-07:00

Talking about defense is never easy. As hard as it is to actually play good defense, it’s almost as difficult to analyze during a game. There are so many strategies and moving parts that the human eye can’t process all the information at once. That’s why discussing it is usually limited to played-out maxims like “defense wins championships.”

Few coaches, on any level, have taught the nuts and bolts of defense like Dick Bennett. The crown jewel of Bennett’s impressive coaching career was taking a band of hard-nosed players at Wisconsin to the 2000 Final Four. UW was often criticized for its methodical offense, but the team made its bones on defense and the Badgers were fourth in the nation that season in scoring defense at 58.8 points per game.

Spearheading that team’s defense was point guard Mike Kelley, the school’s all-time steals leader with 275 and generally regarded as one of the best off-the-ball defenders in recent college basketball memory. He also shares UW’s single-game record for thefts with 10 against Texas on Dec. 7, 1999.

Probably Kelley’s best defensive work came in the first two games of the Badgers’ tournament run in 2000. The four players he matched up with all later played in the NBA — Fresno State’s Courtney Alexander and Arizona’s Luke Walton, Richard Jefferson and Gilbert Arenas.

Kelley had run into trouble before with big, athletic guards (Ball State’s Bonzi Wells gave him fits one game). Alexander fit that mold. Fresno State’s star led the nation in scoring at 25.3 points per game, so Kelley had to be in top form.

Kelley responded early, fighting around a screen by Fresno State’s Larry Abney, then jumping into the passing lane with his right hand to steal a pass by Demetrius Porter just over a minute into the game. That led to a fast-break layup and was the first of 17 turnovers by the Bulldogs. Alexander couldn’t get by Kelley and never looked comfortable, finishing 5 of 19 for just 11 points as UW won, 66-56. Kelley had six steals to match his assists.

Against Arizona, Kelley struck early again, knocking the ball away from Walton for a steal at the 18:40 mark. However, guarding Jefferson, Kelley picked up his second foul with 14:29 still to play in the first half. Kelley had to watch from the bench as Arenas got hot. The future “Agent Zero” had 12 of Arizona’s 23 points at halftime on 5-for-9 shooting.

Kelley was tasked with slowing down Arenas in the second half. He harassed Arenas into going 2 for 9 in the final 20 minutes. Kelley had five steals as UW knocked off the top-seeded Wildcats, 66-59.

So what did Kelley do so well? Why were the Badgers so good at slowing other teams’ offenses? Again, dissecting defense is difficult, so it is best to go straight to the source. After all, Kelley moonlights as an ESPN game analyst. Kelley was kind enough to respond to some wonky questions about defense, Bennett and the 2000 tournament.

Q. In the first two rounds of the 2000 NCAA tournament, you spent time guarding some future pro players, mostly Alexander, Jefferson and Arenas. Do you remember anything about your game plan for defending them?

A. We (I) had a more specific game plan against Alexander than the other two. The NCAA loss in the first round the prior year left such a bad taste in our mouth that we didn’t even bother worrying about our second round matchup, we just wanted to get a “W” any way we could. So, for Fresno State, the coaches spliced together all of his shots from about 3-4 games (I think they were his conference tournament games, but can’t remember exactly). It was a highlight tape like you wouldn’t believe. It was frightening because the guy could/would score from anywhere. But we were able to notice that when he went to his left, he usually pulled up for a mid-range jumper, and when he went right he went all the way to the bucket. He also preferred to take the deep 3 above all else. With that knowledge, our plan was to extend our “Pack” defense on him and take away the quick 3. Then force him left (a typical plan with a right-handed shooter) with the understanding that I needed to be ready for a quick pull-up.

Q. Coach Bennett is hailed as a defensive mastermind. What were his core principles on defense and what did he teach you as an individual?

A. Coach Bennett IS a defensive mastermind, and I don’t think you could find any of his peers that would disagree. He taught the “Pack” defense, which essentially consisted of a mini-three point line set in about two feet from the standard three-point line. The idea was that unless you were guarding the ball, you had to be inside the pack. A typical drill for us consisted of a half court 5-on-4 game where the defense had to match up one-on-one and the offense had one extra guard trying to penetrate. The extra guard could only shoot a layup or drive and dish to a teammate, but his goal was to test out the help ability of the defense. Tony Bennett typically played the extra offensive guy and he was fantastic. Bottom line, I’m a firm believer in the adage, “You are what you emphasize,” and with Coach Bennett, everything started and ended with the “D.”

Q. Creating steals has been compared to playing poker and reading an opponents “tells.” Is that something you pick up through playing a lot or is it a skill gleaned from watching video of other players?

A. The majority of defense is effort and positioning. If you want to be good at it, are willing to put in the effort, and have some basic principles that all five guys are trying to execute at the same time, you’re guaranteed an above average defensive team. I would say most steals come from within the normal course of business when playing in that sort of system. But the remaining steals typically come from the “tells” and almost always are learned on the fly … you see an opponent who’s winded and getting lazy with the ball, or maybe he’s not curling hard off a screen, etc. It’s kind of hard to explain, but you just see things or patterns that you’ve seen before or you just get a gut instinct and you go for it.

Q. You were lauded as a great off-the-ball defender. What did you focus on when your man didn't have the ball? How do you know how much space to give?

A. When defending a shooter off the ball, more than anything you have to focus on the screens. If you get picked off by a screen, it doesn’t matter how fast your closing speed is, it’s too late. As a result, I was allowed greater leniency to be out of the typical help position — because the further you are removed from the guy you’re defending, the easier it is to get caught up in the melee and get screened. The better the player/scorer, the closer I stayed at all times.

Q. How do you know when to gamble in the passing lanes for a steal? Do you get more conservative if the game is close?

A. It all depends. I probably got more conservative later in close games because of the risk involved. Also, I typically never tried to jump the passing lanes right away in a game because the other team was fresh and thus their passes were crisper. Usually after a few minutes you’ll notice a lazy pass here or there and then you start to look for your chances.

Q. What is the order of importance for getting steals — hands, feet, heart and head?

A. Great (tough) question. If I had to put in order, I would say heart, head (eyes/brain), feet, hands. As stated above, if you really want it and are willing to put in the work (heart), and have been taught a solid defensive system (head/feet), you’re 90% there.

Gone Too Soon

2010-08-06T08:26:00.000-07:00

There is no greater basketball tragedy than Ben Wilson’s story. Len Bias’ death of a cocaine overdose shocked the sports world, but it is unassailably true that Bias put himself in a bad position that night.

Wilson was shot and killed in Chicago after accidentally bumping into three young men while crossing the street on the eve of the first basketball game of his senior year in high school. Wilson was already a legend in the world of Chicago hoops; he had built himself from a run-of-the-mill freshman into the nation’s No. 1 prep prospect as a junior at Chicago Simeon in 1984. By all accounts, Wilson was the best kid that anyone could have hoped to know. But he ended up being a victim of the urban violence that was all too common in America during the 1980s.

Wilson had solidified his rep as the best high school player in America at the venerable Nike All-American camp the summer after his junior season. The other top players in Wilson’s class included Danny Ferry, Sean Elliott and Pervis Ellison. But the last time the general public got to witness Wilson’s startling talents came on the final day of the Illinois High School Association tournament in 1984. Wilson’s stacked Simeon team beat Aurora West, 67-58, in the AA semifinal, and later in the day beat Evanston, 53-47, for the championship at Assembly Hall in Champaign.

Wilson was saddled with foul trouble and played limited minutes in the title game, but that is largely forgotten because of the show he put on against Kenny Battle and Aurora West in the semis.

Wilson was 6 feet 8 inches and could do a little of everything, which back in those days would earn a player the “Magic Johnson with a jump shot” honorific. That’s flattering, for sure, but not entirely accurate. Wilson was an able passer from the high post, but he lacked Magic’s incomparable vision and showmanship. The cool Wilson could probably best be likened to George Gervin. Like the Iceman, Wilson was venerated for his cardsharp’s sang-froid and smooth-as-silk forays to the basket.

Aurora West tried to contain Wilson by using multiple zone looks, anchored by the freakishly athletic Battle. Wilson never panicked, getting double-clutch shots off against Battle or dumping the ball down to fellow big man Rodney Hull. Wilson had classic post moves and could fill the lane on the fast break. He finished with a team-high 21 points in the semifinals.

It wasn’t just the numbers. Wilson was well-schooled by Chicago Public League coaching legend Bob Hambric. He came into the backcourt to help Simeon beat the pressure of Aurora West and Evanston. On the other end, Wilson’s impossibly long arms wreaked havoc for opposing players trying to crack Simeon’s full-court press or fearsome 2-3 zone. Wilson also quickly diagnosed what the other teams were doing on defense, and could often be seen directing traffic for the Wolverines’ offensive attack.

Wilson’s good nature was also clearly evident in his final two games. He’s seen patting officials on the back, even when questionable calls forced him to the bench during the championship game. He helped lift opponents off the court and was the first to congratulate teammates after a good play.

That’s what makes Wilson’s story all the more harrowing. A senseless crime deprived the world of a unique basketball talent, but it also took away an unimpeachably good person.

Wilson’s gone, but certainly not forgotten. Chicago Tribune hoops writer K.C. Johnson, who played on the Evanston team that lost to Simeon for the championship, wrote an affecting piece on the 25th anniversary of Wilson’s death. Childhood friend Nick Anderson wore No. 25 throughout his NBA career to honor Wilson. Another Simeon star, Derrick Rose, wore the number out of respect for a player from the neighborhood that died before Rose was born. The school retired No. 25 in 2009.

Who knows where basketball would have taken Wilson. The commonly held theory is that Wilson would have gone to DePaul, Indiana or Illinois. This has led fans of those schools to tantalizingly wonder what might have been. How about Rod Strickland running the break at DePaul with Wilson trailing? Or the inside-outside combination of Steve Alford and Wilson at Indiana? Or imagine the possibilities at Illinois with Wilson joining forces with Battle and the other Flyin’ Illini?

We’ll never know. And that’s only part of the tragedy.

Most Respected

2010-07-29T09:01:00.000-07:00

The phrase “They don’t make ’em like they used to” is clichéd, trite and often wrongheaded. That said, there will likely never be another NBA broadcaster like Johnny Most. He was the radio voice of the Boston Celtics for almost 38 years, starting in 1953.

Some younger fans might not know Most by name, but they’ve definitely heard his greatest-hits reel from any reputable NBA history documentary: “Havlicek stole the ball!;” “Bird follows his own shot;” and “Now there’s a steal by Bird, lays in underneath to D.J. …”

Of course, the words were secondary to Most’s inimitable voice: a smoker’s rasp twinned with the Runyonesque cadence of his native New York. Listening to Most do a full game is a pure pleasure, especially if the game turned out to be a classic like the Celtics’ 140-139 victory over the Washington Bullets in double overtime on Nov. 7, 1987.

This was Most at his best. It was Boston’s second game of the season, but Most broadcast it like it was Game 7 of the NBA Finals. That’s even more amazing when you remember that he was well into his third decade of broadcasting. Most’s rat-a-tat play-by-play was perfect for the crispness of the Larry Bird-era Celtics. The game also had three clutch shots in the waning seconds of regulation and the two overtimes, two by Bird and one by the Bullets’ Darrell Walker, which brought out the histrionics in Most.

Most had a dexterity with language that is altogether different from the garrulous slickers behind the mic these days. In the opening minutes, Most called Bullets rookie Mugsey Bogues “a noted plagiarist, he can really pilfer the basketball.” Somehow that came off as humorous rather than obnoxious.

Most is credited with adding the phrase “stop and pop” to the basketball lexicon. Other catchphrases of Most’s never really took, like when he said Bernard King was “fiddlin’ and diddlin’ ” with the basketball on the wing.
Most was also beloved for his humor. When bantering with partner Glenn Ordway about the sparse Washington crowd, Most quipped that “it takes awhile to get here from Europe.” When a referee blew his whistle for physical play under the basket, Most said it “would break a city ordinance if that foul was called on (Bullets center) Moses Malone.”

That also speaks to Most’s blatant lack of impartiality. A broadcaster might be excoriated for that these days, but it was almost expected of a curmudgeon like Most. He was tireless in criticizing officials and the Celtics’ opponents. It was “an injustice” when no foul was called on Moses Malone down low. Bullets guard Jeff Malone was “a good Stanislavski” for selling a foul.

Most never really incorporated statistics into his broadcasts, not surprising because he worked in the pre-digital age when instant numbers weren’t readily available. Who knew that Bird posted a 47-8-7 or Moses Malone had a 32-13 in this game? But Most was great at calling the grittier action on the court: the rugged picks, which players were elbowing each other or who had a solid box-out.

Most’s greatest attribute was probably channeling the feelings of a fan. When the excitement hit, Most’s cigarette-addled voice always hit the upper register. After Bird hit a running three-pointer to tie the game at 119 with seven seconds left in regulation, Most excitedly declared the game a “wing-dingler.” He even mustered some excitement to call the 20-footer that Walker sank to send the game into overtime, although with just a prosaic “And he hits it!” Another running three-pointer by Bird to win the game at the end of the second overtime left Most shouting, “Can you believe it?” over and over.

Again, that was more than enough enthusiasm for the second game of the season. It’s hard to believe that just a few years later, on Oct. 10, 1990, Most would announce his retirement. A streetwise World War II veteran calling basketball games for 38 years, encompassing Cousy, Russell, Havlicek and Bird? The only thing you can say is that they don’t make ’em like they used to.

Jerry and Me

2010-07-19T09:24:00.000-07:00

It’s impossible for me to be impartial about Jerry Stackhouse. It might seem like an odd choice, but there’s always a player or two that grizzled observers have a blind spot for and Stackhouse is mine. I’ve poked holes at the idea that he was the next Michael Jordan, but that was low-hanging fruit and I felt rotten afterward, like I’d just turned state’s evidence on a distant relative.

As is typically the case with these situations, my connection with Stackhouse stems from childhood. For several summers in the early 1990s, I attended the Carolina Basketball School. It was your typical camp experience, with endless games and former college players running you through drills (thanks Joe Jenkins, bench staple on UNC’s 1987- ’88 team, for fixing my jumper). At the end of the week, the thousands of campers would line up for hours in the humid June weather of North Carolina to shake the hand of Dean Smith, which in that state is on par with getting a private audience with the pope.

In 1993 the camp had a different buzz because the Tar Heels had won the national title a few months earlier. They were losing only George Lynch from the starting lineup, and were bringing in a stellar recruiting class with Rasheed Wallace, Jeff McInnis and this phenom from the rural outpost of Kinston, N.C., Jerry Stackhouse.

Stackhouse pretty much dominated any conversation that summer:

“Hey, man, didja see him score 27 points and win the MVP at the McDonald’s All-American Game? He’s definitely the next Jordan.”

“Yo, my brother played AAU against Stack when he was on the Charlotte Sonics with McInnis and Jeff Capel and them. My brother says Stackhouse’s already better than Jordan.”

The highlight of each week at Carolina Basketball School was always the pickup game at the Dean Dome with Tar Heels past and present. But that year everyone’s eyes darted around the building because word coursed through the crowd that Stackhouse was in the building.

“STACK! HOUSE! STACK! HOUSE!” That was the chant, because that’s what a teeming mass of young males does.

Improbably, Stackhouse surfaced in the stands, running down the steps and onto the court. The campers were sent into quivering hysterics like true believers at a tent revival. Kindly remember that he had yet to suit up for the Tar Heels, and this was well before prep stars were granted instant celebrity status.

As per NCAA rules, Stackhouse couldn’t play in the pickup game because he wasn’t a UNC student yet. I don’t remember the game, because I just watched Stackhouse listlessly bouncing a ball on the sideline. He had a pro’s body already. Maybe he could be better than Jordan.

Stackhouse’s first college game on the national stage (and third overall) came against the John Calipari-led University of Massachusetts in the semifinals of the Preseason NIT at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 24, 1993. I knew this would be the game that Stackhouse convinced everyone of his Jordan-ness.

Stackhouse came off the bench because Dean Smith was always reluctant to start freshmen, especially early in the season. When he checked into the game, Stackhouse promptly tossed an alley-oop way too high for Brian Reese, got whistled for traveling, lost Donta Bright on defense, then got stripped by Lou Roe and turned the ball over. The seemingly indestructible Tar Heels fell in overtime, 91-86, to the Minutemen (Roe was a beast with a 28-14).

Stackhouse played 22 minutes and was only 1 for 7 from the field, finishing with seven points. I was absolutely crushed. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be; it was a quick-and-dirty lesson in reality for a young kid. That season was probably the most confounding in UNC’s history. All that talent never meshed, and the Heels were bounced in the second round of the NCAA tournament by Boston College.

Despite being a more jaded fan, the next season I got tickets when the Tar Heels came to my hometown to play Virginia Tech at the Greensboro Coliseum on Jan. 21, 1995. Stackhouse was already well on his way to being a first-team All-American. But to me, he had lost some of that aura that I had attached to him in my more innocent basketball days.

The Tar Heels had the devil’s own time trying to put away Virginia Tech, thanks to a hot second half from Hokies star Ace Custis. UNC was starting to pull away when, with just under three minutes remaining, Stackhouse got the ball on the left wing. He faked left, getting his defender off balance so he could drive right. He got into the lane and I thought he was going to take a little pull-up jumper before the weak-side help came over. But Stackhouse had no such intention, taking two powerful steps before launching himself into the air off his left foot.

The Hokies’ center finally got over and looked like he was going to try to take a charge, then tried to bail out when he saw that Stackhouse kept rising with the ball cocked. Amazingly, Stackhouse kept going and then tomahawked the ball through the basket, almost decapitating the rim in the process.

The video doesn’t do the dunk justice. The Coliseum went certifiably insane. All I could do was let loose with a guttural howl. The hardness hadn’t completely set in, there was still some giddiness inside. It was easily the greatest dunk I have ever seen in person. (The only one that can even compare is when I watched a former star running back for Western Guilford High School crack the backboard at the Guilford College gym).

So I can never be too harsh regarding Stackhouse. Even when he chafed at playing alongside Allen Iverson with the Philadelphia 76ers or when he shut himself down because of a questionable knee injury with the Washington Wizards, that stuff never bothered me as much as it should have. I’d always be able to mount a defense, and central to that argument would be that thunderous dunk from one of the greatest players to ever come out of North Carolina.

Gunner/Gunnar Mentality

2010-07-16T09:52:00.000-07:00

Kobe Bryant can’t be understood. Hundreds of journalists have attempted to penetrate the heart of darkness that seemingly ticks only to destroy his opponents’ will. The results feel like they are only scratching the surface of arguably the most polarizing player ever.

Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson is better positioned than most to examine the recesses of Bryant’s soul. Jackson has been around for Precocious Kobe, Willing Sidekick Kobe, Unwilling Sidekick Kobe, Petulent Kobe and, now, Redeemed Champion Kobe. The Zen Master is famous for handing out books for his players to read, nudging them down the path to enlightenment. In 2000, Jackson’s pick for Bryant was Paul Beatty’s ferociously biting satire “The White Boy Shuffle.”

Jackson saw the easy parallels between Bryant and the novel’s main character, Gunnar Kaufman, a young African-American searching for a cultural identity. Back then, Bryant was still defining his basketball identity, vacillating from game to game between poles of the age-old hoops conundrum of individual vs. team success. As with the fictional Kaufman, Bryant’s struggle would have to combust in some historic manner. It did with the 81-point explosion against the Toronto Raptors on Jan. 22, 2006.

Kaufman starts out at as a skateboarding, heavy-metal listening beach bum in Santa Monica, then experiences a shock to the system when he moves to a grittier neighborhood. Kaufman finds outlets in poetry and, yes, basketball. Bryant’s peripatetic childhood also shaped his character. He followed his father across Europe as Joe “Jellybean” Bryant found pro hoops work, then the family settled into a leafy Philadelphia suburb. New schools, shifting sets of friends … basketball was the only constant for Bryant.

Owing to his unusual upbringing, Bryant faced questions of authenticity. His game was traditional, almost aristocratic. In “The White-Boy Shuffle,” there is a striking scene when Kaufman gets his first basketball from his father:

“As I ran out to retrieve the ball, a book landed at my feet. The book was a thin paperback entitled ‘Heaven Is A Playground.’ From what I could glean from the back cover, it was a sports journalist’s treatise on a pack of inner-city Brooklynites who spent the better part of their days scampering around a basketball court known as the Hole. Inside my father had scribbled a note: ‘Read this and remember you’re a Kaufman and not one of the black misfits sociologically detailed herein.’ ”

Kaufman becomes an All-American baller, a mega-selling poet and then a reluctant “leader” of African-Americans. Rebelling against those stereotypical pathways to success, his fame explodes when he advocates suicide as a means of societal change. Bryant became an All-American, the anointed leader of a new generation of stars and then was vilified for his soloist leanings.

The period of the 81-point game was Bryant at a low ebb. He still hadn’t shaken the stigma of the Colorado charges and the fallout from the Shaquille O’Neal trade. He was forced to play in a starting lineup that included Chris Mihm, Kwame Brown and Smush Parker.

Bryant tried to play it straight in the first quarter against the Raptors. He ran the triangle offense. He was patient, not taking a shot until several minutes into the game. But the frustration was visibly mounting, as Brown bobbled another ball away and got lost on defense or Parker jacked up an outrageous three-pointer. Bryant started taking over after Toronto raced to a 21-11 lead. He had 14 points at the end of the first.

Bryant sat the first six minutes of the second quarter, watching as a mediocre Raptors team pushed the lead to 18 points. It was then that Bryant likely decided to strap on the messiah shoes. He had 26 at halftime and the Lakers were still down 14.

The third quarter could be the defining 12 minutes of Bryant’s career, possibly more than the most recent championships. Like Kaufman, his inner rage would spill out with historical consequences. He had 27 of the Lakers’ 42 points in the quarter on 11-for-15 shooting. The Raptors’ soft zone and a passel of average defenders — Morris Peterson, Jalen Rose, Jose Calderon, Joey Graham — never stood a chance when Bryant got that monomaniacal glint in his eye.

The fourth quarter was a farce that even Beatty couldn’t have conceived. There was no pretense that the Lakers were playing a straight-up basketball game; Bryant was going to shoot virtually every time down the floor. It was almost like a catharsis for him, if Bryant was going to be labeled as selfish he was going to take that criticism to such an extreme that no one could look away. It was a remarkable exploration of individual play, the loping traipses in the lane, the artful pump fakes, the dead-eyed three-pointers from the wing. Jackson just looked on slack-jawed (disgust or amazement?) on the sideline as Bryant got his 81 (28-46 FG, 18-20 FT). The masses at the Staples Center ate it up.

After his self-immolation proclamation, Kaufman retreats to a motor court motel with his mail-order bride and new daughter. After his 81 points, Bryant realized he couldn’t put forth that kind of effort every game. He later got his help in Pau Gasol, and the third act of his career now features Bryant as the ultimate winner. It’s like he realized Gunnar Kaufman’s first statement in the prologue to “The White Boy Shuffle”: “On one hand this messiah gig is a bitch.”

The Forgotten Barry Brother

2010-07-13T12:50:00.000-07:00

Drew Barry must be used to living in the shadows. Coming into Georgia Tech and redshirting as a freshman, he was an afterthought to higher-profile players like James Forrest, Martice Moore, Fred Vinson and Travis Best. Brothers Jon and Brent had more prolific NBA careers and hold better television analyst gigs (Drew does work for ESPNU). Drew might even lose the battle of most underappreciated Barry brother: Scooter helped Kansas win the NCAA title in 1988.

Drew Barry was one of the best players in the ACC in the 1990s, arguably the most talent-studded decade for that conference. He ended his collegiate days as Georgia Tech’s all-time assists leader, no small feat for a school with a tradition of elite point guards. Barry led the ACC in assists for three straight seasons despite sharing the backcourt with Best and then Stephon Marbury.

So it wasn’t often that Barry got to take center stage. But he did on Feb. 10, 1996, when Barry nailed nine three-pointers and scored 30 points in the Yellow Jackets’ 92-83 overtime victory over North Carolina at the Dean Smith Center.

Even in his senior season, Barry couldn’t carry the mantle of being Georgia Tech’s go-to option. Marbury came in as one of the most sought-after high school players ever, and Yellow Jackets coach Bobby Cremins handed the keys to the offense over to the phenom. Rugged power forward Matt Harpring also demanded a fair share of the offense.

A common thread among the descendents of basketball legends is an innate sense of the game and an ability to avoid forcing the action. Players like Luke Walton and the Barry boys let the game come to them. So even if Drew Barry was the third fiddle on Georgia Tech, he would have a hand in the outcome. Marbury was the nominal point guard, but Barry handled the ball a lot. Especially on fast-break opportunities, when the young Marbury had a tendency to go for the spectacular.

Barry sank his first three-pointer to give Georgia Tech a 21-19 lead. He knew the shot was good the moment it left his hands, and he went sprinting down court before the ball cleared the net. That first three must have tipped him off to how hot he was going to be in the game, because the normally pass-minded Barry was now finding open holes in UNC’s zone to launch long-range shots. He hit six three-pointers on seven attempts in the first 20 minutes. Several of the threes were taken from three feet behind the line, and all of them never hit anything but net.

The second half brought Barry a bit down to reality. He had a hard time staying in front of UNC point guard Jeff McInnis on defense, and Cremins benched him for a spell. Barry’s shooting also cooled. He shot 3 of 10 on three-pointers in the second half, but sank a big one in the final minute that helped force overtime. Barry got back to traditional game, handing out beautiful assists. In the second half, Barry led Marbury with three pinpoint passes that resulted in easy layups. Cremins called Barry the greatest passer he ever coached, high praise from a guy who had Best, Kenny Anderson and Mark Price as point guards.

Barry was drafted in the second round by Seattle (57th overall) in 1996 but was waived by the SuperSonics. He battled back to the league and lasted only 60 games with three teams in three seasons. He had the vision and offensive ability to play at the highest level, as evidenced by the 10 assists he had in a game for the Hawks as a rookie in 1997-’98, but the defense that so infuriated Cremins probably kept him from a longer tenure.

Jon Barry found a way to stick around in the NBA with a consistent jumper and gritty play, and Brent Barry had a lengthy career after transitioning from a rangy athlete to a cerebral role player. Their successful pro careers have clouded Drew’s accomplishments. He’s probably used to it.

The Setting of the Suns

2010-07-09T10:59:00.000-07:00

With Amar’e Stoudemire jumping ship to the New York Knicks, Steve Nash is the only remaining key player from the Phoenix Suns’ “Seven Seconds Or Less” era. It was fun while it lasted. After all, despite not winning a championship, the Suns reinvigorated offensive basketball, rejuvenated Nash and reinforced the timeless beauty of a well-executed pick-and-roll.

Let’s face it, those Suns were a great regular-season team. Sure, Phoenix made it to back-to-back Western Conference finals with Mike D’Antoni’s frenzied system. But the Suns were at their best outside of the suffocating defense and intensity of the playoffs. So to close the book on this influential team, the era will be examined through the lens of the Suns’ 129-127 victory in double overtime against the Dallas Mavericks on March 14, 2007.

Dallas and Phoenix were the best rivalry going for a brief window. The biggest link between the teams, of course, was Nash, who bolted Dallas for the desert when the Mavericks wavered on a long-term deal. Nash got better with age and wound up with back-to-back MVPs in an offense expertly tailored to his strengths. There were tense playoff battles between the teams in 2004-’05 and ’05-’06. Really, it was appointment viewing anytime they played each other. For the game under examination, it was the first NBA game since 1972 that featured two teams with a .778 winning percentage after 60 games.

All the major characters were still in place for the Suns in 2006-’07. D’Antoni was still on the sideline, Nash was in MVP form, Shawn Marion was on the wing and Stoudemire played a full season without showing any ill effects of microfracture knee surgery.

The staple of D’Antoni’s offense is the pick-and-roll. Dallas coach Avery Johnson made the decision for this game that the Mavericks were going to switch defenders on every pick. This played right into Nash’s hands because his best attribute is making the quick reads on whether to pass, shoot or dribble to the hole. With the Mavericks’ strategy, Nash often found a big man guarding him. That meant he was taking old friend Dirk Nowitzki off the dribble or draining a three-pointer when Desagana Diop was too slow in coming out on Nash. The Suns’ driving force was in control of the game from the start (7 points, 4 assists in the first quarter) to the end (10 points in last minute of regulation to force overtime). Nash and the Suns are still running the basic principles of the offense, even after D'Antoni bolted for the Knicks in 2008. Unless there is a surprising decline in his physical abilities, Nash will still be effective in 2010-'11. But running the pick-and-roll with Hakim Warrick doesn't have the same cachet.

The biggest subplot during the “Seven Seconds Or Less” era was the manic mood swings of Marion. He wanted the ball more, but also said he was happy doing the little things. He was often unhappy with the attention given to Stoudemire. All of this played out against the Mavericks. The Suns rarely ran plays specifically designed for Marion, who mostly picked up his points on fast breaks and offensive rebounds. He would show a momentary burst of uncommon athleticism, then you could forget he was on the court for long stretches. After Stoudemire dived for a loose ball and threaded a perfect pass that Marion fumbled out of bounds, you could almost feel the tension between the players as they ran down court. Marion has kept slipping more and more into obscurity since being traded by the Suns in February 2008.

Stoudemire was not without his faults, either. As usual, he was highly efficient on offense (41 points on just 19 shots). Yes, a lot of the easy conversions were the result of Nash’s passes, but he also made some tough shots. He’ll still score without Nash, although Knicks fans should be worried that Stoudemire doesn’t have go-to post moves as his athleticism declines. The other side of the coin with Stoudemire is his terrible defense. He allowed an aging Erick Dampier to grab 11 offensive rebounds. Stoudemire did grab 10 boards himself, which is stunningly not a common occurrence for a player with his physical gifts. But Stoudemire’s faults can sometimes be glossed over with those remarkable pick-and-rolls. Stoudemire’s size and coordination in converting two of those plays clinched the victory in the second overtime.

Such was the high-risk, high-reward nature of the “Seven Seconds Or Less” Suns. They rolled out to a 32-18 lead against the Mavericks in the first quarter. Then when forced to play the halfcourt game by a determined Dallas defense in the third quarter, the offense stalled and the Suns found themselves in a 15-point hole. That didn’t matter much in the regular season, as Phoenix showed here by rallying to win. But it always came back to bite the Suns in the playoffs, which is why those teams will never have the historical importance that they could have had. It was still a pleasure to watch.

Prep Work

2010-07-05T12:21:00.000-07:00

Felipe Lopez is an interesting case study. He was, at best, an average NBA player and hung around the league long enough to play 249 games with three teams. But his career should be filed as a success story because he was able to avoid sinking under the weight of unreal expectations.

Lopez’s background was custom-built for the hype machine. He was a gangly teenager when he immigrated with his family to New York City from the Dominican Republic. He built himself into a prep legend at Rice High School, learning English at the same time he mastered hoops. That’s an easy-to-swallow narrative, and Lopez became a media sensation. Lopez was on the cover of Sports Illustrated’s college preview (“The Big East Is Back”) before even playing a game for St. John’s. Even The New Yorker deigned to cover hoops, dispatching Susan Orlean for a superb profile of Lopez as a high schooler.

As with any outsized attention, timing is everything. By the time Lopez was a high-school senior in 1994, Michael Jordan had built basketball into a global business. Jordan had left the NBA for his baseball sabbatical, so the search was on for the next generation’s star. ESPN had become a surprise success in offering rabid fans around-the-clock coverage of sports. One of the many impacts of Michigan’s “Fab Five” earlier in the 1990s was a bigger focus on the prodigious talents of high schoolers. Along with that came the big shoe companies, who tried to cultivate relationships with prep All-Americans.

So when Lopez was set to play in the 1994 McDonald’s All-American Game, his legend was already burnished. The national-television audience tuned in to see if this kid really belonged in the same rarefied air as other recent NYC schoolboy legends like Kenny Anderson.

Again, the stars seemed to align perfectly for Lopez. The game was played in his hometown at tiny Alumni Hall on the campus of St. John’s, where Lopez had already committed. The All-American field also was unusually weak that year.

Lopez’s East teammates in the starting lineup were Corey Louis, Danny Fortson, Curtis Staples and Steve Wojciechowski. The West countered with starters Trajan Langdon, Lorenzen Wright, Ricky Price, Jerod Ward and Neil Reed. When visiting with broadcasters Bill Raftery and Verne Lundquist during the game, New York Knicks center Patrick Ewing proved adept at scouting talent, saying “Looking at the game, I don’t know if any will make the NBA.” Antoine Walker, almost unrecognizable as a bone-thin teenager, was the best future pro in this game.

With the hometown crowd behind him, this game seemed earmarked as a showcase for Lopez. He didn’t disappoint. With Langdon guarding him, Lopez hit a three-pointer and then a three-point play in the first few minutes. Lopez finished with 24 points, eight coming on free throws, to win the game’s MVP.

Lopez clearly had skills to make coaches salivate. He stood 6 feet 5 inches and had rangy arms. He had good form on his jumper and scored on some tough maneuvers around the basket (although mostly against Langdon, a few inches shorter and known more as a shooter than defender). Granted it was an all-star game, but Lopez seemed lost without the ball, unsure of how to impact the game if he wasn’t scoring. That didn’t bode well for the next level, with better coaches and defenses that could be geared to stop him.

Nonetheless, expectations for Lopez were kicked up a tick after his performance (I remember a lengthy highlight package and profile on ESPN’s “SportsCenter” the day of the game). He had a solid freshman season at St. John’s, averaging almost 18 points per game. But despite ending up as one of the school’s top scorers, Lopez’s college career has often been classified as a disappointment. He was the 24th overall pick in the 1998 NBA draft.

Still, Lopez can be viewed as a trailblazer. The attention paid to Lopez as a high-school senior presaged the booming business that prep hoops would become in the latter half of the decade. One year after Lopez finished high school, Kevin Garnett would be the first player in almost two decades to bypass college on the way to the NBA. Soon after, even regular-season prep games were shown on national television and more players were saddled with unrealistic expectations.

Tangled Up In Blue

2010-06-30T08:41:00.000-07:00

The basketball programs at North Carolina and Kansas share a lot of history. Legendary Tar Heels coach Dean Smith played for the Jayhawks under Phog Allen. Larry Brown was a scrappy point guard at UNC, then led Kansas to a national title as coach in 1988. There were memorable NCAA tournament games between the teams in 1957, 1991 and 1993.

Then there’s the matter of Roy Williams and Matt Doherty. They are inextricably linked in hoops history. As a Smith assistant, Williams recruited Doherty to become a key role player for the Tar Heels in the early 1980s. Williams succeeded Brown as Kansas coach and hired Doherty as an assistant from 1993-’99. After turning down the chance to be UNC’s coach upon Bill Guthridge’s retirement in 2000, Williams trumpeted for Doherty to get the job.

Doherty’s saga at UNC is well-trod territory: AP coach of the year for 2000-’01 and then a disastrous 8-20 season in 2001-’02. But Doherty seemed to be righting the ship in 2002-’03, bringing in a stellar recruiting class highlighted by Rashad McCants, Sean May and Raymond Felton.

One of Doherty’s final memorable moments at UNC came on Nov. 27, 2002, when the young Tar Heels shocked Williams’ second-ranked Jayhawks, 67-56, in the semifinals of the Preseason NIT at Madison Square Garden. It is the only time the coaches have squared off against each other.

It’s a little mind-bending to watch the game with the benefit of hindsight, knowing that Williams would be on the UNC sideline the next season. Especially since Doherty out-coached his mentor in this game. The Tar Heels exploited the Jayhawks’ overplaying defense, with Doherty spreading his players high, almost to the three-point line. That left plenty of room for backdoor cuts and no backside help defensively from Kansas. McCants was the primary beneficiary of the strategy, getting 12 points on 6-for-8 shooting in the first half as UNC raced out to a surprising 38-29 lead.

Doherty didn’t have the look of an embattled coach. The Tar Heels were clearly still buying what Doherty was selling. The coach’s enthusiasm hadn’t dampened, he charged right into a scrum of players to share in the celebration after McCants dove on the floor for a loose ball and called a timeout.

The Tar Heels also were stellar on defense, shutting down Kansas stars Kirk Hinrich and Nick Collison. UNC forced 21 turnovers, surprising because Doherty’s tenure with the Tar Heels — as anyone who watched Adam Boone or Brian Morrison run the point could attest — was marred by the team’s own sloppy play. UNC dominated the second half, pushing the lead to 21 points. McCants finished with 25 points and Jawad Williams added 15. Melvin Scott had five steals off the bench.

It was plain to see the Tar Heels had superior talent. But the season deteriorated in short order. May was lost for the season in December after hurting his foot in a shocking loss to Iona. Doherty’s trademark enthusiasm began to grate on his young stars, who started tuning the coach out while playing out the string of a 19-16 season that ended in the NIT.

Doherty was forced out and Williams became the obvious replacement, even as he was leading Kansas to the NCAA championship game against Syracuse. Williams no doubt struggled with the decision, but it’s easy to see Ol’ Roy thinking back to this game and imagining coaching May, McCants and Felton. There was a greater upside than the players Kansas had returning, including Aaron Miles and Wayne Simien.

Of course, Williams took the job and tidied up the situation, leading the players that Doherty recruited to a national championship in 2005, further entwining their legacies.

Slam Dance

2010-06-28T12:18:00.000-07:00

One image towers above all others from the 1983 NCAA tournament: North Carolina State coach Jim Valvano sprinting around the court looking to embrace all comers after the Wolfpack’s last-second victory over Houston in the championship game.

For sure, it’s an iconic moment in the tournament’s history. It’s also unfortunate that lost in its shadow is a key game in the development of college basketball: Houston’s 94-81 victory over Louisville in the semifinals.

It was supposed to be the de facto title game, with the two top-ranked teams in the country (the Cougars were No. 1). It also promised to be a wild affair, with both squads favoring a breakneck pace.

The hype was a crucial aspect to this game, and the marketing of the matchup would help build the booming brand of today’s “March Madness.” First, you had to sell the characters and slap a catchy nickname on them. This was Houston’s “Phi Slamma Jamma” vs. Louisville’s “The Doctors of Dunk.” The Cougars wholeheartedly bought into their image, even wearing “Phi Slamma Jamma” shooting shirts on the bench. These teams were the direct antecedent to the “Flying Illini” of Illinois in the late 1980s or the “Fab Five” of Michigan in the early ’90s. The NBA benefited directly from this, with stars like Houston’s Clyde Drexler and the then-Akeem Olajuwon and Louisville’s Rodney McCray already known quantities by the time they arrived in the league.

The strategy worked to perfection, the crowd at “The Pit” in Albuquerque was raucous from the tip. The players fed off the energy and, remarkably, the game lived up to the hype. It helped set the aesthetic that became popular in college basketball in the coming years: not much strategy, just putting great athletes into a simple system based on speed and letting them go. Houston and Louisville pushed the pace to the extreme in the high altitude of New Mexico, and players were sucking down oxygen on the bench.

Then there were the dunks, the biggest selling point of the game. Few plays in sports offer fans the visceral mixture of style and power as the dunk. In the game-changing 21-1 run by the Cougars in the second half, Houston had three straight dunks. Two of the slams were legendary, the first being Benny Anders’ one-handed cram over Charles Jones. Then Drexler brought the house down with his soaring, one-hand-into-two-hands glide from a seemingly impossible takeoff spot. It was nothing short of one of the best in-game dunks ever.

The game also was going global. The legend of Olajuwon has been cemented: former soccer player grew to seven feet, ended up in Houston as a project, then became one of the greatest centers of all time. This was the season that Olajuwon put everything together, and the results were stunning. He could block a shot, run the floor with the guards and then finish on the other end. That skill set helped send coaches scurrying to all corners of the globe to find their own pet projects.

It’s hard to believe that a team with the young Drexler and Olajuwon would lose to N.C. State in the championship game. Maybe they bought into the hype and thought they could cruise past the Wolfpack. Maybe they were just bone-tired after all the end-to-end action against Louisville. Regardless, when N.C. State’s Lorenzo Charles beat the buzzer with his dunk for the 54-52 upset of Houston, it sent Valvano on his celebratory jaunt and relegated Louisville-Houston to being an underappreciated footnote.

So Crazy That It Works

2010-06-23T10:13:00.000-07:00

Lost amid all the jollity and outré theater of Ron Artest’s post-Finals interviews were some real insights into how the most enigmatic of basketball players views himself. Artest effusively thanked his psychiatrist for helping him remain calm in tense moments, times when he thought that he sometimes checked out in the past.

It was a rare bit of honesty for a professional athlete. But the truth of the matter is that Artest has a history of acquitting himself well in the clutch, going back to one of his first moments on the national stage: a 92-88 overtime loss to Duke at Madison Square Garden during Artest’s sophomore season at St. John’s.

Los Angeles Lakers fans might collectively hold their breath when Artest receives the ball in the triangle offense, but back then Artest was St. John’s offensive fulcrum. The week before the game against Duke, Artest posted just the second triple-double in the storied history of the school. He led the Red Storm in points and assists and was second in rebounding.

But defense has always been Artest’s calling card, and he got to display his versatility against the Blue Devils. Artest muscled up former AAU teammate Elton Brand in the post, and guarded Shane Battier and Chris Carrawell on the perimeter. Unfortunately, Battier also is a flinty defender and coaxed Artest into a few charges that put the St. John’s star into foul trouble.

Artest missed over eight minutes of the second half, but thanks to Bootsy Thortnon lighting up the second-ranked Blue Devils (he finished with 40 points), the Red Storm was still in the mix by the time Artest returned for the final five minutes of regulation.

You take the good with the bad with Artest, it’s always been that way with him. In this game, he forced a terrible shot that was swatted by Brand, but Artest immediately atoned for it by poking the ball away from Carrawell for a wide-open layup that cut Duke’s lead to 73-70.

The final two minutes were a clinic in clutch play. Artest gave St. John’s a 76-75 lead with a three-point play with 1:40 remaining. An impressive steal on an inbounds play with 40 seconds left was unfortunately followed by a missed shot. After Duke regained the lead at 79-76, Artest bodied up Brand and then stole an inbounds pass. Seemingly all in one motion, Artest made the steal and then bumped into Brand to draw a foul while forcing up a three-pointer. Artest made two of the three free throws, and St. John’s trailed, 79-78. After Duke sank two free throws, Artest called for the ball and then calmly drained the tying three-pointer with 1.1 seconds left.

In overtime, luck didn’t go Artest’s way. Down 89-88 in the final minute, he knocked the ball away from Battier, but it bounced right to Corey Maggette. Artest was forced to foul, his fifth personal. Duke held on to win, but Artest had made a name for himself.

He turned pro after the season, and Artest’s basketball exploits have been shadowed by a greatest hits of bizarre antics (the brawl with the Pistons, applying for a job at Circuit City, drinking Hennessey at halftime, asking for time off from the Pacers to promote his CD). So people seemed shocked when Artest carried the Lakers in Game 7, but he always has had that type of performance in him.

Professional Service

2010-06-21T07:22:00.000-07:00

Rick Pitino is a college coach of the highest order. His credentials speak for themselves. Pitino’s NBA track record, however, is not so easy to define. His last tour of duty — 248 games with the Boston Celtics from 1997-2001 — was a disastrous stretch that ended with a 102-146 record, no playoffs and the enduring soundbite of a weary Pitino explaining to a rabid fan base that “Larry Bird isn’t walking through that door.”

That last bit is great fodder for the argument that Pitino was out of his depth on the professional level. His tenure with the Celtics also obscured the relative success Pitino enjoyed with the New York Knicks in 1987-’88 and 1988-’89. A close reading of a random game during Pitino’s stint with the Knicks highlights his strengths and weaknesses as a pro coach.

The Knicks’ 120-116 victory over the Portland Trail Blazers on Jan. 22, 1989, proved to be a great yardstick to measure an NBA coach — a game in the doldrums of the season, in the midst of a brutal seven-game road trip and against a playoff-caliber opponent.

The first thing that pops off the screen is Pitino’s manic energy. He was then firmly entrenched in the wunderkind stage of his career, a 36-year-old workaholic who had, the season before, led the Knicks to a 14-game improvement in his first year at the helm. Pitino paced the sideline, well-turned-out in his Italian suit, and his voice was easily picked up by the television crew above the uncommonly silent crowd at Portland’s Memorial Coliseum. It is a different temperament than most NBA coaches, the common perception being that a coach needs to emotionally pace himself to make it through the grind of an NBA season.

College coaches are often slaves to their systems. This can cause problems when transitioning to the pro game because the talents are so much greater and diverse that drastic adjustments are needed from game to game. Pitino’s style is based on pressure defense and a guard-dominated offense.

Pressure defense is so hard to implement in the NBA, mostly because of the sheer talent of the players. That’s not to say that it won’t catch some teams off guard, like the Blazers on this night. Portland had 13 turnovers in the first half and 11 in the third quarter. But a professional coach also will find some holes in the pressure. Pitino was matching wits with Portland’s Mike Schuler, not in the class of a Red Auerbach but a serviceable NBA coach. (Schuler would be fired a month after this game and replaced by assistant Rick Adelman.)

Schuler’s counterforce against the defense was simple — send Clyde Drexler on a fly pattern down the sideline for a long pass over the top of the defense. Drexler was in full “Gylde” mode then, and the results were spectacular. He had 26 points in the first half and nine of his 10 baskets came on fast breaks. Drexler enjoyed one of his finest games as a pro, 48 points on 20-for-28 shooting including 18 layups or dunks.

Pitino’s offensive strategies also seemed counterintuitive. He had Patrick Ewing just entering his prime, but the all-star center got only six shots in the first half. The Knicks were content with Mark Jackson and Trent Tucker dominating the ball on the perimeter. It was no coincidence that Ewing’s scoring average jumped from 22.7 to 28.6 when Stu Jackson replaced Pitino the next season.

Pitino has always been masterful about getting the most out of guys on the bottom end of his rotation. He is, after all, the best-selling author of “Success is a Choice.” The motivational tactics and knack for choosing the right personnel won this game for Pitino. After getting into a 17-point hole in the third period, Pitino brought in Rod Strickland, Gerald Wilkens and the newly signed Pete Myers for Jackson, Tucker and Johnny Newman. That lineup fed into Pitino’s fast-paced attack and cut the margin to 90-88 heading into the fourth quarter.

The Knicks finally got the ball to Ewing in the fourth quarter and held on for the victory. Pitino acted as if they had clinched the Eastern Conference championship, hugging each player as they headed toward the locker room. Pitino’s enthusiasm certainly breathed new life into a moribund franchise, making consecutive playoffs under his stewardship. But after the season Pitino took the job at Kentucky, back in the college ranks where his style is a safer bet.

Divergent Paths

2010-06-18T10:15:00.000-07:00

It is still disconcerting to see Adam Morrison mired on the Los Angeles Lakers’ bench, often taking in the action in street clothes. With an expiring contract, there is a strong chance that Morrison won’t be in the league next season. That’s a long way to fall for one of the top college basketball players of the past decade.

Morrison’s greatest game at Gonzaga came when he dropped 43 points in a 109-106 triple-overtime victory against Michigan State at the Maui Invitational on Nov. 22, 2005. Besides being one of the best college games in recent memory, it is instructive to watch the game and contrast Morrison with Shannon Brown, the ultra-athletic wing player for the Spartans whose professional career has taken a decidedly different trajectory.

The biggest adjustment for college stars upon entering the NBA, save for a few cases, is that they no longer will be the focal point of an offense. Gonzaga had some talented players, but they clearly deferred to Morrison. That was evident in the opening minutes against Michigan State, when Morrison found space for his first three-pointer of the game after running his defender around a double screen. Morrison hit another three-pointer a few minutes later when teammates passed up open shots to feed him in the corner. The Bulldogs always found ways to get Morrison the ball, even having him bring the ball up the court when Brown made a concerted effort to deny the passing lanes to the Gonzaga star.

Brown’s defense slowed Morrison after a hot start. Morrison had 11 early points and coaxed Michigan State’s Maurice Ager into foul trouble. Brown got the call from coach Tom Izzo to guard Morrison. This would be the type of defender Morrison would face in the NBA — Brown stands only 6 feet 4 inches but has rangy arms and world-class athletic ability. Morrison wasn’t quite sure how to attack Brown, the first instinct being to take the smaller player (Morrison is 6-8) in the post. But Morrison wasn’t comfortable on the blocks, often fading away on his jumpers around the basket.

One of those misses near the end of the first half sparked a sequence by Brown that displayed his tantalizing skill set. When a short turnaround by Morrison caromed off the rim, Brown sprinted down court, filling the lane on a fast break that ended with a soaring one-handed dunk. Brown hit a three-pointer on the Spartans’ next possession, then found Drew Neitzel with a nifty pass on a back-door play. Both Morrison and Brown finished 6 of 10 from the field in the first half.

Brown was plagued by cramps for the remainder of the game and would score only three more points. Morrison also took advantage of a slower Brown, hitting long jumpers and the kind of crafty runners that sparked inevitable comparisons to Larry Bird. Morrison was much more confident with the ball at Gonzaga, and didn’t shy away from big moments. That’s a marked difference from whenever Morrison sees playing time with the Lakers, often looking lost or passive in the triangle offense.

Morrison’s numbers in this game dwarf Brown’s, but it was clear Brown would have a bright future at the next level. Michael Jordan and the Charlotte Bobcats saw enough potential in Morrison to make him the third overall pick in the 2006 draft. Brown went 25th that year to the Cleveland Cavaliers and eventually joined Morrison in Charlotte in 2008.

Morrison had the inevitable up-and-down rookie season and drew heavy criticism for being slow on defense. His career was forever altered when he blew out his knee in an exhibition game and missed his entire second year. When he returned, Morrison was a touch slower, which doomed him against NBA defenders. Those tough runners he hit in college weren’t going to work against the likes of Kevin Garnett. The Bobcats sent Morrison and Brown to the Lakers for Vladimir Radmanovic in February 2009.

With Los Angeles, Brown has found a home for his freakish athleticism. He plays solid minutes for one of the NBA’s elite teams and has treated fans to jaw-dropping slams (except in this year’s dunk contest).

Morrison, meanwhile, is a constant fixture on the Lakers’ bench. Because of his previous exploits, it’s hard for some fans to give up the ghost. Maybe he just needs the right coach with the right system. More than likely, Morrison will be another sublime college player whose game couldn’t translate to the NBA.

International Relations

2010-06-11T08:56:00.000-07:00

When Jerry Krause drafted Toni Kukoc with the second pick in the second round of the 1990 NBA draft (29th overall), the Chicago Bulls general manager thought he had pulled off his greatest coup. After all, Kukoc was widely acknowledged as the best player in Europe with guard skills packaged in a power forward’s frame.

But Krause’s torrid infatuation with Kukoc also served to foment dissension against team management by the Bulls’ greatest stars, Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. Jordan disliked Krause’s groveling over an unproven player. Pippen was furious with contract figures being bandied about in hopes of luring Kukoc across the pond. Pippen was undoubtedly one of the top 10 players in the NBA at the time, but he was being paid like an average journeyman, and was stuck with an underwhelming long-term deal.

So when Kukoc’s Croatia team was placed in the same group as the U.S. at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, it provided some extra motivation for Dream Team members Jordan and Pippen. Croatia was the second-best team that summer, with Kukoc, Drazen Petrovic, Dino Radja and Stojko Vrankovic. But the U.S. wasn’t going to lose, the scores weren’t even going to be close, so any edge to get up for a game would be exploited.

The Americans and Croatians first squared off during group play. Chuck Daly put Pippen in the starting lineup and tasked him with guarding Kukoc. Pippen had made his first NBA all-defensive team that season, but you might be hard-pressed to find a game that season where he guarded someone harder than he did Kukoc.

Pippen was even more infuriated defensively after Kukoc got a rebound and a nifty assist to give Croatia a 4-2 lead. Pippen hardly left Kukoc’s hip after that, and was inordinately physical. Kukoc was visibly frustrated, constantly slapping Pippen’s hands away.

Jordan was locked in defensively as well. He stole a Kukoc pass, leading to a breakaway dunk and a 9-6 lead for the Americans. After Kukoc got by Magic Johnson on a drive, Jordan was there to swat the shot attempt that turned into a Pippen dunk and a 42-18 advantage.

The constant harassment had broken Kukoc’s will. He missed his first four shots of the game, getting his only basket on an uncontested layup right before the halftime buzzer that was made possible by Arijan Komazec’s penetration. Kukoc seemed to shut down, offering no signs of competitiveness. That lack of fire was contrasted by Petrovic, who met the challenge of facing the Dream Team head-on. He scored 11 straight points in the first half to keep the score to a somewhat respectable 54-37 at the break.

Kukoc had a little more breathing room in the second half, being guarded mostly by Chris Mullin and Clyde Drexler. Here, without the stultifying length of Pippen, is where one saw why Krause held Kukoc in such high esteem. With his height advantage at 6 feet 11 inches, Kukoc could see over his defenders on the perimeter. He had a well-honed anticipatory sense about where his teammates were going to be. He had only five assists in the game, but several of his nicest passes were met with blown layups or fouls by the U.S. Pippen’s initial defense also left Kukoc a little gun shy, and the Croatian star finished 2 for 11 from the field in the Americans’ 103-70 victory.

After the game, Pippen was scathing in his view of Kukoc. Pippen said Kukoc didn’t have the mentality to make it through the 82-game grind of a regular season. Karl Malone and Charles Barkley echoed those sentiments. Jordan took a more diplomatic approach, saying Kukoc’s skills would be better highlighted when playing with teammates of a higher caliber.

Kukoc gained a measure of revenge in the gold-medal game. He had 16 points, nine assists and five rebounds in the 117-85 romp by the U.S. Kukoc was infinitely more aggressive in going after Pippen, hitting several three-pointers over the long arms of one of the world’s top defenders (Kukoc was 3 for 4 beyond the arc in the game).

Kukoc finally made it to the Bulls after the 1992-’93 season, just in time for Jordan’s first retirement. Kukoc and Pippen coexisted uneasily before Jordan’s return prompted the second three-peat. But Kukoc never seemed comfortable in his own skin with the Bulls, probably because of the rude introduction by Jordan and Pippen at the Olympics.

Knight Court

2010-06-08T11:03:00.000-07:00

With all of his bluster and his dictatorial persona, it’s sometimes easy to forget how much Bob Knight knows about basketball. That’s why it was striking, when reading about Damon Bailey, to spot this quote from Knight after Indiana’s 96-84 victory over top-ranked Kentucky on Dec. 4, 1994:

“That was about as excited as I’ve been about basketball in a long time. The way we started, I almost became a fan because we were playing so hard.”

Those are heady words coming from The General. This is, after all, the guy who won a championship as a player with Ohio State in 1960 and three NCAA titles as a coach (including the last undefeated team, in 1975-’76), led the U.S. to a gold medal in 1984 and was a confidant of Pete Newell. This Hoosiers’ performance begged to be broken down.

The most striking aspect about the six-minute stretch that got Knight all excited is that, to the naked eye, it seemed so mundane. There were no monster dunks, no blazing feats of athleticism, no jaw-dropping assists. There were even some sloppy moments in the 9-2 run by Indiana to start the game.

Coaches often say they don’t care about mistakes as long as players are executing correctly and with the requisite amount of effort. That usually sounds like drivel, especially coming from an exacting coach like Knight.

But that cliché was true for the scrappy Hoosiers, who were looking to bounce back from a lackadaisical effort in a season-opening home loss to Butler. They needed to be on their game against Rick Pitino and his vaunted full-court pressure.

In the introductory segments, Knight laid bare the essentials of his motion offense. The Hoosiers didn’t run any scripted plays, they just read and reacted to what the defenses was giving. The key against the Wildcats’ tough defense would be the play of Indiana’s guards, foremost among them Bailey. An Indiana schoolboy legend, this was Bailey’s senior season after an up-and-down college career.

Bailey was tough, strong and smart with the ball, and those skills would serve the Hoosiers well in this game. He continually broke Kentucky’s pressure with his dribble, inviting the double team, then dribbling around the outside of it. Indiana’s only turnover in the first five minutes came when Bailey had his pocket picked after getting by the pressure and crossing half-court.

All of that was pleasing to Knight, as was the Hoosier’s intensity on defense. Knight’s rugged man-to-man system forced Kentucky into four turnovers on its first five possessions. The Wildcats’ only points in the first six minutes came on two free throws, while they missed the four shots that they managed to squeeze off.

With that level of defensive enthusiasm, Knight could live with mistakes like Bailey’s turnover or the missed reverse layups by freshman Steve Hart. Knight even commended Todd Lindeman after the center got a foul, because the big man was being aggressive going after an offensive rebound.

After that Knight-pleasing 9-2 run, thing settled down. Kentucky, as expected from the nation’s top team, rallied for a 35-29 lead. Then Bailey took over; this game was probably the high-water mark of his career. The interesting thing about Bailey is that he did not conform to the sweet-shooting classic archetype of Hoosier State folk heroes. In fact, flat-topped teammate Brian Evans probably fit that particular mold better.

Bailey was just gritty, and he knew how to score. He made frequent trips to the free-throw line and scored 23 points in the first half for a 55-44 lead at the break. He finished with 29 in the victory and also played cheek-by-jowl defense on Kentucky star Tony Delk (5-of-17 shooting).

When Bailey got a brief respite right before halftime, Knight gave him a playful slap on the head and then spoke a few words into the guard’s ear. CBS broadcaster Billy Packer informed the viewing public that Knight had mouthed the words “I’m proud of you.” The famed taskmaster was probably still on a basketball high from those first five minutes.

Divine Providence

2010-06-03T09:27:00.000-07:00

A byproduct of the NCAA tournament is teams that capture the popular imagination for a few games or a couple of weeks, then are lost to history after bowing out. The Providence Friars fall squarely into this camp for their performance in 1997.

The squad had something for everyone to like, starting with head coach Pete Gillen, a benevolent quipster with the ruddy complexion of an Irish barkeep. The Friars’ top scorer was Austin Croshere, a lantern-jawed white forward whose game was an amalgamation of three-point shooting and classic back-to-the-basket fare. Fans of players who do the donkeywork under the basket had the underappreciated big man Ruben Garces. There was Coney Island native Jamel Thomas for some street flavor and former JUCO player of the year Derrick Brown for the classic up-from-your-bootstraps storyline.

Then there was God. He came to Providence as Shammgod Wells, an ankle-fracturing point guard from Harlem who stole the spotlight with his wicked ball-handling at the star-studded 1995 McDonald’s All-American Game. In college he changed his name to God Shammgod, much to the appreciation of pun-loving sportswriters and broadcasters. Stories of his dribbling wizardry are legion in college basketball.

The Friars entered the tournament as a 10th-seed and opened with an 81-59 victory over Marquette. Croshere poured in 39 points, the high for the tournament, including 15-for-15 shooting from the free-throw line. It was Providence’s first victory in the tournament since the school had Rick Pitino on the sideline and a scrappy kid named Billy Donovan running the point. The Friars also beat fellow upstart Tennessee-Chattanooga, 71-65, in the third round. But Providence’s best performances came in its 98-87 victory over Duke in the second round and its 96-92 loss in overtime to eventual champion Arizona in the Elite Eight.

The dominant personalities on Providence were the three players with professional prospects: Croshere, Thomas and Shammgod. But against second-seeded Duke, Brown was the guiding force with 33 points and 10 rebounds. The Friars needed Brown, especially his 17 points in the first half, because Croshere was saddled with foul trouble and Shammgod got off to a turnover-filled start against the Blue Devils’ pressure defense. There was nothing aesthetically pleasing about Brown’s game. He just worked and willed his way to points, fitting for the New Yorker who took the circuitous route of two junior colleges out West to make it back to the East Coast.

Shammgod finally got it going in the second half. He had the classic game for a New York City point guard: flashy handle, a nose for getting in the lane to dish and an absolutely broken jumper. Theories abound about this phenomenon, with unforgiving NYC blacktop rims and cramped indoor gyms often cited as reasons for the city’s point guards’ inabilities to shoot. Shammgod’s dribble-and-drive attack, along with fellow lightning-quick guard Corey Wright, sparked the deciding 11-1 run in the second half. Shammgod had nine assists after halftime, and the diminutive guard capped off the victory with two stylish dunks in the final minute. Croshere managed 21 points despite his limited minutes.

Shammgod needed to have a game of the first order against Arizona, which boasted a backcourt with Mike Bibby, Miles Simon, Jason Terry and Michael Dickerson. Shammgod answered the call with 23 points, including some on long jumpers. Croshere was in foul trouble again, so Garces took over more than his share of inside duties and had a career night with 16 points and 19 rebounds.

The two streetballers from New York, Shammgod and Thomas, led the rally from a 10-point deficit against the Wildcats with under four minutes remaining in regulation. Thomas, a formidable talent somehow overlooked on this team with the flashy Shammgod and the emotional Brown, tied the game on a three-pointer with 15 seconds left. Thomas finished with 23 points. Providence forced a steal, but jumpers by Shammgod and Wright fell short before regulation ended.

The Friars ran out of steam in overtime. Brown fouled out, joining Croshere on the sideline, and the Wildcats coolly sank their free throws to salt away the victory.

Providence’s flash of greatness ended. Croshere, Brown and Garces were seniors. Croshere played in the NBA for 12 seasons with varying success and large paychecks. Thomas didn’t get drafted despite leading the Big East in scoring as a senior in the 1998-’99 season. He managed to see action in 12 NBA games, but became somewhat of a star in Europe. He resurfaced Stateside as younger half-brother Sebastian Telfair became a hot recruit in 2004, and Thomas had a prominent role in the 2004 documentary about Telfair, “Through The Fire.” Shammgod left two years of eligibility on the table and turned pro after Providence’s tournament run. He was a second-round pick by Washington and saw action in only 20 games of his only NBA season. But that divine name and ball-handling prowess ensure Shammgod of eternal cult status. Just like this Providence team.

Changing Season

2010-06-02T08:39:00.000-07:00

The modern era of the Celtics-Lakers rivalry can be traced, as with most aspects of today’s NBA, to the arrival of Larry Bird and Magic Johnson in the 1979-’80 season. But a more accurate carbon-dating of the league’s most famous billing will show that the rivalry didn’t really begin in earnest until 1984, when the teams met in the NBA Finals for the first time with Bird and Johnson.

Also overlooked in the Lakers-Celtics battles of the 1980s were the regular-season games, which were as well played and almost as wrought with tension as their playoff battles. The teams met for the first time in the 1983-’84 season on Feb. 8 at the Boston Garden.

The Lakers’ 111-109 victory was their first at the Garden in two years. The game also stood as an indicator of what was to come later that season in the watershed Finals between the teams. First and foremost for the Lakers was knowing that they could win in Boston, a fact that they would duplicate with a 115-109 victory in Game 1 at the Garden a few months later. (Los Angeles also won the other regular-season clash that season, 116-108, at the Forum on Feb. 24.)

There was also evidence in that first regular-season game of why the Celtics would win the Finals in an epic seven-game series.

The Lakers’ leadership dynamic was in a strange place that season. Johnson was coming into his own as a professional point guard (17.6 points and 13.1 assists per game), but the team still deferred to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. That was evident in the first matchup of the season, with Abdul-Jabbar getting the ball down the stretch. With a strong fourth quarter, Abdul-Jabbar finished with 27 points and, at 37 years old, became the NBA’s all-time field-goal leader by passing Wilt Chamberlain’s mark. Abdul-Jabbar started the Finals hot with 31 points and eight rebounds in the Game 1 victory despite a migraine. However, the Lakers’ center faded as the series stretched to seven games, often shown sucking down oxygen on the sideline. The only contest in the Finals in which Johnson had complete control of the reins was the Lakers’ 137-104 blowout in Game 3 in which Magic had 21 assists and spurred the tempo to the tune of 51 fast-break opportunities. That game would portend the sea change in Lakers’ floor direction in the coming seasons.

Boston’s wagon was clearly hitched to Bird’s star. He started the teams’ first meeting by making his first five shots and finished with 29 points. But after attacking the Lakers’ Michael Cooper at the beginning of the game, Bird started settling for outside jumpers. Those long shots began falling short late in the going. It was clear that the Celtics would only go as far as Bird could take them. To that end, Bird earned his first NBA Finals MVP that season.

The supporting casts also would prove important. The Lakers’ Jamaal Wilkes was a key figure in the first regular-season victory, scoring in bunches and getting 25 points with one of the most unorthodox shooting releases in basketball history. Wilkes wouldn’t factor much in the playoffs, however, because of an intestinal ailment. Also getting hot in the first matchup was Kevin McHale, the Celtics’ sixth-man extraordinaire who scored 14 points in the second quarter. McHale was Boston’s X-factor in the Finals, turning the series with his aggressive play (including his infamous clothesline of Kurt Rambis in Game 4). The Celtics’ Gerald Henderson also gained some confidence against the Lakers in the first battle. He scored 16 points, five points above his average at that point in the season. In the Finals, Henderson etched himself into Celtics lore by making the game-tying layup in the closing seconds of regulation in Game 2, propelling Boston to an overtime victory.

The Lakers were doomed in the 1984 NBA Finals by mental mistakes. Johnson bungled clock management in the closing seconds of Game 2, calling a timeout that allowed Boston to set up its defense. The Celtics took advantage, with Henderson picking off an ill-advised James Worthy pass and getting his famous layup. Johnson then misjudged how much time was left and the Lakers didn’t get a shot off at the end of regulation. Johnson also missed key free throws in Boston’s Game 4 victory.

These fundamental breakdowns were foreshadowed in the first game between the teams that season. With the Lakers clinging to a 111-109 lead and whipping the ball around to run out the final seconds, Wilkes inexplicably tried a contested layup with four seconds left. The Celtics’ Cedric Maxwell blocked the shot and corralled the ball, but the officials somehow didn’t grant the timeout that the Boston players were signaling. The Lakers survived that game, but such mistakes always prove haunting in the playoffs.

Bird summed up the rivalry’s epochal season this way: “The Lakers, I felt, showed their true colors. I always thought they were soft, and they were that season.”

Skywriting

2010-05-28T09:24:00.000-07:00

To most basketball fans, David Thompson is synonymous with squandered talent. He’s a reckless symbol of the cocaine-addled NBA that was self-destructing in the late 1970s. But to the majority of hoops fans from Thompson’s home state of North Carolina, the “Skywalker” is viewed in a kinder light as one of the greatest players ever who ran into a few personal problems.

I grew up in Greensboro, N.C., long after Thompson had washed out of the NBA. When I was in middle school and getting indoctrinated into hoops culture, Thompson came to talk to our student body. I don’t remember the speech besides being the usual stay-in-school/don’t-do-drugs boilerplate. What I remember is that the gymnasium was packed; parents had ducked out of work at the chance to hear Thompson speak. The physical education teachers wore suits and ties. I was left with the impression that Thompson was on par with the president of the United States.

Thompson became embedded in my hoops consciousness, and his name started cropping up everywhere. When I would write research projects about Michael Jordan, I’d read about how the young MJ patterned his game after Thompson and longed to wear an N.C. State jersey like his idol. When the ACC tournament would hit town, the Greensboro News & Record was chockablock with tales of Thompson’s exploits with the Wolfpack: 26.8 points and 8.1 rebounds per game and a 79-7 record in three college seasons.

It must have been tough for Thompson to come to Greensboro to talk about his personal failures because that city played host to the three biggest victories of his college career in the 1973-’74 season. After watching video of Thompson scoring 42 points in the ABA’s swan song, I realized that I had never seen any of his college work besides the obligatory highlight packages. To understand why all those Carolina folk got starry-eyed when talking about Thompson, I viewed tapes of N.C. State’s victories over Maryland (in the famous ACC championship game), UCLA (in the Final Four) and Marquette (in the NCAA championship game).

I never thought Thompson could live up to the images I had created in my mind since back in the day. But he might have exceeded expectations.

As expected, Thompson’s athleticism is the first thing that jumps out at the viewer. Depending on whom you believe, Skywalker’s vertical leap was somewhere between 35 and 44 inches. N.C. State coach Norman Sloan tailored the offense to fit Thompson’s gifts. This team basically made the alley-oop a staple of the modern game. Everyone on the team could loft that pass to a hard-cutting Thompson, from 5-foot, 7-inch point guard Monte Towe to 7-2 center Tom Burleson.

Against Maryland in the ACC championship, the Wolfpack’s signature play was on full display in what by common consent is the greatest game in that conference’s history. Since each conference got only one bid to the NCAA tournament, one of the nation’s best teams would have its season end early. Thompson made sure it wasn’t N.C. State. His back-door cuts were a thing of beauty: He would lazily bring his defender to the free-throw line, then sell hard like he was sprinting out to the perimeter to get the ball. Before his defender could blink, Thompson would plant his feet and cut like lightning back to the basket. Since dunking the ball was outlawed by the NCAA at that time, it made each of Thompson’s alley-oops a separate art performance. Only 6-4, Thompson would glide over the rim, gather the ball then smoothly drop it into the basket. He scored a large chunk of his 29 points in this manner in the dramatic 103-100 overtime victory.

Dunking became what Thompson has been best remembered for in his professional career. That is definitely historically noteworthy, but it also obscures Thompson’s whole game. In the 80-77 double-overtime victory against UCLA (which ended the Bruins’ seven-year stranglehold on NCAA titles), Thompson made several jaw-dropping blocks against Bill Walton that proved to N.C. State that the upset was possible. Thompson’s 28 points and 10 rebounds helped, too.

Thompson made sure the Wolfpack avoided a letdown against Marquette in the national championship by displaying his total game in playing all 40 minutes. With intimidator Maurice Lucas roaming underneath the basket, the alley-oops were largely choked off. Thompson went to work with his mid-range game, finishing with 21 points in the 76-64 victory to cap off his Most Outstanding Player performance at the Final Four. Another underrated part of Thompson’s game was his defense. Especially at the college level, where Thompson’s athleticism was far superior to the competition, he would soar for rebounds and sprint into passing lanes for steals.

So watching Thompson did nothing to disabuse me of the notion that he is one of the greatest players ever. You can’t gloss over the fact that his personal demons likely robbed him of a more noteworthy professional career, but you also can’t ignore those plays that still make grown men in my home state shake their heads in awe.

The Cult Of Rubio

2010-05-27T07:10:00.000-07:00

It has become nearly impossible for a teenage basketball phenom to hoop below the radar. Gone are the days when a relative unknown could finagle an invite to some elite camp and become the nation’s hottest recruit overnight, like Tracy McGrady did at ABCD in 1996.

The scouting and recruiting apparatuses are so well-oiled that a current player with transcendent physical tools like McGrady would have been showcased and written up in reports and puff pieces before he even played a game in high school, no matter what dusty corner of the U.S. he lived in.

Today, the only intrigue in the prospect game concerns foreign players, and the greatest mystery going is how well Spanish wunderkind Ricky Rubio will fare in the NBA. Anyone reading about Rubio in the run-up to the 2009 draft (and after he was selected fifth overall by the Timberwolves) would be under the impression that he was the second coming of (insert breathless point guard comparison here). But only a select few fans/pundits in the U.S. had ever seen Rubio play outside of the Olympic gold-medal game won by the Americans in 2008. How did Rubio become a cult of basketball personality?

The legend of Rubio began its worldwide ascent with his performance in the 2006 FIBA Under-16 European Championship game. In Spain’s 110-106 victory in double overtime over Russia, Rubio had the sublime line of 51 points, 24 rebounds, 12 assists and seven steals.

The game was filmed by a spectator in the stands, and the footage begins with the camera trained on a figure that stands out in the layup line among his red jersey-clad teammates. The pro-Spain crowd cheered wildly as Rubio wrapped the ball behind his back then dropped in an acrobatic lay-in from the left side. On his next trip through the line, Rubio played to the crowd’s anticipation and threw an alley-oop to himself off the glass for a one-handed dunk.
That was just the sound check for Rubio’s rock-star performance in the game. The footage is grainy, you can’t make out faces or read numbers, but you are always aware of which player is Rubio. He was clearly on a different level than his peers in this game. He got into the lane on nearly every possession.

Rubio’s assists total could have been at least five higher had he been playing with better teammates who could handle his passes. The kid oozed confidence even through an amateur camcorder lens. The most striking aspect of Rubio’s game, as often noted, is his passing vision. A 16-year-old kid shouldn’t have that kind of feel for the game. He was also at his best in the clutch moments, taking over the scoring burden in the final minutes and hitting a long shot to send the game into overtime.

Video from Rubio’s performance leaked out on the Internet, whetting the appetite of Stateside fans. It showed just enough, and was tantalizingly incomplete and grainy. Plus, Rubio’s flashy game was tailor-made for YouTube. He had enough no-look dimes and gymnastic forays to the hoop to cobble together several “mix tapes” on the Web.

Journalists started to pick up the scent. Lang Whitaker of Slam magazine was the first American scribe to spread the gospel of Rubio, heading across the pond to actually dig into the phenomenon and banging out a feature in 2007. After that, more mainstream publications took notice, and the ball of hype picked up steam quickly.

Fans clamored for their team to draft Rubio strictly on the basis of Internet clips and second-hand stories. It was like a perfectly orchestrated guerrilla marketing campaign. It could never have worked with an American prospect, one whose game had been studied and dissected from every angle since he was a teenager.

Portland's Crowning Achievement: Part 6

2010-05-16T09:39:00.000-07:00

Game 6: Portland 109, Philadelphia 107 (Blazers win, 4-2)

The series had to end this way, with the Trail Blazers returning to one of the best NBA cities and Bill Walton turning in an immortal Finals performance. Portland was ready — 4,500 fans had shown up at the airport in the middle of the night to greet the team after the Blazers’ victory at Philadelphia in Game 5. The volume at Memorial Coliseum for Game 6 was at ear-splitting levels even before the tap.

Then the fans got to witness one of the finest opening quarters they could ever hope to see. The Blazers and 76ers had yet to play at their highest levels simultaneously in the previous five games. So it was a good sign that Philadelphia’s George McGinnis, plagued by 35% shooting in the series, sank his first four shots. Both teams were hot, combining to make 16 of the initial 22 shots in the game. The game was tied, 27-27, after the opening 12 minutes.

Portland put together a 10-0 run in the second quarter to take a 50-40 lead with five minutes to go before halftime. The Blazers headed into the break with a 67-55 advantage after their fourth 40-point quarter of the series.

The Portland fans probably thought that the 76ers, laden with egocentric players, would fold. But Philadelphia kept battling back in the second half. The 76ers got three good looks at the basket in the final seconds, and Portland secured its lone title only after McGinnis’ shot fell short at the buzzer.

It was an unexpected special season for the Blazers. The team had never been in the playoffs before, or even had a winning season. Portland had a first-year coach in Dr. Jack Ramsay, who had to mold together seven new additions to the roster.

The Blazers went 49-33 in the regular season, thanks to the relative good health of Walton. Portland was 5-12 in games without its star center. Walton was probably never better as a professional than he was in Game 6: 20 points, 23 rebounds, eight blocks and seven assists.

This series is often remembered as the one in which Walton outshone Julius Erving. Dr. J was equally brilliant in the final game, pouring in 40 points, including some dunks that could make you wear out the rewind button. Any highlight package of the 1977 NBA Finals will show Erving magnificently jamming over an outstretched Walton. That happened several times in the series. But Walton also won a fair number of the battles in which their paths crossed, blocking several of Erving’s headlong forays to the basket.

It seemed like there was a budding dynasty in Portland. Walton was finally healthy, and the talented players surrounding him were still young. The Blazers started the next season 50-10 before Walton went down again. The heartbreaking end to those dynastic hopes can never be told better than in David Halberstam’s “The Breaks of the Game.”

But at least Walton got Portland to the top of the mountain before the wheels came off the team. The Blazers’ four victories in eight days were a sight to behold, personifying the team concept of basketball in an era of the NBA that many observers would like to forget. Everything aligned perfectly for Portland that season, and it brought a title to a town that deserved a champion.

Portland's Crowning Achievement: Part 5

2010-05-15T08:48:00.000-07:00

Remember that the NBA was in a period of turmoil in the late 1970s. Cocaine use was rampant throughout the league, likely a reason for the erratic play and violent behavior on the court that alienated a lot of fans. It was a low ebb of popularity for the league; some of these Finals games were even shown on tape delay by CBS.

But it can’t be overlooked that a lot of fans from mainstream white American were turned off by the brash, in-your-face street style that many African-Americans brought to the NBA in the 1970s. So it is not a stretch to say that many of the remaining white fans clung to the players who looked like themselves — guys like Portland’s Bill Walton, Dave Twardzik and Bobby Gross.

But that line of thinking also discredits those players’ skills a bit. Walton, Twardzik and Gross could all play, and their standout performances were instrumental in helping Portland take Game 5 at the Spectrum. As we are reminded every year in the playoffs, Game 5s are pivotal and a series truly begins when a team wins on the road.

The Blazers started off a bit like they had in their forgettable performances in the first two games of the Finals in Philadelphia. They had four turnovers in the first few minutes of the game, something they desperately needed to avoid to have any chance. Gross was the calming influence with his dead-eye mid-range game. He dropped in eight points as Portland staked an 18-10 lead. However, Gross was saddled with three fouls in the first quarter, and the Blazers missed his defense on Julius Erving as Philadelphia crept back to within 45-41 in a relatively low-scoring half.

Gross helped ignite the Blazers in the third quarter. His steal and three-point play were the key moments of a 17-2 run that put Portland in control of the game. The Blazers put 40 points on the scoreboard in the period, taking an 85-66 lead into the fourth quarter.

Philadelphia would make some runs in the fourth quarter, whittling the lead to five on several occasions. Gross hit a crucial shot to quell a spurt by the 76ers and give Portland a 96-84 advantage, but he fouled out with 4:54 left in the game. He finished with 25 points on 10-for-13 shooting, adding five assists and three steals.

Walton was his usual dominating self throughout the game, and he didn’t need the ball to do it. With Gross giving some unexpected scoring punch, Walton could focus on doing the dirty work. For the game, Walton had 14 points and pulled down 24 rebounds. On defense, he blocked several shots and altered many others.

Still, there were several stretched in the fourth quarter where it looked like the 76ers were going to run right by the Blazers. Earlier in the game, CBS had run a brief interview with Twardzik and the guard was asked about his role on the Blazers. He responded that he was in charge of making the right decisions, when to run if the action needed picking up or when to slow things down and run the pattern offense. That’s exactly what he did when Portland coach Dr. Jack Ramsay inserted him in the crunch-time lineup. Twardzik had 15 points and handled the offensive reins almost perfectly, save for a turnover with 36 seconds left and the Blazers clinging to a seven-point lead.

Maurice Lucas, one of those oft-criticized “street players,” added his usual steady offering of 20 points and 13 rebounds. But the Trail Blazers shouldn’t be broken down into black-and-white terms. Walton, Gross and Twardzik weren’t given any special pass on the court. Portland was just a perfect team, one that was headed home to claim a title on the court where the Blazers had won 17 straight games.

Portland's Crowning Achievement: Part 4

2010-05-14T06:30:00.000-07:00

Portland's Crowning Achievement: Part 3

2010-05-13T10:00:00.000-07:00

With the NBA playoffs getting down to brass tacks, Order of the Court will take a look at a great post-season series of the past: The Portland Trail Blazers’ 4-2 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers in the 1977 NBA Finals. There will be a post for each game.

Game 3: Portland 129, Philadelphia 107 (76ers lead series, 2-1)

Forget the fight. It proved not to be the turning point of the series — that came in the fourth quarter of this game. The Portland Trail Blazers also needed to put the Game 2 ruckus out their minds, much easier now that the series had shifted to Portland and its raucous bandbox of a gym.

Any lingering hostilities after the Maurice Lucas-Darryl Dawkins punch-up were quashed when Lucas surprisingly ran over to Philadelphia’s bench during player introductions and shook hands with Dawkins. The Blazer faithful at Memorial Coliseum roared their approval. After some obligatory booing of Dawkins when he first checked into the game, the matter was old news.
Portland couldn’t waste any thought on the first two games, anyway. It had to clean up its act, mostly on the offensive end. The Blazers needed stronger play out of their backcourt, cutting down on the turnovers and hitting open shots so things would loosen up for Bill Walton in the post.

Dr. Jack Ramsay also wanted his team to come out firing to get the crowd going early. Portland obliged, racing out to a 10-4 lead before Philadelphia’s Gene Shue called a timeout to settle his team down. Rookie guard Johnny Davis (that’s him in the above photo) provided the backcourt spark, scoring 10 of the Blazers’ first 20 points. Portland led, 34-21, after the first quarter and it seemed like the team had righted its listing ship.

But the Blazers’ old demons reared their ugly heads in the second quarter. The hot shooting cooled, and the turnovers began to mount. Portland, which averaged 15 turnovers per game in the season, coughed it up 13 times in the first half of Game 3. For a team that prided itself on crisp ball movement, the 76 turnovers in the first 10 quarters of the Finals were unacceptable. Adding to the Blazers’ troubles was the play of Lionel Hollins. The normally steady guard was atrocious in the first two quarters of Game 3, shooting 1 for 9 and missing several easy shots.

The 76ers crawled back into the game behind usual suspects Doug Collins and Julius Erving. They cut Portland’s lead to 54-53 before a miss by the 76ers’ George McGinnis (still deep in a slump) precipitated a 6-0 run by the Blazers to end the half.
Still, the only way the Blazers could run off four straight victories was if Walton got room to operate. Davis did his part by hitting outside shots so that the wing defenders couldn’t sandwich Walton. Ramsay helped by drifting Walton more to the elbow, creating more lanes so one of the greatest-passing big men ever could hit cutters.

Then there was Lucas, Walton’s partner in the post and confidant off the court. It might have seemed an unlikely pairing, the glowering black man from rugged Pittsburgh and the free-spirited “great white hope” from the West Coast. But here’s what David Halberstam wrote in “The Breaks of the Game”:

“When Lucas came to Portland he had gone out for dinner with Walton the first night, and they decided that they both could be winners. Luke promised that he would take the physical pressure off Walton — he would love banging bodies. They had agreed, in addition, and this was crucial for two big men, that they would not let their egos get in the way, they would not be jealous of each other; they were the big men, they would run this team and they would from the outset be friends.”

That relationship played out beautifully in Game 3. One could see the influence of Walton in how Lucas started making the snappy outlet pass on the way down from grabbing a rebound. Lucas’ vastly improved mid-range jumper, which was going great guns in this game, freed up more space for Walton. The two also worked the high-low game, giving each other gorgeous feeds. The offense was in gear, with the Trail Blazers giving up the ball only twice in the second half and Walton (20-18-9) and Lucas (27-12-5) posting big numbers for the game.

The Blazers had trouble putting Philadelphia away in the second half. Portland would go up by 10 or 12, then let the 76ers close the gap. Everything changed, including the momentum of the series, after Philadelphia got to within 91-87 with 9:20 remaining in the game.

The key substitution was getting Dave Twardzik in for the struggling Hollins. Twardzik had been a starter before badly spraining an ankle earlier in the post season. Portland’s offense started to have more flow, then Walton made the two biggest plays of the series. First, he cut backdoor and made a stunningly athletic tap-in of a lob pass from Bobby Gross. Twardzik stole the ball at mid-court and lofted another pass that Walton crammed home.

The Memorial Coliseum was quaking. Those two baskets by their star center and a shot of adrenalin from the home crowd were what it took for the Blazers to play at their highest level. The shots started falling, the ball moved around the perimeter with more authority. Portland oozed confidence, going on a 38-20 run to end the game. The sign unfurled behind the Trail Blazers’ bench at the end of the game said it all: “Red hot and rollin’.”

Portland's Crowning Achievement: Part 2

2010-05-12T08:45:00.000-07:00

With the NBA playoffs getting down to brass tacks, Order of the Court will take a look at a great post-season series of the past: The Portland Trail Blazers’ 4-2 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers in the 1977 NBA Finals. There will be a post for each game.

Game 2: Philadelphia 107, Portland 89 (76ers lead series, 2-0)

The fight was inevitable. The Portland Trail Blazers were playing too poorly and were too frustrated by the Philadelphia 76ers dictating the tempo of the game. The referees had swallowed their whistles in the fourth quarter. Most of all, there were just too many outsized personalities at the Spectrum in Philadelphia for Game 2.

By most accounts, the plot of the 1977 NBA Finals pivoted with the fracas that occurred a little more than halfway through the fourth quarter of Philadelphia’s victory. Something had to change for Portland, which kept making the same mistakes that doomed them in Game 1.

Above all else, the Trail Blazers wanted to take care of the basketball after committing 34 turnovers in the series opener. Well, Portland had five turnovers in the first five minutes of the game and ended up with 29. The Trail Blazers were frosty from the field the entire game, shooting just 36 of 101. Once again, Bill Walton was bottled up inside and couldn’t jump-start Portland’s passing game. Silly fouls kept putting Philadelphia on the line.

Philadelphia pulled away in the second quarter, forcing a breakneck game and scoring 14 points in three minutes. The run was sparked by 76ers power forward George McGinnis, who was mired in a shooting slump throughout the post-season. After he checked in, McGinnis immediately got an acrobatic layup, a steal and an assist that gave Philadelphia a 43-32 lead with 6 minutes left in the half. McGinnis finished with 12 points and 11 rebounds, giving 76ers fans hope that he had come out of his funk.

Speaking of funk, the 76ers also got a lift from Darryl Dawkins, two years out of high school and not yet fully into his “Chocolate Thunder” persona. Dawkins was a high-energy crowd favorite at the Spectrum. He led a fast break after blocking a Walton shot that pushed the pace to a frantic level, and Julius Erving’s swooping dunk just before the halftime buzzer helped the 76ers sprint into the locker room with a 61-43 advantage. Dawkins’ play also prompted CBS’ Brent Musberger to explain to viewers that Dawkins moonlighted as a DJ, providing a clip of the 20-year-old “talking his jive.”

The 76ers welcomed back another outlandish player, Lloyd B. Free, who still hadn’t legally changed his name to “World.” He had been out with a fractured rib and collapsed lung, but that didn’t slow his chucker tendency. He played only a few minutes, but was sure to get some shots up. It would have been something to watch the 76ers scrimmage that season, with unrepentant gunners Erving, Free, McGinnis, Doug Collins and Joe “Jellybean” Bryant all vying for shots.

Philadelphia pushed the lead to 20 in the third quarter, and Portland’s frustration began to manifest itself into hard fouls. The main culprit, as always for the Trail Blazers, was Maurice Lucas. The former Marquette and ABA star must have been upset after breaking loose for 10 points in the first quarter but only four thereafter. There was also the constant physicality of McGinnis underneath the basket.

Lucas was definitely near the breaking point in the fourth quarter, with the Trail Blazers unable to mount any sort of run to get back into the game. First he challenged Erving to try and take Lucas one-on-one (probably never a good idea). Then Lucas got into some jawing with Collins and 76ers tough guy Steve Mix. The officials kept letting these episodes escalate. A dustup was nearly touched off when McGinnis tangled with Portland’s Lloyd Neal for a rebound. There was some preliminary pushing, and Lucas wanted to get into the action, sprinting over for a piece of fellow hothead McGinnis. Trail Blazers coach Jack Ramsay was quick on his feet, however, running off the sidelines directly to Lucas — not the main combatants — so he could hold back the team’s enforcer from doing anything crazy.

That was just the undercard, however. A few minutes later, Dawkins and Bobby Gross simultaneously grabbed a rebound, and when Dawkins tried to wrest control he slammed Gross to the floor. Gross took exception and words were exchanged. Dawkins took a swing a Gross but accidentally hit teammate Collins. Dawkins backpedaled fatefully into the waiting elbow of Lucas. Those two started another tussle, actually putting up their dukes, with Dawkins bobbing and weaving like an elongated Michael Spinks. It was now a full-scale melee, with fans, coaches and hangers-on streaming onto the court. In other words, it was a typical NBA game in the late 1970s. Erving, as cool a customer as ever there was in the league, took a seat on the court and calmly watched the donnybrook.

Dawkins and Lucas were ejected, but unlike today’s NBA, there would be no further ramifications. There was finally some tension in a series that saw the 76ers rather breezily take a 2-0 lead. But it’s too hard to tell if the fight gave Portland the spark that ignited its four-game run to the title. The Trail Blazers just needed to find a way to clean up the 63 turnovers and to get Walton loose after the star center’s lackluster 17-point, 16-rebound performance in Game 2.

Portland's Crowning Achievement: Part 1

2010-05-11T09:48:00.000-07:00

With the NBA playoffs getting down to brass tacks, Order of the Court will take a look at a great post-season series of the past: The Portland Trail Blazers’ 4-2 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers in the 1977 NBA Finals. There will be a post for each game.

Game 1: Philadelphia 107, Portland 101

The Portland Trail Blazers of 1976-’77 have a secure spot among the most revered teams of all time. Like the New York Knicks from earlier that decade, the Trail Blazers’ championship and its aftermath were the subjects of a pantheon hoops book (David Halberstam’s “The Breaks of the Game”), and the title squad is always included in conversations about team-first basketball.

But it is hard to find much to wax eloquent about in Portland’s performance in Game 1 at the Spectrum in Philadelphia. Maybe it was the nine-day layoff after eliminating the Los Angeles Lakers, but Portland’s venerated passing attack resulted in an unsightly 34 turnovers. Three starters for the Trail Blazers — Maurice Lucas, Bobby Gross and Lionel Hollins — fouled out of the sloppy game.

Even Portland’s Hall of Fame coach, Dr. Jack Ramsay, was outmaneuvered by his less-celebrated counterpart. Philadelphia coach Gene Shue devised an ingenious solution to Portland’s backcourt pressure: Let 7-foot-1-inch center Caldwell Jones occasionally bring the ball up the court. The Trail Blazers were on their heels from the opening tap, which Jones knocked to George McGinnis, who fed Julius Erving for a dunk and a 2-0 lead for Philadelphia before the ball had even touched the court.

Despite its self-inflicted wounds, Portland hung tough and got to within 101-99 with just under two minutes left. Philadelphia’s Darryl Dawkins hit three clutch free throws and grabbed a key offensive rebound to preserve the victory.

The uneven play was surprising given the number of so-called “cerebral” players on the court. Erving and Trail Blazers star Bill Walton are certified basketball geniuses. Philadelphia’s Doug Collins and Mike Dunleavy and Portland point guard Hollins became NBA head coaches. Walton, Dunleavy and Philadelphia’s Henry Bibby and Joe “Jellybean” Bryant sired professional offspring. (If you ever wonder why Kobe Bryant lapses into gunner mode sometimes, just watch tape of his father. In this game, “Jellybean” came into the game late in the second quarter and hoisted two shots in under a minute. It’s ingrained in the DNA.)

The game might not have been easy on the eyes, but it set up some themes to watch for throughout the series:

Maurice Lucas vs. George McGinnis: The battle at power forward was between two rugged, quick-tempered ABA refugees. Lucas was a tough rebounder for Portland who that season had added a consistent mid-range jumper. He also acted as sort of an enforcer for Walton (who named his NBA-playing son after his beloved teammate). Lucas got into foul trouble banging with the equally powerful McGinnis. Every rebound was a battle between the two, and a brief flare-up of tempers occurred in the second quarter but no blows were thrown (which often was the case with these bruisers).

The pace of play: Philadelphia wanted to lure Portland into a run-and-gun street game. The 76ers’ success in that endeavor helped turn Game 1 into a festival of turnovers. Portland liked to run, but did so selectively. The Trail Blazers’ fast break was more textbook, whereas Philadelphia’s was more improvisatory. Walton would snap one of his vaunted outlet passes to Hollins, who would make the decision whether to push it with Gross or Johnny Davis on the wings. Philadelphia would get the ball to Collins or Erving and let them sprint headlong to the rim.

The genius of Bill Walton: As often noted, this was the best professional season for the injury-plagued big man. He logged 2,264 minutes that season in 65 regular-season games, by far the most action of his career. The Portland offense revolved around Walton and his superior passing ability. Walton got 28 points and 20 rebounds in Game 1, but the key number was his three assists. The 76ers were constantly sending double teams to get the ball out of Walton’s hands quickly, before he could initiate the Trail Blazers’ attack.

The genius of Julius Erving: These Finals were described as the one-on-one 76ers against the celebrated teamwork of the Trail Blazers. But it’s hard to argue against just giving the ball to the good Doctor and getting out of the way. Erving was at his best in this game, stealing the ball and swooping in for a dunk just before the buzzer at the end of the first quarter for a 27-25 lead. He took over right after halftime, getting another steal and breakaway dunk on Portland’s first possession. He scored eight of Philadelphia’s first 10 points in the third quarter and finished with 33. Erving had highlight-reel dunks, of course, including a cram over an outstretched Walton after coming around a screen. But Erving’s most underrated moves, and maybe the prettiest, were when he drove on the left side of the basket and finished with his right hand, going right into the body of his defender.

It might have been an inauspicious beginning, but the seeds of a classic series were evident. Portland had played terribly, but was right in the game at the end. The chance for immortality was still there.

Flying Machine

2010-05-07T09:16:00.000-07:00

College basketball teams that don’t win national titles are usually relegated to the dustbin of history, only to be remembered by partisan supporters. In order to be burned into the memories of hoops fans, several factors need to come into play for non-championship teams. A catchy nickname helps. So does an unconventional lineup. The two best examples of this are Michigan’s youthful “Fab Five” and Illinois’ “Flying Illini” squad of 1988-’89.

The Illinois team reached its summit in the 1989 NCAA tournament regional final against Syracuse at the Metrodome in Minneapolis. The Fighting Illini were trying to reach their first Final Four since the heyday of Johnny “Red” Kerr in 1952. Coach Lou Henson had cobbled together a homegrown rotation that went eight players deep. The hook was that all the players were between 6 feet 4 inches and 6-8. The Illini tried to win by out-running and out-leaping their opponents, so the “Flying Illini” was a natural moniker.

Sports Illustrated scribe Curry Kirkpatrick called them the “Positionless Clones.” For fans just getting acquainted to the Illinois players during the tournament, it must have been hard to distinguish between Kenny Battle, Nick Anderson and Stephen Bardo. They were just a blur of 6-6 dynamos skying in for a rebound or getting behind the zone for a dunk off a lob pass.

That’s what happened to Syracuse in the first few minutes of the regional final. Illinois “point guard” Kendall Gill jumped over the entire front line of Syracuse for an offensive rebound and put-back for the game’s first points. Battle ran the baseline against Syracuse’s vaunted 2-3 zone and caught three alley-oop dunks in the first three minutes.

But Syracuse was as equipped as any other team to match Illinois’ athleticism. Freshman Billy Owens had a breakout tournament and was a legitimate third option behind leading scorers Derrick Coleman and Sherman Douglas. Stevie Thompson was probably the best leaper on the court that day, which is saying a lot with Illinois’ Battle and super-sub Marcus Liberty also on the airwaves. “The Flying Orangemen” just didn’t have the same cachet, however.

The Orangemen ran off 14 unanswered points, hitting 15 of their first 20 shots and eventually taking a 13-point lead with 6:47 left in the first half. Illinois battled back to get within 46-39 at intermission.

The Illini weren’t a team that could be bottled up for long. The second half was vintage “Flying Illini.” Battle kept soaring over the zone, so Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim was forced to play man-to-man defense for long stretches. That played right into Illinois’ strengths.

As time has gone by, the “Flying Illini” now connotes a team that relied on dunk after dunk. In point of fact, the Illini’s prodigious leaping ability served them best on the glass. Every player crashed the boards, which was necessary as “center” Lowell Hamilton stood only 6-7. NBA fans probably best recall Anderson as a shooter, but he was a terror on the offensive glass in college. He had 24 points and 16 rebounds against Syracuse.

The Illini made 20 of their 27 field-goal attempts in the second half. Battle scored 28 points on 12-for-17 shooting for the game and teamed with Gill to slow down Douglas, the general of Syracuse’s attack. Gill finished with 18 points and had the two biggest offensive rebounds of the game — a put-back dunk that gave Illinois an 83-78 lead and a snare of Liberty’s missed free throw with 22 seconds left that set up two free throws by Battle for the final margin of 89-86.

Illinois was back in the promised land of the Final Four, where it faced Big Ten mate Michigan. The Illini had dominated the Wolverines in their two regular-season matchups, but Michigan rode the spark of interim coach Steve Fisher to an 83-81 victory. Ironically, the hard-rebounding Illini lost when Michigan’s Sean Higgins scored on a put-back over Anderson in the waning seconds.

So the “Flying Illini” didn’t get to hang a national championship banner. But the team had such an inimitable style that it is still held in reverence today.

League of Legends

2010-05-03T11:04:00.000-07:00

Almost 35 years after its demise, the American Basketball Association is still hard to take seriously. The league’s nine-year tenure can’t shake its sideshow image, conjuring thoughts of blown-out Afros, borderline psychopathic players and hucksterish financial dealings.

That fringe element certainly existed, and the presence of Pat Boone and Morton Downey Jr. as early franchise owners certainly doesn’t help the ABA’s historical record. Game 6 of the 1976 ABA finals would end up being the swan song for the league, but it also serves as a metaphor for how far the NBA’s red, white and blue-headed stepchild had come.

As the New York Nets and Denver Nuggets gathered for the opening tap at the Nassau Coliseum, the collection of basketball talent was eye-popping. The Nets’ Julius Erving would vie for the jump ball against the Nuggets’ Bobby Jones. Denver had a high-scoring team with Dan Issel and David Thompson and was coached by Larry Brown in the first stop of his peripatetic career. Erving was the undisputed star of New York, but coach Kevin Loughery deployed key role players like Swen Nater, Brian Taylor and John Williamson.

That star power was a far cry from the ABA’s inaugural season in 1967-’68 when the league cast its lot with players banned from the NBA like Connie Hawkins and Doug Moe, and lesser-talented refugees from industrial teams. In 1976-’77, after the NBA absorbed four ABA teams, 10 of the 24 players in that year’s All-Star Game had logged time in the ABA.

There was also the matter of the red, white and blue ball. It is the obvious symbol of the ABA and was the brainchild of its first commissioner, George Mikan, the legendary NBA big man who lent the upstart league instant credibility. From the moment Erving and Jones jumped for the opening possession, the spinning ball had a hypnotic pull. In Terry Pluto’s indispensable ABA book “Loose Balls,” players spoke of being transfixed by the rotation of the ball on a jump shot. It was fitting for a league based on offensive exploits that the fans’ eyes were always on the ball.

Issel was the first player to get hot in Game 6. Despite looking like a middle-aged weekend warrior, Issel was only 27 and in the prime of a 15-year ABA/NBA career that saw him score 27,482 points. His game was predicated on mid-range jumpers, and they were falling as the Nuggets raced to an early lead.

As expected, the scoring load for Denver eventually transferred from Issel to Thompson, the star rookie who averaged 26 points per game. This might have been the only professional season that “Skywalker” was in full possession of his talent, before he was beset by injuries and cocaine abuse. A key component to the ABA luring Thompson away from the NBA was the signing of his former N.C. State teammate Monte Towe. During their college days, the duo had such a connection that they brought the “alley-oop” into basketball’s working vocabulary. Towe and Thompson hooked up for their signature play a couple times in the first half, and Thompson had 27 points on 13 shots as Denver took a 58-45 lead at halftime.

The Nets were able to stay in the game only because of Erving and Taylor. Taylor hit a couple of three-pointers, which are probably the greatest legacy of the ABA. The three-point shot was an idea the ABA had taken from the American Basketball League, a precursor to the ABA that lasted a little more than one season in the early 1960s. Basketball purists decried the three-pointer, saying players would start bombing away from long range. But the fans loved it and the three-pointer stuck, eventually getting adopted by the NBA in 1979-’80.

It is often stated that one couldn’t understand the greatness of Erving if one didn’t see him the ABA. He was truly an athletic marvel in Game 6. He took over after the Nuggets established a 22-point lead in the third quarter. Erving, with his Afro in full flower, used his unmatched leaping ability and large hands to make gymnastic forays to the rim. He scored 31 points and pulled down 19 rebounds in his final ABA game, often against Jones, Erving’s future teammate with the Philadelphia 76ers and an acknowledged defensive ace. The Nets outscored the Nuggets, 34-14, in the fourth quarter and claimed the last ABA championship with a 112-106 victory.

The goal of the ABA from the beginning was to force a merger with the NBA. That finally came to fruition in the months after the Nets’ victory. The Nets and the Nuggets were admitted to the NBA, along with the San Antonio Spurs and the Indiana Pacers. The ABA’s St. Louis Spirits, Kentucky Colonels and Virginia Squires settled and closed up shop. The Nets had to pay such hefty fees (mostly for cutting in on the Knicks’ market) that they had to sell Erving to the 76ers to stay solvent.

That was it for the ABA. Most of its games weren’t televised and were played before sparse crowds, so the re-telling of some of the league’s memorable moments have probably been exaggerated. But the stylistic, wide-open artistry of Thompson and Erving that was fostered in the irreverent ABA had an undeniable effect on basketball culture.

Defensive Posture

2010-04-28T13:50:00.000-07:00

Dan Dakich has been the head coach at Bowling Green and his alma mater, Indiana University. He has a burgeoning media career with an analyst gig on the Big Ten Network and a radio show in Indianapolis. But Dakich will forever be best known for one thing: shutting down Michael Jordan in the future superstar’s final college game at North Carolina. It is mandatory to mention that information in any news story or press release about Dakich. It will be the lead to his obituary.

The Tar Heels entered the regional semifinal matchup with the Hoosiers at the Omni in Atlanta as the undisputed favorite to win the title in the 1984 NCAA tournament. Despite its disappointing finish, the team often is cited as one of the best in Dean Smith’s Hall of Fame coaching career. UNC had a loaded roster with future pros Jordan, Sam Perkins, Brad Daugherty, Kenny Smith, Joe Wolf and glue guy Matt Doherty. Smith and Daugherty were battling nagging injuries late in the season, disrupting UNC’s offensive flow.

Bob Knight’s team was an odd mix that included talented freshman Steve Alford and role players like Uwe Blab, who probably rivals brothers Majestic and Scientific Mapp for best name in NCAA history.

“The General” gave Dakich the marching orders to guard Jordan. Legend has it that when he got the assignment, Dakich made a beeline to the lavatory to vomit. That is probably apocryphal, but Dakich’s stomach was likely uneasy when Jordan got loose for four quick points in the early minutes of the game. The game plan was to play off Jordan, daring him to shoot jumpers, and keep him off the offensive boards.

Jordan kept trying to force the action closer to the basket, and ran into Dakich’s defensive helpmates Blab and Mike Giomi. That aggressive mentality got Jordan into early foul trouble. He picked up his second personal at the 12:45 mark on a questionable push-off call while trying to catch a lob pass over Dakich. That sent Jordan to the bench for eight minutes. After he got back in with 5:40 remaining in the half, Smith kept shuffling him in and out of the game to avoid him getting whistled for another foul. Jordan was never able to get into the flow of the game, and Indiana took a 32-28 lead at the break.

The legend of Dakich’s defensive masterpiece stems from Jordan going scoreless for a 12-minute stretch in the second half. The amazing thing is that Dakich picked up his fourth foul with over 13 minutes remaining in the game, and Knight kept Dakich on Jordan.

Given space to shoot, Jordan had two jumpers that went halfway down before spinning out. Dakich’s defense had nothing to do with those. The greatest accomplishment of Dakich in this game was holding Jordan to one rebound. Watch any game film of Jordan’s college years, and his offensive rebounding stands out. No opponent could match Jordan’s athleticism, so Dakich made a point to body Jordan as soon as a shot went up.

Dakich fouled out with four minutes still on the clock. Jordan got five points after that, but Indiana was money at the free-throw line down the stretch in the 72-68 victory that ranks among the top upsets in that storied program’s history.

So have Dakich’s defensive accomplishments been overstated as the years have passed? Probably. But there is no doubt Dakich did a more-than-admirable job. Jordan was never in the game after those early fouls. He finished 6 for 14 from the field for 13 points in only 26 minutes. Given Dakich’s own foul trouble, he probably guarded Jordan for around 20 minutes in the game.

The focus on Dakich also takes away from the artistry of Alford in this game. The sharpshooter had 27 points (Dakich had four), including a clutch 23-footer in the closing seconds of the first half. Alford also handled UNC’s pressure late in the game, and coolly knocked down free throws as the Tar Heels fouled in desperation.

But the Dakich angle just makes for a better story, and Indiana traffics in myths more than any other school. Dakich sure isn’t likely to set the record straight. What’s better than being known as one of the select few to shut down the greatest player of all time?

Pressing Matters

2010-04-27T07:22:00.000-07:00

When Malcolm Gladwell published his think-piece last year in the New Yorker about how underdogs are best-served by utilizing the full-court press, basketball novices might have been hypnotized into wondering why teams just don’t press all the time.

It is certainly an interesting theory, and Gladwell did his due diligence by speaking to the capo di tutti capi of full-court defense, Rick Pitino. Of course, Rick The Ruler’s teams have rarely been cast in the underdog role since Billy Donovan was running the point for Pitino at Providence in the 1980s. Pitino’s full-court defense mostly relied on superior and better-conditioned athletes breaking the will of weaker ones.

The perfect storm of Pitino’s pressure system probably came when he was coaching Kentucky in the second half against Louisiana State at Pete Maravich Assembly Center on Feb. 15, 1994 — a Fat Tuesday that bore witness to what the Bluegrass faithful christened “The Mardi Gras Miracle.”

LSU coach Dale Brown didn’t have the star power that Shaquille O’Neal, Stanley Roberts and Chris Jackson brought to his teams at the beginning of the decade. In the 1993-’94 season, the Tigers were a middle-of-the-pack SEC team struggling to get an at-large NCAA berth. However, LSU always came to play against Kentucky, which had lost in its previous four trips to Baton Rouge, La.

The Wildcats seemed destined for another loss after a first half in which LSU rode the hot hands of Clarence Ceaser and Ronnie Henderson for a 48-32 lead. Henderson, a highly recruited freshman shooting guard, had 22 points and sank six of seven three-pointers in the first 20 minutes. The Tigers then ripped off an 18-0 run at the start of the second half. At the 15:34 mark, Henderson and Ceaser had a combined 51 points as LSU opened up a 68-37 lead.

Pitino’s emphasis on pressure and three-point bombing makes his teams well suited to big comebacks, but 31 points seemed out of the realm of possibility. The fact that the Wildcats were playing on the road made the defeat even more of a certainty.

The biggest selling points of full-court press are physically and mentally exhausting the opponents, thus creating turnovers. Pitino is known for his grueling practices, specifically designed to make sure his players don’t tire first in a game.

In the final 15 minutes, the pace started getting to LSU. Suddenly, the shots that had been falling for the Tigers were bouncing off the rim. Henderson missed four of his six three-point attempts in the second half. Turnovers also became a factor, with Kentucky getting six steals and LSU coughing up the ball 10 times after halftime.

The cold shooting for LSU extended to the free-throw line. The Tigers shot 13 of 24 in the final 12 minutes and 24 for 37 overall. That fell right into the hands of Pitino as he employed a desperation strategy of fouling on defense and hoisting threes on offense.

It’s hard to believe that rallying from a 31-point deficit can seem methodical, but that is what Pitino’s troops did. The Tigers tightened with the pressure, but Kentucky never seemed frantic in its comeback.

With LSU missing from the line, the Wildcats’ three-pointers ate up large chunks of the lead. After a 3-for-14 showing from behind the arc in the opening half, Kentucky found the range to shoot 12 of 23 in the second half — including nine in the final 10 minutes.

The 31-point lead for LSU crumbled. Kentucky’s Jeff Brassow hit one of his four three-pointers to cut the deficit to 79-69 with 7:38 remaining. Just under a minute later, Walter McCarty had a steal and a dunk that brought Kentucky to within eight points. McCarty hit the three-pointer that gave the Wildcats the lead at 96-95 with 19 seconds remaining. A missed shot and a turnover in the waning seconds sealed the loss for LSU, and Kentucky got out of town with a 99-95 victory.

Proponents of the press might point to this game as case study of the system’s effectiveness. The results are undeniable, but even Pitino would admit that it is an extreme example. It would be difficult for any team to extend that 15-minute stretch to 40 minutes. LSU could have benefited from the steady hand of a competent point guard. The reality is that the press, like most things, should be enjoyed in moderation.

The Miracle Minute

2010-04-22T14:36:00.000-07:00

It is a tough moment for coaches, players and fans to face in a basketball game: when to fold up the tents and give up on the victory. There’s always a small voice echoing that old broadcasting trope “stranger things have happened.”

Well, things don’t get much stranger than Duke’s 98-96 overtime victory over Maryland at Cole Field House on Jan. 27, 2001. The 10th-ranked Terrapins seemed assured of knocking off the No. 2 Blue Devils with a 90-80 lead and 1:01 showing on the clock.

Maryland had weathered an opening run by Duke and took control of the game with an 11-0 run in the first half. Terrapins sophomore point guard Steve Blake had thoroughly outplayed his more celebrated Duke counterpart, Jay Williams.

Williams was having one of his worst games in a Duke uniform. He committed 10 turnovers in the first 25 minutes, and the Blue Devils’ leading scorer had only six points (2-6 FGs, 2-5 FTs) when coach Mike Krzyzewski yanked Williams with over 14 minutes left in the second half. After some teaching moments by Coach K, Williams came back in at the 12:44 mark and hit a driving layup. He didn’t have another turnover.

With about two minutes remaining, Williams fouled out Blake (11 points, nine assists) with a wicked crossover. Williams’ two free throws cut Maryland’s lead to 84-75.

The Terrapins had several strategic errors in the game. Just before halftime, Maryland’s Tahj Holden missed a long jumper as the shot clock expired. The players thought the game clock ran out as well, and Maryland headed to the locker room with a 46-35 lead. But the officials huddled and decided to give Duke 1.4 seconds. The Terrapins promptly allowed Duke’s Mike Dunleavy to heave a full-court pass that hit Williams in stride for a five-footer that banked in at the buzzer. Those two points would prove invaluable.

Also to Duke’s advantage were the five fouls committed by Maryland in the waning minutes of the game. The Blue Devils were able to put points on the scoreboard without using much clock. Duke also hit its free throws down the stretch in regulation, while the Terrapins’ Drew Nicholas was 2 of 6 from the line in the final 1:33.

Nicholas made 1 of 2 free throws for that 90-80 lead. Duke didn’t have any timeouts left, and ESPN took the opportunity to acknowledge Blake as the player of the game.

Then came maybe the greatest 13-second offensive explosion in basketball history. Williams cut through the defense for a reverse layup with 53.5 seconds remaining. Then just as play-by-play man Mike Patrick was saying that the Blue Devils “need a miracle,” Williams stole the ball from Nicholas and stepped into a deep three-pointer that cut the lead to 90-85 with 48.7 seconds to play.

Nicholas was fouled before the clock started, and he clanged two shots off the rim. Williams sprinted down the court and drilled another three-pointer over the outstretched arms of Danny Miller with 40.4 on the clock. That’s eight clutch points in 13 seconds.

Duke’s Nate James then took over hero duties, knocking the ball away from Juan Dixon for a steal, and then getting fouled on a tip-in attempt with 21.9 seconds left. James coolly nailed the two free throws that tied the game at 90. The Maryland fans, who were celebrating what would have been the biggest victory of the season one minute earlier, watched with dread as Nicholas’ three-pointer missed at the buzzer.

The Terrapins were shell-shocked, there was no way Duke would lose in overtime. Williams made two free throws to give Duke a 92-90 lead; moments later he got into the lane and dished out for a three-pointer by Shane Battier that gave the Blue Devils the lead for good at 95-92.

It’s hard to think of a more dramatic comeback in such a constrained period of time. The game has also probably provided great fodder for countless coaches who exhort their players not to give up hope, despite the clock and the scoreboard conspiring against them.