Week Six, December 10, 2011
Game One / Fort Wayne Pistons (5-1) 40 – St Louis Hawks (5-1) 25
I kind of like these Pistons! They move the ball! Britt Harter and Jim Wyman – “bigs” as they say – 8 assists and ZERO turnovers. That’ll make a bunch of teammates, like Brian Herrmann and Akira Motomura, combined 9/15, happy. Something was not clicking for the Hawks, though, something seemed to be missing. What was it? Scorers, for one. Sweet Lou Wang and Alex “Shut the” Doerr combined for 25 pts. The rest of the avians played like they had the flu (0-21 from the field).
Game Two /Philadelphia Warriors (5-1) 44 – – Buffalo Braves (1-5) 23
(Braves vs Warriors? Don’t turn us into the PC police.) Braves would have been better off calling it quits at the half, conceding a 12-10 loss. Instead, the 2nd half rolled on them like an ambush from a ’50s western. Jeremiah Sloan “Ranger” was brilliant; especially liked the 4 swipes. Chris “Private” Ryan dazzled with 19 point and 10 rebounds, taking all the double-double talk away from Larry Bavis. Chris Tom continues solid work on the boards. The Braves roster has excellent overall quickness; why don’t they pressure more defensively, run out more on offense? Tsai, MG and “Chief” all have good outlet arms. Let’s hop and bop Braves. Crank it up!
Game Three / Kansas City Kings (3-3) 45 – Providence Steamrollers (1-5) 33
The Providence Steamrollers ran out of steam. After being up 18-12 at the half, they sprang a leak. The Kings subjected them to a 33-15 2nd half drubbing. Ted Bach serenaded to the tune of 15 rebounds. Who can keep him off the boards? (Answer: Yo-Yo Ma Plays Bach.) Positive notes for SteamedRollers? The return of Ben Floman and his all-around good vibe and energy and Shawn “Fly” Fitzpatrick’s five (5!) blocks.
Game Four / Rochester Royals (3-3) 38 – New York Nets (0-6) 44
The Nets gave the Royals too many chances. 17 turnovers for the Nets versus 8 turnovers for the Royals means the winners had 9 extra possessions. 15 offensive rebounds for the Royals against 6 for the winless Nets means the Royals had 9 additional tries. That many more possessions – 18 – almost always translates to more points. Defensive rebounding MUST be a priority for the Nets henceforth. Parking lot chatter told me the Royals were running an offense. Nice! Scott Galloway is talking care of the ball; watch out PFL. “Foxy” (I didn’t just type that, did I?) Roxy Pirnia was en fuego! 3 for 5 on 3s. She got game.
Game Five /Minneapolis Lakers (3-3) 52 – Syracuse Nationals (4-2) 50
Maybe it was the 2 Ts on the Nationals to start the game (no PFL jerseys on 2 players – shame) that put them in the wrong frame of mind. Rasheed Wallace used to say “ball don’t lie” after an opponent’s missed FT on a bad call on him. The basketball gods
were watching here, too. Chris Cassel was sent forth to punish the Nationals and he did. He punished them for not getting up on him and his NBA 3 point range. Punishment = 22 points. The basketball gods punished them into a complacency that leads to a soft, soft defensive effort that yields only 7 turnovers for the Lakers. Punishment that resulted in the brain freeze of not calling time-out when they rebounded with 8 seconds left and down 2 points with 2 time-outs remaining!!. Is Syracuse in turmoil over the Bernie Fine allegations? I don’t now the answer, but they’ve lost 2 games they shouldn’t have lost. All credit to the cleaning-living Lakers. How about Jonny Goldsmith wearing glasses and hitting a 3? Coincidence? And Raemin “The Shaman” Wang is back to form. Watch out PFL!
FINDING HUMOR IN A BLOWOUT:
File this one under “You Know You’re Getting Old When Someone Calls You …”:
During the second half of the Warriors’ demolition of my not-so-Braves, Dustin Roh checked into the game for Jeremiah Sloan and asked Jeremiah who he’d been guarding. Jeremiah pointed over to me and said “That guy!” Dustin, not sure who he’d pointed to, said “Which one?” and I pointed to myself and said “This guy!” Thinking he’d insulted me somehow, Dustin politely said “Oh, excuse me, sir.”
Yes, it’s the first time anyone has called me “sir” on the basketball court.
And in case I failed to say it after the game: good game, Dustin (6 pts., 3 steals, 1 block, and flypaper defense).