Tao of the Passing Big Man

RUN OKC: A Memoriam For The 2012 Oklahoma City Thunder

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Russell+Westbrook+James+Harden+Oklahoma+City+m1hKjTuf3lwl

Watching the 2012 playoffs made me feel like I was witnessing the ascension of one franchise and their franchise player. I’d been keeping tabs on Kevin Durant since the year his Freshman year at UT and my time in Austin coincided. There was nothing that could convince me he wasn’t going to be a star in the NBA. By his third year, I’d concluded that not only was he my favorite NBA player, but my favorite NBA player of all time.

His first year in Oklahoma City was a rough one, the team lost often, but you could see the progress. Tickets were still cheap then, and there were still people in the city that had no idea there was a permanent NBA team.

When Pau Gasol’s put back bucket ended the 2010 season, there was no denying that the team and the city had embraced each other. 2011 brought more expectations, and the team did not disappoint. RUN OKC was born.

Even though the Dallas Mavericks dismantled the Thunder during key 4th quarter stretches in the Western Conference Finals, there was reason to be optimistic for the OKC boys. 2012 did not disappoint, and despite the beat down that was handed to the Thunder, it was still fun to watch what I thought was only the beginning of a budding dynasty in the west.

Little did we know that James Harden would force his way out of town by grabbing 80 Million to ball for Houston, and the following three seasons would be compromised by injuries to key players. But things were still innocent in 2012. It was one thing to hope for a trip to the NBA Finals. It was another thing altogether to watch it happen.

Once a team gets that close to winning it all, nothing is the same. Expectations change because the ceiling has been raised. Its like the first time you drink organic milk out of a glass bottle, or smoke really good weed after only trying Mexican dirt swag.

I feel like this year’s roster is on paper the most balanced squad that Sam Presti has ever assembled, but the 2012 was special to me for sentimental reasons. Three of my favorite college players of all time were on the same team in Royal Ivey (one of the nicest Longhorns on campus when he played there), Kevin Durant, and Nick Collison, and I’d seen Kendrick Perkins in his “Baby Shaq” days at Beaumont Ozen High School. James Harden wasn’t annoying yet, and Russell Westbrook was just coming into his own. They were a fun to team to watch.

The Starters on that team were:

C Kendrick Perkins

PF Serge Ibaka

SF Kevin Durant

SG Thabo Sefelosha

PG Russell Westbrook

The Key reserves:

SG James Harden

PG Eric Maynor

SG Daequan Cook

PG Derek Fisher

PF Nick Collison

Head Coach : Scotty Brooks

Regular Season Record: 47-19 Northwest Division Champions

After posting 47 wins in a lockout shortened regular season, expectations were tempered, but hopeful, that somehow the Thunder would at least make the Western Conference Finals. The Spurs were steamrolling opponents in the first 2 rounds of play, and it seemed inevitable that Oklahoma City was only cannon fodder for San Antonio on the way to their next championship parade (isn’t it crazy that there were almost 3 Spurs-Heat Finals Series?).

Kevin Durant and company had other plans however. Game 1 of the first round series foretold that the Thunder’s playoff run would be the revenge plot out of a basketball movie.

Mavericks got swept and the ghosts from the previous Western Conference Finals were exorcised.

Round 2 gave RUN OKC a chance to enact revenge against the soon to be LOL Lakers and Metta World Peace. Their recent run-ins had become testy at best, as the upstart Thunder had been giving the Lakers fits during the last couple of years. It was the young pups vs. the old dogs, and the biting had become less playful.

The Thunder were clearly faster, stronger, and better. The Lakers were just coasting on a dubious championship run (Denver and Orlando were talented enough to knock them out but they nutted up–and the refs had conveniently swallowed their whistles in the Lakers favor during a crucial stretch in game 7 of the 2010 Finals).

It was basketball justice to watch the LOL’s get that ass whupped–much like seeing a bully finally get what they deserve.

Round 3 against the Spurs was some of the best and worst basketball I’d seen during a WCF. There were stretches of incredible basketball, and there were times when I wanted to throw a shoe at the television.

Game 1 was probably the best game of that entire series from a pure basketball standpoint. There were so many OMFG plays that I went back and downloaded the game for whenever I needed to scratch that itch for “Hoops Porn”

The Spurs won that game and the next one, and with a 2-0 lead, the question wasn’t whether the Spurs were going to win it all, but were they even going to lose on their way to a title. The Spurs were 10-0 during the playoffs at that point, and had won 20 straight games going back to the regular season.

But RUN OKC had something to say about that and won 4 straight games, leaving San Antonio befuddled and confused, something I rarely saw from a Gregg Popovich coached team.

I was there when the Thunder clinched the West in game 6, and that was the loudest venue I’d ever been in at that point (Game 2 of the Finals’ volume would eclipse that night–and I hadn’t been to a Warriors game yet).

Game 4 of this series was the apex in my opinion, with KD scoring 36 in the game–18 of them in the final quarter. That shit was unreal to watch live.

This was the point where it was clear that my man was going to be a SUPER DUPER STAR, and everyone finally had to acknowledge it. It made for good cinema. Unfortunately in every good revenge movie, there is a foil, and the Thunder were about to face them.

THE MIAMI HEAT

Everyone remembers this:

and this.

Side Note: Is it just me, or does Lebron seem remarkably younger in this clips? He seems to have aged in the same ways that U.S. presidents age after a full 8 year term. I’m sure as great as those feelings were winning those chips, I can’t even imagine the stress he has faced in taking on that challenge.

I was very happy for Dallas Mavericks fans when they were able to deny the Miami “Lebrons” a title in their first year together. If you enjoy schadenfreude, then watching Jason Kidd whip the ball around to Dirk who whipped the ball to Jason Terry for open shots was enough to make a person giddy–or if you like watching grown men cry. The Heat losing that finals was their reward for doing everything the “wrong way”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx-Ylci32s0

They were the perfect foil to the OKC Thunder and their (rightly or wrongly) choir boy personas.

As much as I wanted to see KD get that ring, they were just outmatched. Scotty Brooks was outcoached (not for the last time) and when Harden wasn’t on the court, it was a 2 on 5 offensive game, with way too much isolation play. This played right into the Heat’s hands who were smothering on defense.

Oklahoma City wasn’t ready for what the Heat had for them. Brooks had no adjustments for the series, and after game 2, it was clear that the moment was a little too big for OKC (especially Harden who had a terrible Finals).

Game 1 was a misleading blowout in the Thunder’s favor, and although Game 2 could have easily been won (terrible no call in the final seconds on a foul by Lebron), OKC had trouble achieving any sort of offensive flow. I was in the stands that night, and what should have been an enjoyable experience, only left me frustrated and hoarse from screaming so loudly.

3 games later, the series was over. The Thunder had their best chance to reverse their fortunes in game 4, but the person keeping them in the game, also contributed to the most devastating play in crunch time.

It was over just like that. Grown men were once again crying.
Others were basking in their redemption.

But everyone knew that this wasn’t the end. There was still another run for RUN OKC right? This only seemed like the part of the basketball movie where the team bonds during off-season workouts and then come back to face the villainous bad boys in a rematch and take the title from them.

But we know what happened next don’t we? No reason to go into all that again. There are countless columns by former ESPN employees that do this ad nauseum. I will say that I feel like I got robbed of my Hollywood ending–kinda like watching a movie for 2 hours at the theater and the projector craps out right before the climax.

It is hard to call a team that makes the NBA Finals losers. OKC got a taste of the good life. People started visiting Oklahoma City for reasons other than seeing the Bombing Memorial.

Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook are two of the most marketable players in the NBA (and let’s not forget that Harden is at least 280 million dollars richer since missing that crucial breakaway dunk in game 4 of that finals).

Yes, it is hard to call a team that has had such success for the past five years, losers, but each season preceding 2012 has been increasingly frustrating.

Unlike the 2013 Spurs who redeemed themselves after a heartbreaking Finals loss, with an even better roster that demolished the Heat (and destroying any need to write a requiem for that team),each season since 2012 has been increasingly frustrating for the Thunder.

Russ got hurt the very next season to a team that wouldn’t have made the playoffs if not for James Harden. Ibaka was hurt the year after that and they watched the Spurs advance. And of course KD broke his foot twice last year. Is this the “Curse of Daniel Plainview“–the Sonicsgate Curse?

Or is it just a series of increasingly bad decisions?

OKC should be odds on favorite to come out of west if they are healthy and all of this may be forgotten. The bottom could fall out just as easily though, if KD and Westbrook split for greener pastures. Then again, they could just as easily compete for championships for the next few years, while James Harden becomes the first player to play through being cursed two years in a row (the Khardashian curse is real).

Are we approaching an era where we see Oklahoma City-Cleveland series 3 years in a row (Golden State may have something to say about that)? I think this season will be the big fork in the road for Russ, Kevin Durant, and the Thunder franchise. If both KD and Russ end up leaving, people will point to this season as the fork in the road for everyone, but history might show that 2012 was the real turning point. We are only a week away from finding out.

BM
#Thisagoodassgame
@clickpicka79
bobbymickey@gmail.com

Loveable Losers: 2002-2003 Kansas Jayhawks

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Basketball season has only been over for a couple of weeks, but for anyone who suffers from the “Jones” as badly as I do, there are remedies. I’ve been traveling a great deal for the past month, but anytime I hit a lull, I go to the NCAA Vault and pull up an old game–usually from the 2002-2003 era.

Why that time period? Well in my honest opinion, I think it was the golden age of Big 12 basketball. The Big 12 was littered with big name coaches. Kelvin Sampson was over at Oklahoma coaching Hollis Price and Quannis White.

Eddie Sutton had some great players at Oklahoma State in John Lucas III, Tony Allen, Ivan McFarlin, the Graham brothers, Desmond Mason  (a few years before), and Victor and Andre Williams.

Rick Barnes had some guy named T.J. Ford who is only the best point guard in UT history. Lastly, you have Roy Williams coaching at Kansas (they had some sweet uniforms those years).

It is no secret that the 2002-2003 team was one of my favorite college basketball teams of all time. Watching that squad get up and down the court was a thing of beauty with the backcourt of Aaron Miles and “Captain” Kirk Hinrich (Wichita States’s Ron Baker and Fred Van Fleet kinda low key remind me of them).

Keith Langford is one of my all time favorite wing players. He was dazzling and flashy, but he was also almost always in control. “K-freeze” just got buckets, and could finish once he got to the rim. Don’t let me get started on Nick Collison. We’ll get to him in a second.

For those of you tapping that vein, and in need of some good ass games to watch, I give you the best five Kansas Jayhawks games from 2002-2003. Honorable mention goes to this match from the 2001-2002 season affectionately know as the Juan Dixon game.

#5 Senior Night

Nick Collison and Kirk Hinrich go out in style vs. the Oklahoma State Cowboys. Definitely worth the stop in, even though the clip ends pre-maturely. You also get to see glimpses of Tony Allen’s world class NBA defense in this game and see why he has become such a good pro.

#4 The Nick Collison Game

This is one of the best, most intense regular season games you will ever watch. I remember it like it was yesterday. Texas and Kansas were in the top 5 that year; both having lost to Arizona (a team that everyone thought was going to win it all that year).

T.J. Ford puts on a clinic in this week, and almost willed UT to a Big Monday win in Allen Fieldhouse, but Nick Collison put up a nasty double-double; taking James Thomas to school, before fouling out after the game was already in hand. It is as beautiful now as it was to watch live.

#3 The Nick Collison Game part 2

With Duke’s weak ass front line that year, I knew the Jayhawks would do well in the paint, but how many people expected Collison to put up a 30-20 night? There were many reasons to hate Duke back then. Dahntay Jones (who I’m shocked to find had one of the highest scoring averages in that tournament–look it up if you don’t  believe me. It was something crazy like 24.6 pts) was a star on that team.

Sheldon Williams was a poor man’s Carlos Boozer (that isn’t meant to be as harsh as it sounds. Boozer was pretty nasty in college and was a big reason why they won it in 2001). J.J. Redick was always great until he got to the big stage and had to play against taller and faster players. Anyway, Collison carried them to victory that game, because Hinrich didn’t play all that well in that game.

#2 The Carmelo Anthony/ Gerry McNamera Show

Despite the outcome, this was a good ass game. Kansas had no business being as far behind as they were. I feel like Roy Williams got outcoached in this one. After Keith Langford picked up his second foul guarding Carmelo Anthony, I would have switched it up, gone zone or put Michael Lee on him.

Langford was too important for their offense going against Syracuse’s 2-3. He made it a lot easier for them to get buckets with his passing and penetration. Sure he picked up a phantom foul that disqualified him during “winning time”, but he shouldn’t have been put in that position to begin with.

The Jayhawks also shot less than 50 % on the free throw line. Everyone on Syracuse had big moments in the biggest game, while the moment seemed a bit too big for Kansas. Even though Syracuse was slightly deeper, I still to this day think that if the teams played a best of 7 series, then KU would have won 5 of those 7 games.

This is also why I cannot in good conscience put this as # 1. Its a shame that this was the last college game for Hinrich and Collison, because I’d have liked to have seen them go out winners. Even though Kansas lost the title game, they were anything but losers. They came out of arguably  the toughest conference that year, and the road they took just to get to the title game was extremely difficult.

Which brings us to #1 The Arizona Game

Arizona was the best team all year that season, and they were heavy favorites. They had beaten Texas and Kansas already that year and they were deep. Future NBA champions Andre Iguodala and Luke Walton were key cogs on that unit, along with Jason Gardner, Salim Stoudamire, and Rick Anderson. Plus, Lute Olson was doing some of his best coaching.

This was the game to be nervous about. Kansas played a great team game and pulled it out, but it was a nail biter. It was a good ass game (Just one of many good ass games that tournament). If I were to recommend any of these five, I’d say jump on this one first. But they all good ass games if you ask me. This was a special year, and you could look up at least 20 games from that year’s tournament and by halftime you’ll be saying, “Damn. This a GOOD ASS GAME.”

Peace.

BM

@clickpicka79

bobbymickey@gmail.com

Lovable Losers: A new series [originally posted on sportsblog.com 8/28/13]

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I’ve been a basketball fan since I was about 12. I grew up in Dallas during the Mavericks worst years when they were owned by a guy who ran car dealerships and bowling alleys. The mavericks sucked and though I rooted for Popeye Jones, Tim Leger, and George McCloud to be successful, the brand of basketball they played was not in the least bit entertaining.

This forced me to open my eyes up to the national scene to find out what good basketball was elsewhere. 1992 was a pivotal year for me and sports: The Ticket radio station became Dallas’ first all sports station. The Cowboys won their first Super Bowl since I’d been born. My mom got me a subscription to Sports Illustrated. I had a Sega Genesis to geek out with Madden, Hardball III, NHL, and Bulls vs. Blazers. My obsession with sports began and here I am today, blogging about my favorite teams that did not win a championship (on a Saturday night no less).

There is only one team a year that can win a championship. Sometimes it doesn’t seem fair, especially when a team is thoroughly fun and the brand of ball is oh so entertaining. But entertaining doesn’t always win championships and doesn’t always bring accolades. So this is my way of honoring those teams that didn’t quite have what it took to win it all, but nevertheless won my heart (Yea I know–shit’s corny but it’s true. I guess I’m becoming sentimental in my old age). This will be a series of installments of teams ranging from NFL, to MLB, to the NBA to NCAA.

To kick this bad boy off let’s reflect on the 1992-93 Phoenix Suns.

Head Coach: Paul Westphal

Key Starters- Charles Barkley, Kevin Johnson, Dan Majerle

Key bench players- Danny Ainge, Richard Dumas, Tom Chambers

This was the first team I watched thoroughly during their playoff run in which they finally lost to Jordan’s (3-peat) Bulls. They were a lot of fun to watch. Dan Majerle and Danny Ainge with their long range threes. Richard Dumas and Cedric Ceballos were athletic slashers who could get to the rim. Charles Barkley of course was just traded to them and made them immediate championship contenders. The America West arena was a raucous place to watch a game with fans that went ape shit every time the Suns dialed one up from long distance.

I can remember the cover of SI that year and the feature story about Barkley (my favorite player in the world not named Chris Webber–the only pair of Nike’s I ever owned were Barkleys) finally having a legit chance to compete for an NBA title. He was at the peak of his game then and looking back its crazy to think that year was as good as he was going to get. That Finals was one of the best I’ve ever seen. Every game was competitive and entertaining. Though many point to that game 6 with the John Paxson shot that sealed the deal, I remember the equally competitive game 4.

Jordan took over at the end of that game (he had 55 pts that night and Barkley fouled Jordan on a layup attempt and couldn’t keep him from making the bucket and getting the And 1. The game was over after that and Phoenix had to eek out a 3 OT thriller just to force game 6. But they were in every game and could have easily won that series had it not been for timely mishaps and missteps which the savvy Bulls took advantage of (but I guess that is what separates great teams from championship teams isn’t it?).

If you go back and look at this roster, its easy to see why they didn’t have the horses to win. The Chicago Bulls had a better bench than they did and the Suns sucked at the center position. It was a 4 on 5 game pretty much the whole time Mark West and Oliver Miller were on the court. I have tried playing with this classic team on Xbox when me and my homey match-up and its a tough one to manage.

Usually I would play small ball with Tom Chambers playing center, Charles Barkley at the 4, Dan Majerle at small forward, Kevin Johnson running point and Danny Ainge at shooting guard. On offense this spread out the floor and opened up the court a bit (its actually pretty fun because there are so many 3 point opportunities). The problem was that defensively this lineup sucked and nobody could protect the rim and fatigue usually forced me to put in West, or Miller. They only went 8 deep and only 5 of those guys were legit offensive threats. So imagine trying to coach this team in real life instead of a video game. Paul Westphal had to get creative with that lineup.

I was incredibly annoyed to see Jordan rip their hearts out, but now with a little bit of hoops knowledge I understand why it didn’t happen for them. They were facing Jordan and Pippen and Phil Jackson, and they just weren’t balanced enough to win. Ce la Vie. I still remember the stunned feeling when this happened.

Bang! Season over that fast.

That would be the closest Barkley, KJ and company would ever get to sniffing a championship with that group. Dumas would never match the stats he put up that year (15.8 pts and 4.6 rebounds per game) and would end up finishing his career in Greece. Ceballos went on to create the “Lake Show” up in Los Angeles with Eddie Jones and Sedale Threatt. Chambers never did much after season and the core players left never seemed to get over the hump.

The Suns would bring in Danny Manning, and Waymon Tisdale to try and bring Phoenix a title, but it never happened. Mario Elie slammed Phoenix’s championship window shut with a 3 pointer in 1995. The Suns had commanding 3-1 series leads over Houston two years in a row and let them slip away twice.

In 1997 Barkley would try to team up with Drexler and Olajuwan in Houston, and that team almost made it to the Finals but someone let Stockton take a wide open 3. Once again Sir Charles was sent home to go fishing.

Though the Suns never won it all on the basketball court, some of the key players found success off the hardwood. KJ is the mayor of Sacramento and much to the chagrin of Supersonics fans was able to help keep the Kings in “Sad” Sac-town. Majerle is the head coach at Grand Canyon University according to Wikipedia. Danny Ainge helped rebuild the Celtics franchise and get them a title in ’08 as the GM (he is in the middle of another rebuilding job as we speak). And of course Barkley is ubiquitous. You see him on commercials, you see him on TNT. He is on every talk show being entertaining. So there you go, as Jalen Rose likes to say,”There is the score on the scoreboard and there is the score in the game of life.”

62 regular season wins and a thoroughly enjoyable playoff run, culminating in one of the greatest NBA Finals I have ever seen; I wouldn’t necessarily call them losers.

Lovable Losers Part Two: ’99-00 Portland Trailblazers

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[Originally posted on sportsblog.com 12/29/13]

This will probably be one of the more painful posts I will ever have to write. Not just because this was one of my favorite NBA rosters of all time, but also because it signaled the beginning of a Lakers dynasty that (arguably) should have never been. Had Portland won that series, Jalen Rose, Reggie Miller, and Rick Smits may have won themselves championship rings. Rip City might have had a different decade than the one that elicited this video essay from Bill Simmons. We would be talking about Kobe Bryant and the Lakers in a whole new light. Maybe even the 2002 Kings would have managed to not get jobbed out of a chance to compete for the NBA title. As it stands, the Lakers beat the Blazers in the ’99-00 playoffs and this play will remain in NBA folklore forever. Today we will examine one of my favorite all time teams not win a dog gone thing: the ’99-00 Trailblazers.

Head Coach: Mike Dunleavy

Team Record: 59-23

Starters:

C Arvydas Sabonis, PF Rasheed Wallace, SF Scottie Pippen SG Steve Smith, PG Damon Stoudamire

Key Bench Players: PG Greg Anthony, SG Stacey Augmon PF Jermaine O’Neal, PF Brian Grant

SF Detlef Schrempf , SF Bonzi Wells

Besides Scottie Pippen, no one on the team had won an NBA championship. Scottie was supposed to be the player they needed to get them over the hump. I was never crazy about Scottie as a player (I hated the Bulls) but I had to admit the dude was good, and he definitely had championship experience playing with Jordan.

Rasheed was already one of my favorite players of all time. I had watched him as much as I could during his Carolina days and I loved his game. Rasheed could post up anyone on the block (something I always wished he’d done more of–he seemed to fall in love with shooting the 3 pointer). He could also get hot and make teams pay with his long range shooting (I remember him yelling at the Mavericks one time to “get someone on him” after he was taxing them with 3 pointers). Best of all, ‘Sheed refused to break under the iron fisted rule of David Stern. He managed to become one of the best quotable athletes of my generation (Warren Sapp is one of the other guys who comes to mind too)

Greg Anthony was one of may favorite guys too—I had first started watching hoops during his UNLV days and rooted for him when he played on the Knicks. I can’t say enough about Sabonis. I loved how he passed, I loved his shot, I loved that he was old and rickety, but still had enough old man game in him to make an impact. The whole time he played in the NBA, I wondered just how good he’d have been had he came into the league when he was young and healthy.

The rest of the guys I was whatever about. My little brother loved Bonzi for some strange reason (I think it was the head band). Mighty Mouse (Stoudamire) was an okay player, Augmon, Steve Smith, and Schrempf were good enough. I had never been too crazy about them as players, but I had owned their basketball cards at one time or another when I collected. Brian Grant seemed like a cool dude (this would be confirmed years later when I would run into him at PDX airport one summer).

There is something about game 7 of the Western Conference Finals that still haunts me to this day. I watched the game with my little brother and we laughed, oohed and awed in glee at the way the game was going. The Lakers were making mistakes and the Blazers were capitalizing on it. Los Angeles couldn’t figure out an answer to the Blazers’ offense the whole series.

Sabonis was setting up outside of the paint and daring Shaq to come and guard him. If Shaq ventured out to pick him up, Sabonis whipped a sick pass towards a cutter for an easy bucket (and for those of you who don’t know, Sabonis is one of the best passing big men the NBA has ever seen–check out this pass). If Shaq stayed in the paint, then Arvydas just hoisted up a 3 ball. Rasheed was popping it like he was known to do back then (he had 30 points in that game 7 while shooting only 2 3 pointers). There was even a stretch where Bonzi Wells seemed to be taking over the game (eliciting a “give it to Bonzi!” every time the Blazers brought the ball down).

To this day I can’t stand to watch replays of that game. My brother and I watched in uncomfortable silence as the Blazers all of a sudden stopped making baskets, and the Lakers started to digging into the (what appeared to be a comfortable) 15 point lead. By the time Kobe hit Shaq on the alley-oop, we were too stunned to speak. I spent the rest of the day trying to process the disappointment of not only the hated Lakers being back in the Finals, but my favorite cast of characters (since the ’93 Suns) losing their chance to face the Pacers. It reminded me of the feelings of bewilderment as I watched the Houston Oilers collapse against the Buffalo Bills in the 1992 playoffs.

So was it the Lakers defense or were the Blazers just standing around and settling on bad shots? I can’t tell you, and I don’t care to remember. But if you look at the box scores of that game you will see that Schrempf and Bonzi were the only two players to come off the bench and score (a combined total of 13 points). Robert Horry, Brian Shaw, and Derek Fisher combined for 25 points off the bench.

I can vividly recall the growing frustration with Portland’s inability to get buckets (there may have been a 8 minute scoreless stretch during the 4th quarter). They played great defense that game. If someone told me beforehand that Kobe would only get 25 points and Shaq would only get 18 points on 5 for 9 shooting, I would have penciled in a W for the Blazers. But it just wasn’t meant to be. No one could get any buckets in the paint (Sabonis and Pippen combined to score as many as Shaquille).

I’m sure some of the outcome has to do with the coaching match up of Phil Jackson vs. Mike Dunleavy. I’m sure by game 7 Phil had made the necessary adjustments to curb the Sabonis-O’Neal advantage that Portland had been exploiting over the course of the series. I’m also certain that Phil had made sure the Lakers stuck to their defensive assignments and forced Portland to be a jump shooting team.

Looking at things now as a 35 year old man, and not as an emotional 21 year Lakers hater, adds a little context to the situation. If I were to watch that tape now, it would probably be more of an examination of how brilliant of a coach Phil Jackson was, rather than revisiting one of the greatest collapses in sports history. The final score of the game was 89-84, Los Angeles, and the rest is history.

The Lakers became a dynasty and Portland well…. just watch the video essay by Simmons. I can’t necessarily say the Trailblazers were losers, they fought back from a 3-1 series deficit to get to that pivotal moment for both franchises. I can say that every Trailblazers fan I have come across since that night wears the same look of disappointment when that game 7 comes up in conversation. If you watched game 7 of the Western Conference Finals that year, its something that is impossible to forget.

Unfortunately Sabonis never got a ring, neither did Anthony,or anyone on that team other Rasheed (2004 Pistons). Only three players from that series are even active now, Derek Fisher, Kobe Bryant, and Jermaine O’Neal. Of the three, Derek Fisher is the only one not on the injured list (I’m not sure what this says about OKC that they are still relying on his production). O’Neal broke his hand playing for the Warriors, and Kobe of course broke his kneecap.

You know what? This post wasn’t quite as painful as I thought it would be. After careful examination, its much easier to give props to L.A. than to chastise Portland for choking. A few years ago, my buddy and I replayed this game on X-BOX, with me as Portland and he the Lakers. The game wasn’t even that close. He smashed me. Besides an occasional 3 pointer from Sabonis and Wallace, it was difficult getting buckets. I figured Greg Anthony and Schrempf would keep his team honest, but if the jumpers weren’t falling, I was in trouble. Every time I took the ball in the paint, my players would get blocked by Shaq or the ball would get stolen by one of his lengthy defenders. The frustration was building and soon I was cussing and yelling at the players on screen. His response was classic. ” Why you getting mad dude? There is a reason why they didn’t win anything. Pick a better team next time.”

Sometimes it’s not meant to be. Just ask Spurs fans.