Eric The Blue

Fam watches sportz on tv

I remember wondering, back when my kids were wads of slavering peevishness, what they would be like when old enough so that you could begin to tell what they were going to be like. Happy to report that one of them is the kind who, after watching with her dad another Timberwolves debacle, regales herself and him by reading aloud the comments of fans on the team’s Instagram account. It seems that a PR staffer will post some upbeat tripe—“T-wolves rally falls just short!”—and then, below, the commentators have their say. It’s like an accidental work of art—the way, for example, that a potentially witless remark like “Our team sux” seems hilarious when by chance it lands in the string immediately after someone’s technical and over-learned analysis of the team’s subtle flaws. 

Other comments are amusing on their own: “One of Donte’s 3-point tries broke my window in Eagan.” Once during the game I wondered aloud, “Why does Donte get so many minutes?” Daughter replied, “Why is Donte in the NBA?”

Since I’m not an Insta commenter, I’ll say here that I’m out of love with the Wolves’ go-to play when they have the ball at the end of a quarter with the shot clock off: Ant dribbles, in place but between his legs, at the edge of the logo until the clock hits 2 seconds, whereupon he hoists a fadeaway from 35 feet. They must love how it looks on the whiteboard, because they try it almost every time, but somehow this “play” never works against live competition. Weird.

Lynx robbed

I’m a little surprised that the Lynx’s coach is bitching her guts out about the imaginary foul that allowed New York’s Breanna Stewart to tie the game on free throws at the end of regulation. I mean, right before Stewart wasn’t fouled, she took three steps, maybe four, without bouncing the ball. Hard to imagine a more obvious travelling violation. Should’ve been Lynx ball, up two, 6 seconds left.

When she reviews the film of the last 90 seconds or so of regulation, she’s really gonna be pissed, cuz there was more. Almost comically poor officiating. Too bad. 

Lynx’ coach? Lynx’s coach? Another option I haven’t thought of? I have no idea.

ADDENDUM
According to this site, “Lynx’s coach” is correct.

Sampling Internet opinion on the basketball game, I found the below commentary, which seems sane. There’s a lot that isn’t. I don’t believe “the fix was in” for the Liberty or that the refs had bet money on the home team. Simple explanations are generally best, and the simple explanation is … human error, incompetence. And it ruined what otherwise was a wonderful basketball game. The players are so much better at playing than the officials are at officiating.

I don’t wholly buy the commentator’s half-hearted attempt at justifying the no travel call. You can’t juggle your way to the basket if you’re better at that than dribbling. But whatevs. He shows the clip of the sequence that’s gotten all the attention, so basketball people can judge for themselves. He noticed what I noticed about the post-game presser—the exhausted mute dejection of Napheesa Collier as her coach went off on the officials. She made 11 shots, missed 12, almost all of them in the paint, in traffic, and never shot a free throw. If the standard for what’s a foul was set by the call against her teammate with 5 seconds left in regulation, she’d have made at least 11 free throws, to go with her 11 field goals, and the game wouldn’t have been particularly close.

 

 

Lynx in the WNBA finals

I watched the Lynx game last night, which they won in a thriller to force a decisive game 5 in New York tomorrow night. This morning I studied the box score at ESPN.com to try and figure out how they did it. I think maybe on account of my rooting interest and pessimistic leanings, I notice every Lynx deficiency, and I always feel it’s just a matter of time before New York should pull away for the win. That’s pretty much what happened in games 2 and 3 of the series. Somehow, to me it seems by sorcery, the Lynx won the other two games. 

Here’s an example of what I mean. Minnesota’s best all-around player is Napheesa Collier. She’s “only” 6-1, but on offense she often plays in the low post, where she uses feints and footwork to “create space,” as the commentators say, and then scores with an array of different shots—layups (either hand), baby hooks (either hand), leaners, little fade-away jumpers, etc. She can be a prolific scorer—in the first round of these playoffs, against Phoenix, she averaged 40 points per game. But in the four games of this final series, she’s averaging less than 20. Last night, she scored 14, none in the tense fourth quarter. The problem is that the Liberty have two players, one 6-4 and the other 6-6, both mobile and athletic, and they bother her. It’s one thing to “create space” against a defender who’s about your height. But when Collier maneuvers around these players who are several inches taller than she is—well, it’s hard to be very far out of position near the basket when you’re that tall. They affect her shot, even sometimes block it, and then sometimes Collier uncharacteristically misses when she does have room. That’s what good defense can do. What’s often easy for our best player is now always hard. How can we win anyway?

I might not notice it while watching, but New York also has challenges. Judging by the box score, especially the +/- column, our bench players outplayed theirs last night. This +/- stat refers simply to the team point differential while each individual player is on the court—for example, Collier never came out of the game, and since we won by two points, she rated a +2 in this category. Every player in New York’s starting lineup was in positive territory, which, considering that they lost the game, is unusual. They used eight players, and the three nonstarters were a cumulative -17. The Lynx also used eight players. But our three substitutes played about half again as many minutes as New York’s (37, compared to 25) and were a cumulative +1. So that’s a difference of 18 in a game we won by two.

I probably owe an apology to Alanna Smith of the Lynx. While watching, I was cussing her in my soul for what I considered weak play—some shaky ball handling, a rebound fumbled out of bounds, a missed layup after receiving a good pass. But trust the box score, not my impressions: in 30 minutes, she was 5-for-9 on field goals (2-for-2 on 3-pointers), had 7 rebounds (second only to Collier), 2 assists, 2 steals, a blocked shot, just 1 turnover, and a +2 in the stat I described above. Don’t know what game I was watching.

I do know that the Lynx won when, with the score tied, they missed a shot in the final seconds but were fouled in the scrum for the rebound. Two seconds left, two free throws for the Lynx’ Bridget Carleton. She made the first, breaking the tie. Then she made the second, too. I thought she should’ve missed the second one on purpose. Clock then starts soon as the ball is touched, and it’s at the wrong end of the court for New York. But when the second free throw was made, the Liberty could call time out, which preserved all 20 tenths of a second left in the game and moved the inbounds pass about two-thirds of the way up the court. It’s possible to be too cute with counterintuitive strategies, but to me, deliberately missing the second foul shot in that situation should have been a no-brainer.

 

Squinting at Lynx while dining

Lowbrow night for supper yesterday, and I spent most of the meal squinting across the room at the TVs behind the bar, trying to see how the Lynx were doing. Damn cataracts! Soon gave up and began gauging how things might be going by the cheering-to-quiet ratio of the people sitting at the bar (kids’ phones were without charge—shocking!—and I’d left mine at home). This method suggested that the Lynx were having some moments but probably losing, and then walking out past the bar I saw they were behind 69-81 with just over 4 minutes to play.

I wouldn’t have turned on the TV at home if one of the kids, having plugged in her phone, had not shouted that the Lynx were down by 3 with 40 seconds left. I hardly believed her, but we turned on the TV and saw the frenetic conclusion to regulation and then the overtime roller coaster. What a wild game!

After it was over, I used the “play-by-play” feature at espn.com to figure out what had happened while we walked to our car and drove four blocks home. Turns out that low ebb for the Lynx occurred about the time we were settling up with our waiter: the Liberty made a 3-point basket with 5:20 to go that put them ahead by 15, 81-66. According to espn, their win probability was 99.2 percent.

The Lynx then closed regulation on an 18-3 run to force overtime. Of the play-by-play details, the sequence that jumped out at me began with 2:31 left, the Liberty now leading by 7 and in possession, but the Lynx defense locked them down and forced a shot clock violation. Now it’s our ball, still down 7, 2:07 on the clock. Then:

1:55 Courtney Williams misses 25-foot three point pullup jump shot 76-83

1:53 Napheesa Collier offensive rebound 76-83

1:48 Natasha Hiedeman misses driving floating jump shot 76-83

1:46 Napheesa Collier offensive rebound 76-83

1:40 Napheesa Collier makes driving layup 78-83

The Liberty had chances to seal the win but:

24.1 Napheesa Collier blocks Jonquel Jones’s 3-foot layup 80-83

24.1 Liberty team offensive rebound 80-83

18.1 shot clock turnover 80-83

18.1 Lynx full time out 80-83

Collier had a basket, two offensive rebounds, and a game-saving blocked shot that led to a turnover—in about 90 seconds of scoreboard time. She’s pretty good. Eventually she scored the game-winning basket with 8 seconds left in the overtime period.

Beginning to think that, for Minnesota professional teams, lying down and dying in the clutch might be a trait that’s connected to the Y chromosome.

Buckeye brief

As a Gopher fan, it would be a waste of time to study the occult science underlying the selection of teams that get to compete in the mini-tournament that crowns a national champion. The shouted criticisms and recriminations reach my ear nevertheless: Georgia and Florida State were snubbed, if Washington had any decency their coach would call them in sick with Imposter Syndrome, et cetera, et cetera. Maybe someone who follows it more closely than I can explain why, among the uninvited, Ohio State seems to have no one pleading their case. I say this as someone whose hatred of Ohio State goes back to the days of Woody Hayes. I've never perceived a reason to repent, but the brief on behalf of the Buckeyes seems to me straightforward: they lost just once, and that was on the road, by 6 points, to Michigan, the consensus #1 seed. 

Put undefeated Washington off to the side. Two teams with one loss are in, and Ohio State is out?

6-3, 215

After watching my Twins rally for a win, I switched over to cable news: Trump being booked, ho-hum, it happens twice a month. I did get a kick out of the booking paperwork, however—the part where the defendant's height and weight are given as 6-3, 215. According to the Tale of the Tape, Cassius Clay was 6-3, 215, on the night he knocked out Sonny Liston to win the heavyweight championship. This is a useful metric insofar as it allows one to gauge what a little rounding off can look like to the naked eye. 

 

Low energy

What do people who don't like to read do when they're sick? Watch TV I suppose. I did some of that yesterday, too—the Timberwolves' game against the inaptly named Jazz of Utah. (The Jazz moved to Salt Lake City from New Orleans, like the "Lakers" from Minneapolis to LA.)

I follow the T-wolves just closely enough to have formed the impression that they've been winning more games since Karl Anthony Towns, supposedly their best player, was sidelined with an injury. Checking now to see to what degree my impression conforms with reality, I see that Towns was injured in a game the Wolves lost on Nov. 28, which dropped their record for the season to 10-11. Since then, they've won 3 of 4. I know, not much of a sample size, and it might be that I'm not a KAT guy. He's always whining to the officials—seems to think he's never committed a foul, and that all his missed shots should be attributed to a swallowed whistle. Just play! When Anthony Edwards thinks he's been screwed, he looks at the ref and laughs. 

Also, my sentiments to the side, it might be that the things KAT's good at, mainly scoring, the T-wolves can get from other sources. What they really need is rebounding and a defensive presence near the basket. The guy they acquired in the off season, Rudy Gobert, gives them more of that than KAT does.  Last night, Gobert scored 22 points (despite trying just 11 shots) and led the team with 13 rebounds. D-Lo put on a 3-point shooting exhibition in the fourth quarter, when he scored 20 points without missing a shot, but who is this Kyle Anderson (pictured above) guy? He's taken KAT's place in the starting lineup and last night he had 15 points, 7 rebounds, and 12 [sic] assists. He made 4 of 5 field goal attempts and 7 of 9 foul shots. I'm taking this from the box score, obviously. Wouldn't mind watching the game again to try and figure out how a guy who shoots just 5 times is awarded 9 foul shots. The box scores at ESPN.com now have a +/- column indicating the team's net points when each player is in the game. While Anderson was playing, the Wolves were +12; they won by 10, so they were -2 when he was out. Watching on TV, I hardly noticed him: some good passes, and one defensive play when he denied a would-be dunker at the rim. D-Lo scored 30 points but was just +4. The NBA has a lot of bedazzlers but that ain't necessarily what wins games. 

According to my at-home covid test kit, I'm negative. Still possible to get sick in the boring old 2019 way, I guess. 

Mesmerized by Rich Strike

 

I'm not ordinarily a fan of "the sport of kings" but I've watched this video, which keeps an arrow on Rich Strike through the second half of the Kentucky Derby, maybe forty times now. Just mesmerizing. And you keep noticing new things. At first, I was obsessed with the ground made up: if a movie showed an 80-to-1 underdog coming on like this to win, I'd say, probably with everyone else, "Hollywood!"

And then there's the call. I think the guy was maybe looking through binoculars? He never mentions Rich Strike till he's screamed out that Epicenter and Zandon, "these two," are "coming to the wire!" He plainly thought only one of them could win, last time he'd checked no other horse was within range, but then with around 100 yards to go Rich Strike suddenly invaded his binoculared field of vision. That's a theory, anyway. I give him credit for immediately recognizing that it was the longest shot in the race who had come out of nowhere, seemingly, though the video shows that he came from somewhere—far back, before weaving through most of the field in the last quarter mile to win. 

When the video starts, Rich Strike is in 17th place in the 20-horse field. When the leading horse comes out of the last turn, there's just less than a quarter mile to go, and Rich Strike appears to have moved up to 13th place. When the lead horse Epicenter has one furlong to go, Rich Strike has moved up to sixth. He passes them all in the last 200 yards. 

Is it weird that this horse race reminds me of nothing so much as the 800 meter final in the 1972 Olympics? But Dave Wottle wasn't 80-to-1.

 

 

What sportzy parents need to know

 

If you're a parent and consider yourself a sportzer, you really have to be able to explain to your kids:

1. the infield fly rule; and
2. the NBA play-in tournament.

I've got the infield fly rule down. Pro tip: judgment is aided, and confusion allayed, if you bear in mind that the rule's only purpose is to prevent the team in the field from making a chintzy double play by allowing an infield fly to drop to the ground. So there can't be two outs, and first and second bases must both be occupied (the bases may be loaded). 

I've waited till the last possible moment to study up on the play-in tournament, which begins tonight. The Timberwolves are in one of tonight's games, and I know questions will be asked. Here goes:

There are 30 teams in the NBA, 15 in the Western Conference and 15 in the Eastern Conference. When the long regular season is ended, the top six finishers in each conference advance to the playoffs, and the bottom five are eliminated. The teams that finish in places 7 through 10 of their respective conferences are in Playoff Purgatory. The play-in tournament is for them. 

In the first round of the play-in tournament, the 7th place teams play the 8th place teams, and the 9th place teams play the 10th place teams. The losers of the latter games are eliminated, and the winners of the former games advance to the playoffs. In the second round, the losers of the former games play the winners of the latter games. The losers of that game are eliminated, and the winners advance to the playoffs. That's the whole play-in tournament. Each conference has an 8-team tournament played among the top six plus the two teams, from places 7 through 10, that prevail in this mini-tournament that precedes the real one. 

In a more straightforward arrangement, the top eight teams from each conference would qualify for the playoffs, and the bottom seven would be out. With the play-in tournament, however, the NBA can gin up interest and, of course, revenue. The long regular season doesn't end up counting for much, but, if you've been following me, you see that finishing in 7th or 8th place means you have to win just one play-in game to advance to the "real playoffs," whereas the 9th and 10th place teams need to go 2-0 in the mini-tournament to advance. Also, all games in the play-in tournament are played on the home court of the team with the better record. 

The Timberwolves finished in 7th place of the Western Conference, which is why tonight they are playing the L.A. Clippers, the Western Conference's 8th place team, here in Minneapolis. If the T-wolves win, they're in the playoffs as the West's #7 seed. If they lose, they'll host whoever wins the game between 9th place New Orleans and 10th place San Antonio, and the winner of that game would be in the playoffs as the West's #8 seed. This business of seeding isn't trivial, because in the first round of the playoffs the #1 seed (first place team) plays the #8 seed, the #2 seed (second place team) plays the #7 seed, and so on. The T-wolves really want to win tonight, because they want to avoid having to play first-place Phoenix in the first round of the "real playoffs." I don't think I'm alone in feeling that Phoenix is clearly the best team in the Western Conference, and that the Timberwolves are competitive with every other team that finished above them.