'Lex—
Of course, all those TV people lie. Last week, at one point in the denouement of the Celtics-Pistons series, NBC came out of commercial with a shot of sailboats plying the Charles on a sunlit afternoon. Out my window, located four blocks from the river in question, rain was pounding my yard into a fine pulp and the family dogwood was swaying like the rigging of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Clearly, the network was giving us a shot taken a couple of days previous, and, as the legendary Marvin Barnes said about flying across time zones, "I ain't getting on no damn time machine."
Sacramento does indeed play pretty—so did Dallas—but, sooner or later you have to play tough, and this seems still to be beyond them. The Lakers have transmogrified themselves into one of the most cold-eyed ensembles the league has ever seen. They played about five minutes in order to beat Portland. They owned the fourth quarter against San Antonio, even with Tim Duncan trying his damndest to stuff some guts into David Robinson, who remains Ralph Sampson in a sailor hat, as far as I'm concerned. (And a religious crackpot and sexual bigot on top of it.) Now, they're into Sacramento's noggin right up to the hippocampus. The image already in this series is Chris Webber, sitting on the floor, beefing to the referee, while a crucial possession goes the other way. My God, how many times do the Kings have to see Robert "The Ringmaster" Horry drop a critical three-pointer before they figure out that Horry's been hitting that shot for about 10 years now? There a kind of chilly majesty in the way the Lakers close people out now. Twelve straight road wins in the playoffs is ridiculous. And, just so you know, the Big Aristotle always has been balletic. Haven't you ever seen him spin on his head? I have no line on the Eastern series yet, except that at least two of what I think are going to be the full seven games are going to be absolute mud-fence ugly.
Lord knows you've seen more foreign ball than I have—where can I get a game in Groszny, anyway?—and I agree that "foreign player" and "Great White Fleet" are no longer synonymous. However, the whole "fundamentals" thing always bothered me because it tends to minimize basketball's uniquely accelerated evolution. Baseball took 100 years to come up with the relief pitcher. Basketball went from the standing guard to Michael Jordan in less than 50. In 1966, I saw Jimmy Walker at Providence—father to, as you know, Jalen Rose of the Bulls—dribble between his legs. Everybody booed because it was a "showboat"—i.e., overly black—play. Now, though, it is a fundamental; you can't go by even a competent NBA defender if you can't bring it between the stems. I hope the foreign guys aren't used as vehicles for hoopish reactionaries. Besides, I like the dunk. I see nothing boring in watching human beings fly. All of which is preface to my saying that I think Yao Ming is going to get some poor son-of-a-bitch fired. If it isn't the red tape involved in parceling out the bribes required by the People's Army, it's going to be the fact that the Big Aristotle is going to dunk the poor sod through the rim about 20 times the first time they play. I see deft and subtle. I don't see strong and hostile. I think teams might be better off waiting for Michael Olowakandi to hit free agency next year. Anyway, it didn't seem like any of the folks at what my friend calls "the perp walk" in Secaucus particularly wanted to be there. At least the Clippers didn't trot out poor old Elgin Baylor for his 19th consecutive trip to the lottery.
So, how's the King of Bhutan anyway? King got game?
Later,
Pierce