“The juice is great.” What does that even mean? Probably that Gregg Popovich likes the Spurs’ energy or pace or something like that. But really, what does it mean?
What. Does. It. Mean?
WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
Rosebud.
(via Oskar Jamtander)
Archive for the ‘2013 NBA Playoffs’ Category
Video: Gregg Popovich thinks ‘the juice is great’
Posted by Trey Kerby under 2013 NBA Playoffs, San Antonio Spurs, Score Video on Jun 19, 2013
Pick-and-Pop: A salute to the most crowd-pleasing NBA Finals game possible
Posted by Andrew Unterberger under 2013 NBA Playoffs, Miami Heat, Pick-and-Pop, San Antonio Spurs on Jun 19, 2013
“How often in life do you get EXACTLY what you want??!?!” – My brother at his bachelor party, to me, repeatedly
Listen, I’m not going to pretend like I enjoyed watching last night’s NBA game. I mean, the parts where it seemed like the Spurs would win and the Heat would lose were fun, but from the moment LeBron lost that damn headband — minus a couple of those Tony Parker circus shots — the panic and queasiness I felt were remarkably similar to those I get in that recurring dream of mine where I show up for a college final after having forgotten all semester that I had even signed up for the class. As a LeBron hater first and foremost, it was absolutely awful for me, and chances are that whenever this post actually goes live, I’ll still be restlessly flipping my pillow from one side to the other, trying in vain to get visions of missed free throws and made corner threes out of my head.
Still, I am an NBA writer of some sort, and as such, I must at least attempt to attempt objectivity. And I can distance my own feelings enough from the game to be able to realize that this was indeed the game of the year — yes, even better than the Nate Robinson game, though I can tell you which viewing memory will be the significantly rosier-colored one for me — and easily on the shortlist of greatest NBA Finals games of all-time. It’s pretty inarguable, and if I couldn’t tell it my own damned biased self, the steady stream of fellow NBA scribes smarter and less emotional than myself saying as much on Twitter could’ve pretty well clued me in. The game was so good that people had to keep throwing random “Yeezus” quotes at it, just because that was the other really good thing that happened yesterday.
What made the game so great? Well, a bunch of things, and you probably remember most of them pretty well, but I think the game’s greatness can be summed up by that lead quote of my brother’s, or the catchphrase of a more prominent basketball analyst: It gave the people exactly what they wanted. Not me, of course, but for an average NBA fan with no tremendous rooting interest in this series, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more strictly crowd-pleasing game in my life. Anything you could’ve possibly wanted from that game, you got it, and in most cases, you got it in spades. Seemingly every major narrative was at play, everything that pundits predicted was going to happen happened, and any lingering desires left from the first five games of the series were satiated.
And what was it that the people wanted? Well…
1. A close game. If you had one complaint about the Finals thus far, this was probably it. Aside from Game 1, which was close through four quarters before ending with the Tony Parker .1 Prayer (yeah, this is what I’m going with, though I also liked “The Southwest Texas Floater” and “The Longest Twenty-Four” from the comments section), this series has mostly consisted of blowouts and games that were generally just over before they were over. Not so with this one, which the Spurs looked maybe a basket or two from blowing open late in the third, but which was otherwise neck-and-neck throughout, and obviously very tight towards the end. A game like this was all that was keeping this series from being an all-timer, and now that it has it, bring on the historical accolades.
2. Crazy momentum swings. I gave up counting on this one at some point in the fourth quarter. For all the mini-narratives contained within, this was a game that resisted big, sweeping narratives. Any time one storyline seemed to dominate the game, another one would zoom in to potentially take its place as the headline. It was very diplomatic, in a way. Just about everyone and everything got their turn being the focus of the game. I’m very curious how beat writers would even begin to approach recapping the events of last night in a game story, however, since I’m of course going to spend the two days from after I hit “send” on this e-mail to Trey until 8:30 on Thursday night pretending this game never actually happened, I’ll probably never know.
Video: Don’t yell at Joey Crawford
Posted by Trey Kerby under 2013 NBA Playoffs, Miami Heat, Score Video on Jun 19, 2013
Literally the one time a player yelled at Joey Crawford and didn’t get a technical, and we got it on tape? Special day, people. Special day.
Ep. 1006: NBA Finals, Game 6 Recap
Posted by J.E. Skeets under 2013 NBA Playoffs, TBJ Daily on Jun 19, 2013
On Wednesday’s episode of “The Fix,” The Jones recap an instant classic — Game 6 of the NBA Finals. Topics discussed include: Ray Allen’s three, Chris Bosh’s back-and-forth narrative, LeBron sans-headband, Mike Miller sans-shoes, why Pop took Duncan out late, whether Ray fouled Ginobili, Tony Parker’s step-back three, Diaw’s D, poor Kawhi Leonard, and Chalmers’ early contributions.
All that, plus unopened free beer, hairy arms, and a whole lot of Zaza “Game 7″ drops.
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Subscribe to The Basketball Jones show on iTunes | Download the .mp3 directly
LeBron’s new Nikes predict second Heat championship
Posted by Trey Kerby under 2013 NBA Playoffs, Miami Heat, Shoes on Jun 18, 2013
No big deal, right? Just a low-top version of the LeBron X that some people are calling the “Floral” edition. Seems like a chill off-court shoe to wear with some short pants.
But check out the sockliners.
The fix is in. Or Nike might have a massive recall on their hands. Or these are a one-of-one and it won’t be that awkward if LeBron James is the only person who has a pair of his own signature shoes that taunt his failures in the NBA Finals. Or these will sell like hotcakes after the Heat win a second championship. Choose your own ending.
(via Kix and the City)
Dwyane Wade is still trying to make ‘WoW’ happen, this time with a necklace
Posted by Trey Kerby under 2013 NBA Playoffs, Miami Heat, NBA Fashion on Jun 17, 2013
Pick-and-Pop: Just how unprecedented would Danny Green, Finals MVP be?
Posted by Andrew Unterberger under 2013 NBA Playoffs, Pick-and-Pop, San Antonio Spurs on Jun 17, 2013
If you ranked the many compelling story lines of this year’s NBA Finals, the play of Spurs shooting guard Danny Green might or might not be No. 1, but it’d definitely be top five. Green’s play in the series has been nothing short of historic — in last night’s Game 5, his six made threes vaulted him past Ray Allen for the all-time record for treys in a Finals series, already beating Ray’s mark of 22 by three, and in one game fewer, no less. (Five more threes in the series and he’d tie Reggie Miller’s all-time record of for most threes made in an entire postseason run, with his 58 in 2000.) Green leads the Spurs with 18 points a game for the series, and is now shooting 57 percent from the field and a mind-boggling 66 percent from three.
Throw in some fine defense, including a couple exceptionally impressive defensive stops in transition during Game 5 on the likes of LeBron James and Dwyane Wade, and a handful of rebounds a game, and it’s entirely possible that should the Spurs close out the series in Miami, that Danny Green will be the recipient of 2013′s Bill Russel Trophy for Finals MVP. It won’t be a no-brainer — Tim Duncan will have the all-around, two-way numbers and the sentimental vote on his side, and Tony Parker has the reputation of being the team’s most important player and some very impressive highlight plays to his credit. But given the relatively unprecedented nature of Green’s hot shooting in this series, which has started to extend to Stephen Curry-like range beyond the arc, assuming he can avoid pulling a John Starks in the last game or two, he’s going to have a case, at the very least.
If he did win, the word “unprecedented” would apply to more than just Green’s shooting statistics. In some sports, the postseason is frequently marked by unlikely hot streaks or excellent single-game performances that result in non-star, role-player types taking home playoff top honors. Think David Eckstein or Scott Brosius in baseball, or Dexter Jackson or Larry Brown in football. But in basketball, that doesn’t ever really happen. If you were to do a Sporcle quiz on NBA Finals MVPs, it probably wouldn’t take more than a couple minutes, because the winners are generally the guys you expect. Michael Jordan won that trophy during all six of the Bulls’ title runs, Hakeem won the two with the Rockets, Shaq won the first three for the Lakers in the 21st century and Kobe won the next two. Over the course of a series, the most valuable players generally tend to end up the most valuable players.
This, of course, would not account for Danny Green. Before going into this series, Green was seen as little more than the latest success story of the Great Spurs Machine, a franchise who seemed to systematically pump out wings like Green who could shoot threes, play defense, know his role and generally not do anything to hurt the ballclub, just like Bruce Bowen, Roger Mason Jr., Gary Neal, and so on. He averaged 10.5 points on 45 percent FG and 43 percent 3PT with a 14.1 PER, numbers good enough to make him a worthwhile rotation player, but certainly nothing that would have him in All-Star discussions. Not to mention it was unlikely he was ever even going to get that far, seemingly washing out of the league after one season in Cleveland, a former second-round pick coveted by nobody, before being rescued by San Antonio and set back on the righteous path. Hell, he’s still not even the default “Danny Green” on Wikipedia.
Compare that resume to those from the list of previous NBA Finals MVPs, and the differences are pretty staggering. Of the 19 retired players to have received Finals MVP honors, all but two are currently enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame, and of the nine active players to have won, all but one are a lock for the Hall immediately upon retirement, including Green’s teammates, the three-time winner Duncan and the one-time winner Parker. There are no role players, no one who you’d look at and go “Really? How the hell did that guy end up winning over all those other guys on his team?”
