ESPN.com - All that jazz in NBA playoffs

ESPN.com: Page 2

Monday, May 6, 2002
Updated: May 8, 12:32 PM ET
All that jazz in NBA playoffs

By Ralph Wiley
Page 2 columnist

NBA playoff hoop is like jazz (so are NHL hockey, boxing, and to a degree, road course auto racing). What a team does to win (the theme) is expressed musically, by both swing, and the blues (the medium) then expanded on and made inspirational by individual technical, improvisational brilliance. Playoff hoop feels good set to music.


	The back-and-forth flow between Jason Kidd and Reggie Miller made for beautiful music in Game 5.

(And according to who's doing play-by-play and color, it's often a game you should set to your own favorite music, because it'll often make much more sense that way).

Football and baseball are different cats; bursts of five to at most 10 seconds of action, surrounded by a half-minute or two of preparing for the next burst of play. In hoop, no time for discussing, planning mechanics, or waggling in an agree-upon ploy; you must know; you can break right off the other guy's made score. At times it can build, back and forth, growing-in the flow. It's a ya-ya out-of-body experience for the participants then, and begins to define part of them; it becomes how they express themselves, when they are competing against the other team, yet also playing off them, Yin-Yanging, like Life, making the whole scene one composition.

Flow, re-creation of Life through the run, is described by Bill Russell and Taylor Branch, in the book "Second Wind," and, to varying degrees in "Black Planet," a Crown book by David Shields, John Wideman's "Hoop Roots," Rick Telander's "Heaven is a Playground;" Pete Axthelm's "The City Game," Dave Wolf's "Foul," and we would add "Best Seat in the House" but that would be shameless pluggery.

The Flow is best described in the flesh. Game 5, Nets-Pacers, 2002, that slamming double-overtime won 120-109 by Jersey. Won by Jersey. Don't even sound right. Power in the run, and jazz. Form, but no script. History each time out. Reggie's solos outlasted by the brilliant, 51-minute set turned by J Kidd, as his body broke with fatigue.

Flow in effect that night. Remember? Mercer, feeling it. K-Mart horsing, yanking, cranking. Van Horn feeling for it, then bam! There. Like finding out, "I can breathe here! I can still play!" J Kidd expressing with his eyes. Don't feel for the note. Trust it.

J. O'Neal got to point at the win-level of the game where he couldn't riff -- despite his massive skills, the tune got too complex for him at this stage. See, there are levels to the game, a point where certain musicians, or musicians at a certain point in their careers, cannot go, unless they take a role of Anonymous But Helpful Sideman.

All this might be like Greek to the Chinese, and you. NBA playoff hoop can be an acquired taste. Although it is available to everybody, and part of everybody, and affects everybody -- and if you don't believe this, turn on the TV and just wait a while, for the ads to roll -- it is not for everybody, in that everybody can't appreciate it.

This is, obviously, where we come in.

The trenchant observation that the best hoop is like jazz is a concept a few times warmed over, not particularly original or novel. But the best hoop is always new; so is comparing the contemporary ballers to the musicians their games bring to mind.

Nets vs. Hornets


	Baron Davis is technically superb and militarily precise.

Let's start with the Hornets, of Charlotte, or of New Orleans, wherever they're from. Being itinerant, that's part of the j.d.

See them as New Orleans jazz, but more big-band, I see Silas as a Count Basie, in a big-band format, but with more contemporary sort players; Mountainous Elden Campbell is trumpeter Terence Blanchard -- say what you will, he can stand up to Shaq and Kobe, can help give a game to the best. He gives the Hornets a spine to connect to their arms and legs.

David Wesley and Jamal Mashburn -- Branford Marsalis types, horn player, with sweet strokes, often technically defer to younger brother, Wynton Marsalis, as Baron Davis. Technically superb. Total Game. Militarily precise. Miles Davis once looked at up-and-coming Marsalis and said, "So you the po-lice." Wynton was classic presentation. Miles free-formed.

Stacey Augmon on piano, a Marcus "J-Master" Roberts type. Jamaal Magloire, bass-line hammer, young Stanley Clarke. P.J. Brown, reed man, alto. Good teams follow him around. Like the Hawk, Coleman Hawkins.

The Nets combine Thelonius Monk's mastery, Bill Evans' smooth set-up piano rhythms in J Kidd. Everybody better off his game. Kittles.Van Horn. MacCulloch. Kenyon. All but K-Mart players in the Sun Ra Orkestra. Avant-garde by exec order.

K-Mart? Milt Jackson, pounding on vibes.

Pistons vs. Celtics


	Ben Wallace's Pistons are the perfect example of a band being better than the sum of its parts.

Ben Wallace is nobody else but The Mighty Burner himself, Charles Earland, in his early '70s glory, organ on "Blackland," pounding out a rhythm so infectious for a minute it'll make you ever forget there was a Dennis Rodman, or a Bob Marley.

Stackhouse is guitarist Norman Brown some nights. Lift in his game, even if undersized. Jon Barry is like a Kenny Kirkland on piano, playing off the broad booming horn of Corliss Williamson as Coleman Hawkins. Atkins is scary, one of a hundred Anonymous Sidemen who can help you win, but if they try to do too much, try to carry the set, lead the improv, can also cost you the game and the set.

The Celtics are definitely quintet be-bop form. Got the best pair of sax-blowing forwards in the business. Paul Pierce -- forget the Truth, Pierce is Prez, pure Lester Young, and merely just short of Coltrane Shaq himself. They all flow to Prez, and if he gets a look at it, it's down. Antoine Walker -- Dexter Gordon, Dizzy Gillespie, self-aware, too self-aware during games, totally talented, should grind low more, but likes the perimeter, likes to be seen. You can see him at the White House, singing "Salt Peanuts" with George Bush. If you can't, he can. Won't get there forcing last-second 3s. He can take it, but not off his own dribble.

Let Pierce be Prez, the D will then congeal around him, and the shot off the resulting pass presents itself in the Flow.

You dig, Diz?

Kings vs. Mavericks

Don Nelson has a Bob Jamesey feel, to me, contemporary smooth jazz type of thing, that might get muscled aside by a band equally smooth and contemporary, but having an older essence. It might be that the Nelson band hasn't been together long enough to flow.


	If Chris Webber would work down low, we'd be able to see his true artistry.

Either way, Nellie is Bob James, and Michael Finley is his Kirk Whalum on sax. If he blows sweet, they go. Dirk Nowitzki, as Bix Beiderbecke on horn; Bing Crosby at point in Stevie Nash -- Crosby was a jazz singer (though on some nights, Nash is more like Sinatra); Nicky Van Exel as baritone Arthur Prysock; taken together the rest of them are Pieces of a Dream; ability to swing, but somebody's got to sweat, somebody's got to set bottom line. Haven't figured who Rafe, Wang, Bradley, Najera (Boney James?) remind me of, down low. Maybe the Brecker brothers. Three horns sounding like one, and not in the best way. Not yet.

The Kings swing down sweet chariot, and let us ride. Allen Iverson is the straight-up Charlie Parker of the league, the tone tatted and batted be-bop, but Chris Webber has the killer chops of, really, a Charlie Parker as well. The trumpet is just not his instrument. He's a bass-line player. Webber playing out high, away from Shaq, is like Babe Ruth remaining a pitcher. If he'd work more down low and use his impossible hands and skills, he'd remind us of Armstrong himself.

Vlade -- Mose Allison on a vocal. Bobby Jackson. The fiery sax of Pharoah Sanders. Mike Bibby, Doug Christie are more active than their counterparts -- like a Quincy Jones production. Bibby outplayed John Stockton (Tony Bennett) without embarrassing him. Scot Pollard. Percussion. Congas. Timbales. Ralph MacDonald. Or Mongo. Yeah.

Lakers vs. Spurs

Popovich has two giants, Tim B. Dunkin, a combination Wes Montgomery, such a deft touch on the guitar strings, uses no pick, and Rahsaan Roland Kirk, as many as four reeds sticking out of his jib at once, and definitely Johnny Mathis. David Robinson is a real George Benson type, got no problem, commercial not said as a fault, just that way, straight, almost too well-adjusted to reach for the outer limits of improv.

Malik Rose, a little light Jack De Johnette, but definitely somebody on bass. Young Tony Parker -- like a Freddie Hubbard with a liquid trumpet on, say, "First Light."


	Tim Duncan is a combination of Wes Montgomery, Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Johnny Mathis. Shaq is simply John Coltrane.

Finally -- Shaq is like John Coltrane. "A Love Supreme."

Phil Jackson -- loving you madly, like Duke Ellington. Cool. Swinging from big-band to be-boop to avant garde to contemporary smooth. Like Ellington. Swinging. "Broke Daddy" we used to call him when he was coaching Jordan (who was Armtrong-Bruce Springsteen/Jimi Hendrix) up in Chi. Very cerebral. Passing out books. "Rule No. 1: Never give up. Rule No. 2: Never forget rule No. 1" -- Duke Ellington, or Phil Jackson.

Robert Horry -- Julian "Cannonball" Adderly. Rick Fox -- like a drum on the opposing scorer, until The Man decides to uncoil-Max Roach. Devean George -- next generation of Scottie Pippen? Dude who can play but in shadow; like trumpeter Roy Hargrove?

***** ***** *****

The first game of a seven-game NBA playoff set means nada in relation to who wins the series. It's like a daytime sound check before a set that night. It reveals flaws and truths in matchups: Bowen has sharp knees, but he won't be beating us shooting 3s. By the end of Game 1, you say, "This is what they have, this is what we have, this is the tune we have to play. If we can."

Celtics-Pistons: The Celtics have the best pair of horn-blowing forwards; but though Walker gives lip service to deferring, he wants to solo outside, not his strength -- it might be his strength, but it's not what they need. The C's are short, don't have a big sound on the glass, their winning time lineup has 6-8 Rogers at center. So you have to pick the Pistons, even though the two best players might be on the Celts. That's the beauty of the Detroit quintet -- the whole of the band sounds better than the sums of its parts.

Nets-Hornets: The Hornets have a buzz about them, with Baron Davis equal (!) to J Kidd at point, and having that big brass sound on the boards; missing Branford Mashburn hurts them, their sound ain't the same, and so the Nets might pop up video. Something about the Nets; they have to get it all out of Kidd every time out; he'll be exhausted by the time the tour is over, but everybody who sees him the meantime will think, "God, what a show that guy puts on."

Kings-Mavs: This is the free-flow, how-many-notes-can-be-blown in two-hours, frenetic, avant-garde style; there will be many cases of Flow in the meat of this seven-game set. In the end, the strength of the bottom line helps the Kings survive the waves of brilliant scoring soloists and improvisers from Dallas. Rebounding and D is the Kings' only way. If Dallas doesn't turn it over, Dallas wins.


	When Kobe and the Lakers are clicking, they show us how music should sound.

Spurs-Lakers: The Spurs might win a couple of games, but with Shaq 'Trane, "Cannonball" Horry, up-and-comer, Devaughn "Hargrove" George, Anonymous Sideman Rick (kind of a Max Roach) Fox, and in spite of Derek "Delfayeo Marsalis" Fisher (can't defend any guard in Kings-Mav series -- Bibby, Christie, Jackson, Nash, Finley nor Van Exel). ... When Kobe "Miles Ahead" Bryant gets the rock, wing extended, and begins his bounce, crash, cram, or spin, reverse pivot and sky, or flick dimes to the diving, cutting, setting-up-on-the-wing teammates, when Miles and 'Trane hook up in the be-bopping, ball-rocking sense, you get this feeling under your skin ...

"That's ... how music should sound."

Miles Davis, in full bloom. Kobe is definitely "Kind of Blue."

***** ***** *****

In the immortal words of jazz great Milton "The Judge" Hinton:

"I am always completely grateful and humble to play and consult with another generation of brilliant and serious musicians."

If you're not down with that, well, there's no accounting for taste.

Ralph Wiley spent nine years at Sports Illustrated and wrote 28 cover stories on celebrity athletes. He is the author of several books, including "Best Seat in the House," with Spike Lee, "Born to Play: The Eric Davis Story," and "Serenity, A Boxing Memoir."