ESPN.com - NBA action, it's fantastic!

ESPN.com: Page 2

Friday, April 18, 2003
NBA action, it's fantastic!

By Eric Neel
Page 2 columnist

My editor KJ calls and says, "Can you make the case for why the NBA playoffs are better than the NHL playoffs?"

And I say, "What, you mean beyond No Ice?"


	MJ wouldn't be MJ without his heroics in the NBA playoffs.

"Funny," he says.

"I'm serious. They play hockey on ice. You knew that, right? All kinds of slipping and sliding."

"Hilarious."

"Plus, it's cold. I mean they use real ice and everything."

"You've got the assignment, smart guy. Get to work."

All right, beyond No Ice, and in no particular order, 21 reasons this year's NBA playoffs have it over the NHL postseason:

1. Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O'Neal, Tracy McGrady, Kevin Garnett, Tim Duncan, Jason Kidd, Chris Webber, Allen Iverson, Paul Pierce & a little thing we like to call Star Power, baby.

2. No goalies. Like No Ice, a real boost to scoring. And, our brief crush on USA soccer notwithstanding, folks love scoring. (How else to explain an otherwise absurdly widespread cultural love affair with the Fonz for all those years?)

	NHL vs. NBA
	Eric Neel will take this year's NBA playoffs, where the action is fantastic. But Jim Armstrong prefers the NHL playoffs, with its upsets and unpredictability -- hey, didn't the Mighty Ducks just pull off a shocking sweep of the defending champs? Vote: Pucks vs. Hoops

3. Spacing. Not the kind that creates passing lanes and isos -- though it's true, a little breathing room, a little everything-in-the-right-place flow is a beautiful thing on both a Radiohead record and a basketball floor -- but the kind between games. You hear all the time this time of year that the series take too long, that there's too much time from one tip to the next, and that we're nothing but pawns in a game of milk-the-market, just puppets made to dance at the end of corporate sponsors' strings. I'm not hearing it (except that advertisers-rule-the-world part, which is more or less true, sure, but, you know, what are we gonna do? Not watch? Yeah, right). I'm saying the days off between games are a good thing.

Why? 1. As a fan, you see more hoops; few double-ups on the TV schedule. 2. Players are rested, which means high-level play. 3. Sweet play lingers and grows more delicious in your mind. 4. Controversy and conflict festers and intensifies in your mind, making each game not just a game but a battle between the forces of good (your guys) and evil (the sorry bastards wearing the wrong unis who must go down). 5. There's time in between games to live your life: take out the trash, eat a little something, snuggle-up with a loved one, read a newspaper, vote in a school board election, whatever. 6. (And this one is crucial.) There's time to go out back and play in the driveway, re-enacting great plays from the game you just saw. If you didn't spend a good solid hour being Robert Horry popping the 3 at the end of Game 4 of the Western Finals last year, I don't even want to know you. And if you're old enough to have seen it and you didn't lose a full day (at minimum) trying to copy Dr. J's behind-the-board, it's-a-bird-it's-a-plane layup in the '80 Finals, you ought to have your hoop lover's card revoked.

4. Fear and loathing. Everybody hates the Lakers. Every player outside of L.A. will lace up every night with a crazed, I-will-vanquish-my-opposer edge in his voice and look in his eye. At the same time, everybody fears the Lakers. Every player is afraid, is convinced, in his heart of hearts that, records be damned, Shaq-Fu and Kobe can't be stopped when the second season tips off. Like H.I. going head-to-head with the Loan Rider of the Apocalypse, guys got some reckoning to do. We're talking great theater, folks.

4A. If the Lakers do win this thing, we're looking at the least-likely defense of a title maybe ever.


	Will Kobe and Shaq play Michael and Scottie and break-up the Lakers?

5. No mullets.

6. The West features top-flight play in every series. It's high-quality, contrasting-style, could-go-either-way stuff. Like cutting contests between Fats Waller and Willie the Lion, like Battle of the Network Stars tug-of-wars between Team Gabe Kaplan and Team Robert Conrad, crews will be pushing each other, extending the form, and entertaining fans within an inch of their lives.

7. In the East ... well, in the East, we have the essence of opportunity; we have "every crazy kid with a dream can make a go of it"; we have eight Hickory Highs bucking for the big time. Heartwarming. Egalitarian. Unpredictable.

8. Dunks. Lots of them. Hockey's got grace, it's got toughness, and there's all kinds of creativity and strength in it. But hockey has no answer for the sheer breath-taking high-flying, death-defying, you-ain't-lying, what's-that-you-crying, joy and huzzah of the dunk. Not in the playoffs, not during the regular season, not on a frozen pond in the UP. Not nowhere.

9. Celebrity sightings. You can have Mike Myers and Kiefer Sutherland. Me, I'll take Billy Crystal, Spike, Ed Norton and Salma, and, oh yeah, Jack. (I'd be much obliged, though, if you'd take Dyan Cannon off my hands. I'm serious. I'm desperate. I'll do a straight-up deal for Celine right now.)

10. 16 of 29 teams get in. In the NHL, it's 16 of 30. Thus, a higher percentage of NBA fans get to participate in the postseason party. Science does not lie.

11. Chance of another Mariah dress.

12. Better overall talent. Across North America (and increasingly, across the world), more folks play hoops than hockey. More players means more competition at every level. More competition means higher-quality game at every level. The players you see in the NBA playoffs have had to beat back scores, scads and thousands of contenders. Their best is the best.

13. PJ vs. Scottie. The NBA's quiet genius, subtle tactician guru Zenmaster coach is going after another title. The NHL's quiet genius, subtle tactician guru Zenmaster coach is, um, at home somewhere.

14. The LeBron lottery. Even the down-time during the NBA playoffs is crucial.

15 Mark Cuban. Digital Cable service, $44.95 a month. New TV, $529. Pizza and beer, $22. Chance to watch one of the richest men in the world lose his ever-lovin' mind, pointing, strutting and shouting like Tina Turner on a 'roid binge & priceless.

16. "Here's Michael at the foul line & Bulls win!" ... that happened in the NBA playoffs. So did Magic's baby hook, Julius' up-and-under, Gar Heard's turn-and-shoot, Mr. Clutch's 60-footer against the Knicks, "And there's a steal by Bird!," Reggie's 37-points-in-eight-seconds thing, AI's duel with VC, and Willis' walk from the tunnel. You want me to go on? You don't want me to go on &


	The high-comedy of Mark Cuban is worth the price of admission.

17. Personality. Pads and helmets are cool, I guess, in a Vader's Storm Troopers kind of way. But the NBA puts faces and bodies, grimaces and tats, eyes and hair and sweat and breath on display. The game has life, it's played by people, Mr. Potter, people who do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community.

18. The Mascots dunk on trampolines and stuff. And every once in a while at halftime, they do this crazy dog race thing, and I swear, no matter how many times I see them, I can't get enough of those dogs blazing down the track and bolting through tunnels. (I think there was a minor league hockey team somewhere in New England that tried the dog thing one night, but the poor little critters kept slamming into the boards. It was dollar-beer night, so folks were entertained for a while, but it got ugly, and the yelping made a bunch of kids cry. It's my understanding that PETA's got an injunction against all dog race nights on ice now.)

19. No barriers. Cagers is just a name, and Plexiglass is just something that comes between a man and his money at an all-night check-cashing joint when he's got the munchies after a game. The game unfolds up-close, on the same plane. It feels like you can reach out and touch it.

20. Good TV. "That's terrible!" and other Waltonisms. Charles and Kenny on the TNT coverage. Plus, the best, freshest, funkiest, most eye-grabbing commercials on television. And did I mention the dunks?

21. Hoops is in us, in all of us. It's part of the fabric of North American life from Trajan's tundra to beachside courts in Florida, and every dirt drive, asphalt scrap and barn shadow in between. Hoops is everywhere. It's part of our DNA. It's common. It looks like we do -- black and white and brown and whatever other color or culture you are, rich and poor, book-smart and street-smart, inside and outside, hustling and soaring. It's where we see the mix of our lives, where guys who might not otherwise, talk to each other work like seamless, well-rehearsed ensembles. It's where folks who've known hardship find fame and fortune, and folks who've known fortune suffer hardship and loss. It's a game of heart, of our collective heart. We beat right along with it.

Eric Neel is a regular columnist for Page 2.