NBA 2024 POSTSEASON PART III

I had already started writing this third installment of my NBA 2024 Postseason series before my heart got broken when the Denver Nuggets lost Game 7 in such an awful way on Sunday night. So, my soul really isn’t into writing about the play-offs right now. But, ever the disciplined professional, on I plug. (And if you missed the first two parts, here are those links: itsnotaboutme.tv/news/basketball-nba-2024-postseason and itsnotaboutme.tv/news/basketball-nba-2024-postseason-part-ii.)

On this topic, though, there I was on Sunday evening, after just having watched the New York Knicks lose their own Game 7 to the Indiana Pacers, and feeling absolutely awful for sports analyst Stephen A. Smith, who was downright giddy reporting from Madison Square Garden before that game. All postseason, with his beloved Knicks being the number two team in the East, he’s been so happy, and proclaiming that his team would be going to the Finals this year.

And then just three hours later, I unfortunately was right there with him in our horrible sunken feelings. I could not sleep that night nor get of bed yesterday morning to face getting ready for Round Three (of four) of the rest of the play-offs. Of course I know there are sooooo many worse problems in the world, (like, actually, all of them!,) but I just can’t stop feeling miserable for the Nuggets, especially to have been beaten by the little punk Timberwolves like that.

Okay, enough venting, let’s get on to the other basketball thoughts I had prior to this past week-end. And thanks for listening.

Here are my new thoughts on the NBA this year:

~ It’s time that I explain to y’all just what “MVP” means!!! In this case, it stands for “Most Valuable Player,” and is awarded to the guy who the voting sportswriters deem to be just that. To his team. Valuable to his team. Not necessarily the best player in the league, although the winner often is. (Nicola Jokic, aka The Joker, from the Denver Nuggets won it for the third time in four years this month, and he is acknowledged, by just about everyone, to be the best player on the planet.) However, I reiterate, the purpose of the important award is to honor the dude whom the writers feel is the most valuable to his team! Simple enough concept, right?

So how do none of the panelists on Inside The NBA know the word “valuable,” not even grown-up host Ernie Johnson!!! Even The Joker, who is from Serbia, and speaks far from perfect English, understands the concept! He tried to explain it to the guys on the show, but they still didn’t get it!

Worse for that panel is that right after they announced the award on the show, and Johnson said that Nicola was standing by to chat with them remotely, idiot Shaquille O’Neal kept declaring that someone else should have won! Knowing they were about to talk to Jokic! And then, during the interview, he went so far as to tell Nicola to his face that the honor should have gone to the second place finisher! That is one of the rudest things I have ever seen on TV!!! It was incredibly uncomfortable, but, of course, lovely Joker handled it like the Champion he is.

The producers of Inside The NBA were incredibly stupid to not have the panel talk to Nicola first, before they gave their opinions on whom they believed should or should not have been the winner. That is such dreadful planning. How did they not see the debacle coming??? Shaq has been touting his choice all season!

~ On a technical note, I never knew why the home teams were no longer wearing the lighter color uniforms, which was the way the league had been my whole life. I thought this change-up was just for the past two or three years. But when I researched the situation, it turns-out that the rule had changed…six years ago! When I finally noticed it, I figured that the change was because the league thought it politically incorrect these days to have the “good guys” wear white, while the “bad guys” wore black. (Or dark colors.) That could still be the rationale of the league to have changed it, but the rule now is that the home team decides if they will be wearing the light or dark uniforms. But so far this postseason, I’ve seen all but *one home team choose their dark ones. A bit nutty. *[Of course, my most hated team this year, Minnesota, is the only one who chose to wear white at home, perhaps to trick viewers into thinking they’re the “good guys.”]

~ This is something I don’t understand. Some of the arenas furnish each guest with a special play-off T-shirt, which is fun and generous, while other stadia give their ticket holders only…little towels to wave! (Let’s face it—I’d be happy with either, but my druthers, of course, would always be attire.)

By the way—Mr. X didn’t know the arenas do this during the play-offs, and the first time he noticed the crowd all dressed alike, he pointed it out to me, saying something like, “Look–they’re all dressed alike!”

~ I love some of the dramatic descriptive words the commentators have been using, such as:

Mike Breen saying the Pacers were “bludgeoning” the Knicks in Game 4.

The rest that of the quotes that I took particular note of are all about Denver, before they fell:

“The Denver Nuggets decimating, eviscerating, disemboweling the #1 defense in the NBA!”—Mark Jones

“Once again, Denver sucking the life out of Minnesota.”–Reggie Miller

Regarding Jokic: “He’s putting together a masterpiece!!! Another one!”–Kevin Harlan

And my favorite, about one of Jokic’s utterly amazing shots: “He let God touch it first. He shot it high enough to let God touch it and let it rain down.”–Jamal Crawford

~ As the Olympics inch ever closer, (they begin on July 26th,) I have a couple of more thoughts on the USA basketball team. As I said in my previous NBA article, I feel that the Clippers’ Kawhi Leonard should bow out soon if his knee isn’t significantly better than it was in the first round of the play-offs, (which is as far as the Clips got this year.) And I assumed if that happened, he would be replaced by the Knicks’ Jalen Brunson because he’s who all the commentators thought should be the twelfth man on the roster to begin with! But then on Sunday, in Jalen’s last game of the season, he hit his hand on an opposing player’s knee and…fractured it! (His hand, not the other guy’s knee.) These dudes are falling like flies, so now the coaches will most likely have to think of someone else. Cleveland’s Donovan Mitchell, perhaps? He has my vote! Always. (Of course, many of the very best players in the NBA—Luka Doncic, Nikola Jokic, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander—are playing for their own home countries, so we can’t have them for the Olympics!)

~I love when guys from other sports show up to support their fellow sportsmen, (such as footballers being front and center at basketball games, and several Yankees being there for the Knicks.) Even a few guys from teams that have been eliminated, (like Tyrese Maxie from the Philadelphia 76ers being at the Nuggets-TWolves game, and most famously, LeBron James showing-up in Cleveland,) have been there!

~ What I’ve hated the most about this entire postseason, (outside of my Nuggets losing in Game 7 of Round Two,) is the young OKC Thunder players insisting on doing all their post-game interviews together, like twelve-year-old idiots rather than grown-ass professional men!!! Creepy. And rude to the sideline reporters.

I’ve also hated all the idiotic headgear their starting power forward, Jalen Williams, rocks. He looks insane walking in and out of the arenas!

And now, let’s go, Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks!!! I’m praying for you guys to win the whole thing. Knock on wood.