NBA Flow and more

Who's more qualified to talk about flow than a PhD student working on shallow-water modeling?

While some people are pointing the blame at the officials for the lack of "flow" in the conference finals series pitting the Lakers against the Nuggets and the Cavs against the Magic, I think the majority of the blame belongs elsewhere. Now, don't get carried away and think I'm saying that the officiating has been excellent in the playoffs. That definitely hasn't been the case ... and more on that subject later. No, the blame belongs on the players, coaches and commentators.

Obviously, the players are the ones committing the fouls being called by the officials. From Andrew Bynum's two-handed hatchet job on Chris "Birdnest" Andersen to Dante Jones' two-hand shove to the back of Kobe Bryant to Anderson Varejao attempting to hug Dwight Howard to prevent, to no avail, an easy two - which Howard made 3, even if he got his 6th technical foul for celebrating after muscling in the lay-up - it's the players who are committing the fouls. Sure, some of the contact could be let go, but there are a lot of fouls that are obvious, too. And, why are there so many blatant fouls? Well ... I'm glad you asked.

It's the coaches and commentators. I'm lumping them together because I think they are jointly (though not necessarily equally) responsible for helping the players think that they should be fouling extra in the playoffs. I'm not sure when the "no lay-ups" idea started to pick up steam, but the scope has been widened in recent year to include "no fast breaks". If you're going to foul Dwight Howard every time he gets close to the basket, he's going to march to the FT line quite a bit. But, it certainly doesn't stop there. West hammered Pietrus on a baseline drive to the basket today in the game 4 victory by the Magic. LeBron James took almost 20 FTs because the Magic didn't want him getting to the rim and dunking. Rashard Lewis reached in, Pietrus slid in front and picked up blocking fouls, etc. But, this type of behavior is nothing new. What is relatively new is fouling to prevent fast breaks. Rather than try to play defense in open court situations, players have started to look for opportunities to commit fouls to stop the play to make the other team take it out of bounds if the defense is at any disadvantage. Phil Jackson thought Dante Jones tripping Kobe Bryant was unsportsmanlike. Well, I tend to agree, but I also think it's unsportsmanlike to grab LeBron or Kobe at half court to prevent him from being able to go one on one at another defender as he approaches the basket on a break.

Certainly, there have been fouls called that shouldn't have been. Dwight Howard's 6th foul in game 3 comes to mind. He had a clean block of LeBron and the ref just blew the call. Howard was whistled for another foul today when LeBron bounced off him and missed a fallaway. It looked like Howard was in legal guarding position to me. I'm sure that if I reviewed the tapes of the other games - fortunately, I don't have them, so I won't be doing that - I would find numerous other phantom fouls. But, for every phantom foul, I could probably find at least two more that could have been called ... the Jones trip of Kobe comes to mind right off the bat.

*****

Hyperbole?
Moving on to other topics, I've blasted Jay Mariotti a little bit before, but I couldn't let this gem (from Around the Horn today) slide: "Here's the disparity, 58-40 rebounding, Denver all over the boards led by "Birdman" Anderson, in my opinion the best player on the court ..." Really Jay? Chris Anderson is the best player on the court in the Lakers v. Nuggets series? Hmmm. Chris Anderson has been effective and, frankly, I don't understand why more players don't play like he does. He's puts his length and athleticism to good use by being active rebounding, blocking shots in help defense, and getting easy baskets by crashing the boards and cutting to the basket. He seems to know his limitations - although he did throw up a three-pointer yesterday - and does a good job playing to his strengths and staying away from his weaknesses. You don't often see him pulling down defensive rebounds and leading the break a la Magic Johnson. Anderson's play reminds me a lot of the way Tyson Chandler played last year on a Hornets team that made a strong playoff run. But, while Anderson has been relatively productive, he's only been in double digits in scoring once in the four playoff games against the Lakers. And, while he pulled down 14 rebounds in game 4, he accumulated a total of just 16 in the first three games of the series. He's also averaging 2 blocks while playing approximately half the minutes against Los Angeles. Kobe is the best player on the court when those teams collide. Chauncey Billups is also very good. Carmelo Anthony, Pau Gasol, Nene, etc.

Where does the league stand?
The NBA rules allow teams to foul intentionally to prevent teams from attempting three-pointers to tie games. The Lakers did this in game 1 against the Nuggets. But, the NBA rules also allow teams to advance the ball by using a time out. The Cavs did this at the end of game 2, which helped them pull out a victory to tie the series at 1-1. I don't get it. While the advancing the ball rule allows teams better opportunities to come back in late game situations, intentional fouls not being called intentional allows teams to preserve leads late by making the game a FT contest and draining the clock. Advancing the ball adds excitement ... intentional fouls drain the energy out of games. Personally, I would have the rules be exactly opposite. Intentional fouls would be called intentional fouls, which would result in teams at least having to be more clever in the way they foul, although if I were really in charge, the penalty for regular fouls would be more severe, so teams would not want to foul. But, I digress. I would also not allow teams to advance the ball. While it is certainly more difficult to score from 94 feet away than from 40 feet away, if the other team takes the lead with 2 seconds left, too bad. Figure out a way to get someone a decent look at the basket. We won a game in HS my junior year (I don't remember exactly what my role in the play was, but it wasn't a big one) on a last second, full-court play our coach drew up during a time out. I think we beat NM-Highlands on a play when I was at Mines on a full-court play with just a couple seconds on the clock as well. Valpo. Duke-Kentucky. Pro players hit crazy shots all the time at the ends of quarters, there is no reason to give teams an unfair advantage by allowing them to advance the ball. If a football team scores a TD with less than two minutes left, the other team doesn't automatically get to advance the ball if they call a time out. That would be ridiculous. The team that scored the TD kicks off from the same spot you kick-off from if you score at any point in the game (assuming there aren't any penalties). The only case I can think of for advancing the ball is to "add excitement" ... but, if that's the case, why does the league allow the intentional fouling?

Unsportsmanlike Conduct Helps LA Beat Denver

There are many distasteful things about the NBA these days, but the one that is getting increasing amounts of attention is the "play" to foul intentionally at the end of a game if you are up by 3 in the final seconds to prevent teams from having an opportunity to tie the game with a three-pointer. By sending your opponent to the line, you force them to get an offensive rebound off a FT to have a chance to prolong the game. I'm all for strategy, but I think the premise that you can intentionally benefit by committing an intentional foul - obviously it's not going to be called intentional, though - is ludicrous.

If the defense commits a foul intentionally, why isn't an intentional foul called? If it wasn't intentional, why else would Derek Fisher be fouling J.R. Smith at half court? I didn't see that happening earlier in the game.

Taking the foul is an unsportsmanlike attempt to manipulate the rules just because there isn't a provision in the rules that doesn't prevent it. It's along the same lines as the Hack-a-<* Insert name of bad FT shooter here *> strategy. In an ideal world, you wouldn't have to write in rules to prevent these types of actions. However, as long as someone is trying to gain an advantage by going by the letter of the law and not the spirit of the law, there will be a need to more specifically define the rules to address the perpetrators.

The Surface Matters!

Nadal is 12-6 against Federer ... so, Nadal's obviously the favorite in the Australian Open final, right? And, Nadal is 5-2 against Roger in grand slam events ... so it's a done deal, right? That's what ESPN would have you think. But, it's not that simple. Nadal has done a lot of damage against Federer in Paris, on the clay, at the French Open. Nadal also got Federer at Wimbledon last year. However, despite taking over the #1 ranking last year (from Federer), Nadal wasn't victorious at either hard court slam last year. In fact, Nadal hasn't even made a hard court GS final before this year. Maybe Nadal has turned the corner and will finally prevail in a hard court slam. Or, maybe Federer is back on top after a down year following a bout with mono. Either way, we can only hope that people are a little more diligent with presentation of statistics in the future.

The problem with Utah

With Rick Reilly dismissing the Florida v. Oklahoma game, stating that Utah is the actual national champion, I feel obligated to argue against the Utes.

While the Mountain West was a solid conference this year, Utah didn't do enough in the Mountain West (which, let's face it, isn't the SEC or Big 12) or in non-conference play to warrant a top 2 ranking heading into bowl season, in spite of their 12-0 regular season.

You can't bring the Alabama win into the discussion because you can't use a bowl win as a justification that a team should have been in a different bowl because that information isn't available when the bowl match-ups are constructed.

Thus, Utah is left with victories over the following teams (rankings are final BCS ranks and all records are regular season records):
11. TCU (10-2)
16. BYU (10-2)
Oregon State (8-4)
Air Force (8-4)
Colorado State (6-6)
UNLV (5-7)
New Mexico (4-8)
Wyoming (4-8)
Michigan (3-9)
Utah State (3-9)
San Diego State (2-10)
Weber State - FCS

At the end of the season, the Utes held 2 wins over top 25 teams. How does that compare to OU and UF? OU beat Texas Tech (#7), TCU (#11), Cincinnati (#12), Oklahoma State (#13), and Missouri (#21). That's five top 25 wins for the Sooners. UF only had two - Alabama (#4) and Georgia (#15) - but the rest of the Gators' schedule was much more difficult that the schedule for the Utes, with non-conference drubbings of Miami and Florida State and conference tilts with LSU, Vandy and South Carolina (plus, the loss to Ole Miss). And, Florida made up for a lack of top 25 competition by taking teams to the woodshed. Before the SEC Championship game, every Florida win was by at least 23 points and the last 8 were all by at least 28. That's a dominant stretch.

Utah didn't have a particularly rough schedule and they barely squeaked out quite a few games. I'm not in favor of running up the score. Beating a team by 50 isn't necessarily more impressive than winning by 30, but winning by 3 makes you wonder. And, while Utah won all of their games, they had multiple squeakers, including two against teams with losing records (25-23 over Michigan and 13-10 over New Mexico). Utah also pulled two out at home: agaisnt Oregon State the week after the Beavers upset USC (31-28) and late against TCU, 13-10. While TCU put up an impressive record, they failed to show anything in non-conference play (beating Stephen F. Austin, Stanford and SMU) that makes you believe they are an elite team. Sure, they beat a mediocre Pac-10 team, but they were outclassed early in the season by OU (35-10) before OU even got rolling. The other prominent MWC team, BYU, displayed it's superiority (yes, that's sarcasm seeping through) by beating up on the bottom-feeders in the Pac-10 (UCLA and Washington) ... and UW would have had a chance to win in OT if the refs hadn't insanely penalized Jake Locker, but that's neither here nor there. So, the Mountain West has three teams in the top 16 based on what? The ability to beat decent competition? Ahhh ... their pretty good records. The three MWC juggernauts marquee win is Utah over Oregon State at home by 3 points with the Beavers coming down after taking down Pac-10 giant USC.

Hmmm ... I'm not sure Utah is such a clear cut choice to play for the national title. A good story ... maybe. Deserving of consideration ... probably, because they finished the regular season undefeated (but, so did Boise State ... and the Broncos went to Eugene and beat the Oregon Ducks - who finished 2nd in the Pac-10, ahead of the Beavers) 37-32). But, come on, are you really ready to say Utah would beat OU, UF, UT, or USC for the national title? I'm not.

Arguments for All

Now that USC, Texas and Utah have won their BCS bowl games, coaches from each of the squads are calling for a national championship. Hmmm ... not everyone can win it, but everyone thinks they should. The problem is, everyone has an argument. I'm going to go through those arguments, neglecting the bowl games because I'm giving the arguments for the teams to play in the national title game. I'm going to go through them in order of the final BCS ranking (pre-bowl season).

1. Oklahoma - The argument for Oklahoma is simple ... the Sooners were the winner of one of the best conferences in football. The offense is incredible and the team is peaking at the right time. They split with Texas and Texas Tech, but the loss to Texas was relatively early in the season (and OU led in the 4th quarter 35-30) and the Sooners smashed an undefeated Tech squad. Plus, OU handily beat Cincinnati and TCU. The Bearcats won the Big East and the Horned Frogs took Utah to the wire at Utah.

2. Florida - The Gators only loss was by 1 point to a solid Ole Miss squad and the margin of victory was a missed extra point. A missed extra point. The Gators won the SEC, which is historically the best conference in football. And, aside from the 31 UF allowed to Mississippi in the 4th game of the season, Florida has allowed a maximum of 21 points. It's possible that offenses in the SEC aren't great this year, but Florida, obviously, has a solid D to go with a dynamic offense.

3. Texas - The argument for the Longhorns centers on their victory over OU on a neutral site. The loss was a last second loss at Texas Tech at the end of a rough stretch in the season (OU, Missouri, Oklahoma State, TTU).

4. Alabama - Nick Saban's squad was the only team to complete the regular season undefeated in a "BCS conference". Sure, they lost to UF in the SEC Championship Game, but how 'bout a rematch? Florida and Georgia are the only teams that put up more than 21 points on us and those teams are led by a couple decent (catch the sarcasm?) quarterbacks (Tebow and Stafford). Bama beat LSU and Georgia on the road and smashed Clemson to kick off the season. The SEC is the best conference ... why shouldn't Alabama get another shot at Florida?

5. USC - The Trojans have been really good for quite some time ... and this is just a continuation. The loss to Oregon State was a fluke. The defense is really good and the offense showed that it can put up a lot of points against teams from the state of Washington. The Trojans smashed Ohio State in a marquee early-season showdown and gave up a season-high 27 points against the Beavers. Oklahoma, Florida, Texas and Alabama can't say the most points they allowed was 27. USC didn't schedule any non-BCS conference schools and allowed 3 or less points in 6 games, 7 or less in 8 games, and 10 or less in 10 of 12 games. Defense wins championships ... and the USC defense is pretty dang good.

6. Utah - The Utes are undefeated. They haven't lost, how can you not allow them to play for the national title? The Mountain West is a good conference, too. Plus, Utah scheduled 2 big non-conference games, although the Michigan win doesn't look quite so good ... but how were the Utes supposed to know when they scheduled the match-up? Utah beat the same Oregon State team that beat USC the week before!

7. Texas Tech - The Red Raiders beat Texas. By splitting with Texas and OU, aren't they just as worthy as the others to represent the Big 12 South in post-season play? Sure, the non-conference schedule was lacking, but Utah played Weber State and Utah State in non-conference matches!

8. Penn State - The Nittany Lions smashed Oregon State early in the season ... if you want to use the Beavers as a benchmark, you have to put Penn State above Utah and USC. Penn State won the Big 10(11) and the only loss was a one-point loss at Iowa in bad weather. Penn State allowed 24 points twice ... that's even less than the most points USC allowed! And, Penn State posted 40+ 7 times, including 5 times against teams from BCS conferences. Offense and defense, what more could you want?

9. Boise State - The Broncos finished the regular season undefeated. Boise State beat Oregon. Boise State allowed 10 or less 8 times and scored 40+ 6 times. Only twice did Boise State allow more than 16 points. Not everyone can be in BCS conferences ... Boise State is undefeated ... how can you keep them out?

Obviously, each of these teams can be argued against as well. Maybe I'll do that soon ... it's more fun, anyway.