Want to see an NBA player get excited? Hand him a copy of the bracket for the NCAA Tournament and watch him pick out the winners.
It's about alma maters and hometowns, about friendships and rivalries. Some even like to think it's about that extra bit of insight they have playing the game.
Want to see an NBA player start to hyperventilate or turn blue in the face? Ask him if he'd like the NBA playoffs to be just like March Madness a single elimination tournament. One and done. Loser goes home.
"Are you kidding me?" said Denver Nuggets' All-Star Carmelo Anthony. "Well, the playoffs would be shorter, that's for sure.
"You wouldn't have any of this stuff where you get a week to get ready for one team and then you see them every night for a long time. You'd get one day, maybe two and then you play and move on to the next one. But I'm praying to God they don't ever go to that here. That's a tough thing to do."
Anthony did it, though, when he carried Syracuse to the 2003 NCAA title -- the only one in school history -- and was named Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four.
"I think the NCAA is harder to win," he said. "When you get a chance to play a team seven times, both teams figure each other out and it's just who wants it the best, the hardest, the most. In the NCAA Tournament, every possession counts. It always comes down to one play on one day."
Shane Battier of the Houston Rockets was the national college player of the year when his Duke team ran the table to win the NCAA Tournament in 2000. His eyes light up at the notion of March Madness or a June Jumble in the NBA.
"I would love it," Battier said. "I really would. America loves a do-or-die situation and that's why the NCAA Tournament is so fantastic.
"You have to be at your peak every game. Not that you mail in a playoff game, but if things aren't going your way, you can say there's a tomorrow, unless you're facing an elimination game. You have to be at your peak at all times."
Of course, the thing that makes the NBA playoffs so pure and often so dramatic is that the cream rises to the top. You can't often win four best-of-seven series without being the best team.
March Madness allows for the longshot, the upset, the flukes -- North Carolina State over Houston, Villanova over Georgetown, Danny Manning and the Miracles of Kansas.
Even though he played for one of the big name schools -- Kentucky -- Battier's teammate Chuck Hayes, closed his eyes, threw his head back and said he was tempted go with the March Madness format.
"Oooooooh, man! Man. As much as I think it might be, as much as I want, you can't play one-and-done in the NBA. Think about it. Your champion could be an eight seed. Think about when the Knicks went to the Finals in '99. You tell me all they have to do is win one game against San Antonio and they're the champs?," Hayes said. "Or if you had the Warriors in 2007 when they were No. 8 seed and beat Dallas in the first round. You tell them all they had to do was beat the Jazz once and the Lakers once and they're in the Finals. Who knows? Maybe they stay on the roll. Maybe they make it happen. You can't let that possibility happen, can you?"
Battier has no pity for the Goliath who gets slain by David.
"Boo-hoo," he said. "I hate to break it to you, but life ain't fair always.
"(In the NBA) the best team, usually with the highest payroll, wins. Let's level the playing field a little bit. Let's see who can perform on the ultimate stage -- you lose and your season's done.
"Look, I think they should shorten the playoffs. I liked the best-of-five series in the first round just because it gave the lesser team a shot. There's no shot for the lower seeded teams now -- six, seven and eight."
Memphis coach Lionel Hollins shook his head at the notion.
"Shoot, we went into Boston and won on one night," Hollins said laughing. "Now ask us to beat them three more times and it wouldn't matter where you play.
"I think our system is the best system when you're trying to prove who's the best team. The earlier rounds probably, for me, could be shortened.
Usually there's not a lot of upsets in any system in the first round, no matter what. So you're wasting energy on what is basically a mismatch. But overall, I believe the NCAA one-and-done works for the NCAA and our system works for us."
Denver's Chauncey Billups has survived the grueling gauntlet of the NBA playoffs to win a championship with the Detroit Pistons in 2004. He felt the heartbreak of traveling so far only to lose Game 7 of the Finals to San Antonio In 2005.
He also played in the NCAAs at Colorado and knows the feeling of walking on that one-game tightrope.
"Very, very exciting," Billups said. "The stakes and the energy and emotion would be kind of high-level every game. Actually, it would be a lot of fun.
"Everything could be different if you played it like March Madness. This is the NBA, where everybody can play and guys can get hot. I know we've lost games to a lot of teams that we probably shouldn't have this year. That could happen in the playoffs if that was the case.
"The thing about a best-of-seven is you're eventually gonna get things figured out. You play a team seven times over a week and a half and you're gonna find out which one is really better.
"We came out of the series with the Lakers in the West Finals last year thinking we could have beaten them. But from top to bottom they were more mentally focused. They did the detail things. The best team takes care of all the details."
Aaron Brooks of the Rockets is in favor of the truer test of an NBA series.
"You don't get those lucky games," said. "And I'll take us in a best-of-seven series against anyone."
Hayes kept shaking his head and saying he couldn't go along with the injustice of a Valparaiso or Cornell getting a chance to ride a hot streak to the title game. But ask him about the rules if the Rockets can close fast this season and sneak in as the eighth seed in the West.
"Oh, man! If you tell me that all we've got to do is beat the Lakers one game -- and we've already won one out there this season -- I wouldn't mind that at all," he said. "If we're in at No. 8, change the rules and bring on the March Madness, baby."
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment