J.R. Smith and his Infinite Id

This past fall, Seth Meyers delivered a Weekend Update joke that I loved. It was the week following Obama’s disastrous performance in the first debate, and a few days ahead of Biden’s suddenly pivotal showdown with Paul Ryan. On the topic, Meyers said something like the following: “That’s right ladies and gentlemen, the moment he’s always been waiting for: the fate of the election now rests on Joe Biden’s shoulders! Joe’s gonna prepare by ripping off his shirt, shotgunning Red Bulls and watching Yosemite Sam cartoons.”

I thought of this when I looked at the box score from last night’s Knicks-Pacers game, which the Knicks lost by 5. The loss itself makes sense. The Pacers are better than decent and the Knicks were playing without Carmelo Anthony, who was suspended for stalking Kevin Garnett after their bout with the Celtics on Tuesday (earning him a collective high five from the other 328 NBA players).

However, one number in the box score immediately popped off the page: J.R. Smith took 29 shots! 29 shots!! 29!!! Because, like his political soul mate Joe Biden, when his moment came (the second Carmelo’s suspension was handed down), I’m absolutely certain J.R. ripped off his shirt and went into full Red Bull/Yosemite Sam mode. HE’S GOT THIS DAWG! DON’T EVEN WORRY ABOUT IT!

 

This is why, as fans, we love J.R. He’s pure basketball id. His on court psychology is just a straight-from-the-balls, let’s-see-how-cool-this-dunk-feels pursuit of pleasure. We mere humans only wish we had the physical gifts to channel that attitude. For J.R., reality (coaches, defenders, playbooks, alternative scoring options, getting benched) is simply an interference, an unfortunate fact that he can’t entirely accept. I think we all feel that a little. 

So, on the rare occasions when J.R.’s id and his reality find common ground – like Carmelo getting suspended for a night – and his personal pursuit of pleasure becomes aligned with his team’s pursuit of victory, magic happens. Or, better put, 29 shots in 40 minutes happens.

All the predictable results occurred. J.R. made only 10 of those 29 shots, totaling just 25 points. And the team struggled offensively. They scored only 76 points and lost. J.R. joined some pretty shitty statistical clubs along the way. According to Elias Sports Bureau, no non-starting player [J.R. technically still came off the bench] had produced 25 or more points for a team that scored fewer than 80 points since 2009. He came, he shot, they lost. Stupid reality.

This is J.R. Smith though. By NBA standards he is not a great player. Not even close. Never was, never will be. But, if I woke up tomorrow, and I had one day as basketball’s Cindarella, to be 6’6”, with a wet jumper and hops through a roof, I wouldn’t mind spending it as him. Reality is overrated anyways.

MATT BARNES FOR 3!! (or How The Celtics Lost by 29 Points Last Night)

The Celtics lost to the Clippers (in LA) by 29 points lastnight. The truth is this isn’t as newsworthy as we want it to be. The Celtics are a .500 team with a slightly worse than middling offense (18^th in Hollinger’s PER), a slightly better than middling defense (11^th in Hollinger’s PER), and a “can I get that sandwich without rebounds?” aversion to rebounds (29^th in Rebound Rate, better than only Dirk-less Dallas to this point). To make mediocre worse, last night’s game followed a cross-country flight on the day after Christmas, a holiday in which Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce competed to out-spoil their grandchildren. Not a winning recipe.

On the flip side, the Clippers are 16 games over .500 (now winners of 15 in a row) with a demonstrably excellent offense (4^th in Hollinger’s PER), an even more excellent defense (2^nd in Hollinger’s PER), and a “can I get that sandwich with a side of dunks?” love of dunks (2 of the NBA’s top 5 dunkers). Plus, this game was at home two days after Christmas, which the team celebrated by wrapping and unwrapping Chris Paul to endless delight. Good times all around in Clipper Land.

Still, let’s see what the box score tells us about this not-surprising, still-kinda-surprising beat down.

1.       The Clippers are Straight Up Deep: You can point to the fact that Matt Barnes and Willie Green combined to go 8 of 13 on threes, but those guys are good three point shooters. You can point to the fact that Lamar Odom grabbed 13 boards, dropped 5 dimes, and logged 4 blocks in 29 minutes, but when Lamar Odom isn’t fat and lives near the ocean, that’s the kind of thing he does. You can even point to Eric Bledsoe going Danny Ocean with 6 steals in 19 minutes, but Eric Bledsoe is really, really good at stealing basketballs, so….the Clippers are just deep.

2.      Poor Sully: Jared, I love ya. You’re an Ohio guy and all Buckeye, all the way. But last night was a nightmare matchup for you and it showed. Fouling out in 18 minutes?? C’mon bro. I know Blake, DeAndre and Lamar present “athletic challenges” for you on defense, but it sounds to me like every time they ran away from you, you wrapped your arms around them and held on for dear life. This portends bad things for your future.

3.      The Unique Terribleness of Jason Collins: Mark Titus has popularized the notion of the Club Trillion stat line: 1 minute played, no other stats registered (12 zeroes behind the one). This has become the height of basketball irrelevance. But, last night, Jason Collins introduced us to something much worse: The 17,000,001,000,003 Club! You read that right, folks! Last night, Jason Collins played 17 minutes of an NBA basketball game, failed to take a shot, dish an assist, grab a steal, or, for that matter, do anything of statistical note, aside from stumbling into a single measly rebound and clumsily handing out three fouls. Congratulations, Jason, you are the worst!

Box Score Review: OKC-Chicago (11-8-12)

On Thursday, I watched zero minutes of the OKC-Chicago game. I did, however, take four minutes to look through its box score. My thoughts…

 

Oklahoma City won this game 97-91 in Chicago. The Bulls are obviously limited offensively without DRose, but as long as the core of one of only two defenses in the NBA that gave up less than a point per possession last year is still in place, oppossing players will still circle their United Center trips as prime nights to come down with “sudden intestinal viruses.” Nobody likes having Joakim Noah rub around on them for 2 hours. Here’s a couple thoughts from the box score:

·         Nate Robinson played 12 minutes. In that time, he took 6 shots, made 1, and the Bulls were beaten by 9 points. According to Basketball Prospectus, “Robinson’s contract reportedly isn’t fully guaranteed until Jan. 2, so if he wants to stick on the cap-strapped Bulls, he’ll have to accept whatever role coach Tom Thibodeau hands him.” Something tells me that role is not, “guy who enters the game and treats it like a nationally televised Dave & Buster’s Pop-A-Shot contest.” The point guard market may get a little more crowded before the new year...

·         Kevin Martin got 15 points on 5 shots. I don’t know what to say about this, but it’s impressive.

·         Look at these +/- numbers: +10, +13, +10, +15, +5. In a big OKC road win, those have to belong to Westbrook, Durant, Ibaka, and Perk, right? NOPE! How about Eric Maynor, Thabo Sefalosha, Kevin Martin, Nick Collison, Hasheem Thabeet, respectively. In a very solid win,  it’s pretty clear that OKC's Olympians were watching the difference-making stretch. However, the second unit's success might or might not havebeen  at least partially enabled by….

·         Nazr Mohammed and Vladmimir Radmonivich! Nazr logged a -5 in 2 minutes and Vlad registered the nearly impossible -4 in “0” minutes of playing time (less than 1). These are stunning levels of ineffectiveness! It’s like those two hit the floor and Scott Brooks started screaming “NOW! NOW!” at his team like they were a military SWAT unit pouncing on a suddenly vulnerable enemy hideout after weeks of patient observation.

·         In case you missed it earlier, HASHEEM THABEET HELPED WIN THIS GAME FOR THE THUNDER! Never stop believing, folks.

Opening Night - Dallas @ LAL (TNT)

Welcome back to Dumb Foul! After dipping my toes in the waters of late night NBATV blogging last spring, here at Dumb Foul (“Dumb Foul”, of course, being me, and “here” being my living room), we’re going to make an effort to be more regular in our (my) coverage and commentary this season, even if it means some DVR-powered delays.

To start the season right, I picked up last night’s Lakers-Mavs game at the end of the 3rd quarter.

Eddy Curry, 10/30/12: A reminder that we have no clue what's about to happen, even though we probably know exactly what's about to happen

Before getting into the specifics of what happened (the Mavs dominated and won 99-91), I want to say that this game was exactly what I needed to start the season. I’ve been wrestling with the prospect of blogging about the NBA regular season for a couple weeks. At some level, any reasonable fan has to feel like these next 5 months are nothing much more than a meaningless prelude to an inevitable Heat-Lakers Finals. The idea of writing about it seemed like a sad and relatively joyless exercise in futility.

But last night was a nice reminder of why I watch regular season basketball, and why I want to write this blog. Because, maybe all that inevitability I was feeling was just a bunch of Stephen A. Smith (Stephen A. Smith is the word I’ll use for hype in this blog going forward). Maybe with all that Stephen A. Smith in my ear, I blinked and missed something? Maybe I didn’t think about Nash’s fit for the Princeton Offense, or inability to run with transition PGs like Collison or, even scarier, Westbrook, Lawson or Parker? Maybe I forgot that Gasol is a beta dog’s beta dog’s beta dog, and that he might lose shots, then lose confidence, then pout, then brood, then stop trying? Maybe I missed all this and WAY more and the Lakers are actually terrible and the Cavs are actually great and we have no idea what will happen or where any of this is headed? Probably not, but it’s fun to think about.

Anyways, here’s what I saw.

I turned on a 74-66 Dallas lead as TNT came back for the start of the 4th quarter with a Mike Brown sideline interview. Loyal readers, here’s how I know I’m in for a special season. The FIRST WORDS (I kid you not) that I heard uttered during the 2012-2013 campaign were as follows: “Eddy Curry came into the game and he was dominating us and we can’t let that happen.”

AHHH! YESS! EDDY CURRY! DOMINATING US! CAN’T LET THAT HAPPEN!

If you’re me, and you’re afraid that watching these regular season games is a waste of time because it all ultimately plays out as expected, are there better words to greet you than “Eddy Curry came into the game and he was dominating us" - ARE THERE??

He might as well have said, "Other than the crazy asteroid that struck the court during the second quarter and took us out of our flow for a couple possessions, I really like what we're doing on the offensive end of the floor." We're talking asteroid levels of unexpected here. Thank you, Mike Brown!

With 9:12 left, down 12 in the fourth quarter, the Lakers are showing the following lineup: Steve Blake, Jodie Meeks, Metta World Peace, Jordan Hill, Dwight Howard. Somewhere in central Florida, Jameer Nelson is belly laughing. (Otis Smith is NOT. Still too soon for Otis Smith.)

With 8:06 left, now down 15 (and mind you, the Mavs are playing w/o Dirk and Chris Kaman), the four-future-Hall-of-Famers Lakers end a possession with Metta World Peace taking and (badly) missing a weird double jab step (is that a thing?) 27 foot three-point jumper with 2 seconds left on the shot clock. At this exact moment, every sports writer who published their "expert" pre-season “Power Rankings” just went and f*^ked themselves.

With 6:48 left, Kobe cuts the lead back to 13, calmly knocking down a long, fading-left-off-his-right-foot jumper (is that a thing?).  If Tyreke Evans took that shot 1,000 times, he’d make it once. We’ll know for sure because he’s likely to try. Also, everybody just started taping together those Power Rankings they just shredded.

5:15 left, 93-78 Mavs, and the following sequence occurs: Dwight (badly) misses a free throw, somehow gets his own offensive rebound, puts up a put back layup that gets glass and only glass (no rim, no net, just glass), Gasol gets the  rebound on the glass-only put back, goes up, gets his own shot destroyed by 111 year old Elton Brand, gets taunted by the octogenarian, retreats/sulks back to a disapproving look of curiosity from Steve Nash. Lesson of the night, BURN YOUR POWER RANKINGS.

From here, we trade some meaningless buckets until we hit the 99-91 final mark. Tomorrow, the "Lakers are terrible" Stephen A. Smith machine begins. I can't wait.  Welcome back, league I love.

Additional Note

At different times during the fourth quarter of the broadcast, Marv Albert described Brandan Wright as, “the Hustling Brandan Wright!” and praised him for his “hard work tonight.” As John Hollinger points out, last year, Brandan Wright was “one of only two players to play at least 500 minutes without drawing an offensive foul.” Once again, lesson of the night, BURN YOUR POWER RANKINGS.

Welcome

Hello. It's about midnight. That'll be a recurring theme of these posts. I have trouble sleeping. You probably don't care why, and I wouldn't have an answer regardless. Too much caffeine? Post-modern Jewish anxiety? An abiding love for re-runs of Royal Pains*? Who knows? Whatever the reason, when I try to go to bed, two thoughts dominate my inner discourse: "I wonder what's happening on the internet right now?" and, "I should check out what's happening on the internet right now." I spend a lot of time reading the internet.

* fact, I have never watched Royal Pains. This was just a point I was making for effect. It seemed like a funny show to reference.

Above all else (the internet and the USA Network included), the way I mostly cope with my restlessness is through watching late night NBA games. It's the best sport in the world and my favroite to watch - more personality than the NFL and fewer TD Ameritrade commercials than MLB. We'll talk more about those sentiments later, but, for now, just know that I can watch a lot of basketball. I've seen four Kings games this year. Can anyone else, besides Keith Smart, really claim that?**

** Boogie Cousins can't. Dude is on another planet, amirite?

Anyways, I've found myself live-Tweeting a lot of these games with scattered observations. I'm not a coach, I'm not an analyst, and I quit JV basketball in the 10th grade: However, I've been soaking up the wee hours of the The Association since the bygone days when Lob City was located in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.*** In the digital age, I'm sure that makes me bloggable.

*** Terrell Brandon. Kevin Garnett. Get some. Also, I'm not a Wolves fan. I'm a Cavs fan. I just wanted to reference those weird late-90s Minny teams for effect. You'll start to notice a pattern with that, if you haven't already.

So, my thoughts begin now. Some nights, I'll just pick up a game midway through and let you know what I'm seeing. Often, since I like my NBA with a splash of local broadcasting, I'll analyze some of the choice head-scratchers that guys like Jim Barnett**** conjure up in their nightly commentary. Once in a while, I'll DVR whole games and sink a few weekend hours into a live-blog. Get excited. What am I saying? I'm sure you already are!

**** Jim Barnett is the Warriors TV analyst. I referenced him for effect. Killin' it so far!