If the Crown Fits ...

My Pool Man. Healdsburg, Ca. May 2007
Betcha didn't watch.

Betcha thought "fly-over" basketball wasn't your cup of tea. You're too busy following the Kobe saga, perhaps. Or maybe you're catching up on summer re-runs. If you weren't watching the Detroit-Cleveland Game 5 on TNT tonight, S.O.L. feels sorry for your ass.

Your friend is probably leaving you a voicemail right now saying how sick that game was. He's telling you how LeBron took over the game in the fourth quarter, how he scored his team's last 25 points, how three of his teammates fouled out and his boys were trailing by eight in the fourth and somehow, someway he managed to put his team on his back and lead them to victory. This is one time when the telling ain't gonna come close to the actual seeing.

You had to be there sitting in front of your flat screen, sport. Sorry for you if you weren't.

This game was crazy. Crazy. LeBron hit a few shots that were unstoppable. I mean seriously, how can you expect anyone short of nine feet tall to block a jumper when LeBron leaps off the floor and hangs there for days? You can't. It's crazy. And he didn't it again and again. Like the other team was just a mild annoyance.

How crazy? Down the stretch and in the overtimes (that's right there were two of those) there were four key moments when the Cavs had to score. It's simple: they don't get a basket, game over. That's all she wrote folks. Pistons get two games to get a return trip to the final.

And we're talking about a great defensive team in the Pistons. Not the kind of club you can waltz through the paint and, say, slam the ball through the hoop, right?

Shit, if you're LeBron James that's exactly what you do. Three times he faked and juked and jammed -- as easy if the Pistons just engraved a Dunk Anytime Invitation for him.

The other time, the hoop that won the game, was just a mortal's layup. If you don't take into account his lightening head fake, the underhanded scoop and double pump and finger tip action that spun the ball off the backboard and through the net. I ain't lying. Watch ESPN tonight and see for yourself.

LeBron finished with 48 points (18-for-33), nine rebounds, seven assists and two steals. And as good as his numbers were, he should have had a half-dozen more assists. In fact, if Cleveland had anybody else who could score, LeBron would be looking at a nightly triple-double. I can't remember a player so young who got so far with so little talent at his side. But he's so good right now, he's overcoming his team's mistakes and even his coach's mistakes. And he can't be counted out against anybody, not even the waiting San Antonio Spurs, although they have a lot more weapons on offense then the Pistons do.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves just yet.

Tonight's game was a signature, career-defining moment for a player that was anointed before he even played one game in the NBA. Well, for once, the anointers got it right. This performance will be remembered for a long time.

Longer still if LeBron finishes what he started come Saturday. Yep, Cleveland's got just a 3-2 lead. You gotta close the deal, King James. This win won't mean shit unless they're talking about it (and you) in the NBA Finals.

Go claim your mantle, young man.

You have made believers out of all of us.

A King Arrives

Moon Shot (blue) Healdsburg, CA May 2007
I told ya.

I told ya LeBron was getting it. I told you the Pistons were vulnerable. Well fuck me if we don't have a series or what?

Who among you now wants to bet against the King getting into his first NBA Finals?

And now, can Deron Williams make up for the meltdown of Derek Fisher and the Jazz on Monday night? What intrigue. Damn, I love the NBA Playoffs.

What's with the Pistons, anyway? They're the best third-quarter team in basketball. I mean they seem to always changed the course of the game in the third quarter, only to barely survive a fourth-quarter comeback. It happened in their series against Chicago. It happened in almost every game in this series too.

S.O.L. wasn't the only one paying attention. Young LeBron saw how close he and his team were to winning Games 1 and 2. Seriously, if Rasheed doesn't hit those crazy ass shots in Game 2, we might be looking at a Cleveland close-out game tomorrow night in Deetroit.

As it is, we're at 2 games apiece and if ever a very good team looked in trouble, it's the Pistons. They had no answer for LeBron in the fourth quarter last night. Seriously folks, how does one stop a step back three-point fade away jump shot? S.O.L. bows down to his Kingness.

I wonder if the Jazz is toast after that awful display of losing its cool in Game 4. In my mind's eye, I was watching Deron watching LeBron last night and thinking, "I can do that.

Well, I can't do that sick shit, but I can lead my team to victory."

But I'm not sure about the psychological makeup of the Jazz. I guess we'll all find out tonight.

Later today: another Mets comeback.

Welcome to the NBA

Los Angeles Sunset
Roll out two welcome mats this week for young comers, LeBron James and Deron Williams.

For Deron (pronounced like Darrin), the welcome party was not a good one. Coming off a great Game 3 performance in which he single-handedly got his team back into their playoff series against the Spurs, Williams had to fight the effects of a stomach flu and a tough defense down the stretch in watching his team flail, fade and fall to the Spurs in the crucial Game 4. Now the Spurs get two of three in San Antonio to close out the series and get to their fourth title game in the last decade.

Meanwhile, the young Jazz have only to sit and wonder why. And part of the reason is with the meltdown of the team's one supposed veteran. Derek Fisher, until now an inspirational figure and floor leader during Utah's playoff run, completely fucked his team last night. His flopping has always been more suited for World Cup Soccer than the NBA and when he wasn't getting the calls last night, he lost his cool and Utah lost the series.

I'm not sure this is a game you can rebound from but Deron Williams is such an unusual character and such a gifted player, that I think it's entirely possible to see this series return to Utah. Playoff teams have to grow up sometime. Why wait til next year?

Halfway across the country, the NBA's so-called lessor Division is playing basketball too. The feeling among most experts is that Detroit and Cleveland are playing for the right to lose the NBA finals to whoever comes out of the West. I think it's overstated but there's no doubt that the East is way behind the West in terms of fielding the NBA's best basketball teams.

Like the Spurs, the Pistons rushed out to a 2-0 lead and looked headed to an easy series win. But LeBron James continued his maturation as player and leader and with each passing quarter, his play has subtly and not so subtly improved by noticeable increments. Cleveland didn't so much as beat the Pistons on Sunday, LeBron took it from them.

Word is that shooting guard and quality defender Larry Hughes will miss tonight's game with a food injury but I'm not so sure this will slow down LeBron just yet. I think a switch went off somewhere in the course of the fourth quarter in Game 2 and he's coming to understand how to win playoff games. I don't know if he has the horses to help him but I do know that the Pistons are beatable (Chicago won two straight off the Pistons in the last series after they took a 2-0 lead against them) and Dwayne Wade proved last year that they are susceptible to a one-man team.

The Pistons strength is keeping the game close until the fourth where their quality defense (especially in playoffs) and ice-water shooters (Chauncey Billups and Richard Hamilton) hit just enough down the stretch to give them the win. But in a close game, there's no guarantee of stopping a guy like LeBron when he gets it. And right now, he's getting it in a big way.

It's clear by now that S.O.L. fears the end of the basketball season is upon us and for that reason, I'm rooting for the underdog in both series. I'm not ready to give up on the hoops obsession, even if USA basketball is coming this summer. Shit, especially since USA basketball is coming.

Poor Kobe

Kobe announced this weekend that he’s frustrated by the lack of progress by his Lakers and the inability of the front office to surround him with a championship caliber team.

Kobe’s solution is to invite Jerry West back to L.A. when the Logo officially steps down from his current job in Memphis.

The irony here runs deeper than a black hole. In the Kobe-said, Shaq-said fallout in L.A. two summers ago, plenty of blame went around. But no one can convince me that Kobe did not want to be The Man in Lakerland, at any cost. The cost was, apparently, Shaq being run out on a rail – all the way to South Beach where he got his, with the help of Dwayne Wade and a bunch of has been backups.

Meanwhile, Kobe has the Lakers to himself, continues to fail to learn what it takes to be an actual leader of them and wonders why he’s been watching the playoffs (and in his mind less talented players) from the confines of his own home?
Deny all he wants, but Kobe could have gone to Jerry Buss and been a real man and said “do what it takes to keep the big fella – I’ll make it work”. But he didn’t and if anyone’s surprised at the results, they’re not paying attention.

You can’t call yourself a leader. You have to actually be a leader. You don’t have to be a nice guy, you have to get your team to believe – not in you but in themselves. You have to show them the way and let them know they can follow you over the steepest cliff and if they crash, you will crash together. And never, for even a second, let them think you will ask of them what you wouldn’t do yourself.

You want a team leader? Watch the Utah-Spurs game tomorrow night. Take a gander at a kid named Deron Williams. Shoot, you could have your pick tonight in Cleveland – between LeBron and Billups. You want leaders. Them there’s leaders.

Don’t cry for Kobe. Unless you want to cry for his thick head.