Worst of the Night: March 20, 2008
Craig Sager: He's the reason I got out of bed on my day off to do a post. If you watched the Celtics/Mavericks game and looked closely enough during the Sager segments, you might have noticed that his handkerchief had a little, multi-colored tiger head on it. Fully exposed, in fact, so it's clear that Sager wanted it seen. I'll wait for you to stop shuddering. Okay. Now, I spent almost 20 minutes scouring the Internet for designer hankies with brightly-colored tiger faces on them and came up with nothing. Maybe it's because I spent 18 of those minutes actually searching for "Gwen Stefani in bikini," or maybe it's because Sager has one of those bubble-headed Area 51 aliens locked in his basement sewing space clothes for him to wear to work. The world may never know.
Of course, Sager's suits are a weekly source of discussion and entertainment for basketball fans who watch The NBA on TNT. Sager gets mentioned here every once in a while, like when Baron Davis laughed at Craig's ugly suit du Semaine, or when Steve Nash stole his hanky to give Amare Stoudemire a wipedown. A common question I get asked in e-mails and the comments section is, "Why does Sager wear those nasty suits?" I've never answered before because I always assumed the question was rhetorical. I mean, it's obvious, isn't it? Sager's zoot suits almost always get a cheap laugh and they are the only interesting thing about his sideline reports. Think about it. Can you think of one thing that Sager "the reporter" has ever said or done that was even remotely memorable? Okay, that time he pre-announced Reggie Miller's retirement, which caused Reggie to freak out on him, was pretty funny. But that's it. Getting made fun of by Kevin Garnett is the only reason we want to see Sager, isn't it?
Chicago Bulls: The Bulls played poorly -- 37 percent shooting, 18 percent in threes, 16 turnovers, and a 102-80 home blowout by the Spurs -- but that's nothing new. Not this season, anyway. The real problem, for me, was that the Bulls just kind of rolled over and died. Jim Boylan did what any other good lame-duck coach would do and blamed himself: "We just did not have our enthusiasm the way it needed to be. I have to be honest and say I did not have us ready to play. I will shoulder that responsibility." While it's nice and all that he was willing to literally take one for the team, and while I agree that a coach needs to be able to motivate his squad, I wouldn't be so quick to lay this turd pile at Boylan's feet. The Bulls haven't had much enthusiasm all year. That joy deficit got Scott Skiles fired, and it's going to doom Boylan too (I give it about a day or two after the regular season ends). At what point are the players going to choose to turn things around? After the game, Ben Gordan said, "We've been inconsistent all year. I can't say I'm surprised by the effort tonight." If that's not a player who's already planning his summer vacation, I don't know what is. And Gordan's attitude pretty much sums up everything you need to know about the 2007-08 Chicago Bulls: They know they suck, but they either can't or won't do anything to change it.
Ernie Johnson: He tried to make a big deal about the fact that, the last time the Lakers played in Utah, the Delta Center crowd -- yes, I refuse to call it the EnergySolutions Arena -- booed Derek Fisher, who had been last year's playoff hero. Johnson of course pulled the sympathy card and claimed that the only reason Fish had nulled his contract with the Jazz was because he wanted to move to a city where his daughter could get treatment for her eye cancer condition. He followed his explanation with a short video of Fisher saying how getting booed had felt very personal. How could those bastard Utah fans do such a thing?! Kudos to Charles Barkley for once again telling it like it is: Fisher could have gone a lot of places to ensure his daughter had adequate treatment, but the reality is he wanted to play for the Lakers. That means he was willing to forsake the Jazz for one of their bitterest rivals. What are the fans supposed to do? Send him a fruit basket?
Jason Kidd: Is it just me, or does it feel like Kidd's scoring ability has gone way past the point of no return? I thought he'd get some better, easier looks in Dallas -- which he is -- and that he'd start knocking some of them down -- but he isn't. Kidd's latest ham-handed shooting performance saw him score 2 points on 1-for-8 shooting. And mind you, it was reported during the game that Kidd showed up three hours early to work on his shooting with Dallas assistant coach Mario Elie. I can only assume that extra practice helped him be 1-for-8 instead of 0-for-8. Since the trade, the Mavs' ball movement has been better but Kidd's inability to put the ball in the hoop is killing them. They traded one problem for another and, for now, it seems like they're just sort of dog-paddling in place. Which I guess is better than sinking altogether, but still...
Dirk Nowitzki: I'm not going to bust on Dirk for failing again in the clutch. Instead I'm going to rag on out how he did it. Dirk missed a layup with 21 seconds left that could have tied the game. The reason Herr Nowitzki missed is that, on the drive, he received a little nudge from Kevin Garnett. Instead of focusing on trying to complete the play, Dirk intentionally fell sideways a little in what I'm assuming was an attempt to get a whistle. This, of course, is the exact opposite of how he blew the game versus the Lakers, when he deftly avoided a flying Lamar Odom to put up a crazy, off-balance three. The two situations were different, and he handled each one incorrectly. If he would have let Odom fly into him on the shot attempt, he would have gotten the call. No question. But the refs won't call a bump foul on drives at the end of a tight game. They just won't. Which is why Dirk should have ignored the contact and concentrated on hitting the layup.
Rajon Rondo and Sam Cassell: Rondo had zero points on 0-for-7 shooting and committed 5 turnovers. He was benched in favor of Sam Cassell, who performed only marginally better by scoring 4 points on 1-for-9 shooting and having three of his shots fed back to him. Rondo's shooting touch comes and goes, but he usually makes up for his alligator arms with a little fiesty scrapping. However, there was neither fiest nor scrap from Rondo last night. And as for Sam-I-Am, well, it's clear that he's not 100 percent comfortable within Boston's system, and he's not used to being an off-the-bench roleplayer. He's forcing things offensively, although he's playing better than expected defensively (he got a clean block on Jerry Stackhouse that shocked the hell out of me). It's a concern. Not a full-fledged "Orlando Magic backcourt" level concern, but it's something for Doc Rivers to keep an eye on.
Paul Pierce: I'm not letting Pierce off the hook just because the Celtics won. With a little less than two minutes to go and the Celtics leading 88-87, Pierce bricked a couple freethrows that would have given Boston a three-point lead (I know, I'm a real math wiz). Dallas took the lead on their very next possession thanks to a couple Nowitzki freethrows. Of course, a few possessions later, Ray Allen hit the go-ahead three to put the C's on top, but if he hadn't hit it, Pierce would have been The Goat.
Utah Jazz: Not to take anything away from the Lakers, because they came out focused and ready, but the Jazz seemed to decided en masse not to play any defense until the second quarter, by which time they were already down 20. And last time I checked, spotting good teams a 20-point lead doesn't lead to many wins. The SportsCenter guys got a real kick out of Utah's tissue-paperesque D, showing clip after clip of Lakers strolling to the basket for uncontested layups and saying that the Jazz "could best be described as conscientious objectors on defense." It was weird. I always expect a little more toughness out of a Jerry Sloan team.
Update!! Reuters caption writers: This Worst of the Night nomination comes from Ben Q. Rock of the Third Quarter Collapse: "WotN: The guy at Reuters responsible for writing the caption to this picture. I understand that the '1' on Ronny Turiaf's uniform is obscured, but how does anyone mistake Turiaf for Derek Fisher? Especially when he's dunking authoritatively?"
