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 The allure of the game Love it -- or not -- NBA Finals still have their moments
Posted: Friday June 25, 1999 11:39 AM
NEW YORK -- You know, it’s easy to hate the NBA. Mouthy players -- kids, most of them -- with too much money. Power-hungry coaches with zero sense of humor. Dumb mascots. Blaring music, bumping bodies, backing-in. Hype on hype, stupid catch-phrases (Note to Madison Avenue: We’ll tell you if we still love the freaking game), celebrities who somehow come up with courtside seats you couldn’t get in a deal with David Stern himself. Then along come the NBA Finals, the showcase of this over-packaged circus they call a professional sports league, and you’re drawn in. Maybe not as much as if Michael Jordan still were playing. But, hey, get over it. He’s gone. For now. No, you hear about Latrell Sprewell and Isaiah Rider and Shawn Kemp and all these guys who have major, personal problems to sort out, you see a sliver of an awful game on TV, or maybe you see a player in a suit that costs more than your whole wardrobe, and you think “Maybe I’ll watch baseball.” But, no. The NBA, dammit, keeps pulling you back. It’s like that Star Wars “prequel.” No way it’s as good as the original. But you have to see it anyway. The 1999 NBA Finals will not go down as one of the best ever played. The title series comes at the end of the most raggedy season in the history of the league. Maybe it’s a season that shouldn’t have been played in the first place. The offenses struggle, mostly. A lot of open shots are missed. The fluid games that marked the NBA back when Magic and Bird and -- you know, MJ -- were playing are missing. But there are the New York Knicks anyway, playing as if they really do care. There’s that damn Sprewell, that coach-choker, making a dash to the basket that takes your breath away. And being so damn nice and straightforward and even-keeled in all his interviews. And there’s Allan Houston, stopping and popping, releasing a jumper as sweet as any since -- who? MJ maybe? And then you have those San Antonio Spurs, a nice little group of players with a young, talented center who has all the facial expressions of a Beanie Baby and a point guard that could pass for one (Avery, the Little General). The Admiral, David Robinson, is a player anyone can like, really. By most accounts, the Spurs, looking like they will win it all, are a bunch of nice guys, an anomaly in NBA circles. They suck you right in. It’s hard to like the NBA at times. Big money, slick advertising, inflated egos ... all that. It’s really, really hard. But it is possible. Watch Avery Johnson in the rest of these Finals, which may well end Friday night. See if anyone plays with as much heart. Take a look at Houston. See if you can find a sweeter jumper anywhere. For true grit, gander at Mario Elie’s game, the guy who has had to try to stop Houston. Isolate on him. Watch him work. Feel for Jeff Van Gundy. See the way Robinson carries himself. Even though the Spurs threaten to make a near-sweep of this thing, ending the season many would just as soon forget, the ’99 Finals have had some drama. That’s the thing about the NBA Finals -- you can almost never read them. Many figured the Spurs would sweep this year, but the Knicks -- the first No. 8 seed to ever make a Finals -- stopped that in Game 3. Despite the lockout at the beginning of the season, despite the shortened seasons and the sometimes plodding play -- despite the absence of MJ, even -- the fact is, the NBA Finals have still been worth watching this season. They can still suck you in. We may not still love this game. But, you have to admit, it’s tough to hate it sometimes. John Donovan is senior writer for CNNSI.com. Comments? To e-mail Donovan, click here.
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