Muy Beno: Links of the Day (A new RwH production)

(Muy Beno, you'll recall, is my oh-so-clever homage to Beno Udrih when I write NBA posts that are not directly related to the Celtics.)

I read a lot on the Internet about pro basketball. A lot. I subscribe to well over 100, maybe approaching 200, blogs through RSS, and several hundred blog posts pass through my Google Reader on any given day, and while I read the full text of very few of them, I scan the headlines and read stuff that intrigues me, stuff that pertains to guys on my fantasy team, and stuff that pertains to players I like.

A lot of blogs throw together a daily links post full of essential reading. That's not my goal; if you want a comprehensive compilation of Celtics coverage, check out Celtics Blog, and if you were worried about missing a single bit of vital information from the excellent basketball blogs out there, you'd subscribe to them yourself. But I do think it'd be fun to share a few items -- maybe a handful -- that are informative, entertaining in themselves, or allow me to amuse myself with commentary and/or witticisms.

As the moniker "Links of the Day" suggests, my ultimate goal is to do this daily. Knowing me and my schedule, however, this could quite quickly turn into "Links Whenever I Feel Like It Or Have The Time." But we'll try it out.

• This video of Dwight Howard training with Hakeem Olajuwon was all over the basketball blogosphere today. The stuff at the beginning and the end is entertaining, and it's cool to catch little tips like the one around 2:30 into the clip, when Hakeem teaches Dwight to hop while catching an entry pass in order to catch the defender off-guard for a quick spin to the baseline. But the other stuff is kind of meh. Howard's athleticism has never been in question, so it's not all that surprising to watch him spin and glide and jump. But on the offensive end, Howard's instincts have always been a little off, and workouts like this one will do little to change that. This surely isn't the first time he's been shown a drop step or a spin move or an up and under. He worked with Patrick Ewing for the last couple of years, and I guarantee you that Ewing wasn't pushing him to shoot the running lefty hooks he resorts to so often. My sense is that Howard, at least at the start, will get one move in his head when he makes the catch and see it through no matter what, which is going to make for some tough possessions. Nice to see Dream playing a bit better than he did in that "Pros vs. Joes" episode.
• I link to this other Howard video only to introduce you to NBA Playbook, an excellent blog that also had this post on the Celtics today.
• Via Ball Don't Lie (and RwH reader Dave Roberts, and a ton of other blogs), a complete list of unlockable characters in the new NBA Jam video game.
• The NBA GM survey is out, and just one GM thinks Boston will win the NBA championship (well, one besides Danny, because GMs weren't allowed to vote for their own team). Considering we were a few minutes (and a Kendrick Perkins injury) away from winning the title in June, this seems low, especially given our off-season additions. I wonder if it's all because of what Miami did, or if Perk's injury caused some GMs to shy away from picking the Cs.
• Dime Magazine proposes new team names for all 30 NBA clubs. If you're strapped for time, the write-ups for the Bulls, Cavs, Lakers, and Sixers were particularly clever. The rest vary from mildly funny to pretty stupid.
• This is a not a headline a basketball fan ever wants to see about his team.

RwH Wednesday Night Mashup

Apologies for posting this a day late. I had a ton of basketball on my plate last night and didn't get all the away through it. I don't know how Kelly Dwyer does it. It was a bit like being drunk: I don't remember parts of the evening; I fell asleep in my chair; at one point, I made a sandwich but didn't bother using a plate, resting it on my chest in between bites.

This afternoon, though, I caught up. Brief thoughts on everything I watched.

Boston 105, Utah 86 [recap] [box score]

I DVRed this game and watched it after getting home from Clips-Thunder (see below). It seems like it was one of these games where no one and nothing in particular stands out, except for the fact that one team seems overmatched. I supposed Rajon Rondo's night stands out, statistically, but it wasn't one of those games that he just controls; his 14 points and 11 assists came rather quietly. In all, Boston had seven guys in double figures, led by Kevin Garnett's 18. The Jazz, now 3-5, certainly don't look like a playoff team right now.

TMJF: Blazers 107, Wolves 84

Stat Line: 25 minutes, 5-11 FG, 1-2 3FG, 4-4 FT, 15 pts, 6 rebs, 1 asst, 2 TOs.

I sorta zoomed through this one this afternoon because I already knew the score (it turns out that trying to avoid learning the score of three NBA games while attending another NBA game is a fairly pointless exercise). Jonny Flynn had what is becoming his usual game, playing solidly until he felt the game slipping away, then trying to force the action a little too much. Coach Kurt Rambis gave him an early hook after a few poor trips before the half and to start the third quarter. Flynn's replacement, Ramon Sessions, had his best game of the year (1o points, 5 assists), and I guess we'll soon see how steep Rambis expects Flynn's learning curve to be.


Muy Beno: Oklahoma City 83, Los Angeles Clippers 79

Wow, this was an ugly game. The Thunder seemed content to shoot jumpers all night, missing most of them, while LA's Chris Kaman, perhaps upset by being left off the All-Star ballot despite being the reigning Western Conference player of the week, missed a variety of bunnies on his way to a nice little 9-for-26.

At this point, you're probably wondering, "What did you expect?" And it's fair to wonder why I'd even bother going to a Thunder-Clips game. The answer, of course, is Kevin Durant. KD is liable to put on a show every time he steps on the hardwood, and so when he comes to town, you go see him, particularly if you can get tickets for $2.99 on Ticket Exchange.

Durant had a relatively quiet 30 points on 12-of-20 shooting, but it's really jarring to see this guy in person. He's a peculiar mix of tall, long, and thin, a unique combo of lanky and gangly and athletic and smooth. Of course, you know this from his reputation and from watching him on TV. But until you see him live, you can't appreciate just how odd it is to see a guy built like him operate the way he does, draining long jumpers, gliding in for dunks, putting the ball on the deck, pulling up, and shooting in what seems like one continuous motion, the ball at the bottom of the net before you even realize it's left his hand. He's still one-dimensional, all offense, but what a spectacular dimension it is.

I love his nickname -- The Durantula -- but while his phsyique is vaguely insectual (!), his long, thin body and vast wingspan does nothing to recall the meaty, plodding arachnid from which the moniker is derived. It's a great nickname, but it's so inapt. Think I can drum up any public support for calling him The Praying Durantis?

Muy Beno: Cleveland 102, Orlando 93

This was by far the best performance of the season by a Cavs team that has struggled in the early going. The difference between this game and last season's Eastern Conference finals is that last night, Lebron James had some help from his teammates. Heading into last year's playoffs, all the talk was that James finally had the supporting cast he needed to win a title. But that cast, after playing so well all year as Cleveland amassed the league's best record, turned into a bouquet of shrinking violets in losing four out of six to the Magic last summer. Quite frankly, the rest of the Cavs looked afraid to create anything for themselves during that series, as though they feared that if they shot and missed, they'd be criticized for not getting the ball to the league's most dominant force.

Last night, the Cavs went to new acquisition Shaquille O'Neal early and often, drawing two quick fouls on Dwight Howard. Mo Williams, whose disappearance in the Eastern Conference finals was probably most notable because of how effective he had been during the regular season, was assertive from the outset. His confidence was no doubt buoyed by the fact that he was white-hot, hitting his first nine shots. Cleveland shot absurdly well for the stretch of the game that mattered, settling in at 48 percent for the night only after cooling off considerably in the last half of the third quarter and all of the fourth (with the game well in hand).

This wasn't on display last night, but it's been clear through the season's first couple of weeks that Cleveland and Orlando are both struggling to consistently incorporate new players into their attacks, though injuries and suspensions and other absences have no doubt contributed. That had to be expected, though, and it's worth noting in these pages only because it's in contrast to the entire KG-Ray Allen era in Boston. Two seasons ago, everyone expected the new-look Celtics to take some time to gel, but they hit the ground running on the way to league's best record and the franchise's 17th championship.

This year, a completely revamped second unit has meshed extremely well, despite losing a key component (Glen Davis) to injury on the eve of the season. Eddie House is still a chucker, and no one (including me) has a problem with it. Not even Rasheed Wallace, a guy who -- while he's never had an alpha dog complex -- is something of a volume shooter himself. No one seems to care that Wallace spends most of his time hoisting threes on the perimeter. Marquis Daniels has subordinated his playing time and statistics (he was a starter in Indiana, remember), gladly playing the role of facilitator for the bench guys. As a unit, they seem to have the same sort of chemistry that the starting group has.

Credit the coaching staff, I guess, as well as the leadership of the veterans that set the tone for the team. In a year where the race for best record in the East promises to be tight and homecourt advantage just might tip the scales in the playoffs, little things like a fast or slow start to the season just might make the difference.

Housekeeping: Please see the important update to Tuesday night's post on timing issues in the Denver-Chicago game.

Muy Beno: Quibbling Over Tenths of a Second

Denver beat Chicago 90-89 tonight after Brad Miller's last-second shot was (correctly) deemed to have left his hand a split-second after the horn. Miller sank a long two after catching an inbounds pass with three-tenths of a second left on the clock, but my argument with the referees and how these situations are handled in general actually starts with the play before.

With the score tied at 89, Denver's Chauncey Billups drove and was fouled with six tenths of a second remaining. He made the first free throw, and missed the second. Chicago's Joakim Noah grabbed the rebound, the horn sounded, and the game was apparently over.

The officials, however, ordered three tenths of a second put back on, ruling that the Bulls had called a timeout prior to the horn sounding. They did this without consulting the tape. By rule, Chicago had the right to advance the ball to midcourt, setting the stage for its last-ditch play.

Why three tenths? I can't say for sure, but I can make a good guess, because it's what first seemed proper to me, before I took a moment to think about it: The NBA has a rule that a player can catch and shoot in three tenths of a second -- anything less, and the player must tip the ball. Presumably, then, it takes as long to catch the ball and call timeout.

But hang on. If it takes three tenths to catch and shoot, it can't possibly take the same amount of time to catch and call timeout. Catching and shooting involves two distinct actions that must be taken by the same player; namely, gaining possession of the ball, and shooting it. Because you can call timeout verbally and because the officials presumably awarded the timeout to the Bulls on the basis of coach Vinny Del Negro alerting the officials prior to Billups' second shot that his team wanted a timeout as soon as they grabbed the rebound. The gaining of possession and the timeout occurred contemporaneously. Noah didn't bobble the ball. He presumably caught it as fast as anyone can or would have. There's nothing about the "catch" of a rebound that is different from the "catch" in the three-tenths-to-catch-and-shoot rule. Because the officials didn't consult the tape and therefore weren't measuring the time it took Noah to control the ball, the catch couldn't logically have taken three tenths to complete. Given the league's current rules, then, the refs should have put more time back on the clock.

On to the final play, where the three-tenths-to-catch-and-shoot rule again factors in. If we accept, as I think we have to, the premise that some players have quicker releases than other players, then for this rule to make any sense at all, three tenths of a second has to be the absolute minimum amount of time it takes to catch and shoot. If someone can do it faster, then it's unfair to take that skill away from them with the rule. In order for Miller to have gotten his shot off in time, his release would have to be at least as fast as any other player's in the league, something that isn't terribly plausible.

There are a number of other problems with this rule, and precision timing in the end-game in general. For instance, the rule -- at least in its application -- doesn't seem to contemplate where the receiver catches the ball. We've all probably seen instances of a player catching a ball away from his release point, moving it to said point, and releasing it, allegedly within the three tenths of a second time limit. Moving the ball from catch point to release point takes some amount of time, however small, and if you can catch, move, and release in three tenths of a second, you therefore can catch and release, without moving to a release point, in less time.

The way these situations are handled also treat human reaction time oddly, or at least inconsistently. Back when I played high school ball (without tenths of a second on our clocks or the benefit of replay), I learned from my father, a ref, that the rules allowed for one second of reaction time from the moment of the occurrence that triggered the stopping of the clock. For example, on a simple play where the ball goes out of bounds, there's no sensor in the physical basketball that automatically stops the clock the moment the ball hits the floor. The official has to notice that the ball has gone out of bounds and blow his whistle, and the scorer has to similarly react to the whistle. That takes time; hence, the one-second allowance for human reaction time. That time is "made up," so to speak, when the ball is inbounded, and the scorer re-starts the clock a fraction of a second after it has been touched (which is what triggers time beginning to run again).

Today, replay and tenths of a second eliminate this reaction time for stoppages, but it doesn't for restarts. By going to the tape, the officials can see a freeze-frame of the precise moment the ball hits the floor out of bounds, and can reset the clock accordingly, eliminating the reaction time. They cannot similarly do so when the ball is touched by a player on an inbounds pass, and the result is that teams get more time than they technically should.

I do not, at the moment, have a solution that preserves the precision timing an entire generation of basketball fans has become accustomed to. I think it's important, however, to understand the problems with the current system.

(UPDATE: My father, the former ref, did the research I should have done and discovered that, by rule, "no less than :00.3 must expire on the game clock when a player secures possession of an unsuccessful free throw attempt and immediately requests a timeout." This strikes me as kind of silly and arbitrary, as I see no reason why it should take as long to call a timeout as it does to shoot a basketball. But it appears that the officials were right, and I apologize to the officials, as well as anyone who may have been swayed by my argument. It's a good thing hardly anyone reads this blog.)

Muy Beno: A Rhymes With Hondo Production

Earlier, I introduced TMJF, billed as the first of two new features of RwH. Here's the second.
In addition to being a (slightly) clever pun on the Spanish phrase for "very good," the name "Muy Beno" is an homage to the Slovenian point guard for the Sacramento Kings, Beno Udrih. Phonetics are not my thing, but his name is roughly pronounced BAY-noh OOH-drick.

As a lover of basketball and an occasional bed-partner of writing and, above all, a person who values his opinion on the subject of basketball extremely highly, I've been thinking for a while now that I wanted to start an NBA blog and name it "Muy Beno" -- a mildly clever Spanish language pun and an homage to Beno Udrih, the Slovenian point guard for the Sacramento Kings. However, as the reader of my college basketball blog knows, more than one writing project at this stage in my life is too many, and only one gets my full attention. Combine this with the fact that I can hardly seem to keep this blog barely presentable in terms of graphics and updated links, and a separate NBA blog just doesn't seem plausible. So I've expanded the scope of this blog to include non-Celtics NBA musings, starting now.

This initial installment has just a few light items of interest, culled from the way-too-many NBA blogs I subscribe to in Google reader.

-First, rumor is that Sasha Vujacic is dating Maria Sharapova. (I'm not linking to a picture because my head is spinning with all the options to choose from. Plus, my Mom reads this blog.) Regardless of what Adam Levine may or may not have said about her, this is a grave injustice. Sasha may have a new haircut, but Maria deserves to be with someone who can play some D. Hasn't she seen this?

-Drew Gooden of the Dallas Mavericks has been accused of using a homophobic slur in a verbal battle with some hecklers in Los Angeles, and one of the alleged heckler-slash-victims is actor Chris Wylde. Fellow American University alums (circa the mid-to-late 1990s) know him better as Chris Noll.