I Merry Omicron, NBA
With NBA team rosters decimated by COVID-19, but the league still eschewing lockdown [1], the opening game of five carefully chosen Christmas match-ups featured the Knickerbockers at home in The Garden against the Atlanta Hawks, the team that had eliminated them last year. Atlanta was missing fully eight players (they even activated Lance Stephenson), including Trae Young, the reason they were even playing on Christmas. These players had been exposed to the virus, and had “entered the treatment protocols,” meaning that they had to demonstrate that they were not–or no longer–dangerously infectious.
With Young out, it fell to the 6’ Kemba Walker to gratify lovers of ordinary sized players. The twelve hour television extravaganza started with a Kemba-ya moment with Walker scoring the game’s first basket (a three, of course), and igniting the hometown Knicks to a 19-3 start, on four three pointers, two by their explosive star Julius Randle.
As if an antibody fighting the virus, Walker was playing in only his third game after missing ten straight, the last nine by coach’s decision. Having been taken out of the rotation altogether for nearly a month, Kemba had been returned to the starting line-up because of a serious injury to point guard Derrick Rose, who will miss at least eight weeks because of ankle surgery. The extreme demands of COVID must also–one has to suppose–be increasing the injury risk for those still standing, as players may be required–if healthy–to play additional minutes, and in unaccustomed combinations. So much for getting in a groove, for establishing a rhythm.
Led by the hot shooting of Walker, Randle, and Evan Fournier, the Knicks jumped to a 30-21 lead at the quarter, and got a lift from nine straight early points by second year player O.B. Toppin, who later demonstrated his star potential with dunk contest caliber highlights.
A 61-51 halftime lead helped the Knicks survive a third quarter cold spell to win 101-87, powered by twenty threes.
Walker wound up with a triple double (of the leanest kind: 10,10,12), just the third of his entire career, his first in over seven years. The Knicks rode their hot shooting (twenty threes) and Randle’s in particular (6-9 on threes), muscle (12 rebounds), and leadership to complete a second half rout for a decisive 101-87 win. So far, so good for the home teams.
II At Home with the Defending Champs
Readying for the day’s second match-up, Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo had just emerged from being “in protocol,” in time for Christmas and in time to help host the streaky and disappointing Boston Celtics. The great Milwaukee star has become a universally popular player along the lines (though not quite as much) of Steph Curry. Both embody Steve Kerr’s mantra-like admonition to “play with joy.”
All season, the virus has been a player, an active force, with players being suddenly side-lined, fans disappointed they’d paid top dollar for tickets they’d not have bought “had they known,” and coaches scrambling to adjust. The league had been distinguished for its good sense and proactive planning when it comes to COVID, having pulled off their Great Bubble Experiment in 2020, and segued smartly–almost seamlessly–into and through another season, which wound up crowning Antetokounmpo’s Bucks, but only after barely escaping elimination by the Brooklyn Nets.
Brooklyn’s equally brilliant and equally long (but not equally strong, though more skilled) superstar Kevin Durant had come within a sneaker size of eliminating the Bucks in their decisive seventh game in the Eastern Conference Finals.
Durant is among the handful of players typically mentioned as candidates to succeed (or as having already succeeded) Lebron James as the contemporary challenger to Michael Jordan’s status as the consensus GOAT, but he too was stuck “in protocol,” a kind of Christmas basketball bardo. “KD” is unique among the new group of GOAT candidates in that he is not universally loved and admired, putting him more in the category of James, as opposed to Curry, Antetokounmpo, Dallas’s Luca Doncic, and Denver’s Nikola Jokic, the league’s reigning MVP, whose marvelous play may even be exceeding last year’s, though his mastery is being overlooked because of injuries to his supporting cast.
COVID and the increased injury rate due to its more contagious strain, has exacerbated a host of other factors making our beloved game increasingly unsafe at warped speed!
Against Boston, the defending champion Bucks rode a fabulous thirty-six point effort by their great star to come from nineteen points down and prevail 117-113, but only after a sensational game-saving block by Giannis, reminiscent of his play in last year’s Finals victory against Phoenix. His superb second half ensured another Christmas victory for the home team, leading me to recall the time when there was only one NBA Christmas game, and it seemed that the home team always won. Was it too far-fetched to suspect a fix in favor of the home team for Christmas?
III It’s Legit: On the Road with Draymond Green
With the memory of that theory revived, I wondered how it might play out as Golden State visited Western Conference champion Phoenix. These teams had the league’s two best records, and had split their previous two games.
If sentimentality were to be a measure of anything, it would have to favor rampaging Steph Curry, who recently became the all-time leader in three point field goals (setting a record that he continues to extend, probably to the point that it may never be broken) and whose popularity is unprecedented, with the partial exception of Michael Jordan. The exception is only partial because, although Jordan was as intensely beloved, there were also haters, whereas Curry seems to have none at all. It’s a lot easier for kids to imagine themselves able to be like Steph.
But wherever Curry shines, look for Draymond Green in the shadowy background, and Green had made it a point of irritation that his team was playing on the road for a second straight year, meaning that he once again would be separated from his two young children on Christmas. Who better than to cheerfully oppose the Christmas curse against visiting teams than Draymond Green?
Being without two starting players (Andrew Wiggins and Jordan Poole) as well as Andre Iguadola, Curry, with 33 points himself, got tremendous help from not only Green, but the slew of distinct role players that Warrior management has so cleverly assembled. On this night, Otto Porter, Jr. was the most outstanding, with thirteen fourth quarter points, as Golden State outlasted Phoenix 116-107 in the day’s best game. The Warriors are both loaded and tremendously versatile, and still await the imminent comeback of Klay Thompson and James Wiseman. Meanwhile, adapting perfectly to the Warriors’ European style of play, 6’9” 33 year old Nemanja Bjelica has been a dream addition to a long bench that also includes Gary Payton, Jr. and Jonathan Kuminga, a raw 19 year old with an uncanny physical resemblance to Kawhi Leonard.
IV Los Angeles: The Sun Never Sets, Or Does It?
The day’s fourth game had been carefully chosen, but that was before the virus had its say, and added to the disruption caused by Kyrie Irving’s refusal to submit to vaccination. Earlier this season, Irving, who had already trashed two franchises (Cleveland and Boston), was told that the Nets do not want him part-time; a particular kind of part-time, as local restrictions do not permit him–unvaccinated–to play or practice at home (in New York City) or in Canada.
Net management decided, initially, quite sensibly, that they did not want him on that basis, even though they would still have to pay him for those road games, given that it was the team’s choice– not his–for him not to play. But recently, management decided they would use him on a limited basis. Presumably, wear and tear on the rest of the team has become a factor, a sufficient one for Net management to welcome him back. On the road against the Lakers, Irving would presumably be able to play, but his conditioning remained an issue, and he will be subject, like everyone else, to the league’s health and safety protocols, which involve extensive testing for the virus.
So for the featured game of the day, Durant was in protocol, from which James Harden had just emerged, and Irving was still in limbo, but the show needed to go on: it’s sad to see Lebron stuck in this Laker mess. Even without an assist from COVID, age and injury (will Anthony Davis, though plenty young, ever be Anthony Davis again for any protracted period?) seem to have brought down this once-proud collection of Lakers, who have added Russell Westbrook and Carmelo Anthony, only to find their chemistry spoiled or non-existent. The hallowed Laker brand now resembles a half-way house for the partial rehabilitation of former super-stars who must now become role players.
With Davis sporting a regal orange khaki outfit (gone–but missed–are the days one could riff about it), James played hard, always well, but could not dominate the game at any time. Think about that! Inconceivable; even recently.
Durant and Antetokounmpo, because of their superior size, are sometimes compared favorably to James. I’m not convinced, but a good case can be made. And here The King was, dueling James Harden, with whom he split 45 first half points (but which James had the 23?), as the Nets held a 68-62 lead in a first half that only got that close because of a late Laker spurt. Harden was clearly in charge on his end. Was Lebron on the other?
With the Net lead ballooning to102-82, the camera caught Lebron looking on helplessly. His club made a subsequent 22-3 run, but Patty Mills’ outside shooting saved the Nets in the face of a second Laker surge, a 31-8 run. The game was tied at 115, but ended in a 122-115 loss.
So much for my home court fix theory. Still left was Dallas-Utah, but Doncic was out, and I was pissed off to not get a look at Jokic. Denver wasn’t even on the day’s card. I decided to skip the fifth game, but first I took my temperature.
Notes
1 A comparison of the leadership capabilities of Adam Silver and Joe Biden eludes the scope of this article.
2. Kawhi Leonard is another of those ambivalently loved baby goats, along with Joel Embiid, and James Harden. This of course leaves out Kyrie Irving, but he’s left himself out, by his refusal to submit to vaccination.