NBA League Pass, and Mavs-Knicks

Good afternoon, everybody.  I’m back from a short hiatus and ready to hit it strong as the Knicks make their pre-All Star push.  Apologies for no Pistons preview; sometimes work just gets in the way – the donuts need extra glazing, we run out of sprinkles, I have to get in the van and go to the factory and they won’t price them wholesale on the spot and, well, you all know how it is in the donut game.

I also find myself unable to provide a retrospective on the Hawks game.  In the words of Chris Russo, “I did not see the game.”  Or rather, I would have seen the game, except for something NBA League Pass Broadband does that I feel I need to rant about for a while.

Dear NBA League Pass Broadband: Nobody uses you to find out who won the game.  I do not bring up my browser, go to your website, and launch the broadband video player simply to find out who won the game.  If I only wanted to find out who won, I would go to ESPN, or FoxSports, or NBA.com, or I’d check it on my phone, or I’d do probably 100 other things that don’t involve launching a video player on my laptop.  I launch the video player because – get this – I want to watch the game!  As if it were live!  So why do I have to access the Knicks game with my hand over my eyes like it was the last hour of Black Swan just to watch the game without first finding out what the score was?

The worst part of this is that you’ve actually anticipated that fans may want to watch archived games without being spoiled, and so have added a “hide scores” button…for previous days’ games only.  You haven’t simply made showing scores the default setting – the option to hide them doesn’t even exist!  So if I’m getting home too late to see my team live, but it’s still the same day, I have to do my best Cedric Ceballos impersonation to watch it.  Am I the only person on Earth who sometimes comes home too late to see the game live?  Do you think anyone in this situation would logically wait ‘til tomorrow to watch the game?

Remembering that I am paying a small ransom for this service is salt in the wound.  You are like Daniel Plainview, price-gouging me for your oil and every so often selling me a barrel of molasses.  And you cackle as you drink my milkshake.

Projected Starters:

PG – Jason Kidd: Not as much of a spot-up three-point threat as has been the last couple of years.

SG – DeShawn Stevenson: Minutes now trending downward after teammates implored Rick Carlisle to start him back in December.

SF – Brian Cardinal?!?!: You’re pulling my leg, right?

PF – Dirk Nowitzki: Has become an absolute mid-range killer.  52% FG this year.  Can we contain him and Brian Cardinal at the same time?

C – Ty Chandler: Tim Mozgov on Chandler: “I played against him in the world championships.  He was really strong.”  Do you think Mozgov is known among Russians for his deadpan delivery?  Or are they all like that?  I guess I would probably deadpan everything if I were Russian.  I don’t think Gallagher has much of a career if it’s five-below and everybody’s halfway down a fifth of vodka.

Knicks Rotation Queries: Mike D’Antoni has indicated that Wilson Chandler figures to play tonight, although we will probably see the same starters we saw against Detroit (meaning, Ronny Turiaf).  Also, Shawne Williams returns to the team after his one-game suspension for frontin’.

A Few Good Sentences on: Who else but Tim Mozgov?  D’Antoni has indicated that Mozgov has earned some minutes going forward, telling reporters, “23 and 14, a one shot deal?  I think I’ll try it again.”  I like that he can be so flippant about a guy he basically buried for two months as the team was outrebounded by the likes of Phoenix, and it took an injury and suspension to get him back on the court.  So he plays one good game and the reporter is an idiot for asking if we’ll see him again?

One caveat to Moz’s performance Sunday: those were 14 very soft rebounds.  Like, David Lee rebounding for Stephon Marbury and Jamal Crawford soft.  He doesn’t know when to challenge shots and when to hold to his man and box out, and when he does box out he isn’t very good at it.  To wit: Greg Monroe, eight offensive rebounds.  Nobody’s happier than I am about Moz, but let’s temper our enthusiasm for now.  Tyson Chandler isn’t going to let him get 14 rebounds and six dunks.

Defending Amar’e: Despite the Knicks’ larger lineup, the Mavericks appear set to put Chandler on Stoudemire to start the game.  Chandler tweaked his ankle Monday against Washington but says he’s good to go.  That presumably puts Dirk on Turiaf and Cardinal on Danilo Gallinari – talk about a favorable matchup.

Mavs’ Rotation: Despite being a legitimate MVP candidate, Nowitzki is putting up his lowest MPG since his rookie season.  At the small forward spot, Cardinal finds himself starting in place of the just-waived Sasha Pavlovic and Shawn Marion, who remains a steady but no longer spectacular wing player.  Rick Carlisle has said Cardinal will remain the starter for now, but he and Marion figure to see roughly equal minutes.  Peja Stojakovic, who has yet to make his Dallas debut, is not with the team as he recovers from a sore knee.  For tonight, you would have to figure Marion would present far more problems for Gallinari.

Toney Douglas  also figures to be on high alert as Dallas features two high-energy combo guards in Jason Terry and Northeastern alumnus JJ Barea.  In the frontcourt, the Mavs will trot out Ian Mahinmi and Brendan Haywood, with one trying to find his way into the rotation, and the other trying to find his way out.

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On Monday, I sat down to watch a bit of Wizards-Mavericks to figure out how the Knicks might match up.  After about three minutes, I knew I wasn’t going to learn anything: I was too busy watching Cardinal.  He’s so far below the standard of an NBA starter – it’s like if I wandered onto the stage of Wicked and had to belt out “Defying Gravity,” as the rest of the cast watches in horror, knowing they all could do better and wondering if there was a kidnapping backstage.

One thing Cardinal offers that Marion does not is steady three-point shooting, and that leaves Dallas with two starters who are primarily spot-up guys (Kidd being the other).  Stevenson is also a deep threat – that’s a lot of defenders who can’t afford to leave their men to help out on Dirk, and that makes it that much easier for Dirk to get the floor spacing necessary for him to go to work.  New York doesn’t have a stopper for Nowitzki – who does? – so as usual beating Dallas will require them to miss a few shots.  But with Dirk and Cardinal, and Haywood when he’s out there, the Knicks may be able to get some bunnies in transition.