The world according to Jim:
• Sorry, Lakers fans. We’re going to have to dredge up some painful memories here for a few moments, but there’s a point to be made.
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When the San Antonio Spurs spit up a 29-point lead Wednesday night to go down 3-1 to the New York Knicks in the electric atmosphere of Madison Square Garden, it surpassed the NBA Finals record for largest one-game blown lead that had been established by the Lakers, against the archrival Boston Celtics, in Game 4 in 2008. …
• The scenario was similar if not a carbon copy. The Lakers lost Games 1 and 2 in Boston and won Game 3 at Staples Center, 87-81. After a quarter in Game 4, they were ahead by 21, and Sasha Vujacic’s 3-pointer from a Kobe Bryant feed made it 45-21 with 6:45 left in the first half. At that point, the place was rocking.
But Boston outscored the Lakers 76-46 the rest of the way, including two 10-0 runs. Eddie House’s jumper put the visitors up to stay with a little more than four minutes left, and the final was 97-91. The Lakers made one of their last 10 shots in the third quarter and nine of their last 30. And after that game, Lamar Odom told us:
“We let our execution affect our defensive play, and they took the game from us. We’ve got to play the same way, with the same effort, throughout the game, especially a game when we’re up 20. If you don’t, you know, you saw what happened tonight.” …
• Here’s the footnote, and this too is good news/bad news for Lakers fans: L.A. won Game 5, also at home in what was then a 2-3-2 Finals format, but was crushed in Game 6 in Boston. The Lakers then went on to win titles the next two years, including a Game 7 victory over Boston at home in 2010.
The bad news in this scenario? The Spurs, down 3-1, aren’t going to win this one in all likelihood. But they’ll learn from this, they’ll be back, and they’ll be a force to be reckoned with in the Western Conference for seasons to come. …
• That said, if you have the ball and a one-point lead with 13 seconds left, why in heaven’s name aren’t you pulling the ball out – this means you, De’Aaron Fox – and forcing them to foul you? …
• My other question, and maybe I’m too much of an old-school adherent, but if you have the tallest guy on the floor in 7-foot-4 Victor Wembanyama, why aren’t you getting him to the low block when you’ve had an offensive drought and badly need a bucket?
Yes, he’s a marvelous talent, and bigs are expected to shoot and make 3-pointers in modern hoops. But it wouldn’t hurt him to reach out to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and ask him, “How did you develop the skyhook?” …
• Watching that scene in the Garden for both Knicks’ home games, didn’t it make you miss Finals games in L.A.? I mean, those used to be a June tradition here. …
• And both the NBA Finals and the Stanley Cup Final have provided this reminder, as did last year’s classic World Series between the Dodgers and Toronto: One of the best parts of a playoff series is the storyline, the drama and tension that build as a series proceeds.
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Even though the Knicks-Spurs series is 3-1, there have been tons of talking points. And if you’re not following the NHL’s Vegas-Carolina series, you’re missing out. …
• So, a question for Ducks fans: Are you rooting for the Golden Knights, figuring that their winning the Cup would make your team look better? Or are you rooting for the Hurricanes because you still hold a grudge? …
• Today’s quiz: New Kings coach Peter Laviolette is the 29th head coach (including interim) in franchise history and just the second to have won a Stanley Cup in a previous head coaching stop, at Carolina in 2006. This is a two-parter: Who was the other head coach to do so? And how many of the other head coaches in Kings history won Cups in previous stops as player, assistant coach or in the front office? Answers below. …
• This headline from The Athletic: “Gianni Infantino has no regrets over U.S. as co-hosts, suggests people ‘chill’ over World Cup visa issues.” Has there ever been an organization, or a leader, as tone-deaf and out of touch as FIFA and Infantino are? …
• Oh, and here’s another classic, also from The Athletic: At a pre-World Cup briefing last year with some L.A. officials, someone described as a senior FIFA executive laid out the organization’s game plan – which, as our own Scott M. Reid reported earlier this week, translates to: “The benefits are ours, the costs are yours.”
As the story put it, L.A. Sports and Entertainment Commission CEO Kathryn Schloessman raised her hand to essentially ask what, exactly, her city was going to get out of this besides a mountain of debt. The response: ““Hosting this tournament will put your city on the map.”
Seriously?
• It’s too bad this FIFA executive was not named. He deserves to be mocked, as does anyone else in that organization who treats this region, or any other, as some sort of unsophisticated backwater. Pal, try getting out a little bit more before you suggest L.A., or anyplace else on this continent, needs your help.
Especially at this price. …
• When do event sponsorships border on the absurd? During the NBC telecast of the U.S. Women’s Open at Riviera last weekend, a graphic noted the legendary Ben Hogan’s triumphs on that course by saying he had won the “Genesis Invitational” in 1947 and ’48. Wrong. It was known as the L.A. Open (he also won in 1942 at Hillcrest). Sponsorship dollars don’t buy the right to rewrite history. …
Quiz answer: Marc Crawford was the only other coach hired by the Kings to have previously won a Stanley Cup as a head coach, with Colorado in 1996. However, 15 of the previous 28 were members of 43 Cup winners all told, either as players, assistant coaches, executives or scouts.
Larry Robinson (1995-96 to ’98-99) won 10, six as a player with Montreal, one as an assistant with New Jersey in 1993 (and two others with the Devils as head coach in 2000 and assistant in ’03, plus one as an executive with St. Louis in 2019). The other leaders: Red Kelly, who coached the 1967 expansion team’s first two seasons, won eight as a player (four with Detroit, four with Toronto). Johnny Wilson (an interim coach installed midway through the 1969-70 season) won four as a player with Detroit.
And Bob Pulford (’72-73 through ’76-77), arguably the franchise’s most successful coach before Darryl Sutter got there, won all four of his as a player with the Maple Leafs. (That 43, by the way, includes the 2012 and ’14 Cups, credited both to Sutter and then-assistant/later head coach John Stevens.)
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