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Bar Chat

05/31/2018

Let's Get Ready to Ruuummmbllllle!

[Posted Wed. a.m.]

NBA Quiz: Name the head coach for the following NBA champions: 1978-79 Supersonics, 1977-78 Bullets, 1976-77 Trail Blazers. Answer below.

Stanley Cup, Game One

Well, I put on NBC to catch the pregame show from Vegas as the Golden Knights took on the Capitals in the opener of the Stanley Cup Finals, and it was quite an affair.  I thought the Golden Knight Girls (or whatever they are formally called) outside at the pep rally with Lil Jon was a nice touch. Anytime you can see Monster Energy Girls, the Jets Flight Crew and their ilk is a good day for most guys. 

But I can’t say I particularly liked the way-over-the-top indoor show, though at the same time I fully understand that if you were in attendance, and a Knights fan, you’re eating it up, and it was loud for sure.

And, look, the Knights won 6-4, taking a 1-0 series lead heading into Wednesday’s Game 2.

Jesse Dougherty / Washington Post

“Here came a single Golden Knight, his plastic armor glowing beneath a yellow spotlight, his fake sword pointed at the ceiling, his eyes fixed on five red-caped skaters on the other end of the ice.

“One of those red-caped skaters held a Washington Capitals flag, triggering one big boo from the dark stands, lit only by iPhones raised to capture whatever may happen next. The Golden Knight reached his fake sword to his real neck and mimed a slow slash, showing he was ready to slay his enemies, one by one. Not long after, computerized arrows rained down from a makeshift castle, shooting through the arena like camera flashes, and the red-caped skaters fell to the ice before scrambling off it. There would be a hockey game inside T-Mobile Arena – at least eventually – but not before a performance fit for Las Vegas, if not so much a league known for its modesty. The improbable marriage of Vegas and hockey reached the NHL’s biggest stage Monday night, starting with one of the Golden Knights’ patented pregame shows and ending with their 6-4 win over the Capitals.

“The 10-minute pregame show included a pounding drum line, a spirited battle scene and a movie trailer-like monologue that declared: ‘The Capitals from the East attack our fortress. And they are here.’  The crowd responded with earsplitting chants of ‘Go Knights Go!’ Michael Buffer – famous for saying ‘Let’s get ready to ruuummmblllle!’ in a way no one else can – announced the starting lineups as if he were introducing heavyweight boxers at a nearby casino.

“Then the lights turned on and a hockey game began.

“ ‘I was ready to rumble,’ Golden Knights defenseman Nate Schmidt said, laughing, of Buffer bellowing his name before puck drop.  ‘Now I know how Floyd [Mayweather Jr.] has felt all these years.’

“ ‘We feed off that energy,’ forward Ryan Reaves said.  ‘I think we’ve been feeding off that energy all year.’

“That is how the Golden Knights climbed to 51 wins in their inaugural regular season, how they swept the Los Angeles Kings in the first round of the playoffs, how they beat the San Jose Sharks in six games in the second and then discarded the Winnipeg Jets in five in the Western Conference finals.  Blazing starts.  Relentless pushes into the offensive zone.  Using the crowd’s pregame pulse to trampoline into games that, more often than not, end with them on top.

“The players did not see the theatrics Monday.  They never do. The Golden Knights are always going through their last bits of preparation and, even if they weren’t, the ice is occupied. But they felt the building shake as they sat in the locker room, the heavy bass vibrate the walls as they walked through the tunnel, the noise rise as they skated through a giant golden helmet and into an arena covered in laser beams and lingering smoke.

“ ‘Those guys are doing an unbelievable job,’ Vegas forward Pierre-Edouard Bellemare said of the pregame performers. ‘And then it’s up to us to make sure that level of show keeps going.’”

And alas they have.

Game 1 television ratings, by the way, were outstanding; at a 3.72 overnight rating, the best finals opener in three years.  [But imagine if it had been Tampa-Winnipeg.]

Not surprisingly, Las Vegas had an overnight rating of 28.08, with Washington at 16.02.

NBA Playoffs

--Monday, the Golden State Warriors traveled to Houston for Game 7 of the Western Conference finals and emerged victorious, 101-92, after falling behind 54-43 at the half, down 17 at one point. Once again the Warriors put on a third-quarter show, outscoring the Rockets 33-15.

But the story was the shooting of Houston.  A  night after the Cavaliers and Celtics combined to shoot 16 of 74 from behind the arc, the Rockets were 7 of 44, at one point missing 27 straight three-point attempts!  What horrid basketball for purists. Why watch this garbage?

Monday, ‘superstar’ James Harden scored 32 in defeat, but was 2 of 13 from downtown. Teammate Trevor Ariza was 0 for 9, Eric Gordon 2 of 12.

Yes, Houston played without Chris Paul, who was out again with his hamstring injury, but when you shoot like this, you don’t deserve to win.  [Golden State was 16 of 39 from three, 41%.]

I like what the Washington Post’s Tim Bontemps wrote: “The Rockets look like they went into the locker room, realized they were 24 minutes from the NBA Finals, and completely freaked out.”

Bottom line, for a fourth consecutive season, we have a Warriors-Cavs final.  And the ratings should be huge, assuming LeBron can handle taking on Golden State, one-on-five.

Game 1 Thursday night in Oakland.

--Jason Gay / Wall Street Journal...on LeBron....

“He did it, not by himself, but pretty close. At 33, in his 15th professional season, LeBron James, the best basketball player in the world, is taking another team to the NBA Finals. It will be his eighth straight trip, and ninth overall.

“It’s crazy, this fact alone. I’ll leave the wrestling matches over LeBron vs. Jordan and LeBron vs. Bill Russell and LeBron vs. Kareem or Wilt or Anyone to the noisy talk shows and comments sections.  I don’t need an answer. I’m just happy to have seen him play. And I bet – even if you resisted at first – you feel that way about LeBron James, too.

“People have to understand, he’s playing at a different level,” said the Celts’ veteran Al Horford.”

--The Los Angeles Times’ Bill Plaschke reports:

“Don’t look now, but there seems to have been a disturbing change in the leadership of Los Angeles’ most admired sports franchise.  It appears LaVar Ball is now running the Lakers.

“That is the only reasonable explanation for why LiAngelo Ball was wearing Lakers practice gear and sprinting around a court at the practice facility Tuesday as one of six players invited to a pre-draft workout.

“A night earlier, the younger brother of Lonzo Ball was allowed inside Lakers headquarters for a private practice session, and proceeded to exploit the opportunity by putting on a brief dunk show that was videotaped and aired by TMZ.

“LiAngelo is not an NBA prospect.  He’s not close to being an NBA prospect. But he’s being handed some of the privileges afforded prospects, which means the Lakers could be gearing to place him on one of their summer league teams...which could lead to him playing for the developmental G-League team...which would make him one injury from becoming a real Laker.

“At that point, Magic Johnson and Rob Pelinka will have doubled down on this ugly Ball business, empowering the meddling and delusional patriarch when it should be attempting to silence him.”

--On the college front, if you’re a Wake Forest hoops fan, you’re wondering if we’ll win even two games in the conference next season.  In an offseason that has truly been a nightmare, solid guard Keyshawn Woods opted to forego his senior season (having graduated), and instead will play at Ohio State as a grad transfer.

And then improving big man Doral Moore, and star guard Bryant Crawford, decided to opt for the draft rather than return.  Neither has a chance of being drafted, and both should have returned to Wake instead, but if the goal is just to get out of school and play internationally (maybe...Crawford has a shot at the G-League), then I can understand.  Nothing wrong with making good money overseas for a decade.

But, coupled with some transfers and graduations, Wake has just four returning scholarship players!  They do have some decent recruits, so we are told, and they added two grad transfers, but, all told they now have just 10 scholarship players in the fold.

MLB

--Monday, the Yankees lost to the Astros’ Justin Verlander 5-1, Verlander continuing his phenomenal season with 6 2/3 of one-run ball, now 7-2, 1.11 ERA.  [Bob Gibson was 1.12 in 1968.]

Yankees rookie sensation Gleyber Torres, though, had a poor game, getting picked off to end an inning in a key spot, and then nonchalanting a throw to first on a routine grounder, allowing the runner to reach base when the throw went wide for an error; yet he also made two terrific plays.

The 21-year-old has been super at the plate, as advertised, but he has made some awful plays in the field, including mental mistakes.

Last night, though, Torres drove in two as the Yankees rallied to beat Houston 6-5 in 10, Brett Gardner with a dramatic two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth to send it to extra innings, so the Yankees are now 34-17, Houston 35-21.

But in the A.L. East, Boston keeps winning and is now 38-17 after an 8-3 win Tuesday over the Blue Jays, Rick Porcello improving to 7-2, 3.65, as his schizo career continues.

Back to the Yanks, Giancarlo Stanton has been receiving consistent boos for his play at the Stadium.  While he’s hitting .302 on the road, he is just .202 at home, with 44 strikeouts in 119 ABs.

--Monday, in the first game of a day-night doubleheader, the Mets’ Jacob deGrom was once again brilliant.  Not just that he allowed only one run in seven inning, but that he got out of trouble as he always seems to do.  Simply put, Mets fans following him the last few years know that he is the face of the franchise...the best single competitor in baseball (find someone better).

DeGrom has now allowed just 2 runs in his last 40 1/3 innings, over seven starts (some abbreviated), a 0.45 ERA. 

But for the year, in 11 starts, he is just 4-0, though with a 1.52 ERA.

How is this possible?  The Mets’ bullpen has sucked behind him and, incredibly, they lost Monday, 4-3, after deGrom handed Seth Lugo a 3-1 lead.

So that made it 4 straight beyond devastating losses in a row thanks to the pen. 

Well, in the second game of the day-nighter, which started around 10:00 p.m. due to rain, and ended at 1:28 a.m., the Mets recovered to win 8-5.

Then last night, well, I’m tired....let’s just say the Mets blew a 6-2 lead in the seventh and incredibly lost 7-6 on another walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth.  This is easily the most devastating stretch in recent memory.  Starter Steven Matz exited after three innings with a finger issue, seemingly the same one that forced the team to place stud Noah Syndergaard on the 10-day DL earlier in the day.  After an 11-1 start, the Mets are now 26-26.

Johnny Mac didn’t send my sword as requested days ago, claiming he had to use it himself, and I haven’t heard from him since.  I’ve tried to use my Swiss Army knife with the mini-hacksaw blade but it’s ineffective and I’m kind of making a mess of myself...and running out of peroxide and bandages.  [Plus I decided I wanted to see what happened in the Belmont, as well as golf’s last three majors, but maybe I’ll get the sword in time for November’s mid-term elections.]

Meanwhile, back to deGrom, 4-0 in 11 starts, that 1.52 ERA, he is 0-for-his-last 29 with runners in scoring position, and a major league best in history, 54 of 118 career starts, allowing one run or less.

--MLB is on track to have an average attendance of below 30,000 for the season, which would be the first time below that figure since 2003.  Not good.  Lack of putting the ball in play doesn’t help.  Yeah, chicks dig the long ball, but most of us also love singles, doubles, and triples...or sterling plays made in the field.

It also doesn’t help you have huge drops in attendance in the likes of Miami (for good reason) and Baltimore (ditto).

But prior to the Memorial Day weekend, you even had the likes of Pittsburgh dropping from 23,727 to 16,497, and Cleveland from 20,780 to 17,630. Weather isn’t the sole reason for the declines.

--Lastly, the NCAA baseball tournament gets underway this weekend, 64 teams, regionals and super-regionals, to come up with the eight who make it to the College World Series in Omaha.

Florida, despite losing six of its last seven, is the No. 1 seed at 42-17.  Stanford is No. 2, followed by Oregon State (Go Beavers!...Beaverwear stirring in my sports drawer...), Mississippi, Arkansas, North Carolina, Florida State and Georgia.

The SEC tied the tournament record with 10 teams in the field, including four top-eight seeds.

Virginia, which had made 14 tournaments in a row, fell short.

Golf Balls

--Augusta’s Broc Everett claimed the NCAA Men’s championship, the first collegiate win of his career. The redshirt senior from West Des Moines, Iowa, birdied the first playoff hole to beat Auburn freshman Brandon Mancheno.  Everett became the first Jaguar to make the NCAA title his first and only college victory since Florida’s Nick Gilliam in 2001 (and nothing against Nick and his family, but we haven’t seen him on any PGA Tour leaderboards that I can recall).

Meanwhile, in the team competition....the eight to make it to match play were: Duke vs. Texas; Texas Tech vs. Alabama; Oklahoma State vs. Texas A&M; Oklahoma vs. Auburn.

Bad show by the ACC.

Top-ranked Oklahoma State was the heavy favorite to win the title, and after quarterfinal and semifinal play on Tuesday, it’s Oklahoma State vs. Alabama for the national title today.

Stuff

--Yale won its first NCAA men’s lacrosse title, defeating Duke 13-11 on Monday in Foxborough, Mass., and thus becoming the first Ivy League school to win the title since Princeton in 2001.

--Liverpool and Egypt forward Mohamed Salah says he is “confident” of playing in the World Cup after suffering what we were told was a severe shoulder injury in the Champions League final on Saturday.

--There’s a story in the Irish Independent today that Tottenham has a shot at Real Madrid’s Gareth Bale, who reportedly wants to join the team, and is willing to take less money.  I’m dreaming.........

--High up in the Black Hills, in Custer State Park (where some of “Dances with Wolves” was filmed), there is a perch called Poet’s Table – a Black Hills memorial to free spirits and literary lovers.  While I have never hiked up to it (it’s not that easy to reach), I have known of it for years...literally a table and some chairs, on a ledge that affords one a phenomenal view.

So the other day, two women were seen sawing the table in half!

From the Rapid City Journal: “Tara Rose Weston, of Pine Ridge, had left from Sylvan Lake and was hiking to the popular spot for the first time on Saturday with two friends, when she saw a woman and a child on the trail.

“ ‘Is this the way?’ Weston asked.

“ ‘Yes,’ the woman said, ‘but they’re sawing it in half right now.’

“It was shortly later, Weston said she saw two women carrying the table on their back – cut in two pieces – walking down the path.

“ ‘They told us, ‘No one is taking care of it, and it’s better this way. It’s nicer now.’”

You can’t make this stuff up. Weston took a picture of the two suspects, which she submitted to various officials, and she posted the image online, “where it soon generated a relative tsunami of outrage from those who know and love the spot.”

By Sunday, the suspects had not been identified, and I haven’t seen an update.

‘Man’ drops another five notches on the All-Species List, which one of these days I’ll update.

--But to end on a hopeful note, there is a rumor that Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest champ Joey “Jaws” Chestnut wants to spice up this year’s match by bringing back bitter rival, Takeru Kobayashi, who left the contest nearly a decade ago over a contract dispute, according to the New York Post.

Chestnut said the two haven’t talked in years, but he’s ready to bury the hatchet.  It has the potential to be the sports story of the decade...next to Leicester City winning the Premier League title.

Top 3 songs for the week 5/27/78: #1 “With A Little Luck” (Wings...tune blows...)  #2 “Too Much, Too Little, Too Late” (Johnny Mathis / Deniece Williams) #3 “You’re The One That I Want” (John Travolta & Olivia Newton-John)...and...#4 “Shadow Dancing” (Andy Gibb)  #5 “The Closer I Get To You” (Roberta Flack with Donny Hathaway) #6 “Feels So Good” (Chuck Mangione...song hasn’t aged well...)  #7 “If I Can’t Have You” (Yvonne Elliman...not bad for a disco tune...)  #8 “Imaginary Lover” (Atlanta Rhythm Section...underrated group...)  #9 “Count On Me” (Jefferson Starship0  #10 “On Broadway” (George Benson...I was in Oklahoma and Kansas at this point, selling books door-to-door between my sophomore and junior years at Wake. I was the world’s worst salesman, but it was a brutally hot summer out there and I learned to ask the cute mothers for a glass of water...ahem ahem...)

NBA Quiz Answer: 1978-79 Seattle: Lenny Wilkins; 1977-78 Washington: Dick Motta; 1976-77 Portland: Jack Ramsay.

Next Bar Chat, Monday.

 

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