'What Was the Difference?' and Other NBA Tidbits

Excluding the Doris Burke interviews, there is no more ridiculous, annoying, and hair-brained question in postgame analysis than 'What was the difference in tonight's game?' After both the Cavs-Magic and Nuggets-Lakers games this question has been posed, but the obvious, "Delonte/Fish missed the final shot." is never the answer, oh nooooo. Instead we listen to babble about how great the winning team played and we get to hear about the problems the losing team needs to fix. It's amazing that night in and night out, these talking heads can find no better questions to ask, other than generic BS questions that completely fail to, ya know, analyze the game.

Speaking of the games, if I were a betting man, I'd be all over Denver for game three. They haven't gotten to play in front of a home crowd in what will be ten days when the lace 'em up for game three and the Pepsi Center will be rocking. I anticipate the Nuggets getting a big lift for the game, potentially followed by a letdown in game four (much to the delight of Vinny Mac).

Speaking of Vince and the WWE, how epic is he going to try to make that Monday Night Raw? Nothing would give him greater satisfaction to outdraw the game in the ratings. Likely a pipe dream, I wouldn't be surprised if he pulled out all the stops, possibly involving a special guest (if you smell what I'm cooking).

Meanwhile back on the hardwood, are J.R. Smith and Sasha Vujacic competing to see who can get yanked back to the bench fastest by their coach following an atrocious shot? It was good to see 'The Machine' stay in long enough to do his trademark ball hug after getting a foul called. Sasha, it's the first quarter, you get six fouls and you haven't made a difference yet this playoffs, please stop with the melodrama. It's also hard to fault J.R. Smith for shooting every time he touches the ball, because every time he passes he turns the ball over or nearly does. At least with a shot, it's not a direct pass to the Lakers.

All this discussion about Kobe v. LeBron for the league's best player has me wondering where this puts Carmello in the discussion? If people want to say the Mamba and the King are on a different plane, I have no objections, but doesn't he have to be creeping into the discussion with Dwayne Wade, CP3, and Dwight Howard on that second tier? With two ad campaigns focusing on Kobe v. LeBron does anyone else get the sneaking suspicion we're heading for another Dan v. Dave disaster?

The LeBron 'clutch' questions need to be put on ice. Asking them after game one because he passed up a shot, is nothing more than trying to rile up the natives. If LeBron isn't clutch because he passed the ball to Delonte West, is Phil Jackson not clutch for deciding to pass the ball to Fisher at the end of the game? Was Paul Pierce not clutch when he passed the ball to Big Baby? Of course not, because Davis made it. It's cliche to throw out the Jordan to Kerr pass, but if it had been Game Seven, Jordan never passes the ball to Kerr and I firmly believe if it was Game Seven, the King wouldn't have passed it either. The team lost that game because they played lazy defense, not because LBJ wasn't clutch.