NBA Playoffs 2012
Editor’s Note: Apparently our TJP team gets fired up about basketball… so this article is the second installment of a three part series – You can read the first article here. TJP Editor Paddy Gilger will weigh in on Sunday.
Perry, Perry, Perry. I love the fact that I can talk basketball with a brother Jesuit. That being said, I’m sorry to say that you have it all wrong. (Well, almost all wrong. David Stern is Pontius Pilate)
We are entering the high holy days of the basketball world (Check this article to see how your beloved March stacks up against June.) Sure, March is mad and glorious, but I like watching talented players who stay on their teams for more than a year.
- You rightly identify three – and yes, it would have been four – teams with a legitimate shot at the title. While I still don’t see the Lakers overcoming Kobe’s selfishness and Bynum’s rollercoaster emotions and play, 14 feet of bigs and one of the greatest players ever (now part German robot) should not be counted out.
- We aren’t watching the Bobcats play the Wizards here. These are great teams, and apart from the thrashing of the Jazz by the Spurs, each team has been beaten.
- I like your Barkley-Peter analogy, but I see Barkley as more of a post-Resurrection, dive-naked-into-the-sea-when-Jesus-is-on-the-beach type of Peter. Like you said, what is not to love?
- Well put. Perhaps the only figure Stern reminds me of more is President Snow. While it’s hard to ignore how Stern has shaped the league and particularly this season, Pilate, Snow, and Stern do not actually triumph. Plus, as unjustified as it was, thanks be to Stern, Chris Paul is not playing in a Lakers uniform.
- Perhaps the increase in flopping is simply a sign of the times. The NBA has finally joined the international sports community. Italian soccer players have been doing this forever.
- Wait, what?! The Incarnation elicits a “so what?” Perry, your theology – and your basketball – is all wrong. We have gotten to see Chris Paul give hope to the most demoralized franchise in sports history. One of the best (regular season) players of all time is in his prime and just put together his best season statistically. An undrafted Harvard graduate took the global basketball world storm. And now we have reached the playoffs, the Easter season! We get to watch the best players in the world compete on a nightly basis.
So while NCAA basketball is great, the NBA is the real deal. College ball does not have this. Of course, when the entire starting lineup of the national championship team leaves after a year or two of school, it is hard to call it college basketball. If you’re looking for good basketball, the NBA playoffs are certainly not the crucifixion, they’ve got the joy of Easter.
