Age before Beauty

We’ve all heard it before, young talent or experienced poise? What’s that they say, young horses run fast, but old horses know the way? Here’s game five observations on a game where young energy is great, but you need to experience to win.

 You can’t go anywhere in the NBA media world without hearing about the new era of the game. The excitement of recent stars have fans of the league celebrating in its resurgence and non-fans annoyed with the star mentality.

            The story of how the west was won would be that of a young Oklahoma City Thunder vs. the experienced and “different” Dallas Maverick team. Oklahoma’s average team age is 24, Dallas’s average age is 29. Those numbers might not scream large differences but looking at team leaders in the series, it is.  

            Before the series, young Durant and Westbrook lead a surge out of Memphis that would have to be powerful enough to hold off a well rested Dallas team that had been to playoff hell and back before.

            In game one, Dirk set off in a historical performance; 12 for 15 from the field and a record 24 for 24 from the free throw line. 

My ball hobbit. 

Dirk cited his source of focus, determination and the oh-so-pretty threes from previous defeat, alluding to the 2006 series against Miami, where the Mav’s were stunned.

            Fans who watched game five were given a brief history of the many different paths certain Mavericks players took to end up in Dallas. All of them having haunting defeats in their past post season history, whether it was Kidd or Marion defeated in other cities, or Terry and Nowitzki experiencing it right in Dallas.

            Oklahoma lead for most of the game leaning on pick and roll basketball and James Harden’s play making ability to shield in the paint, explode towards the net and finish plays whether by a shot or pass. Heading into the locker room at halftime Harden said his team’s mentality was to “attack and not settle.” 

              With a little more than nine minutes left in the fourth quarter, Oklahoma had a seven-point lead. Thunder head coach Scott Brooks screamed over the crowd, “Don’t be afraid of the moment.”

            Out of the timeout Westbrook scored his 29^th point for the night making the largest lead of the game at 85-77. But chipping away at that lead, the Mavericks never panicked. Soon it was a two-point game with under four minutes to play.

For Oklahoma City it was about containing and keeping their cool in play-off territory where emotion can be a whole other opponent.

            The Dallas crowd was believing again as OKC had another timeout. Brooks spoke to his team who was staring elimination in the face.

            “All five guys gotta rebound!” He yelled, voice cracking.  “Space is critical… be aggressive.”

            With two minutes left it was 94-92 OKC. But Dirk hit a pinnacle three for the lead with 1:14 left, making it 94-95. The TV fades out to a vodka commercial and no words from the commentators, just the roar of the home crowd and Nowitzki’s hands in the air.

            Nothing the Thunder could do from then on out would deny the Dallas team thirsting for this moment and this second chance. Dallas had been down by eight with a little over eight minutes remaining but now, by the hands of the iconic leader, they were up by one.

ESPN commentators described this as the time for poise by Oklahoma, and for a fleeting moment it was.

            Dallas’s Chandler committed his sixth foul for the night and Westbrook was sent to the line. Westbrook was a perfect seven for seven at the line and calmly made two more clutch shot, creating a two point game.

            Through out this game the storyline would be the Thunder’s “crushing” defeat in game four after making it back from a large deficit and battling back from adversity. But unfortunately for them, they were facing a “different” Mavericks team then previous years had seen.

            Less than a minute left the heart of the Thunder pounded passionately as they defended well but couldn’t secure the rebound and sent Nowitzki to the line to make two more beautiful free throws.

            One step forward, two steps back would define the Thunder’s series, for me at least. The final score was 96-100, Mavericks. The series ended with hugs and the veterans whispering praise and encouragement in young, heartbroken ears.

            The Mavericks move on to their next opponent 10 and one in their last 11 games. It’s not redemption from an ’06 shocker, but a Western Conference Championship is a little closer.

            “We’ve got a bunch of veteran’s who want to win,” Nowitzki said after the game.

“It’s tough now, but we can learn from this,” Durant said with a sigh, his infamous backpack still sitting high on his back.

 The Thunder would have to learn the hard way how to be champions, just like the Mav’s had to years ago. And for now, for the Thunder, a little bit more of the wild NBA play-off path has been revealed to another young team. Fans of the sport will have to wait to see if a 2006 re-run can give the Mav’s a chance to beat Miami and perhaps silence ghosts of the past for the last time. 

Lessons in the Animal Kingdom

After Animal Kingdom won this year’s Kentucky Derby with an interesting storyline keyboards were a buzz, could this be it?

The Preakness would say no, and we would have another Triple Crown buzz kill on the second race in.

I think it’s utterly American to ask, “why isn’t life like the movies?”  

I ask that every year as the chance to witness a triple crown in my lifetime dwindles and another opportunity is gone to the sound of thundering hooves. Will we ever see another Triple Crown winner? I feel like that’s asking will I ever meet a unicorn.

            Big horse races when the world watches only come three times a year. Every horse has a story to tell of how they got there, where they came from and what makes them different. There are no “conventional winners”. Soon, you find yourself rooting for athletes because his trainer had heart surgery, the horse was never meant to be the winner just the pacesetter and then the tables turned. The best of our human storylines mix when the plot thickens to include a once-a-year chance to win something coveted, and for the horses their chance is literally once in a lifetime.

            There have been 11 Triple Crown winners in the history of American horse racing.  Only four decades of people on the planet have encountered such a champion. Affirmed was the last horse to cross the finish line in 1978 a Triple Crown jewel. We are in the biggest gap ever- 33 years and counting. The 70’s alone were graced with three winners in ’73, ’77, and ’78. Twenty-five years before that the ‘40’s had four winners in ’41, ’43, ’46 and ’48.

       The Longest Gaps

1919-1930

1948-1973

1978-

According to horse-races.net, since 1900, 45 horses have won two out of the three legs (Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont). Twenty-one of those horses won the first two jewels, the Kentucky Derby and Preakness, only to lose in the Belmont stakes. My favorite statistic comes from breaking that number down even more.

             Eight of those horses one win away from it all came in second on their Belmont finishes. They were one spot away from dying a legend, and we were one measureable distance away from knowing what could have been.

            Remember Smarty Jones- one of those storied eight horses? He was a hero and for a long time we were caught up in the type of atmosphere where these horses weren’t horses at all but opportunities at glimpsing greatness.

Many didn’t dare to breathe once the gates opened on June 5, 2004 at Belmont Park in New York. But he just wasn’t fast enough and another wanted it more.

            At first I didn’t remember who beat him and that’s a real shame and testament to the legacy of horse racing. It’s not just winners who get remembered but the athlete with character, struggle, perseverance, and at last despair that get remembered too. I had to look it up and the horse Birdstone beat him at the finish. He will forever be the horse that stole a Triple Crown Winner from us, and that’s a little sad because he’s a beast of a horse.

            Horseracing brings us to what I argue is the embodiment of the perfect athlete. Horses don’t know how to deny 100 percent of their ability, focus and effort towards a cause. We will never know what drives them. It’s not the jockey or the roar of the crowd.

            It isn’t money, or sponsors.

            They are pristine in their perfection of perseverance. I spent years competing with horses and let me tell you, those animals know when they have won and especially when they have lost.

            This time of year as we watch horses race for a title they all seem to have the perfect story for what could one day be a motion picture of our generation’s Triple Crown.

            In this year’s Kentucky Derby, Animal Kingdom won after deniable odds. He had a six-week layoff and the derby would be his first run on dirt, but he would go on to beat the favorites.

         "There aren't many fairy tale endings, but this is one of them," said Animal Kingdom’s trainer Graham Motion after the win.

            But Animal Kingdom wouldn’t even get two wins in, as Shackelford made it clear to the world that just because a nation chose a darling doesn’t mean the other 18 horses don’t have the right to take what’s theirs. Sometimes others want a fairy tale ending too.

            In only a couple weeks people will be watching the Belmont Stakes, it means less now. It’s just another horse race instead of a possible history-making contest. They call the stakes and it’s 1 ½ mile track the “Test of the Champion”. We’ll have to wait at least another year till that’s a tag line for a Disney movie.

33 and counting.

However, I hope Zenyatta gets a movie deal and stat.