Comparing the NFL to the NBA

Last Monday night I was flipping back and forth between the Monday night football game involving the Kurt Warner led Cardinals (the old Jesus freak is apparenlty still at it) and the Shaun Hill led 49ers (I don't know who he is either), and the Celtics/Raptors game. Both games were dubbed "great" and even "classic" by the post-game space fillers. For me, the two games epitomized how I feel about the NBA and the NFL.

Lets start with the NFL. I've never been a huge fan. I've always watched it, but I've never cared too much about it. I've never fully invested myself in a team, except that I genuinely hated the 1990's Dallas Cowboys dynasty. Despite my dislike for the Cowboys, the home team of my youth, the Redskins, never really compelled my rooting interest. Why? For starters, growing up on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, I never associated myself with Washington DC or anywhere else on the "western shore," as it should be known. In fact, I was taught to believe that people from the western shore were all helpless idiots who we tolerated in our little towns for the sake of making a few bucks off them. But they were Baltimorans and Washington dirt bags -- all helpless fools who would die quickly in a state of nature. Now I could have been pulled into the Skins had they had a particular player that I cared about. I loved the O's because they had Cal Ripkin and, for a while, Harold Baines, who was from my home town. But the Skins have always had boring players. When they won the Super Bowl in 1991, they were led by Mark Rippen and Art Monk, two of the most boring players in NFL history. Can you remember anything about either of those two guys other than Mark Rippen's crater face? Me neither.

Now, rooting loyalties aside, the NFL has always struck me as an impersonal game where the stars hide behind helmets and frequently come and go before you can really get to know them. The only avenue for self-expression is annoying and contrived end-zone dances that stopped being fun in 1984 or thereabouts. It's also a game that's bogged down by drive-killing penalties and conservative play calling. I can't watch a game with Priya without her getting all indignant about failed run plays up the middle. "That's so stupid," she says. "Why didn't he just run around those guys?" she says. "Because he would have taken a loss," I tell her. "It was better for him to just go nowhere."

So the NFL a game of risk avoidance and clock management that is occasionally punctuated by incredible displays of athleticism. But those displays of athleticism tend to involve familiar things -- a breakaway run, a great catch, a great throw, a big hit, an interception run back for a touchdown. Rarely do you see anything that makes your jaw drop.

In the entire 22 or so years that I can remember watching the NFL, there has been one player that excited me to the point of jubilation (no, not Tom Brady): Barry Sanders. Barry Sanders was a virtuoso in the backfield who ran like a gazelle among a field of retarded water buffalo. He did things with the football that made you laugh and giggle. He took risks that no other running backs could afford to take and frequently took big losses as a result. But even if he took a loss, even if his team was never that good, Barry's brilliance always made him fascinating to watch. Not one player in the NFL today has that quality.

That brings me to the Monday Night game. It was a game that ended with a goal line stop as time ran out for the Niners. The final was 29-24, Cardinals. If I remember correctly, the Niners had four plays and about 45 seconds left to get the ball into the end zone from 5 yards out. The first play was a spike. The second play was a run that fell two yards short. Then the Niners let about 30 seconds run off the clock before spiking the ball. The final play was a run up the middle that fell short again. Game over. The Niners lost, having wasted a down and calling a horrible final play. This supposed climactic finish capped off a game that had 20 penalties called for a total of 160 yards lost. One penalty brought back an interception that was returned for a touchdown.

It was a terrible game. Poorly played. Poorly officiated. Frustratingly slow. Like so many NFL games, the outcome was determined by penalties, poor clock management, and poor play calling. But since the game came down to a goal line stop, it was deemed a classic of Monday night football. When it was over, Kurt Warner thanked Jesus 47 times in one sentence and Stewart Scott continued to embarrass black people everywhere. And I said to myself, "This is why I hate the NFL."

Now, lets contrast that with the Celtics/Raptors game. Despite the NBA season just having kicked off, the Celtics/Raptors game was indeed an instant classic. It was a surprisingly chippy game from the get go and by the third quarter it felt like the 7th game of the Eastern Conference Finals. In the 3rd quarter, Kevin Garnett, who had worked himself into rage coming out of half-time with the Celtics down by 12, decided to cover the Raptor's pointguard, Jose Calderon. Just think about how ridiculous this is for a second. A 7' man guarding a quick, 6' point guard all the way up the court? KG is probably the only 7' man alive who is quick enough and athletic enough pull it off. The funny thing is, KG didn't just pull it off, he terrorized Calderone, nearly poking the ball away several times with his long arms.

Not to mention that as he hounded Calderon up the court, Garnett clapped his hands, pointed a finger in Calderon's face and shouted obscenities at him. After Calderon passed the ball off and a whistle blew, Calderon got back in Garnett's face and shouted back. To his credit, Calderon didn't back down. But Garnett had clearly gotten into his head. Garnett walked over the bench with a smile on his face for the first time all game.

But the real story of the night was Paul Pierce rallying the Celtics back from the dead by scoring 22 points in the 4th quarter. The Truth did it in classic Truth fashion -- he got insanely hot, hit about three heat-check jumpers in a row, and spun, spun, spun his lanky body to the hoop. He claimed the lead for the Celtics with less than 2 minutes left. It was a complete 4th quarter roll of the Raptors who walked off the court with their heads down, presumably saying to themselves, "If we only had someone like Paul Pierce to finish games for us." The amazing thing is, Pierce did it all with a sprained wrist. It was something I wasn't even aware of until I read about it the next day. Though it's not at all surprising.

Paul Pierce was stabbed in the neck, chest and face 11 times before the 2000-2001 season. He had to undergo lung surgery to repair the damage. You would think that that would have screwed with his game a little bit? Well, the Truth was in the starting lineup for the first game of the season -- less than two months after the incident -- and started all 82 games that season. He had a great year and has never said much about the stabbing. To say that Paul Pierce is a gamer or a tough dude doesn't begin to give him justice. He's a warrior from another era, a guy you would want beside you on the battlefield for lack of a better cliche.

But here's the great thing about the NBA: If you were to rank the most compelling and interesting players in the league, Paul Pierce probably wouldn't crack the top five. Though it's known as a league of prima donnas, it's really a league of warriors, phenoms and virtuosos. There are so many superstars who have risen out of troubled pasts, take Iverson and Carmelo for example, or Loul Deng who happens to be a Sudanese refugee, that it's easy to forget about a guy like Paul Pierce who was once stabbed 11 times. The NBA is also a league of freaks and curiosities, like Yao Ming and Nate Robinson. There are also villains like Kobe Bryant, Bruce Bowen, Ron Artest, and Tim Donaghy, and good guys like Tim Duncan, Shane Battier, and Derrick Fisher. And then there are heros like Lebron, Pierce and D-Wade. They all have something different to offer but they all, in their own ways, will make you giggle.

So I've always loved the NBA. It's soap opera, sport and mythology all colliding before your eyes. It's a sport where the athletes shine and improvisation and creativity abound. As David Thorpe says, if football is played with military precision, basketball is jazz. Great teams like great bands, have the right mix of complimentary musicians. And when the mix is right, the results are a joy to behold.

Those are my thoughts. Let me know what you think.