Disappointed but not offended?

 “You can be hurt, not by what others think of you, but by what you think of what they think or you think they think of you.” 

― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

IF I were a retired leader and some negligent and corrupt characters destroyed my legacy project, I wouldn’t only be “disappointed”; I would be inwardly offended and “outraged.”

There’s a whale of difference between the two repugnant feelings and reactions.

Disappointment is only a displeasure caused by the nonfulfillment of one’s hopes and expectations. It can be remedied. 

But if my legacy project has been shattered, there’s a feeling of displeasure sine qua non; being enraged would be intrinsically spontaneous.  

Outrage is an extremely strong reaction of anger, shock, or indignation, according to Oxford Languages.

Outrage or being indignant is the right or proper reaction and attitude for someone whose legacy project has been sabotaged and altogether desecrated.

Not only that.

My natural reaction as an aggrieved retired leader would be to call for an immediate and no nonsense investigation why the harrowing thing happened to my legacy project.

There would be no beating around the bush. If heads must roll, so be it.

 

-o0o-

 

Game 3 of the NBA Finals will be suspense-filled on June 7 now that the Miami Heat will play host until Game 4. 

As usual, all eyes will be on the two-man game of the fantastic Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokic, which is simply too good according to most NBA analysts, including the Pinoy fans who mostly root for Miami Heat not only because of the charismatic Fil-Am coachErik Spoelstra, but because the former champion is the underdog in this year’s championship.

There’s no doubt the behemoth machine gun Jokic is now among the very best basketball players on the planet. 

In the previous Games (1 and 2), the giant from Serbia was seemingly two steps ahead of the opposing defense in every possession. 

It was Murray’s resurgence coming off his knee injury of a couple seasons ago that has really paced this acceleration of the Denver Nuggets’ greatness.

Jokic passes to an open Murray, who is a three-level scorer playing at an elite level.  

“The Joker” has more space to read and react to what the defense is doing, be it taking his own jumper or find a slasher/cutter coming off the opposite end.

We can’t wait to watch the wrecking crew duo of Murray and Jokic once more in Game 3.

 

-o0o-

 

What makes us all human is not entirely our intellect or our brain. There are things that have no relation with the physical brain or man's intelligence. 

They are an expression of the spirit inside us. Humanity lies in our power to experience many different facets of life, for example our sense of justice, our ability to love, our ability to understand free will and the responsibility that comes with it, to appreciate beauty, and to develop art and culture. 

If we are convinced we will live beyond death, we will be much more aware of the responsibility that we bear both for ourselves and towards others within creation. 

We understand that our present life and the way we live it is closely connected with our continued existence after passing over. 

Then we will have reason to fear the consequences of every single wrong and harmful deed we had committed. We are still likely to suffer the consequences even if we no longer live on earth.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two daily newspapers in Iloilo.—Ed)

 

 

 

Heat’s Houdini-like win; is Nuggets’ Jokic a robot?

 

“I think I brought something different to the NBA. I brought that I can do pretty much everything on the floor.”

—Nikola Jokic

 

By Alex P. Vidal 

 

DUNCAN Robinson stole the show from behemoth machine gun Nikola Jokic and hoisted Miami Heat to a Houdini-like 111-108 win in Game 2 of the NBA Finals on June 4 in Denver, Colorado to destroy the soothsayers’ prediction of a 4-0 shutout dominance for the Denver Nuggets in the best-of-seven series.

Jokic, of course, remains to be the ballgame’s major attraction. I thought he was like a giant robot controlled by a special computer system to inflict mayhem in the hardcourt. 

Everything he grabbed turned into gold, so to speak. He was a veritable scoring machine and a well-rounded cager. He was fast and furious.

Jokic, who was reportedly asleep when the Denver Nuggets drafted him with the forty-first pick in the 2014 NBA draft, flickered despite Robinson’s astonishing fourth quarter snafu.

The series, now leveled to one win apiece, goes to Miami for Game 3 on June 7 (Wednesday).

Whatever happens next, Nuggets’ myth of invincibility has been tarnished. 

Nuggets may still win the 2023 NBA championship, but it will have to pass through the proverbial hole of the needle now that Miami Heat will come back home with head unbowed for Game 4 on June 9 (Friday).

 

-o0o-

 

Back to Jokic. Famously, according to a The New Yorker story on June 4, when the pick was announced, ESPN, which televised the draft, was airing a Taco Bell commercial, for a cross between a burrito and a quesadilla—the quesarito. Jokic’s name flashed on a chyron below the ad. 

According to Jokic, who told the story in an essay for the Players’ Tribune, his brother called him with the news, champagne ready. Jokic hung up on him and went back to bed. 

He didn’t come to Denver straight away and spent the next year playing in Serbia instead. He wanted to play basketball, and wanted to win, but he was in no rush.

The Nuggets, to that point, had never made the NBA Finals, let alone won a championship. The year that Jokic arrived, the team hired Mike Malone to be the head coach. 

The year after that, the Nuggets drafted Jamal Murray, with the seventh pick, out of the University of Kentucky.

We will continue to watch Jokic extra-ordinary showmanship when the Games 3 and 4 unwraps in Miami.

 

-o0o-

 

Some people who know things very well are unable to express their wisdom because they have never learned the art of simplicity.

The secret of good dressing is simplicity. 

Dresses now are more sensible than ever before because they have less frills and furbelows on them. 

As a rule the simpler the dress the more elegant and more modest it is.

Our thoughts would be clearer if they were simpler. We should avoid much confusion if we simply avoid exaggeration and ambiguity.

When a man has vision he thinks in simple, straight lines. He does not confuse himself with words he does not understand.

The greatest difficulty with wealth is that it increases our complexity of living. We get to many artificial wants. 

That man is happiest whose wants are fewest and whose life is simplest. He gets more out of living than the next man.

One of the greatest things, therefore, is to learn how to do without things, to learn to keep our wants simple and our surroundings simple, so that life may be lived with the least obstruction.

We will find that in seeking simplicity we acquire both strength and beauty.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two daily newspapers in Iloilo.—Ed)

‘Order your chicken nuggets and let the Game begin’

 “Technology is changing the world; it's changing our sport. It's changing the way people are following the NBA.”

—Adam Silver

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

WHAT is so special with the Nuggets that the team is so popular even among the Pinoy cage fans?

Must the pro-Heat crowd sit down and wait for the sharp blades to chop off the head of their favorite team from the Atlantic Coast?    

Even before the start of the 2023 NBA Finals Game 1 at Ball Arena in Denver, Colorado Thursday evening (US Eastern Time) June 1, oddsmakers have heavily installed the Denver Nuggets to roll past Erik Spoelstra’s Miami Heat in their best-of-seven championship series.

My LA-based kumpare and former media colleague in the Philippines, Lynon Cortez, meanwhile, has something to contribute in this subject matter: 

”Filipinos might root for Heat ‘coz of Spoelstra but I have a big prediction: Nuggets will sweep Heat as what they did to the LA Lakers. Here’s my account: Jokic 2x MVP has the back up of Murray, Gordon & Porter. Nuggets is the # 1 in the Western pre-season and the West Champion after sweeping the Lakers. Back to the semifinals of the West, Lakers beat the defending champ Warriors but got swept by the Nuggets. On the East, Heat is the # 8 and had to force a Game 7 against Boston. On the average, Butler is far from Jokic in any aspect of the game. Besides Heat Butler, Abedayo, Calib & Love are all good physically but not in scoring. The No. 1 seed in the West vs the lowest in the East. Anyway make your order of chicken nuggets at wings stop before the game begins.”

 

-o0o-

 

We don’t have the illusion of tapping our own crystal ball here for the much-awaited championship series, thus we bring the attention of the readers who are NBA fans to the panel of experts tapped by The Athletic that have clearly underestimated the eight-seeded Heat, a most recent survivor in the nail-biting Eastern Conference title match versus Boston Celtics.

They included an NBA scout, coach and executive who predicted the outcome of the Finals with a common conclusion: Nuggets will win the crown in six games.

“Perhaps it is because Miami is only the second No. 8 seed to ever reach the NBA Finals, duplicating the accomplishment of the 1999 New York Knicks. Maybe it’s because Miami almost didn’t make it out of the Eastern Conference Finals after winning the first three games of that series,” explained Mike Battaglino of Heat Nation.

“Or it could be because the Nuggets got to the championship round by sweeping the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference Finals.”

The Heat avoided a collapse for the ages when they defeated the Celtics 103-84 in Game 7 on May 29 to avoid becoming the first NBA team to lose a best-of-seven series after taking a 3-0 lead.

Miami has been doubted throughout the playoffs, and Battaglino pointed out that previous predictions by The Athletic panels had them losing to the New York Knicks in the second round and then not getting past the Celtics in the conference finals.

The scout said the advantage the Heat have built with its role players could be countered by the Nuggets’ similar strength in that area. 

The expert also said the coaching of Denver’s Michael Malone is good enough to counter that of Spoelstra. ESPN/ABC analyst Jeff Van Gundy this week said Fil-Am coach Spoelstra is the best head coach in Heat history.

 

-o0o-

 

Coach’s outlook as reported by The Athletic: “I really think it’s going to go six (games). I think Denver pulls it out. I love what Miami does, and I love what they’re doing and how hard they play. And Spo is unbelievable at what he’s doing. But I think, at the end of the day, Denver was No. 1 for a reason: the way they pass and share the basketball. And Joker is, obviously, the (driving force) in all of that. 

“Every team has tried to (slow Jokic). I think it’s just a matter of how much you allow him to score or if you decide to let him facilitate. Knowing what he does most and what he has been doing, as a walking triple-double, I think (the Heat are) going to play him individually at times. I think they’ll mix up the double-teams. I think the zone is going to be effective for them, because it allows them to navigate and dictate where those shots are coming from for the team. Like you saw (in Game 7 of the East finals) against Boston, they’re just going to have to keep mixing it up. The traps and the adjustments probably will come a little bit more so on (Jamal) Murray than on Joker. I think that’s the other factor that’s going to play a big part of it: how they can guard Murray as well.

“I just love the way the Heat share the basketball. It doesn’t matter who is scoring. They allow the game to come to them. They read, and then take, what the defense is giving them offensively. Defensively, I love how Spo just keeps mixing it up. He doesn’t sit with one coverage. He went to zone in the fourth, and I was so impressed by that: just knowing that that was what was going to be effective versus what tradition says that we should be playing (another) type of style in this moment. …

“The Nuggets are clicking on all cylinders with their ability to share and move the basketball. Then, on top of that, they have shot makers with Porter, Bruce Brown, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. When you have that as a problem (for the other team) and the space that they play in, it’s very tough to lock in on one man.”

 

-o0o-

 

Meanwhile, we learned that the longest losing streak in Miami Heat history is 17 games, set during the 1988-89 season, according to champsorchumps.us.

The losing streak started on Nov 5, 1988 with a 91-111 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers and ended on Dec 14 with a 89-88 win over the Los Angeles Clippers.

The longest home game losing streak in Miami Heat history, on the other hand, is 11 games, set during the 1988-89 season. 

The losing streak reportedly started on Nov 5, 1988 with a 91-111 home loss to the Los Angeles Clippers and ended on Dec 23 with a 101-80 home win over the Utah Jazz.

The longest road game losing streak in Miami Heat history is 18 games, set during the 1988-89 season. The losing streak reportedly started on Dec 15, 1988 with a 90-94 away loss to the Sacramento Kings and ended on Mar 15, 1989 with a 109-103 away win over the Los Angeles Clippers.

Do the Miami Heat have any losing streaks in the all time top 50 NBA losing streaks?

Yes, the 17 game losing streak by the 1988-89 Miami Heat is the 27th longest losing streak in NBA history.

We hope Miami Heat will rewrite history, prove the soothsayers wrong, and win another NBA title this year.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two daily newspapers in Iloilo.—Ed)