Originally Posted by
Latrinsorm
Football's back! My boy Koscielny with the goal, assisted by new boy Alexis Sanchez whose name is pronounced Alexee Sanchez by announcers but inexplicably Alexis when they refer only to his first name, Chambers didn't look horrible, Debuchy played quite well despite looking exactly like Steve Zahn, and Man U lost! A perfect afternoon.
MSG has been running games from the 1992 EC Semis, and it's been amazing to see how different and similar things are.
1. Nobody takes 3s. Ever. Chicago took 43 for the seven games of the series, the Hawks took 44 in a game against Indy in the first round this year. People routinely spot up straddling the 3 point line, and even when they spot up outside the arc will take a dribble in for no apparent reason before letting the 22 foot 2 pointer fly.
2. Rasheed Wallace saved the NBA by forcing the issue on technicals. The players ROUTINELY show up officials with no repercussions or even criticism from the announcers (Marv and the Czar, of course). At one point Charles Oakley glares directly at a referee, yells "BULL****", turns away, then turns back and yells "M*****F*****" in elaboration. (Now to be fair, he'd probably get away with that today too because he's Charles Oakley.) Later after a whistle finally punctuates a series of non-calls FOUR KNICKS advance threateningly on the hapless official. It's absurd, and the NBA did a great job cleaning it up.
3. Everyone knows there wasn't any flopping in the NBA until LeBron got hooked up with Wade. Or wait, it was when all those European players showed up in the mid 00s. Or wait, it was when everyone was scared of Shaq in the late 90s / early 00s. Or wait, it was when that wimp Scottie Pippen started playing. He tries the pump fake and lunge into airborne defender routine, then embellished a forearm to the back from Xavier McDaniel, prompting the X Man to protest "he flopped!" Nothing new under the sun, baby.
4. They didn't care about traveling at all. Jordan takes triple threat position at the top of the arc, lifts his right foot and puts it down. Okay. He lifts his left foot and puts it down - no call. He lifts his right foot AGAIN and puts it down - no call. He lifts his left foot as he starts dribbling - NO CALL. I mean... come on! There was no one anywhere near him, how could you possibly miss that? That was the most egregious and repeated offense I remember, but the Knicks got away with the same routine multiple times as well.
5. Home crowds back in the day were loyal to their team, not like those Miami frontrunners. The defending champion Bulls, featuring MVP Michael Jordan and All Star Scottie Pippen, coming off a first round sweep of Miami, go down 12 points during the first half of game 1 to the Knicks... and get booed off the floor! THE FIRST HALF OF GAME ONE!!! Twelve crummy points! Man alive.
6. NBA players and their weird social media hijinks. Back then they focused on the game, they didn't do any of this Tweeter nonsense. Except fourth year backup center Will Perdue (13.1 minutes per game), who has a 1 900 number that among other things playfully pokes fun at Michael Jordan for missing two dunks and taunts the opposition. (The number itself is cited as both 1 900 WPE RDUE and 1 900 420 WILL. Just gonna end on that.)
