Lakers vs. Cavs Game

Most of you probably know about the Lakers running out of players last night and Robert Sacre having to stay in the game even after he picked up his 6th foul. There were some other statistical oddities to this game.
Getting back to the Lakers injuries, the Lakers started the game with 8 players.
Nick Young and Jordan Farmar left with injuries.
Then Chris Kaman fouled out with almost 9 minutes left, leaving them with 5 players.
Then with 3:38 left in the game Robert Sacre fouled out.
The rules state that a team has to play with 5 players.
So, Sacre stayed in the game, received a technical and would receive a technical for any future personal fouls.
For a team like Cleveland who is trying to make the playoffs this season, this must be very embarrassing.
They lost at home by double digits to a Lakers team who were a handful of career journeyman.
Here's some interesting points:
1) Steve Blake had a triple double. That is interesting by itself, but he did this without taking one 2 point shot the whole game. I wonder if that has ever happened while a player achieved a triple double?
2) Chris Kaman was busy. When he wasn't sitting on the bench, Kaman in 14 minutes had 13 points and picked up 6 fouls.
3) Ryan Kelly had 26 points while Luol Deng had 3 points.

So Nash was active but wasn't dressed. Sacre fouled out but was allowed to stay out on the court. Nash then got dressed in the last two minutes and Sacre was still allowed to stay on the court. Something doesn't seem right here.

KyleCleric wrote:So Nash was active but wasn't dressed. Sacre fouled out but was allowed to stay out on the court. Nash then got dressed  in the last two minutes and Sacre was still allowed to stay on the court. Something doesn't seem right here.

I don't believe Nash was not listed as active but I could be wrong.
I know he did not dress for the game.
D'Antoni said Nash was not going to play.
Before D'Antoni found out about the 5 player rule, he planned on having Farmar stand on the corner of the court and not do anything even though he hurt is leg, if Sacre fouled out.

TJ,

Yeah, I saw this. Kudos to the Lake Show for keeping the pedal to the metal and still playing hard. Real Iron Men.

Pretty embarrassing for Cleveland, though. Has to make Kyrie Irving wonder whether staying in Cleveland is such a good idea...


bob


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bobheckler wrote:TJ,

Yeah, I saw this.  Kudos to the Lake Show for keeping the pedal to the metal and still playing hard.  Real Iron Men.

Pretty embarrassing for Cleveland, though.  Has to make Kyrie Irving wonder whether staying in Cleveland is such a good idea...


bob


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Cleveland is a mess. Some claim that Mike Brown has already lost the team.
Deng will be a free agent this summer and there are whispers that Irving wants out.

tjmakz wrote:

KyleCleric wrote:So Nash was active but wasn't dressed. Sacre fouled out but was allowed to stay out on the court. Nash then got dressed  in the last two minutes and Sacre was still allowed to stay on the court. Something doesn't seem right here.

I don't believe Nash was not listed as active but I could be wrong.
I know he did not dress for the game.
D'Antoni said Nash was not going to play.
Before D'Antoni found out about the 5 player rule, he planned on having Farmar stand on the corner of the court and not do anything even though he hurt is leg, if Sacre fouled out.

Steve Nash was technically active for the game but did not suit up because it was the second night of back-to-back contests. Someone fished him out of the locker room, though, and he appeared near the bench in his game jersey.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/basketball/nba/lakers/la-sp-lakers-cavaliers-20140206,0,4549584.story#ixzz2sZhmjeNk

KyleCleric wrote:So Nash was active but wasn't dressed. Sacre fouled out but was allowed to stay out on the court. Nash then got dressed  in the last two minutes and Sacre was still allowed to stay on the court. Something doesn't seem right here.

Kyle,

It's a good question. I don't know the answer, but I can provide what I think is a plausible one.

Jordan Farmar and Nick Young were both active and hadn't fouled out but were unable to play due to injuries they sustained during the game. I think Nash could go into that same category -- active, not fouled out, but physically unable to play.

Nash had played his first game in three months the night before. He's been basically broken and trying to get himself physically able to play since he signed his Laker contract. They likely won't play him on back-to-backs all season, and they sure weren't going to do it after his first game back, and so they put him into the same category as Farmar and Young, which allowed Sacre to play with six fouls.

That's my theory.

Kudos to LAL for sticking it out and winning anyway.

But it's rather telling the sad state of affairs in Cleveland. I feel bad for Kyrie Irving.



KJ

A very unusual game, but not within miles of being as unusual as a Celtics' four-overtime playoff win against Syracuse in 1953.  This game easily ranks as the number one Celtics game that I most wish I had seen but didn’t see.  I scored the game from Johnny Most’s animated (to put it mildly) radio report.  I still have the scorecard.

• Four overtimes
• 106 personal fouls committed ((still a playoff record)—55 by Syracuse (still a playoff record)
• 128 free throws taken and 108 made: Celts still hold record at 51 of 57 (.89.5%)
• During one time span, the Celtics made 37 consecutive free throws  (18 by Cousy)
• Two Syracuse players (Red Rocha and Paul Seymour) set playoff/regular season records playing 67 minutes
• Twelve players of the 20 on both teams committed 6+ fouls; two players were ejected in a 2nd quarter fight
  (Teams were allowed to carry only 10 players in those days.)
• One Syracuse player stayed in the game despite getting into a fight with the cops
• Six Syracuse players had 6 personal fouls apiece, and one had 7 personal fouls
• Four Celtics players had 6 personal fouls apiece and one had 7 personal fouls
• When only five players remained on a team, each ensuing 6th or 7th foul meant two technicals

But, incredibly, the weird epic of mayhem and fouls was not the primary story.  That honor belonged to Robert Joseph Cousy—in my opinion, arguably his finest playing hour as a Celtics—not the most important, but a definite contender for the best NBA performance (especially considering the bizarre circumstances) of all-time.

• Cousy scored 7 points in the first half and 43 over the rest of regulation and the four overtimes.
• Cousy sank ony 5 field goals but 30-32 free throws—still records for either playoffs or regular season

How could I even remotely consider a game in which a player scored only five field goals being one of the all-time great performances?  Here’s how:

This was the next-to-last season before the 24-second rule came into existence.  The game was dramatically different then.  When a team had even a small lead toward the later stages of regulation or overtime, they’d typically stall, forcing the other team to foul in order to get the ball back.  In one sense, this was not bad strategy for the team that was behind, because each non-shooting foul in the frontcourt called for only one free throw, although backcourt fouls resulted in two freebies.  But, to protect the shooting team to some extent, after the free throw, there was a jump ball between the shooter and the man guarding him.  Moreover, there was no penalty shot after the commission of a certain number of fouls in a quarter.  The one free throw rule made Cousy’s total of 32 free throws all the more remarkable because of the sheer number of possessions on which he wound up shooting one free throw.

Syracuse had a very good guard, Paul Seymour, whose approach to guarding Cousy was to get as physical as possible without fouling out.  Red announced to the league that, if it continued, the Celtics would have to respond in kind.  So, lo and behold, the Celtics’ Loscutoffian Bob Brannum and the Nationals’ star Dolph Schayes got into a fierce fight at the beginning of the second quarter.  In the meantime, they had to call policemen to quell the fight, and the Nats’ Billy Gabor wound up fighting the cops.  (He stayed in the game.)

Both combattants were tossed (big advantage to Boston), and the episode set the tone for the chippiest game I’ve ever experienced.  People were being slammed around.  For a long period of time, Nats’ player-coach Al Cervi took over the guarding of Cousy, jabbing Bob constantly as he’d come up the floor.  Johnny Most was apoplectic: “Cervi’s trying to get Cousy into a fight.  What a dirty player.  The worst dirty player I’ve ever seen.”  (I guess that, in Johnny’s eyes, Brannum—with Red’s support—was a saint by comparison.)

As for Cousy, I always felt that part of Cousy’s heroism in this game was his refusal to be baited by Cervi.  In fact, Cooz was one of the minority in this game who never got that 6th personal foul.

The fact that Cousy had only five field goals wasn’t due to poor shooting on his part.  In fact, he hit a 30-footer at the end of the first quarter to put the Celtics in the lead for the first time (22-20).  It was just that he got fouled so often that he had little opportunity to attempt field goals.

As time expired in regulation, the Celtics trailed by one, but Cousy was fouled at the buzzer, and he sank the freebie.

In the first overtime, Cousy scored six of the Celtics’ nine points, but the Nationals also scored nine.  The second overtime also ended in a draw as Cousy kept hitting free throws.  The teams were down to five men apiece as the third quarter sputtered along, with The Cooz countering Nats scores with free throws.  Finally, with 18 seconds left in that overtime, Cousy sank two free throws to draw the Celtics even at 97.  Syracuse then hit a shot   But they left three seconds on the clock.

There are many accounts of what happened then. I choose to believe what was reported by Johnny Most and most of the accounts immediately following the game.  It’s my favorite, tears to the eyes, Cousy story.  The Celtics took a timeout.  But, in those days, the ball did not advance when they took a timeout in the last couple of minutes.  (That rule came into effect in 1976-77.)

Over the previous summer, Cousy had spend unending hours racing up and down the Holy Cross court, stopping about 18 feet out, and launching a newly hatched jumper.  (He didn’t jump high, so it was a cross between a stop-and-pop and a bona fide jumper.)  Now, with three seconds left, the ball was passed in to him, and he raced upcourt, stopped somewhere between 18 and 30 feet (accounts differ) and launched his “jumper” just a scant instant before the horn sounded.  Hours and hours of summer commitment might have flashed through his mind as the ball arced through the air and dropped through the rim.  Only Sam’s game-winner in the fourth Finals game of 1969 matches that shot as my all-time favorite.  Johnny Most was beside himself, and so was I.

The fourth overtime was anti-climactic, as Cousy had single-handedly taken the opponents out of what was to be, arguably, the single roughest and most grueling game in history.  Truly the NBA at its primitive yet exciting best.

Following is a link to the best account I’ve read about the game.  The only place I differ with the writer is that Cousy’s last shot in the third overtime wasn’t a “push” shot.  It was Cousy’s version of a jumper.  Little things mean a lot.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1094686/index.htm

Sam