Comments on: Waiting for the perfect shot

By: Eszter

Eszter — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 12:57:10 +0000

By: spurwing plover

spurwing plover — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 05:27:28 +0000

The BULLS just have,nt been the same since they no longer have MICHEAL JORDAN

By: Carl

Carl — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 14:05:02 +0000

My solution is that instead of one 48-minute game, that NBA teams play a best-of-five set of 12-minute games. You get all the excitement of the fourth quarter, up to five times in a night.

By: nick s

nick s — Sat, 21 Jan 2006 02:43:33 +0000

There are few sporting situations more boring than the fourth quarter in an (American) football game when the score is lopsided.

I think one sport where you get the same phenomenon except on the individual level is road bicycle racing.

Yes, those who watch the first hours of a TDF stage are, to some extent, beyond salvation. I count myself among them.

By: radek

radek — Sat, 21 Jan 2006 00:42:42 +0000

I think one sport where you get the same phenomenon except on the individual level is road bicycle racing. You got your peleton and then you got guys trying to make breaks for it (analogous to one team or another trying to get a hefty lead going into fourth quarter). In the end it usually comes down to a small group of riders battling it out in the final stretch – just like the last seconds of a basketball game this is where most of the excitement is.

As a consequence both sports are good for background for most of their duration – you do other stuff like cook or drink beer with your friends (is this done with bicycle racing?) while occasionally paying attention to shifts in the momentum of the game or the strategies of the players. Then you settle down and watch the cresecendo.

Anyway. World Cup Soccer and NCAA Football are the only sports worth getting worked up about. Even with Boston in the World Series.

By: Gray Lensman

Gray Lensman — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 19:57:53 +0000

I prefer baseball.

By: Bro. Bartleby

Bro. Bartleby — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 17:59:39 +0000

Bro. Dan, Most men persevere from conditioning, it is the females who joy in all the endless anticipations and expectancy in all things, while we men do prefer the simple and uncomplicated resolution, the solution, the climax … or at least the hope for such a finale.

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 16:58:45 +0000

The players compete in the forth quarter of NBA games, and competition is what generates real interest for most viewers. The compelling basketball of the NCAA tournament between teams with obvious weaknesses says to me that the showy athletecism of the highlights is not what makes a game great. I think most football(American), baseball, hockey and soccer players put out more in the earlier phases of their games than NBA players.

By: Eszter

Eszter — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 15:31:07 +0000

Paul, I was under the impression that it’s harder to turn things around that quickly in football. But I don’t watch that sport nearly as much (more precisely: I watch some Northwestern games and that’s about it) so I’m hardly an informed commentator on that front.

By: paul

paul — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 15:06:00 +0000

You’re coming to a realization that many football fans have had for decades. There it’s the final two minutes of each half that are typically worth watching, since they consist of actual play rather than guys standing around and setting up to play, ambling back to their positions after a play, or moseying on or off the field.

By: Todd

Todd — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 15:04:37 +0000

1) I think it should seem to everyone who’s seen Elway or Montana run a two minute drill, or who watched David Ortiz repeatedly catch fire after the seventh inning last year, that the end of the game in every sport has a heightened importance.

2) I think that, to some extent, this captures one of the best things about basketball: very few leads are ever too much to overcome. Unless the Spurs or Pistons are playing, you don’t have the ability to get a lead early and then “focus on the running game” to drain the clock, or bring in Tom Gordon and Mariano Rivera to end the game 2/3 of the way though.

3) As only a casual observer of the sport, one must wonder why the NHL bothers with the bits before the overtime & shootout.

By: jet

jet — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 13:13:18 +0000

I just had this discussion with members of my family as we sat through several of my 11 year old nephew’s basketball games. The 4th quarters were the only ones worth watching.

By: Steve

Steve — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 13:07:42 +0000

I think we watch basketball because 1) we’re tired and don’t feel like reading, working, or doing anything valuable or productive, and 2) we’ve come to realize that sitcoms are repetitive and stupid.

Actually, I personally don’t watch basketball games for all the reasons listed above. Instead, I play computer games-an equally meaningless form of entertainment, but one I happen to enjoy. My wife watches surgery shows and house swapping shows. Whatever tricks your trigger.

Steve

By: Slocum

Slocum — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 13:07:27 +0000

The first three quarters are usually meaningless, and then in the final quarter one team either has an insurmountable lead

Huh? Leads of all sizes are possible going into the 4th quarter. Sometimes leads are insurmountable, and other times seemingly insurmountable leads disappear in a blizzard of high-intensity defense and lights-out shooting by the trailing team. Or sometimes they only almost disappear as the team making the comeback runs out of gas or time. And sometimes insurmountable leads are just that (as, for example, in last night’s Knicks game against the Pistons, when the first three quarters were the meaningful ones and the last one was mostly for emptying the benches, goofing off, and padding stats).

By: Dan Kervick

Dan Kervick — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 12:50:48 +0000

All this made me wonder: why do we bother – those of us who do:) – watching the first three quarters of basketball games?

Good point. I also wonder why we bother making love, when the orgasm only happens at the end.

And why do we bother sitting through hours of Hamlet, when the climactic swordfight and poisonings, and all the exciting deaths, happen within a few seconds of each other in the last scene?

And I often ask myself why I bother reading James Joyce’s “The Dead”, when all I really want is to savor the breathtaking final paragraph.

Look, I’m a busy man. I don’t have time for all that “development”. Just bring me culminations!

Sometimes I even ask myself why I bother to live at all, when I know very well the most intense episode will be the final scene when my life flashes before my eyes just before the hangman opens the floor on the scaffold. Somebody just shoot me please. I can’t wait!

And I don’t know why anybody bothered to read this whole comment. I can tell you taht in the end it all comes to this——-> nothing.