The Top 10 Plays of the Week
The Top 10
#10 – Boston does some title celebration stuff. I feel cheated out of great NBA basketball action. I debated naming this post "The Top 9 Plays of the Week".
#9 – Ronnie Price behind the back pass to AK-47 for the flush. It would have been nice to see the actual pass in the replay but I’m just being negative.
#8 – Nice drive to the hoop and slam by Pau Gasol over Chris Andersen.
#7 – Vince Carter pulls some aerial acrobatics on Etan Thomas. Not surprisingly the first play that really excites me comes from Vince. Say what you want about Vince but he’s still one of the most exciting players in the League. So unless you’re a Nets fan (or just a fan of motion offense in general) tortured by VC’s love of fading 20 footers, or a Raptors fan (seriously though, if he plays through this Nets rebuilding without complaining you crazy Canadians should think about cutting him some slack), you should appreciate the guy I consider to be the most complete dunker of all time.
#6 – Great presence of mind by Outlaw (coupled with Amare falling asleep on defense) leads to a nice highlight. Not a big fan of highlights that are simply a player recovering from his own incompetence in the first place but this is different. Even I can’t complain about this clips inclusion in the Top 10.
#5 – If this is really the fifth best highlight of the week then I am really psyched for the next four. Let’s marvel for a moment at the overall beauty and completeness of this snippet of action. Right off the bat it involves an elite (if not “the” elite) superstar in LeBron showing his unselfish side with a great behind-the-back feed from the high post to Anderson “Sideshow Bob” Varejao (showcasing the League’s ever-growing international diversity) who finishes in spite of the foul. Not to be outdone by Varejao’s flowing locks, note Melvin Ely without his usual braids.
Of course it’s always great if a highlight can illustrate some fundamentals of the game and this clip does just that.
The Cavs have spread the floor with their shooters in the corners and LeBron in the high post. With Varejao messing around at the other high post and Wally Szczerbiak in the corner, the paint is looking pretty spacious should LeBron spin to the hoop.
Point guard Delonte West feeds LeBron and moves to the right while Varejao shuffles over and sets a “flare screen” on West’s man. LeBron has the option to throw the ball over the screen to West for the three. But Varejao only sets a half-hearted pick and makes as if he’s going to screen on the ball for LeBron.
Varejao “slips” the screen (cuts after/instead of screening) and cuts behind his man (Ely) to the basket. Especially in youth and pickup hoops there is a tendency to always cut in front of your defender but if Varejao does that here he will give LeBron a difficult passing angle and Ely will be between Varejao and the basket.
Ely isn’t expecting Varejao to cut he’s hopelessly behind in their footrace to the basket. LeBron doesn’t immediately have a good passing angle so he waits and delivers a beautiful pass that meets Varejao at the hoop. The Hornets’ weak-side help is late and Varejao finishes nicely with his off-hand. Great execution by the Cavs. Of course I can't help but notice that at the conclusion of the play, while the three other Cavaliers head toward the fallen Varejao, LeBron is doing some fist pumping nonsense at half court.
#4 – Gerald Wallace spikes Chris Quinn’s layup attempt out of bounds. I don’t even know what Quinn was thinking.
#3 – Vince makes a bad pass but he redeems himself by catching Chris Douglas-Roberts’ lob and tomahawking it home. I was fortunate enough to see this play live and you knew as soon as you saw it that it was ending up on the nightly, if not weekly, highlight reel.
#2 – Nice circus shot by Yao not only was this play pure luck but it didn’t even count (you can clearly see the ref waving it off… rumor is he was digitally removed by the Chinese government prior to public consumption). Not as egregious as just not doing a play at all (see #10) but still kind of weak.
#1 – Rudy Gay beats the buzzer and the Magic. I’m sure Gay had at least one other play as impressive as this one during the other 47:58:20 of game but given the context I will grant that this play was exciting. That said, the “Magic-Grizzlies thrilling ending” context might have cut it in Memphis on game night but it isn’t doing it for me in the weekly Top 10.
All in all, this was not a bad job by the Top 10 selection committee for the first week of the season. So long as pregame festivities and shots that don’t count become the norm then everything should be fine but they really should have a “Top 10 Plays You Should See that Aren’t the Top 10 Most Impressive Moments of the Week”… and throw all the buzzer beaters and off-the-court theatrics on that list.
#10 – Boston does some title celebration stuff. I feel cheated out of great NBA basketball action. I debated naming this post "The Top 9 Plays of the Week".
#9 – Ronnie Price behind the back pass to AK-47 for the flush. It would have been nice to see the actual pass in the replay but I’m just being negative.
#8 – Nice drive to the hoop and slam by Pau Gasol over Chris Andersen.
#7 – Vince Carter pulls some aerial acrobatics on Etan Thomas. Not surprisingly the first play that really excites me comes from Vince. Say what you want about Vince but he’s still one of the most exciting players in the League. So unless you’re a Nets fan (or just a fan of motion offense in general) tortured by VC’s love of fading 20 footers, or a Raptors fan (seriously though, if he plays through this Nets rebuilding without complaining you crazy Canadians should think about cutting him some slack), you should appreciate the guy I consider to be the most complete dunker of all time.
#6 – Great presence of mind by Outlaw (coupled with Amare falling asleep on defense) leads to a nice highlight. Not a big fan of highlights that are simply a player recovering from his own incompetence in the first place but this is different. Even I can’t complain about this clips inclusion in the Top 10.
#5 – If this is really the fifth best highlight of the week then I am really psyched for the next four. Let’s marvel for a moment at the overall beauty and completeness of this snippet of action. Right off the bat it involves an elite (if not “the” elite) superstar in LeBron showing his unselfish side with a great behind-the-back feed from the high post to Anderson “Sideshow Bob” Varejao (showcasing the League’s ever-growing international diversity) who finishes in spite of the foul. Not to be outdone by Varejao’s flowing locks, note Melvin Ely without his usual braids.
Of course it’s always great if a highlight can illustrate some fundamentals of the game and this clip does just that.
The Cavs have spread the floor with their shooters in the corners and LeBron in the high post. With Varejao messing around at the other high post and Wally Szczerbiak in the corner, the paint is looking pretty spacious should LeBron spin to the hoop.
Point guard Delonte West feeds LeBron and moves to the right while Varejao shuffles over and sets a “flare screen” on West’s man. LeBron has the option to throw the ball over the screen to West for the three. But Varejao only sets a half-hearted pick and makes as if he’s going to screen on the ball for LeBron.
Varejao “slips” the screen (cuts after/instead of screening) and cuts behind his man (Ely) to the basket. Especially in youth and pickup hoops there is a tendency to always cut in front of your defender but if Varejao does that here he will give LeBron a difficult passing angle and Ely will be between Varejao and the basket.
Ely isn’t expecting Varejao to cut he’s hopelessly behind in their footrace to the basket. LeBron doesn’t immediately have a good passing angle so he waits and delivers a beautiful pass that meets Varejao at the hoop. The Hornets’ weak-side help is late and Varejao finishes nicely with his off-hand. Great execution by the Cavs. Of course I can't help but notice that at the conclusion of the play, while the three other Cavaliers head toward the fallen Varejao, LeBron is doing some fist pumping nonsense at half court.
#4 – Gerald Wallace spikes Chris Quinn’s layup attempt out of bounds. I don’t even know what Quinn was thinking.
#3 – Vince makes a bad pass but he redeems himself by catching Chris Douglas-Roberts’ lob and tomahawking it home. I was fortunate enough to see this play live and you knew as soon as you saw it that it was ending up on the nightly, if not weekly, highlight reel.
#2 – Nice circus shot by Yao not only was this play pure luck but it didn’t even count (you can clearly see the ref waving it off… rumor is he was digitally removed by the Chinese government prior to public consumption). Not as egregious as just not doing a play at all (see #10) but still kind of weak.
#1 – Rudy Gay beats the buzzer and the Magic. I’m sure Gay had at least one other play as impressive as this one during the other 47:58:20 of game but given the context I will grant that this play was exciting. That said, the “Magic-Grizzlies thrilling ending” context might have cut it in Memphis on game night but it isn’t doing it for me in the weekly Top 10.
All in all, this was not a bad job by the Top 10 selection committee for the first week of the season. So long as pregame festivities and shots that don’t count become the norm then everything should be fine but they really should have a “Top 10 Plays You Should See that Aren’t the Top 10 Most Impressive Moments of the Week”… and throw all the buzzer beaters and off-the-court theatrics on that list.
Labels: top 10
posted by Gen at
11:48 PM
3 Comments:
This comment has been removed by the author.
How is that LeBron play not No. 1, if only because of its froness?
Gay game-winner is so blah. "Yea, we beat an illprepared, mediocre East team in front of 2,000 fans." Celtics raising banner No. 17 was a much better play. See Allen's smooth stroke on that?
this top 10 sucks
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