Playoffs leaving fans neither shaken nor stirred

First appeared on May 5th, 2010
in The Lebanon Reporter

If watching G4’s Bond marathon entitled “Movies that don’t suck” taught me anything it’s that, even though I’ve seen them all before, Bond repeats are still more exciting than this year’s NBA playoffs. Though I discovered for the first time this year how exceptionally bad the writing is, the unpredictable chase scenes, gadgets and Bond Girls make them worth whatever ridiculous amount of money they cost to make 30 years ago.


The real question here is why can’t the NBA put together playoff matchups that “don’t suck”? So far, Lakers and Thunder excluded, the playoffs have been pretty much an over-officiated, uninspiring snoozefest. Yes Atlanta and Milwaukee went 7, but somehow it’s still been unexciting. To make things worse the Mavericks are gone which means there aren’t any ‘bust your checkbook out referee inspired verbal tongue lashings’ to look forward to from Mavs owner Mark Cuban. Basketball aside, at least he found creatively expensive ways to make the postseason interesting.

Maybe I’m just cranky or maybe I’ve still got a hangover from the sensational NCAA Men’s Tournament we saw this year, either way the NBA Playoffs did little to tug me away from the Bond Marathon. Not to mention the games are on so many different channels you need the standard issue radio directional finder Bond used in “Octopussy” just to find them.

Drama appeared momentarily when OKC almost beat LA. It would have happened had head coach Scott Brooks been sporting a pocket protector loaded with pens capable of shooting poison darts; or had Kevin Durant’s sneakers been equipped with an oil slick switch which, after watching 4 straight Bond flicks , is apparently standard issue on all 007 vehicles. But alas Q evidently did not have time to get the Thunder prepared and by Saturday they were home watching the same G4 marathon I was.

The Eastern Conference is worse. Watching the Cavaliers play is about as exciting as watching Timothy Daulton butcher the Bond name. Outside of not going with a stunt double for Jack Nicholson’s hot tub scene in “About Schmidt”, allowing Daulton to play Bond has to be the worst casting job in Hollywood history.

Saturday I was momentarily interested, but only while marveling at how eerily similar Cavalier’s big man Zydrunas Ilgauskas looks to the 6’6 Frankenstein-like villain known as Jaws; a.k.a. the guy who tried to choke Bond to death in “Moonraker”. Though Ilgauskas can stick a 20 foot jumper from the wing, he cannot bring the same excitement Jaws did when using his steel plated Dentures to sever the 3 inch thick cable suspending Bond’s tramcar over Rio De Janerio.

The second round doesn’t look much better. Watching Phoenix play is exciting, almost as good as Pierce Brosnan’s remote control car scene in “Tomorrow Never Dies”, but unfortunately they’ll face San Antonio. While unquestionable Champions, for professional athletes, it’s still amazing how slow San Antonio can make NBA play look.

The only hope David Stern has now is to turn to Moneypenny for some sage advice or find a way to have the Suns play themselves for the NBA Finals. If the latter works, the basketball world will find the entertainment they are starving for and Steve Nash can finally stick a “Goldfinger” in the eye of those who say defense wins championships. Any other scenario will likely result in a fiery, ultra-expensive crash scene so catastrophic even 007 himself, let alone the NBA, can’t survive. I’m picturing Bond driving a Venetian gondola through a Beijing street clogged with rickshaws while the bad guys are chasing after him on rocket powered snowskis.