The NBA on ABC

In 1976, when Phoenix shut down for the Finals between the Boston Celtics and My Beloved Suns, the fans in Veteran's Memorial Coliseum (Suns' home court at the time) would play a game with the CBS broadcast team who covered games three and four on the clear assumption that this was only delaying the summary execution of the Cinderella Suns by the (then) 12 time NBA champions. The game was to see if they (the fans) could get the CBS commentator they hung in effigy (complete with the tan suit-coat with the CBS eye on the lapel) in the camera shot somehow.

The camera crew, however, was veteran and talented, and you had to be really observant to catch the giant sock-doll in the noose.

That part - good camera work - is the part that remains constant about Big Network coverage of the NBA. Better angles, steadier movement, crisper editing, all done so well you won't even notice unless you force yourself to watch for it. Heck, I wouldn't have noticed it if I hadn't been switching from ABC to TNT games during the regular season.

Even those cable camera pans that I complained about earlier are watchable with ABC, because they pan at a reasonable speed, and stay centered on the action. The shot is otherwise like trying to watch the game from a moving vehicle.

The opening ceremony was way over the top, and that's the Disney magic. (Disney owns ABC). The starting line-up intros are still the time when you round up the refreshments and chase the kids into the other room, because you know you still have several beer/truck/drug commercials to go before anything important. No amount of production value is going to alter that. We've been watching NBA basketball for nine months now. We know who the players are.

The commentators are certainly less arrogant (though that may be my perspective because I have no real partisan interest in this contest). In fact, they are restrained and professional to a fault, as if ABC, when in emptied the ESPN bullpen to staff this game (ABC owns ESPN) imposed a stern No Smirking rule upon the ESPN crew known for smirking. Stuart Scott having to do all his segments with a straight face? What's the point?

I have no quarrels with their collective analysis. Hubie Brown was dead on most of the night, and that's hard to do. But I miss the bedlam of the TNT mutants. Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith and their cohorts understand that its' just as important to be interesting as it is to be right. That's my motto too (for all the good that does me).

As for the game, Dwane Wade, save for the two clutch free throws that Shaq made, saved the game, the Heat's season, and these Finals, single-handedly. No one could have Imagineered a better, more dramatic ending to that game, and all Disney/ABC/ESPN had to do was point the camera and pay attention.

He can't do that every game (can he?). Even though I'm a (reluctant) Mavs fan, and I think Dallas will win this series, I'm glad the heat won this one. I need to get at least two more articles out of these Finals before I have to cover the WNBA. Wade has at least one more of these in him. We should make it to the weekend at least.

That's all a fan can ask for.