Livingston must live in misery.
But he writes a fair to good piece on Jordan, with a few quibbles:
http://www.cleveland.com/livingston/index.ssf/2013 /02/michael_jordan_turns_50_but_th.html
He says the Cavs were closest to an NBA title 3 times.
1) 1988-89 The Shot
2) 1975-76 Miracle of Richfield
3) 2007-2008 Mike Brown team that lost to Boston in Divisional Round (not even ECF!)
I agree with #2 but not #1 and #3.
#1-the 88-89 Cavs, had they beat the Bulls, would have died vs. the Bad Boys, despite what Livingston says.
When The Shot went in, the soon-to-be champion Pistons, who were watching in their locker room, cheered. They had feared the Cavs more.
I have followed NBA ball for awhile but I don't remember a Detroit Free Press article with this. Or a PD one. I have read the articles and the book about the '88-89 Bad Boys, who were more worried about Boston and Chicago--and, LA, who had beat them in the '87-88 Finals--than Cleveland. I'm sure the Bad Boys feared nobody. He did have a good point people forget--there was no backup to Price and they sat him vs. making him play through it. I do know of a Chicago article that stated how sportswriters in the Windy City were worried about the Cavs in '88-89 and that the Bulls were the underdogs (?) going into the second round. Remember, The Shot was a second-round game. It wasn't even a finals game.
In retrospect, 1989 is remarkable for the overconfidence of the Cavs. They had swept Chicago, 6-0, in the regular season. They rested Price, who was sub-par for the entire series with a groin pull, in the opener, which they lost. That was even though Price was the team's single most important player.
The previous year, the Cavs had also lost in five games to Chicago. Price played 43 minutes in a 107-101 final-game defeat in Chicago. In the five minutes he rested, the Cavs, who had no reliable backup at point guard, were outscored, 14-3. It was the whole game.
Wilkens also failed to coach a basic skill, which I had forgotten about in this particular game--guarding the inbounder (Sellers).
Critically, no one guarded the inbounder, Warrensville Heights' Brad Sellers. Even giving credit to Wilkens for his gutsy gamble, the value of disrupting the initial pass has been shown time and again -- most memorably in the last-gasp Soviet bomb play in the 1972 Olympics and in Duke's overtime victory against Kentucky in the NCAA Tournament East Final on Christian Laettner's shot.
Finally, he mentions the Mike Brown team in '07-08. It was not as good as the '06-07 team that DID make the Finals. I think our window was starting to close and '06-07 was as good as we could do. I don't have any "what if"? scenarios for 07-08. Boston was that good, and like the Sox that season, they were just a bit better than the Indians. No conspiracies here.
...and the 2008 second-round playoffs, when Mike Brown's fiercest defensive team lost a Tong War seventh game in Boston to the eventual champion Celtics.
Tong war? I don't get that reference. The defense was better in '07-08, but the O was not that great and the late spring 2008 trade for Sczerbiak and Joe Smith didn't work out that well.
Article is decent and it mentions the '92-93 team (often lost in the shadows of the '91-92 team) at 54-28. But the Knicks, Bulls, Rockets and Magic were the new guard by that season.
2. The Shot II: This 1993 Richfield reprise really doesn't belong with the first one. A jump shot over Gerald Wilkins' defense by Jordan at the Game 4 buzzer, it simply broke a 101-101 tie and concluded a 4-0 second-round sweep. The Cavs won 54 games, but had struggled mightily in a five-game series against the Nets in the first round. The Bulls won 57. The Bulls were defending champions, Jordan was at his most confident, and not even Riley's bully boys, who won 60, lasted more than six games against them.
What is "garbage ball?" in terms of the Knicks? I remember they were damned good at one time. A cleveland.com commentator mentions this:
Jordan still remains the best I've ever seen. He excelled through multiple eras of the NBA - the end of the Magic/Bird era, the Pistons goon era, and the "garbage-ball" era of the early to mid 90's, when Pat Riley and then Jeff Van Gundy nearly ruined the NBA with the hideously unwatchable styles of their Knicks and Heat.
In conclusion, it can be seen that Jordan was just amazing and nobody before or since has equaled him. Sometimes, it is just God-given talent and a bit of hard work.
I hope Cleveland finds its Jordan one day. We're due.
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