After three air balls in a row in the third quarter, I sent a text to my friend Caleb reading, “Is Derek Fisher bad enough to lose this game all by himself? That is the question.” Forever the pessimist, I thought a Beniot-for-3 collapse was imminent.
Ten minutes later. . .
“Oh god, Andrei!
Holy crap. Kirilenko!!
O-MY-GOD, AK!!!”
My girlfriend came into the living room and said, “Wow, why don’t you scream my name like that?” Last night, Kirilenko’s triumphant return to form was so good, I blushed.
That was the old Andrei we saw. The one from 2003-2004 when the team still wore those putrescent purple and copper uniforms with the snowflake belt buckle sown into the shorts and the visage of Wasatch mountain triangles on the sidewalls.
Remember the man who came devilishly close to a 5x5 stat line nearly every night? The man who overnight captured the attention of every fantasy basketball player in America? Last night we saw that underneath it all, that man is still there … the young kid so skinny and hyper he looks more like a meth addtict than a basketball player. The one who’s eyes narrow and develop an expression of intense focus.[1]
I must make a difference on every play. That ball is my ball. You may have it for the moment, but I will get it back. The expression on Andrei’s face is so forceful, it can be read no other way.
Remember the movie Commando? The flick where Schwarzenegger is an ex-navy seal special operative assassin[2] who decides all of a sudden to retire. For whatever reason, the generic bad guys kidnap his daughter. Big mistake.
The bad guys’ actions force the yet-to-be Governor of KAL-EE-FORN-EE-YAHH to go on a rampage involving handheld rocket launchers and grenade guns to save his daughter. During this entire movie, Arnold had one expression, the expression of: I am keeping my composure externally, but internally I am consumed only with the desire to break you in half.
That was the mask Andrei wore on the court last night.
I have to give credit where credit is due. Aside from over-playing Fisher and playing Brewer not at all, Sloan handled Game 6 about as well as you could have hoped. His rotations actually enabled AK to be himself.
In the last column, I mentioned that AK is clearly not a small forward. None of his strengths on either end of the court will be utilized in the 3 spot role. In Sloan’s traditional offense, small forwards shoot three pointers, set screens in the paint, or come off screens in the middle of the floor to launch floating jumpers.
None of these task are AK strengths.
Kirilenko's passing skills are by-far his greatest offensive weapon. If Andrei is going to score 10 – 15 points a game, he needs to slash to the hoop from the high post (while playing the power forward) or back up smaller defenders in the low post (while serving time at shooting guard). Either of these roles allow Andrei to pass to cutters, or throw the ball out to the wing for outside shooters. Most of last night Andrei played shooting guard, not small forward. And, that is why it worked.
It took Sloan only 88 games to decipher what needed to be done, but last night he actually used the Jazz’s most talented lineup for long stretches: Williams, AK, Millsap, Boozer, Okur. Those are the five best defensive players are the roster.
One spectacular defender (AK), one solid in (Williams), one on his way to being something special (Millsap), and two trying their darndest but will never be more than mediocre (Boozer and Okur).
You can live with that mix—and, you can win with it as well.
Andrei and Millsap bring so many intangible positives to the game. Any time you can get two guys like on the floor at the same time, the team is going to succeed. What do they say? The eighty-eighth time is the charm? None of that matters now. The Rocket’s have kidnapped AK’s daughter. Once you get Commando going, he can’t stop until all the bad guys are dead.
[1] On a side note, I miss the Mohawk with the rattail flopping around in the back—it fit in so perfectly with the young, irascible, uncontrollable persona Andrei had that year.
[2] It was some variation of the “Rebel Patriot” theme, anyway.
After three air balls in a row in the third quarter, I sent a text to my friend Caleb reading, “Is Derek Fisher bad enough to lose this game all by himself? That is the question.” Forever the pessimist, I thought a Beniot-for-3 collapse was imminent. Ten minutes later. . .
1 comment:
Yesss! I'm so glad Andrei came alive. The result was that we won the game-yoohoo. But Truehoop points out two reasons why Andrei returning to form wasn't so great. And I can't entirely disagree:
* The worse Kirilenko plays, the more Utah might give up on him and trade him somewhere where he can run free like a deer again.
* If Kirilenko plays really well, somebody is going to write a story about how brilliant Jerry Sloan was in preparing him for this moment by destroying his confidence for ages.
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