Sports Time Radio

Last night I was up later than usual watching an NHL game between the Chicago Blackhawks and the New Jersey Devils. The Blackhawks ended up winning a high score affair 8-5.

After that game I was flipping through channels trying to find something to watch. After just checking out a little of this and a little of that I remember that Sportscenter should be on. I turned on ESPN, but I didn’t get Sportscenter as the NBA game between the Los Angeles Clippers and the Los Angeles Lakers was still on. I was going to start looking for something else to watch or just give up and go to bed when I noticed that there were only 25.2 seconds left in the game. I thought that it wouldn’t be a big deal tow watch this game wrap-up and then catch some SportsCenter; boy was I way off.

When I found the game, the referees had just started a review of a play. Lebron James had saved the basketball from going out of bounds and the referees where also looking to see if Clippers player Robert Covington had knocked the basketball out of bounds after James saved it. Now, it was difficult to tell if James had stepped on the baseline as he was attempting to save the basketball. As you can guess this slowed down the review and when I say slow down, I mean grind the game to a halt. I’m not sure how long this review took, but it seemed as though the game was stopped for 10 or 15 minutes as the referees reviewed the play.

Finally, after a very long delay it was ruled that James did step out of bounds giving the basketball to the Clippers who had a 1-point lead at 103-102.

Apparently, the Clippers decided that they wanted the keep the Lakers in the game as for whatever reason the Clippers committed an 8 second turnover as they couldn’t get the basketball over half court after calling a timeout. The turnover gave the lakers the basketball down 1-point with 18.3 seconds on the clock, but they didn’t use that time very well.

Richard Jefferson made some great points on commentary about how the Lakers should run their offense quickly and try to score so they would have time to either try to rebound if they missed their shot or play defense if they scored and took the lead. instead, the Lakers got the basketball to James, and he stood and dribbled down the cock until there were about 4 seconds left.

The Clippers ran a double team at James with a third player also close enough to defend James, so he passed the basketball instead of trying to force a contested last second shot.

Carmelo Anthony was the open Lakers player James got the basketball to. Anthony took a long 3-pointer even though the Lakers were just down by 1-point. Anthony shot came nowhere close to going in. The Clippers Reggie Jackson ended up with the basketball and was fouled quickly. Jackson made both free throws, but the Lakers still had 2.2 seconds to tie the game with a 3-pointer, but they didn’t have any timeouts and had to go the length of the floor.

Well, the Clippers decided to help the Lakers out again. The Lakers threw a full court pass which was knocked out of bounds by the Clippers with 0.7 seconds left in the game. If the Clippers would’ve just deflected the basketball into play, they would’ve won the game right then and there.

Obviously 0.7 seconds isn’t a lot of time, but the Lakers did manage to get the basketball to James for a 3-pointer from the corner that didn’t really get anywhere close to going in and the Clippers escaped with a 105-102 victory.

Now once the game got restarted it was interested to see how bad these two teams that were thought to be NBA title contenders at the start of the season are in the positions, they’re in.

Of course, the problem was the length of the review before the final 25.2 seconds of this game. Now if you’ve listened to the Sports Time Radio podcast you’ve probably heard Dan the Man complain about the length of time it takes Major League Baseball umpires to review calls. Well, if he would’ve been watching this, he would’ve thought that the umpires worked quickly compared to these NBA referees.

Now, I understand that the referees want to make sure they got the call right last night, but there’s no way they should’ve delayed the game for as long as they did. Not only does a delay like that kill the flow of the game it also allows the players to cool down which could lead to more injuries which the NBA seems to have enough of. I can tell you that it was no fun to sit there and watch the referees look at a replay of James trying to save the basketball over and over while the announcers try to fill time. It’s time for the NBA to look into some time of time limit for these reviews, but obviously that’s something to consider in the off season.

Unfortunately, this is just another reason that I don’t enjoy watching the NBA.

While we’re talking about the NBA James Harden made his debut for the Philadelphia 76ers last night. Harden was acquired by Philadelphia at the trade deadline in a deal that sent Ben Simmons and other to the Brooklyn Nets.

This was Harden’s first game since February 2nd. Harden had been out with a hamstring injury and even skipped last weekend’s All-Star game. Harden’s hamstring must be 100% as he played 35 minutes last night as the 76ers beat the Minnesota Timberwolves 133-102. Harden put up a double-double in his 76ers debut as he had 27 points and handed out 12 assists. Harden ended up just two rebounds short of having a triple-double last night.

There were quite a few people wondering how Harden would mess with Joel Embiid and for the first game it seemed to be just fine. Embiid also posted a double-double last night. Embiid was the 76ers leading scorer with 34 points while also leading the 76ers in rebounds with 10.

Philadelphia is currently 3rd in the Eastern conference standings 2 1/2 games behind the Miami Heat and Chicago Bulls who are tied for the top spot in the Eastern conference.

Philadelphia’s next chance to close the gap on the two teams ahead of them comes Sunday afternoon as they take on the struggling New York Knicks.

I hope you’ve taken the time to listen to the Sports Time Radio podcast. The podcast airs live on BlogTalkRadio.com, but if you miss the live edition of the podcast, you can still hear it. All you have to do is go to TuneIn.com and you can listen any time you want to.

You can also find me on Twitter @Burketime