Don’t know why anyone would have any trouble with J. R. Smith out “clubbing” during the playoffs. As long as he observed the 5 a.m. curfew, it’s a non-issue, ya know?
And it’s not as if he didn’t have another sensational season tweeting. And Smith’s suspension during the Boston series likely contributed to giving Jimmy Dolan an extra home game at jacked-up prices.
Whatever, it’s all George Karl’s fault.
Meanwhile, let the record show that throughout the Knicks’ postseason, MSG, TNT and ESPN devoted at least one in-game camera and tape machine to tracking Spike Lee. But that never gets old, does it?
Besides, that may have limited TV’s ability to pay attention to the Knicks’ absence of a Plan B offense, when their 3-point-shot-reliant offense — which took the team remarkably far — logically, eventually and inevitably couldn’t take it beyond Saturday night.
VOTE: WHO SHOULD THE KNICKS KEEP FOR NEXT SEASON?
If one could reasonably assume the Knicks weren’t too tired to play defense with 4:30 left in the first quarter, it was at that point a “tell” was revealed.
With the ball, the Knicks, as always, were spread out, far from their basket, when Pablo Prigioni missed a 3-pointer — one of 30 taken by the team. The Pacers’ Lance Stephenson pulled down the rebound, no Knick to bother him, of course, then casually dribbled straight up the court to score an uncontested layup.
“No one’s picking up the basketball!” hollered ESPN’s astonished Mike Tirico.
Demonstrative Tyson Chandler, who fouled out, leaving the Knicks without their no-post center — not his fault he was eliminated from offensive participation — was next seen standing, hands out, palms-up, filled with “what-the-hay?” as if to demonstrate Tirico had made a good point.
It wasn’t that the Knicks didn’t get back on defense — from where they played offense this season, they rarely had far to go — it’s more that, once they were back on D, they often didn’t play any. It was the only time they chose to share the ball.
Then again, when the Knicks weren’t playing spread, isolate, one-for-all offense, they got busy turning Stephenson, just 22, into a nascent superstar.
But, again, they went pretty far, given that their Plan A was their only plan. Or, as new and soon former Knick and career technical-foul king Rasheed Wallace said before the season, “I’m not one to complain.”
Late Venturi not a man to be messed with
Ken Venturi, Jim Nantz’s longtime CBS golf partner and pal, died Friday at 82 — on Nantz’s 54th birthday. Nantz tells a neat story about Venturi’s sense of things. Hopefully, I’ve got it straight:
It was in the early 1960s and Venturi was in the quarterfinals of a match-play tournament. Venturi was down one on the 14th in what had been a friendly match. Both players had been conceding all short putts.
At that point, Venturi either chipped or putted, leaving the ball two inches from the cup. Already knowing far longer putts had been conceded, he walked over and picked it up.
His opponent demanded to know why. Venturi, at first, figured he was kidding. Good one.
“You’ve got to wait for me to tell you that’s good; you can’t just assume it and pick it up,” his opponent told him. “You should’ve putted that out or waited for me to tell you to pick it up.”
Venturi calmly but firmly asked, “Are you going to call that on me?”
His opponent said that he was.
“Well, if you do, you’ll regret it the rest of your life. Believe me; you’ll regret it the rest of your life.”
“Sorry, rules are rules. You’re two-down.”
“No, I’m not,” said Venturi, “the match is over. You lose. You’re carrying 15 clubs.”
Nantz: “Kenny was never going to call that guy for having one too many clubs. That wasn’t his style. He’d have told him on the first tee, if he’d known it then. So when he noticed, later, he never mentioned it. He didn’t want to look as if he were waiting to call it on him during the match.
“But when the guy did that on a two-inch putt … first Kenny warned him, he warned him twice.”
* Who knows less about baseball, the genius who came up with the “hold” stat, or the one who stamped it, “Certified”?
The Mets’ Scott Rice pitched to one batter in Chicago on Friday. That batter, David DeJesus, singled, but right fielder Marlon Byrd threw out the runner from second on a play at the plate. It was Rice’s fourth “hold.”
On Wednesday in Minneapolis, White Sox reliever Matt Lindstrom faced three batters. The first singled, the second doubled him home. It was Lindstrom’s fifth hold.
The Rays’ Jake McGee is among the AL’s leaders with eight holds. His ERA is 8.80 ERA.
Taking Torts to task
It has come to this: John Tortorella is such an abrasive, unpleasant man in public that yesterday NBC’s publicly abrasive, unpleasant studio analyst, Mike Milbury, was moved to knock Tortorella’s conduct!
* NCAA Builds Character, Continued: Mike Goodson, the newly signed Jet arrested at 3:15 a.m. on Friday, charged with being loaded with a hollow point-loaded .45 semi, was a full scholarship student-athlete at Texas A&M. Perhaps the Jets knew he was for them when, as a Panther, he was flagged and fined for making throat-slash signs.
* Another big week for everyone’s favorite know-it-all, Professor Mike Francesa. Boasting he knows great horses when he sees them, he foretold Derby winner Orb’s romp in the Preakness. In a nine-horse field and at 3-to-5, Orb romped to fourth. And those Spurs, far too old to get past the Warriors, got past the Warriors.
* On Saturday in a 0-0 game, Robinson Cano’s fly to right just cleared the wall for a homer. But first he stood frozen at the plate, watching. Can’t miss it. That it’s a short wall, the kind that doesn’t guarantee doubles, didn’t seem to bother him, manager Joe Girardi or YES men Michael Kay and Paul O’Neill.
* HBO’s “Real Sports,” tomorrow at 10 p.m., includes a Jon Frankel piece on the escalating violence against rec and kids’ league game officials. The recent death of that soccer referee in Utah was the segment’s inspiration.
* ESPN “SportsCenter’s” No. 1 Top 10 Play on Saturday was a breakaway windmill slam in a high school players’ AAU game. Roy Hibbert’s perfect-storm, not-soon-forgotten block on Carmelo Anthony? Finished third.