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Tuesday, Nov 24, 2009
The Sacramento Kings choked in Game 7, pure and simple. So why didn't print and TV journalists call them on it?
Jun 5, 2002 | Thank goodness the Sacramento Kings didn't choke in the closing minutes of their decisive overtime loss to the Los Angeles Lakers during the NBA's Western Conference Finals Sunday night.
Yes, the Kings blew a seven-point second-half lead and watched the Lakers score the last eight points of overtime. And the Kings did miss 14 of their 30 free-throws attempts, a charity stripe performance that would make many junior high squads cringe. Sure, Peja Stojakovic threw up an airball on a wide-open three-point attempt that could have sealed a victory in regulation. Yes, during the last two-plus minutes of overtime the Kings missed five straight shots while Hedo Turkoglu tossed the ball off the shin of teammate Chris Webber during a crucial possession with less than a minute remaining and the Kings down by a bucket.
It's true Doug Christie capped his dreadful night by clanking an uncontested jumper off the backboard -- never even drawing iron -- with 20 seconds left and the outcome still in doubt. And yes, team superstar Webber, one of the highest-paid players in the NBA, missed his fourth and final OT shot with eight seconds left; a make would have pulled his team within one point. (This, after playing 29 second-half/OT minutes and scoring an invisible six points on three-for-10 shooting.)
But none of the Kings choked. Not according to the press accounts.
Calling the game for NBC, the closest NBA commentator Bill Walton came was suggesting the Kings were "panicking" during their unsightly meltdown.
In the next morning's Sacramento Bee, local sports columnists lamented the loss, but danced around the "c" word. "They could have played smarter, with more poise, and with better execution in the end," wrote Ailene Voisin.
"It was there in overtime, the team of shooters suddenly losing the basket, the team of confident scramblers suddenly, quite staggeringly, unable to make the play," agreed fellow Bee columnist Mark Kreidler.
As for Webber, the Los Angeles Times on Monday noted, "The series suggested, as had Webber's career, that while he may do many things making shots at the end of the game isn't one of his strengths." But choke? Never.
Welcome to the wide world of professional sports, where nobody ever chokes anymore.
When exactly did choking become such a loaded slur among sportswriters, a sort of no-going-back accusation? The type of radioactive charge that can only be made weeks or months after the meltdown, not in the painful, immediate aftermath?
The new timidity seems peculiar, especially at a time when big city sportswriters talk more and more trash. Last week the Boston Globe's Dan Shaughnessy set off a local storm when, bemoaning a Boston Red Sox player, he wrote, "Let us consider for a moment the piece of junk that is [Jose] Offerman." (According to the paper's ombudsman, mnay readers felt Shaughnessy went overboard with the insult.)
Or turn on sports talk radio and hear rowdy listeners who aren't afraid to call out chokers. In fact they probably do it too casually, assuming any botched play is a choke. (The Kings' clutch guard Mike Bibby did miss a big jump shot in OT during the Kings' deadly 0-for-five drought, but considering Bibby carried the team for the last 10 minutes of play, that single OT miss cannot be held against him.)
