Michael Jackson Is Twice As Big As The Super Bowl

Staples, the corporate hosts of Michael Jackson's memorial service, is poised to rake in approximately $75 million in free advertising today. That's nearly twice as much as Raymond James, the backers of Super Bowl XLIII, earned for hosting the biggest sporting event of the year. Seriously.   

Given the worldwide exposure on the event, Staples will conservatively get between $65 million and $75 million in advertising exposure from today alone, said Eric Wright of Joyce Julius & Associates, a sponsorship evaluation firm.

To put that in perspective, Wright says his company calculated that Raymond James Financial garnered $37.3 million in exposure from hosting this year's Super Bowl. Wright said Staples got as much as $8 million in exposure for each of the years that the Lakers played in the NBA Finals.

Between the Lakers' championship and the King of Pop's over-the-top sendoff, I'd say Staples is having a pretty good year. Who ever said there was no such thing as an easy button? 

Gasol's Goaltending

I have always been under the impression that if a defensive player touched the rim during a shot, it was goaltending. Let's see what the league says:

RULE NO. 11-BASKETBALL INTERFERENCE-GOALTENDING
Section I-A Player Shall Not:
a. Touch the ball or the basket ring when the ball is using the basket ring as its lower base.
EXCEPTION: If a player near his own basket has his hand legally in contact with the ball, it is not a violation if his contact with the ball continues after the ball enters the cylinder, or if, in such action, he touches the basket.
b. Touch the ball when it is above the basket ring and within the imaginary cylinder.
c. For goaltending to occur, the ball, in the judgment of the official, must have a chance to score.
d. During a field goal attempt, touch a ball after it has touched any part of the backboard above ring level, whether the ball is considered on its upward or downward flight.
e. During a field goal attempt, touch a ball after it has touched the backboard below the ring level and while the ball is on its upward flight.
f. Trap the ball against the face of the backboard. (To be a trapped ball, three elements must exist simultaneously. The hand, the ball and the backboard must all occur at the same time. A batted ball against the backboard is not a trapped ball.)
g. Touch any live ball from within the playing area that is on its downward flight with an opportunity to touch the basket ring. This is considered to be a "field goal attempt" or trying for a goal.
h. Touch the ball at any time with a hand which is through the basket ring.
i. Vibrate the rim or backboard so as to cause the ball to make an
unnatural bounce. [Emphasis mine]

That's what I thought. The refs missed Howard's similar--and more egregious--goaltending earlier in the game. All things being equal, though, in the above photo, Gasol's clearly touching the rim, which, according to the league rules, is goaltending. Would Lee's shot have fallen if Gasol hadn't hit the rim? Maybe, maybe not. It certainly had a good chance of going in: hell, every fan in the country thought Lee had stolen the game. I certainly did, and, judging from Kobe's reaction in the above photo, he certainly thought so, too. In the end, the refs swallowed their whistles, and probably cost the Magic the game, and the series.

That, and Van Gundy's decision to play J.J. Redick 27 minutes.

(UPDATE: Phil Jackson confirms it. “Yeah, he got his hand caught in the rim in that one, no doubt about it,” Jackson said. “It's called basket interference is what it's called. Even if you hit the net supposedly in the process that's part of it, but that rule is kind of archaic. It isn't called in this day and age as much, but when we were in high school that was something a high school ref might call, basket interference. According to the rules [the right call] was not [made]. It wasn't made."

Where Postmortems Happen

Two games 7s, two unremarkable contests. The Lakers beat the Rockets by 19, while 3,000 miles away, the Magic outscored the Celtics by the same margin. Neither game, though, was as close as the final score. Pau Gasol carried the Lakers to victory, and Hedo Turkoglo led the Magic, finishing with 24 points, including 12 from beyond the arc. The Lakers simply outlasted and outmuscled an undermanned--and undersized-- Rockets team. The Magic simply played their game, which, thankfully, didn't highlight Dwight Howard in the low post. The Magic hit roughly 62 percent of their threes, which is exactly what they needed to do to advance.  

That's my take, anyway. Here's a brief rundown of what some of the teams' beat writers have to say about last night's games, the good and the bad, the highs and the lows. 

Bill Plaschke, Los Angeles Times:

Having dragged this town kicking and screaming into an unwanted game of chicken Sunday, the Lakers at least had the decency to make it fun. Pau Gasol played with Ker-Pau cartoon strength. Kobe Bryant played with M-V-P defensive fervor.

Sasha Vujacic actually made a jumper. Derek Fisher actually had a steal. Andrew Bynum actually showed a pulse.

Jonathan Feigen, Houston Chronicle:

In the end, to win big in the NBA requires stars, even superstars, and by the time the series ended, the Rockets did not have them. The Rockets had to ask Aaron Brooks to fill that role, and that was a bit much to expect.

It also requires that certain steps are taken, steps the Rockets never took in the past.

They finally do have young players that will remain part of their core. It is like a young band that gets in the recording studio for the first time. That's when they hone their craft and become more than buddies in a garage.

Mike Bianchi, Orlando Sentinel:

Mark this down as one of the greatest days in Orlando sports history. This is the night, the Magic, the resoundingly resilient Magic, ignored all of the Celtics legend and lore and started building their own legacy of triumph and tradition.

[Snip]

On this, the 20-year anniversary of their inception, the Magic vanquished the most dynamic, dynastic champion this league has ever known. The Celtics have won 17 NBA titles in their proud history, but the Magic's Big Three of Howard, Rashard Lewis and Hedo Turkoglu had that look in their eyes like they aim to win their first.

And, now, they are halfway home. Eight wins from a championship.

Bob Ryan, Boston Globe:

The spirit was willing, perhaps, but the flesh was not up to the task. The Celtics could not stop a team that came out firing threes and never stopped. The Magic are very much a 21st-century team, and so it is appropriate that on a night they advanced to the conference finals for the first time in 13 years they did so by shooting significantly better from 3-point range (61.9 percent) than from two (47).

61

Let's put Kobe's 61-point game into perspective. Normally, in a situation like this, fans might point out that the opposing team (re: my Knickerbockers) should have defended Kobe a little more aggressively. While I will agree that Mike D'Antoni could have thrown a few more double-teams Kobe's way, there was simply no way of stopping him last night: Kobe was on a mission from God. 

Speaketh Kobe:

Coming up the elevator, I was thinking about all the great players who had played here. I was thinking about Willis Reed and Jerry West and all of the great rivalries they had. It makes it very special.

Al Harrington, who took a few turns trying to guard Kobe last night, had this to say about Kobe's mindset before the opening tip:

Usually I go up to him and he has something funny to say, but he was all business tonight. I knew we were going to be in for a long one.

You can say that again. Kobe shot an incredible 19-for-31 (61 percent) from the field and a perfect 20-for-20 from the free-throw line. Only three other players in the last two decades have hit 20 or more consecutive free throws in one game-- Rip Hamilton (20/20), Amar'e Stoudemire (20/20) and Dominique Wilkins (23/23). Amazing. Kobe's cold-blooded efficiency was not to be denied.  At one point in the first half, D'Antoni told his shell-shocked team that Kobe should come back down to earth at some point in the night, but "if he keeps hitting these shots, we'll just have to go home." Really, what else can you do? 

After the game, D'Antoni elaborated on his defensive strategy: 

We didn’t really want to double all the time, because he will find other guys. We tried to do the rope-a-dope a little bit, where he might have shot himself out, but he didn’t.

Again, I'm not blaming D'Antoni or poor Wilson Chandler, who had the misfortune of guarding Kobe most of the night. Kobe hit everything, even tightly contested shots, as evidenced in the picture above. It's not like Kobe doesn't have a 60-point game in him. Last night was Kobe's 17th time scoring at least 50 points, and his fifth with at least 60. Jesus. Mary. And Joseph. 

Kobe's 61-point ridiculousness was the most points ever scored in a game at the Garden, besting Jamal Crawford's 52, Michael Jordan's 55, Richie Guerin's 57 and, ultimately, Bernard King's 60, the previous Garden record. (King also once scored 52 points and, later, 55 points at the Garden).

Great players, by definition, do great things. Kobe just happened to save his greatest game of the year for his only visit to the Garden-- and there wasn't a damn thing anyone could have done to stop him. 

UPDATE: NBAMate has a recap of all of Kobe's 24 regular season outbursts of 50 points or more. Check it out.  

Line of the Night

61 points. 3 assists. 1 block. Kobe Bryant. 

Line of the Night

42 points. 15 rebounds. 3 blocks. Andrew Bynum.

Line of the Night

36 points. 4 rebounds. 3 assists. 2 steals. Kobe Bryant.

Line of the Night

Four years, $57.4 million: Andrew Bynum