Make the Dream Work

BY KEVIN KERNAN

There are lessons to be learned from the Knicks breaking their 53-year championship drought, winning the NBA Finals in five games over the analytics-driven Spurs, who had no clue how to protect double-digit leads because their offense is based on volume perimeter shooting, their three-point shot obsession.

Settle for the quick three instead of working the ball inside to say the 7’4” guy with the eight-foot wingspan Victor Wembanyama. Basketball madness, much like baseball madness brought to you by the Nerds.

You could say the Knicks simply put the ball in play and leaned on a true leader in guard Jalen Brunson, the closest thing in the NBA to Derek Jeter that I have seen in my years around both leagues. Don’t forget I covered the Knicks for many years, including 1999 when they last made it to the Finals and were beaten by the Spurs and Tim Duncan, back when the Spurs were smart enough to use their big man inside to dominate. I even wrote a book on Duncan called “Slam Duncan’’. Try to get a copy, it’s a fast read and you will not be disappointed.

Before the Finals started, Rickie Ricardo had me on his WFAN show and asked what I thought and this was before the West went to the Spurs over the Thunder. I was going with the Knicks no matter who they played because there is no one tougher and more clutch than Brunson. Again, he’s Derek Jeter on a basketball court.

I want to bring the Mets into this conversation because they are now the New York team with the longest championship drought – a solid 40 years – even though new owner Steve Cohen, who purchased the team, showed his baseball inexperience when he boldly stated he fully expected his Mets would soon win their third World Series.

In November of 2020, these were Steve’s exact words, and this was before he was wearing a Mets cap at press conferences.

“If I don’t win a World Series in the next three to five years, I’d like to make it sooner, than obviously I would consider that slightly disappointing.”

Consider the man slightly disappointed. His Mets, after missing the watered-down playoffs last season are dead last in the NL East.

Also, before you comment, even though they have New York in their name, I don’t consider the New York Jets a New York team. They haven’t won it all since January 12,1969 when Joe Namath paraded off the field at the Orange Bowl with his finger raised high in a No. 1 salute. I wonder if the Jets will ever again win a Super Bowl, they are so dysfunctional. If they do, that is a New Jersey winning team, just like the New York Giants.

The Jets play in New Jersey. The Jets practice in New Jersey, the players live in New Jersey, only their name is New York, and I spent many a day at their home base in Florham Park, N.J.

There was no magic potion analytics from the Knicks on this play of a lifetime. 

The Spurs somehow blew a 29-point lead in Game 4 at the Garden because they continued to fire up threes, at one point missing eight in a row, with no regards to the score and that’s what analytics does across the board. The information is based on data but does not take into account the real situation, the real feel, the gut feel of what is going on at the moment. That is how baseball has lost its way with batting average at an all-time low even though – and this is nothing against my friends who are official scorers – it is nearly impossible to commit an error these days. Pretty much everything is called a hit. I saw a Red Sox shortstop back up on a double play ball the other day, and he completely missed the easy chest high hop and that was scored a hit.

I’m also tired of hearing, “Well that ball had really good exit velo.’’

Make the play, you don’t automatically get a hit because the ball reaches a certain speed. But that is a column for another day.

Brunson and the ‘Nova Knicks never gave up and OG Anunoby’s tip in at the end of Game 4 was made possible because the Spurs refused to even acknowledge OG the inbounder, and, as a result, he had a clear path to the ball on Brunson’s miss. And I said this as the Knicks set up the play. There was no magic potion analytics from the Knicks on this play of a lifetime. Anunoby simply did what he has always done on the floor, go hard to the hoop and find the ball – and no one got in his way. No one from the Spurs was there to block him out.

In a way this was like Mookie Wilson in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series doing what he has always done, be a pest in the long, two-out at-bat against Bob Stanley, then put the ball in play and run like hell. The tying run came home on a wild pitch in the at-bat, and the winning run came home from second as Vin Scully said in a call for the ages: “A little roller up along first, behind the bag! It gets through Buckner, here comes Knight and the Mets win it!’’

In both instances it was a simple, basic play, a little roller up along first and a tip in but that is what can decide a game for the ages. Both were instances of an unrelenting approach.

Mookie and OG command a similar on-high position now in New York sports history forever for the simplest of plays.

It is not about analytics; it is about winning. In the Mookie highlight, the TV broadcast was spectacular in letting the moment speak for itself and showing the delirious crowd and flashing to a handmade sign: “Let’s Go Mets Make the Dream Work.’’

OG and Mookie, through hard basketball and baseball work, made the dream work and in both cases the fans responded with pure sports ecstasy.

Analytics can kill you in many ways, yet the Nerds are given a clear path to game planning because much of the media, many fans and, most importantly, the owners, have fallen for the shell game of analytics over simple baseball truths.

There is another reason I am happy the Knicks won. My three grown children are true Knicks fans and have suffered for years like all Knicks fans. They knew their father covered the Knicks of Bernard King, great days before his knee injury, but also the Knicks of Ken (The Animal) Bannister. Listen to my podcast and I will tell you a funny story about The Animal and also some Hubie Brown gold, because these stories are much better heard than read.

I also spent many a night in the Garden press room talking basketball with the legend Clyde Frazier and I am so happy for him, truly the coolest guy in the room, any room he enters. Brunson & Co. settled a lot of debts and yes, I covered his father Rick, a hard-working role player back in the day, and now a level-headed assistant coach, who helped these Knicks understand who they truly are and that is the biggest difference between an analytic team and a real team, no matter the sport.

An analytic team is based on numbers and excuses. There is no accountability. In baseball, the puppet managers go to the pre-game list of relief pitchers time and again, and when it fails, no one is really to blame and you will hear ridiculous comments like, “the plan was good, we just didn’t execute.’’

No, the plan sucked. It made no sense and this player screwed up like the Blue Jays’ Jeff Hoffman throwing a slider to the Dodgers Miguel Rojas in Game 7 of the World Series when a fastball was in order.

The closest you hear anyone assigning blame is when you hear a manager say in the post game talk, “I’m sure if (insert name) had to do it over again, he would do it differently.’’

That has also become a much too common sentence for team broadcasters, who have to watch their words because the owner (or the players’ family) is listening.

Analytics destroys accountability. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard baseball men say, “How come the analytics department is never fired.’’

Craig Breslow, who has turned the Red Sox into a joke of a team fired Alex Cora and five coaches (the Sacked Six) yet continues to run the team into the ground.

Google “analytics and Mets” and you will see how much more of an analytic driven organization they have become under David Stearns. They will say, “analytics is merely another tool’’ yet it is their only tool.

That is why veteran coaches have been replaced by metric readers, also training staffs. The Nerds in charge can’t handle the pushback. Like Colonel Jessup screamed: “You can’t handle the truth!”

The Mets and their fans are facing a truth: Who is the leader of this team? Francisco Lindor has passed himself off as the leader but has been a $341 million disappointment for the Mets, another disappointment for Cohen. Juan Soto is getting $765 million but is he performing like a $765 million player, whatever that may be? Will he ever lead the Mets to a World Championship over his 15 years? Heck, right now Mets fans would settle for one of those watered-down playoff slots.

Too many baseball teams are paralyzed by data, instead of doing what has worked in baseball for decades, put the ball in play, pitch well, field well, run the bases smartly. And I maintain it has never been easier to be a baserunner because most outfielders can’t throw anymore or track down fly balls properly to put themselves in a position to throw even if they have a strong arm. They don’t work on it. Stealing bases has never been easier, too.

Putting yourself in position to succeed is the secret ingredient to sports success and that takes constant hard work, and toughness. Just look how Brunson repeatedly penetrated the Spurs defense. He did it by being on time, in balance and physical.

That works in baseball, too, be on time, on balance, and physical, hitting, pitching and fielding.

You work to Make the Dream Work.