A Recap Of The NBA HORSE Competition
Real sports have been put on hold for a month now and that has been very frustrating for many of us. Still, it has been imperative as saving lives is so much more important. The NBA came up with an idea to give us some semblance of normalcy with their NBA HORSE competition and it was met with mixed reviews. It was televised on ESPN.
Despite the country being starved for any kind of live sports, just 686,000 people tuned in to the competition on Sunday and fewer than that tuned in to the Thursday evening broadcast. That is not good considering how many people have stay at home orders and have nothing better to do than watch TV. It is understandable that the Thursday ratings were lower than the Sunday ratings as the public got to see just how bad the video quality was.
In my opinion, the competition itself was good. I liked the banter between the players and Mark Jones did a great job of hosting the competition but the quality of video was not very good at all. It was choppy and that is not good when a basketball in the air. These players are all very rich. You would think that they would have far better video recording equipment. They were all recording themselves on their phones and it was a huge flop. The NBA and ESPN really threw up an airball on this one. Still, we are here to talk about the final two rounds of the competition.
In the first semifinal contest, we saw Mike Conley take on Chauncey Billups. All of the players were on their home courts for this competition but Conley had by far the biggest advantage as his home court was the only indoor one in the tournament. Mike used that advantage to perfection in knocking out Tamika Catching in the first round and then taking care of Billups in the semis. Conley showed that he had an array of tricks in his bag, which included a shot from behind the backboard, a shot where he spun the ball on his finger and then attempted to punch it in, attempted a baseball throw from halfcourt and a shot, in which he made from the top of the key after spinning on one leg. Conley then won the contest with a granny-style shot from the free-throw line. He won H-O to H-O-R-S-E.
In the 2nd semifinal contest, Allie Quigley took on Zach LaVine. This was a close contest throughout until Zach pulled ahead late. He has a great aerial game and is a high-flyer but Zach can also shoot the ball well from deep. In a game this year, he hit 13 treys. Still, Allie has been one of the best shooters in the WNBA and Zach used more of his athletic trick shots to beat her. Quigley even tried to goad Zach into taking more outside shots by saying “Aren’t you a good shooter?” but LaVine was not biting. He was not gonna play to her strengths which is shooting the ball from all over the court and the strategy worked as Zach won H-O-R to H-O-R-S-E.
Up until the finals, I was 5-1 in my picks in the competition overall. When It started I had Zach LaVine winning it all but things don’t always go as planned as Mike Conley beat him H-O to H-O-R-S-E. I have talked about how the indoor court gave Conely a huge edge in the competition. Well, he had an even bigger advantage in the finals and Zach LaVine was dealing with light rain during their contest and it did affect his footing and shot selection. Zach did stay alive late in the contest with a bank three from the left-wing but was then fell to Conley, who hit an off-hand shot that LaVine just couldn’t duplicate. Conley was +450 at the start of the competition, so those that had him going all the way picked up a nice payout.
The Competition as a whole would have been far better had the players put out better video quality. As I stated, the competition and banter between the players were good but the video brought out the bad ratings for the whole tournament. If they have another tournament like this, I hope they correct that.
