After a sloggy start the Golden State Warriors rose to the occasion for big victories over the Clippers and the Spurs, as October became November. There seemed to be fatigue from the long season and more particularly the trip to China, but the Warriors faced teams not only upping their game to play them, but playing their game.
Team after team changed their characteristic play to assault the Warriors with speed, passing, three pointers and floaters. Some of the younger teams have the energy though not quite the skill, and the older teams have the skills but not the speed, but still, it must be weird seeing your game mirrored by the other team.
Also of note this essay on the new Golden Age for the NBA. Interesting in contrast to the NFL. Over there, the Pittsburgh Steelers have steadied their offensive game--eating up yards and possession time--while sharpening their defense. Still not scoring touchdowns which could hurt them, and there's the week to week question of whether Big Ben's heart is in the game much anymore.
Don't know what New England is thinking, placing their season and near future entirely on Tom Brady not getting hurt and maintaining his play in his 40s.
Meanwhile in MLB, the SF Giants are hiring new coaches more into analytics, the effectiveness of which remains to be seen, but it certainly doesn't add much to the romance of the game that carried baseball for so many decades. Now that the Dodgers are likely to be in the market for an elite starting pitcher after they fell one shy in the World Series, it's going to be tempting for the Giants to give one up to get that elusive power hitter. But let's face it, the Giants need more than one new power hitter. And they probably need more starting pitching, not less.
4 days ago
