Tag Archives: Playoffs

Yes, I Will Write a Packers-Niners Preview (A Preview to my Preview)

By Kevin York

<You can read the second part of this post, the actual preview, here.>

Packers against Niners. The sequel. This time in San Francisco. I remember the first matchup in week one very well. It took place at Lambeau in a game that San Francisco won 30-22, a score that wasn’t at all indicative of how the two teams performed. The Packers looked absolutely horrible while the Niners looked much like they hadn’t lost a step from where they ended the season last year, a narrow loss to the Giants in the NFC Championship game. Going into that first game I was skeptical, yet optimistic. I thought the Packers offense would still be the great machine that it was in 2011 when it rolled over teams on the way to a 15-1 record. The defense on the other hand, that’s where the skepticism came in. That unit was nothing special in 2011, in fact it was actually downright bad. Like worst in the NFL bad. The Packers used their 2012 draft to address it though, adding young talents like Nick Perry, Jerel Worthy and Casey Hayward. I mean, they couldn’t be worse than they were in 2011, could they?

I came away from week one thinking that they may indeed be worse than the previous year. I didn’t expect the San Francisco offense to be anything special. It was the weak aspect of that solid San Francisco team in 2011, yet against Green Bay, the Alex Smith-led unit seemed to be able to do whatever it wanted. The game left me wondering if this Green Bay team would even be able to win the NFC North and if I’d have to endure endless narrative over the next five months here in San Francisco not only about the Niners beating the Packers, but about how they’re historic, unstoppable and Super Bowl bound. Yes, I was already hearing comments along those lines the day after the game and not just from regular fans, but from the meatballs on local sports radio around here. Yes, they really are that bad.

I also remember that week one matchup well because I watched the game with Hoa and Rahul, who are both, of course, 49er fans. They weren’t shy about rubbing the final score in, especially Rahul, who decided to take it a step further by writing a special post to me that scratched even deeper at my fresh wound. I tend to fly off the hook a bit when it comes to the Packers and retaliated almost immediately with a response.

After the Packers jumped to a big lead on the Vikings Saturday night and it slowly became more and more inevitable that the following weekend would produce a rematch of that week one confrontation, I began to consider writing a post analyzing the matchup. I was already forming tons of opinions in my head about the various strengths and weaknesses of the 49ers and where Green Bay could exploit its advantages and hide its weaknesses. I initially dismissed the idea though. See, I have this sort of rule that I follow. A weird one… I try not to talk trash in the week leading up to a game where my Packers are playing a team that friends support. I take it so far that I shy away from even making comments about their opponent, even simple things like, “Your offensive line is a mess of injuries right now, you’re going to have a real hard time defending Clay Matthews.” It sounds ridiculous, I know. After all, that’s what friends do to each other. They talk trash about their sports teams. I’ve done it before. That instance was not leading up to a Green Bay showdown though and that’s exactly why I try not to do it before a big game. As you may have sensed from my retaliation to Rahul’s Dear Kevin post, I have a hard time dealing with the reciprocating trash talk that comes my way afterward, if the Packers happen to lose one of these games. Directly after a loss I have nothing left to combat the jabs with other than stupid responses like, “If they had done what I said, we wouldn’t have lost! They didn’t have a good game plan!” So you know better than the coaching staff, huh, Kevin?

Is a game preview involving my team really trash talk though? This is a professional sports site, isn’t it? I just give my perspective and analyze both teams. Right? Actually, no. First, this isn’t a professional sports site. It’s five guys who like sports giving their opinions, three of whom are Niner fans and one who cheers for the just disposed-of-by-my-Packers Vikings. We give each other crap, a lot of it at times. With me writing this preview, it would end up containing some jabs, especially since it’s a preview involving my team playing the team that I absolutely hate, the San Francisco 49ers. So you see, professional is something we probably can’t be considered. After all, there’s not much in our backgrounds that prove we actually know what we’re talking about. We just like sports and like to give our opinions. We’re regular guys with no sports experience, just like Skip Bayless, Mike Greenberg, Tony Reali, Jemelle Hill, Israel Gutierrez, Dan Le Batard… Hey wait, those people actually are professionals who are paid for their bad opinions, so maybe…

Weird sports superstitions are hard to let go of. I have a green home AJ Hawk Packers jersey (yes, it’s an odd selection of a jersey for a big Packers fan. I bought it his rookie year. I liked his Big Ten pedigree and his toughness. I thought that he was going to be a really good player. Truth be told, I also liked his hair. When he cut it this past offseason, part of me died, although he has played better this year with short hair. Oh well, I’ve still got Clay Matthews…) and a white Aaron Rodgers roadie. I love both of them, but I can’t wear either one for a big game. The team doesn’t play well when I wear one. Actually, that’s an understatement. They lose, plain and simple. The lone exception is when I tempted fate and wore the Hawk jersey for Super Bowl XLV and the Packers beat the Steelers. When I wore it the next year it had lost its luck and still hasn’t regained it. In fact, I wore that exact jersey in week one.

After some thought, I decided that it’s ok to write this preview. It’s time for me to outgrow my weird superstition. So tomorrow, watch for my preview and analysis of the Packers – 49ers divisional round game. To use the words of Mark, you can consider this a preview to my preview. Who knows, if this goes well maybe I’ll even break out of my jersey superstition.

By Kevin York
Follow Kevin on Twitter at @kevin_york

‘The Look’ and the Expectations It’s Set

Two days ago we witnessed one of the greatest playoff performances of all time. LeBron James single handedly beat the Boston Celtics. They couldn’t stop him. They couldn’t even contain him. He was able to do whatever he wanted and the most impressive part of the performance is that Boston was playing good defense. They were on him. Hands in his face, bodying him, staying with him step for step. And he was still burning them.

This was a LeBron I don’t think we’ve ever seen. He’s always been a great player, but we’ve never seen him as this unstoppable force. When he stepped foot on the court Thursday he was different. He had a different look to him – ‘The Look.’ The look on his face, which didn’t leave until about midway through the fourth quarter, was sullen, removed and pouty. (Side note: will we see this from him more? Will it rise to the level of The Manning Face?) I’ve seen some describe LeBron’s look Thursday night as emotionless. I didn’t see it as that. To me, it seemed more like an act. “I’m going to have this look on my face the whole game as a statement.” It struck me that way because you could see him make an effort to keep the look on his face. He’d drive the lane and get fouled, face contorting, as always players typically do in that situation. As soon as the whistle blew, you could see him consciously make the effort to put that look back on his face. To me, it didn’t seem emotionless, it seemed more pouty.

I don’t know if that was LeBron’s effort to look intense or if it was the result of being beaten down for the past two days by fans and media (didn’t help him that after Kevin Durant closed out San Antonio some were now saying he jumped past LeBron as best in the league and has undoubtedly been the best player in the playoffs). But either way, it didn’t strike me as genuine. Some players have an intense look to them that is transparent and honest. You can tell that they’re intense in all facets of their lives – Michael Jordan had that, Kobe has that, even Kevin Garnett has that look. LeBron never has. He’s a little more happy go lucky. Not to say he doesn’t take the game seriously – he does – but he likes to have fun while he’s playing. He’s never had that stone cold vibe to him like Michael or Kobe. And that’s fine. Everyone is their own man and succeeds in his own way. Magic Johnson didn’t strike me as being a stone cold killer either and he succeeded without it.

Now, if ‘the look’ was the result of two days of intense criticism and scrutiny, that seems more plausible than the sudden emergence of high intensity, but as I mentioned earlier, it was visible that there was effort to keep ‘the look.’ If it was a beaten down LeBron, he never would’ve come out of that mode and there were moments you could see he did.

Moving beyond the look on LeBron’s face, there was something more important about his performance Thursday night: now we’ve seen he can do it… After that game, I was asking, “where has this been before?” The guy’s always been great, but not dominating at such a high level. What happened? He destroyed one of the NBA’s best defensive teams. The rest of his team was flat and offered little help. Wade has been stymied and frustrated by Boston’s double teams the whole series and he didn’t have a good game. Bosh might as well have not been there. The cast of supporting players filled their roles, but did nothing spectacular. LeBron forced a game 7, the Heat didn’t.

He had some great games in Cleveland, some really great games. He led a cast of misfits to the NBA Finals, but I don’t recall seeing anything like Thursday night from him before. I’m trying to keep perspective and not get caught up in the moment, but I don’t ever recall being as impressed with LeBron as I was Thursday night. Had we seen this side of him before, we could be looking at him as the greatest player ever right now. Should he have broken out ‘the look’ before? Has he been coasting, somewhat wasting this insane amount of talent that emerged Thursday night which we haven’t seen anything like since Jordan? The answer is of course no, LeBron is no coaster, he exerts tons of effort, but after such an astonishing performance, I know there were people asking that.

Heading into tonight’s game 7 I have to wonder what we’ll see from LeBron. He’s now shown us he has it in him to just completely and utterly dominate a game. That also means we’re now going to expect it since we know he can do it. So tonight will we see the return of ‘the look’? Can LeBron give us those performances consistently? Or did ‘the look’ set such astronomical expectations that he can only disappoint? After all, most people have now already put the Heat in the Finals against the Thunder. We’ll see tonight. I, for one, don’t envy the position LeBron is in…

No More Tinsel

I can’t do this anymore. I can’t sit here and watch a team just self destruct because they have a bunch of bozos on the team. The Los Angeles Lakers have a lot of work to do this off season and it’s not in the gym. They proved that they can compete. They also proved that they can’t close. AND they proved that Andrew Bynum still doesn’t care, Pau really is soft, and Mike Brown got the short end of the stick.

Bynum. If Andrew Bynum even had 10% of the heart, determination, motivation, whatever the damn “it” factor is, that Kobe Bryant has, he would man handle any opponent. He’s huge, lean and extremely agile. He has the ability to master Kareem’s Sky Hook and modernize it to his own. He’s one of those rare players who is the perfect blend of finess and power. But, he just doesn’t care. He reminds me of that one really smart kid you knew in college, but instead of applying himself he spent his parent’s money on pot.

So Bynum, how about you start respecting the fact that you have an opportunity of a lifetime? You play for one of the most respected franchises in the history of the NBA. Act like it. Even Vlade worked twice as hard as you did. How does that make you feel? I mean sure, you’re an NBA player and I work in a cube but I would never want to be you. Not in a million years. You embarrass the class of the sport and the team simply because you can. If you could harness your idiot power for good there would be no question that you’re the best big man in the league. But since you act like Van Wilder, a 7 year freshman, you will always be mediocre at best. Too bad you will never get traded. The Lakers have wasted too much time and money on you that they’ll never get it back. Oh well I guess us fans can hope that one day you wake up and decide to be an adult.

Pau. Well, I’m sorry bud, you’re being traded. We all know this. It’s just unfortunate because you were the Great Spanish Hope. You were for 1.5 years. You really did suck it up in that 7 Game Celtic Series two years ago. Then last year, you let your girlfriend get in your head. So we thought this year you’d be back with chip on your shoulder. No you’re just old, slow and soft. There’s no other explanation. Every year you were consistently criticized for being soft and every year you came back equally soft. So Mitch (if he’s not with Portland) will ship you off to somewhere warm for a back up point guard. Buy a house and retire.

Mike Brown. Talk about a tough spot. Filling in for Phil. But you should have never gotten the job. It belongs to Brian Shaw. Go figure. If I were you I would have never accepted the position, but that just shows I’m as smart as the rest of the country. Hey, no hard feelings. I’m sure the Lakers management will give you another shot. This next year, don’t say stupid things like “Steve Blake is our starter”.

In conclusion, I’m a die hard Laker fan and it broke my heart to see them lose last night. The series should have been 3-1 going into game 5. Stupid mistakes, immaturity, and the lack of determination is why they’re at home like me. So Lakers’ management, if you’re out there, I’m a free agent next year. I’m 6 feet tall, soft, I can make stupid comments, and act like I don’t care for the Veteran’s Minimum.

@rahulrchhabria
@thecouchletes