HoopWatch

I was watching the game between the Orlando Magic and the Denver Nuggets earlier tonight, and have observed one important thing - that the team which handles fatigue and schedule so well has a better chance of getting into the playoffs, and eventually winning the title. The schedule is so rigid in the NBA. Teams have to play in successive nights, even three in a row at times. And the players, coaches and even the management has to cope with this.

Just the other night, the Nuggets defeated defending NBA champions Miami Heat by 10. But last night, they fell to the lower seeded Orlando Magic (in terms of preseason rankings). And the schedule has much to do with it. The Nuggets are playing their fourth game in a seven-day road trip, and they had to play in successive nights. Fatigue and pressure has indeed taken a toll on them. Not to mention the tiredness brought about by travelling. Travelling takes a lot of your energy - the nausea, the bumps on the road, the pull of gravity - everything just wears you down.

Such that I realize that the 72-10 and 69-13 Chicago BUlls in the 90’s were just so good. Teamwork has to be in a team’s ingredient for it to be successful. The stars of those teams were having fun, and not that fatigue since their bench produced significant numbers for them. Michael Jordan, Toni Kukoc, Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman were fresh in the postseason since they were not that pressured in the regular season compared to the other stars. My hats off to Phil Jackson for such a brilliant and masterful job of motivating role players like Luc Longley, Scott Burrell, Jud Buechler, Bill Wennington, Steve Kerr, Randy Brown, Joe Kleine and Jason Caffey. Kudos to the Bulls.

It is such a difficult job to be in the NBA, the demands, the pressure. And so I understand that some stars beg off to play in the summer for their national teams. Those guys can only take so much.