To the Nuggets, the Warriors are magic

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By Art Spander

OAKLAND — The other coach, George Karl, and he’s an experienced coach, a winning coach, made a reference to the mystical, as if this first-round NBA playoff was being determined by factors other than suffocating defense and offense that does at times seem otherworldly.
  
“They’ve found some magic,” Karl said of the Golden State Warriors, “and we’ve got to take it away.” But time and games are running out for Karl’s Denver Nuggets. Time, games and history.
  
The Warriors did it again to the Nuggets on Sunday night, a Sabbath of bewilderment and not faith for Denver, figuratively run off the court at Oracle Arena, 115-101, by the Warriors, who now are one game away from the series everyone presumed would belong to the Nuggets.
 
Three games to one, the Warriors lead now, after three straight victories. They broke the curse — maybe it was magic — last week, winning at Denver where the Nuggets had lost only three times in 41 games during the regular season.
  
Sunday night, they broke Denver’s back.
   
It was Andrew Bogut, rattling rims — and maybe Karl’s senses — dominating in the first half and then, on a sore ankle, Stephen Curry, with 22 points in the third quarter and 31 for the game, in the second half.
   
It was defense that had the Nuggets throwing away passes and rushing shots.
  
It was basketball played by the book and by the heart, basketball that had a sellout crowd of 19,596 in a three-hour frenzy.
  
Warriors coach Mark Jackson, while enthralled, was also wary, offering the obligatory, “It’s not over yet” when we know it is — even if a year ago Denver rallied to beat the Lakers.
  
But the Warriors are the better team, the hotter team, the growing team. They might drop Game 5 Tuesday night at Denver, but they certainly will not lose Game 6 back in Oakland.
   
There’s no fear in the Warriors, and no reluctance either. They are believers and competitors. They swarm when the opponent has the ball — in the second quarter, the Nuggets made 10 turnovers to the Warriors one. The connect when they have the ball.
  
“God bless Steph Curry,” said Karl, “but there’s Jarrett Jack and (Carl) Landry. They also score. Turnovers gave (the Warriors) control of the ball. But it takes one game to turn it around, to regain our confidence.”
  
The Warriors are the confident ones. They’ve always been confident. It’s an expression of youth and fantasy. To the Warriors, anything is possible. Even shooting 75 percent, which they did in the third period, hitting 13 of 17 from the field.
    
Curry, naturally, was the catalyst. The right ankle, the one that’s troubled him for years, the one that required surgery, was sore even before the game, and so he received an injection, a pain killer.  
  
However, the hurt remained early on, and so Jackson thought of benching his star and did take him off the court for a long while.
  
Finally the pain subsided after intermission. Curry was able to flee the Nuggets’ trapping defense. A shot went in. Then another. Then another. In the last 4 minutes 22 seconds of the third quarter, Curry scored 19. Game, set and virtually match.
   
“He put the team on his back,” said Jackson, repeating a comment he’s used frequently, and for good reason. After that, someone from the Nuggets put a finger in Curry’s eye. With the Warriors up by 20 or so, Jackson smartly pulled Curry.
   
“I was considering shutting him down in the first half,” said Jackson, “and I told him that. It was almost like a boxer who knew he was on the ropes, because it was a matter of time. I told him I didn’t need him to be a hero. Smart coaching, huh? I guess he realized and sensed that, and he captured the moment and embraced the moment.
  
“The thing that stood out to me, it’s almost like he was waiting for this moment his entire career and wasn’t going to allow his body to tell him that he was too hurt to match the moment. It was an incredible, incredible performance by him once again.”
  
It was a performance reminiscent of that by Sleepy Floyd, who for the Warriors in a 1987 playoff against the Lakers scored 51 points, a record 29 in the third quarter. The Warriors coach that game: George Karl.
  
“They were definitely the quality offensive team,” Karl said of these Warriors on Sunday night. “They have shooters like they have, and Bogut played well.”
  
The 7-foot Bogut, acquired in a trade a year ago but not entirely recovered from ankle surgery that predated the swap, was aggressive and mean in the first half. He had several dunks, going to the basket as Denver trapped Curry, and one, reshown on the big screen again and again, was the stuff — literally — that brought fans to their feet hollering in delight.
  
“He was off the charts,” Jackson said of Bogut. “I thought he was the key to keeping us in the ball game, setting screens, rebounding, playing physical.”
  
Curry was on the charts, taking 16 shots and making 10, going 6 of 11 on 3-pointers. He also had seven assists, numbers that have to be displayed.
  
“The way I explain it,” said Jackson, a who has his own church, “(Curry) is blessed.”
   
If you choose to describe that as magic, all well and good.

Noise never stops for Warriors

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By Art Spander

OAKLAND — Playoff basketball, so manic and rewarding, returned to Northern California Friday night for the first time in a half-dozen years in a relentless, boisterous display of fan affection — and, no less significantly, a home win.
  
The game was what you might expect between two teams who’ve already seen too much of each other, and a response you might expect from a sellout crowd at Oracle Arena that, through the seasons, never lost faith even while Golden State lost games.
 
In the end, almost in spite of themselves, the Warriors hung on to an agonizing 110-108 victory over Denver, while 19,596 semi-lunatics dressed in yellow T-shirts declaring “We are Warriors” chanted their delight.
  
Only once in the previous 17 seasons had the Warriors made it to the playoffs, and even though they survived just one round — upsetting Dallas — the Bay Area never recovered from the joy. And never wanted to.
  
So when, in a first-round series tied at a game apiece, the Warriors merely walked out to the court for warmups, the fans poured out their emotion. “I’ve never heard anything like it,” said Jarrett Jack. “They were so hyped.”
 
At times, the noise was deafening. Stephen Curry, who as you knew would ignore that ankle injury and be ready, and who scored 29 points, said at times the Warriors couldn’t communicate on defense.
  
They couldn’t hear each other. They couldn’t hear the coach. They couldn’t hear anything but those fans bellowing over and over, “Warriors  . . . Warriors.”
  
“Amazing,” said Curry. “But a big deal has been made (about) how long have the Warriors not gone to the postseason. The fans had all that energy stored up.”
  
What the Warriors have stored up in this best-of-seven series is a two-games-to-one lead, with Game 5 Sunday, also at Oracle. “And when the cloud of night goes,” warned George Karl, the Nuggets’ coach, “(Saturday) morning we’ll be up and ready to work.”
   
So will the Warriors, not that they could work any harder than Friday night when, a bit sloppy and considerably off, they fell behind by 12 points at halftime, 66-54.
  
“This is a young team,” reminded Mark Jackson, who in his second year running the Warriors remains a young coach. “It’s going to make mistakes, make turnovers, miss shots. But it works extremely hard. It stays together, and it’s defensive-minded.”
   
Oh yes, defense. The oft-told and dead-accurate aphorism is that defense wins, because if the other team doesn’t score you can’t get worse than a 0-0 tie. The thought is not literal in the NBA, where there’s always scoring. The issue is how much scoring.
   
For the Nuggets in the third period, very little, 18 points, while the Warriors were picking up 33.
   
In the final moments, when the Nuggets were within two, Draymond Green, off the bench, caused a turnover.
   
“People probably thought I was crazy putting him in,” said Jackson. “But he has an incredible IQ for the game of basketball. He gave us a spark.”
  
Curry gave them what he always gives, points, passes – he had 11 assists along with the 29 points – and stability. He understands what a point guard must be, which is a leader, and Curry is one in the extreme.
  
“He’s a big-time player,” said Jackson. “He made big-time plays.”
   
Curry and Ty Lawson, the Nuggets’ point guard, came into the NBA at the same time, the 2009 draft, from the same state, if from different schools, Curry, a first-rounder from Davidson, Lawson an 18th rounder from the University of North Carolina.
  
Lawson, with 35 points, was virtually all of the Nuggets’ offense in the second half. “He tried to put the team on his back,” said Jackson, appreciating an opponent’s skills but grateful for the skills of his own man.
 
“Lawson was in my draft,” said Curry. “We’ve been compared to each other. He was aggressive from the start. He showed his talents.”
  
As did Curry, who tested his sore right ankle before tipoff and, after consultation with coach and trainer, said it was a go.
   
“I try to be as versatile as I can,” said Curry about his multiple assists, “and help the team by making the right play at the right time. They have a lot of trust in me.”
  
Deserved, certainly. He scored 54 against the Knicks earlier in the year and broke the league’s single-season record for 3-point baskets.
   
“I approached this game the same way as I do every game,” said Curry. “I try to go out and play my game, and enjoy the ride.”
   
The ride was a fine one, a noisy one, a successful one.
   
“It was just a big-time win for us,” said Mark Jackson.
    
Big-time and so very, very loud.

Giants do everything they can to lose

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By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — The Giants did everything they could to lose it. And succeeded.
  
Just one of 162, certainly, and there are going to be games like this, but, full of errors and other misplays, particularly worrisome nonetheless.
   
Maybe former Giants shortstop and current Comcast TV commentator Rich Aurilia was a bit strong when, after an erratic top of the 11th inning Tuesday that made the difference in Arizona’s 6-4 win, he tweeted, “Terrible baseball in this half inning.”
    
Strong but hardly inaccurate.
   
He was referring to Andres Torres watching a ball fall for a double in that half inning, then an error by first baseman Brandon Belt on a one-bounce throw from Pablo Sandoval, then a wild pitch by Santiago Casilla.
  
“We probably should have been better there,” said Bruce Bochy, the Giants’ manager.
   
Matt Cain, the Giants’ starter, still searching for the dominance of last season, also probably should have been better there.
  
He had some bad breaks — the first batter of the game was safe on one of the three errors San Francisco would make. And then against the nemesis, Paul Goldschmidt, he made a bad pitch in the third inning, a pitch that was immediately turned into two-run homer.
  
Bochy, always the optimist, didn’t seem displeased with Cain, who went six innings without a decision and still is winless in 2013.
  
“He threw well at times,” said Bochy of Cain, who struck out six and allowed five hits. “Matt settled down. One pitch got away. It was a mistake, and that was against a guy who did some damage.”
  
It was the Arizona starter, Patrick Corbin, who was doing damage to the Giants. He retired the first nine betters in order and gave up only three hits through seven innings.
  
San Francisco, with Brandon Crawford tripling to center, however, picked up two runs in the eighth, and then Brandon Belt, pinch-hitting for Joaquin Arias, homered into McCovey Cove in the ninth to make it 4-4.
  
The usual sellout crowd at AT&T, the 177th straight, shook off its torpor and the icicles (summer left in late morning), screaming, chanting and thinking that as Monday night the home team would find a way.
   
Yes, as Bochy says virtually every game, these Giants, the World Series Champion Giants, prove resilient. But also at times, they tend to inefficient.
  
You can shrug off Sandoval getting thrown out by what, 20 feet or 25, attempting to score from second on Hunter Pence’s two-out single to right. It was the onetime Giant, Cody Ross, who cut him down. It was the third base coach, Tim Flannery, who sent him home.
  
“A two-out base hit,” said Bochy, whose managerial skills are rarely questioned, “you try to score. Ross charged it well. That’s part of the game.”
  
Part of this game, a huge part, was the Giants looking bewildered at the plate against the left-handed Corbin and incompetent with the gloves against the ground balls.
  
Three errors mean the other team figuratively gets 30 outs instead of 27. And wild pitches with a man on third in a tie game are ruination.
  
As Bochy said, you play enough games and those things occur. But for a team constructed upon pitching and with only one starter, Sandoval, who could be timed by an hourglass, hitting at least .300, when errors and errant pitches occur, too often you lose.
  
The Giants had won seven in a row at AT&T, and since baseball is a game of averages, surely they were due to drop one. It’s the way they dropped it that causes dyspepsia.
    
In the mind’s eye there’s Sandoval, rumbling into the end of an inning — yes, we’ll shrug it off — then moments later Casilla bouncing a ball as if he were a bowler in cricket rather than a pitcher in baseball.
  
Maybe the Giants should find satisfaction that, for a second straight game against the Diamondbacks, they rallied. But this time, it only extended the time until the eventual disappointment.
  
Bochy was asked why he allows his starting pitchers to stay in a game when they don’t appear to be particularly sharp, but it’s obvious. They are the strength of this Giants team, even on nights when they’re not particularly strong. Besides, he doesn’t want to overwork his bullpen.
  
“They’ve earned the right to stay in,” Bochy reminded, not that anyone who’s studied the Giants needed reminding. “You’re going to allow your guys to work.”
    
Cain worked, and that’s a good description. It wasn’t easy. He left trailing by four runs. The Giants managed to get those four and get even. After that, it was an embarrassment and a defeat.

From the Archives: RealClearSports: Remembering Robinson's Number — and Skill

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This article was originally published April 13, 2012.

By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

The number, 42, hangs in every major league ballpark, a reminder of a man who was as much a pioneer as an athlete — a superb athlete — talented, proud and courageous.

Sixty-five years now since that April day in 1947 when Jack Roosevelt Robinson integrated the majors.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2012

Global Golf Post: On Rules, Rulers And Rulings

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By Art Spander
For GlobalGolfPost.com

AUGUSTA, GEORGIA — Jack Nicklaus summarized the situation and the event. The other majors, he reminded, are championships, The Masters is a tournament. What he didn't say, and what we all have come to understand, a tournament of privilege and unique rules interpretations.

Status counts, as does reputation. After all...

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2013 Global Golf Post

Newsday (N.Y.): Tiger's issue: He just couldn't judge the speed

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By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

AUGUSTA, Ga. -- He was under an umbrella but under no illusions. Tiger Woods didn't win the Masters he was supposed to win, and there would be no talk on this rainy Sunday about bad breaks or anything except his inability to gauge the speed on Augusta National's vexing greens.

Woods played a decent back nine Sunday with three birdies after an indifferent front nine, and his two-under-par 70 moved him up to a tie for fourth at 283, four shots shy of first.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.

Newsday (N.Y.): Brandt Snedeker, Angel Cabrera tied for Masters lead

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By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

AUGUSTA, Ga. -- Beyond the controversies and penalty strokes, the slow play of 14-year-old Tianlang Guan, the debate over Tiger Woods' non-disqualification, this Masters has become a compelling tournament.

Going into Sunday's final round, the competition is about as wide open as the eighth fairway at Augusta National.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.

When Tiger’s done, so are the fans

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By Art Spander

AUGUSTA, Ga. — The mad rush of humanity, for hours waiting, working to get on the hallowed ground of Augusta National and then, with Tiger Woods coming off the course and a “Weather Warning” sign going up on the scoreboards, the desperate and successful attempt for most of those people — the Patrons, they’re called — to get off.
   
Fleeing, departing, as if warned of some onrushing tide. But this was not time to get to high ground, but rather a reality check on what and who counts at the Masters — and if it’s not Mr. Woods, it’s the fans’ own survival.
  
It wasn’t raining yet, but the threat of lightning and with Tiger finished, let’s get to one of those taverns on Washington Road.
  
Woods is the story even when Thursday, for the first round of this 77th Masters, he wasn’t the story. That is if you go by the leader board, on which he failed to earn a place, because there’s room only for the low 10 and ties. At 2-under 70, Tiger was among the group sharing 13th.
   
Marc Leishman, trying to become the first Australian to win the Masters, and Sergio Garcia, the Spaniard who had insisted he was not good enough to win a major — hey, we all make mistakes — were tied for the lead at 6-under-par 66. Dustin Johnson was at 65.
   
Golf tournaments, however, are like mile runs, four rounds instead of four laps. The guy in front after 18 holes may not be the one who’s in the lead after 72. Everyone knows that, especially Tiger Woods. The idea is not to lose touch, to stay close enough.
   
Tiger would be fine with two rounds to play, even with one round to play. With three to go, he’s in great shape, if not in first place, where those thousands of spectators, the Patrons, were hoping he would be before they hastily took their leave.
   
It’s been Tiger’s year so far in golf, three victories on Tour, a return to the top of the world standings. Yet, Tiger, as Jack Nicklaus, is all about major championships, because in his sphere — as in Jack’s — there’s little else. The rest of the tournaments, Torrey Pines (unless it’s a U.S. Open there), Doral, are merely obstacles to get past.
  
Nicklaus brought this about, although he contends it was unintentionally, after his win in the 1972 Masters.
  
Jack reached a point in his career, as now at age 37 Tiger has in his career, where nothing matters except one of the big four. Nicklaus seemingly didn’t care about and rarely entered any of the rest, which aggravated the late, great sportswriter Jim Murray to produce a column headlined, “Majoring in Golf.”
  
“I never counted my majors,” Nicklaus said a couple of days ago, “until (the late Associated Press golf writer) Bob Green told me at St. Andrews in the ‘70s, ‘Hey Jack, that’s 10. Only three more to tie Bobby Jones.’
    
“I said, ’Really?’ I never counted them. All I did was try to be the best I could be.”
   
Some of the facts are incorrect, if perhaps because of the passing of time. Jack’s win in the 1970 British Open at St. Andrews was his eighth, not his 10th. His win in the 1978 Open at St. Andrews was his 15th.
  
Irrelevant? Possibly. The ultimate total became 18, while Tiger, who has 14 but none since the 2008 U.S. Open, remains second.
  
“He’s got to win five majors,” Nicklaus said of Tiger’s quest, “which is a pretty good career for most people to start at 37. I still think . . . still he’s got to do it. If he wins here, it would be a very large step towards regaining that confidence that he has not won a major in three and a half years.
  
“He’s going to have to figure it out. But I think if he figures it out here, it will be a great boost for him. If he doesn’t figure it out after the spring he’s had, I think will be a lot tougher for him.”
  
When Tiger after his round Thursday stood relaxed behind a protective rope that separated him from the recorders and notepads of the press, he seemed contented if not elated.
   
“It’s a good start,” said Woods, who as others surely is concentrating on the finish. “Some years, some guys shoot 65 starting out here. But right now I’m only four back and right there.”
   
Tiger has played the Masters, Augusta National, since the mid-1990s when he was still an amateur. He won in 1997 as a rookie pro and then three more times, but not since 2005.
  
“I feel comfortable with every aspect of my game,” Woods said on Tuesday. “I feel I’ve improved, and I’ve gotten more consistent, and I think the wins (before the Masters) show that.”
  
What the first round in 2013 showed was Tiger can break par and draw a huge crowd that isn’t interested in much else other than Woods and not getting caught in a storm.

In a great game, Louisville achieves greatness

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By Art Spander

ATLANTA – Sometimes it works out like this. Sometimes the biggest game of the season turns out to be the best game of the season, a game of emotion, drama and subplots that validates our love of sports, a game that, true to the mottos printed on the warmups of both teams, did rise to the occasion.
 
The preludes, the regionals, even the semifinals, were hesitant, awkward games, making us wonder what was wrong, instead of what was right, games when players couldn’t score, games that elicited criticism instead of the expected praise.
   
But on Monday night, the NCAA final swept away all the disappointment that had gone before, as Louisville, once trailing by 12 points, was able to sweep away Michigan, 82-76, and both take the championship and justify its overall No. 1 seeding.
   
It was a beautiful day for Rick Pitino, the Louisville coach, who in the late morning was chosen for the Basketball Hall of Fame and then so very late in the evening, just before the stroke of midnight because these games are staged for a maximum TV audience, watched and urged the Cardinals to their third title – and his second.
   
Thirteen years ago, at the only other school that counts in the state of bluegrass, thoroughbreds and college basketball, the U. of Kentucky, Pitino earned his other championship.
   
So Louisville, which at one time in the first half had trailed by 12, would come out ahead in the end, but the true winner was the sport, as wild and enthralling as only could be imagined by the record finals crowd of 74,326 at the Georgia Dome and the usual millions of television viewers.
 
“A lot of times when you get to championship games,” said Pitino, “the games are not always great, not always pretty. This was a great game.”
   
This was a game in which a kid nicknamed Spike, Michael Albrecht, a 5-foot-10 freshman, came off the bench for Michigan to score 17 points before intermission and then, as the media wondered if he were the stuff of fairy tales, slipped into oblivion.
   
This was the game in which a backup named Luke Hancock took the role of the injured Kevin Ware and not only led Louisville with 22 points but was chosen the Final Four’s most outstanding player.
 
This was the game in which players from both squads raced from one end of the court to the other at the sort of breakneck pace that had the screaming fans -- and oh, were they loud -- taking as many deep breaths as the athletes.
 
Michigan (31-8) was doing it for a while with four freshmen, and oh, are the Wolverines going to be strong in the future. Louisville (35-5) was doing it for a while figuratively without guard Russ Smith, who made only 3 of his 16 field goal attempts.
  
Yes, Ware was in the building, on the bench, the right leg in which he incurred a compound fracture 10 days earlier against Duke under sweat pants, his number “5” on the T-shirts of so many Louisville fans. He was given the opportunity to make the final snip, separating the net from the rim.
  
Louisville was not quite as ecstatic as it was relieved. The Cardinals gained control in the second half, as they did against Wichita State in the semifinal, but Michigan, shooting 52 percent for the game, wouldn’t fade until the bitter end.
  
“As fine an offensive team as there is,” Pitino said of Michigan.
   
The Wolverines with their happy ghosts from the past, Chris Webber, Jalen Rose and others from, the ’93 Michigan finalists in attendance, would get 24 points from the new Player of the Year, Trey Burke – even with Burke out most of the first half with  two early fouls.
  
That’s when Albrecht came in and came on, making 6 of 8 and getting his 17. That’s when Michigan zoomed to a 33-21 lead with 3:56 to play before halftime. But even more quickly, in three and half minutes, Louisville did its own zooming, and went ahead, 37-36. You sensed it had become the Cardinals' game.
  
“We feel bad about it,” Michigan coach John Beilein would say in retrospect. “We could have done some things better, every one of us. At the same time, Louisville is a terrific basketball team. I have not seen that quickness anywhere, and we played some really good teams. That quickness is incredible, and it got us a couple of times today.”
  
It got Louisville the victory, as one of Pitino’s horses, Goldencents, on Saturday got him the Santa Anita Derby victory.
  
“I think when you work as hard as we work,” said Pitino of his team, “it builds a foundation of love and discipline because you have to suffer together. You're always pressing.”
  
He meant for greatness. In this game, this great game, Louisville achieved it.

Reserves and persistence win for Louisville

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By Art Spander

ATLANTA -- The fans of the school that didn’t win, Wichita State, were complaining, not about their team, which was magnificent, but about the college basketball rule that awards alternate possessions on what used to be jump balls and, of course, about the officiating.
   
What happened was Louisville -- which was down 12 in the second half and came rushing back to win the NCAA national semifinal, 72-68, Saturday night, and advance to Monday night’s final against Michigan -- missed a free throw with nine seconds to play.
  
Wichita’s Ron Baker grabbed the ball, then Louisville’s Luke Hancock also grabbed the ball, although the Wichita people among the huge crowd at the Georgia Dome insisted Hancock grabbed Baker, getting away with a foul that became a tie-up.
  
The possession arrow pointed to Louisville, and naturally Wichita had to foul intentionally. And that was that, the No. 1 seed beating the No. 9 seed.
   
But forget the rules and the refs. If you’re in front, 47-35, with under 14 minutes remaining, they’re not at fault. Your team is.
   
Your team, which was so protective of the ball for more than 30 minutes, which had only four turnovers, wilted under Louisville's pressure and made six turnovers in eight possessions. Your team, which got this far on 3-point baskets hit on only 6 in 20 attempts.
  
Louisville won because when its starters were less than effective, its reserves -- including a walk-on, Tim Henderson -- were very effective. Louisville won because it’s the best team in the country.
   
“They do that to everyone,” a saddened Wichita State coach Gregg Marshall said of Louisville.
   
Then he sighed, “This may be the most important basketball game I’ll ever coach. It’s definitely the most important Wichita State has played in.”
   
It was no less important for Louisville, which certainly was without its emotional leader, Kevin Ware, who broke his leg in last weekend’s regional final against Duke. Louisville has made even greater comebacks – it was down 16 to Syracuse in the Big East tournament – to advance as it has.
   
“We had to win this game with our second unit,” said Rick Pitino, the Louisville coach, “with Steven Van Treese, Tim Henderson, one of the best sixth men in basketball, Luke Hancock, and Montrezl Harrell. Our starters played poorly, and that was because Wichita State is that good.”
   
If not quite good enough.
   
Henderson is one of those hometown kids who sat on the bench while Peyton Siva from Seattle, Russ Smith from Brooklyn, Gorgui Deng from Senegal – and definitely Ware, from the Bronx – got the playing time and accolades.
   
Hancock also is a sub, if one who Saturday night, basically taking Ware’s place, was on the court 31 minutes and scored 20, one point fewer than Smith.
   
Great teams, or at least very good teams, are deep teams, with players who perform when nobody except their teammates expects them to. Very good teams have players such as Henderson, who defied the Wichita State defense, if not logic.
  
All season, in the 25 games he played, Henderson had made just four 3-pointers, In this game, an agonizingly awful one in the first half and frantically exciting one in the second half, Henderson made consecutive 3-pointers. At the most critical of moments.
  
With Wichita ahead by those 12 points, Henderson cut the margin to nine at the 13-minute mark. Then he trimmed it to six, 47-41, with 12:18 to play.
  
“Tim hits shots like that in practice,” said Hancock.
  
This wasn’t practice. This was near perfection. Three 3-pointers in 17 attempts in 25 games. Two in three attempts in the national semifinal game.
   
“I think the two Henderson hit,” said Marshall, the Wichita coach, “were in concert with the two one-and-ones (the Shockers') Ehimen Okupe missed. You got to get some points there. Then the six-point run for them becomes three or four points.”
   
A week ago, when Ware went down with that gruesome fractured leg, the Louisville Cardinals prayed for him. On Monday night, Ware said he prayed for Hancock. “We’d love for him to be out there,” Hancock said of the injured teammate. “He’s out there in spirit. It means a lot.”
    
What meant a lot was for a dog of a game, Wichita leading at half by the ridiculous score of 26-25, to awaken after intermission and make the final totals respectable. More than respectable were the turnover numbers. Louisville had only two in the second half, nine for the game, Wichita just four in the first half and 11 for the game.
  
In domes, the shooting invariably is off -- although Siva, who was 1 for 9, was asked if the depth perception affected his jumpers and cracked, “Well, my layups. I couldn’t really see. I was too far away from the basket.”
    
No laughs, just the realization he’s close to the national title.

King Felix rules over A’s

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By Art Spander

OAKLAND, Calif.  –-  There’s a reason they call him King Felix. “He can throw any pitch on any count,” said Bob Melvin. He’s the Oakland Athletics' manager. He was in the other dugout Monday night, opening night, a disappointing night for Melvin and the A’s.
    
A losing night.
  
“Opening night,” Melvin reminded, not that anyone needed reminding, “you’re always going to face the other team’s best pitcher.”
   
The Seattle Mariners’ best pitcher. One of baseball’s best pitchers. Felix Hernandez, who’s won an American League Cy Young Award, who last season threw a perfect game, who by anyone’s definition is pure baseball royalty.
   
“Maybe he didn’t have his best velocity,” said Melvin, a former catcher who knows all about pitching and too much about Hernandez, “but he was great.”
   
What Hernandez did was retire the first 10 batters of the game, really of the season, and although Hernandez would allow three hits – one to his former battery mate, John Jaso, whose double in the fourth was end of the no-hitter – the A’s never scored, losing 2-0.
   
An opening day and night without runs from teams by the Bay. Down in Los Angeles, the Giants – the World Series champion Giants, if you will – were blanked by the Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw, 4-0. A few hours later, up at this end of the state, the A’s, the American League West Champions, were just as ineffective.
  
Two teams, two winning teams from 2012, zero runs.
   
“You always get somebody’s ace,” said Melvin.
    
The A’s similarly had one of their aces pitching, Brett Anderson. He struck out the first four Mariners. He went seven innings. Permitted only four hits and two runs.
   
“You’re going to take seven innings and two runs anytime from your starter,” Melvin insisted. Absolutely. But when your team gets no runs, you’re in trouble.
    
The A’s traded for Jaso in January. So long, Felix. “It’s easier catching him than batting against him,” said Jaso. But he did get that double. He did halt any chance for more perfection.
   
Before the game, Hernandez sent his former catcher a remembrance from the perfect game against Tampa Bay last August, a Rolex watch. Those beauties don’t come cheaply, starting a $5,000 or so and climbing exorbitantly depending on the number of diamonds on the face. Then again, Hernandez signed a $175-million, seven-year contract in January, so he has a bit of spare cash.
  
Someone asked Jaso whether it meant more getting a watch from Hernandez or a hit. “The hit,” he said, not all that seriously. “Then he struck me out.”
  
Hernandez struck out eight in his 7 2/3 innings, walking only one. “He had his stuff,” agreed Jaso. “He was really fun to catch when I was in Seattle. But today, so was Brett.”
 
Anderson is the medical miracle. The lefthander underwent Tommy John surgery in June 2011 and didn’t pitch again until last August. Then he strained an oblique muscle in September and missed more time. But on October 10, with the A’s trailing the Detroit Tigers two games to none in the best-of-five American League Division Series, Anderson, in his first start in six weeks, went six scoreless innings.
   
Monday night, opening night, was the next time Anderson pitched in competition. He liked the way he threw, for the most part. He didn’t like giving up the runs.

“A couple of mistakes,” said Anderson, analyzing the performance. “We had a chance to win it. I walked the leadoff batter (in the fifth). I hate walking people. That was my biggest downfall.”
   
The O.Co Coliseum was a wild place, a sellout – if with an asterisk, because the tarped rows of seats restrict attendance to 36,067 – the fans coming out with their rally towels and high hopes.
    
Where the A’s go from here – no jokes about San Jose – nobody is certain, but they won’t be going up against Hernandez at least for a few days, maybe a few weeks.
    
“We kept feeling we would pull it out,” said Melvin, the 2012 American League manager of the year. “In close games you have to have that feeling. We had it all last year, and it worked. A lot of times, one hit makes the difference.”
    
Hernandez wouldn’t let it work Monday night. The fans could chant “Let’s go Oakland.” The A’s couldn’t get that one hit. The A’s couldn’t get any runs.
    
“Felix is probably as good a pitcher as anyone as getting guys to swing at pitches,” said Melvin. He meant pitches at which they shouldn’t have swung. Pitches which they couldn’t hit.
   
At least when thrown by King Felix, as he threw them Monday night. So disappointing.

The Sports Xchange: Warriors worried about Curry's ankle injury in win over Wizards

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By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange

OAKLAND, Calif. -- The ankle. Again.

"We'll have to wait," said Stephen Curry. "But I don't think it's too bad."

For the Golden State Warriors, anything with Curry's right ankle is never good.

In his almost four seasons with the Warriors and in the NBA, Curry, the seventh overall pick in 2009 NBA draft, the gun for Golden State, has had one problem after another with that ankle, from surgery to days of rehab.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2013 The Sports Xchange

Dominicans win it their exuberant way

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By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — They are too exuberant for some, bouncing around like high school kids at a rally, celebrating even the smallest achievement, a single, a strikeout.
  
They are too talented for everyone, kids from the land that they proudly declare produces more ballplayers per capita than any other on the globe.
  
Baseball is in the soul of the Dominican Republic, serving both as recreation and, in a place of extensive poverty, an opportunity to find fame and wealth. It was so strange then — and so bewildering to the citizens of the DR — why they had done poorly in the World Baseball Championship in 2006 and 2009.
  
That failure has been corrected, emphatically. The DR, as the players refer to their home, won the WBC on a rainy Tuesday night along the shore of the Bay, defeating Puerto Rico, 3-0, and going through the tournament unbeaten in its eight games.
  
“I had enough of that shame of not having a trophy like this,” said Tony Pena, the Dominican manager, as he stared at award in front of him and several players. “And thank God this group of men was able to accomplish what we wanted, which is to put our country on top in terms of baseball.”
  
They are millionaires, so many on the Dominican team. They are stars in the bigs, Jose Reyes, Robinson Cano, Hanley Ramirez, Nelson Cruz. They play for the Marlins and the Yankees, the Dodgers and the Rangers. But this was their team. This was their country.
  
That’s why Reyes gave those fist-pumps when he led off the first with a double. That’s why Erick Aybar almost strutted into second on his double in the fifth. That’s why the entire squad, holding on to a mammoth Dominican flag, red, blue and white, danced around at game’s end.
   
Maybe they get on other teams’ nerves, but it’s a matter of sheer enjoyment, of full involvement, of unfettered excitement.
   
“This ball club is about emotion,” said Pena. He is a coach on the Yankees, and he’ll return to that position in a matter of hours. After the celebrating.
  
“We showed emotion every single time. And when Jose got to second base the first time and put the fists up way high, that was telling the other guys, let’s go.”
  
Considering the lack of an Asian team and the weather — rain was forecast and arrived early on — the attendance of 35,703 was quite impressive, about 6,000 below AT&T Park's capacity.
  
Fans had to flee from the open areas to protected ones, under the overhang, when the downpour arrived, but the game went on, and certainly so did the Dominican Republic, which appropriate for the setting, won on pitching. As in 2012 did the Giants, who call AT&T home.
   
If the other team doesn’t score, the adage goes, the worst you’ll have is a 0-0 tie. The other team, Puerto Rico, not only didn’t score in this game, it didn’t score in the previous game of the tournament against the DR and not since the fourth inning of the game before that, a stretch of 23 innings.
 
“You look at the Dominican roster,” said Edward Rodriguez, the Puerto Rico manager, “the arms that they have. Not only the starters, but that’s a big league bullpen right there.
   
“We didn’t score in those many innings, but the last time I checked there was not many that scored against that team. Because when you take a guy throwing 94, 95 and then bring in a guy throwing 97, 98, that’s pretty hard to score against.”
  
Samuel Deduno, who spent part of the 2012 season with the Minnesota Twins — and part in the minors — started for the Dominicans. He pitched five innings and allowed only two hits. Then came the relievers, first Octavio Dotel, who’s been around forever, then Pedro Strop, Santiago Casilla (of the Giants) and finally Fernando Rodney, who recorded his seventh save in the eight games.
  
“Samuel Deduno did a great job for us not only tonight, but the whole WBC,” said Pena. “He pitched three games for us, and he pitched three successful games . . . Since I said earlier, when we started the WBC, our bullpen was the root. We would play five innings with the starter and then turn the game over to them.”
   
Robinson Cano of the Yankees — a free agent for the coming season — was hitless Tuesday but ended up batting .469, a good  reason he was chosen tournament MVP.
  
“We have superstars,” said Cano, “but God knows when things happen. This is a great feeling. Tony did a great job. We have this great energy and have always been praying.”
  
It was playing, not the praying, that enabled them to sweep through the Classic and led Dominican president Danilo Medina — watching the triumph along with virtually everyone in the nation — to call Pena and offer his congratulations.
  
“The Dominican Republic,” said Pena, “were hungry for this moment.”
  
Now that the moment has passed, the players, coaches and manager head back to their respective teams. Or will they?
 
“I’ll tell you one thing,” said Cano, laughing. “Tonight we are going to celebrate. Tomorrow we are going to celebrate. Thursday we will go back to spring training.”
  
As champions of the world.

Baseball means the world to the Dominicans

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By Art Spander   

SAN FRANCISCO — Maybe it doesn’t mean that much in America, which just happens to be where the game was created. Maybe it ranks somewhere below the Heat keeping their streak alive or Tiger and Lindsey admitting they are an item, and they certainly are.
     
But this World Baseball Classic, which will come to an end Tuesday night, with the Dominican Republic facing Puerto Rico at AT&T Park, is huge in those two places where the populations are small, two places where baseball matters more than the land where it once was called the national pastime.
    
All you had to do was watch the way the Dominicans bolted out of their dugout — well, the Giants’ dugout, but Monday night it was the Dominicans' — after they beat the Netherlands, 4-1, in their semifinal.
   
All you had to do was listen to the shouts and repetitive honking of horns from the Dominican fans, wrapped in their flags and their joy. This is their moment, as it will be Puerto Rico’s, a chance for two Caribbean baseball hotbeds to rank as the best.
   
The WBC officials must be disappointed in the way the United States has supported the Classic. Or not supported it. The crowds were big a weekend ago in Miami. But in San Francisco, they went from marginal — some 33,000 for Sunday night’s semi between Puerto Rico and Japan — to miserable, 27,527 on Monday night.
  
The Giants, the World Series champions, have sold out every game for two straight years at 41,000-seat AT&T. There was no spillover. No connection. There was only ennui, although not from the Dominicans, or the few Dutch who wore their orange sweatshirts with the word “Driemteam” on the front.
   
The Dream Team, in effect, is the Dominican Republic. It is 7-0 in the tournament. It is full of millionaire major-leaguers such as Jose Reyes, Robinson Cano, Hanley Ramirez and Nelson Cruz.      
  
“Those are great hitters,” said Hensley Meulens, who was the Netherlands' manager and also is the San Francisco Giants' hitting coach. “They rise to the top when it comes to playing big games like this.”
  
Most of the Netherlands' players are also Caribbean islanders, from Curacao and Aruba. Some you know — Andruw Jones, Wladimir Balentien. Most you don’t. They hung in behind a pitcher who never has made the majors in 10 years, Diegomar Markwell. But eventually the big bats wore him down, the Dominicans scoring all their runs in an explosive fifth of line drives and pop flies.
  
“They put some great at-bats on us today,” said Meulens.
    
On the mound, they put some great pitches on them. The Netherlands got a run without a hit in the first off Edison Volquez. And then no more runs and only four hits off Volquez and three other Dominicans, including Fernando Rodney of the Tampa Bay Rays, who recorded his sixth save in this WBC.
  
“I think they only had a couple of starters,” said Meulens, “and then most of their guys were bullpen guys. It showed today.”
   
The Netherlands won both of its games against the Dominican in the 2009 WBC, but that domination was destined to end. “They came to play this year,” said Meulens. “And that’s why they’re undefeated. And that’s why they’re going to the finals.”
 
Japan won the only two other World Baseball Classics. Now the championship will go from the Far East to the tropics. “Whoever wins,” said Dominican manager Tony Pena, a Yankees coach, “it’s going to be the Caribbeans. It could be Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic, but it will belong to the Caribbean.”
   
The Dominican players take the Classic personally. It’s their Olympics, the chance to prove their skills and dedication, to show basically that, at this game, they are the best in the world.
  
“When you’re representing your country, and you’re making your country proud of you, that’s amazing,” said Volquez, the Dominican starter. “That’s awesome.”
  
He’s 29. He knows English well. He’s with the San Diego Padres. But the question was asked in Spanish, so he responded in Spanish, which was then translated.
  
“This is not something you can do every day,” Volquez continued. “And we’re able to win. It’s like we’ve been on this one mission, just winning and winning as a team.”
 
Winning as a team. Winning as a nation. Winning because it means so much.
   
“I think we have a lot of unity on this team,” said Pena. “That has brought us to where we are right now.”
   
They’re one game from the championship of the World Baseball Classic. That might not mean a lot in the United States, but it means everything to the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.

Japan tries a Three Stooges routine

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By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — It was a version of one of those old baseball jokes, a Three Stooges routine without laughs. Isn’t there a manual that advises it’s never a good idea to steal second base when there’s another teammate already there?
   
Japan knows how to play the game, precisely, carefully. There is an ethic, a tradition of repetition that leads to perfection, a style that made the nation the World Baseball Classic champion the only two previous times the tournament had been played.
    
But the odds and Puerto Rico caught up with Japan on Monday night at AT&T Park, the Puerto Ricans winning, 3-1, to advance to Tuesday night’s final against the winner of Monday’s Dominican Republic-Netherlands game.
   
Puerto Rico was in control from the very start on this chill evening, scoring a run in the first and then, after a massive seventh-inning home run by Alex Rios, going in front 3-0.
   
“They were superior pitching and hitting,” said the Japanese manager, Koji Yamamoto. “I could see an opportunity.”
    
So, with a run in, one out and Hirokazu Ibata on second and Seiichi Uchikawa on first, Yamamoto called a double steal. It would have worked, or let’s say could have worked if only Ibata hadn’t stayed at second while Uchikawa sped there. Oops.
  
You’re only allowed one man on each base.  Except in comedy films. Uchikawa was out. Yamamoto presumably was out of his mind after the tactic, but that isn’t true. “I wanted to move the runners,” he said. “I don’t regret it.”
   
Ibata did. He took a few steps toward third and then realized he’d never make it so dashed back to second. Uchikawa didn’t know where to go, so he went no place, stopping between the bases. Rally finished, if it even started at all.
  
So, Puerto Rico, with a history of great players — Roberto Clemente, the Alomars, Orlando Cepeda, who was at the mound for the first pitch even though he didn’t throw it — but a lack of success recently, proves it still knows how to win.
    
And Angel Pagan, who will be out there in a few weeks wearing a San Francisco Giants uniform, gets another chance for the Puerto Ricans as a center fielder in Triples Alley at AT&T Park.
    
Japan had the crowd, maybe two-thirds of the announced 33,683 in the ballpark by the Bay. The fans came with their flags and noise-makers and enthusiasm. “I really felt their support,” said Yamamoto, the manager. Puerto Rico, however, had the edge.
    
“Their pitchers were really good,” said Yamamoto through a translator. “It was hard to seize the opportunity.”
   
Their pitchers, six of them, began with Mario Santiago, who in six years had never been in the majors and last year played in Korea. But his resume belied his performance against Japan, as he retired the first 10 batters before giving up a single.
   
“Now,” said Santiago, “I’m back to the states to accomplish my dream of playing in the major leagues.”
   
First the accomplishment of another dream, to bring a title to his homeland. “I’m really happy,” he said. “I know the people in Puerto Rico must be so proud of our team that we’ve come so far.”
  
They made the semis, of course, by defeating the United States, where the World Baseball Classic doesn’t seem to mean as much as it does to the other small nations, especially those around the Caribbean where the sport is almost religion.

There were enough Puerto Ricans in the stands, with their passion and their flags, if not in the same numbers as the Japanese. When pinch hitter Kazuo Matsui flied out to Pagan in center — a perfect ending, for San Francisco as well as Puerto Rico — horns honked and cheers resounded.
   
On the field, the Puerto Ricans were celebrating in a huge mass of happiness. The Japanese, class all the way, stood on the third base line and in union took a final bow, turning the park over to the ecstatic winners and, as usual after night games at AT&T, the swarming seagulls.
  
Rios is a legit big leaguer, with 25 blasts and a .304 batting average in 2012 for the White Sox. Atsushi Nohmi came in to pitch the seventh for Japan. The first batter he faced, Mike Aviles, singled. The second, Rios, smashed a ball halfway up the leftfield bleachers.
  
“It was a very exciting at-bat,” said Rios. “The pitch I hit, I saw it earlier in that at-bat. He threw that change-up and then repeated the change-up. That’s the one I saw. I guess I put a good turn on it.
  
“It was a very emotional at-bat. The whole tournament has been very exciting.”
  
And thus far, very successful.

Warriors coach: ‘We’re going to be here’

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By Art Spander

OAKLAND – Even when they’re the only game in town, as the Warriors were on Monday night, it seemed they would be upstaged. The 49ers had traded for Anquan Boldin, and we know how big the Niners are, so big that on this night when the Warriors were the only game in town Niner quarterback Colin Kaepernick was doing his star turn on ESPN’s SportsCenter.
  
Boldin and Kaep, a tough combination. No matter, the Warriors would do their “Hey, we’re down here in the righthand corner” routine. They wouldn’t go unnoticed. On the contrary.
  
They would send the New York Knicks back to the NBA’s dark ages of scoring. They would send the rest of the league a message, as delivered by head coach Mark Jackson, to wit: “This is who we are. Get used to us. We’re not going anywhere.”
   
He meant they’re not going away, and the way they had played, losing 6 out 8, 11 out of 16, that seemed a figurative possibility. Down, down, while below them in the standings, the Lakers, the dreaded Lakers, were moving up, up.
   
The Warriors changed direction, if only momentarily. The Warriors won 92-63. Reads like a college score. Reads like a reassuring score.
   
The 63 points were the fewest for a Warriors opponent in almost 60 years, since Dec. 28, 1953, when the Philadelphia Warriors beat the Milwaukee Hawks, 69-63.
   
On Monday night, the Warriors were effective. Stephen Curry (26 points), Klay Thompson (23) and David Lee (21) alone combined for more than the entire New York team. The Knicks were pathetic. They made only 20 of 73 field goal attempts, 27.4 percent.
  
“I don’t know how many teams in history have had nights like that,” Warriors coach Mark Jackson was saying. “It takes a combination of great defense and, at times by the other team, bad offense. We have played that defense before and teams have made shots. But at the end of the day, it’s closer to who we truly are. And it’s a great way to stop the bleeding.”
  
Oh, the Warriors, with sellout crowds at Oracle Arena almost every game – there was one Monday, 19,596 – with the most loyal followers in the Bay Area, with seasons of unfulfilled expectations. 
 
Their games are half sporting event, half party. Are there really more people in the concessions area than inside the arena, or does it just seem that way? The smoke-and-mirrors introductions. The pizza giveaways. The acrobatic dunking routine. The intermission stunts.
  
Warrior games are entertaining. And often disappointing. What is it, 17 years out of 18 the W’s haven’t made the postseason? Changes in ownership. Changes in coaching. The dream persists.
   
Curry scores 54 against the Knicks, and the Warriors get their few seconds on ESPN, but they’re only a cameo. It’s Kobe and the Lakers, the Celtics, the Thunder and deservedly LeBron James and the Heat who receive the attention.
   
Part of the problem is geographical. If you’re in California and you’re not in L.A., then you’re virtually nonexistent. The Giants win the World Series, and nobody in the East watches.
  
Part of the problem is historical. The Warriors’ body of work is not considered worthy of serious study. When’s the last time the W’s were on a Sunday afternoon national telecast?
   
Jackson is a New York guy, who played at St. John’s and with the Knicks and then worked as an analyst for ESPN. If he can’t get attention, nobody can. On Monday night, he and the Warriors got it.

And Jackson, as usual, got texts from his mother, Marie, who’s in the New York City Basketball Hall of Fame.
   
“We made it click,” said Jackson. He insists he took no more pleasure in sticking it to the Knicks – who two weeks earlier had stuck to the Warriors, despite Curry’s 54 – than any other team.
   
“We executed,” said Jackson. “We defensed. We rebounded.”
   
That’s basketball in the essence.
  
”That’s what we need to do,” said Lee, who had missed the previous two games. “I thought we played as good a defense as we did all season long. This was a very important win for us, and we have one on Wednesday and try to get that one as well.’
  
That one is against the Houston Rockets. Then two days later, Friday, is another, against the Chicago Bulls. Starting with the Knicks,  three games in five days all at home. Oracle will be full. Will what takes place there be fulfilling?
   
“The important thing,” said Lee, “is to take what we did (against the Knicks) and build on it, because each game presents its own challenges. The biggest thing is to remember the energy we played with on the defensive end.”
   
The biggest thing in the region where the 49ers, Raiders, Giants, A’s and, yes, the Sharks, also play is to stay relevant. The energetic Warriors on Monday night appeared very much so.

Nadal wants to 'forget the knee,' but he can't

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By Art Spander

INDIAN WELLS, Calif. -- “Forget the knee.” That was an order from the man with the knee, an order from Rafa himself.
   
Forget the knee, but how do we accede? For Rafael Nadal, so reckless on court, so fearless and subsequently so fragile, it is all about the left knee, which kept him away for tennis for seven months.
  
Without Nadal, who seemingly used to win the French Open by merely buying a croissant, who has taken all the Grand Slam tournaments, the game’s Big Four had been reduced by one.
  
He wasn’t at the U.S. Open. Wasn’t at the Australian Open. Wasn’t in any tournament on any court, clay or hard or grass, from June to February.
  
Waiting for Rafa, the swashbuckler. The one who goes after a backhand like a linebacker after a running back.
   
Waiting for a champion, while the champion, fighting gloom, lifts weights instead of trophies.
  
Seven months of rehab, and a month ago, the return, on a clay court, certainly, in Chile where it had to be both rewarding and depressing – if not as depressing as all the inaction – when he lost the final to the home boy, Horacio Zeballos.
  
For only the third time in his career, Nadal was beaten in a clay court final, and the other defeats were to Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic.
   
But it was a step, the first step on that painful left knee. “I’m feeling better every week,” said Nadal after Chile.
   
Two weeks later, he was feeling fantastic. He beat the world’s fourth-ranked player, his Spanish countryman, David Ferrer, crushing him 6-0, 6-2.
  
“I had a fantastic tournament,” Nadal said Thursday. “Much better than when I was 100 percent in a lot of finals. One of my best matches on clay.”
   
Now at Indian Wells, the BNP Paribas Open, the first big event since the Australian Open – for Nadal the first big event since his stunning second-round loss at Wimbledon – the surface is hard court, the toughest on the body, the toughest on a knee.
  
It’s been a full year, since the Sony at Key Biscayne in March 2012, when that knee forced him to withdraw from the scheduled semifinal, since the 26-year-old Nadal played on a hard court.
  
“I will try my best,” said Nadal, “but I don’t expect nothing from the results here. I want to enjoy my time in competition. I am happy to be here. It is one of my favorite tournaments without a doubt. I love playing here, always.”
  
Indian Wells, just southeast of Palm Springs, glitz, glamour, huge mountains and, contrary to our images, maybe some rain in the next few days. The sun will return. Already, metaphorically, it has for Nadal.
 
“And if my knee continues right,” he said, ignoring his advice to us about the knee, “I hope to maintain the level on hard courts I had on clay.”
   
It was a difficult time for Nadal, away from the tour, away from the competitors, away from the energy, the success. It was a difficult time particularly missing the London Olympics, where the tennis was held at Wimbledon.
   
Nadal was unable to defend the singles gold he had won at Beijing. Even worse, he was prevented from carrying the Spanish flag in the opening ceremony.

"That was a sad moment for me," sighed Nadal. "These opportunities are not forever, maybe only one time in life. I lost that opportunity."
 
He is both a private person and a public person, a member of a close-knit family on the island of Mallorca, part of a huge gathering of international sportsmen. He relishes his time at home, boating, partying. He appreciates his time on the road.
  
“For sure,” he said in response to a question, “I can live without tennis, but when you cannot do what you want to do, it’s not easy. I’m a competitor.
  
“I know this world is not forever, tennis, and I will enjoy being a tennis player. I am lucky to work in one of my hobbies. It’s not easy to be out seven months. Tennis today is a very important part of my life.”
   
He speaks with a heavy accent, but his English has improved so much over the past few years, from when he needed a translator for conversations to a point he handles the idioms with the skill he handles his forehands. The interviews, as Thursday’s, have become less an obligation than an opportunity.
  
“I’m happy to be on a tennis court,” he said. “Happy to be competing, like I did in South America in the clay court season, like in Mexico in the clay court season. Full crowds every day, amazing crowds with me every time. Thank you very much.”
  
A loss to Zeballos, who ranks 39th, then in the next tournament a win over Ferrer, who ranks fourth.
 
What was the difference in your head between the finals, a journalist wondered of Nadal.
 
“In my head?” said Rafa. “My knee is the big difference. In my head, the only difference was I was able to compete close to 100 percent in Acapulco. I didn’t have that chance in Chile.”
  
Forget the knee? No chance.

Wozniacki stands up for McIlroy, and herself

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By Art Spander

INDIAN WELLS, Calif. – They’re not knocking Caroline Wozniacki this week. It’s her boyfriend who’s taking the figurative punches. That would be the walkoff lad himself, Rory McIlroy. And yes, contends the Woz, he’s still her boyfriend.
  
They were sport's fun couple, until they were transformed into sport’s troubled couple. Wozniacki, having fallen from No. 1 in the women’s world tennis rankings, is being faulted for too many faults – serving, that is -- and a slightly overdone impression of her friend Serena Williams, which was labeled everything from silly to racist.
   
McIlroy, still No. 1 in the men’s golf rankings, walked off the course during the second round of last week’s Honda Classic and walked into a buzzsaw, everyone from Jack Nicklaus to McIlroy’s playing partner at the Honda, Ernie Els, reminding him – and us – that his judgment was as poor as his game.
  
"Apropos of nothing and pertinent to everything," was the cleverly cutting comment on McIlroy’s departure after the eighth hole last Friday by James Corrigan of the London Daily Telegraph.
  
McIlroy first complained, “I was not in a good place mentally.” Corrigan, on hearing McIlroy say later he withdrew because of an impacted wisdom tooth, pointed out, “He meant he was not in a good place dentally.”
  
Preparing to play in this week’s Cadillac Championship at Doral, on Wednesday, McIlroy gave his unblinking apology to the media gathered there, and to a Golf Channel audience, which three time zones and some 2,500 miles distant included Ms. Wozniacki,
  
“He said what he had to say,” Wozniacki remarked at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden where she and the game’s other top stars, women and men, minus one -- a very important one, Serena -- are competing in the BNP Paribas Open.
    
“He was honest,” Wozniacki insisted of McIlroy’s comments. “Now he’s got to go out there this week and hopefully play some good golf.”
    
A few days back, the London papers carried stories saying that the 22-year-old Wozniacki, of Denmark, and the 23-year-old McIlroy, of Northern Ireland, had ended their two-year romance.
  
“We’ve been in the media spotlight so long separately,” Wozniacki answered when asked what’s like to date another headliner. “It’s nothing new. We’ve gotten so used to it, we don’t really pay attention anymore – unless it’s a rumor like the one the other day that we’ve broken up. Oh really? Thanks for letting me know.”
 
There’s no place to hide, as McIlroy conceded. He’s growing up in front of the world. His mistakes – you don’t withdraw from a golf tournament for anything short of a family emergency or serious ailment – are learning experiences with millions ready to offer advice or abuse.
  
Before Wimbledon last year, columnist Oliver Brown of the Telegraph dropped down to one of the warmup events for the women at Eastbourne on the English Channel, where Wozniacki was playing and McIlroy was watching.
  
“Quietly, and assuredly not of their own choosing, McIlroy and Wozniacki have been elevated to the realm of the power couple; the ‘Brangelina’ of sport, if you like,” Brown offered. “But their recent results encourage a thought, however uncharitable, that the pair are not exactly aiding each other’s professional progress.
  
“McIlroy has missed four cuts in his past five tournaments and, according to one observer, wafted at his final putt in the U.S. Open at San Francisco with an absentmindedness to suggest he could not wait to board the latest departure of ‘Wozilroy Airlines’ fast enough.

“His belle, meanwhile, has lost four of her past six matches and is without a WTA title in 10 months.”
   
Two months later, in August 2012, McIlroy would win his second major, the PGA Championship, heading to money titles for the year on both the PGA Tour and European Tour. So much for being absentminded.
  
And while Wozniacki hasn’t won in a while, in February she reached the semifinals at Dubai and the quarters at Doha. And who are we to interfere in the love lives of others, famous or not?
    
“I don’t think I have a problem,” said Wozniacki. “When you’re No. 1 and not winning everything, there’s basically just one way to go, and that’s down. I’m healthy. I feel like I’m playing well, so people can say what they want. But I have a life, and I’m happy I have a life.”
     
The problem, then, is not hers, it’s ours. Caroline Wozniacki isn’t whining. True, she isn’t winning either, but she has won, 20 tournaments and more than $14 million. And she’s known what it’s like to be at the top.
  
“Everybody wants to be No. 1,’’ Wozniacki affirmed. “No doubt about it. But right now, my focus is just trying to play well, to try and win tournaments.”
   
On the other side of the country, her boyfriend, Rory McIlroy, virtually was saying the exact same thing.

Newsday (N.Y.): Ambidextrous Pat Venditte limited to left hand for Team Italy in WBC

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By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

PHOENIX — Pat Venditte has been to Italy, if a while ago. Omaha, Neb., where he grew up, has one of the largest Italian festivals in the Midwest. So it was understandable that he would try to pitch for Italy in the World Baseball Classic -- if only with one arm.

Read the full story here.

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