Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Even Superman likes puppets

By John McMullen, NBA Editor

Philadelphia, PA (The Phanatic Magazine) - I'm a big fan of the 2008 Judd Apatow comedy "Forgetting Sarah Marshall."

In fact, much to the chagrin of my significant other, Debbie, it has basically been running on a 24-7 loop in my house since debuting on cable.

One of the many classic lines in the film comes from Davon McDonald as Dwayne the Bartender, who is defending the lead character, Peter Bretter (Jason Segel), the author of a Dracula musical featuring puppets, to Rachel (Mila Kunis)...

(Ed. note - this is the cleaned up version since this is a family column.) "He turned down @#@$-@$# from his ex-girlfriend. mid-(@#$%-@#&). You know how hard that is for a man? He's like Gandhi...but better - he likes puppets."

Who doesn't love puppets?

The NBA and Nike certainly do and have built an entire ad campaign called "three rings" around puppets of Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. In the commercials, Bryant is heckling James about his three championship rings.

The tour de force that is
Kobe Bryant and LeBron James has resulted in a giant ratings surge for the league.
It's a phenomenal spot that takes advantage of the league's two marquee superstars that seemed destined for a collision course ending in the most highly-anticipated NBA Finals in years.

That was the hope anyway.

"I like the commercials," Magic All-Star Dwight Howard said on Monday. "They're funny. They are commercials that are very entertaining. So I love watching them. It is very entertaining. But our job is to go out there and play and not worry about what's on television or in the paper or whatever."

The tour de force that is Kobe and LeBron has resulted in a giant ratings surge for the league.

TNT's overall playoff ratings were already up a healthy 13 percent over last year through Game 1 of the Cleveland-Orlando series. Meanwhile, Sunday's Game 3 drew an overnight rating that was up a stunning 65 percent from a San Antonio-LA Lakers playoff game in the time slot last year.

ESPN ratings are also up and the first two Denver-Lakers games in the West finals became the network's most-watched basketball games ever.

As good as Howard and Chauncey Billups are, everyone knows who is fueling the ratings.

But, that doesn't mean "Superman" and "Mr. Big Shot" care what the league or you the fan want, and the dream matchup that is Cleveland-LA is slowly derailing.

If the Nuggets could do the little things, they would be in the catbird seat in their series with Kobe's Lakers. Instead the team's inability to master a simple inbounds pass has kept LA's head above water for the time being. That said, the Nuggets have outplayed the Lakers.

Meanwhile, in the East it's becoming increasingly obvious that the top-seeded Cavs just don't matchup all that well with the underdog Magic.

If Cleveland coach Mike Brown can't devise some sort of strategy that neutralizes Orlando's ability to stretch the floor in Game 4 on Tuesday night, its' very conceivable LeBron and Company will disappear by the weekend.

"It is disrespectful when everybody is counting us out trying to win a championship," Howard said. "They want to see Kobe and LeBron go at it."

"They" may want it but "they" ain't getting it.


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