By Zach Harper - Email Zach

The 7th game of our Announcers Critiques was the December 12th game between the New York Knicks and the Seattle Supersonics.  I know what you’re initially thinking to yourself, “Good god!  These guys must be desperate to watch basketball games if they’re willing to sit through two teams that are a combined 11-31 going into this game.”   And normally, you’d be correct except for two things.  First, it was Kevin Durant’s first game at Madison Square Garden and that seems to be a special moment for young players.  Second and most important, the announcers for this game were the immortal Gus Johnson doing the play by play and Kenny “The Jet” Smith providing the color commentary.  Needless to say, we were as giddy as Sebastian Telfair in a gun shop. 

As far as how the game went, it actually turned into an extremely good game.  It was a high scoring game thanks to some suspect defense by both squads.  The Knicks actually looked like a somewhat cohesive unit on offense in the entire game.  The Sonics had an extremely balanced attack with 6 guys in double figures, which was headlined by Kevin Durant dropping 30 points on 11-20 shooting from the field and 7-8 shooting from the free throw line.  His job was made much easier by another rookie, Jeff Green, as he came off the bench to contribute 17 points, 5 rebounds and 3 assists.  On the other side of the ball, Zach Randolph and Jamal Crawford had big games with 27 points and 16 rebounds from Randolph and 29 points and 6 assists from Jamal Crawford. 

This game went down to the final moments of the fourth quarter.  Durant scored 9 of the final 27 points for the Sonics and Kurt Thomas scored 7 points in the fourth quarter despite 12 points from Jamal Crawford.  The Sonics held on for just their 6th win of the season and denied the Knicks from grabbing their seventh win.  But the real joy of this game wasn’t the play so much as it was the two guys announcing what was going on the court.  Gus Johnson is a legend from the NCAA tournament in which he injects life into the most magical basketball moments.  Kenny Smith was able to provide the same type of insightful commentary that he gives next to Charles Barkley and Ernie Johnson every Thursday night on TNT. 

Let’s see if these guys could challenge the Seattle Supersonics’ team of Kevin Calabro and Snapper Jones for the top announcing spot in this season’s critiques:

Nicknames- Zach Harper: 4; Brandon Gallawa: 2
Zach Harper- This was one of the few areas where this team was struggling quite a bit.  As we’ve laid out in previous critiques, this is one of the most frustrating parts of NBA announcing today.  Using first names or dumb nicknames is a problem that distracts the viewers from the game.  Gus Johnson wasn’t too bad with this but Kenny Smith used almost exclusively first names when referring to Knicks’ players on the court.  The main cause for this problem was most likely due to Kenny Smith being close friends with most of the players in the league, which isn’t the case with almost every other announcer in the league.  Kenny is widely known and extremely respected in the basketball world and so for him to call these guys by their first names is just him referring to his friends.  Because of this, I tried not to dock him too many points but it was so excessive that it did take away from the game a bit more than you would expect.             

Objectivity- Zach Harper: 9; Brandon Gallawa: 9
Zach Harper- This is the great thing about two of the best in the business announcing a game like this.  All they cared about was the play at hand whether it was the Sonics’ players making spectacular moves and shots or if it was the Knicks making the game entertaining (which surprisingly happened).  Down the stretch of this game, it got pretty exciting and just by listening to the broadcast, you would not have been able to guess who these guys were employed by.  Gus Johnson yelled just as loudly when Kevin Durant dunked the ball in the 4th as when Jamal Crawford connected on another clutch shot.       

Color Commentator (Kenny Smith)- Zach Harper: 10; Brandon: 10
Zach Harper- Despite all of the first name drops that Kenny Smith gave us, he was still the best color commentator that we’ve viewed so far.  Not only did Kenny Smith break down replays better than everyone we’ve seen so far, but he also found a way to give you the feeling that you were constantly getting insider information throughout the game.  He gave you the view of a player that was in the game not of someone that used to play.  He was also pretty damn hilarious.  Once during the second quarter, Jamal Crawford got the ball and Kenny Smith said, “Oh this is going up.”  Sure enough, Jamal shot the ball.  Another point in the game with the shot clock running down, Jamal Crawford had the ball again and Gus Johnson made a comment about Jamal possibly not going to be able to get the shot off.  Kenny replied with, “Oh he’ll get it off” (knowingly because of Jamal’s propensity for jacking up shots). 

But maybe Kenny’s funniest moment was when the trivia question came in the second quarter.  He was in rare TNT form after the question was given to the viewers.  “Who was the Knicks’ leading scorer in the 1972-73 championship season?  A. Clyde Frazier B.  Willis Reed C. Earl Monroe.”  Kenny was almost insulted as he proclaimed, “Oh that’s easy.  Who came up with that one?  Someone’s in my ear trying to tell me who took credit for it.”  It was almost like he was chastising Ernie or Barkley for saying something obvious that doesn’t even need to be stated.    When the audience incorrectly gave 39% of the vote towards Willis Reed, Kenny was beside himself.  Frazier was the correct answer and then Kenny Smith just talked about how great Walt Frazier was in the infamous Willis Reed game.           

Sideline Reporter (Al Trautwig)- Zach Harper: 10; Brandon Gallawa: 10
Zach Harper- We saw Al Trautwig before the game started.  We saw Al at halftime.  And that’s it.  He was good when he was on the screen but most importantly, they didn’t present him just to have a sideline reporter.  We’ve always said, “the less we see the sideline reporter, the higher the score will be.”           

Halftime Show- Zach Harper: 6; Brandon Gallawa: 7
Zach Harper- The halftime show wasn’t terrible but it didn’t give enough information.  We really wanted to see Gus and Kenny discussing the game and what had transpired so far for the entire halftime but we had no such luck.  Jason Horowitz joined us from a studio inside MSG and gave us some hockey highlights from the Rangers game.  Then Al Trautwig discussed a few key stats but for the most part there wasn’t any analysis of those stats or replays to accentuate them.  Al did have Kenny to talk for a little bit right before the second half began, which was nice, and they did give a few highlights that Kenny could break down but you were just left disappointed with what could have been.  It was a little bit above average.         

Replay/Production- Zach Harper: 9; Brandon Gallawa: 9
Zach Harper- The replay and production value for this game was damn near perfect.  We try to watch all of these games in HD and for the most part, they are in HD.  But for some reason, this HD looked crisper than any basketball game I’ve seen so far this season.  Maybe it was just the horrendous tie that Kenny Smith was wearing that made the screen appear sharper but whatever it was worked.  The only thing that really detracted from the game was the “Hero Shot” that the MSG broadcast constantly went to after made shots in the game.  Brandon Gallawa invented the term “Hero Shot” and I will allow him to voice his displeasure with it.  It was the only reason that they didn’t get a perfect score here.            

Make Funability- Zach Harper: 5; Brandon Gallawa: 4
Zach Harper- Unfortunately, with the amount of material Gus Johnson can give you to imitate him, it does detract from the job at hand.  It’s fun to get excited over the most miniscule item in the Gus Johnson voice.  Also, it’s pretty hard to watch a game done by Kenny Smith without wanting to break into a Charles Barkley/Kenny Smith routine and that’s exactly what Brandon and I did.  Throw in the constant Isiah jokes and the uncontrollable laughter whenever Nate Robinson was shown trying to look tough and you have some unnecessary distractions from the broadcast.            

Post-Game Show- Zach Harper: 10; Brandon Gallawa: 10
Zach Harper- The Knicks give you MSGNY as the post-game show and it’s unlike any post-game show you’ve ever seen.  It’s like watching SportsCenter but centered around the game you just viewed.  They had every stat and key replay that you would have wanted from the game.  Jason Horowitz did a fine job of directing and they brought you post-game press conference interviews, which not very many broadcasts do.  There was also analysis from the in-game announcers and individual interviews by Al Trautwig with players from the game.  It was the perfect post-game show.         
Play-by-Play Announcer (Gus Johnson)- Zach Harper: 9; Brandon Gallawa: 8
Zach Harper-  Brandon didn’t enjoy Gus Johnson as much as I did but not very many people ever do.  I love Gus’ enthusiasm for the game of basketball.  He just simply loves the game more than just about anything.  He enjoys the competition and he respects the history of it all.  He explained why the Knicks were so bad and even defended what Isiah Thomas had done for all of the players.  Whether you like the Knicks or like Isiah Thomas or not, you can’t argue with Gus’ viewpoint that it was wrong for the players to turn their backs on Zeke after all he did for them in terms of giving them large contracts and financial security for their families. He said it with such compassion but you never got the feeling that he was defending the coach just because he worked for the organization.  The only thing that kept Gus from getting a perfect score was his habit of getting caught up in talking basketball with Kenny Smith instead of concentrating on the play-by-play duties.  It was something that I enjoyed but it does take away from the broadcast just enough to dock him a point.  However, just thinking about Gus announcing games makes me anxious for him working this year’s NCAA Tournament.       

Would We Watch Again? Zach Harper: 10; Brandon Gallawa: 10
Zach Harper- We would absolutely watch again.  These guys were extremely entertaining and they simply know the game better than most people in the basketball world.  They were probably the best at telling the story of the two franchises involved and of giving you information that most announcers wouldn’t necessarily have,  Even though it was two sorry teams, it was one of the most entertaining regular season broadcasts I’ve ever seen.      

Zach Harper’s Final Score: 82/100; Brandon Gallawa’s Final Score: 80/100

Andy Eisner’s Dickter Scale (aka Hot Chick Bonus): +1 Points
This game was strictly about basketball and the Knicks’ broadcast team never showed women in the crowd. One time coming back from a commercial, the cameramen showed one of the hot cheerleaders for the Knicks.  It was disappointing for our cynic so they get the lowest score possible. 

Overall Score (Average of 2 sides + Andy’s Bonus): 82/100