After appetizing regular season, only title entrée will kill hunger
For those in the know — or among those who care to be — there are subsets in the appetizer family.
Canapés are appetizers that are easily eaten with your fingers; those that are dipped in sauces are crudités; and the small delicacies that require the use of a knife and fork are hors d’oeuvres.
Silly me, I’ve always thought those fancy names were meaningless.
After all, we’re talking about “the stuff before the good stuff.”
I’m sure there are some who go to restaurants just for the appetizers. And I have been to many events where we were forewarned it was an appetizeronly affair.
But in those cases, one would be prepared if “the stuff before the good stuff ” is all the stuff there is.
Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni says whatever happens in the
playoffs for his team, which finished the NBA regular season with six more wins than any other team, doesn’t diminish what has happened thus far.
In other words, “the stuff before the good stuff ” deserves appreciation even if the good stuff isn’t the best. D’Antoni is right. A delectable appetizer — whether it is a canapé, crudité, hors d’oeuvre or one of my sister Sharon’s amazing deviled eggs (a canapé) — is no less tasty if the entrée is substandard.
An embarrassing loss to Minnesota in the first round wouldn’t erase those fun regular-season nights for fans, but the NBA season isn’t a cocktail party.
It ends in June with a champion, the entrée.
Avoiding sour taste
The Rockets’ regular season has satisfied the palate for you appetizer lovers. If you watched any games in their 82game run to the top, you witnessed the best of the best.
They are the most entertaining team in the league and James Harden is the NBA’s Most Valuable Player.
But what the Rockets’ have given us thus far is only an appetizer, “the stuff before the good stuff.”
The playoffs — sevengame series that will produce a champion — is the meat.
So, in that sense, D’Antoni is wrong.
Diminish might be a harsh word, but Harden’s almost-certain MVP and the No. 1 seed, will mean significantly less if the Rockets are bounced from the postseason before the NBA Finals.
Despite finishing well behind the Rockets in the standings, the Golden State Warriors are still a slight Western Conference favorite with the Las Vegas sportsbooks.
The team that has the best regular season — the tastiest appetizer — doesn’t always prevail, but in the NBA, teams that have recorded seasons like the 65-win Rockets should have a “championship or bust” mentality.
Of the 20 teams that won 65 or more games in a season, 15 went on to win the championship.
Experience isn’t on the Rockets’ side. Trevor Ariza is the only player on the roster who has won a title. He did so with the Lakers in 200809.
D’Antoni can try to play it off, but anything less than a championship for the Rockets will be a disappointment.
How they fall, if they fall, will tell the tale of the 2017-18 season.
Looking good
The appetizer was amazing. It’s entrée time now.
The young, high-scoring Timberwolves shouldn’t be a problem. The Rockets are too strong offensively to have any difficulty with a team that doesn’t play good defense.
Round 2 against either Oklahoma City or Utah, teams that finished 17 games behind the Rockets in the standings, should hardly be an issue either. Those teams are solid, night after night the Rockets have demonstrated they are better than solid.
Now, the only thing that will satisfy the hunger is the good stuff.