Halftime Heroes: A Study In Futility, & Catching up with The Creek

Any relationship to Dawson or Billy Bob, Jeff?

Thinking about the possible playoff match between the Sonics and the Rockets got me to thinking:

If Billy Bob could rally the Permian High Panthers with an inspired speech, if James Van Der Beek can do the same with the West Canaan Coyotes , does it then lead to the potential existence of a real, living, breathing coach having the innate ability to inspire his team?

The beat downs I’ve witnessed the Sonics take in the 3rd qtr vs. the Rockets this year led me to take a quick look at the possibility that Van Gundy was one of these mythical creatures.

Observation:
In the 3 games in 2005 in which the Sonics faced Houston, the Rockets came out into the 3rd quarter with inspired play in 2 of them.
3rd quarter Hou vs. Sea scoring:
Game 1: 15-17
Game 2: 22-6
Game 3: 34-26
Total 71-49=22
22/3 games = 7.1 pt differential per 3rd quarter

Hypothesis:
Jeff Van Gundy is a great coach. In particular, Van Gundy has the ability, not found in all coaches, to inspire teams/players to increased performance output through motivational speaking. In particular, for this experiment, this ability is inherent in the transformation the Houston Rockets 2005 team achieves during halftime, and witnessed in their brief performance surge in the 3rd quarter following.

Procedure:
Take the Houston 2005 season 3rd quarter ppg differential, and compare it to the ave. quarter diff of the Rockets other 3 quarters (data through 80 games):

Analysis:
Total ppg Scored: 7575-1891=5684/80 games/3 qtrs= 23.68
Total ppg Allowed: 7297-1806=5491/80 games/3 qtrs= 22.88
Differential: +0.80 pts/qtr

Total pp 3rd qtr Scored: 1891
Total pp 3rd qtr All: 1806
Differential 85/80games/qtr= +1.06 pts/qtr

Results:
The pt differential seen between the average of quarters 1,2, & 4 are +0.80 per qtr. The pt. Differential for the 3rd qtr is +1.06. The difference is +0.26, about a quarter of a point.

Conclusion:
Not a DAMN thing!! While there is a ¼ point differential that may suggest Van Gundy does have some ability to inspire during halftime, that difference in all likelihood is too marginal to make any credible statement, considering all the other variables not taken into account in the test. What we can conclude is that the 3 games witnessed by my eyes (which indicated a huge ability by Van Gundy) were much too small a sample to make any logical assumption. Lesson learned: I am an idiot. Price paid: 45min of my life.

Reason #15,284 unemployment doesn’t suck:
-Being able to catch the Dawson’s Creek episode where Dawson’s dad dies, and the following episode as well. In-f**king-credible! For the rest of you that missed it, (huge spoiler alert!) in episode unknown of season 3-5 of the series, the writers, in a vain attempt to resuscitate the show, killed of a main/supporting character (they had previously exhausted all love triangle/interest options.) I remember catching the premiere season of Dawson’s Creek in the dorms and finding a new guilty pleasure, that is until the wheels fell off (maybe the damn thing never had wheels to begin with.)

So anyways, how do you go about killing off the father of the main character? End of the show, Mr. Leary goes out to buy groceries, leaves store with ice cream cone, gets in jeep, and on the way home (while doing the gratuitous scene where you sing along to some song on the radio, which has thankfully left my brain) the ice cream drops from the cone, he bends down to pick it up, and... BAM!!!! Cue car crash noise, fade to black, roll credits. Needless to say, I was locked in for the next episode (the reruns on TBS are shown in back to back blocks.)

So the next episode: classic premise, death of a side character, grieving main character shots, reminiscing scenes (they chose this thing where each one of the characters had a shot/scene where they were talking/remembering a particular poignant moment they had with the Dad (surprisingly Mr. Leary was still available to do these scenes.) You would think that under this premise the actors could pull off a few tear inducing performances… let me tell you, if you’ve never seen quality acting before, watching this episode won’t change that status. It was a certifiable train wreck of performances. From Dawson’s mom (how do you NOT hit the grieving widow part out of the park?? It’s like a hanging slider just begging to be taken for a ride,) to Dawson’s Dad (fully understand why the writers killed him off,) to Dawson himself (will we ever see a Mox-ian performance from Van Der Beek again?) it was brutal, awkward TV throughout. Needless to say, I loved every minute.

Final Rating- Two wildly enthusiastic thumbs up!

On a sidenote, I’ve caught several other episodes from this unknown season, and it’s brilliantly bad throughout. Today, Joey ( Katie Holmes) was singing in a rock band. Dee-liteful .

There really aren't enough superlatives to adequately discuss this show. And I believe I’m done emasculating myself now.

Booth.52@gmail.com