King Kaufman's Sports Daily

Malone played 21 minutes and sat for 27. By my count -- unofficially, as they say on TV -- with Malone in the game, Wallace played 19 minutes and had seven points on 3-for-11 shooting. With Malone on the bench, Wallace played 22 minutes and had 19 points on 7-for-12 shooting.

It probably doesn't matter at this point if Malone plays or not. It's a question of whether the Lakers want to lose by a lot or a little. Without him contributing on offense, the Pistons can throw waves of defenders at Bryant and let Shaq do whatever he wants. On Sunday O'Neal had 36 points and 20 rebounds. He totally dominated in the first quarter, and the Lakers as usual increasingly failed to get him the ball as the game wore on.

But the Pistons knew that would happen. It has to. As much as Shaq yelled at his mates during timeouts to give him the rock, the fact was that at the beginning he was establishing position right under the basket, from where he can't be stopped, and then as the game wore on and he tired he was calling for the ball 15 feet out. Even when his mates obliged, he's only good from there, not a force of nature.

If Malone were his usual offensive self and Detroit had to pay attention to him it would create space for both O'Neal and Bryant. Replacing him now might marginally improve the offense, but not enough to free the two stars because the Pistons hardly live in fear of Slava and Co. And the loss on the defensive end, as we saw in the second half Sunday, would more than make up for any gain.

The Pistons are clearly the better team in this series. Their victory will be thought of by future generations as an upset only because the vast majority of people, including me, thought differently beforehand. It's intriguing to think what might have been had Malone been healthy for the whole series. But he hasn't been, and now we're in the strange position of waiting for the underdog to collect its inevitable championship.

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Chant with me: Show us the game! Show us the game! [PERMALINK]

If I could be granted one wish as a TV sports viewer, it would be that the networks that broadcast games stop trying to get creative with camera angles, especially close-ups.

The people who run the broadcasts all learned in TV school that varying camera angles make the broadcast interesting and close-ups make the audience identify with the players. And it's just plain no arguing about it wrong.

Here's what this way of thinking gets you: As Game 4 was about to tip off Al Michaels was talking about how Shaquille O'Neal had been called for prematurely tipping the ball in each of the first three games, touching it on the way up. And just as Michaels is saying that, it happens again!

Of course, we had to take Michaels' word on that because we were being treated to an artfully zooming close-up of ... Richard Hamilton! A guy not even involved in the opening tip.

We saw Ben Wallace's shirt bound into the foreground of the shot, then everybody stop as a whistle blew, and by the time ABC switched to the center-court grandstand camera -- THE ONLY CAMERA THAT SHOULD EVER BE IN USE WHEN THE BALL IS IN PLAY, not to put too fine a point on it -- we were able to see 10 players and three referees standing around and then starting to walk toward one basket.

Not only were we looking at a close-up that made the play impossible to follow -- there has not been an opening jump or faceoff in the NBA and NHL playoff seasons that has been clearly visible to a viewer of a U.S. network -- we were looking at a close-up of the wrong guy! Even the replay that attempted to actually, you know, SHOW THE VIEWERS WHAT HAPPENED, not to make too much of that, was a close-up of the ball, and didn't reveal much.

It's one thing to be conceptually out to lunch, but by putting its misconceptions to work incompetently, ABC takes screwing up a broadcast to whole new levels.

People complain about announcers more than anything else, but if the networks would just show us the damn game, I suspect I wouldn't be the only one who'd be happy to put up with any old announcer. Stick to that center-court, red-line, 50-yard line, center-field camera, and you can even put Brent Musburger on the mike. That's how important this is.

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"America, America, man sheds his waste on thee ..." [PERMALINK]

I've grown to like the limited, goofy-loser-made-good charm of Kid Rock OK over the years, but I don't know how good an idea it is for him to be singing "America the Beautiful" in public, as he did before Game 4. The last guy to mangle the song this badly was George Carlin, and he meant to do it.

If those backup singers hadn't come in on "purple mountains' majesty," Rock might still, as you read this, be casting around for a key to sing in.

And I've looked at all my maps and for the life of me I can't find "Omerica," but I don't know if I want to visit anyway. "Omerica, Omerica, God shed his grace on thee," Rock sang, "and I will crown thy good with brotherhood ..."

I don't know what that means, but I don't think I want to be there to find out.

Previous column: Larry Brown a champion?

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