At the end of the first overtime, Grizzly Mike Miller missed a pair of free throws with Memphis down one. Miller is a career 76.5 percent free-throw shooter, and he hit 80 percent last year. The Grizzlies got the rebound -- there was something the Knicks had control over -- and then a few seconds later Hakim Warrick got fouled and missed one, made one. Warrick shot 66.1 percent his rookie year, so going 1-for-2 is in line with what you'd expect from him.
Crawford had a shot blocked at the end so the game went to a second overtime. If either Miller or Warrick had made one more free throw -- and given Warrick's average I'm really talking about the 80 percent shooter Miller making one of two -- the Grizzlies win by making 2-of-4 free throws in a crucial situation. Not a tough assignment. The Knicks just dodged a bullet. They got lucky.
The Knicks are probably good for about 20 wins on their own this year. If they can get as lucky as they did Wednesday about once a week for the rest of the season, they should make the playoffs.
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Panel of experts alert: Gold Gloves [PERMALINK]
Some panels of experts are more expert-y than others. My currently active one, which picks NFL games, has been stumbling of late, with a 3-year-old topping every expert on it for most of the season.
But Bill James and John Dewan have assembled one to pick the best defensive players in baseball for 2006. Dewan is the author of "The Fielding Bible," which I think represents the most interesting advance in baseball studies in the last several years, so I'm inclined to listen.
The alternate universe Gold Gloves are a publicity stunt for the "Bill James Handbook 2007," where they'll appear. But I think it'll be interesting to see how the picks of Dewan and his impressive panel, listed below, differ from the real Gold Gloves. I wish they'd picked the best fielder at each position in each league, like the awards, but for some reason they just went with the best in the majors.
Here they are:
Albert Pujols at first base, Orlando Hudson at second, Adam Everett at shortstop and Adrian Beltre, just beating out Scott Rolen, at third. Carl Crawford, Carlos Beltran and Ichiro, left to right, though the real Gold Gloves generally go to three center fielders, which is dumb. Greg Maddux and Ivan Rodriguez as the battery.
I asked Dewan if anyone other than he used fielding metrics like his, that is, those beyond the ones easily found on numerous baseball-stat sites.
"Statistics, both old and new (for example, fielding percentage and plus/minus numbers), were provided to the panelists for their reference along with this note: 'Feel free to use it, or not use it, as you see fit,'" he wrote in an e-mail. "One of the main purposes of having an award and a voting procedure was to consider the non-statistical aspects of evaluating defense. While 'The Fielding Bible' puts a lot of emphasis on the numbers, I feel that visual observation and subjective judgment are very important parts of determining the best defensive players."
By the way, I don't know Dewan and before Thursday morning had never even exchanged e-mails with him. It just sounds like I'm shilling for a pal when I write about "The Fielding Bible."
He said his first-place votes matched the consensus except twice: Rolen and center fielder Andruw Jones.
The James-Dewan panel comprises those two, plus the scouts from Baseball Info Solutions and BIS data collection supervisor Nate Birtwell; Hal Richman, who created Strat-O-Matic; Kansas City Star columnist Joe Posnanski; Seattle Mariners consultant Mat Olkin; Chicago radio host Mike Murphy; ESPN baseball writer Rob Neyer; and the results of a fan poll taken by researcher Tom Tango at his Web site.
Previous column: TNT and the Heat's ring ceremony
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About the writer
King Kaufman is a senior writer for Salon. Visit his column archive. You can e-mail him at king at salon dot com or visit his MySpace page.
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