Reiseberichte » the load for NBA players has never been a gesture

WASHINGTON -- The Washington Wizards are currently bad at basketball. New York Knicks forward Krystaps Porzingis is soaring.Porzingis scored a career-high 35 points in New Yorks 105-102 win over the Detroit Pistons Wednesday night just as Washington suffered a brutal 109-102 loss at the one-win Philadelphia 76ers. The two sides meet Thursday night on the Wizards homecourt.Carmelo Anthony had 22 points and Derrick Rose scored 16 for the Knicks (5-6), who have won two straight. Joakim Noah, who was benched for the second half of Mondays win, grabbed 15 rebounds and had seven points. New York outrebounded Detroit 52-40. Having a 7-foot-3 standout like Porzingis helps with boards and buckets.The second-year big man made 13 of 22 shots from the field, three 3-pointers and grabbed seven rebounds over 40 minutes.He is dangerous, Rose said. For a second-year player that doesnt really know the game like that, for him to come out and play the way he plays is incredible. And for him to be 7-foot-3 and move the way that he moves is kind of crazy. A unique, unique player.Porzingis had 25 points in the first half.Shots were falling, Porzingis said. I was playing my game. My teammates were finding me. I was in good position and my shot felt good.The Wizards (2-9) played without guard Bradley Beal throughout and without much passion in the first half. Philadelphia led 29-15 after the first quarter and largely maintained a comfortable margin and until the final minutes. Trailing 103-100 with 1:10 remaining, hope faded as 76ers big man Richaun Holmes drained a backbreaking 3-pointer.They outplayed us in that first half, coach Scott Brooks said after the Wizards fell to 0-5 on the road. There was about a 12-minute period where we showed no resistance and its unacceptable. We battled back but when youre down a big number and playing catch-up, it takes a lot out of you.John Wall had 23 of his 27 points in the second half. Markieff Morris scored 19 points.You have an opportunity to play the game that you love for a living. So, playing hard should be the easiest thing that you do, Wall said. Competing, making shots, that can all come later on. Making shots, that can come later on. Sometimes youre going to make shots, sometimes youre going to miss shots. But when youre not making shots, you have to be able to defend and play hard. Most of the game, they outplayed us, until the end of second. In the third and fourth we showed glimpses.The point guard played 24 minutes after sitting out Saturdays 106-95 loss at the Chicago Bulls. The three-time All-Star has not played both ends of a back-to-back set this season after undergoing two knee surgeries during the offseason. That is expected to change Thursday, but Washington limited Walls minutes in Philadelphia accordingly.Beal missed his three straight game with a hamstring injury suffered on Nov. 9. Undrafted rookie Sheldon McClellan scored six points in his second career start.Washington won the series 2-1 last season, including a victory in the lone game at Madison Square Garden. Wall had 28 points and 17 assists in a 111-108 win on Feb. 9. Custom England Soccer Jerseys . -- San Francisco 49ers linebacker Ahmad Brooks was fined $15,570 by the NFL on Wednesday for his hit on Saints quarterback Drew Brees last Sunday. Raheem Sterling Jersey . Breaking three of his own world records on his way to winning in Paris, Chan silenced the critics and left the audiences standing in appreciation and awe. http://www.englandsoccerpro.com/Marcus-Rashford-England-Jersey/ . -- Ohio States Urban Meyer has never had any issue acclimating to the biggest stages in college football. Jack Butland Jersey . The CFLs leading rusher kept adding to his gaudy numbers this season and scored the winning touchdown with just over two minutes to play. The New Westminster, B.C., native plowed three yards into the end zone for the last score of a heated, see-saw battle between the two teams with the best records in the CFL. Dele Alli Jersey . Speaking Thursday on TSN 1050 Thursday, the Leafs GM also touched on the questions surrounding the teams leadership and the struggles of his big-name free-agent signing. “Its not from lack of effort from the coaching staff. When LeBron James sprinted the length of the Oracle Arena floor and soared to meet Andre Iguodalas breakaway layup attempt at the glass in Game 7 of last seasons NBA Finals, he was playing in only his 23rd game over a span of 75 days.The Block has been immortalized as one of the signature plays in NBA history, but it wasnt the first glimpse of vintage LeBron the world witnessed during Clevelands run to the title. James 43 dunks during the postseason eclipsed his previous high of 30. At age 31, he consistently appeared to be the spryest player on the floor against younger opponents on Golden State, Toronto and Detroit.Theres little mystery as to why a transcendent superstar subjected to playing as many as five games in a week during the regular season would enjoy a spring revival: In the postseason, that workload was reduced to fewer than a single game every three days. Under the current playoff format, a team never plays on consecutive days, and that format is an admission by the league that at the moment when all eyes are on the NBA and its best talent, the more rest, the better.The poor methodology tolerated in crafting the regular-season schedule -- the lockout-shortened 2011 postseason notwithstanding -- doesnt fly when the world is watching.Now the league seems ready to take action in the new collective bargaining agreement with players. Sources told ESPN that going forward, NBA teams will play two or three fewer preseason games. In turn, the regular season will begin a week to 10 days earlier, which will allow NBA teams to stretch 82 games over a more generous span of time.This measure could eliminate blocks of four games in five nights and drastically reduce the number of back-to-back sets. In implementing these reforms, the NBA has come closer than ever to codifying what modern science, the leagues players and coaches, and commissioner Adam Silver have all publicly acknowledged in recent years:Playing 82 regular-season games over a period of 170 days is an impediment to optimal athletic performance and world-class basketball on a nightly basis.Playing a four-in-five or a five-in-seven is a different kind of feeling, says Portland Trail Blazers guard C.J. McCollum. Its mentally draining. Its physically draining. Youre not getting a lot of sleep. Youre exhausted and the other team knows it.McCollum made a point to mention a dreaded upcoming trip when the Trail Blazers will play in nine different cities in four different time zones over a 15-day span. The trip includes a five-games-in-seven-days bundle that concludes with a jaunt to Portland for a single game after playing the previous night in Los Angeles. After that, the Trail Blazers head right back out on the road for three more away games. The reform should ameliorate some of the madness.Players will be sharper, McCollum says. Execution will be better. There will be fewer DNP-Rests and scheduling losses. Fans want to see opponents when both teams are fresh. Players want that too. Its better basketball.The fact that scheduling loss is a term of art in the NBA underscores how necessary a schedule overhaul is. Though much of the attention in executive suites around the league will focus on the new CBAs more aggressive revenue sharing and the cap implication of its revised salary structure, the stipulations for the schedule are a nontrivial concession by the league. Dozens of preseason dates that generate revenue for ownership -- to the chagrin of season-ticket holders who have to fork over their money for tasteless aperitifs -- will be wiped away.But in exchange, the league and iits owners are investing in the health and well-being of the athletes who drive the value of the NBA.dddddddddddd As Silver told McCollum in an interview for The Players Tribune last summer, The science is [telling us] that the No. 1 correlation between play and injuries is fatigue.The San Antonio Spurs have been incorporating this science into their workflow for years, with Tim Duncan as basketballs ultimate case study. Consulting with top performance specialists, breaking down the data, and collaborating across the basketball operations staff, the Spurs created best practices that included routinely sitting their best players when the schedule demanded it -- even if it meant eliciting the ire of the league office.Less than four years after hitting the Spurs with a $250,000 fine for resting their players at optimal times, the NBA is implementing the Spurs philosophy as official league policy.Back-to-backs are the scourge of an NBA teams calendar. Not only do consecutive games deny world-class athletes prime recovery time, but in the vast majority of instances, players are required to board flights late and arrive at their destinations at ungodly hours. Rarely a week goes by in the NBA without a play-by-play announcer noting that a team arrived at the hotel at 3 a.m. the morning of the game.When you hear that announced, youve already sort of resigned yourself to feel like, Well, this isnt what I paid for, says W. Chris Winter, a neurologist and sleep specialist who has consulted numerous teams across professional sports, including the Thunder and Wizards.A team wouldnt play wearing uniforms that were too restrictive to shoot the basketball or a with a rim whose height wasnt adjusted properly. No one would stand for any of that. Yet having players get into their hotel rooms after 3 oclock in the morning has become a strange accepted part of the sport. We all but guarantee that these athletes arent playing at an elite level.Winter noted that he attended a recent NHL game featuring the New York Rangers, a team he works with, who were playing their fifth game in eight days. From the start, you kind of got the impression watching them play, Yeeeeah, probably not the best were going to see them play this year, Winter says.The Rangers were blanked by Ottawa 2-0, the first time all season theyd been shut out.The drive to reduce the load for NBA players has never been a gesture of sympathy. A more sparing schedule isnt coddling an NBA player any more than a driver not riding the clutch is coddling a manual transmission. The objective isnt altruism -- its performance. Thats always been the NBAs strongest selling point. The NFL revels in its ritual Sundays and pageantry, while baseball offers nostalgia and mythology.But the NBA is where the athletes rule, and the league will ascend only as high as its superstars can soar.Theyd soar higher if the NBA reduced the overall docket of 82 games in addition to the back-to-backs, but the nature of progress is incremental, especially when money is at stake. And after two decades of contentious CBA negotiations that produced a couple of work stoppages and perpetual grumbling, NBA players and owners are in the process of assembling a new contract that, for the first time, considers empirical scientific evidence when formulating its schedule.Next season, the choice between putting the best product on the floor in January and playing to win in June wont stand in such stark contrast. ' ' '