truTV's March Madness Review

Last night was the premiere of the First Four and the first tournament games under the CBS/Turner banner and it made for interesting television for the first official night of the tournament.

I'm definitely a television sports connoisseur as evidenced by my countdown of the best TV sports themes, so I figured I would give my take on the initial effort by truTV.

I'm not thrilled with the revised CBS NCAA theme, but it's okay considering the entire graphics package has been overhauled for the new agreement. I thought the new look was definitely more Turner than CBS, but it was clean and effective enough to make the points it needed to make. Although, I love the new openings splicing past and recent tournament memories.

The pairing of Jim Nantz, Clark Kellogg and Steve Kerr has to work a couple bumps in the first game, Nantz was really shaky throughout the night, but he did get better as the night went on. He didn't seem very into the 16 vs. 16 matchup, although I can't blame him for that.

The game became the best of the night and best displayed what we should be seeing starting Thursday afternoon. The UAB and Clemson tilt made for boring TV, but what can you do when the game is a 20 point laugher midway through the second half.

The halftime shows and studio wrap ups were interesting because I think we saw more vintage Charles Barkley tonight than we did during the Selection Sunday show on CBS. A move I found intriguing was that the networks decided to split the analysts from their normal host, so Kenny and Charles were working with Greg Gumbel and Seth Davis and Gregg Anthony worked with Ernie Johnson.

The Johnson trio worked the best simply because of the insight the NCAA guys were able to provide along with Johnson's continued perfection of the studio host position. That's not to say Gumbel, Barkley and Smith were terrible, but when it came to dissecting highlights, it was clear they weren't familiar with the college game.

Barkley and Smith were at their best when the discussed topics off the cuff and talked about teams being slighted by the media like UAB and how people thought they didn't deserve to be in, I think they should leave the highlights to the NCAA guys and the other stuff to the NBA guys.

The production was smooth and slick and the Inside March Madness postgame show was to the point and effective and had some signature Inside the NBA type humor. Overall, it was a good first night for the tournament presentation wise and I'm actually looking forward to the conclusion of the First four tonight, although the toughest part of the process will be finding truTV again.

Hustle Points: Nuggets > Knicks?

Well, at least two people believe so: Raymond Felton and Al Harrington think that at this point in time the Denver Nuggets are superior to the new-look Knicks.

The idea of Denver being superior now was an idea I've been kicking around since the trade, while others were quick to predict the downfall of the Nuggets, I sat quietly and watched because for some reason I saw them as a better unit without Carmelo, but of course without much to go on, I stayed silent.

Now that we have a small sample to extrapolate from, we can compare the records and stats and overall chemistry of the two teams since the blockbuster trade and I would have to agree with Felton's assessment.

“We’re a better team (than New York), I feel like. That’s it,’’ said Felton.

Here's some numbers courtesy of ProBasketballTalk about the two teams. The Nuggets are 8-2 in their last 10, the Knicks are 5-5. The Nuggets are outscoring their opponents by an average of 12.8 points per game in that stretch, shooting 48.4 percent while holding their opponents to 44.2 percent. The Knicks are outscoring their opponents by an average of 1.4 points per game in the last 10, shooting 46.1 percent while allowing opponents to shoot 48.4 percent.

Al Harrington added this interesting piece of info:

“A lot of people said we were going to be the Cavaliers of the West and stuff like that,’’ Denver forward Al Harrington said. “We got a lot of guys with a lot of pride and we got some good players (in the trade). So we’re just going out with a chip on our shoulder for sure. The New York guys (acquired in the trade) are definitely pissed off that they were moved and stuff like that. We’re just going to make the best of the situation.’’
The Nuggets possessed a roster full of really good pieces before trading Carmelo and when you take into consideration that they only moved two important pieces of their team (Billups and Anthony) for four (Gallinari, Mosgov, Chandler and Felton), this is a team that was getting much deeper with versatile talent.

This team became harder to defend following the trade because of the balance they now possess, opposing teams aren't just looking at one guy in the fourth quarter, they have to worry about four to five guys on the floor and can attack the paint and score, not to mention shoot the three point shot.

The depth of this roster is what impresses me the most, when you have a team that can go, six-eight guys deep, then you're talking about always having guys on the floor that for the most part are fresh and that gives you an advantage late in the season when some teams experience tired legs and injury concerns.

Denver had an issue with the loss of Galinari, but were able to quell that concern by just having more playable guys than most other teams in the West right now.

The Knicks on the other hand, have had a hard time getting into any type of rhythm with Anthony and Stoudemire. They've had great wins followed by puzzling losses. And the biggest issue was the one almost everybody pointed at the time of the move, defense.

New York gives up 110.9 points allowed per 100 possessions when both stars is on the floor. That number should scare Knick fans, because that's a number that's not going to change anytime soon, the only way to combat the pojnts allowed is points scored and because of the clear lack of options for the Knicks. It has to be 'Melo, Stoudemire or Billups every single night or the end result is a loss.

That's an absurd amount of pressure to be placed on a team at midseason, and while the Heat have been able to make the best of having three guys carry an entire offense, their defense is also exponentially better. I may have to change my expectation of the Knicks getting out of the first round.

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