When the Jazz made a run at the start of the second half on Thursday night, the Rockets seemed a bit surprised - but not the NBC announcers.
"They (the Rockets) thought that the game was over in the first half," said NBC's Steve Jones. "Now, somebody's got to remind them there's still about 18 (minutes) to play."Nobody had to remind NBC's Jones, Greg Gumbel and Bill Walton of that, however. More than once on Thursday night, things looked pretty grim for the Utah Jazz. But the NBC announcing triumvirate never counted the team out.
That's right. Even though some local fans seem to believe that the network in general and the announcers in particular are anti-Utah, that was not the case during Game 6 of the Western Conference championship series.
About the closest any of them came was when Walton declared, "Houston is in control" with the Rockets holding a 68-63 lead. (But, at that point, he was probably right.)
But he made up for it. "This game is far from over," Walton said with the Jazz trailing by seven with about two minutes left to play.
And if Gumbel wasn't excited when Stockton hit the game-winner, he sure put on a good act. There was a lot of emotion in his voice as he screeched, "Yeah! John Stockton sends the Utah Jazz to the NBA Finals!"
His brother, Bryant, may be forever unpopular in Utah for making disparaging comments about BYU when the Cougars were on their way to the college football national championship in 1984, but Greg will forever be the voice associated with sending the Jazz to the NBA Finals.
BEST JUXTAPOSITION: The network had great video of a disconsolate Charles Barkley in the Rockets' locker room as NBC's Jim Gray was interviewing jubilant Jazzmen John Stockton and Karl Malone.
WORST PREDICTION: Jones' crystal ball appeared to have been on the blink Thursday night. Just before the start of the game, he said, "The start is everything for the Utah Jazz tonight."
Um . . . the finish turned out to be rather important as well.
GOOD POINT: As Jones and Walton pointed out quite accurately that the Rockets looked more than a bit complacent during stretches of Thursday's game, Gumbel brought that into perspective.
"It's hard to understand how they can get complacent when they're facing elimination," he said.
HUH? Walton's explanation for the Rockets' slow start in the second half was, "Maybe the Rockets didn't warm up correctly."
Yeah, right.
WORST STAT: In the middle of the second quarter, Gumbel told viewers that "Stockton and Malone have combined for just six points so far."
At that point, Malone had six points; Stockton had none.
In other words, Malone and I had also combined for six points.
GET OUTTA THE WAY: When the second half was about to begin, TV viewers saw Barkley waving his hand in front of Gray's face as the NBC reporter was doing a stand-up report. While it at first appeared that Barkley was kidding around, a ref quickly came over and told Gray to get off the court so the game could resume.
We've become accustomed to network TV types thinking they're bigger than the game, but this was ridiculous.
HOW RUDE: By far the rudest comment on NBC's telecast came not from an announcer but in a clip of an earlier interview with Chicago Bulls center Luc Longley.
Asked who he'd rather play, Utah or Houston, Longley replied, "Well, I would rather play Utah. It's Olajuwon or Ostertag - take your pick."
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Ratings record
The Jazz not only made it into the NBA Finals on Thursday night, but they broke every local TV ratings record in the book. According to preliminary overnight figures, NBC's coverage of the game on KSL-Ch. 5 averaged a 48.3 rating and a 68 share - the highest-rated program of any kind since Salt Lake became a metered market last fall.
By means of comparison, January's Super Bowl averaged a 41.3 rating and a 64 share in Utah.
(Each local ratings point equals approximately 6,300 homes; 1 share point represents 1 percent of the homes actually watching TV at a particular time.)
The Jazz's 103-100 win over the Rockets topped out at 9:30 p.m. on Thursday when the rating reached a 57.3 and the share climbed all the way to a 76 - altogether amazing numbers.