Not that it was apparent, but Nick Anderson was permitted to play a bit more basketball Friday night for the Orlando Magic, the other choices being exile and a name change.
As the first, official, in-plain-sight goat of the NBA Finals, Anderson could have gone in several directions, one of which was back north to sweet home Chicago, and there are those in this conglomeration of strip malls and sink holes who might have bought Anderson the ticket.
One stenciled greeting in the stands before Game 2 identified the O-rena as “Nick’s Brick Clinic,” hoping to catch NBC’s camera but also in reference to Anderson’s four missed free throws in the closing seconds of regulation in Game 1, even bigger now that Houston beat the Magic again Friday at home.
“Not in my wildest dreams did I think we would be down 0-2,” said Orlando guard Anfernee Hardaway.
Anderson can share the blame for this one as well, hitting only 4 of 13 shots, leaving it up to Hardaway and Shaquille O’Neal, not enough to match Houston’s Big 2 plus one attack–Hakeem Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler and a nuisance to be named later.
In the first game it was Kenny Smith hitting threes, in the second it was Sam Cassell dashing and dipping for 31 points off the bench.
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“A sign of a great team is someone different stepping up to have a great game,” said Houston coach Rudy Tomjanovich.
“We need a third player,” said the Magic’s Horace Grant. “I guess maybe me or Nick should think about doing it.”
Not all O-rena signs blamed Anderson. Some proclaimed love for Anderson, gratitude he was the very first Magic draft choice and even encouraging him to run for president. Well, maybe vice president.
If this series comes back here, and the Magic will have to win at least two games in Houston for that to happen, the mood may not be as forgiving.
There is nothing more stern than fresh pride, and Orlando is full of it. The success of the Magic authenticates the significance of this place as more than just a tourist mixer and real-life retreat.
Why this should be so is one of the riddles of sport, though we saw the same sort of thing happen even in Chicago, a great city that does not need athletic mercenaries to define it.
So annoyed was Florida Sen. Bob Graham that he felt compelled to rebut the truth that Orlando is an athletic wasteland.
Wrote Graham in the local grouper wrap: “The 106-year-old Amateur Athletics Union is moving from Indianapolis . . . baseball’s Houston Astros train in Osceola County. And, get this, the Golf Channel has picked metro Orlando as headquarters.”
Faced with such a list there has been much less sniping by the visiting press. Had we only known. The Golf Channel. Imagine that.
So, when Anderson missed four consecutive free throws at the end of Game 1, he was letting down not only his teammates, the community and one-half of the Senate contingent from the Sunshine State, but he may have caused the AAU to have second thoughts as well.
These are serious matters and Anderson handled his failure with reasonable poise, not hiding, griping or making excuses.
“Maybe I did choke,” Anderson said, using the most incendiary word in sports. “In that situation, maybe I did.”
This is an admirable admission for an athlete to make, though not without a little pre-emptive modesty. Confession blunts accusation.
On a team that has luminaries of the ilk of O’Neal and Hardaway, Anderson has managed to collect odd bits of reflected distinction.
He was, for example, the player responsible for Michael Jordan changing his number back from 45 to 23, and he was the nearest player to Reggie Miller when Reggie did well, when Reggie did not.
Anderson swore he was not bothered by any of this, forfeiting a perfectly good alibi.
“There are people saying it’s a tragedy,” he said. “Tragedy? They don’t know what tragedy is.”
Anderson wears No. 25 in honor of Ben Wilson, his high school teammate at Simeon who was shot in front of him.
“Living in the streets of Chicago, I’ve seen it all,” he said. “Drugs, gangs. This is fun. Out there is no fun. I’m going to enjoy this.”
Even down 0-2, please do.